Lady of the light

HER mornings start before dawn. At the foothills of the Nadarivatu mountain range where the village of Waikubukubu lies, 4am is still a pretty dark time to be up.

But darkness is not something grandmother of three, Lotaini Nabua is frightened of.

As she moves around the house to prepare breakfast and takeaway meals for the day for the members of the household who have to leave home, she also has to ensure her household obligations are met early.

That is because, the she is mother of four, grandmother to three and is also the keeper of the light for the 37 households in her village.

Waikubukubu is nestled in a valley at the foot of the mountain range which holds together Viti Levu and is home to the Nadrau Plateau and the Sovi basin. The area is the most important source of water and energy for the majority of the island’s population.

The geographical importance of her home is not lost on this woman who was the sole representative of the Ba Province when the Indian Government, the United Nations Development Program and the Ministry of Women came calling in 2012.

Lotaini became part of the first group of 10 women who travelled to India on the joint program to study to become what they are now commonly known as, Solar Grandmothers or as the Fijian Government now calls them, “Solar Nau”.

“When they first came to the village they asked for all the women to stand up. Then they asked for everyone between the age of 20 and 30 years to sit. When they looked around the room, I was only woman left and the man from India asked me how old I was and then he chose me right away,”Lotaini said.

At the time, Lotaini was a new grandmother with one child still in primary school so she was deemed perfect for the Barefoot College in Rajansthan, India.

With four women from the Northern Division, four from Kadavu and one from the province of Ra, Lotaini was trained for six months from March 2013 in India. She was part of a movement of many other women from the developing world trained to set up and maintain clean energy networks in their rural communities.

Within 10 months of returning from the program she had set up her village power grid, installed two bulbs and one lantern in every one of the 37 homes and convinced her village elders to form a solar energy committee tasked with the sustainability of their power source.

Almost five years has passed since Waikubukubu has had their own power, installed painstakingly in each home by Lotaini and her team of two men and three women.

She worked through an average of three homes a day over two weeks climbing in and out of the modest houses to place light in two strategic positions, places were families congregated and where children could study.

“I asked the village elders to allow me to dress in pants and tunic like my teachers in India had taught me too.”

Lotaini Nabua, Solar Engineer

We were trained to always do our work in safety and I knew my sulu jaba would not let me work well,”Lotaini said.

Today, after she sends off her husband Inia with lunch for his work at the farm, and after she knows her children are safely at school several kilometres down the mountain, Lotaini can be found either weaving, washing clothes at the river or in her workshop fixing electricity parts.

Some days she can be found at national climate change meetings talking about rural electrification, the sustainability of solar energy grids or the importance of clean energy. Lotaini has become something of a champion in the area of gender and climate change.

“This power source is given by God, free to use, a gift from nature. This grid we use here in the village is very small, only to light up our homes, charge our telephones and help our children achieve education. But if we wanted to, we could install bigger panels and light up appliances. There are many things we could do with solar energy,” Lotaini said.

“Once I have installed the panels and light up the house, the home is brighter too. In our village the ladies walk around confidently at night, we even go and weave our mats together in the hall in the evening. Our children can study and we see more of our young people getting jobs and bringing development back home.”

Directly communicating with the director for Women, Raijeli Mawa, Lotaini is keen to teach other women in other remote rural communities like hers.

The lady of the light of Waikubukubu is keen to spread the success of her work with other women and her track record has become one of the motivation for the establishment of Fiji’s very own Barefoot College being built in Macuata, Vanua Levu.

News of her work and its success was amplified when her village stayed alight during and after Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston.

Clearly one of her biggest fans and supporter, husband Inia talked about his wife’s bravery when news came that Fiji was about to face the worst natural disaster to hit the Pacific; TC Winston.

“As news came for us to prepare, she went around the village removing the panels which capture the suns rays to put them away for safekeeping. So our bulbs stayed alight and we felt safe when the cyclone was here,” Mr Naicavacava said.

The network had already received enough energy so each home was alight during the cyclone which hit the village early evening and destroyed several homes and the church.

Immediately after Severe TC Winston, the villagers immediately removed debris and unlike the tales of the devastation of other communities around Fiji, Waikubukubu recorded no injury, not a single scratch during the disaster.

“We are living in difficult times. Our land is dying. I think we live in the end times. There is so much wrong happening to our world and a lot of times it’s because we use electricity that destroys our planet. That power in the city is causing pollution in other places,” Lotaini said.

“But this solar, this is clean, it’s from God above, it leaves no gas, no rubbish, it’s a gift and I wish more people accept this as the only power for our planet.”

Republished from The Fiji Times, 13 June, 2017