\\\\ OUTER VOICES ////

The Story of Lata

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Listen to the "Story of Lata" program:
Choose from one of the following formats
Listen / Download MP3 / Order CD / PRX
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

photo credit: Vaka Taumako Project

“Guyer-Stevens weaves a wonderful watery tale with just the right amount of culture, a taste of technology, and good old storytelling… It's a gem of a sound-rich story.”
—Catherine Sifter, PRX Review 8140
Read entire review here.

The Story of Lata explores the efforts by the people of a remote part of Solomon Islands to preserve their traditional boat building culture and navigation. It explores traditional polynesian navigation in a region where the technology and knowledge is still intact. We listen to the older women who remember the old days of sailing, and who consider their role were this tradition to be revived. And we also consider the reality of modern life, which they are slowly being required to adapt to. How feasible is it to revive these ancient arts, which take time to learn?

Behind the whole story is the myth of Lata, which guides us into a profound understanding of the limitlessness of time and space so necessary to the navigators behind the polynesian navigation, and consider that our modern world could do well to be informed by the patience and durability which it required.

Underwriting for The Story of Lata from The Ford Foundation, Air Pacific, Kimo Campbell, and Terry Causey. Air Travel Los Angeles to Fiji, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands provided by Air Pacific, Fiji's International Airline. Visit www.airpacificusa.com.

For more information about Vaka Taumako and their crucial work to support traditional cultures in the Solomon Islands visit their site: http://www.vaka.org .

Island photo

"For millennia women have dedicated themselves almost exclusively to the task of nurturing, protecting and caring for the young and the old, striving for the conditions of peace that favour life as a whole. To this can be added the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, no war was ever started by women. But it is women and children who have always suffered most in situations of conflict. Now that we are gaining control of the primary historical role imposed on us of sustaining life in the context of the home and family, it is time to apply in the arena of the world the wisdom and experience thus gained in activities of peace over so many thousands of years. The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all."
—Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (from keynote address to NGO Forum on Women, Beijing, 1995)