We woke up around 5:00am on April 12th in order to make it to the airport to meet up with Eunice and the rest of the IES-ers by 7:30. This was a struggle for me, as I am usually a dragon until about 10:00. However, I was rewarded with a breathtaking sunrise (one of the few I've been awake to witness in my life), which made everything more than worth it.
Auckland was just showing off by this point.
After meeting up with everyone (which was so great), we settled in for the four hour flight to Rarotonga. It went relatively smoothly, and we arrived in the afternoon without a hitch. Immediately upon arrival, we all started sweating bullets, because it was 80+ degrees! This was a welcome problem, however. We met our drivers/sort of hosts for the week, Tena and No'o (married, their daughter Emily helped also), who were super friendly, and piled into the vans to head to our accommodation. Sam and I were lucky enough to snag a two person room, which was divine after two weeks in cramped hostels and such. After settling in for about two seconds, we hopped back in the vans for our first activity--a drive around Raro. As the island is only about 33km around (approximately 20 miles), this didn't take long at all. But Eunice (who has made this trip fourteen times) pointed out a lot of different things, and it helped me feel more oriented to the island. We then had a delicious dinner at a resort, and it was a FREE BUFFET. Oh man. I'm not sure I've ever eaten that much in my life. We had delicious local fish, fruit, and banana and pecan cake with hot caramel for dessert. Y-U-M.
The next day was the busiest one. We began by heading to the Punanga Nui Market, which was hoppin'. They had crafts, fruit, clothes, countless black pearl stands (the Cooks are famous for them), etc. It was awesome to walk around and take everything in. It was also a scorcher, so I splurged on a fresh smoothie--which was, of course, delicious. I bought a string bracelet to add to my collection (because I really don't have enough), a Raro tshirt (which I proceeded to cut into a tank top), and a beautiful 100 Way Skirt, which will be pictured later on!
The market was a really interesting mix of locals and tourists. You could tell it was a staple of the community. I really enjoyed people watching as much as anything else.
Ian lurks next to the shaved ice stand. If I'm not mistaken, he enjoyed two of them while we were there.
Beautiful handwoven headpieces, called Nuie, for sale. We learned how to make these later in the day, but they were much uglier.
There are puppies EVERYWHERE on the island. I mean, it makes sense--it's not like they're going to get lost. The amazing thing is that they're all really clean. Tena said all the males are required by law to get neutered, so they have a really good system of controlling the population. This guy became my buddy at the market! I MISS BERT.
After the market, we walked over to the harbour, where two traditional (well, mostly) Maori wakas were getting ready to depart for New Zealand.
So these wakas (canoes) are models of traditional ones. The pontoons are fiberglass, but they used to be made out of hollowed out trees.
These are used for traditional voyages, meaning that they use old school navigation techniques (stars, migratory birds, wave patterns)--no modern GPS. I had just learned about this in my Maori history class, so it was really awesome to listen to the guys talk about their trips/see the wakas in person.
It was only about noon by this point (that goes to show you how early our mornings were!), so we still had plenty of programming left in the day. We piled in the vans and headed out to do some traditional Maori crafts, dancing and such. A lovely lady named Nan showed us how to dye sarongs, which was really cool. After that, the boys were dragged off to learn a traditional Maori dance (they are gender specific) while the girls learned how to weave Nuies. This is done using the leaves from a coconut tree (kiko), and is sort of like french braiding...except it's a lot harder. Thank you, mom, for teaching me how to french braid, because I definitely had an advantage over some of the other girls. We also wove our dinner plates out of kiko, which was super cool.
Beautiful sarongs! Mine is the red and yellow one third from the right--a sunburst pattern. Thanks, camp knowledge!
All of the girls with our Nuies! We didn't get pretty flowers to work with...but they still turned out alright.
ALSO. Tena's daughter, Emily, has a daughter--this gorgeous little angel, Hina Anii. She is eight months old and I want to squish her. JUST LOOK AT THAT FAAAAAACE. (I love babies, can you tell?)
After the crafts, it was our turn to learn to dance. This was really fun, but surprisingly difficult. Pacific Island women can move their hips in ways that I will never understand.
Following the indoor activities, we headed out with No'o to learn about taro planting and coconut husking. It started raining, so we ended up kind of speeding through this part, but it was still really interesting. Most of the families on the island have enough land to grow their own food on. No'o, despite having a seemingly small taro patch, had enough to feed his family for a year. Pretty cool. He showed us how they plant it and take care of it before taking us over to the coconut trees. He then pulled out a MACHETE and hacked open a bunch of raw coconuts for us so we could drink the juice. It was soooo fresh and delicious, unlike anything I've ever tasted. Then, No'o had one of his nephews show us how they harvest the coconuts. This involved him CLIMBING A COCONUT TREE. I don't think I've ever held my breath for so long in my life. But he shimmied right up there and started kicking coconuts down for his little brothers to collect. It was crazy.
Not the best picture, but this shows the insanity of the tree climb. I talked to him after he climbed down and he was like "No worries, I've done it heaps of times." OKAY, BRO, SORRY WE DON'T CLIMB COCONUT TREES IN KANSAS.
Then we learned how to husk them, which is super difficult. You basically pound it on a spear in the ground and peel the outside so that you can get the brown thing we know as a coconut. Then you crack it on a rock. Mind blowing.
After we were all super impressed by No'o and his family, we headed back to our accommodation to get cleaned up for dinner (this is still the same day. Crazy, huh?). We donned our sarongs and brought our kiko leaf plates to a traditional Maori feast (similar to the luau I went to in Maui, except just for us!), which was DELICIOUS. They cooked all of the food in a sort of underground oven called a hangi, which is essentially really hot rocks sealed in with layers of kiko. We had roast pork, chicken, taro, purple kumara, all kinds of fresh fruit (bananas, star fruit, watermelon, pawpaw [what they call papaya], guava...), among other things. It was some of the best food I've ever eaten. After the dinner, a lot of the local kids performed traditional dances for us, which was really great. Then we had to perform our dance for them, which was thoroughly embarrassing, but still really fun.
Gusties in our sarongs! Plus Hayden.
My awesome plate and my delicious meal. YUM.
The older girls dancing for us. They were really, really great.
The little girls dancing for us. They were so stinking cute. The one second from the right couldn't shake her hips, so she just sort of wiggled around. It was hilarious.
Our bellies full and our eyes drooping, we headed back to the hotel and crashed. But first I had to stop at a local convenient store to buy new jandals (flip flops) because mine vanished at the dinner. But oh well.
This post is already crazy long and I'm only on day two, so I am making the executive decision to stop for now.
Fun Facts/Updates:
-"Kia Orana," found in the title of this post, literally means "May you live long," and is the traditional greeting in the Cooks. In New Zealand, we say "Kia Ora," which means essentially the same thing. Just shows one of the differences between New Zealand and Cook Island Maori.
-It is now Fall here in Christchurch! It's in the 40-50 degree range and it's been raining a lot since we got back. It was a bit of a shock after being spoiled with 80+ days for a week in Raro. But the leaves are changing and it's quite lovely!
-My dear friend Leah sent me the best mail I have ever received, and I just got it yesterday. I tore it open only to find my Gustavus Choir fleece, pictures from choir tour, a wonderful card, and a grow your own saguaro cactus. I bawled and have been wearing the fleece ever since. Further proof that Leah is the best person I know. Also the first to send me anything. Get on it, family!!
-While in Rarotonga, along with some of the greatest and coolest experiences of my life, I had my first ever run in with fire ants. Holy Guacamole, those things are agents of the devil. You don't even feel them until they're all over you. And they don't bite, they inject you with a tiny bit of poison. SWELL. My feet got covered in them once, and they all attacked at the same time. It was all I could do to keep from screaming out profanity. And then my feet burned like the fires of Mordor for the rest of the day. DARN YOU, FIRE ANTS!
-Only 26 days until I meet Aunt Susan in Sydney, and only 31 until Mark and Nancy arrive!
Stay tuned for part two of my adventures in Raro which, among other things, will include snorkeling, painfully beautiful beach pictures, local beer, and my epic loss at mini golf.
Cheers!
For the record, you have a letter from Chaska in the mail... it just takes a million years to get there. =)
ReplyDeleteGlad you survived the Fire Ants of Mordor! Looking forward to Part II!