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Published: April 26th 2008
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Handicraft market
The women discussing pricing at a meeting the day before the market Here's the second instalment of my trip to Tokelau for their series of women's events in March. See the first instalment for the painful boat trip and an intro to the intriguing atolls of Tokelau.
Day six - Saturday I rose early to get to the handicrafts market; the main event of the economic summit. Tokelauan handicrafts are quite coveted, several of my Samoan colleagues asked me to pick them up a fan or two while I was there. Of course there was another opening ceremony, with many speeches and some singing, but then it was a free-for-all at the stalls. I filmed for a short while people buying and selling, and then in no time almost everything had gone. Luckily a woven tray I had had my eye on the day before was one of the few things left, so I snapped it up; just before everything was completely cleaned out! Several people had missed out altogether, including Misa, and there were many comments that next time perhaps there should be more. Misa later pointed out though that the ladies have so many other chores to do, it’s not that simple to spend their time weaving. Lise also
Handicraft market
Displays at the pricing meeting commented that the women had previously agreed to focus on quality and not worry about producing a lot; that can come later.
Then morning tea was served and everyone settled down around the fale, interspersed with singing and dancing. Some of the ladies are so cheeky. I just watched the old ones putting on a show of teasing each other, and they are hilarious - all the women screech with laughter as they shout out jokes about each other and perform a bit of slapstick. One lady is a classic, she must be well over 80 - she’s small and round, with a cheeky grin and no teeth, and a high-pitched cartoon voice, like she’s been sucking helium. Periodically she shouts out something that causes more hilarity amongst everyone; I’d love to know what she’s saying.
Then being a Saturday, not much else happened. I was in need of some exercise so I set off for a walk away from the village, past the school and towards the pigsty. As there’s no one down this way I didn’t feel so on show going for a walk. But it didn’t really take all that long to get to the
Handicraft market
Fakaofo's stall at the market end, so I’m starting to feel a little bit claustrophobic. I can’t really imagine staying here for any length of time, I get occasional island fever enough as it is in Samoa. It’s a beautiful place but longer term I think I’d be in need of more stimulation.
I felt much better this evening though hanging out with the women. Tonight was the Tokelauan dancing and singing, and I was slightly apprehensive as I suspected it might go on a while and get a bit repetitive. But in the end I had a great time. The women were seated around the fale in their village groups, and each group would take it in turn to get up and dance. I flitted around the edge filming bits and pieces, and then was waved over by Fo’a, the govt representative from Fakaofo, to sit up front next to him - it was a bit daunting being one of now three people up in front of everyone! Then when the next group started singing, he turned to me and said, “When this group starts dancing, you can go up and join them.” I think it was more of a direction than a
Morning tea at the market
Me with Susanna, a local woman I met, and her gorgeous daughter request, so I ducked over to join them at the side as inconspicuously as possible when they rose, only to be moved forward to the front row. It was good fun though, the dances aren’t difficult to copy being mostly focussed on arm movements. The second dance we did was one I’ve seen the women do a few times since I’ve arrived, and it’s the one that always causes the most hilarity. A couple of the old cheeky ladies were doing it with great aplomb on the first day, and some of the actions include waving your hands like a snake, then like a tiger, and then going all floppy for a bit (this is the part that makes everyone laugh). When I sat back on my chair after this section, Fo'a explained to me that the dance is about all the creatures in the sea; the fish, sea urchins, and octopus for example. I asked what the floppy part was, thinking it might be an octopus, and he explained it’s the sea slug! I love it, hours of hilarity can be gained from watching a group of women pretend to be sea slugs. Finally at the end, everyone got
up to dance together, and it was great fun being up and dancing along with everyone. Fo’a said I didn’t do too badly.
Day seven - Sunday Sunday morning was of course reserved for church. No breakfast was provided, as the chef Eva explained that it’s the rule for everyone to go to church instead. Church started at eight, so first I watched the men just near the guest house preparing the umu (oven in the ground) for the day. Misa was helping out weaving a basket and preparing taro, and I chatted to some of the younger guys who offered me coffee and chocolate cake. I was glad to accept, not being one to go without breakfast very often! Three of these guys had competed at the South Pacific Games for Tokelau, in cricket and sevens rugby. One of their names was Fa’o, which he explained meant banana, so said I was welcome to just call him banana if I preferred.
I joined Heather to walk up to the church, and we found a seat on the left side next to Fefo, the school principal, and his son. I was ready for the serious long haul,
but the service came in at under two hours, which wasn’t too bad I suppose considering the important events on at the moment. There was singing and also communion to break it up a bit at least. The rest of Sunday of course was a day of rest. Although it’s not quite as strict on Nukunonu as on the two other atolls; the boys headed off to play rugby after church and it’s okay to go swimming. We sat down for an early lunch at Luana Liki, with plenty of fish, lobster and potatoes, and some of the umu food brought soon after.
Day eight - Monday Misa and I had a meeting with Fo’a, the head of Fakaofo, about our work and Misa’s programme; as he’d requested a rundown. I mentioned my gender violence project which is about to start running in Tokelau, to which he looked at me directly and said there was no violence against women in Tokelau. Then he started laughing, as did Misa, and I couldn’t tell if this meant he had been joking or if he thought my suggestion was funny. I wasn’t sure how to respond, so ended up just going
Tokelauan dancing night
Looking a bit tired back at the guest house after dancing on with explaining the project. Afterwards I had to ask Misa what he’d meant - Misa said that Fo’a would have been joking, saying he would have understood that there is violence against women everywhere. I hope so!
Day nine - Tuesday - pageant day! I wandered up to watch the preparations and the fale was a hive of activity, with women weaving, men building and adjusting, and all sorts of things going on. Pacific Time had seemed to disappear for a while, as everyone joined in to get the stage ready for this evening.
The pageant. I was actually very impressed at its professional nature; it didn’t seem like it was the first time ever and that there’d only been about five days to practise. Vaito’a, a Samoan fafafine who had come to direct the pageant, had certainly worked hard and produced a pretty amazing show - there was an opening number where they all danced together, and then the programme ran through the various categories - sarong wear, evening wear, talent, traditional wear, and interview. The whole event was about four hours, but each segment didn’t drag too long, so it didn’t seem so bad.
The pageant girls
Arriving on a float to one of the many ceremonies during the week Although I was pretty uncomfortable, without a tripod so having to stand as still as possible and hold the video camera - it felt pretty heavy by the end! But generally it was entertaining. One of the Atafu girls won, and she had been most people’s pick beforehand (not just based on appearance, but general confidence and so on). I did agree she seemed to deserve to win, but I still feel pretty uncomfortable judging girls in such a format! Afterwards I interviewed Vaito’a, who spoke about it not being a beauty pageant but about the girls internally as well, but I can’t say I’m entirely convinced when there’s a category for Miss Photogenic.
However, after talking about the pageant to a few more people, I started to understand that maybe it wasn’t such a bad approach. There have been many speeches this week referring to the ‘tifa’, which means pearl, and refers to the young women of Tokelau. The idea being that the tifa needs protection and nurturing so she can grow up into and take the responsibilities of being a woman. During these speeches though it has also been noted that this idea really seems to remain
The pageant girls
Pageants aren't all glamour - there's lots of waiting around too! The poor things had to wear these outfits most of the time something talked about but not practised, as the Ulu had mentioned earlier in the week. These events have been a beginning, the first time the women of Tokelau have gathered together to celebrate themselves and their culture. So perhaps in such a small community where opportunities are few, a pageant is an easy way of focussing everyone on something, in this case young women, and giving the younger girls role models to look up to. Lise explained to me that the women’s committees decided to hold a pageant in response to the high number of young girls becoming pregnant and lacking opportunities - not necessarily an obvious response (nor one I would probably have) but nonetheless it’s their decision to make and it will be interesting to see the results. (See the second page of photos for some pics of the pageant)
Day ten - Wednesday I ended up getting home quite late last night, and so was pretty exhausted this morning. But we had an early meeting with the tapulega, the village council for Nukunonu. Mika, the acting head of the council, kindly sat close by and translated for me, as Misa explained the role of the
Luana Liki
The guest house Small Grants Programme and council members asked questions. I’m amazed at people’s ability to do this when they’ve grown up with two languages, to just calmly sit there and understand and relay in an entirely different language, while still listening to what’s going ahead in the first version. It was also interesting to see the different languages in action - apparently Tokelauans can understand Samoan quite well, but Samoans have trouble understanding Tokelauan (as the Tokelauans use the Samoan bible so they’re used to the language). So Misa would talk to the group in Samoan, someone would ask a question in Tokelauan, a third person would translate it into English for Misa, and then he would reply in Samoan.
I needed some exercise so headed off for another walk, down to the end again past the pigsty. On the way back, I stopped in at Fefo’s house, and joined him and Lui (one of the teachers) on the veranda to chat. Fefo talked about the pageant, and made an interesting comment. He said it was so well-received because Tokelauans don’t often have their culture presented to them, displayed on a stage for all to see, and he said you
Nukunonu
From the tip, where I went swimming could see the joy and pride in the older women’s faces as they watched. He said instead they lived their culture every day, but presenting it that way made it special, and I guess tangible. Soon, Fo’a and his wife arrived, and we sat chatting about Tokelau and development issues - they kindly spoke in English for me, although it’s possible they would have spoken it anyway.
We also talked about tobacco and alcohol - they were all commenting on the scourge of tobacco on Tokelau, apparently 93% of Tokelauans smoke! That has to be one of the highest rates in the world surely. All those present seemed to understand the dangers (although Fefo is a smoker), but generally awareness is not high - I guess people just don’t know how incredibly bad it is for your health. Apparently the sick baby that was medivaced to Samoa the other day was sick because its mother smoked heavily throughout her pregnancy (I just heard tonight, Thursday, that the baby died today. So sad!) Fo’a (who is not just the head of Fakaofo but also Tokelau’s Minister for Finance) felt strongly about cigarettes and was talking about implementing bans in public places,
particularly also the school, hospital and government buildings. Alcohol is also a big problem, particularly among young men. I then discovered that a pack of cigarettes only costs NZ$3.50! Surely taxing it would be a start.
After dinner it was time to head to the ball being held to celebrate the week’s events; we could hear the music from the guest house. I wore a snazzy puletasi (Polynesian traditional outfit) that I had borrowed from a friend, and had nods of approval from Misa and the guest house family before I headed out. Heather and I went up together - Lise had told me it would start around 5:30 or 6, but I was in no hurry to listen to a bunch of speeches again so was happy to turn up late. So when we arrived about 7:30, we were quite surprised to see a completely empty fale. Music was blaring, but it seemed Pacific Time had struck again! Heather and I decided to take a seat anyway, and eventually people turned up in dribs and drabs and the gathering turned into a ball, with drinking and dancing.
Day eleven - Thursday My last day before I
leave on Friday morning. This will be my last entry while still in Tokelau; I'll write about the boat trip once I get back. This trip has been quite incredible. I’ve learnt so much about Tokelau, every day has been a goldmine of information about culture, development and atoll life. It would be a difficult life I imagine longer term, particularly having been brought up in a city - but I’m glad I had the opportunity to come; it’s certainly not an opportunity that would arise for most people. I’ll also watch with interest Tokelau’s ongoing development - there are several issues that will need to be addressed soon in some way or other, including environmental degradation, waste management, sustainability (food etc), opportunities for youth, and also climate change. Although I hope I’ll be able to find this information! I think I’ve been here just enough time to have forgotten the boat trip on the way over and be ready to board again for the journey back!
The boat trip The return was actually much easier. The sea was calmer, and the first evening had a beautiful sunset - not something I’ve ever observed from the open ocean before.
Umu preparations
The SPG boys who gave me coffee and cake, Banana is on the far left The stars were also incredible, with no city lights for miles to dilute them. Having said that, I was pretty excited when Samoa finally loomed into view on the horizon, and I didn’t get my land legs back for about another day.
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Simo
non-member comment
Awesome
Jules what a couple of fabulous blog entries. Interesting how different people have varying perspectives on beauty pagents! Your photos were spectacular as well. Simply breathtaking!