Blog #31 – The Cook Islands – Rarotonga –

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Blog #31 – The Cook Islands – Rarotonga –
Those of you who are regular readers will note that I have jumped ahead in the blogs – numbers #22 - #30 aren’t completely ready to upload because I got really behind during Christmas. However, we are actually now in the Cook Islands, so I thought I would give a truly up to date blog. Pictures to come later.

We came here for the tropical heat – and we got it! We left Auckland on Wednesday afternoon January 5th, and landed in Rarotonga Tuesday night January 4th. After running the usual immigration, luggage and customs gammet, we were greeted with beautiful flower leis and driven to our Guest House. Now it is in the mid 30’s and 75% humidity – but although I’m sweating, I’m not complaining.

Rarotonga, the largest of the Cook Islands and the ‘capital’, is a circular island that is formed of sharp volcanic peaks in the centre, and a flattish edge with all of the housing and businesses, then a beach, then some lagoon, and the outermost ring of the circle is a coral reef. You can see and hear the white waves crashing on the reef, but all is calm in the lagoon. It is quite shallow and Jim and I snorkelled in about 18” to 4 feet of water and saw many fabulously colored fish. I was surprised how little water was needed to keep us afloat! We also went out in a glass bottomed boat which took us closer to the reef to snorkel in deeper water, and we saw the large cages where giant clams are raised, and oysters are farmed to grow the black pearls that the island is famous for.

The island has circumference of 26 km and the bus system comprises of two buses – one is called the clockwise bus, the other is called the anticlockwise bus. Driving is akin to ambling, and involves sharing the road in a tolerant fashion with numerous motor scooters bearing from 1 to 2 adults plus or minus 1 to 2 childen (no helmets), dogs holding meetings in the middle of the road, pedestrians with loads of fruit. With a speed limit of 50kmh, and numerous stops, it takes the bus 1 hour to drive the circle.

Our meetings with the island people have been very friendly. They refer to themselves as Cook Islanders and have their own customs, although their dialects are dialects of Maori. We attended an ‘Island Night’ dinner, ate the local foods including taro, arrowroot, fish, coconut, papaya (called paw-paws), star fruit, mangos….The dance show was very well done, really entertaining, and narrated to explain the story behind each dance. It was a historical overview and explained how the dancing changed after the missionaries arrived in about 1840. After that point the men had to wear long back trousers under their grass hula skirts, the women had to wear bra tops instead of coconut shells, hoist their skirts above the naval, and wear cloth skirts under their grass skirts. These changes persisted until the early 1970’s when the people reclaimed some of their former cultural customs.

One of the customs which seems rather unique is that many homes have tombs in their front gardens, for their most illustrious ancestors I guess. Apparently, all of the land on the island is owned by one of the three tribal chiefs and held by them on behalf of their particular tribe. Having your relatives buried in your yard establishes custom of use and makes it harder to displace you from your home or to develop the property without your permission. However, as one person told me, it also complicates installation of water tanks and septic systems.

More to come later – we hope to attend a Cook Islands Church tomorrow, hear some fabulous singing, and are planning to fly to Aitutaki (another Cook Island) for 3 days before flying home to North America. Talk to you later!

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