Rarotonga airport update

Rarotonga airport is being upgraded.
A new check-in area and domestic terminal was built a few years ago and now the international arrivals and departures area is under construction.
It was probably necessary in order to beef up the security arrangements. The arriving and departing passengers used to be separated by a piece of string. In fact they used to be able to mix and mingle in the duty free booze shop. It meant that everyone was able to listen to Jake Numanga serenading with his ukulele but secure it was not.
Some parts of the new building have been completed and the whole thing should be ready to open in June or July.
The baggage collection area is still the same although when the revamping started the plain glass windows looking in from the car park area were replaced with frosted glass. It was really annoying because that’s where everyone waited to get the first glimpse of friends and relations. The airport authority must have had a lot of complaints because the clear glass is now back. Good thing too.
Adverts have just appeared in Cook Islands News for people to operate various shops, a café and duty free outlets and when the whole thing is completed it should be light and airy and perhaps a bit less like a temporary barn than it was.
The video shows an Air New Zealand Boeing 777 arriving in Rarotonga.
Air NZ have been flying here since the airport opened (in the early 1970s I think). It used to cost an arm and a leg! Raro/Auckland must have been amongst the most expensive air miles in the world but in these days of rising costs and inflation air tickets to the Cooks are among the few things whose costs have plummeted. It helps that there is more than one airline flying here. At the moment we also have Pacific Blue (to New Zealand) and Air Tahiti (to Tahiti – but Air NZ no longer flies there anyway).
It would help our economy if other airlines could fly more tourists here but that seems unlikely in the near future. Mind you, Air NZ will soon be starting up direct flights from Sydney. Aussies provide our second biggest tourist numbers after Kiwis so we could soon be seeing more of them. Hotels, motels, restaurants and shops will be very happy about that.

Looking back - lawn bowls at the mini games

A Happy New Year to everyone.
I’ve been looking over some of the video footage I didn’t have time to process towards the end of 2009. It’s time to do something about it before it disappears totally from my short term memory.
One of the things I want to do this year is tidy up the Pacific Mini Games website so that it gives a more organised record of the event. At the time it was just a mad rush trying to get information and pictures online. I must confess I haven’t even looked at it since the fat lady sang and I took off on holiday. The medal table was up to date but I don’t think all the results were there and certainly the stories and photos need to be put in better order. I want to put short videos of most of the sports on the website for future reference, but first I’ve got to edit the stuff!
Here’s the first – lawn bowls.
Those bowlers really know how to organise a competition and have a good time. They turned the medal presentation ceremony into something of a party, starting with a march through town of all the competitors.
Some other sporting codes could learn a thing or two from their attitude.

Muri Eco Warriors

Christmas is over, the New Year is fast approaching. The weather has been pretty good. Fine and sunny enabling lots of people to get down to the beaches and enjoy themselves.
It’s a bit cloudier now but there’s been no rain – good if you’re a holidaymaker, not so good if you’ve got a water tank that needs filling.
This video was taken just before Christmas when the Muri Eco Warriors had their first project.
The Muri Eco Warriors are kids, from toddlers to teens, who live in the Muri area and want to learn about and protect the beaches and surroundings.
Their first project took place at the beach area in front of the Ngatangiia sports field.
Cyclones and storms have washed basalt rock from the retaining wall onto the sand and into the lagoon.
The kids, with a little help from some adults, shifted rocks – small, middle-sized and large – and also learnt about levers, fulcrums and cooperation.
The Warriors programme will run once a month with a different mission each time.
The plan next time is to head along the Avana valley and check out freshwater ecology.

Merry Christmas from Rarotonga

It’s Christmas Eve as I write this, the sun is shining and it’s hot, hot, hot!
The political situation is also pretty warm with the PM sacking the DPM, a gaggle of ministers resigning in protest, the Democratic Party expelling the PM and asking him to resign, the PM refusing… no doubt the usual shady deals are being made behind the scenes and one or more coalitions are likely in the new year.
Meanwhile life goes on. Usually at this time of year the streets are crowded with expat Cook Islanders home for the holidays but there seem to be fewer this year.
I don’t know whether that’s because not so may have been able to afford to fly to Raro or because there’s less money to spend when they get here.
Some things don’t change much though. The end-of-season soccer cup final took place last weekend and the big two – Nikao and Tupapa – faced each other again. Nikao had hoped to do the round/cup double but Tupapa won with a goal in the last few minutes.
The women’s cup final was between Arorangi and Titikaveka. It was nil all at full time but Arorangi won on penalties.
A merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.

Hospital Comforts sing carols for Christmas

Rarotonga’s Hospital Comforts group has been helping the sick and suffering, both in-patient and out-patient, for over forty years.
As well as making hospital visits, the comforters raise money for things like crutches, wheelchairs and even specially adapted vans with lifts so that willing helpers can take the wheelchair-bound out and about.
They’re a lovely group, mainly women, always ready to lend a helping hand with a personal touch.
Carol singing at the hospital is a regular occasion each festive season. Santa and the gang load their sacks with presents, cakes and biscuits and travel round the wards delivering Christmas cheer.
As you can see from the video, Santa had plenty of help from the elf, the cute little fairies and the Girls Brigade singers doing their bit to make sure everyone has a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Oire Nikao drum dance practice

It’s been dry and dusty in Rarotonga for the past couple of months but the drought finally broke last week and we had a couple of heavy downpours.
The grass and trees are looking green again and water tanks are filling up. The government’s introduced a subsidy scheme to encourage home owners to buy water tanks and according to Cook Islands News it’s proving very popular. Te Aponga Uira (the local power company) will now install meters that run backwards so if people have windmills excess power can feed back into the system and cut down on electricity bills. The messages about conservation and global warming are getting through.
This video has nothing to do with power bills but there’s certainly a lot of energy on display.
It takes a lot of time and effort to get ready for the Maeva Nui cultural dance competition.
Piritau Nga was choreographer and team leader and the dancers and drummers put in long hours of practice to perfect their moves.
This is one of the early sessions for the drum dance, the ura pau.

Oire Nikao continues Maeva Nui preparations

Back in August I uploaded a video about Nikao villagers preparing for the annual cultural dance competition, Te Maeva Nui. If you missed it you can check it out here.
There are several parts to the contest, and Oire Nikao won the costume, ura pa’u (drum dance) and pe’e (legend) sections, came second in the choir and kapa rima (action song) sections and shared third place in the ute (celebratory chant) section with Nukuroa.
These great results made them the overall trophy winners. If you want to read more about Te Maeva Nui go to the Cook Islands News website. They now have archived material on the site including the starting parade and the results (plus plenty in between but you’ll have to fossick around for yourselves to find that).
Now that the mini games and my holiday are both over I’ve got time to go back over some of the video I took of the preparations for Maeva Nui. This one shows more of the work involved in making the costumes. Au (beach hibiscus) branches were anchored in the lagoon for two to three weeks. This softens the fibres so that the inner bark peels away from the wood easily. The fibres are hung up to dry, then teased apart before being plaited or made into skirts.
Not only the dancers are involved in the work. From young boys and girls right up to grandmothers and grandfathers, everyone lends a hand and enjoys doing so.
Later the costumes are bleached or dyed and the decorations are made.
It’s a long slow job but the results were quite spectacular as you will see on later videos.
I’ve got footage of early rehearsals and the dress rehearsal but unfortunately not of the event itself. The ministry (of culture) won’t allow any video cameras in the auditorium where the competition takes place.

Atiu Dancers at closing ceremony

I’m back on the rock after a six-week holiday to Singapore, England, Canada and Hawaii, so I missed all the action in October and November.
Gospel Day (26 October) this year was celebrated at Takamoa Theological College. The 170-year-old mission building there has had a million dollar facelift and it was opened on Monday. Usually Gospel Day is celebrated by the six ekalesia on Rarotonga performing biblical dramas, nuku. This time the ekalesia along with Takamoa students put on various items including specially composed songs. (For more details check the Cook Islands News website here.)
The Catholic church’s blessing of graves, Turama, took place on Saturday 31 October instead of All Souls Day (1 November) so that it didn’t interfere with Sunday church services.
On the sporting front two of the year’s big events happen in November.
Early in the month the Sevens in Heaven rugby sevens tournament was another great success with underdogs Waimiha Rebels defeating defending champions Tauae Bulls in an exciting final. Sevens legend Eric Rush said he was impressed with the level of games during the tournament and he looks forward to seeing some of the outstanding young Cook Islands players on the international scene.
The annual Vaka Eiva (outrigger canoe) festival has just finished and by all accounts was bigger and better than ever with up to 1500 paddlers and supporters on the island. This year there were more young teams competing, a sign that oe vaka is a growing sport.
All that happened while I was overseas so there’s no video coverage this year (newcomers to this blog can check last year’s events to see what it’s all about). If I come across any videos online I’ll add links to them later.
This week’s video is a longer look at one of the dance groups that performed in the closing ceremony of the Pacific Mini Games. I think the dancers were from Atiu – if I find out differently I’ll make the appropriate changes.
Now I’ve got to look at footage from overseas. Taking a holiday can be hard work!

Titikaveka Lion Dance Performance

A quick note from Vancouver (very nice city but boy is it cold!).
The kids from Titikaveka College supported three teams during the World Youth Netball Championships held in Rarotonga in July 2009; Singapore, New Zealand ad the Cook Islands.
The previous video showed the Singapore supporters practicing an item. This video shows the actual performance for the Singaporeans at the Edgewater Resort where all the netball tams were staying. The weather was a bit damp but as you can see everyone enjoyed it and the Singapore netballers came up with a dance of their own in response.
All good fun.
On the technical side (sort of) I usually host these videos on YouTube but for some reason I can't upload this one so I'm uploading it directly to Blogger. On YouTube I've got a bit of control over the quality but it's not possible on Blogger as far as I know so this one might be a bit rougher than usual. If so I apologise.
And now I've got to pack ready for headig to Hawaii where the temperature is currently 26C as opposed to the 2C in Vancouve right now.
LATER:
Hawaii. I've now managed to upload the video to YouTube and I've changed the video embedded in this blog.

Titikaveka Lion Dance Practice

This video is of the students at Titikaveka College making a lion and practicing a lion dance in honour of the Singapore under 21 netballers who were in Rarotonga in July for the World Youth NetballChampionships.
Titikaveka 'adopted' Singapore and went along to all their matches to cheer them on.
They had a lot of fun making the lion and the next video will be of them doing the dance for the Singapore girls.

Golf at the mini games in Rarotonga

I'm still on the road – in London at the moment – but managed to finish another video from the games.
The Cook Islands had a wonderful golf tournament. We scooped all four gold medals, the men's and women's team events and the men's and women's individual titles. The two youngest team members won the individual golds, Elmay Viking the women's and Kirk Tuaiti the men's.
The golf course is just over the road from Nikao beach and has an impressive mountain background. It's also got some unusual hazards - a number of radio masts with wire stays and concrete bases.
Business house golf and fund-raising golf competitions are popular on Rarotonga and we often find stray golf balls among the trees lining the beach.
Not everyone is up to the golf team's standards!

Supporter to Reporter at the mini games

I'm on the road at the moment, in Singapore as a matter of fact. It's great, food's fantastic and there's plenty to do but it doesn't leave a lot of time for editing video. Not to worry. At the mini games we had a group of youngsters from Manchester (England) who were filming Pacific athletes, particularly those who might make it to the London Olympics in 2012.The kids - eight of them aged 15 or 16 - are all part of a programme called Supporter to Reporter, S2R for short, which encourages young sports fans to become reporters and put their stories, videos and radio interviews on the web.This group really impressed everyone with their enthusiasm and the amount of work they did.I'm embedding a video they took about various spots on Rarotonga but most of their videos are sports related.You can check out more of them on the mini games website (http://www.2009pacificgames.co.ck/) or at the S2R website (http://www.radiowaves.co.uk/n/s2r/c/Pacific+Games)

Mini Games boxing action in Rarotonga

Here is another short video of action from the mini games.This one is from the boxing tournament.
I’m not sure that boxing should qualify as a sport, particularly professional boxing; it’s more like legalised thuggery. But it’s popular as you can hear from the yells of the spectators, many of them women.
Anyway, regardless of my opinions, the young boxers themselves were very proud and patriotic and they certainly deserve congratulations for doing their best.
I suppose boxing is at the opposite end of the sporting spectacular scale to synchronised swimming but at least nobody gets injured in the pool. Jaws! Where are you when you’re needed?
Plenty more videos to come – time is the problem. I’ll be off the island for a few weeks but I’m taking a computer and a hard drive chock full of video footage so I can get editing if I get restless or bored (in Singapore? England? No chance!)

Mini games closing ceremony

Whew! The mini games are over and now all the volunteers (there were more than a thousand, maybe even two thousand) can get a bit of sleep and in my case clean up the houes and garden. Not much has been touched over the past few weeks.
The weather was mainly fine. We had one day of thunder and lightning which meant sports like bowls and golf had to do a bit of rescheduling but it didn't really have much of an effect (apart from filling my water tank which is always a good thing).
We (in the Cook Islands) missed the effects of the tsunami that hit American Samoa, Samoa and Tonga. It was a horrible shock for the athletes from those countries. Many of them had friends or relatives who were affected, maybe even killed, by the disaster.
Flags here flew at half mast and it cast a sombre shadow over the rest of the athletes.
The games have now come to an end and we can all take a deep breath. The head of the Pacific Games Council was in Rarotonga for part of the event and he made no friends when he criticised the organising committee and praised CISNOC (Cook Islands Sports and National Olympics Committee) and their president (who managed to hijack a medal ceremony and annoyed a major sponsor so much that he has threatened topull out of sports sponsorship totally in future). CISNOC were the group charged with running the games but honestly, the only thing they can organise is free trips overseas for themselves.
They spent thousands on poncy uniforms for themselves but couldn't find any spare cash to buy superb photographs - permanent records - from photojournalists who were attending the games.
So the politics of the games were as pathetic as such things always are but the athletes were wonderful. We've been really lucky to be able to see these people in action and some of our own people have risen to the occasion.
We won gold medals in golf, sailing, tennis, touch rugby. Fifteen golds altogether as well as many silver and bronze medals.
It was a great two weeks. Here's a short video of some of the closing highlights.
I've got more footage of the sports so I hope I'll have time to get that up online soon.

Athletics action in Rarotonga

I reckon athletics is the prime sporting code at events like these.
There have been some really great moments - unfortunately I've not been around for all of them but here's a selection.

Half way at the Pacific Mini Games

The first week of the Pacific Mini Games is over and I've not had time to put up any video of it!
There's plenty of action on the various fields of play and it's been hectic trying to get information onto the website. Thank goodness for Cook Islands News who have allowed us to use many of their stories and stunnign photographs.
Actually the web side of things was supposed to be organised months ago, especially getting results online quickly, but it hasn't always happened the way it was supposed to! Fortunately we've had an expert here retraining people on the fly - the main problem seems to be finding people to retrain!
I got involved so I'd be able to get videos of some of the action but getting out into the field hasn't been easy. And editing and putting it online is even harder.
Never mind. I'm not really complaining. It's great being able to get close to the action so here is a video of the opening ceremony (it's been on the website since Tuesdsay!)
I'll follow it immediately with a video of some of the athletics so keep watching.

Pacific Mini Games start tomorrow

The waiting’s nearly over.
The athletes are just about all here, the games’ villages are filling up, flags flying as each country arrives.
The venues are sparkling.
The vitally important caterers, cooks and cleaners are operational.
Even the sun is shining after a couple of wet, cloudy, cold weeks.
Tomorrow, (Monday Cook Islands time) the opening ceremony gets underway at 2pm. It’s supposed to be relatively short so that the athletes don’t have to hang around for hours in the hot sun, but I’ve got a feeling that the part of the programme that says each country will ‘keep moving slowly and never stop’ is going to be ignored. A lot of these guys are natural showmen. Why move slowly when you can dance, chant or do the island version of a haka?
Oire Nikao, the overall winners of the Maeva Nui cultural dance competition, play a part in the festivities. Once the games are over I’m looking forward to getting some of the footage I took of their rehearsals on the web.
There was a rehearsal on Saturday, a bit of a walk through of the various parts of the programme (excluding the speeches thank goodness – there’ll be enough of them on Monday). It gave the choir a chance to sing the mini games theme song ‘Share the moments’. They’ve been practicing of course but it’s different in the open air at the stadium than it has been inside the auditorium.
This video is a brief look at the practice with the theme song as a soundtrack.
Don’t forget to keep checking the games website for stories, photographs and videos of what’s going on. It will be updated daily – hourly in the case of some sports and results. And we’ll be using reports from the Supporter to Reporter group of young journalists from the UK so there should be plenty to keep Cookies and fans of the Cooks occupied.

Rarotonga busy with festivals and preparations

Wow! Talk about busy – both me and the country.
At the moment Rarotonga is in the midst of Te Maeva Nui as well as preparing for the mini games.
The outer islands teams all arrived in the end. The government chartered a vessel from Tahiti to visit northern group islands and pick up teams.
But there was still controversy because the first two islands loaded too many people which meant Pukapuka was left with only thirty or so places instead of the fifty promised. Rather than leave behind team members who had all been practising hard for months, they decided not to come at all. This naturally caused a fuss back in Rarotonga and in the end the government stepped in again and chartered some flights to get them here.
How they’re all going to get back home goodness knows!
So Te Maeva Nui is underway and is the usual popular and spectacular affair. I haven’t been able to go – too busy with mini games preparations. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, people aren’t allowed to take videos which I find annoying. I’ve got some footage of Nikao practicing their drum dance but I’m not putting it on the web until Te Maeva Nui is over because the team don’t want to give any secrets away. I’ll tell you what, though. The costumes are fantastic.
But back to the mini games.
The weather has improved so let’s hope it stays warm and dry for the next few weeks. Last week the national stadium was renamed the BCI stadium at a fun event with Team Cook Islands marching in, races between mascots, kids and athletes to test the new track and a mass fitness session – the zumbathon – to get everyone warmed up.
The stadium is looking good and everyone had a great time as the video show.
Don’t forget to check out the mini games website to see what’s going on.

Cook Islands mini games mascot

The World Youth Netball Champs may be over but here on Rarotonga we’re counting down to the Pacific mini games.
For those who don’t live in the Pacific, the mini games take place every four years.
In between times we have the Pacific games which I suppose must be considered the major version with a programme of 22 or more sporting codes spread over ten days or so. The mini games are supposed to be for smaller countries to host without crippling themselves financially. We’re hosting fifteen codes, probably a few too many, and there’s been plenty of controversy about ballooning costs but we’re at the pointed end now and it all gets under way in a fortnight.
We have a mascot – Kuki the Kukupa – and he’s definitely the fun face of the games. He’s been pretty busy recently visiting sponsors and schools; he’s likely to be even busier as opening day gets closer.
The weather at the moment is atrocious – cold, wet and windy – so let’s hope all the bad stuff is out of the way by the time the games start. It’s nice watching sports performed by experts when the sun is shining, not so nice when the rain pours down.
The video shows some of Kuki’s activities.
We’re hoping for a few gold medals. Netball and touch rugby look promising and we should get medals in weightlifting and va’a (outrigger canoeing) although Tahiti are the gun paddlers in the region so maybe not gold. The real excitement comes when our athletes perform above expectations. Can’t wait!
For more about the games check out our website (www.2009pacificgames.co.ck)

Top 8 world junior netball teams

Well, this will be the last of the netball videos (although I still have some footage of the kids in action around the World Youth Netball Championships.
This is a composite of the last four matches. They took place on finals day and saw the allocation of the top eight places for junior netballers in the world. Our girls were fighting for fifth /sixth sport with Malawi. An online newspaper report from Malawi said they couldn't see the Cooks beating Malawi and they were right. The final score was Malawi 61 CI 48. This takes nothing away from the Cook Islanders who had some really good games and a few that weren't so good. But the Malawi team were just superb. They were deserved winners and they celebrated with such gusto at the end of the game that everyone amongst the spectators were cheering along with them as they danced and sang around the court. The biggest cheer probably occurred when the Cookies came out to join in their celebrations.
In the closest match South Africa 43 beat Northern Ireland 41 for the seventh and eighth spots.
The bronze medal game between Jamaica and England was a pretty brutal affair - well let's be fair about this - it wasn't an all out rough game but there were a few nudges and tumbles including one that resembled the notorious spear tackle in rugby league (sorry, I didn't catch that one on video). Jamaica were ahead for just about the whole game and eventually won 48-42.
The grand final was a bit of a disappointment. The Aussies looked unbeatable throughout the tournament and in this game the kiwis just didn't fire. The final score was 64-46 and the under 21 Australian side were deserved winners.
It was a fantastic occasion, everyone loved having all the overseas netballers here and now we are looking forward to the Pacific Mini Games starting on 21 September.
In the meantime, if you're interested in sport or how the Cooks will handle all the hoohah surrounding the games, check out the games website at www.2009pacificgames.co.ck.

World Youth Netball Champs Closing

The excitement's over, the netballers have all flown home but Rarotonga has plenty of happy memories to look back on.
Now it's on to the next one, the Pacific Mini Games starting on 21 September.

Ninth to twentieth world netball placings

In the previous post I put a list of the final positions in the World Youth Netball Championships. This video is short clips of the ninth to twentieth teams.
The last day of the competition, Thursday 20 August, had four finals for the top eight places so I'm planning to do a separate video for that. It was quite a day of sport and entertainment. I think the highlight for me was the team from Malawi. They played the Cook Islands for 5th and 6th place and came away the winners in fine style. You might think that the spectators would have been disappointed but those girls were just so much fun to watch as they celebrated the win that everyone loved them. Even the Cooks team joined in the dancing. Wonderful stuff.
However, before then I've got the final march past and medal presentation to put online.
All good fun!

All good things come to an end

The world youth netball championships are over after ten days of top class netball by young athletes from twenty countries.
The final positions are:
1 Australia
2 New Zealand
3 Jamaica
4 England
5 Malawi
6 Cook Islands
7 South Africa
8 Northern Ireland
9 Fiji
10 Trinidad and Tobago
11 Samoa
12 Barbados
13 Wales
14 Singapore
15 Malaysia
16 PNG
17 Scotland
18 Botswana
19 USA
20 Vanuatu
I’ve got a heap of video and now I should have a bit of time to do some editing and get it online … before the pacific Mini Games begin on 21 September.Before then we’ve got the Maeva Nui cultural dance festival, although the culture department don’t allow people to video that. They keep talking about ‘intellectual property rights’ though it seems to me that they’re a bit lacking in the ‘intellectual’ stakes themselves. Most people would consider it to be free advertising!
Unfortunately the government is having a problem organising transport to Rarotonga from the northern group islands so it remains to be seen if they all get here in time. It would be a shame if some of the teams can’t make it because the outer islands dancers always add a new dimension to the competition.
This video is of the Cook Islanders’ first game, against Wales, which we won.

World netball championships in Rarotonga

Things are certainly busy here at the moment.
The World Youth Netball Championships are being hosted by the Cook Islands this year.
Twenty teams of under-21 netballers from around the world are in Rarotonga for the ten-day tournament which started last Monday (10 August).
The weather was lovely for the first few days but it’s turned cold and windy now (that’s by Rarotonga standards when anything under 20C feels a bit chilly).
The Cook Islands team is comprised mainly of New Zealand and Australia based players but they are still obviously the local favourites and they have done well so far winning all three of their matches. Today they face England who are the top seeds in our group. We should finish second in the group and go on to fight it out for the top eight places.
All the other teams have local supporters thanks to an adopt-a-county scheme for the schools on Rarotonga. Each school has one or more teams to support (depending on the size of the school) and the kids go along to their matches with flags, banners, pom poms and loud voices. All good fun.
More details and photos of the tournament are on the Pacific Mini Games 2009 website – yes the games will be the next international sporting event coming up in September. Check it out here at http://www.2009pacificgames.co.ck/
(This video of the opening ceremony and another of the first game are already on the site.)

Oire Nikao prepares for Te Maeva Nui

Constitution Day in the Cook Islands is 4 August. It celebrates internal self government, a scheme in which we have our own political system (based on the Westminster model) but New Zealand looks after things like defence and Cook Islanders are NZ citizens and have NZ passports.
Most years we have a cultural dance competition, Te Maeva Nui, during the week or so before Constitution Day but this year it’s been delayed until September because the Cooks are hosting two big international sporting events, the World Youth Netball Championships from 10 – 20 August and the Pacific Mini Games from 21 September – 2 October (more about those later).
The theme for this year’s competition is ‘Welcomes and farewells’ to take into account all the people who will be here for the events.
Various village teams have been getting ready for Te Maeva Nui for some time. The people of Nikao village have been busy practicing the dances and preparing their costumes. This video is about getting the materials for the so-called grass skirts.
They aren’t made from grass at all but from the inner bark of the beach hibiscus (or au) tree.
Last month the boys cut hibiscus branches and saplings – long straight ones are best. Au is very fast-growing – grows like a weed in fact.
The women, young and old, strip off the outer bark. The usual Rarotonga method is for thinner branches then to be bundled and put into the lagoon, weighed down with rocks. With thick branches the inner bark is also removed, tied up in bundles and put into the lagoon.
Now, some of the outer islands in the Southern Group have lagoons that are shallow and not suitable for the bundles-of-sticks method so they strip the bark from everything, thick or thin. Either way, things are left in the lagoon for two to three weeks to soften the fibres ready for the next stage in the costume making process.
As you can see, lots of people are involved and everyone has a lot of fun.

Te Hiva Nui at the Billingham Festival

Rarotonga dance group Te Hiva Nui has been performing at the Billingham Folk Festival in England and this video was posted on YouTube by Emmerrr who says they were excellent.
And a story appeared in a local newspaper the Evening Gazette, about their visit to the home of James Cook after whom our country was named. Check it out here:http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/2009/08/05/homage-paid-to-james-cook-at-billingham-festival-84229-24322430/