Sevens in Heaven - the tackles

Rarotonga’s recent ‘Sevens in Heaven’ rugby tournament was a lot of fun, at least for spectators, but the players weren’t messing about.
As you can see from the video, the tackles were solid, ‘take no prisoners’ affairs.
There were no serious injuries and only a few yellow cards. On the field it was serious stuff but at the end of the day everyone ended up smiling.

Rarotonga sevens - a look at the teams

The Rarotonga International Rugby Sevens tournament, held last week from 4 to 6 November, was another huge success.
This was the twenty-first birthday of the event which just keeps getting bigger and better each year. We had 24 teams all told – 16 men’s and 8 women’s sides. Some were predominately local with imported NZ stars while others were entirely overseas teams.
Sevens legend Eric Rush was one of the first New Zealand rugby stars to play here and we’ve also had players who went on to All Blacks fame – I think Jonah Lomu was one of them. This year Rene Ranger took to the field for one of our local teams.
The weather was great, the rugby was great and the crowd was great.
Here’s the first sevens video – the march past of teams.
There will be more to follow so watch this space!
By the way, for a bit of light relief check out the Edgewater flash mob video on YouTube here.
Strictly speaking it wasn’t a spontaneous flash mob as the Edgewater staff had been rehearsing it for a couple of weeks but it looked like a lot of laughs and had over 4000 views last time I checked. Good fun.

Turama – Rarotonga's festival of light

All Souls Day is in fact 2 November but in the Cook Islands it is now customary for the Catholic Church to celebrate the eve of All Souls Day on 1 November in a local festival called Turama.
The main focus of this is the Catholic cemetery at Panama.
In the days leading up to Turama family members clean and paint their loved one’s graves and decorate them with flowers and candles. Water is blessed at a requiem Mass at St Joseph’s Cathedral in town then there is a short prayer service at the cemetery. As the sun goes down the choir sings hymns while priests sprinkle water on the graves. In the candlelight people have time to remember those who have passed away and to ask God to grant the dead the joy and peace of eternal life.
Turama is a colourful but peaceful occasion. There is an earlier video and more information about Turama here.