Night market at Punanga Nui

Go Local!
It’s the latest catchphrase on Rarotonga; BTIB (the Business and Trade Investment Board) have been encouraging everyone to buy local food and products to help the economy.
And it’s more than just putting ads in the newspaper and on TV. Last week BTIB organised a Go Local Night Market for food vendors and stallholders to sell their wares.
It was a fabulous night in many ways. The weather was fine, the evening warm and a thousand or more people packed into Punanga Nui. (BTIB said between 3000 and 5000 but that’s a significant proportion, about a third, of the island’s population; I don’t think so.)
Nevertheless, the place was jumping and the food stalls worked overtime.
This is usually the way on big nights out for Cook Islanders. Steak and mushroom rolls, hot dogs, stir-fried chicken and crepes don’t use much in the way of home-grown ingredients but they were all prepared and cooked by locals so I suppose it counts.
The punters, tourists and locals, took advantage of what was on offer and then sat back to watch the entertainment. A dancing contest for little ones was followed by a fire dancing display and then local Nikao group Te Rau Maire put on a great display – local culture at its best.
BTIB have already said that this will be an annual event but it could well be held more often than that.
In Papeete the roulades (food caravans) set up shop every evening. Tahiti is considerably bigger than Rarotonga and has many more visitors but, if it were properly promoted, a regular monthly night market should be sustainable and in our high tourist season possibly even a weekly one.
I recall a few years ago something like this was tried, on a Friday night I think, but it was really more of a suggestion that people should come along and sell food rather than a real promotion and it sort of faded away, probably because the food vendors wanted to concentrate on the Saturday morning market.
Still, I hope we don’t have to wait a year for the next night market.

Rarotonga Sunset

In spite of living in a tropical island paradise, we don’t have glorious sunsets every night but we’ve had some nice colour in the sky on several occasions recently.
I was hoping that the Chilean ash cloud might produce something spectacular but it didn’t really affect us very much. A couple of Pacific Blue flights were cancelled although it was due to ash at the NZ end. Air New Zealand continued flying regardless.
Anyway one evening last week the sky looked promising with clouds – but not too many of them – in the sky and along the horizon, so I went down to Nikao Beach to try a time lapse video.
It’s peaceful at that time of day; a few herons (kotuku) flying inland to roost, a jogger, and some people who also came to watch the sunset. We adults sat on the concrete pad that once supported the Nikao Social Centre (long ago before cyclone Sally) while two children, Apii and Agnes, ran and played on the beach.
Once the sun had set I thought I was out of luck because there wasn’t a great deal of colour in the sky but after a few minutes the clouds began to glow red and there was some reflection in the lagoon. The whole thing lasted about half an hour.

The tide was low but not completely out which would have been better as the water would have been stiller and the reflections sharper.
Maybe next time.

Tereora's inter-house cultural competition

Tereora is Rarotonga’s national college, the only one in the Cook Islands with a seventh form.
Like most schools there are frequent inter-house sports competitions between the four houses – unimaginatively called House 1, House 2, House 3 and House 4.
Actually, back in the old days (when I taught there a long, long time ago) they went by names such as Ikorangi and Te Kou. Ah well, it’s a digital world now.
The most recent event, though, was a bit different; a cultural competition.
Princess Anne Hall was packed last Friday for the performance, the result of only ten hours of class time though judging by the results far more than that must have gone into writing songs, choreographing and practicing dancing and drumming and preparing costumes.
Some of the children perform in cultural dance troupes but from the numbers on stage it looked as though anyone who wanted to be involved had the opportunity.
The kids on stage were obviously enjoying themselves and their family and friends in the audience cheered them on and sometimes jumped up and joined in, in true Cook Islands style.
It was a fabulous show.
The judges chose House 1 (the final team in the video dressed in the red colours of their house) as the champions but the real winner is Cook Islands culture which is clearly alive and kicking thanks to these youngsters – and of course their teachers.