Niue
Namua Island: Jam! Didn’t bring a camera – probably a good thing. The weekend jolted my wanderlust and made me want to visit more and more islands. I’m tentatively planning a trip to Niue in my head. I hear that around the time of the South Pacific Games there are cheap flight/ship tickets to Niue via Tonga. Team Peace Corps Tonga will be visiting in a few weeks and staying with me and perhaps I can work out a place to crash for a few days in that part of the neighbourhood in return. Niue is very intriguing to me. I’ve met random people from there and from what I hear it is a super tiny island with only fourteen hundred people or so. The pictures I’ve located are beautiful and I hear there is a washed up surf community that consists of visitors to the island that never wanted to leave. This is all tentative of course but I’ve been motivated by the motions of other volunteers who have taken initiative to save for and travel to various countries including Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, and parts of Asia. I think I’ll save my Asian adventures round two for life post-Peace Corps but now that I’m Pacific bound I gather it is time to do some island hopping. I love my fair country here though. There is much to see and I feel at home. I’ve passed my six month mark and I’ve got the pleasant looniness of any other salty sea creature that expatriated themselves ashore here.
When I first moved to this village the two (now three) dogs that reside on my compound looked at me hesitantly and in a territorial sensitive manner. Now they run up to me wagging their tails wildly when I come home. Simba, the white dog I posted a picture of a while ago, is my favourite. I take him on walks and I enjoy the confused looks I get from people as I pet him and roll around with him. This behaviour is much different than throwing rocks and shouting. He’s my buddy. His face is haggard and his ear is broken from various epic dog battles he’s been in but he’s a good dog. The dogs out here are vicious if it weren’t for Simba I’d have forgotten that they could actually be pets.
I saw a few sharks, a flying fox, a heavily tattooed Finnish man, a few things unmentionable and a beautiful sunrise this weekend. Namua is a wonderful little island in the Aleipata group inhabited by a single family. The night was filled with drums and dancing around a fire reminding me of parties at home in the days of the Trumbull house. My plans to build a drum are underway and I’ve been gathering and drying out coconut shells for shakers.
Drums.. drums.. drums… Something amazing happened..
I was sitting in my classroom preparing a lesson when two of my students came in to study for their exams. We sat in silence each facing a different computer for a long period of time and I began tapping on my chair. I tap on things, it’s perhaps a nervous twitch but suddenly I heard tapping from the other end of the room followed by a third tapping from a different corner. I picked up the beat and turned my chair inward to add some bass. The two students giggled a little then turned their chairs to face me. The silent classroom had spontaneously transformed into a drum circle and I was amazed at how well the students could hold a beat. The crazy thing was that one of the students was this girl who I’ve never heard speak before. Even when I talk to her in Samoan she sits in silence and shyly waits for me to stop talking. We weren’t sitting in silence this time. I can’t explain where this came from as the drumming seemed to have erupted out of nowhere. That is life on this volcano in the middle of the sea.
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p.s. books.. check ‘em out… books.. check ‘em out…
Ryuta Takeda
The man..
The magic..
The Hoo cat..
Cosmos is okay.. just had a rough one.
Kait!
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