So where've you been? 1 Atiu, Cook Islands

Waiting for the plane,
originally uploaded by digitalia.

The last night I was in Atiu, I could barely speak English any more, even to myself, in my head. There were four tourists on the island, and two of them were Deutsche, had not a word of English.

The island ferry hadn't turned up for three months, and bread was rationed to one doughnut per day; order a day in advance. Like most pacific small islands, it's not fairness that governs the system, it's contacts, so foreigners' doughnut orders are the first to fall off the list. Which left tinned beetroot and tinned corned beef (I didn't even know you could tin corned beef) to eat. Coffee I could get - I was being put up by the owner of a coffee plantation, and it was in his interests to keep me wired on the stuff till I was addicted. But tinned horror-food was a step too far.
Daniel, an american writer also staying in Areora village, was determined to eat like a local.
I was determined to act like a local. I set out to hitch to the near deserted 'big hotel' to sweet talk the owner into sharing his imported stash of real lettuce and carrot.

The ploy worked. Daniel flew out early, sick to his stomach of tinned corned beef. I stayed, dining nightly with the hotel owner, mayor and visiting fisherman from Takitea. The payment, beyond the nominal cash price of food at its normal price, was to act as interpreter for the Deutsche pensioners.

My German has deteriorated to the point where a six year old has about the same vocabulary, but probably more confidence in grammar. Such were my translation efforts that within the space of six hours, I started forgetting how to speak English also.

My last night on Atiu, the ferry arrived (it had six hours to dock and unload before a freak distress call from a beached ferry sent it away for another 3 months). Bread was suddenly cheap, and the local Maoris held a huge huge party.

I've seen 'island nights' when trespassing in luxury resorts to bag a decent hammock/beer/shower. They're execrable; plastic smiles and cheesy grass skirts. This was the real thing: a table laden with all manner of goat, rukau, taro, ike. The muscle bound local ladies, in finery and hats despite the heat, formed a line by the paper plates as the band struck up on the ukuleles. Kura, the cook, nudged me as I hesitated, held back, the tourist stranger at the feast: "better get there fast; once these Maori ladies get there, there's nothing left."
Kids dancing in grass skirts and coconut shells, war dances, feats of strength and endurance expressed in hand gestures, roars, hipsway and song. The audience roaring their support when their own family were on the floor. The lads from the tumunu (the bush beer drinking club - a shed roof and a bucket full of vile orange stuff out in the forest) all pissed on aussie export beer, and expansive. It was great. Toll, in fact. Genau.