Rarotonga

Okay. So, this is going to be tricky. It was more than a month ago now, and to cover a whole week... I'm going to go based on my pictures, and just talk about fun photos. To sum it up, we ate a lot of coconut, met a lot of Cook Islanders, got sick, and did many awesome tropical activities, like paddling in a vaka (canoe), husking coconuts, snorkeling, etc. There are actually many places I did not take my camera due to water, such as the beach and the cross island walk. The cross island walk was a tramp across the island (surprise), but some of the views and such from it were really gorgeous, so it's a shame, but that's how it goes.

We dyed pareau (sp?), Cook Island sarongs. Mine came out looking sort of like a watermelon, but it was lightweight and cool, so I ended up wearing it nearly every day after we made them. I took this photo, so I'm not in it, but these are many of the people on my program, showing off their pareu, and also the sweet ways we learned to tie them.


My best photos are from the school visits, since they were camera-safe, and also fun. We did two, one just to visit. I was actually sick when we visited the first school, so I was less than fun. The students performed for us and gave us really beautiful leis and headdresses, though.

These are both from the second school visit, which was for community service. This one was awesome. We helped fill in holes that could catch water (Jai chopped down plants with a machete!!! It was really sharp and kind of scary!!), to prevent mosquitoes from spreading dengue fever. We also helped put stickers on raffle tickets, which some of you may know is what I love doing, no sarcasm involved. And then everyone ran around with the kids for a while, and I took a lot of great photos on that visit. The first is Amanda playing airplane (she, Melissa, and Ellen had races, with their gradeschool partners), and the second is Melissa, Alyssa, Carolina, Tamar, and Meg on the jungle gym.

We also did a fair bit of dancing, and one night there was a dance-off. In the guys', it came down to Jai versus James. Carolina won the girls' dance-off!!!

Also, we were fed so well every single night. It was fantastic. Our hotel was right on the beach, and I shared a room with Tamar and Ellen. There was one day, my favourite, when we hired bikes and biked around the entire island, stopping for food and beach stops as we saw fit. It... was pretty great. It also poured that day, which was amazing.

Unfortunately, that's what I have about Rarotonga. It was brilliant, but I didn't get very many photos. Also, I've been putting off posting knowing that I needed to do Rarotonga first, so now that I've done Rarotonga, I can continue on with the blog :p

Till next post.