Episode 6: In Which Jay Gets Killed by the Mafia About Ten Times.

Previously, on Keep Calm and Joust On

Jay bought a bunch of paintings from salvation army to use a decorations. No jokes here, second hand shops are like the best place to obtain awesome art on the cheap. Hell, you can even buy some crappy art and a few tubes of paint then rework the canvas into some sweet multimedia piece. I got four paintings $9.

Whales Are Probably Aliens

Day 5: The fifth day on Rarotonga was our first real day of the educational part of this field trip. We started with an economics lecture from a disgruntled and very angry economist. He had some choice things to say about the current state of affairs on the island and about how poorly he thought Pacific politics are being handled. The lecture was at the 'university' on the island, which was one building with a bunch of computers and tribal statues. I believe we sat in the only lecture room in the building, but I was still a bit blown away that there was a university at all. The island only has a population barely over 9000. After that lecture we headed to our second: a lecture by Nan Hausser, a fairly well known whale researcher. We learned some crazy things about whale movement patterns, reproduction, and navigation. It turns out that there is a large amount of research that indicates that whales actual navigate the ocean by stars. Celestial navigation was used by human navigators with a heavy amount of math and logic, but apparently whales have long hairs that allow them to be expert celestial navigators. Basically, whales are goddamn space aliens. Which, honestly, I could totally understand that - it kinda makes sense to me.

After lectures we headed off to a farm and learned to plant taro, the native root vegetable. Taro is a vital part of sustenance in the Cook Islands and is basically a really bland and chalky tasting grey potato. But, it is one of the only vegetables that natively grows, so it ends up in almost every meal in some way. Then, we learned the art of climbing coconut trees. It is difficult. Our native guide, however, managed to shimmy up the tree trunk in a few mere seconds. He went on to teach us how to properly husk, crack, drink coconut water and eat the meat. He somehow managed to husk a coconut with his teeth and in about a fraction of the time we were able too. The proper way to husk a coconut is to smash it at various angles onto a sharpened ironwood stick that you've put in the ground and prying off the thick husk. Most people don't realize, coconuts don't come off the tree as they appear in the supermarket. Instead they are enclosed in massive nut shaped husks about a foot in diameter. I can now truthfully say that I've climbed a coconut tree and husked and eaten a coconut freshly from said tree. In a jungle. On a tropical island. So, I feel pretty badass about that.

The final part of our educational day was spent at the Pacific Island Forum opening ceremonies. There was a great deal of pomp and ceremony as 15 Pacific countries were represented. Dignitaries were brought in on thrones, carried by manservant teams of 8 dudes each. There was a solid amount of press and security and lots of food and performance to go around. It did strike me as funny: for all of the ceremony, the only place big enough on the island for this was the local indoor basketball gym. The bleachers were full and we had to peek in through the windows to see the performances. Afterwards, we all unwound, cerebrated some birthdays within our group, played cards, and traded stories about life late into the night.

Day 6: We woke early for another lecture, this one on island bio-diversity. It was actually quite interesting to learn about the sheer number of endangered and protected species that lived on such a small island. Our lecturer could say "that is endangered" and just point to what he was talking about. However, I could hardly pay attention because today was our awesome day trip day. We quickly left the university to go on a cross island walk through the jungle. Since the island is so small it only took less than four hours to trek all the way up a mountain and down the other side. The foliage was lush and green, the air hot and breezy, and the path treacherous. We scrambled up and over tree roots, climbed steep slopes, and hopped across streams on our way to the top. At the top of the mountain we were faced with amazing views all around, seeing the coast in 360 degrees put the fact that we were on an island into some serious perspective. The climb up was intense, the climb down was dangerous. Along the way we found streams and awesome plants and wildlife. The views were great, the people awesome to walk with.

After that, we headed off to the beach to rent kayaks. The island is small and there are tiny islands surrounding the various lagoons that were easy to paddle to. We hopped in and explored some islands, finding cool things and having some solid bonding time. Probably my prize of the trip was discovering half of a rusted harmonica in the shallow pools on one island. We set back for dinner on the beach next to a stunning sunset. The bar was run by an eccentric Hawaiian white guy named Jim who was, as they say, a hoot and a holler.

We returned to further celebrate birthdays and play some of the most intense games of Mafia I've ever seen. This went LONG into the night, everyone wanted the chance to play god and tell the story to hilarious effect. As a future note: getting people drunk for playing mafia is always a hilarious idea. It also gave me a great premise for Mafia: townspeople are hobbits, the town is the shire, mafia are ring wraiths, the medic is a ranger, the detective is a wizard, and the hobbits all die in gruesome ways when they try to go off on adventures. We just need someone with knowledge of LOTR to be the story master.

Day 7: Massive breakfast, we packed everyone up into one cabin. 18 people in a space for 6. Then we just had a free beach day, which was great. We had to walk about a mile to an actual beach, but we could easily do so by walking around the island through the lagoon. I went on this walk around the lagoon, white dog following, with a gorgeous girl, on a gorgeous sunny day, bare feet in the water, book under one arm, and could not help but think "well, this just plain sublime". I've never been so relaxed and happy at one time. Even though I totally accidentally dropped my book in the lagoon, I was still as happy as possibly could be. I mean, actually, I don't know what could top that. As a group, we spent the day on the beach, reading, chatting, and accumulating a small pack of dogs. We seemed to attract animals wherever we went. At the house there was Tim the cat, if I hadn't mentioned him, and a flock of chickens that hung around as well.

Finally, we packed up for good, went to the airport and left Rarotonga late at night. We all tried to get shut eye, all 18 of us packed into one cabin or lying on the balcony. The airport security was hilariously easy to pass through and we flew away from that one landing strip all the way across the international date line back to Auckland. Technically, because of traveling back and forth over the date line, we pulled some impressive Back to the Future time travel. In Aukland we said our goodbyes with a great big cinnamon roll hug before heading to Christchurch. 

I will miss those Aukland kids, and can only hope to meet up with them back in the states at some point. Amazing people who were just so much fun to be around and interact with.

- Jay