odysseyone

May was mostly a month of settling into island life including water outages, tasting weird island fruit, learning to eyebrow read and discovering the legalities of piracy (not the pirate kind).

I really didn’t think it was too much to ask to be able to shower whenever I wanted to but just weeks after the first water outage, we were without water again. This time it was much more dire, as I had just been exercising and came home sweaty and disheveled from the humidity. There was little point seeking help as my last SOS received the helpful response that this happens… ‘Only in the Cook Islands.’ So I had no choice but to just change clothing and work hot and sweaty, so it’s fortunate I work from home. We have had dramas with our water pressure since then but thankfully the water has never been cut since. We are very fortunate to be living on this side of the island, because as I write this (in October) there are people living in town who have had little or no water for months now- they can’t shower and have no water for cooking. Very few can afford to pay to have their tanks filled and many don’t have a tank anyway. The lucky ones can go to a relative’s house for a shower- the rest just don’t shower often. I was told if we run out of water it’s no problem because I can just bathe in the lagoon.

Every now and then we are given fruit, which is great. I love the mangoes and found the star fruit to have an interesting taste. One piece of local fruit we were given though tasted just like KFC. It has no English name so I can’t really describe it and didn’t have the texture of fried chicken by any means, but the closest thing I have eaten with a similar taste was KFC. Needless to say, we didn’t ask for any more of the KFC fruit.

Words are superfluous here- if you can leave out a few words, or even a whole sentence, it’s preferable. If you must speak, then mumble it. The most ideal situation is to not speak at all and respond with head and eye movements. Justin was initially frustrated as he would ask questions of some of his colleagues and felt that he was being ignored. He later noticed that he was getting an answer, it’s just that it wasn’t in words- it might be an eye brow lift here, a nose scrunch there. He has since learned the art of reading eyebrow gestures. I have enough trouble understanding Australian mumblers so I have had little success so far comprehending the Polynesian mumble.
A great example is when we went to order takeout pizza at a restaurant (which is mostly frequented by tourists). We sat patiently at the bar waiting to order, while the barman completely ignored us as he slowly made a cocktail for a diner. There was no ‘I’ll be with you in a moment’ or ‘How can I help you?’ We are just supposed to know he will eventually serve us when he is ready- whenever that may be. He then poured the leftover cocktail in a glass and put it in front of me, took our order, walked away and didn’t come back. I definitely didn’t want the cocktail to go to waste but thought I needed to first establish that it was meant for me and most importantly, it was free. Apparently I am supposed to know that because it is put in front of me, it is mine- why do we need to communicate this with words? We felt bad about the free cocktail that may/may not be mine that Justin then paid for a lukewarm beer (getting a cold beer here is an entirely different story).

The same goes for general pleasantries. If I try to make general conversation with questions like ‘How’s the weather? Had a busy day?’ I will get an answer, but no one will ever ask me similar questions in return. General chit chat must be a Western thing. While some retail workers in Australia will annoy you with fake friendliness to try and sell something, it is a whole other world here. Most times I am completely ignored by any sales staff – they generally prefer to complete the entire transaction in complete silence with no eye contact – and waiters are not much better. I actually prefer it to being annoyed by sales staff in shops, but it is a real problem when you actually need some help.

For a country that wants to be treated by the international community like it is first world, you would really think they would clean up their privacy laws. The laws are very old and only outlaw the copying of videos. Because software, DVDs and CDs weren’t around then and the law hasn’t been updated, it is not breaking any laws to copy them. It’s unlikely this law will be updated any time soon as the police are one source of illegally downloaded software. Every now and then the cinema owner arks up as he can’t get anyone to come to the cinema because pirated copies are circulating before he gets the movie reels here. When he complains, they do a raid on the DVD stores and the DVD store owners hide their pirated copies. Things die down again and the pirated copies are back. It explains the mystery of our local DVD store. When we arrived it had almost no movies in it and resembled a seedy drug den rather than a rental shop. Every time we went back it was the same- almost no DVDs for rent. We eventually found out you need to ask for ‘the book’. In ‘the book’, which is a tattered A4 notebook with movie names listed, you choose the movie you want, drug dealer/DVD rental guy goes out the back and voila- you have your own personal pirated copy for the same price as renting the real thing. On the wall behind his counter is a certificate proving he is approved by the government to rent legitimate DVDs. These pirated DVDs even have a genuine government certification sticker on them. I’ve been told the government department dealing with this doesn’t care if a DVD is pirated, as long as they get the $7 per movie in exchange for the certification sticker.

It’s a free-for-all when it comes to books as well. You can copy 100 per cent of a book so long as it is for ‘educational’ purposes. Which means anyone who wants to copy a book just simply claims it was for educational use. Many of the school textbooks are copies and the library has its fair share of pirated books as well.

There is usually some activity or another in Raro and we often go along, just to keep ourselves entertained. The Rarotonga International Triathlon was on in May and we were very surprised by the amount of competitors who had flown over to compete with their expensive bicycles and running shoes. But what was even more surprising is that it wasn’t just super fit people who made the effort to fly over and compete. There were plenty of large people who looked like they belonged in a couch potato endurance event and not a triathlon on a tropical, humid island. It turned out to be a very horrible day weather-wise and I felt sorry for the swimmers, battling washing machine waves on what was the windiest day since we arrived. The lagoon is usually like a bathtub so it was really unfortunate weather. Overcast, windy weather isn’t necessarily cold here although someone should tell the locals. On an overcast day they often rug up in clothing better suited to Antarctica.

I used to sometimes watch the local Gatton teams playing rugby league against each other but I’m not really much of a fan and have never paid to go along and watch a major game. But when you live in a small place, you become less fussy about what you do for entertainment and one Friday night we found ourselves at the national stadium, paying to watch the country’s league quarter finals. The national stadium doesn’t really live up to its name and it has an uneven surface, a basic grandstand and an overgrown embankment on the opposite side. I felt like I was in South East Asia, with a massive crowd of motorbikes and scooters parked outside. There is no security and baggage checks like at home, so I could take in my lethal water bottle weapon and use it as a projectile if I felt like it.

You had to wonder how interested some of the spectators were, with people ignoring requests to move off the athletics track surrounding the field, smoking, drinking and paying loud music and generally paying no attention to the game. It was the mamas who seemed most interested. They would alternate screaming at the referee and players in Maori and then giggling amongst themselves. It was a little disturbing to witness these mamas screaming so violently I thought they might throw a punch then switch back to joking with the girls. The game was difficult for Justin to watch because one of the team’s had three of his colleagues in it and he freaked out a little every time they got injured, making comments like… ‘Oh no, that’s his mouse hand.’ They told Justin later they were just diving and faking it to buy the team some rest time.

Another fun, touristy thing to do here is go and watch the Air New Zealand Boeing 777 land on a Sunday afternoon. It is probably one of the only places in the world where you can get so close to the runway. Most of the international flights land and take off at 1am, so Sundays is usually the only time you can see it come in. We thought we were the only nerds on the island with nothing else to do so we were shocked when we got to the sea wall and couldn’t get a car park. There were around 100 people lined up along the sea wall at Black Rock, with a local lady wearing her best traditional Sunday outfit and a tourist in a fancy dress and heels with a bottle of wine! A few boys were sitting on the sea wall with sticks giving the pilot a drum roll as he landed. The plane appears to come out of nowhere and then roars over your head and whips up an impressive wind, so close you’re sure you are going to die. The only thing separating the sea wall where we were standing and the runway is a narrow two lane road and a fence. Most people then take off after this performance but we thought we would hang around for the finale. We drove around to the other side of the runway and waited by the taro patch and watched as the plane flew just over our van and up into the air to Auckland. It’s always tough watching a plane take off and you’re not on it.

The television ads here are the worst I have ever seen. They never change and only Justin’s employer has the money to create new ads. All other companies run the same TV ad and we have been watching the same dozen or so ads for 7 months. It got exciting when the Rugby World Cup began in September as some new RWC-themed ads came on, but we have now been watching them for 2 months straight and they’ve becoming annoying as well. To mix things up, the television station occasionally runs ads that have nothing to do with the Cook Islands and don’t appear to be selling anything. For a few months we watched part of a clip (because it got cut off every time) of Hispanics shaking their hips doing a Zumba routine. The mystery was revealed by a friend who said the TV rebroadcasts completely random YouTube clips every now and then. Without anti-piracy laws, this doesn’t seem to be a problem.

Number plates are a lot less complicated here. They are yellow with green numbers and start from 1 and go up from there. We are 7715, which means we are the 7715th car to be registered on the island. There are personalized plates as well, still on the yellow background but with capital letters instead of numbers. A few I’ve seen are GRUMPY, PM (prime minister), OUTLAW, U WISH, HOTTIE (who is a middle aged guy in a yellow sports car).

It wouldn’t be a Kukis blog without mentioning the strange events we witnessed on the roads in May. One particularly stood out in my mind. It wasn’t technically someone driving but it did involve cars and motorbikes. I was walking through town one morning and took a wide berth around a 4 year old girl, who was picking up loose gravel and throwing it at cars driving by. She looked kind of vicious for a small girl so I made sure I walked behind her rather than within her aim.

We have little faith in the local health service and have been warned to avoid the hospital at all costs. A few people have told us that if we do have to go to the hospital don’t bother with the ambulance, just drive yourself, and drop by and say goodbye to your friends before you go- because you may not see them again. I’ve been warned against letting any doctor inject a needle. One doctor is nicknamed the ‘butcher’ because he is infamous for misdiagnosing injuries (usually telling patients it is less serious than it really is) and the ambulance officers are called ‘delivery drivers’, because they basically pick you up and drop you off, a bit like a taxi. They are big beefy guys whose only skill is picking people up and throwing them on stretchers. They apparently have no idea how to check your vitals, check if you have any allergies to pain killers and no clue how to assess an accident victim for spinal injuries before dumping you on a stretcher. If it turns out to be a busy day for the delivery drivers, you’ll just have to wait your turn as there are only two ambulances on Raro. And if you need a medical evacuation, all the government can offer is taking out a few seats from the next departing Air New Zealand plane. It better not be urgent, as it can take a few days for you to be evacuated to NZ.

There are many contradictions in the Cook Islands as the people balance liberal morals with Christian traditions brought to the island by English missionaries. It’s not uncommon for young people to get very drunk at local bars and clubs on a Friday and Saturday night but they have to wrap up by midnight on Saturday- bars shut at 12 am because Sunday is a religious day here. Forget a leisurely Sunday lunch with a glass of wine- buying alcohol is illegal on Sundays. Restaurants can’t serve alcohol before sundown and stores chain up their beer fridges. Every other day of the week is a different matter!

Cook Islands has its fair share of people on island time but we’ve been really surprised to discover that there are also plenty of people working two, sometimes three jobs. The minimum wage has been NZD5 for a very long time and wages are generally very low, with anyone earning over NZD10 considering themselves reasonably well paid. You will often be served by someone in the supermarket and then they serve you drinks at a restaurant later that night. As a result, they often aren’t really effective in either job because they are too tired. What is crazy is that the company Justin works for owns a lot of businesses on the island and has some staff working at two of the businesses, effectively cheating themselves out of productive labour. Working two jobs doesn’t mean these people are necessarily getting ahead- the money earned might be just enough for them to live or pay for their children to go to school in NZ.

On the other side, there are people who work the bare minimum. Some of the farmers with stalls at the weekly market are known to pack up their stall once they have earned the money they need for the week, rather than staying on, selling all their produce and making extra money. I know of a wealthy Cook Islander who decided to pay locals NZ-equivalent wages to build his house. It back fired as the labourers worked fewer hours, knocking off for the week on Wednesday as they had earned the money it would normally take them a week to earn. It’s such a contrast to the mentality we have in Australia to save for the future, sometimes to the detriment of not enjoying your life at present. It’s been interesting to live here and watch people live in the present without a thought for the future, and finding a balance for ourselves.