Nicole Journal #3:
The South Pacific

Nicole weaving a hat

Well we have long since left Bora Bora, but I can still feel the drumming in my head and see the dancers dancing with such beauty and grace.  Bora Bora was one of those places that I didn’t want to leave.

We arrived at Bora Bora in the middle of the Heiva Festivals.  Heiva is an annual event where the whole island comes together to compete in dancing, singing, basket weaving, fruit carrying, drumming, and canoe races.  It was two weeks of non stop activities and fun.  There were five different districts that competed with each other.  There were also competitions for the male/female dancer, best couple dancers, best singer, and best drum group.

Our days went like this.  On the ship we would have a normal crew (work) day.  Each person had certain jobs that needed to be completed for the day.  We also had a few science dive trips going out during the day to gather vita reef data.  But as soon as the work day finished, people started getting ready for the night.

While some people prepared dinner, others got their cameras together and others put on their dancing shoes.  At 7:30 the small inflatable boat went in to drop off people for the night.  At the dock was a big arena, a pole fence around a big open sandy area.  This is where the dancers performed.  Then to the left were bleachers for spectators, a podium where the judges sat, and below the judges sat Miss Bora Bora, and Miss Bora Bora Nui.  The performance night was divided into two parts.  The first part was singing.  The group all came out dressed in really colorful clothing, the color usually coincided with the district they were representing.  They sang a short song while they got into their positions.  Everybody wore very beautiful tiaras made from fresh flowers.  Once they were in position, the real singing started.  The men sang in loud, deep voices, while the women could be heard in their high pitched notes.  A few girls were standing up while the rest of the group sat down.  These girls every now and then would sing in really high voices over the rest of the singers. They all sang with so much pride, with smiles on their faces, and with so much heart.

The second part was the dancing.  The dancing was performed by a group of a different district.  These groups weren’t just dancing to show the people how well they can shake their hips.  Each group had a theme.  The performance was a story or some kind of legend being told through every gesture and every step the dancers made.  There were stories of how two mountains in Bora Bora came to be.  Then there was another story of the turtles and how they got killed by birds while coming to shore.  It was great to see the story unfold right before your eyes.

The dancing was incredible, the women moved their hips in way that is impossible to describe.  It seemed as though their hips had a mind of their own and not attached to their bodies.  Only their hips were shaking, everything else was almost not moving, except for the gestures they were making with their arms and hands. Their gestures were so soft, making gentle curves with their fingers and hand, and wearing the most gorgeous smiles

that would make any man melt.  The men were just as beautiful as the women.    The men’s movements were just a difficult.  Their main action was in the legs.  Their feet would be a little close together while their knees came together and then back again and this was done really fast.  It was like they were knocking their knees together.  Their gestures were very powerful and impossible not to watch.  My favorite action they did was when they were paddling a canoe.  You could just see the muscles come out of their arms like they would as if they were really paddling a canoe.  There was great choreography in the dancing.  The dancers danced in complete unison, making the entire performance look effortless.  But if you look closely they are breathing so hard and sweating so much.  It takes a lot of practice, hard work and dedication to dance in a group.

The dancing reminded me a lot of the dancing at home.  Even though it wasn’t the same kind of dancing, it was the drumming that did it.  The drum was pounding so hard that I could feel it in my chest, just like the drum on the plaza as we are dancing.  I also had been trying to take pictures with my camera of the dancing, while they were dancing, and even when they were just standing there waiting for the next song to start.  None of my pictures came out; they were either all too dark, or really blurry.  I tried, and other people tried to take pictures using my camera, but they wouldn’t come out.  So decided to stop trying, back at home we don’t let people take pictures of us dancing.  So there I was trying to take pictures of people doing their traditional dancing.  It was no wonder my pictures weren’t coming out.

At Bora Bora we met a man named Dennis Schneider a French man that has been living in Bora Bora for quite some time.  He has been doing some amazing work with the coral reefs in the Bora Bora area.  He has been helping to restore some coral reef around the hotels being built all around the island.   What he does is that he takes live corals from the lagoons that have been broken off and he puts them on a platform that he built.  It is a small platform where corals have the chance to attach themselves and begin to grow

again. He then takes these platforms and puts them underneath the bungalows that are built on the water by hotels.  He puts them underneath the bungalows because they are well protected areas from the wind and other forces of nature.  These platforms will someday be transformed into a healthy mini coral reef, the fish will come and a whole new environment will be created.  The hotels don’t allow Dennis to put these platforms anywhere else because they don’t want tourists to see them from the air, all they want to show them is crystal clear waters.  But from the inside the bungalows there is a glass cutout on the floor, so that the tourists can see the coral reef beneath them.

He has also been doing a lot of education with the youth of the island.  Showing them the corals, helping them to understand what they are all about.   He also trains the students how to do reef checks.  Which is basically monitoring the reefs, showing them what a healthy reef looks like and how to tell when there is something wrong with the corals. He takes groups of youth out in a small boat; they go snorkeling and collect specimens.  Of course they get to have swim stops along the way, and then they look at specimens under the microscope.

Dennis does a lot of this work on his own, sometimes with the help of other volunteers.  He is the man that has initiated this whole project and is still carrying on with it.  We had Dennis came on board our ship to talk to us about all that he has been doing.  He talked about his work with so much pride and passion.  It was amazing to me so see what can be done by just one individual with a drive, a determination to make the environment even just a little bit better than it use to be.

Besides all the dancing, singing, and science going on, there are a few other activities that I thought were worth mentioning.  One is the canoe racing.  The canoe races would start at the dock where we would get dropped off and picked up.  At the end of the dock was a table of judges and next to the table was a band.  There were many races.  There was one man race, a three man, six man, and twelve man canoe races.  It wasn’t just the men either; the women had their races too.  As the participants took off and came in the band would be drumming really fast while the people cheered on their friends and loved ones and teammates were cheering each other on.  It was a beautiful event to watch.

The other event was the fruit carrying races.  On a Wednesday morning, huge Polynesian men had been tying fruits to a wooden pole about six inches in diameter.  There were fruits like bananas, pineapples, pamelos, and coconuts.  These men would carry these poles on one shoulder as they ran about a mile with the fastest speed that they could run.  It was a short race, but very fun to watch.  After all the participants came in people watching came in to take what was left on these fruit poles.  I picked up one of these poles.  I think they were about fifty pounds.

There were also fishing competitions.  Fishermen would go out for the day and catch what they could.  At the dock, there was a table of judges, and a place for the men to weigh in their catch of the day.  I saw a huge dolphin fish (Mahi Mahi); it must have been about ten feet long.  I think he won for that day.  There was a man that brought in about twelve Yellow fin Tunas that probably weighed about thirty to forty pounds a piece.  At the end all the spectators came in to buy all the wonderful fresh fish.  Yummy.

But all good things must come to an end.  I found myself one night watching the awards ceremony.  There were a few tables set up with huge trophies sitting on them.  The ceremony was probably about three hours long.  It seemed like everyone got something.  No one really walked away with nothing.  It was a great time in Bora Bora; I fell in love with the people, the crystal clear waters and the culture.  It was hard to say goodbye, but we just have to keep the voyage going, going, going, but never gone.

- Nicole -