I've been dancing with a Tahitian group, Manutahi for a number of years and last year we were invited to perform at Heiva I Tahiti ~ the Merrie Monarch of Tahitian Dance in To'ata Tahiti. This is such a privilege and honor! We were also invited to compete in the Heiva 'ai 'ai ~ the solo competition.
Prepping for our trip involved lots of fundraisers, endless nights of costume making and hours and hours of practice.
We arrived at the airport on July 10th, 2009 in the early afternoon. The energy in the checkout area was pure excitement. We were catching a private charter flight on Air Tahiti Nui and it was booked only for dancers.
The dancers were from 3 groups, us, Heretama Nui and Ma'ohi Nui. We waited in line for h.o.u.r.s. and we finally boarded.
I sat with Brenda & Laurene and we were carackin' up when we needed to fill out the paperwork. Actually, a lot of people had a hard time with it! We had to fill out our "nationality" ~ some people put Hawaiian/Chinese, others just put Filipino, I put 'Mixed' ~ Brenda was laughing so hard ~ and even more so when the flight attendant made an announcement telling everyone that we were supposed to put "American" for nationality! lol Who would've thunk?? The flight attendant said that Hawaii people were the only ones that always have hard time on that part hahahhaa
The plane was seriously like "soul plane" ~ it was like a nightclub in there. The flight attendants had all the drinks flowing and the back of the plane was pretty nuts. I just stayed around my area talking story with the other dancers ~ all the musicians were singing with their ukes and banjos, it was pretty cool.
We arrived in Tahiti at 1am and as Brenda and I were walking toward the gate, we could smell all the tiare and hear the tahitian banjos and people singing. It was everything I had imagined! I couldn't help the tears from falling.
We went thru customs and waited for our baggage and then walked out to the gates ~ omg! there were literally hundreds of people singing, drumming, hugging, giving leis, it was beautiful.
We got on the bus and went to our home away from home in a Protestant Church in Arue. When we arrived, it was like almost 3am and there was a full buffet of food waiting for us and our mattresses lined up. It was the perfect place for us ~ big huge area, upstairs and downstairs, 2 bathrooms/showers (no hot water!!!) for the boys and 2 for the girls, and right across the street from a huge park and a black sand beach.
1 comment:
Haha! You can't ask someone from Hawaii to name your nationality! Maybe to make things less complicated, they should ask for your citizenship. . . huh, so potagee! I can just imagine you there having the time of your life. I understand the feeling you had when you were greeted with beautiful island songs. Songs like that just pierce your heart in a way you cannot fully describe. But to have been in Tahiti, it must have been 100x better! Love the pictures and I hope to one day visit and dare I say it. . . sunbathe topless ; ) okay maybe not the front part, just my back.
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