Return to Pukapuka
Niua school receives new resources
Monday 4 February 2013 | Published in Return to Pukapuka
A bright new orange and green playground welcomed the students back to Niua School in Pukapuka.
Return to Pukapuka
Monday 28 January 2013 | Published in Return to Pukapuka
When I left Pukapuka last year to return to Hawaii, tears streamed down my hot face. I wore three pandanus hats to shield the sun.
A sea of islands?
Saturday 5 May 2012 | Published in Return to Pukapuka
Visiting writer Amelia Borofsky reflects on the challenges of transportation affecting Pukapuka and other isolated islands of the Cooks. Polynesians voyage. From vakas to boats to planes, travel runs in the blood. Using indigenous way finding methods, Polynesians navigated by stars and currents. As Samoan poet Epeli Hau’ofa wrote, ‘the Pacific is a sea of […]
New water tanks for northern islands
Monday 16 April 2012 | Published in Return to Pukapuka
Rainwater tastes the sweetest. When our family lived in Pukapuka from 1977 to 1981, my mother says, she “simply put buckets out and caught the rainwater off the hospital’s fibreglass roof.” Our palm thatch roof never caught rainwater and we made do, although I can’t imagine fibreglass water being the healthiest. The new tin roofing […]
A true Wale welcome
Saturday 14 April 2012 | Published in Return to Pukapuka
For the last two months, all of Pukapuka attended nightly song and dance practices to prepare for the opening of the new cyclone shelter. Anyone not attending received a two-dollar fine. This helped explain the high-quality entertainment for the grand opening. Pukapukans have been waiting for the cyclone centre since 2005 when the European Union […]
Hitches and humour at big event
Friday 13 April 2012 | Published in Return to Pukapuka
The ceremonial opening of Pukapuka’s new cyclone shelter did not go without a few hitches. As the delegation made its way from Motu Ko to the main island of Wale on the barge, the motor went out. It appeared the visiting guests might have to walk back on the reef in their formal wear. Luckily, […]
Doctor arrives in Pukapuka
Tuesday 21 February 2012 | Published in Return to Pukapuka
American Amelia Borofsky has been on Pukapuka since last year, and has been providing regular reports to Cook Islands News. Here she writes of Dr Thein’s arrival to the remote northern group island. A doctor has not been in Pukapuka since 2005. For the last 20 years, Manongi Tiro, a nurse practitioner, has served her […]
Volunteer dreams in Pukapuka
Wednesday 15 February 2012 | Published in Return to Pukapuka
American Amelia Borofsky spent her formative years in Pukapuka, where her father was stationed as an anthropologist for the University of Hawaii. She came back to the islands last year to get a taste of her childhood, and has been in Pukapuka since the end of last year. A writer, she has agreed to share […]
Wale warm up
Saturday 21 January 2012 | Published in Return to Pukapuka
This week in Pukapuka, Yato village won the sports sweeping every single category. They won men and womens cricket, netball, soccer, 100-metre relay, cross-country, volleyball, tennis and the traditional throwing sports of polo, toto, puapua and tikapoto. In the end, the score stood Yato village 126 points, Loto village 62 points and Ngake village 52 […]
Yato athletes come out on top
Saturday 21 January 2012 | Published in Return to Pukapuka
American Amelia Borofsky spent her formative years in Pukapuka, where her father was stationed as an anthropologist for the University of Hawaii. Amelia lived in Pukapuka until she was five years old. She came back to the islands last year to get a taste of her childhood she left for Pukapuka aboard Kwai late last […]
Amelia meets a real cowboy
Friday 13 January 2012 | Published in Return to Pukapuka
At 81 years old, Charlie Frisbie is the Wola or the oldest man living in Pukapuka. The first son of Robert Dean Frisbie, the South Seas trader and writer, Charlie Frisbie can be found today sitting on his turquoise and pink verandah with his feet up reading the Book of Pukapuka. With his trademark mix […]
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