This post needs a bit of a preface. While we're in school in Samoa, it's actually mainly attended by non-Samoans. Its focus is agriculture, so there are agriculture students from Tonga, Fiji, Tuvalu, and the Solomon Islands, and a few other Pacific nations here. Everyone is so friendly and willing to hang out with us, but we've become especially close with a Cook Islander named Takili. He puts up with most of our general harassment, but he won't tolerate physical affection. In the Cook Islands any type of affection is taboo--he literally doesn't even hug his mom. For the past 2 weeks we've been telling Takili that we were going to be his first real hug, and he's been resisting. But today, he finally agreed. A momentous moment that I promised I wouldn't dedicate a blog post to or tell anyone about... whoops.
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| It looks friendly but he's actually physically pushing us away. This phase of the hug lasted for about 5 minutes. |
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| THE MOMENT
He's a good sport. Also, fun fact, he draws tattoos for his friends, and he's in the process of drawing one for Nick, the only boy on our trip. It's already looking great. I take all of his doodles that he wants to throw out and paste them into my journal-- they're all so beautiful, and every one tells a story through its design. Also, his grandmother was a witch doctor and he has the wildest stories. The guy is endlessly fascinating and friendly, like every other person that I've met here so far. That sounds cliche, but it's true.
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Another picture for good measure, some of the crew-- Kuini, Emi, So'i, Niko ma Lima.
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