As mentioned earlier, we arrived at Aranuka on New Year’s Day and we were immediately invited to shore by Martin, Aranuka’s MP, to see his house, tour the village, and see some traditional dancing. As we were walking around the village, A man called Martin over, and then Martin called us over and introduced us. It turns out the man was the minister of the protestant church, and he wanted to invite us to his church’s celebration that day for lunch and to see some dancing. We were all for it but then after we walked away Martin explained that there’s also a Catholic Church and they will also have dancing. After further conversation and a little prodding, we found out that Martin belongs to the Catholic church, so that was likely where he was planning to take us before we got invited by the Protestant minister. We asked Martin for advice on what we should do and he was very diplomatic, saying we should do what we feel we want to do, so in the end we decided to try to attend both.
First up was the Protestant feast, and Martin loaned Tim a sulu so he would be dressed respectably for the occasion. When we arrived they treated us like special guests and even gave us wreaths to wear on our heads. Then they let us eat with the first wave, with all the respected elders of the group.
Enjoying New Year’s Day in Aranuka
After lunch the dancing started, and it was a combination of traditional dances, hip hop, and some dances which were interesting blends. The music was so loud I could hardly stand it. It certainly wasn’t like any church party I had ever been to before. But the fun really started when they invited us up to dance. There really are no words to describe this, so you have to watch the video:
If you watched the video you’ll notice at the end that I was also asked up to dance, and I am grateful that the video clip ends there. However, you better believe that it was captured by many of the local smart phones. After, Martin told us that the people didn’t think that white people could dance, so they wanted to see if it was true. He told us that he was telling them something like, “where do you think this kind of dancing started?” He also told us that we seemed to have done OK. I’m glad he told us this, because you would never have known by how much everyone was laughing.
Being a politician, Martin helped us graciously extract ourselves from the Protestant party so we could go hang out with the Catholics. The vibe at the Catholic party was also light and fun, and they also had a mixture of traditional and hip-hop. When we first arrived, it was in the middle of a performance and we kind of lingered in the back, but then we were quickly summoned up to the front to sit up with the priest. This just happened to be right in front of the speakers, so our ears continued to take a beating. And it turns out that our time in the spotlight wasn’t quite over, because apparently the Catholics also wanted to see how well the white people can dance. Check that video out.
If you watched the videos, you’ll have noticed what a good sport Brenden was through all of this, and you’ll also notice that Alex was no where to be found. It turns out that Alex was sick that day with a fever and sore throat and stayed behind on Exodus. After hearing our stories and watching the videos, you better believe he has never been happier to be sick.
I cannot overstate how much fun we had this day, and it set the tone for the rest of our visit to Aranuka.
However, we were a little bit at a loss about what to do when Sunday rolled around. We typically like to go to the local church, but in this case we weren’t sure which one to go to, and we didn’t want to pick a side or play favorites. So, on Sunday morning we just slept in.
Gresham Family Exodus 