11.1.13

Larry arrived as promised at 9am and there started the lesson on island life. Larry has been into IT since the 60s and ended up being a teacher of IT. He came to the Cook Islands 16 years ago and donated the first computers to the school in Aitutaki and went on to teach voluntarily up until 4 years ago at the high school. He knows the community and Island life well.

Larry had a bag with some cone shells in it and pointed out the danger of these innocent looking shells. The mollusk that forms them has a cute little tongue that comes out of the end it and reaches around to give you a sting, which can be fatal. Don’t pick them up if they are in the water is the take home message. He also told the kids about the dangers of walking under coconut trees, stonefish and less toxic irritants such as sand fly and mosquito bites. Richard arrived with the scooter that we have rented off them for the two weeks, and so the combination of Larry’s car and the motorbike meant that we could all go on the tour of the island. Larry seemed to get pleasure from showing us his adopted home. He showed us the water harvesting and reticulation system that gathers and stores ground water at the base of the hill, in a trench that has been excavated filled with gravel and covered again, with about a 1 km trench this catches and stores the rainwater run off from the hill, and there are about 11 of these on the island. There are fairly frequent water shortages all the same. We went up to top of the island and looked at the views from the highest point you can drive to. Then made our way down to the best shop in town, did some shopping and carried on to a jewelry and ukulele maker, who is making very attractive uke’s from native wood. The tour continued to another shop or two, and on to a point that looked out over the lagoon. Around the island through an arch of trees, then to his home for a toilet stop. The story of Larry’s house is interesting. You cannot buy land in the Cook Islands, it belongs to the families and cannot be sold. Larry after deciding to move here to retire at 55 went into an arrangement with a couple to build a restaurant with accommodation and Larry would have an attached one room dwelling that he would have use of for his lifetime. Larry put up 95% of the money, however on returning to take up residence was told that he would need to pay rent, or move out. This lead to a four year long legal battle. The local community knew of the details of this, and understood that Larry had been ripped off, and (to Larry’s surprise) were in support of his position. Eventually a local mentioned “it will be good when he gets the house that Reno is building for him”. Larry knew nothing of this house and after a couple of people mentioned this to him, he thought he should approach Reno who he did not know that well and find out what this was all about. Reno, a local businessman, had decided that Larry had been hard done by these people and had decided to build a house for Larry to live in. Larry said “whoa Reno! I am on a partial pension and can not afford to pay rent”,” don’t worry, we will work it out latter” says Reno, “no lets work it out now” said Larry worried about the “She’ll be right” attitude over committing him. “ how about one hundred dollars per week?” “Done! Can I pay monthly which would be … $433 per month?” “Lets just make it $400 per month,” concludes Reno. And Reno built the house for Larry. I think it would be fair to say this is a tight community, and Larry is clearly a valued member.

Larry gave a coconut ukulele to the Kids as he claimed that it would be better for someone who may use it to have it. We continued up past the hospital and school to another back yard shop with bulk frozen goods. Then down to the wharf to the Aitutaki stone for a photo, which makes us Aitutakians according to Larry. We headed past another shop and along to airport again and back to Koru Café for lunch. We spent about 4 hours being shown around by Larry and we bought him lunch in appreciation. What a great introduction to the island.

Headed home after a very substantial lunch- steak, followed by sticky date pudding for me, a variety of yummy foods for the others. Back home for a swim and a cool down. Nice afternoon mucking around at home and in the lagoon. Sophie and I went for a 5km run before dinner. Sushi, and early night for all.