Paul finally got the chance to check out the festival last night, and it was nice to have someone else do the photo taking (which worked out well as I don't know if I could have gotten good pictures of moving subjects in the dark). In the evening, there are several venue choices around the island. We opted for the Fagatogo pavilion and saw some of the best performances yet.
Rapa Nui is a clear standout. Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is west of Chile and their main language is Spanish. I've always wanted to see the famous statues there, but now I would love to visit to see more of the beautiful people and culture. Their dancing is incredible - sexy, intriguing, high energy, and it is so unique to see a South American influence in our Polynesian world. Think Polynesian dancing meets salsa dancing.
All of the festival performers create their own music, typically with traditional instruments and singing. I wasn't sure about Rapa Nui's modern drum set, electric guitars and such, but the music was fabulous. Again, the perfect combination of Polynesia and Latin America.
Another favorite of the evening was the Solomon Islands. We're considering having a reunion with our island friends at the next Festival of the Pacific Arts in the Solomon Islands in 2012 (especially considering the scuba diving is incredible there).
The best part of the Solomon Islands' performance is when these guys play bamboo flutes along with the bamboo drums. Some of the flutes are extremely large, but the men are still able to dance while playing them. The music they produce with these instruments is awesome. It makes you smile and feel like dancing. I even tried to find out if I could purchase a CD, but then something tells me these guys aren't sitting in a studio back at home, recording their music.
Australia is represented at the festival by both of its indigenous people: the Aborigines and the Torres Strait Islanders, who we saw perform last night.
Papua New Guinea has delegates from three different regions of its country. The differences between their traditional clothing and dancing is interesting. These performers were from one of the other regions than the Papua New Guineans I saw on the first day of the festival.
I love these dancers with the crazy head pieces!
There ended up being 26 countries at the festival as Vanuatu was unable to come. I have now seen 12 of these countries perform and the festival continues on for another week. Our island is going to seem so quiet after all this excitement, but my need for travel and live music is really being satisfied.
The costumes from New Caledonia were awesome, and their non-costume attire was pretty nice, too.
One of my favorites is Tahiti. Tahitian dancing is all about the hips. It is amazing how fast they can move and how effortless it looks. 
I was a bit surprised to see Taiwan at the festival. These girls' costumes are identical to a doll that Emma has in her collection of dolls from around the world.
Tokelou is a group of islands north of Samoa. I enjoyed their oar dance: 
I was happy to see the Solomon Islands flute dancers perform again on the last day. They had missed a few of their scheduled performances as sadly one of their delegates died of malaria (he already had it - we don't have malaria here). 
And to finally end the festival blogging, I love this picture from the Solomon Islands group:
That night there was a closing ceremony at the stadium. I assumed it would be a whole lot of talking, thanking, gift giving, and more thanking as is typical in Samoa. It turned out that there was a lot of that, but until we heard the booming we had no idea all the thanking was going to be followed by a fireworks show!
As seen in some of our pictures of dancers, many Polynesian people are heavily tattooed. The demonstrations of traditional tattooing were almost too painful to even watch. The tools consist of a piece of wood covered with needles made from bone (it looks like a comb) and a second piece of wood which acts as a hammer. The person has to endure hours and hours of being "tapped" on. The Maori people (native to New Zealand) practice the art of face tattooing. 
There was a lot of weaving going on and I would still love to learn. I had visions of weaving becoming my next knitting while I lived in the South Pacific, but I have yet to go beyond weaving some palm fronds. The women weaving in the picture are from New Caledonia and the baskets below are from Papua New Guinea.
Another art of the Pacific is tapa making. It is an intensive process to make the tapa cloth from the bark of the paper Mulberry tree. Then a design is carved into wood, the cloth is laid over the wood, and the design is printed onto the cloth. The traditional dyes are often a beautiful rusty brown color. The tapas below from Tonga are the biggest I have ever seen. We wanted to buy this turtle tapa, but decided that Paul can find one during his upcoming trip to Tonga.
The next group to perform was from Samoa (aka Western Samoa or Independent Samoa):
Considering that we see Samoan dancing often, we were anxious to get onto the other performers. Unfortunately, the third group, New Zealand, turned out not to be their native Maori dancers, but some really obnoxious rappers! We tried to wait it out, but after a few songs headed home. Although a little disappointed, a few days of the festival remain.
My favorite of the day was the Cook Islands. The girls' hip shaking and swaying is mesmerizing, and who doesn't love a coconut bra? I especially appreciated one dance and song that was all about their love and respect of nature. 
The first people we encountered today, from 
The people in the next two pictures are from 
The girls below are from our neighbor island, (Independent) Samoa.
Carol and I did some shopping and ended up with a bunch of baskets from 
By the way... I, Melanie, wrote this. I realized with all my cynical humor that I may have sounded like the other Brown blogger.
Everywhere I go, all I see is painting, painting, painting. The paint store has done its market research, as the radio advertisement says to come buy paint for all your "coconut, rock, and tire painting" rather than for homes and buildings or other things I typically associate paint with. Who cares what your house looks like when you have a shiny, gold coconut stack sitting in your yard?
There is some good coming out of all of this. The once graffiti-covered bus stops are getting cool paint jobs and on Friday there was an island-wide cleanup. The amount of trash is noticeably less, but I'm doubtful that it will last long. 
Ona smiles all the time. She doesn't just smile, but she gets her whole body into it. She seems to be quite the ham already as she tilts her head to her shoulder, scrunches up her nose, and shows a big gum-filled grin. 
She is starting to finally use her hands a bit. She has had the tightest little fists for the first part of her life. I have to pry them open to wash them. She is now holding onto fabric things -- blankets, my shirt, her dresses. She really likes the tags on her Taggies blanket from my Aunt Cindy. 
We've had a few rough evenings of uncontrollable crying, but it doesn't occur every night and the spells seem to be getting more and more infrequent. Thank goodness for the swing, though. This baby loves motion, but me and Paul's arms can only take so much. 
The buses are called aiga buses, with aiga meaning family. The buses are homemade by a family or village from a converted truck bed. The small buses are the most nerve wrecking for me, as with every turn in the road I am praying that the wooden bus doesn’t fall apart or tip over (especially when there is a large number of Samoans all sitting on one side). The buses are often packed full of people and it is not uncommon to see adults sitting on each other’s laps. 
More time is spent on the decorating of the buses than working on their engines (I have had to disembark several buses after they broke down on the side of the road). Some of the buses have beautiful island scenes airbrushed on them – my favorite is the coral reef bus. The inside is also decorated, typically with feather boas and bright fabric. 
Emma loved being responsible for making sure her and her grandma got where they wanted to go, which isn’t too hard as there is one main road here. You can flag down a bus anywhere, hop on, and when you want to get off you just knock on the wood frame. This can make for quite a long trip as people are constantly getting on and off, even within just meters of where the bus last stopped. I am officially done riding the bus as loud music, no seat belts, and the occasional cigarette smoke are not acceptable for a baby.
