Shuraleff in South Pacific, 2015: Auckland, a Day with the Girls

February 25, 2015
The girls are Tali and Manuli, daughters of our host Samoan family in Iva. They are now in Auckland, living with an aunt Emily, after being adopted and running away from another aunt. The oldest, Tali, is now married and pregnant, while Manuli is finishing her last year, 13th, of secondary school, with the next step in her life unknown. We spent a wonderful day with them on a cruise to Waiheke Island. I then took them to dinner and attending a ceremony at Manuli's school.

The girls, Tali in blue, Manuli in green with their sister Fa'apesa in red, and nephew, Lawrence in 2007

The girls, Manuli and Tali, now in 2015

Hundreds of students and attended "Gift Giving" which is an awards ceremony as students move up to the next level. When student's name is announced, parents usually rush to the front of the auditorium and put an "ula", a candy necklace, around the student's neck. In Samoa, the ceremony is even wilder with mothers dancing all over the place, maybe limited here due to the crowded conditions. For Manuli, I was the only "palagi", white person there which made her friends ask "Who dat white man?".

It is also interesting that the school is on a huge campus. One section is for Pacific Islanders, mostly Samoan, the Moari go to a separate school on the same campus.