The Surprising Voyage

Last week on wednesday PT England School and another 12 schools in Manaiakalani came down to PT England Reserve to welcome in the two va’a Hokule’a and Hikianalia to our shores. We had to practice 1 haka, and 2 waiata. Setting up took a little while and after that we saw it. The va’a arrived and started to settle upon our beach. We went wild with our haka, we had to go through it about 6 times before the crew all got to the beach. There were a lot of people!

After they all had arrived we stopped singing, the crowd went dead silent. Then one of us stood out of the crowd and spoke. By the way my grandfather was at the beach when they came and he was the one who told Mr Burt (Principal of our school) about the meaning of Manaiakalani. After that, Hawai’i and the Hokule’a Crew found out about our cluster of schools and wanted to come along and find out about Manaiakalani.

Then when we finished the long speech we sang Nga Waka. Everyone was out of time but we kept going. Then there was this whole conversation and suddenly they started singing. They sang a really cool song and then there was the captain of the Hokule’a who stood out and started talking on and on. And finally when he finished they sang another song, then Mr Burt got up and closed it off by starting up a new thing. “People said it was impossible”, he started,”to do what we are about to do”. Then he showed us what we were going to do with a demo, after that I believe why people would say that.

We had to run down a long line of people and high five them, you think it’s easy, but when you have about 2000 kids it might get a little tricky don’t you think. Since I was a kapa haka leader and I was on the beach with the others already, we had to wait until all the schools had finished. It was not very exciting. So to make it exciting we high fived them as well, problem solvers!

When the high fiving was done and out of the way all the schools went back except for us kapa leaders. We got to stay and have a hangi, mmmmm. It was delicious. Then we learnt about the stars and where they start in the sky and leave in the sky, it was an external compass. A navigator navigated us through the compass and then he showed us how the compass was embedded into the va’a.

It was a real privilege, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, I could go on and on with the words but I think I should stop. Thanks to all the parents and helpers for your help with transportation. Thank you Hokule’a and Hikianalia for willing to come to our beach it was an amazing experience!