Cook Islands
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Rarotonga – The Cook Islands
I found my travel journal from my 6 weeks in the Cook Islands. We staying on Rarotonga and Mangaia islands. I transcribed all my rambling into one long post. If you want to read it you can do so here. This is meant to be a shorter read. Getting There We began our adventure around 4 in the morning because we needed to leave Vancouver Island. We caught the first ferry to Vancouver and went to the airport. There are no direct flights to Rarotonga from Vancouver, so our first stage was getting to Los Angeles. At LAX we had some plane troubles and were delayed by just over an…
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The Cook Islands tl;dr (Pt. 3)
Cook Islands Part 1 HereCook Islands Part 2 Here May 28th Today was a travel day. We were leaving one Cook Island for another. Because the domestic flights were so small, we had to divide ourselves into two groups and take two different planes to Mangaia. The first group was leaving the hotel at about 7:30 in the morning. We heard them but opted not to get up and say goodbye as we would see them again in a few hours. Our group left later. When we got up we took all our bags into one central room. We learn that we were keeping one room at the hotel so…
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The Cook Islands tl;dr (Pt. 2)
Part 1 is about arriving in the Cook Islands. May 8th We started class later than usual today because we had a guest lecturer coming. I guess the lecture was coming to talk to us about the preservation of the Maori language. We learned about the steps that were being taken to preserve the language through the creation of dictionaries and through oral records taken from elders. In the afternoon we started our lectures with Gerald McCormick. These are our science lectures. It was nice because he started with the basics and today’s lecture was on plate tectonics and the formation of the islands in the South Pacific. We got…
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The Cook Islands tl;dr (Pt 1)
In 2007 I took part in a six-week field school in the Cook Islands. Recently I found the journal I kept while abroad. I have put the entire journal here. I will break it down into relevant posts as I edit through this. April 29th to April 30th transition days. These two days were transit days. Alex, Hanako, and I woke up at 4:30 am. I dressed for the day before going to wake up Alex and Hanako. We got up and did a last-minute baggage check before we hit the road. The drive to Nanaimo was quiet. We dropped Hanako off at Alex’s house, where her car was. It…
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University of the South Pacific
The University of the South Pacific has 14 campuses on 12 islands in the region. We were lucky enough to get to make use of the facilities on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands for a field school. The buildings are small but serviceable. A few rooms are set up as classrooms. A room set up as a computer room. There is a library there that has some books. Many locally published. The campus was nice but our most memorable lessons happened off campus. We went on nature walks with local experts on both Rarotonga and Mangaia islands. They were great hands-on learning experiences and our guides were very knowledgable. We…