Zumba- Chrissie

March 20th

Just had the most fun time at Zumba Island Style…

Tonight after walking back from the beach where we had watched the sun set and seen amazing cloud formations and colours I’ve never seen in the sky (including one cloud that looked like a rainbow) we passed our neighbours sitting out on their doorstep enjoying the cooler temperatures (as it dropped to near 30), as we passed and chatted briefly one of them asked if we knew about Zumba at the school most nights, she let us know it was at 7pm and invited us to come.  For me in the first month and a half here in Tokelau, I have often felt isolated, lonely and at times left out, but this felt like such a lovely way to be with my neighbours and friends, our village, a way to be a part of something, the beginning of belonging. So feeling excited and eager (especially Nga, it was past her bed time:) and she has always wanted to come to Hot Hula in Porirua) we walked from our Fale at dusk, just as the moon was beginning to glow, down  to the park (netball/volleyball court) at the school. There we sat on the still warm concrete and waited chatting quietly until 7pm when the dull thud of the drum sounded and curfew was over. Then the park came to life, a laptop was set up with speakers and a projector onto a sheet, Zumba video clips had been saved off YouTube onto a flash drive and were loaded up for us to follow along to., Music filled the air and drew us in together,

Everyone got into it from the grandparents to the pre-schoolers in nappies and all in between, with lots of laughing and dancing. The sun had set but Mahina (the moon) is almost full so gave us enough light. Meli and I giggled a lot especially as I was particularly un-co! By contrast Ngaremu and Ru were awesome and especially Nga was in her element. The second song was “Bang Bang” which is banned in the Crawshaw household. After having spent most of a year explaining to Nga that we didn’t listen to this song in our family, she finally got to groove to it like she has been dying too. Of all the places I thought she would get to hear it, Tokelau wasn’t top of the list - I imagine the English is probably a bit subtle to pick up in translation…..ah well she loved it!!

Then Taylor swift, Bruno Mars and other popular music (All the Zumba videos as opposed to the actual music videos…phew). It was so much fun to dance; I’ve been missing music heaps. I love songs in the supermarket and can’t help but sing along and I crank up the sounds at home when everyone is at school and I’m doing housework. I love music, it is a place of real fullness of joy for me, so it was a real breath of life to be singing along and dancing. The relief I felt was palpable, tears gathered, brimming, as I was filled with gratitude at Gods provision, the gentle welcome of others and the rich privilege of being able to live here….

The wind picked up and the sounds of the waves crashing increased, suddenly in a burst of refreshing delight the warm tropical rain came. Quickly people scampered about grabbing the computers and technical gear and Zumba was over for the night, but as everyone dispersed, kie’s over our heads, tofa ni ringing out across the few dusty streets as we ran home, the belonging felt even deeper…

Looking forward to tomorrow night :)

NB: This has been posted so late as I was wanting to take some photo's to go with this post but as things roll here, sadly we have not had a Zumba night again.......anyways just how it is, hopefully it will happen again sometime. :) Chrissie