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A Picnic on the Reef
by Julise Denby
      

     The South Pacific Island of Aitutaki, in the Cook group, is small, with a population of only 2,000. All the island’s people trace their common ancestry back to Ru and his 20 wives – which would be fine, except that everyone is family and a resident’s closest relatives probably live within earshot of the back door. As you might imagine, many residents leave the island the first chance they get, ostensibly to find work, but also to seek refuge from so many relatives. Thus another 2,000-odd Aitutakians live 3,000 kilometers away in New Zealand and Australia.

     Of the Aitutakians who remain, most seem to like it here. It is a place to belong, and the community is close-knit and supportive, if a bit inclined to run off at the mouth with gossip . . .

. . .

 . . . The car is reliable, so long as you don’t mind giving it the odd push now and again. And it’s made of wood.

     Wooden automobiles were born of a time when import duties on car parts were less than the duty on a complete car. Enterprising locals would import a chassis and an engine and then build the body and seating out of plywood sheets. Like others of its type, this one is finished jeep-style, painted jungle green . . .

. . .

 . . . We hold the little ones on the back deck of the car and try to stop the knives and screwdrivers from sliding through the gaps in the floor when we hit the bumps. After almost ten minutes of juggling knives and children on the bouncing boards, we finally pull up by the causeway leading out to the Aitutaki Lagoon Resort. The resort sits on a small motu, a cay of sand and coral sprouting palm trees and undergrowth on the edge of Aitutaki’s famous turquoise lagoon. The white sand and grounds are carefully manicured and provide guests with that exact photograph they saw one winter’s day in a travel agent’s window.

Walking across the causeway, we stop to peer into the blue waters of the channel. Large eel-like papa with long snouts glide lazily around the wooden piles, and schools of vete, the little goatfish with frightened eyes, move back and forth across the current in constant terror of the larger carnivores that roam nearby. Leaning on the railings, we discuss their various gastronomic properties and our chances of inviting them along on our little picnic.

Colleen and Isha, now bored with the fish, have moved on, running and laughing across the wooden boards toward the resort. We grown-ups eventually follow, knives and screwdrivers clunking around in our plastic buckets. I feel distinctly out of place here as the gold- and Gucci-clad Italian businessmen wander past with secretaries in tow, along side couples in matching designer clothes. I feel like a voyeur, intruding into these people’s private fantasy, their office-hour dreams lived out here around the pool, the bar, the palm trees and white sands of the resort . . .

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