Last weekend the first cultural festival of the Gambier took place, it was a surprisingly big event (given that only about 1400 people live in the Gambier) with exhibitions and info about plants, traditional food, etc. and of course handicraft stalls during the day on Friday and Saturday. In the evenings two phantastic dance events took place, with the groups dancing complicated legends and the story of the first king of Mangareva.
Additionally there were four huge free buffets (lunch and dinner on both days) with traditional food: various dishes with the muscle flesh of the Black-Lip Pearl Oyster (with all the pearl farms here there’s certainly no lack of those), crab meat, fish, meat from the earth oven, various dishes with breadfruit, maniok and bananas, etc.
It was a great festival, the whole town of Rikitea and all cruisers that are around in the Gambier went there (about 15 boats now) and only a handful of tourists from the pensions. Everybody agreed that the ‘mana’ (spirit) was strong, so maybe events like this boost the half-forgotten Mangarevan culture and language!
