Cook Islanders at Pako Festa

from w
Today was a celebration of cultural diversity in Geelong with the annual Pako Festa in Pakington Street Geelong. We are proud of our city being made up of diverse groups who get along harmoniously. Pako has been going on for 28 years now and our family have been part of it for a long time also. I posted pictures of the Fijian dance and song items etc. on the babasiga blog, but here will post a few pictures of a dance workshop by a group from the Cook Islands where the dancers taught some of the locals how to swing their hips in the Cook Island way. Of course lots more was happening at Pako with 100,000 people in the street festival sampling food, singing, dancing, with clowns and a whole variety of entertainment. While waiting for the Fijian item on the Park stage, I sat on a seat (because my back is still a bit sor) and yarned with a man who migrated from Croatia and a woman who came from Iran. Pako Festa is a day where you lose inhibitions and talk to everybody!

Today has been a day of mixed emotions for me as this morning I attended the funeral of a dear friend, an elderly man from our church, and there have been many funerals lately. It is very sad as we will miss our friend Geoff. Even though they say that 'Heaven is like a transfigured earth' and I think nothing could be more beautiful than the landscape of driving from Cobden to Port Campbell, a place that I often mentioned to Geoff and Laurel Port. Isa, our days are contradictions, light and heavy moment by moment.