Pehe koe?? Riva riva!!!

We decide to support Celines team and go to her place in the morning of the street parade to be equipped with the necessary costumes- they must all be made out of Easter Island material to get 10 points in the parade. The friends and family are still busy making costumes for the supporters or fans of Celines team. And they find enough material to give us costumes to fit our body mass.
The family is roasting a whole oxen on the open fire to feed everyone with meat, sweet potato and banana cake.
But first we have to take a mud bath (Schlammbad) fto give our bodies the basic earth colour.

Then everyone gets painted with Rapa Nui patterns.

People ask us:

Pehe koe?
We answer: Riva riva!!

How do you feel? Good, good!

Everybody is exited- the tourists think it's great they can actually take part and not just watch.
For the Rapa Nui, it is becoming serious, they put everything in to make their team win and have their contestant win the crown for a year.
One man tells us, the old year on the island really ends with the festival and the new year begins when they- after a few weeks rest- start preparing for the next year with wood carving, dance choreography, costume making, practising for all the competitions (banana trunk race, running, canoeing, collecting shells for shell necklaces, triathlon, speer throwing...) So they dress up as special as possible and even bring stuffed turtles.

Then the parade starts and everybody gets points- the more authentic, the better. People wrap their cameras or beer cans in a banana leaf to hide the non-island materials :)

@Kerry, Maria, Carmen: fotos for you