A little background of how I am even involved with the festival. For as long as I can remember my parents have been involved within the Polynesian Community, whether it was performing for it, participating as a vendor, or sitting on the committee hosting whatever the event may be. Most of the time the events were festivals celebrating our Polynesian culture (Samoan flag week, Polynesian Festival, E Center event, just to name a few) and because my siblings and I have become to accustomed to having my parents involved in those activities we never realized how much work actually went into it all these years. As I've gotten older I've realized how much they've invested into these festivals. I realized that they devoted so much time away from their families, work, church, and their own personal lives to help put forth this celebration for everyone with out getting paid a dime for it. My parents have never complained, in fact, they love it. They love sharing their talents with others and enjoy seeing the joy it brings to those in attendance. As my parents have been involved with these festivals, as their children we became summoned to "make it our hobby" as well lol. Seriously, growing up we knew our summers would be busy traveling for shows and performing and helping out with festivals. Doesn't sound like much but it seriously kept us busy the entire summer. Now that I look back on it, I have am so appreciative of it all. Festivals were always something to look forward to. The long practices in preparation for it were exhausting, but fun, and I actually had fun meeting new people and learning new things about my culture. And then at the end of the night I was reminded of why I didn't like these festivals, because along with my siblings were the children of committee members picking up the trash at the end of the night. haha... Oh man, I hated that. Anyway, on to the point of me just ranting on...lol as crazy as our summers were and all the work and time my parents, as well as those involved in these festivals were we all enjoyed it, and to this day still enjoy it. I've realized that it takes so much work to put these things together and so many people forget that....or honestly don't know, so they sit back and criticize in a "hater-type-uh-way" lol...
I had shared it on my facebook but thought I'd share it here, since it's my blog and no one reads it so I can eeeexplain my life and rant all I want lol.
Of course we attended the Friendly Island Festival every day. It started Thursday, August 6th. Normally opens with the opening ceremony which is opened of course in a tongan traditional way with the kava ceremony, and is something I wish everyone could be there to watch...but they're not....sooooo....everyone will just keep abusing kava lol. ;) It carries on through out the night with entertainment, workshops, and all the normal things that take place at festivals. There's always a variety of yummy food booths and a ton of craft vendors that always have Polynesian goodies.
By the looks of the first night we could tell it'd be a smooth weekend. Friday approached and of course we were there again. Now, let me share something else. For as long as I can remember (again hah) for the Tongan festival our show normally is the 'Standby' show.....meaning, we standby to perform in case a group pulls out last minute or someone doesn't show. Because believe it or not, with it being 2015, some people just aren't reliable and it's hard for them to keep their word. (insert emoji with a gun pointed to my head haha). So we are the standby show, which we are pretty use to already. Well this year, everyone was busy at work, but me...hard to believe, I know. lol... At about 2p my aunt inboxes me and tells me 2 groups just pulled out so we need to go on. My response? Ummm...Okay. Because, really that's all I can say knowing we are the standby performers. hahaha The great thing about these festivals that I forgot to mention is that there are a ton of really great performers that are there as well, so lucky me I had my Aunty Dofi and Aunty Mia there to keep my company and play and sing for me to dance to, because of course I was the only dancer there, so it was pretty much my time to shine and have all the solos I wanted. HAHAHA (insert THUMBS DOWN emoji) Improv at it's best that day. hah. Later on through out the night the crowds began to move in and fill the entertainment area.....well, so did the clouds and the rain. We got completely rained out. It was horrible, the raindrops were bigger than gum drops, I kid you not. We were drenched by the time we got to the car. =/ Kinda sucked because we were all looking forward to some great entertainment that night from Tausala, TeHamata, Makisi, Sione Toki, and Ulise, but when Mother nature is mad that leaves us no choice but to SHUT. IT. DOWN. hahaha however through it all....it was kinda fun. Haven't played in the rain for years...
Saturday.....I had to work and by the time I got off it was time to head to South Jordan for my cute little nieces baptism. We sang there and as soon as it was done we took off to the festival. It was packed by the time we got there. As we were unloading the kids we passed by this little group of older Tongan ladies, one of them I actually knew, we are good facebook friends haha, that means we like and comment on each others posts. haha I had passed behind them and I had no idea what they were even talking about but I figured, I'm not going to disrupt them to say hi to her because they seemed to have been in a very intense conversation plus we were already running late. As we approached the park area, my husband catches up to me and the kids and is laughing and says, "dang they're talking hecka smack about the festival and why they don't come to things like this....and what was wrong with it...." We both laughed and made our way down to the show. As the night went on and I sat back watching everyone enjoying themselves I thought about those ladies and how silly they were to sit there and have all these things to say about it. I'm sure the little bit that Shawn did over hear them saying was probably the nice part of their convo. lol... I thought I would be super offended by it because I knew the committee, I knew them all personally, I grew up with them and we are all pretty much apart of each others lives, so to hear these ladies say negative things, I thought would really piss me off.....but it didn't. In fact I was enjoying myself, my kids were, my family and many friends were too. I realized at that moment that you really can NOT please anyone. I've never been a people pleaser but I like to make things right with people. That night I realized, I don't need to 'make nice' with anyone, unless of course I did something horrible to them then of course I would make nice haha... But I realized that no matter what you do you can never please everyone. Someone will always have something bad to say, and that's just the way life is.
Love more and be happy......Ofa Atu....
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