The Chief's Palace

Imagine a palace. What are you thinking about? Marble floors, tapestries all along the walls, decorated rugs covering the floors, colorful paintings and artifacts scattered throughout?

Now, get rid of everything you were imagining. The chief's palace is actually a hut in the middle of a village. You would pass by it and think it was a random house with a farmer and his family living in it. It was a shock to all of us students when we were being led "inside." Inside was actually like a porch. It was a cement floor with lawn chairs that had the chief's name, Nana, etched into it and a covering was laced over to protect it from rain. 

The chief, the queens, and the elders were dressed like you would imagine a chief or queen to dress like. They had robes made of beautiful textiles with gold etching and the speaker (called a linguist I believe) carried the staff with a gold bird on top. They were all stunning to look at, if only they were in an actual palace rather than a hut...

When we got there he gave everyone a water bottle and then he went through some traditional welcoming  sand gift exchanges. We gave him schnapps because the ancestors enjoy schnapps; so we bring 2 bottles, one for him and one to give to the ancestors. He then led us through that short giving of gifts to the ancestors. 

He started a school, which we visited, and it was really interesting to see what a public school was like. The education level was so different from the kids at GLONA. These were smart kids! They also didn't have a lot though. The kindergarten level classes didn't have full walls, so if it rains they are cold and most of the time get wet. But the older levels are in a complete building. All the kids were so sweet though; they loved for us to hold them and they liked to touch our hair. I played volleyball with some older people...I wasn't that great...but whatever! It was still fun!

He is the chief of a pineapple farming village, so before we left he gave each of us pure pineapple juice and a pineapple! It was literally the best pineapple and pineapple juice I have ever had. Like, we need to import that juice into America because it was delicious
It was also really interesting learning all about the pineapple farm. One person can plant 2500 pineapples a day! It is insane! And the farms are absolutely gorgeous. The rows of pineapple look like they go on forever.  We got a nice tour of the whole farm. Then we "modeled" with our pineapple juice made from the farm for an advertisement (of course not a real advertisement...).