In the 1980s, Grey Lynn and Ponsonby were the heart of the Pacific Island population of Auckland before the state housing was removed and the people were all moved to South Auckland, so Western Springs Lakeside Park was the perfect place for the Pasifika Festival.
Each island had its own village at the festival where a dedicated crowd could get a taste of ‘home’, the island of their origin. Drum beats echoed through the neighbourhood in contrast to the drone of speedway, each with a slight difference to the neighbouring village. Some dances centred on swaying hips, others on slapping bodies, or hands telling stories depending upon the traditional dance style of that specific Pacific Island.
My favourite part has always been the arts and crafts – tapa cloth, black pearls, garlands of flower crowns Cook Islanders call ‘ei katu, weaving and tivaevae appliqué. That will be no surprise to readers.
Food offerings included pineapples loaded with ice cream, chop suey, coconuts and sausages galore. The highlight being pit cooked kai – Māori hangi, Fijian lovo, Samoan and Tongan umu, Hawaiian imu and Tahitian ahima’a. It is a spectacle of colour and rhythm. It used to be a sea of discarded paper plates but, more recently, there have been ‘recycle fairies’ keeping the park clean – one of the positive changes in recent years.
The festival started to outgrow the park and one year it was held at Mt Smart, but that lacked the ambience of Western Springs. The crowds got so large that the impact was detrimental. That is when there was talk of removing the iconic double-hump eel bridge. I fought hard to save it but it still needs protection as an historic structure based on Monet’s famous Japanese bridge, ‘Le pont japonais’, over the waterlily garden.
It looked like a new home was needed until someone had the brilliant idea of making it a two day event and then it fitted the park again. For several years, locals including an international tribal art dealer were excluded from participating, then another good idea of using the lower fields for a pakeha village opened up the festival to local crafts.
Sadly, there were a lot fewer stalls this year, particularly the arts. It may have had something to do with stall prices increasing from $360 to $800 for the two day festival. That may have also been the reason that the festival was a lot smaller this year. There were a lot fewer participants too.
Auckland Transport didn’t provide free buses from South Auckland and they took all the parking away from neighbouring streets and turned it into ‘cone city’, oblivious to large families piling into a car being the most economical way to get to Westmere, only to arrive to no parking. Last year they provided disabled parking along Motions Road from the zoo entrance to Great North Road. That would have had the added bonus of revenue for AT from $750 fines for parking in a disabled zone without a mobility parking permit, but alas small-minded thinking prevailed.
There were eight villages featured in this year’s Pasifika. Samoa was relegated to the lower field along with the pakeha stalls. I spoke with one artist who joked, tongue-in-cheek, that the impact of the exorbitant stall fees meant he was creating his crafts for $1 a day rather than $1 an hour. Two Fijian woman expressed dismay that the price a ‘lovo’ meal had gone from $45 last year to $75. One of them had to deny her child a spiral potato on a stick because $10 was too high to be affordable. The Mayor even commented that whitebait fritters cost $20. Obviously, stall holders were trying to recover their costs.
Maybe the organisers, CCO Tāutaki Auckland Unlimited, should have looked at cost cutting instead of using the most expensive gazebos looking like a high-end market rather the ambience that is fitting with the socio-economic status of Pacific Islanders and friendlier feel with stallholders providing their own gazebos whilst drastically reducing their costs.
The result was fewer people attending and the future of the event will suffer.
There have been some good ideas, like screening off areas of the park for birds to have space in this bird sanctuary. And good ideas that turned bad, like an inflatable as a safety measure, then having two young men in charge of it who then spent the day doing ‘donuts’ and scaring off the birds.
There were large entry arches with maps rather than handing out individual maps that would create rubbish. Hopefully there will be learning and Pasifika will be back next year.
Gael Baldock, community advocate, GaelB@xtra.co.nz
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