I woke up this morning so excited to look at myself in the mirror! I looked in the mirror expecting to be horrified at my own reflection; unfortunately, the face staring back at me was the same as before surgery save a little puffiness around my left eye. I was hoping to look like I'd been in a street fight all black and blue and maybe even a few stitches poking through my eyelid, but nope just puffy and a little redness. I guess the ice packs kept the swelling and bruising to a minimum. My follow-up appointment was at 10:20 and nurse Debbie and Dr Korbrin couldn't believe the lack swelling and ugliness. I have some soreness and I'm taking ES Tylenol about every 4 hours and keeping the eye iced and using the $71 prescription Tobrex ointment 2x daily as instructed. It will take six weeks to see the results of the surgery but after about 7 days my eye should appear "normal" but will continue to heal internally so I can't do anything to tug on the muscles or interfere with the healing process like rubbing my eye, putting in a contact lens, or even jarring exercises. After the follow-up appointment I ran a few errands and came home and took a nap. I've bee working on my Cook Island slideshow (posted) and watching TV. It's difficult to read for long periods, my eye gets dry because I'm not blinking normally. Today is Gretchen's 22nd birthday and she arrived home a few hours ago and Mary's flight is due in around 8:00 tonight. John is spending the weekend with his daughters and I'll go over tomorrow afternoon for a little party in Gretchen's honor. I guess that's about it for the day.
John learned of this from a New Zealander whom he met while skiing yesterday. The storm hit about 10 days after we left the beautiful atoll of Aitutaki and according to reports the damage to the island was devastating. This is just heartbreaking after spending time there and meeting so many wonderful people; now we're left wondering how many of these people no longer have homes (up to 90 percent of houses on Aitutaki were reported to be severely damaged) and just how the people we met such as Teking, Sonja, Jim, Jo-Ann, Lovey, Theresa, Mama, the coconut man (Dave), and the those kids we saw clutched tightly to their parents as they rode along on motorbikes. I plan to spend time on the internet trying to answer these questions and will update you when and if I find any answers. In the meantime please pray for the people of Aitutaki if you pray or simply think good thoughts if you do not.
Sunday, January 31 our final day in the Cook Islands. It was overcast and raining lightly on our final day in Aitutaki. John and I were excited to attend Sunday service at the Cook Island Christian Church because we’d heard from several people that we shouldn't miss the opportunity. Jo-Anne gave us a lift into town and dropped us at the Cook Island Christian Church. CCIC is the oldest church on the island founded in 1821. The church is undergoing a massive renovation so we attended service next door at a smaller church in a building probably used for Sunday school. Brightly colored tropical flowers decorated the makeshift pulpit and two gentlemen presided over the service. The minister was a large man dressed in a dark pinstriped suit with a light blue pastor's shirt with a white collar. How he was able to tolerate a suit and tie in the hot humid conditions is a mystery to me. Most of the women wore dresses and hats (straw) and looked very much like the women you see in Baptist churches back home. Most of the men wore slacks and short sleeve island shirts. The teen girls wore skirts and dresses (no hats) and young boys, short sleeve shirts and jeans or long denim shorts. The service began with some remarks in Maori (the majority of the service was in Maori) and then a song. Everyone stands for every song and songs are performed a cappella by the congregation. There's no choir, no music, no conductor and the hymnals have Maori lyrics but no music. The congregation manages to perform multipart harmony without music or a conductor and the singing is in a word SUBLIME! I can't even begin to describe the singing so I'll just try to describe how it made me feel. I got so caught up in the singing and the magic of the Maori voices that I felt like I was being swept up and carried away, I think the word is enraptured. I literary felt at times like I was floating, relaxed, weightless, peaceful and free. Suddenly a gust of hot island air would whip across the ocean, through the palm trees, and finally through the glass shutters and shake me back to consciousness. Until the next song of course, and then the same weightless, free, floaty feeling would grab hold of me again. Some of the selections sounded like lullabies with voices expressing care, comfort, warmth and love. Other selections were chants, rich deep male voices like warriors and elders and female voices offering an intriguing mix of the sound of mothers, teachers and angels. Finally there were selections that managed to create a choir of angels, children, parents,birds, warriors, teachers, and elders. The singing literally took my breath away and at one point I was afraid I was just going to topple right over. I felt like I was standing there completely exposed with no place to run, but I didn’t even feel like running because the songs with lyrics I could not understand surrounded me with a feeling of safety and love and I knew there was absolutely nothing to fear. When you feel your soul is bare and you can't run there's nothing to do but weep because you are free. So I wept as I listening to the voices of the angels, the teachers, the elders, the children, the birds, warriors... the voices of everyone who has ever loved me, worried about me, fought for me, encouraged me, scolded me, and comforted me.
The sermon was on Zion: The Mountain of God, Mt. Zion, upon which sits the city of Jerusalem will regain its holiness and beauty in ‘Paradise,’ as Christ reigns there over the whole earth:
So sorry "followers" that I didn't get a post up yesterday. The internet wasn't working for us here at the hotel and we just figured out that we were supposed to buy minutes from the hotel rather than from an online source. So now we're connected again and while I didn't post about yesterday's activities I did take notes so I will bring you up to date. Yesterday was a beautiful day here in the Cook Islands warm (hot/humid) and sunny. We went into town to try again to get credit for the phone cards but the woman at the telecom was out sick. We will have to try from NZ because everything is closed here on Sundays and she is out sick again today. After going into town we went over to Tauono's for the lunch we'd been anticipating with Sonja since Monday and it was well worth the wait! We had two tuna dishes one yellow fin and the other albacore(sp), fresh fruits, salad, cole slaw and lemonade and passion fruit to drink! It was an awesome lunch enjoyed on picnic tables in Sonya's yard. Sonja showed us pictures of her husband Tauono who passed away on December 30, he was a very handsome man, a cross between Anthony Quinn and Bob Marley! Sonja referred to him as "her handsome dude." I think the best food here isn't found in traditional restaurants but private residences with "open" signs in the front yard. While we were having lunch we could hear beautiful island music in the distance. It turns out it was live music coming from house across the street from Sonja's. Islands musicians practicing for a couple of upcoming gigs on the island including one at our hotel, a birthday party on Monday. So John and I sat on a picnic table by the road facing the neighbors front yard and enjoyed the live music. Speaking of front yards here in the Cook Islands. Cook Islanders often bury their loved ones in the front yard so practically every home you pass will have a grave site in the front yard some are just headstones others have shelters built over the headstones, some keep artificial flowers on the grave sites others place potted plants on the graves and we even spotted a few with laundry drying over the graves. Many Cook Islanders have chickens, pigs, and goats so in addition to the graves in the front yard it's not uncommon to see farm animals in the front yards as well. Most homes have daybeds on the front porch with beautifully colored linens although I was told yesterday that some of the beds I saw outside yesterday are probably regular "night" beds put out to dry following the cyclone a couple days ago because practically every home has a leaky roof. Later in afternoon we went to the coconut show here at the hotel. We learned an awful lot about the coconut (world's largest nut) from David (the coconut guy), we learned how to make shoes from the bark of a tree to make climbing the coconut tree possible. We learned how to crack a coconut (sharp stone, sharp stick, sharp teeth) yep, David was actually able to crack the coconut using his teeth but he stated before the demonstration "don't try this at home." The coolest thing I learned about the coconut is that every coconut has a face;-) Today is cooler and rainy but John just took a bike into town to shop for dinner so I'm going to check out the news back home on the internet and read. We had planned to go back out with Teking today for another day of snorkeling but with the rain we decided to skip it. We were also supposed to leave Aitutaki today and spend a day on Rarotonga but decided to extend our stay at Etu Moana because it's so nice here. Unfortunately, we're out of the money we paid for the hotel tonight in Rarotonga. At the end of the night I helped out the orthodox Jewish couple from Toronto by turning out their lights.
