{"id":1692,"date":"2025-04-27T21:15:31","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T21:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/?p=1692"},"modified":"2025-04-27T22:52:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T22:52:01","slug":"a-birthday-party-on-hiva-oa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/27\/a-birthday-party-on-hiva-oa\/","title":{"rendered":"A Birthday Party on Hiva Oa"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"postie-post\">I was invited to the 70th birthday party for my friend Pifa\u2019s father, Robert O\u2019Connor. It was held yesterday at the O\u2019Connor homestead on the north side of Hiva Oa. Pifa picked me up at the dock and we drove very slowly to the party as we were in charge of getting the cakes there in one piece. As we arrived about 11:00, some of the men were just removing the cow that had been roasting over an open fire, in the background, since 4:00.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/?attachment_id=1693\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1693\" style=\"margin: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aegir-ran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0792.jpeg?fit=300%2C203\" alt=\"\" width=\"300px\" height=\"203px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aegir-ran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0792.jpeg?w=320&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aegir-ran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0792.jpeg?resize=300%2C203&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/a>While the men made quick work of carving up the beef, the woman decorated the cakes with chocolate and coconut. I took the opportunity to check out the \u201cO\u2019Connor Bay\u201d, with its black sand beach. The compound consisted of a dozen structures up the canyon behind me in this photo.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/?attachment_id=1694\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1694\" style=\"margin: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aegir-ran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0786.jpeg?fit=300%2C118\" alt=\"\" width=\"300px\" height=\"118px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aegir-ran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0786.jpeg?w=320&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aegir-ran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0786.jpeg?resize=300%2C118&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There were seven cakes, one for each decade, and each had a photo of Pifa\u2019s father in that decade.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/?attachment_id=1695\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1695\" style=\"margin: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aegir-ran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0743.jpeg?fit=300%2C225\" alt=\"\" width=\"300px\" height=\"225px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aegir-ran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0743.jpeg?w=320&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aegir-ran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0743.jpeg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There were many photos taken. This one is with the father and some of his twenty brothers and sisters. All that lived nearby attended, but many who like in Tahiti, France, and elsewhere could not.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/?attachment_id=1696\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1696\" style=\"margin: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aegir-ran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0761.jpeg?fit=300%2C159\" alt=\"\" width=\"300px\" height=\"159px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aegir-ran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0761.jpeg?w=320&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aegir-ran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0761.jpeg?resize=300%2C159&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The festivities were lively, with loud island music and dancing, including many spontaneous haka dances, which were different than the Maori haka I was familiar with from my time in New Zealand, particularly in the gutteral \u201dwild pig\u201d sounds.<\/p>\n<p>Besides the beef, fresh raw fish, cooked whole shrimp, and many rice dishes were served. The Mormon side of the family drank fresh juice and the Catholic side mostly beer.<\/p>\n<p>Before I left, Pifa\u2019s mother Ziella made sure I took some leftovers \u2026 including two pieces of cake. It was as a fabulous experience that I will not soon forget.<\/p>\n<p>Sent from my iPhone<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was invited to the 70th birthday party for my friend Pifa\u2019s father, Robert O\u2019Connor. It was held yesterday at the O\u2019Connor homestead on the north side of Hiva Oa. Pifa picked me up at the dock and we drove very slowly to the party as we were in charge of getting the cakes there &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/27\/a-birthday-party-on-hiva-oa\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A Birthday Party on Hiva Oa&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-sights"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1692"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1698,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1692\/revisions\/1698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegir-ran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}