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I reminded Faali of the coconut guitar, and true to his word, he smiled with his direct gaze
saying, “Ya, I find big dry nut for you.” With that he poked around on the deck amongst
some stuff and produced a large brown coconut. “We must cut in half,” he indicated with
the palm of his calloused, brown hand, “and get some thin plywood for top, I get little piece
from old box.”
Using some of his rusty, old tools, we cut the coconut lengthways in half and, from an old
tea chest, fashioned a thin piece of plywood top which would be glued on top of this open
shell. He then found a piece of wood in his stash that would be used to make the little neck
of this guitar and, showing me his coconut guitar as a sample, I fashioned the neck with a
cut-out joint at the nut side to attach over the ply top and side of the coconut.
He showed me the little wooden tuners that I was to make and later insert into the head
stock of this neck. The bridge was made finally of some mother of pearl shell from the la-
goon. If I recall, they were the shells of the large black pearl oysters. He had brought sacks
of these from the Marshall Islands where he was from. When I finally left Penrhyn, he gave
me as many as I wanted, saying that he had access to thousands of them. I still use pieces
of them to this day for my guitars I occasionally make.
I now had all the pieces of the coconut guitar and got ready to head back to my boat to
glue them together with epoxy. I would return another day to put the strings on and for fi-
nal tweaking by the expert. As I was leaving, Manu, her head bent over her sewing, spoke
calmly, “Tomorrow the whole family go to church; come tomorrow at nine o' clock, Jonath-
an.”
I couldn't back out of it. I was obliged to accompany my new family to church. I could not
recall the last time I had been inside one. “OK Manu, I will be here,” I said resignedly.
She smiled broadly. “That's good Jonathan.”
I found that the Cook Islanders were profoundly religious and learned that theirs were some
of the first islands in Polynesia that had had missionaries on them.
I returned to Déjà vu, still unbelievably hot and sweaty. I took a cooling dip in the lagoon
and sluiced off the salt under my solar shower bag. I glued up the pieces of the coconut
guitar, and as the epoxy set quickly, I sanded and polished it late into the night. It was really
taking shape, and all it now needed was some strings and a tune-up which I would leave to
Faali.
I arrived a few minutes before nine the next morning. All the islanders were dressed for
church in their best suits and frilly old-fashioned dresses. All the menfolk were smartly
dressed, their faces and hair wet from washing and shaving.
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