[sound of waves] [Music] GEMMA: Amelia left me for an island.

I never knew Pukapuka existed,   nor could I place it on the world map.

I thought I would be with Amelia forever.

I could never imagine that this remote  Atoll in the Pacific will change my life.

[Music] AMELIA : It is a strange thing memory.

I didn't even believe that Pukapuka  was real, more like a dream place.

I was five years old when we  left.

It had been 30 years.

[Music] AMELIA:   And then one day I picked up Johnny Frisbie’s  book, Ms Ulysses from Puka-Puka and literally   within three pages, I knew I had to go back to  this place of my childhood that she wrote about.

It wasn't a decision… it wasn't  a choice… it was a calling.

[Music] JOHNNY: Many of my dreams  are of Pukapuka, you know…   I guess because just the  memories are there all the time.

[Music] JOHNNY: Where I am going to go when I  die is Pukapuka … that's where I'm going.

[Music] GEMMA:   I never thought I would be making this film.

But I had to embark on this journey to  understand the world she had left me for.

[Music] GEMMA:   Amelia and I met more than a decade ago  in Hawaiʻi, when I was working in another   documentary film and she was getting her  doctorate degree in psychology.

From the   very first conversations we had she told me  about her childhood memories in Pukapuka.

I was living with her that Sunday afternoon when   she picked up Johnny Frisbie’s book.

She came to the living room and said:   “Pukapuka is real.

I need to find a way  to get back.” I was so excited for her.

We were in a committed relationship when  Amelia went to Pukapuka for the first time.

By then, we had been wanting to start a  family, I was older so I would try first.

[Music] GEMMA: But when she came back from  Pukapuka everything was different.

She told me she could no longer integrate  me into her life.

I was so heartbroken.

[Speaking in Pukapukan] AMELIA: mmm   so poetic when you say it.

[Speaking in Pukapukan] JOHNNY:  I was afraid of ghosts.

[Speaking in Pukapukan] JOHNNY: That is my father and me.

AMELIA: This one?

JOHNNY: Mm-hmm.

AMELIA: Oh, is he teaching  you how to how to write?

JOHNNY: Yeah!

AMELIA: Oh, wow.

You can tell he had  that spirit of adventure.

And then   you said on the Frisbie’s spirit of  adventure riddled with fearlessness.

JOHNNY: Yeah, that's right.

AMELIA: That was your line.

That's your book!

JOHNNY: Yeah.

AMELIA: Wow it was in the Chicago Sunday Tribune  front page!

And it looks just like you Johnny.

JOHNNY: It does in a way, I  don’t know how they did it.

[Music] ROB: Hello.

NANCY: Hello here we are in Paradise Island.

ROB: Amelia will speak to you in a  little while and she's out playing.

NANCY: There's really nothing I need.

There's nothing we need.

There's nothing   Amelia needs.

There's nothing Rob needs nor wants.

ROB: Well, I want to be finished with my research   but that’s all (LAUGH).

There's nothing  really in material objects that we need.

NANCY: Yesterday another boat  came and brought us milk biscuits.

[AMELIA speaking in Pukapukan] NANCY: And her M&M’s or candy.

AMELIA: My money moneys.

NANCY: She doesn't know what money  money is.

It means candy in English.

AMELIA: You say that pebbles.

NANCY: Pebbles.

But she doesn’t  what pebbles are…they are like M&Ms   … that's what they call them in America- M&Ms.

[Natural sound] AMELIA: We came to Pukapuka when I was one,  but we left when I was four and a half.

My memories of Pukapuka are very visceral, very  physical.

I remember the sound of the waves   crashing on the reef.

The taste of the roasted  bird.

And I remember our house on the beach.

It's like it hits my body first, and then I try  to make sense of what the memory is.

There's,   just a feeling of trauma and survival  and life on the edge and playing and   having a great time too but an intense daily life.

[Music] AMELIA:   Later in my life I began thinking about the  need to face that trauma or somehow heal it.

So,   I went to see a psychologist.

She said  to me, you know what is it that you   panic about?

And I said I panic about a  cold hungry and on the verge of death… …and she just looked at me and said  that was not a panic that's a memory.

[Music] AMELIA:   It just hit me that I needed to go back to  Pukapuka.

And I just kind of exploded my whole   life.

In order to come back I left everything  I had known and made this epic journey.

[Music] GEMMA: Once I learned that Johnny  Frisbie was living in Hawaiʻi,   I knew I needed to meet her.

When she told me  about her life it sounded so epic.

And I thought   maybe we can make a film together.

Johnny  had not been back to Pukapuka in 20 years.

Her brother Charles was still living there  and she wanted to see him one last time.

So,   she agreed to go with all of us.

I thought then that this journey will  be my way to see Pukapuka with my own   eyes.

Keep my relationship with  Amelia, maybe even repair it,   understand why she had taken such  a turn and come to terms with it.

[Music] AMELIA:   My father's profession as anthropologist.

When he came to Pukapuka with my mother and   myself as a one-year-old, there really hadn't  been much westernization in the late 1970s.

As a child in Pukapuka you  have a hundred playmates,   you run free with your playmates.

I mean forget  your parents, they're not that important.

I remember that feeling of freedom,   of running around going where I pleased  when I pleased how I pleased.

I know from   my mom that I was gone from dawn to dusk  and I remember that feeling of wandering.

NANCY: I’d say Amelia's upbringing was  very unconventional.

She chose not to   speak English.

She chose to speak Pukapukan and  she was much better at Pukapukan than English.

Amelia would walk around with the other kids  and after she was used to it her feet were   really tough.

You don't have slippers  there and it's coral, rough coral,   but everybody walked around without shoes and  they were just fine.

And their feet were tough.

[Music] AMELIA:   I was two.

A boat came.

It was going to Samoa  and passengers were invited and then the boat was   gonna come back.

My mom was like “hey let's go.”  It was only gonna be gone for two weeks and they   were gonna come back.

And so, they start gathering  their stuff and my mom said: “oh we'll just leave   Amelia with the neighbor.” That's what Pukapukans  do, they just leave children with other families.

I think they thought they were only gonna  be gone for a week or two.

I think it ended   up being about three weeks.

I just remember this  feeling of being alone, scared, cold, and hungry.

And later my parents said that the woman,  the neighbor who took care of me had told   me that my parents had died.

So, I never  thought they were gonna come back.

But   my mom says that when I came back, I wouldn't  speak to them.

It was like I had seen ghosts,   and my dad said my eyes looked totally  hollow.

I didn't look like I was all   there and they said it took like at  least a month for me to speak to them.

[Music] JOHNNY:   My name is Florence Nagtakorua Frisbie, but  I'm known as Johnny.

I was born in Papeete,   Tahiti 1932.

My mother she was a Pukapukan.

While  my mother was in labor my father was celebrating   with friends, they were all captains of schooners.

And they were drinking a lot of whiskey and that's   how I got my nickname Johnny, Whiskey Johnny.

[Drums] DANGER ISLAND ANCHOR: Lovely Whisky Johnny  Frisbie.

Most famous of all hula dancers,   born 2,300 miles south of here on a coral  atoll.

Her father adventurous Robert Dean   Frisbee an American novelist  her mother a Polynesian Beauty.

JOHNNY: My father at the time he  was the only white man… so growing   up was slightly different for us  than the rest of the Pukapukan   children because of the white  man father and Polynesian mother.

My father came to the South Seas as is what's  known in those days … very romantic name for   these parts of the world in the early 1920s.

He  ended up on Pukapuka because he was looking for   a place that was isolated from civilization,  somewhere quiet, somewhere peaceful, somewhere   natural.

And he found Pukapuka.

He applied for  a job as a trader looking after a small store.

Got the job and sailed there and liked  it and found what he was looking for   paradise.

And he began to write.

He wrote six  books about Pukapuka, Tahiti, and two novels.

My parents umm, umm, had five children.

Two boys and three girls … yes,   Charlie the oldest, me, then  Jakey and Elaine and Nga.

The eldest of our family Charles,  Charles Mataa Frisbee was born on   Rarotonga at the time when my father  was away.

And my mother was 17 years   old and being cared for by a great  aunt Pikipiki.

Her name is Pikipiki.

In Pukapuka you do, you give away your children,  your first born, first second third whoever is   waiting to have a child from you as a gift.

And so, Charles was born and Pikipiki said:   “well he's mine.” And my mother I  don't know she may have been in shock,   maybe torn between the two cultures, not  knowing my father would just not agree to this,   but she said “okay.” To her it's fine you know?

We do this, you know?

And that's all Pikipiki   took took Charles as her own and when  my father returned, he had no son.

She took Charlie in and hidden the  bush until my father left the island.

[Drumming] CHARLES: Ah Johnny!

JOHNNY:   It has been so long!

So long.

CHARLES: Yeah.

Been thirty years.

JOHNNY: Maybe yeah oh!

[Natural Sound] JOHNNY: Oh, look at the rundown house yeah there  Raro.

Our Papa, our father is buried over there.

CHARLES: Oh yeah, that’s right!

[Sound of singing] JOHNNY: Come come come…yeah   papa.

In so many ways you know he wanted me to be an  island girl, but for some reason he sensed that   I could also learn to write.

When we lived on  Pukapuka, we had a house and there was a room   which is rare.

He had a little library, a desk  for his typewriter and umm carbon paper and a   ream of white paper and he used to allow me to  enter that room which was a no-no otherwise,   cause you know there was all these precious things  that are not available anywhere else on Pukapuka.

I thought his library all the books  were Bibles you know because there   were no books on the island at the time.

If  there were, kids didn't know.

I remember him   asking me once to get the dictionaries so I  said to him “oh the Bible” like correcting   him and said no the dictionary.

So,  I brought the dictionary.

(LAUGH) Watching him type type type… popopopopo….

turn  the character, popopopopo… was fascinating.

And   then then he takes a page out and there's there's  writing on this page.

There is actually writing.

When we moved to Samoa, he asked me to keep  a diary of our life up to that point.

That   was in 1945.

And it was quite scary doing it  because for the first time I had to something   that makes sense, and write it down on paper.

This is a European thing, it is not my thing,   but he wanted me to go through that  exercise of putting a story together.

He told me about chapters and then  eventually the diaries evolved into   “Miss Ulysses from Pukapuka.” And  it was published before he died.

CHARLES: Cold breeze, right?

Plenty breeze.

JOHNNY: You know Papa was an atheist?

And he wasn’t really happy with the way   Christianity was introduced to  our people in the early 1800’s.

CHARLES: Yes, yes, yes.

JOHNNY: And he was very  angry about that, very upset.

JOHNNY: Ah, you didn’t know Papa.

Did you?

CHARLES: Eh?

JOHNNY: You didn't know him very long?

Papa.

CHARLES: Yeah well.

JOHNNY: I can remember when you first met him?

Charles always had horses, loved horses.

He lived a great life in New Zealand he   was successful jockey.

He did work hard he  married a Maori woman and had six beautiful   children.

He learned many skills.

He's a real  survivor.

But there is that element of loss   that he carries with him.

He's never known  my mother; no he’s never known my mother.

[Music] CHARLES: I was the very favorite son of theirs  because first Cook Islander to ride horses,   and even if I was riding a donkey that  he would put their money on.

(LAUGH) Every time Mama Pikipiki heard  about Frisbie coming to our place,   she takes me to the taro patch and hide me  there.

That's how my mama people he loves   me so much and I love her too.

And I think  I prefer to stay with her instead of having   to go with my father to see the world  and go to school to learn and prosper.

JOHNNY: He loved you.

CHARLES: Yeah.

Thank you, Johnny.

JOHNNY: He was very proud of you.

CHARLES: Thank you.

I love you too.

JOHNNY: Oh, these are lilies.

CHARLES: These are lilies.

Yeah!

But these  ones out of the weeds see?

Tiririririri.

[Natural sound] NANCY:   All right we aren't gonna be returning until  probably May 1981.

The reason being is that   I'm pregnant now again, unplanned but what are  you going to do?

And we're not, I'm not allowed   to travel on by ship anyway after six months  pregnant ,so we'll just have to stay here.

AMELIA: She ate some fish that was bad, maybe  like a day-old fish.

They also didn't have   refrigeration, and it made her have contractions  early and so she went into labor prematurely.

And because Pukapuka didn't have any equipment  really at all, there were no incubators nothing,   my mom said it was alive at the  time and then it died shortly after.

And they put it in a bucket.

And I was  four and a half when this happened, so,   I have some vague memories of it.

I remember  a lot of blood and crying.

I have an image   of children spying and not being able to get  rid of them.

A real feeling of helplessness.

She just told my dad she was ready to go  so shortly after that we left so we left.

[Music] JOHNNY:   And when my mother passed away, I was  six and a half I think close to 7,   yeah.

Then my mother's family wanted  their share of my mother's children,   two of the children, which would have meant  me and my brother.

And there was a point when   they did come to, to our house, and ask and  said it's time you give us two children.

And   they were entitled to two children and that  shook my father.

He decided them to leave.

So, the first boat that came to Pukapuka which  was awful awful awful boat we said take us to   the nearest island.

We got off the boat and  we were on an uninhabited island, Suwarrow.

We learned the art of survival by having to  fish and having to learn to grab lobsters and   cooking it ourselves and catching tropic birds.

It was just amazing.

And it was all fun!!

(LAUGH) We knew the hurricane was coming, heading straight  for Suwarrow.

We gathered in our house on the   highest point of the island, which could have  been about 20 feet about sea level.

And we were   all in there in the dark.

The wind blowing and  you can hear trees, you know cracking, breaking   and then suddenly a huge wave just crashed into  the building, and the water carried all of us to   one side of the house and my father said: “get  out of here get out of here, just followed me.” My father he had prepared a dinghy.

He  tied it to a tree.

We got into the dinghy,  another wave came and just turned the dinghy over.

We knew what to do, you know we had been on tipped   canoes before.

When it tips over you know you  just dive down deeper and come out and don't come   out there.

So, we all did we were popping air,  coconuts passing and debris passing through us.

There was so much lightening you could actually  see everything.

And so, my father would say just   crawl crawl.

Crawl to the tamanu tree and we  crawl to the tree and he helped us climb up to   the tree.

He tied us to the trees.

We survived aha…and those three   trees were the only tamanu trees that  withstood the force of the hurricane.

We're not scared you know?

We didn't feel threatened.

I   sometimes wonder if it's because of  my father because he was so strong.

GEMMA: Hey Croc?

Hey, I'm Gemma  Cubero, I am the filmmaker.

CROC: I can go across her panels  that she has in the calves GEMMA: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

CROC: Jellyfish for protection.

GEMMA: Yeah, that’s beautiful.

CROC: The patterns are reflection you know,  of many aspects of living in isolated islands,   Polynesian life.

They’ve passed  down through generations and of   course they adapt to different living and  different meanings, you know?

They mutate,   they grow.

But the foundation of the designs  are cultural patterns they run very deep.

[Tattoo natural sound] AMELIA:   Thanks guys.

[Tattoo natural sound] CROC: Well done woman.

Love you!

That’s good!

[Natural sound] PUKAPUKAN WOMAN:   I'm proud.

You know, when I saw  it, the paper.

That was a couple   of months ago I kept it and I  am taking it to New Zealand.

JOHNNY: Yeah, this is for the Pukapukans when  they come to to Rarotonga.

They stay here for   a while to get used to the change, before  they move on to New Zealand, yeah.

And it's   a very good place for for that to happen right  here, because there's so many helpers, so many,   the old people giving them you know, some good  advice.

Even though they have never been to New   Zealand they give them comfort, emotional  comfort.

It is a good place.

It’s a haven.

[Natural sound] JOHNNY:   So, when my father died, I moved in with with  the manager of the airstrip in Rarotonga.

Yeah,   I moved here to do domestic work  for them.

We were all separated.

Then I met up with the Engles, Peter  Engle was friends of my fathers and   he was a movie actor by the name of  Peter Whitney, he came from Hawaiʻi.

And they were sailing the Pacific  and I said I would only come if I   am a part of the family not a  servant.

Because at the time,   all the girls my age in the Cook Islands were  being sent to New Zealand to work as a maid.

Once I moved there, I was determined  to bring my sisters to Hawaiʻi.

And it was a challenge to meet so many haoles,   you know so many Europeans.

At the time I  still was not comfortable speaking in English.

So, in 1950 I was 18.

But I'd started  school in eighteen because of not having the  formal education to back me up.

But  I did good.

I really did good.

I   received all A's which then allowed me a  scholarship to Punahou, a private school.

I had difficulties with the discipline, was  so different from how our father taught us.

It didn't prepare us.

I almost gave  up but no I stayed on then managed   to graduate not with high marks but I graduated.

[Drumming] JOHNNY: I danced on Sunday every luau at  a nightclub in Waikīkī.

Now and again my   sisters would join me and eventually my sister  took over my place.

And she built this most   fantastic show called the Pukapuka Otea.

She brought dancers from other islands   and trained them.

And she had drummers and  guitar players, ʻukulele players, singers.

And that went on for years and years at the at the  Queen’s Surf, which no longer exists in Waikīkī.

[Pukapukan Drumming Music] GEMMA: Johnny!!

Johnny!!!

How was that?

We have been waiting in the capital of the  Cook Islands, Rarotonga for transport to get   to Pukapuka.

The only way to reach the atoll is  by chartering a very expensive private plane or   to go by sea, which takes six days.

There  are no hotels or supermarkets on Pukapuka,   so we're now getting all the food we need  for the weeks we will be filming.

Awesome!

AMELIA: Country soft red, what is that?

SUPERMARKET PERSON: That's the wine.

The red wine.

AMELIA: Oh yeah one of those.

Okay,  umm, onions, 20 kilo bag of onions.

JOHNNY: The island is going to sink.

(LAUGHING) [Natural sound] [SINGING IN   PUKAPUKAN WITH PUKAPUKAN ʻUKULELE] [Music] CARLA:   Mama what was with us such a short time.

All that  I can remember of her are those things that cannot   be forgotten.

She had the purest kindest and  most beautiful heart of any woman I have known.

No one could love a person more than I did my ma.

This book is The Frisbees of the South Seas, my  mother's autobiography, her second book.

I feel   very much the same about my mother.

She is pure  she's kind, ahh gentle all those wonderful things.

When I was young, when I saw my mother  crying one night and I asked my father   what's what's the matter?

He said oh she's  crying because she misses her mother.

Pukapuka is her mother.

It  was where her mother was born,   where her mother died, and where she lived.

Those years that she had with her mother,   they all happened at that place that is why she  has yearned for it as she yearned for her mother.

AMELIA: It’s that little,  little, little, little, little.

JOHNNY: Yeah!

AMELIA: Right there.

JOHNNY: Oh, there it is!!!

[Music] GEMMA:   Johnny always told me that if we  were going to go on this trip,   it would be a spiritual journey.

I wonder what I will find.

[Music] CHARLES: Hello brother!

PUKAPUKAN MAN: Hello, Johnny.

Welcome home!

AMELIA: You look good!

MAMA LUI: Am I?

Getting old and older?

AMELIA: No.

JOHNNY: It’s good to be back.

It’s really good to  be back.

I just feel like I am going to explode!

[Johnny speaks Pukapukan] JOHNNY: If I keep going I may cry so, yeah.

[Music- PUKAPUKAN SINGING] AMELIA:   We left Pukapuka when I was four and a half years  old and got to Hawaiʻi and I had never seen a   toilet before.

I had never seen streetlights.

I had never seen a car.

I had never seen a dog.

My mom likes to tell a story of how I saw  all the street lamps and I said many moons.

I can still remember the first time I  saw toilet and flushed the toilet and   being terrified that the water would suck me in.

NANCY: Transitioning into Hawaiʻi and  the pace of life, even though Hawaiʻi   is a slower pace than the mainland, was still  really fast for us.

In Hawaiʻi I had to spend   a lot more time with Amelia because before  she would be taken care of by everybody,   and now I had to watch her and make sure  she was okay and not wandering around.

And in America you’re supposed to know  where your child is at every moment.

I left Amelia with my parents at a picnic  grounds and we went walked off somewhere   and I was supposed to say “I am going  over here for an hour will you watch the   children?” And I didn't do that so this  was a faux pas.

I got scoldings.

It was   different to get used to the expectations  here and child rearing is very different.

AMELIA: In kindergarten you got to match words  and pictures, so I could read the word dog for   example, D-O-G, but I'd never seen a dog so  I couldn't match the word with the picture.

So they thought I was really slow, and  put me in special education for a while.

You know, all my memories up to five are  of Pukapuka and we didn't have any mirrors.

Obviously, I looked at my parents and they weren't  brown, but I really think that I thought racially   I was brown.

So when we got to Hawaiʻi I suddenly  became white or haole and I was confused by it   because I really saw myself as brown or as  Polynesian.

And I really, really felt lonely.

[Music] AMELIA:   I never felt like I belonged.

I ended up going to  Punahou, which is a fancy private prep school in   seventh grade.

Nancy who is one of the popular  girls saying to me Amelia you're like an alien   that just landed from outer space.

And that's  something that stayed with me my whole life.

[Natural sound] AMELIA:   This is the same house and same spot.

Every Pukapukan I would say has a dream of going  on the outside getting money coming back and   rebuilding the family house.

So, it became a dream  of mine after a while to rebuild the family house.

[Natural sound] AMELIA: Me rebuilding the house  was about recapturing the past.

Rebuilding the house was about trying  to recapture my memories.

I think there   was a part of me that thought if I saw it  and I sat here something would come back.

Rebuilding the family house was  about belonging.

You know?

That   if I had a house here I belonged to the land.

[Music] AMELIA WITH PUKAPUKAN GIRL:   Hey I have your presents from Hawaiʻi.

[AMELIA SPEAKS IN PUKAPUKAN] AMELIA:   Okay.

It's a gift-giving culture  so presents are really important.

Presents are more important than money.

And  it’s about what you give not what you have.

WHOOHOO!

WOMAN GETTING GIFT:   Thank you very much.

For Mama Peka.

[Singing in Pukapukan] AMELIA: Wooooo!

Look at that!

Wow!

Viti Ongo.

MAMA LUI IN PUKAPUKAN: Viti Ongo!

AMELIA: Palu Palu MAMA LUI: Praise the lord!

AMELIA: Praise the lord!

MAMA LUI: Praise the Lord.

Halleluiah!

AMELIA: Halleluiah!

[Singing in Pukapukan] AMELIA: You know, women in Pukapuka are really  really strong.

The taro patch is passed from   one woman to another all the way back to the  ancestors.

We have a really strong sense of owning   part of the land and half the food and there's a  division of labor but it's also really empowering   to, I find to know what my role is.

I don't have  to do everything I just have to go to the uwi.

[Natural sound] JOHNNY: This is an abnormal coconut you know?

It didn't  turn round oval, and as as little girls we   adopted these as dolls.

So, these were our dolls.

We put little coconut leaf skirt around them,   we put them to bed and sometime we'll take them  for swim and just throw them in the lagoon,   and they float around.

I will swim and rescue  them before they disappear.

But they were dolls.

And this other one you bend it like this.

Now I'm going to go to the dance tonight.

[Drumming] CARL KINIPOPO:   Wow.

Johnny if you still have your  breath could we ask you a few questions?

JOHNNY: Yes.

CARL KINIPOPO: Where were you born?

JOHNNY: Papeete Tahiti but I  didn't live there all the time.

CARL KINIPOPO: No, I thought  not.

You speak English very well JOHNNY: Oh (LAUGHER) CARL KINIPOPO: Where elsewhere else have  you well lived Johnny besides Papeete?

JOHNNY: On the atoll of Pukapuka mm-hmm which  is only a mile long and half a mile wide.

CARL KINIPOPO: Well, what did you find to do in  that atoll that was enough to write a book about?

JOHNNY: Oh, play hide and seek, fish… CARL KINIPOPO: Hide and go seek eh?

Well that that sounds like interesting… CARLA: My father was very very popular and  very well-known, and she was well known in   her own right.

At that point because she had  her and dance show in Waikīkī with her sisters.

She met my father who had been going out with  her sister, Ngatokorua, but that broke up and   so my mother took over.

Ngatokorua went to marry  Batman, Adam West.

My mother married my father.

And he is charismatic very charismatic,  funny.

I think she saw some elements of   her father there too and he and  loved her for her Pacific nature.

JOHNNY: I had four children.

They all grew up in New Zealand,   went to school in New Zealand.

Because we wanted  to take them away from the American influence.

I couldn't think of anything else more meaningful,   though I wasn't vegetating.

I wasn't giving up  everything else and you know music dancing the   things that interested me to help me develop  into a fuller woman, a fuller of human being.

But my children and they alone where  my total focus total focus in life so.

CARLA: She was tireless in her giving  to the community.

Supporting people,   supporting people from the Pacific who came to  New Zealand and found a very different place.

She was eventually awarded a Queen's  Service medal for her community work.

She was on a television program for ten  years called “Beauty and the Beast.” [Theme music] HOST: I'm 20.

My boyfriend's 21 we've been  together for nearly a year.

He's soon to   go away for two months and I'm afraid he  might play around with some other girl?

WOMAN IN THE SHOW: Now if you really love this  guy then you can trust him and he can trust you.

HOST: Johnny?

JOHNNY: I think it's very well to trust  someone, but it's still difficult to say   that you know?

“I trust that person no matter  what.

It's still in the back of your mind,   but I suggest since you've already conjured  up this you know this image of your boyfriend   away having a great time you should  stick to that.

And you think of how   you know think what a wonderful time he's  gonna have playing around in your at home   staying you know?

Sitting there by yourself,  and just enjoy yourself by these thoughts.

CARLA: My mother's advice was always very  different.

Basically, she's saying to people   just chill out a bit you know it's okay  you know you don't need to angst so much.

[Music] AMELIA:   How come there aren’t as many fish here in  Pukapuka?

There used to be more in the old days?

IOTAMA: Yeah.

Before we would go fishing, it  takes only a few hours to get fish.

Not now.

AMELIA: How come?

IOTAMA: Maybe, climate change.

(SPEAKING IN PUKAPUKAN) JOHNNY: The people of Pukapuka now are  realizing something strange is happening,   because the land is getting smaller.

Many of them are leaving moving to   New Zealand.

Many of the old people refuse  to move, they don't want to move.

They're   going to be there in and disappear with  the land as far as they're concerned.

GEMMA: Now I see how islands are  not isolated but connected by water.

I’m so moved by the deep sense of order  here.

How there is always time to work hard,   to play hard and pray.

Time is circular here.

[PUKAPUKAN MUSIC] JOHNNY: There is a lot of freedom.

Children have lots of freedom.

And then we were left to figure it out  and not be so closely guarded and watched.

[PUKAPUKAN SINGING] You grow up being a survivor, fully  respecting nature the wave, the seas.

Children the rules are of  the land.

Life just flowed.

Look at this one here.

Look at that.

I  just went to the beach and walked and   swam and fed some little fishes  with coconut.

Chewed up coconuts.

Took my clothes off, shh.

There was nobody around (LAUGH) CHARLES: This is what you  call it husking coconuts.

JOHNNY: It took me back to my childhood and it  was nice.

You know, you don't often have the   opportunity in life to reach that state where  you can actually pretend you're a kid again.

CHARLES: That’s my three daughters.

That’s my son over there with his wife.

JOHNNY: Who’s that?

CHARLES: Oh Paty and I. Pi  Pi Pi.

That's her daughter JOHNNY: That’s all Pukapukan.

Oh no this is Papua New Guinea?

CHARLES: That’s Papua New Guinea yeah.

JOHNNY: Whoa.

CHARLES: That's where I was  in Papua New Guinea, Panguna.

JOHNNY: Oh!

CHARLES: Yeah, I was in Panguna, Papua  New Guinea, welding, Pola making…  Yeah!

We built all those ships.

JOHNNY: Oh, put it together, glue it together?

CHARLES: No, we didn’t glue it together… [LAUGHER} With chewing gum, yeah…[LAUGHER} CHARLES: There's my girlfriend see!

JOHNNY: Another one, which one?

CHARLES: I was very popular.

JOHNNY: Is that number 50?

CHARLES: How many times have  I been married?

Well only two.

JOHNNY: That you can remember…[LAUGHTER] CHARLES: That I can remember.

JOHNNY: Yeah, only two.

AMELIA: Wait, Papa Charlie.

Hold on a second,   I want to smell your breath.

Oh  Papa Charlie, are you ok to drive?

CHARLES: Yes of course.

[Natural sound] CHARLES:   In Pukapuka, everyone is kind to you.

You know,  you can go to any house you might receive some   food or something like that or someone bring you  a coconut.

But not in Rarotonga.

In Rarotonga,   there's too many tourists I suppose.

You  have to buy it.

You have to have enough   money.

But over here in Pukapuka you just help  yourself.

Uto I know that.

No one will tell you,   eh leave that uto, that’s mine.

You can live good life in Pukapuka.

JOHNNY: He came here and he saw that he could  be a Pukapukan, and by being a Pukapukan then   he is his mother’s son.

It is his way of finding  his identity and he’s been here for a long time.

We are nothing else but Pukapukans.

[Music] AMELIA: I've been kind of desperately wanting  a kid for about 10 years now.

And being with   Gemma we tried a few times with her.

It  didn't happen.

For some reason I really got   stubborn about wanting to connect somehow  to the place by having a Pukapukan child.

So, I thought about adopting a  Pukapukan child and all sorts of things.

Finally decided to try and got pregnant  with a Pukapukan.

I did and then I had a   miscarriage.

That was really painful.

It felt like a really big loss.

[Bells & singing in Pukapukan] AMELIA: The first time I came to Pukapuka I felt  like I had to abandon one to have the other.

I   didn’t know how to be both with women and with  men, how to be both white, Jewish and Pukapukan.

It felt like almost nothing on the outside was  relevant anymore in Pukapuka.

Not my doctorate.

Not my relationships.

And there was a feeling  of somehow I couldn't integrate who I'd been.

When I came back to Pukapuka, everyone was telling  me this is where your baby brother was buried,   right here.

And it just made me feel… yeah,  I have a connection to this land.

People were   saying you know hey Amelia are you gonna  be buried here?

Are you gonna be buried in   Pukapuka?

And I think they were asking me are you  for real?

Like, are you committed to this place?

You would say how many children have  you had?

And they would say six,   two died.

Had a strong sense  of place born and laid to rest.

[Natural sound] Ohhhhh!

AMELIA: There we go who wants a glass?

CHARLES: Where is the glass?

[Sound of glass breaking] GEMMA: While shooting Papa Charlie’s birthday,  my left leg collapsed.

I had to stop filming.

[Rain] GEMMA: I laid on a mattress not realizing  that I would not be able to walk for weeks.

When this happened the community completely  mobilize to help me.

For months, Moko,   the taunga, or the healer, came  every single day to work on my body.

And he said to me: “you do your jobs and I do my  job.” He never asked for anything in returned.

I know now that my injury was more than physical,   and that it was through Moko I was able to  release the emotional pain I was holding.

This was a transformative experience for me.

[Music] JOHNNY: I was on Rarotonga in 1994.

The Pukapukan people on Rarotonga of   the Democratic Party approached me and asked  me if I would stand for the seat of Pukapuka.

But I thought okay if they want me to I'll  go, and maybe I might make a difference.

[MAMA LAKELA IN PUKAPUKAN]: (JOHNNY LAUGHS) JOHNNY:   Soon after I arrived, I learned the political  party system had somehow just damaged the   community.

Families were split.

You know, one  group join the Cook Islands party the other that   Democratic party and they just weren't speaking  to each other.

It was awful, awful, awful.

But at the same time, I was doing really well.

The  opposition party sent for the prime minister of   the Cook Islands to come to Pukapuka right away,  and he brought cartons of slippers to give away   and rum to buy votes.

Once he distributed all  these gifts I knew then I didn't have a chance.

[MAMA LAKELA & JOHNNY SPEAKING IN PUKAPUKAN]: JOHNNY:   Pukapukans are very very political  people but in a different way.

The villages compete with each other in  sports and fishing in chanting in composing.

It has a lot of humor in it.

They make  fun of each other and people laugh.

[Cheering] [Singing in Pukapukan] AMELIA:   If we don’t have children here, they call you  anacole, someone useless or not worth being   fed.

So, everyone was teasing me and calling  me useless basically for not having kids.

To be given a child would be truly  being accepted as being part of the   family.

I mean you only give children  away as a special gift to people.

For me to have a Pukapukan child it  would mean a deeper sense of belonging.

PILA: I've got seven.

And I've got  four boys and three girls.

And I   had a miscarriage you know in 2009.

And I teach grade one and they are   five and six years old children.

[Drumming] PILA: I love Amelia.

She’s my sister.

She's also a member of my family too.

My third  child was a baby girl.

She was adopted by my   auntie Tamo and my uncle Nick.

I gave it to  them because they you don't have any children.

Because it’s something that I gave  them from my heart.

I trust them   and I believe them they will they  are going to look after her well.

[PUKAPUKAN CHILDREN SIGNING PUKAPUKAN ANTHEM] PILA:   When I look at Amelia, it, I fell for her.

I wanted to give one of my child to to  Amelia.

I talked about it too with my partner,   we had a discussion about it.

Then it  was again again it was hard.

It was   hard it was very hard for me to make my decision.

JAMES KATOA: Rib but how many ribs are  there?

Yes, why don’t you repeat.

Ribs.

Yes,   ribs okay.

Tala come you had  a good try.

Your turn.

Next.

AMELIA: Atela.

Kneecap.

Kneecap.

I am volunteering to teach English  at the school and I had a blast.

[Speaking in Pukapukan] This is Dental Practitioner.

4 o clock,  eh?

Because her grandfather used to work   in New Zealand from 4, 4 in the  morning until 4 in the afternoon,   no?

So that is why she is name  4 o’clock.

This is Teatua.

I started writing articles  for the Cook Islands News.

I just felt like I really had a space and a  sense of purpose as a teacher and as a writer.

It was part of the magic of being back here  and was being seen and giving a gift back to   the place.

Umm, I felt useful.

I just fell in  love with the children and the school and with   my own little vulnerable traumatized  self and with the community and with   the old people.

I just fell in love with it all.

I was charged with starting the tertiary program.

This program brings villagers into the school  and has them teach how to live off the land.

TIM: Nowadays in Pukapuka we've got mobile phones,   so they've got no time for weaving  and all the traditional stuff,   but whereas in when Amelia came and started the  program she we've kind of revived those things.

AMELIA: My students started jokingly calling it  the University of Pukapuka and so that name stuck.

LINDA: I was one of the persons who  supported program.

But there wasn't   not enough youth who wanted to attend, maybe  that's one of the difficulties that she faced.

AMELIA: The youth were really busy,  the girls had cooking to do there was   politics going on.

So, I just did not  understand the government bureaucracy.

[Music] GEMMA:   This way?

Walking thru the villages in Pukapuka, I felt like  I was in my father’s hometown of San Pablo de la   Moraleja, a small Castilian village in Spain.

And believe I don’t come from the Pacific,   but there was something so familiar about  living in this tight-knit community,   about the people and this rural way of life.

Being able to come here and make this film has   made me understand Amelia more, and come to peace  with the fact that our relationship had to end.

Pukapuka is not a mystery for me anymore.

[Singing in Pukapukan] [Natural sound] JOHNNY:   We buried some our toys in here  for her.

It was so long ago and   yet it's just you know?

It's painful.

I  don’t know how to get over these things.

Yeah, I wish I could come here too.

Nice.

[Natural sound, drumming] JOHNNY:   Oh!

look at that.

AMELIA: Yay!

JOHNNY:   Let’s eat.

There is a lot of juice in this  nice, rich oily like butter-melted butter.

[Natural sound] JOHNNY: These are plates.

[Natural sound] AMELIA: Oh my god.

This is insane.

Oh my god.

[Natural sound] JOHNNY: Seventh heaven.

Oh, it was delicious.

Yeah, it certainly is food for the gods.

Coconut  crab is.

You are limited to how many you can have.

From what I heard there was a two-year ban on  catching the crabs and there was so much when   they finally harvested it a little while ago  there was enough, they caught over a thousand,   they trapped over a thousand coconut crabs  enough for to each person to have two.

Well, that's that's that's what we must do just   protect these delicacies so we  can have them forever and ever.

I am very glad I came.

Very happy.

Yeah, it makes you wonder why I ever left?

[Natural sound] JOHNNY: What a huge leg!

(Laughing) [SPEAKING IN PUKAPUKAN]: [Music] GEMMA:   The making of this film has made me understand  the deep imprint that Pukapuka has made on   Amelia and Johnny’s life.

And Johnny was right,  Pukapuka has been a spiritual journey for me.

[Natural sound] AMELIA:   My whole life had been a story of not  belonging, and so to come back here   and and find a story of belonging, and to  find some positive memories of this place   was really healing.

GEMMA: Thank you!

AMELIA: I have found something so deep and  so important that at the end I just had to   connect by myself on my own terms, not  through a partner, not through a child.

[Music] AMELIA: Bye bye Pukapuka!!

JOHNNY:   I was just so grateful we had time to be  together, to be with my brother Charles,   so very very grateful.

And you know  it's just a gift that this happened.

I feel like my mother and father were  with me, and I'm taking them with me.

And I think that result maybe it would  rid me of my loneliness for them.

AMELIA: I mean there's no doubt in my  mind that I'll come back to Pukapuka.

No matter where I go in the world,  I will still always have Pukapuka,   so that I can leave and I still  have this place deep inside of me.

[Music]