Downpours can’t stop Pasifika
The weather was atrocious at times, but not even the downpours could wipe the smiles from the faces of those who welcomed the return of Auckland’s Pasifika Festival yesterday.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Carmel Sepuloni and Minister of Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio also braved the at-times torrential rain and gusting wind to visit the festival’s eight village stages.
Scattered around the festival’s new home of Mt Smart Stadium, the villages — representing Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Fiji, Niue, the Cook Islands, Hawaii and Aotearoa — offered traditional foods and sounds from the Pacific. Performers included Tomorrow People, Ban Makiski and singer Fiji Veikoso.
The festival has been held at Western Springs since 1993 but was cancelled for the past two years because of the Christchurch mosques shooting and Covid-19.
Today’s weather is expected to improve with showers, some heavy, forecast for the morning, but skies are set to clear in the afternoon.