Almost at the age of 80 years old, my nena continues to be the ray of sunshine I look up to. I aspire to be like her in a few years’ time. She’s always being independent, being very strong-minded, having a very cultured mindset and has\ a husband who is very loving.

My Nena is very strong on her cultural rules. She almost just blurts out anything that she feels is necessary almost blowing the ears off of everyone. “ SAY TULOU”, “OUA TEKE TU’U IHE VA’E A HO UNCOLO “ , “ Tuku ho vale lau”, and the most common said “Tuku ho fefine lahi”. The way she’s so strongly cultured-minded reminds me of the roots of my own culture, and it’s quite interesting to learn in such a vulgar way.

I grew up with her almost my whole life until she wanted to take her faith in Jesus more seriously and moved to Mt.Wellington a block away from the church which was her second favourite place with the casino coming first. I remember that my Nena used to live with us back when we were moving to various places ( almost over 15 ) and once we were settled on the final house she also wanted to settle. She must have gotten her peace after leaving a house of 13 kids which had neverending animal fights neck to neck, kids were fussing and the teens would observe in laughter or something like that.

While being a hardworking Mum and Grandma, she had some side hustles which she liked to create. With ease, my nena could knock out a teunga within 1 week and with so much detail and hard work, the teungas would look very beautiful. It’s such a great feeling to be walking around in a great handmade costume representing my family. I’m proud to say that my Nena can never turn down making a teunga cause she likes to think of designs and put it all in a teunga.

That piercing look my Nena gives when shes mad. And all though her face expressions come out the same,

Nena never fails to put a smile on my face. I can’t tell if it was the broken English, the facial expressions or the lack of humour we have towards each other. Although she is my special person It’s sad to say that I’m not her favourite. As the stereotypical way it is, she does indeed favor our youngest child of the family, Saia. Sosaia is the name of her father so I would understand the attachment, but my nena will forever be my number one special person.

I am very glad to be a part of this summer learning journey by choice. I wish we had thought of this at the start of term 1 because then it would work more harder coming to this day. Thank you very much and see you guys next week.