New Year in Elato, Micronesia
On January 1 2026 we joined the villagers of Elato for their celebrations. A short mass, then everybody prepared bundles of food to share with each family of the village. We spent the day with lots of waiting, watching the crowd, face-painting and perfume-spraying--apparently all (modernised?) traditions (at least the lipstick used for the painting can't be that traditional). We had lots of different taro dishes in our bundle, a delicious coconut crab, but neither dog nor turtle--the villagers had fortunately asked beforehand if we'd eat those ;-)
(26 photos)
