One Common Ancestor.

Kaifofo & Sisimata Tuhega. 

17 days and I leave for Austria and as I am about to leave I discover my ancestral roots to Germany.  I have known from my Nena that her grandfather had German roots however I have never been told to great detail about this.  Apparently very few family members were told the story.  So here goes the version I have stumbled upon.

My Nena Evo's biological mother is Kelenamata also known as Pisa . Her parents were Kaifofo Tuhega of Tuapa and Sisimata Ikitogia of Makefu.  Very recently I have discovered that Great Great Grandad Kaifofo Tuhega's father was either a Missionary or a German sailor by the name of Keeling.  There were two stories of how he came into contact with our Nena Fakatohesifa.  This piece of the puzzle was said to have been written by the late Afele Paea who married one of Kaifofo's daughters and we thank him for doing that with Kaifofo because that is how I have stumbled across this piece of precious taoga. Below is a picture of Kaifofo on left and that is my Nena Pisa on far right.

Great Great Grandad was well known to the village of Uhomotu and Makefu Niue.  It is said and my nena still tells the story that Kaifofo was appointed to lead one of the four working groups for building of the Tuapa church in 1928-1929.  So when I think about going home to Tuapa and the church located in the middle of the field it will always remind me of Kaifofo and his dedication to his village.

According to stories told by some family members Kaifofo's father Keeling was sailing through the Pacific with John Williams when he met Fakatohesifa and fell in love with her resulting in Kaifofo born out of wedlock.  However there is another story about how Fakatohesifa was sent to Samoa to work on the plantations and ultimately where she met Keeling.  This story was believed to have been more believable given the German traders arrived in Samoa in the 1800.  This remains a mystery but the name Keeling is said to have been told as the ancestor that connects me and the six-seven generations of Tuhegas across the globe to Germany.

Its coincidental that at the same time I discovered the Tuhega Family Tree.  Now we are talking about six generations of us in the world.  Its incredible because I have never been told about my nena Evo's biological family.  Nena Evo was adopted out because she was born out of wedlock so she grew up with wider family and missed out on learning about her Tuhega roots and explains why we only know what we know says mum all the time.

I am side tracking a bit now, people have been asking me about what I want to do when I grow up.  Why am I going to Austria and my common response has been I love history and music so I want to study music abroad.  History is my fave topic at school and just so happens to be that I stumbled across my nena's ancestral roots to Germany.

What excites me about this story is the fact that I am going on an exchange programme to Austria where it is heavily influenced by Germany.  History, Language, Music you name it.  It really makes me want to go to Germany and find my connections to Keeling and how a German man can coincidently end up with my ancestor Fakatohesifa from a small place in the South Pacific.  What I do know is that I will be miles away from home and three months will not be enough time to decipher the mystery of KEELING.

Tonight I wanted to share this history with you as a baseline and foundation for where this journey is taking me.  Things are all falling into place and I feel like some higher power is sending me on this journey to teach me a few home truths.  The fact I will be 774.3kms (8hours) away from Germany for three months.  The language they speak in Austria is German but the dialect is different.  I have been studying a little bit of the German language and it is very hard to get the tsch sound.....almost like Russian spitting speaking with passion (not explaining it very well) lol 🤣.  With all this I have a very strong sense of discovering an identity that will change my perspective on life.  Or maybe not, who knows.

Yesterday my Flight Pack which includes my Itinerary came through via email from STS NZ.  This includes my plane ticket, information of stopover and things I need to know.  Fortunately I will be travelling in a group with three other young people for the first leg of the trip.  I think I am the only girl but not sure.  I am travelling to Dubai first and then on to Vienna I am very excited but scared about the trip.  I am not looking forward to my first 17 hour flight.  This will be the first long haul I am doing without family (other than going to China in July of this year).

Last week as well was my last weekend of busking we decided we needed to be spending time with my cousins the next two weekends.  It was overwhelming for mum and I because we fought a lot about busking over the past twelve months.  The biggest highlight of busking for me this year was been asked to perform at a wedding.  That was pretty cool considering I gave mum a hard time about busking that morning I did not want to go and my lil bro Tyreese was jamming with me at the Waihi Underground Market, that was special to have him come along.  My least fave thing about going busking was having to wake up very early in the mornings to go busking and not get my beauty sleep (just kidding lol).  Some days were cold, wet and windy anndddddd mum still made me do it.  But I have made so much money in that twelve months.  Two weeks to leaving and I have exchanged my money, I have all I need and everything is in order.  All because I made the commitment to busk and make extra funds which has come in handy.

I have learnt two things in the last two weeks.  Ancestral roots tie you to a place and culture.  History is my fave subject and I have really enjoyed learning about my Tuhega roots.