Dawn is yet to break, but I can hear the waves gently lapping the distant reef. Breaking over into the lagoon, the pearl that is the jewel of Araura Enua, Aitutaki, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.

Driving from the newly sealed airport to our accommodation at Paradise Cove yesterday, it is clear that a building and development boom is happening in this part of paradise. A boom, that has seen new homes, new buildings and a new resort being built, signalling also, that more are now having a piece of that delicious, succulent Kuru or breadfruit that is Aitutaki Enua.

When Captain Bligh came through Aitutaki in 1789, he also was on a mission that centered on the Kuru, to collect it from Tahiti and take the Kuru to Jamaica. Hundreds of years later, the Americans during World War II, also knew of the Kuru that was Aitutaki, and its strategic necessity, building a runway, should the Japanese Imperial Army advance through the Pacific. A runway that government would invest in, and would in time prove a critical investment not only for flying boats in the 1950s, 60s and 70s carrying movie stars and millionaires to Aunty Ruru and Uncle Pare Karl Marsters Island of Akaiami, but also to its development as a key travel destination.

It is this airport, alongside the people, hospitality, and lagoon, that has been critical and pivotal to Aitutaki’s advancement as a tourist destination, but even more to the development of the local economy. People took risks, have built despite all the challenges they faced, and invested though not a single traveller had arrived. It is these Aitutaki pioneers, like the Henrys and the Bishops, with the same spirit of the great voyager Ru who aboard the Vaka Nga Puariki made his way through the passage Aumoana, who knew, the Kuru that is Aitutaki. Nonetheless, it is the airport that remains the reason so many can share from that fruit today.

Enuamanu, or Atiu, the land of my name Tarurongo, and of our grandfather Teavae Tarurongo, from the people of Areora and Ngati Ingatu, do not have an airport story that ends with prosperity and Kuru for all to eat. We have a story laden with frustration and stifled with disagreement and lost opportunity. Advisors that have halted the potential of Atiu and Enuamanu, for reasons that I do not understand, and lost opportunities to partner with government and open up the development of the Kuru that is Enuamanu. So that we too can share its bounty with travellers, yes, but more importantly so there is more Kuru at the table for our families who live and visit the rugged beauty that is the land of the birds, the resting place of Mariri Tutu a Manu and his Vaka Kutikuti Rua Matangi.

Our ancestors and Tupuna were voyagers not simply to sail the oceans but to explore new lands to plant and to prosper their families and tribes. But it took risk, it took faith and hope in God, and it took courage to leave what was safe and secure, to venture into the seemingly unknown vastness of Moana Nui a Kiva. But this they did, because the stars, birds, swells and currents guided them through that unknown, so it wasn’t darkness they faced but the glimmer of possibilities that lay beyond the 70 nautical miles of the horizon. And today, we continue to eat from the Kuru of their courage and vision.

Enuamanu, when do we eat from the courage of our Tupuna, because as I sit here and watch the sun rise in Araura Enua, I long for that sun to rise in Enuamanu also, but it will take an airport to do that. We must partner with those who have already and who will help us build this development, or we will simply watch the Kuru rot, and fall to the ground fit only for the pigs to eat while our families look to us for food on their table. Build it and they will come, we have nothing to fear but fear itself, and that is not who we are as toketoke enua and Toa of Enuamanu.