My grandmother told me two stories from long ago from our past.  The stories tell us that we all experience changes in our lives.

My grandma’s name is Diya Moana Jonassen. She was born and raised in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. When my grandma finished school, she went to a dance group. She loved to dance all the time and sing in front of friends, cousins, and family. After, she told me two stories from our past.

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In Rarotonga, there was a place in the Cook Islands that was called Arorangi. In Arorangi there was a mounatin that was tall. In Aitutaki, they had no mountain, so the people decided that they would steal the mountain in Rarotonga. They travelled all the way to Rarotonga. When they got there, they went to Arorangi, and they cut the top off the mountain. The Giant carried it to the vaka, and they took it to their island, Aitutaki.

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A long time ago, there lived a man. He lived in Puaikura (Arorangi). One night, he went to sleep and strange people started to climb out from the inside of the well next to his house and his plantation. They stole some of his supplies and then they left.

The next day, he saw that he had been robbed so that night he made a net and some other traps. A few minutes later the strange people came. They got trapped in the net, but they escaped. There was only one person in the net and that was the queen of the people from under the water.

She was sacred of what the man was going to do to her. After staring at her for a while, he tried to talk to her, but she did not say anything. He asked her where she was born and much more about her life.

When it was daylight, she wanted to go back into the well, but the man wanted her to stay with him. He wanted to stay with her forever and they lived happily ever after.