{"id":10616,"date":"2019-09-05T19:58:07","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T19:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/ursula-rapu\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T01:27:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:27:45","slug":"ursula-rapu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/ursula-rapu\/","title":{"rendered":"Ursula Rapu"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ursula Rapu<\/strong><\/h1>\n

My father was called Alejo Kana Kyoka.\u00a0 He was the son of a Chinese, but my grandmother\u2019s husband accepted him as his son and gave him the family name of Rapu.\u00a0 He was white skinned and, when I was born and he saw me as dark as my mother, he thought that I was the child of a neighbor and threw me out of the house.\u00a0 I was raised by Ernesto Pakomio and Papiano Ika until I was 8. Then they were taken away to the hospital and I was told that they had leprosy.\u00a0\u00a0 I think a lot of those in the leper colony were healthy people with some genetic markings.\u00a0 I think that Ernesto and Papiano caught their leprosy there.\u00a0 Ernesto Pakomio was the one who organized the first escape of lepers in 1957 with the idea of going to Tahiti to see a doctor or dying at sea, but the Navy brought them back. \u00a0Ten months later seven lepers were able to take off in a sailboat from Hanga Roa o Tai. Papiano Ika didn\u2019t get on board because it was already too heavy and was almost sinking in the water.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t get very far.\u00a0 The sea got rough and they all disappeared.\u00a0 I still go to see Papi.\u00a0 He\u2019s the only one who still lives in what used to be the leper colony.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t talk much because it is difficult for him, but I understand him.\u00a0 Really, I have very sad memories of my childhood.\u00a0 My father was a bodyguard for the Governor who was a Navy man.\u00a0 And the Navy men used to tell him \u201cbring me that girl\u201d and he had to do it.\u00a0 Some girls were sent to the leper colony just for refusing to do favors for them.\u00a0 Today I can\u2019t stand to see the Navy uniforms.<\/p>\n

I returned to my father\u2019s house and then felt that he did love me because he never mistreated me.\u00a0 Harsh treatment and blows were the custom among the men; it was really serious in those days.\u00a0 When I was twelve, I was sent to the continent with my step-brother Joaqu\u00edn Rapu so that I could go to school.\u00a0 But he chose to keep me at home as a servant.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t study anything there and only learned to read when I returned to the Island at 16.\u00a0 For my father it was sacred to unite the whole family around a \u201ccuranto\u201d every weekend to talk of the good and bad things of life.\u00a0 Today it isn\u2019t like that.\u00a0 People don\u2019t get together as before.\u00a0 The young people are going after the money and there is a lot of selfishness.\u00a0 They forget that we are born naked and will die naked.\"\"
\"\"
In Rapanui families, the father, or in his place the oldest brother, was the authority.\u00a0 Everyone had to respect him.\u00a0 My brother Martin forced my sister to get married and he wanted to do the same with me.\u00a0 There was a \u201cgringo\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 working here and Martin wanted him as a brother-in-law.\u00a0 He took me to the Civil Registry office, but when they asked me if I wanted to get married to this man, I said no and ran away.\u00a0 Later on I got married without saying anything to anybody.\u00a0 With Urbano Tepano we went one morning to the Civil Registry office and then in the afternoon to the church to get married in front of the priest.\u00a0 It was just to get even with my husband\u2019s family because his brother used to treat my sister very badly.\u00a0 Nobody wanted me because I was so wild, especially my brothers-in-law \u2013 I\u2019m not going to deny it.\u00a0 One of them beat me once and I took a scissors and thrust it into his shoulder.\u00a0 I used to be very tough.\u00a0 Later on when I changed religion, I got better.\u00a0 All that I know today I learned from my mother-in-law Emilia Kaituoe and I am grateful to her.\u201c<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That nobody wanted her isn\u2019t true.\u00a0 Napole\u00f3n Tepano, one of her nephews, tells us that \u201cwe loved her very much.\u00a0 She always took care of us.\u00a0 When I was building my house late at night, she would always appear with a plate of hot food.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Today, many come by her house with their children so that the Nua (grandmother) can heals them or help with an indigestion or a cold or simply hug them and tell them stories.\"\"
Ursula shows us a bottle filled with a dark, thick oil.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s shark oil to help heal scars and remove burn marks.\u00a0 When children get indigestion \u2013 that is, when they eat too much or something they shouldn\u2019t and it gets stuck in their stomach \u2013 I make them take a mix of a big spoonful of grated potato with another big spoonful of oil and a bit of salt before breakfast for three days and I massage the skin of their back until it squeaks.\u00a0 For a cold, I grind up <\/em>\u201csiete venas\u201d <\/em><\/strong>herbs in a cloth to wring out the juice.\u00a0 You take that in one spoonful three times a day.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Another recommendation from Ursula is for the women.\u00a0 The Rapanui women treat the vulva and vagina as \u201cthe most delicate area of the body<\/em>\u201d, as it is involved in procreation and sexual activity.\u00a0 They do a daily genital hygiene through regular \u201cvaginal baths\u201d <\/em>using hot steam with figs and oils.\u00a0 According to Ursula, \u201cthe vagina gets tight and you come out like a virgin\u201d.\u00a0 Thank you, for your recomendations Ursula.<\/p>\n

Featured Reports:<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ursula Rapu My father was called Alejo Kana Kyoka.\u00a0 He was the son of a Chinese, but my grandmother\u2019s husband accepted him as his son and gave him the family name of Rapu.\u00a0 He was white skinned and, when I was born and he saw me as dark as my mother, he thought that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-testimonials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}