Rainbow Wahine trio bonds through French connection
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Hawaii has always been known as a cultural melting pot. The same can be said about the University of Hawaiʻi women’s volleyball team.
Maeli Cormier, Manon Baudrillard and Mano Antiga all had different paths to the Rainbow Wahine program, but have created a unique bond built on their heritage.
Cormier is from Quebec, Canada, while Baudrillard and Antiga are French.
“You’re just so far away from home and getting to speak French, it’s like a part of who we are and just to get to do that with each other, I think it’s super cool,” Cormier said. “It’s something I didn’t have in my old school or like here in the spring, like I was the only one, so really happy when they came in and it’s just been like super fun.”
It’s a bond that they’ve leaned on throughout the season, even though some things translate differently.
“Even if I had issues to understand her because our French, our French is really different, but yeah, that has been cool.” Baudrillard said.
“Yeah, I agree that the the Canadian accent is pretty strong.” Antiga added.
The different dialects took the trio time to understand.
“For example, hello. It’s bonjour in French, and for her, it’s bon matin,” Baudrillard said.
“Bon matin like good morning, I’ll say like bon matin and then they say bonjour.” Cormier added.
The trio’s bond isn’t hard to see and it carries over to the rest of the team — a fun-loving group that is on an undefeated run so far in the Mountain West.
“Everyone’s been like super welcoming and it’s been a really great and special place to to play for,” Cormier said. “The support we have is really special.”
The university’s international flare can be seen campus wide.
“There’s so many people here in the university, not just us in our sport, but different people in other sports too that are French,” Antiga said. “It’s a different little community which is really cool to have.”
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