.png)
Since we started our camp, the pronunciation of Makemake has been a topic for discussion. As an English speaking camp in Chile, most people assume that Camp Mákemáke is pronounced Camp Make Make as in to make something. Well in truth, our camp is named after the dwarf planet Makemake. The dwarf planet Makemake was discovered on Easter Sunday, 2005 by an astronomer called Mike Brown and his team. They nicknamed it 'Easter Bunny' and decided to go to Easter Island to search for a name. They chose the name Makemake after Easter Island's creator of humanity and god of fertility, Makemake. All three, the planet, the god and our camp are pronounced Mákemáke, Recently we added the accents to the letter A in our name in the hope that this will clarify its pronunciation. Either way the name is catchy and easy to remember.
You may well ask why we named our camp after a dwarf planet. Well, here on the farm our skies are exceptionally clear. The lack of artificial lights and crisp clean air result in a spectacular show of stars (and planets) each night. We have an application on our Ipad that allows us to name the stars and planets and when we first moved the farm, before the camp existed, my children discovered the planet Makemake on this application. They loved the name and we were all delighted to find out that it had links to Chile through Isla de Pascua. The children claimed the planet as their own and we happily decided to call our house Casa Makemake. Several years later the camp was born and it made sense to call it Camp Makemake as the name was already very much installed in our lives,