In August and September 2009 six students of social anthropology stay for nine weeks in Rarotonga in order to do a fieldwork training which is part of the ‚Ethnologie‘ master program in Cologne. It is intended that the students will use the results of their research for their final thesis.  During the preparation seminar they worked out individual topics in the fields of gender relations, language, knowledge, material culture, migration, and history. The fieldwork training   takes place in cooperation with the University of the South Pacific that has a centre in Rarotonga. The USP e.g. provides a series of lectures where Cook Islanders talk about various topics.
The paper will focus on the experiences concerning preparation and conducting the fieldwork training. This includes the process of finding a suitable topic, the design of the preparation seminar,  the preparation journey, experiences with accomodation of the students, positive and negative aspects of the various topics chosen and methods used by the students in relation to the limited time frame as well as advantages and disadvantages of Rarotonga as a place for conducting a fieldwork training. Which problems did the students face during the process of the training? During the preparation the students faced the problem that only a small number of social anthropological publications exists for Rarotonga. To what extent was it possible to work on their topics under these circumstances?