Goodbye, Siberia, helloooooooooooo Tahiti
In the summer of 2005, I was able to visit the Baha’is living in French Polynesia. Here are some of my notes and observations:
Geography of French Polynesia
The area designated as 'Polynesia" is a triangle in the South Pacific with New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island (the one with the big stone heads) as its corners. French Polynesia covers a land and ocean surface area about the size of Western Europe. It is composed of several island groups and atolls:
The Marquesas Islands: These are the northernmost islands They remain very rustic and have no lagoons which are shallow areas protected by a reef that is further out and upon which the waves break. The Hawaiians originally came from here and left probably as a result of warfare.
The Tuamotu archipelago: These are a long chain of atolls. An atoll is not an island. It is the result of a volcano sinking and choral building up on the rim around it. Some of the choral strips and sediment begin to stick above sea level, coconut trees grow somehow and you have an atoll, a string of small, flat mini-islands. From the pictures, they have white sand and blue sea and are considered very beautiful. But watch out if you approach in your ship.
The Leeward Islands: These islands include Raiatea, the sacred island of all Polynesians and Huahine, among others. They are the eastern group of the Society Islands.
The Windward Islands: These islands include Tahiti (pronounced with a vocalized 'h', so combine the 't' and an exhaled 'ha' at the same time). They are the Western group of the Society Islands.
The Gambier Islands: They are at the end of the Tuamotus. I don't anything about them. But you can fly there on Air Tahiti which serves Pineapple Juice.
The Austral Islands: These are the southernmost islands and the point of no return. If you miss Morira, the Bass Island, good luck man 'cause after that one, the next stop is Antarctica and there are definitely no coconuts there!
Best island name: Puka-Puka (pronounced puKA-puKA) in the Tuamotus.
Hardest name: hmmmm . I'd have to give that to Matureivavoa, a city in the Gambier Islands.
Tahiti is very lush with dramatic high mountains in the middle of the island that descend into a slowly inclining plane that ends in the Pacific. On the horizon you can see the neighboring island of Moorea which also has high mountains and makes for a dramatic view when looking out at the ocean, especially at sunset. There is a great variety of trees and flowers with spectacular colors. Tahiti Nui is the large part of the island and Tahiti Iti is the smaller part that is attached by a land bridge. This part is less populated and the scenery is quite dramatic. This time of year, it is humid all the time, pleasant in the day and cool at night.
Ethnicity
Most people are Polynesian (the name means literally ‘many islands’) with brown skin and absolutely beautiful eyes. There are white French people and Chinese here as well. There is a lot of racial intermixing which makes for particularly beautiful combinations. Way, way back when, they originated in Madagascar traveled across Papua New Guinea and the islands now called ‘Melanesia’ (meaning ‘little islands’)which includes the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, among others. Then they migrated to Tahiti which was the central distribution point.
After that the migrations split off many different directions—New Zealand, Hawaii (pron. HAH why), Easter Island and others. How the islands all came to be populated is a mystery; the distances are great (Tahiti is 4,000 + kilometers south of Hawaii, 5 hours by plane from New Zealand), so it is unclear how or why the dispersion happened. One books proposed that some islands were populated as a result of ship! wrecks. A professor here told me that after losing a war, one tribe was banished and sailed north to Hawaii. Polynesians are expert seafarers and have large outrigger canoes which move quite quickly through the water and can cover large distances.
The native language here is Tahitian and French is widely spoken, especially in business, government and media. In some Melanesian islands such as Vanuatu and New Caledonia, there are hundreds of island languages and the only language in common is called ‘pidgin’; which is a hybrid kind of English (‘us’ is ‘yumi’ for ‘you and me’).
French bread
Tahiti is very modern and has many of the elements of France’s infrastructure: signs for the road, types of stores, products … Everywhere you can buy real freshly baked French bread, even at gas stations. So you’ll see Polynesian men with lots of tattoos walking under palm trees carrying loaves of French bread. The French Walmart, Carrefour, is here. The prices are a little more than in NYC. There are some Macdonald’s; I’ve heard American culture referred to as “Macdo”. A good Tahitian meal: raw tuna in coconut milk which is very refreshing.
Motel California
All the lush green beauty comes at a cost: everything creeps and crawls. Your only friend in this respect is the lizards that walk mostly on ceilings and walls
and eat insects. When they attack, they do so rapidly, and you can hear a little
crunch; they digest the insect, and you can watch dinner gradually disappear into the lizard’s mouth. I have a net to sleep in which I keep in a high state of
readiness alert, always checking to see that it is secure. The other night I found a large flying cockroach among my books. It was sitting quietly between the Holy Bible and the Kitab-i-Aqdas which didn’t stop me from trying to crush it with another Holy text. I missed it and spent the night in a vigilant state. The next day I bought some cockroach and beetle motel californias (they can check in but never leave) and put them outside and inside my room.
The Baha’i Faith in French Polynesia
Most of the believers are of Polynesian descent. There are active groups in the Papeete, the capitol, Paea, the village where I stay and the island of Huahine ( pron. HWA hee ne). There is a second wave of growth of the Baha’i community here after a long period of somnolence. Recently we gathered for prayers at an old Polynesian temple site from the 10th century. It was in a beautiful clearing on the mountain slope. There are many churches the largest of which are the local ‘Protestant’ sect and the Mormons. You can find the Mormon missionaries—they have white shirts, black pants, ties and a name tag and everyone else has flower prints and sandals. Later this month (August 2005) there will be a gathering of the
Baha’is from French Polynesia on the island Raiatea (pron. RAH ee ah te ah, it is the spiritual homeland of the traditional pre-Christian Polynesian Faith)along with a large Protest group … kind of a friendly Baha’i/Christian throw down.
Here is a summary list of some of my activities:
-We prepared the Baha’i house for devotions every Wednesday and Sunday and inviting people to come to these. For the first one, Poereva Dubois brought a group of neighborhood kids. For the third on, a local guitarist came and stayed late. I offered him a prayer book to take with him. For the last one,another seeker came, and I had a chance to speak with him at more length about the Faith.
-Organizing the Martyrdom of the Bab Holy Day, preparing the house and inviting Baha’is and seekers. One of the individuals who I invited was a local French musician who brought some instruments and played during the commemoration. He also brought his wife and child. He and his family lingered for much of the afternoon.
-We visited the island of Moorea twice. The first time was a pastoral visit to
call on Nicodema Anania. He was a lovely elderly man and seemed pleased with the visit. We read prayers together at the end. The second time we went we tried to visit a seeker who was ill.
-Visiting friends of the Baha’is to help show the international nature of the
Faith.
-Organizing the recording of the Sacred Writings with traditional and new Tahitian melodies. I transferred songs already recorded by Richard Neufeld to cd and then we recorded new melodies with Poereva Dubois, Djanni --------and Jean-Claude ----------.
-I assisted with children’s classes, including translating lessons from an English book of lesson plans and finding virtues cards in French.
Getting started in Tahitian
English French Tahitian
Thank-you Merci Mau Ru Ru
Hello Bonjour Iao Ra Na
Check you later A bientot Na Na
Coconuts: The ultimate multi-purpose food
It has a smooth exterior which, when busted open, has tangly thread inside that covers the nut like a nest. Capt. James Cook, a seafaring genius, saw the qualities of these threads and had his men weave and wet them which made for a much stronger rope than they were using. The nut has water inside that is very, very refreshing; it's pure and lightly sweet. There is a coconut "heart" that forms inside of the nut and can be eaten; it is soft and moist and, when strained, makes coconut 'milk'. Then you can crack the nut and eat the hard white interior and the brown exterior. It is uncommonly good, with a solid texture and the taste of something between sweet fruit and vegetable. Like potato chips and cheese fries, it's tough to stop eating coconut when you start. Unlike potato chips and cheese fries, they can be found on the ground (though in South Philly, so can potato chips and cheese fries but you wouldn't want those for lunch). So when you're Tahiti just pick 'em up and eat! though you'll need the traditional sharp wooden stick to it open.
Say what?
Bag of oranges grown inland on Tahiti sold by the side of the road? $30. Tahiti is Xpensive.
The boating life
(get a map for this section)
Did you know that hundreds of people a year cross the Pacific. On their own boats?! Before you read any further, go look at a world map for what that means. And contrary to the name Magellan gave the Pacific, it is not calmer than the Atlantic. In fact, 40 degrees south latitude is called something like the roaring 40's because of the bad winds and water and is considered very dangerous for navigation. Of course, Capt.Cook managed them.
I spent several hours in the boatyard on the island of Raiatea and found out about a world of people who live on and for their boats. In the space of a morning I met:
-A South African family that sailed across the Indian Ocean, up the coast of Africa, back down and across to South America, then across the Pacific. Time on board? Three years. Kids? Two of them, both school age so they are being home schooled or, as the case may be, boat-schooled.
-An American family who had quit their jobs in San Fransisco, sailed all over the coast of Alaska, then from there went down across the Pacific, then all over the Polynesian islands. They have settled in New Zealand and have decided to go back the other way for a change.
-A French lady who built her own boat and with her then husband and two children sailed all over the world - including Vanuatu in Melanesia where she witnessed the first ever gathering of all of the tribes of that island who had never seen each other, ever, in a whole group -- and settled in Raiatea, French Polynesia .. twenty-five years on the boat. They are now divorced.
-A Frenchman who sailed from France (that's the Atlantic AND the Pacific) to Raiatea, French Polynesia and now works there from his boat. His wife just left him and took the child; he wanted to stay (he "lived the life he loved and loved the life he lived" as Muddy Waters used to say). I heard him one night playing the blues on his guitar. It was a happy blues.
In addition, there were two other families of four that morning getting repairs. Now what I am writing to you here is not about pushing a little rubber ducky in the bathtub or paddle boating in Central Park's lake or going on a yacht in Westport with snobby friends for an afternoon on the Long Island Sound ... this is crossing the largest ocean on earth whose dangers are many and lethal (storms that can last for days, reefs that are hard to see that tear apart you boat, illness, technical breakdowns) .. and doing it with your kids!! One has to maintain constant vigilance over all of the instruments and information coming in as well as keep the boat 'ship shape'; if you don't.
Three weeks before I arrived on the island of Raiatea, a family of six was near the Tuamotus one night. The father had neglected to chart his point on the globe that day and was headed in a slightly wrong direction. He was going a very fast fifteen knots at night. The boat slammed into underwater reefs and was torn apart. Trying to save some items, his leg was severely lacerated. The whole family climbed into the dingy where they spent the night shivering and the father's leg bleeding badly. The kids put a tourniquet around the leg. A helicopter cam at dawn; he was one hour from death. His leg was amputated and his four children were totally traumatized.
The verdict in the boatyard? He had been careless and paid rightly for it.
Geography of French Polynesia
The area designated as 'Polynesia" is a triangle in the South Pacific with New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island (the one with the big stone heads) as its corners. French Polynesia covers a land and ocean surface area about the size of Western Europe. It is composed of several island groups and atolls:
The Marquesas Islands: These are the northernmost islands They remain very rustic and have no lagoons which are shallow areas protected by a reef that is further out and upon which the waves break. The Hawaiians originally came from here and left probably as a result of warfare.
The Tuamotu archipelago: These are a long chain of atolls. An atoll is not an island. It is the result of a volcano sinking and choral building up on the rim around it. Some of the choral strips and sediment begin to stick above sea level, coconut trees grow somehow and you have an atoll, a string of small, flat mini-islands. From the pictures, they have white sand and blue sea and are considered very beautiful. But watch out if you approach in your ship.
The Leeward Islands: These islands include Raiatea, the sacred island of all Polynesians and Huahine, among others. They are the eastern group of the Society Islands.
The Windward Islands: These islands include Tahiti (pronounced with a vocalized 'h', so combine the 't' and an exhaled 'ha' at the same time). They are the Western group of the Society Islands.
The Gambier Islands: They are at the end of the Tuamotus. I don't anything about them. But you can fly there on Air Tahiti which serves Pineapple Juice.
The Austral Islands: These are the southernmost islands and the point of no return. If you miss Morira, the Bass Island, good luck man 'cause after that one, the next stop is Antarctica and there are definitely no coconuts there!
Best island name: Puka-Puka (pronounced puKA-puKA) in the Tuamotus.
Hardest name: hmmmm . I'd have to give that to Matureivavoa, a city in the Gambier Islands.
Tahiti is very lush with dramatic high mountains in the middle of the island that descend into a slowly inclining plane that ends in the Pacific. On the horizon you can see the neighboring island of Moorea which also has high mountains and makes for a dramatic view when looking out at the ocean, especially at sunset. There is a great variety of trees and flowers with spectacular colors. Tahiti Nui is the large part of the island and Tahiti Iti is the smaller part that is attached by a land bridge. This part is less populated and the scenery is quite dramatic. This time of year, it is humid all the time, pleasant in the day and cool at night.
Ethnicity
Most people are Polynesian (the name means literally ‘many islands’) with brown skin and absolutely beautiful eyes. There are white French people and Chinese here as well. There is a lot of racial intermixing which makes for particularly beautiful combinations. Way, way back when, they originated in Madagascar traveled across Papua New Guinea and the islands now called ‘Melanesia’ (meaning ‘little islands’)which includes the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, among others. Then they migrated to Tahiti which was the central distribution point.
After that the migrations split off many different directions—New Zealand, Hawaii (pron. HAH why), Easter Island and others. How the islands all came to be populated is a mystery; the distances are great (Tahiti is 4,000 + kilometers south of Hawaii, 5 hours by plane from New Zealand), so it is unclear how or why the dispersion happened. One books proposed that some islands were populated as a result of ship! wrecks. A professor here told me that after losing a war, one tribe was banished and sailed north to Hawaii. Polynesians are expert seafarers and have large outrigger canoes which move quite quickly through the water and can cover large distances.
The native language here is Tahitian and French is widely spoken, especially in business, government and media. In some Melanesian islands such as Vanuatu and New Caledonia, there are hundreds of island languages and the only language in common is called ‘pidgin’; which is a hybrid kind of English (‘us’ is ‘yumi’ for ‘you and me’).
French bread
Tahiti is very modern and has many of the elements of France’s infrastructure: signs for the road, types of stores, products … Everywhere you can buy real freshly baked French bread, even at gas stations. So you’ll see Polynesian men with lots of tattoos walking under palm trees carrying loaves of French bread. The French Walmart, Carrefour, is here. The prices are a little more than in NYC. There are some Macdonald’s; I’ve heard American culture referred to as “Macdo”. A good Tahitian meal: raw tuna in coconut milk which is very refreshing.
Motel California
All the lush green beauty comes at a cost: everything creeps and crawls. Your only friend in this respect is the lizards that walk mostly on ceilings and walls
and eat insects. When they attack, they do so rapidly, and you can hear a little
crunch; they digest the insect, and you can watch dinner gradually disappear into the lizard’s mouth. I have a net to sleep in which I keep in a high state of
readiness alert, always checking to see that it is secure. The other night I found a large flying cockroach among my books. It was sitting quietly between the Holy Bible and the Kitab-i-Aqdas which didn’t stop me from trying to crush it with another Holy text. I missed it and spent the night in a vigilant state. The next day I bought some cockroach and beetle motel californias (they can check in but never leave) and put them outside and inside my room.
The Baha’i Faith in French Polynesia
Most of the believers are of Polynesian descent. There are active groups in the Papeete, the capitol, Paea, the village where I stay and the island of Huahine ( pron. HWA hee ne). There is a second wave of growth of the Baha’i community here after a long period of somnolence. Recently we gathered for prayers at an old Polynesian temple site from the 10th century. It was in a beautiful clearing on the mountain slope. There are many churches the largest of which are the local ‘Protestant’ sect and the Mormons. You can find the Mormon missionaries—they have white shirts, black pants, ties and a name tag and everyone else has flower prints and sandals. Later this month (August 2005) there will be a gathering of the
Baha’is from French Polynesia on the island Raiatea (pron. RAH ee ah te ah, it is the spiritual homeland of the traditional pre-Christian Polynesian Faith)along with a large Protest group … kind of a friendly Baha’i/Christian throw down.
Here is a summary list of some of my activities:
-We prepared the Baha’i house for devotions every Wednesday and Sunday and inviting people to come to these. For the first one, Poereva Dubois brought a group of neighborhood kids. For the third on, a local guitarist came and stayed late. I offered him a prayer book to take with him. For the last one,another seeker came, and I had a chance to speak with him at more length about the Faith.
-Organizing the Martyrdom of the Bab Holy Day, preparing the house and inviting Baha’is and seekers. One of the individuals who I invited was a local French musician who brought some instruments and played during the commemoration. He also brought his wife and child. He and his family lingered for much of the afternoon.
-We visited the island of Moorea twice. The first time was a pastoral visit to
call on Nicodema Anania. He was a lovely elderly man and seemed pleased with the visit. We read prayers together at the end. The second time we went we tried to visit a seeker who was ill.
-Visiting friends of the Baha’is to help show the international nature of the
Faith.
-Organizing the recording of the Sacred Writings with traditional and new Tahitian melodies. I transferred songs already recorded by Richard Neufeld to cd and then we recorded new melodies with Poereva Dubois, Djanni --------and Jean-Claude ----------.
-I assisted with children’s classes, including translating lessons from an English book of lesson plans and finding virtues cards in French.
Getting started in Tahitian
English French Tahitian
Thank-you Merci Mau Ru Ru
Hello Bonjour Iao Ra Na
Check you later A bientot Na Na
Coconuts: The ultimate multi-purpose food
It has a smooth exterior which, when busted open, has tangly thread inside that covers the nut like a nest. Capt. James Cook, a seafaring genius, saw the qualities of these threads and had his men weave and wet them which made for a much stronger rope than they were using. The nut has water inside that is very, very refreshing; it's pure and lightly sweet. There is a coconut "heart" that forms inside of the nut and can be eaten; it is soft and moist and, when strained, makes coconut 'milk'. Then you can crack the nut and eat the hard white interior and the brown exterior. It is uncommonly good, with a solid texture and the taste of something between sweet fruit and vegetable. Like potato chips and cheese fries, it's tough to stop eating coconut when you start. Unlike potato chips and cheese fries, they can be found on the ground (though in South Philly, so can potato chips and cheese fries but you wouldn't want those for lunch). So when you're Tahiti just pick 'em up and eat! though you'll need the traditional sharp wooden stick to it open.
Say what?
Bag of oranges grown inland on Tahiti sold by the side of the road? $30. Tahiti is Xpensive.
The boating life
(get a map for this section)
Did you know that hundreds of people a year cross the Pacific. On their own boats?! Before you read any further, go look at a world map for what that means. And contrary to the name Magellan gave the Pacific, it is not calmer than the Atlantic. In fact, 40 degrees south latitude is called something like the roaring 40's because of the bad winds and water and is considered very dangerous for navigation. Of course, Capt.Cook managed them.
I spent several hours in the boatyard on the island of Raiatea and found out about a world of people who live on and for their boats. In the space of a morning I met:
-A South African family that sailed across the Indian Ocean, up the coast of Africa, back down and across to South America, then across the Pacific. Time on board? Three years. Kids? Two of them, both school age so they are being home schooled or, as the case may be, boat-schooled.
-An American family who had quit their jobs in San Fransisco, sailed all over the coast of Alaska, then from there went down across the Pacific, then all over the Polynesian islands. They have settled in New Zealand and have decided to go back the other way for a change.
-A French lady who built her own boat and with her then husband and two children sailed all over the world - including Vanuatu in Melanesia where she witnessed the first ever gathering of all of the tribes of that island who had never seen each other, ever, in a whole group -- and settled in Raiatea, French Polynesia .. twenty-five years on the boat. They are now divorced.
-A Frenchman who sailed from France (that's the Atlantic AND the Pacific) to Raiatea, French Polynesia and now works there from his boat. His wife just left him and took the child; he wanted to stay (he "lived the life he loved and loved the life he lived" as Muddy Waters used to say). I heard him one night playing the blues on his guitar. It was a happy blues.
In addition, there were two other families of four that morning getting repairs. Now what I am writing to you here is not about pushing a little rubber ducky in the bathtub or paddle boating in Central Park's lake or going on a yacht in Westport with snobby friends for an afternoon on the Long Island Sound ... this is crossing the largest ocean on earth whose dangers are many and lethal (storms that can last for days, reefs that are hard to see that tear apart you boat, illness, technical breakdowns) .. and doing it with your kids!! One has to maintain constant vigilance over all of the instruments and information coming in as well as keep the boat 'ship shape'; if you don't.
Three weeks before I arrived on the island of Raiatea, a family of six was near the Tuamotus one night. The father had neglected to chart his point on the globe that day and was headed in a slightly wrong direction. He was going a very fast fifteen knots at night. The boat slammed into underwater reefs and was torn apart. Trying to save some items, his leg was severely lacerated. The whole family climbed into the dingy where they spent the night shivering and the father's leg bleeding badly. The kids put a tourniquet around the leg. A helicopter cam at dawn; he was one hour from death. His leg was amputated and his four children were totally traumatized.
The verdict in the boatyard? He had been careless and paid rightly for it.
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