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Tuesday July 31, 2007

We are seeing a side of French Polynesia that the tourist that arrives on an airplane never sees. On our way home from the last trip from BVI to Marquesas in early June we had a 7 hour layover in Papeete. We interviewed tourists who were returning from their South Pacific vacation to understand what their experience was like. All the tourists we talked to were on a packaged tour to one resort or another. Their entire experience from arrival to departure was controlled by the “packaged deal”. We did talk to one couple who wandered out of the resort one day and their comment was the local people lived in poverty. There was nothing to see or do in town and they returned to the excitement of the resort.

 

I think Bora Bora shows the contrast of the resort versus local Polynesian life more clearly than any other place. A tourist arrives at the airport which is located on its own Island, Motu Mute. You and your luggage board a ferry to a dock in Vaitape. You shout the name of your resort; soon a resort greeter arranges you and your luggage to be transported to your new paradise to begin your dreamy South Pacific Polynesian experience. Just like when you board a cruise ship, you are in good hands now. You may get a glimpse of local life every now and then when you take one of the packaged excursions, but the comfort of the resort is just waiting there for you. Sometimes they even send some of the resort with you, a guide and refreshments, to make sure enjoy yourself out in the raw world.

 

Arriving on Bella Donna is different. We bring our little island, our home, our boat into Bora Bora as a whole. The resort is our neighbor not our world. Our neighbors change as we decide to change neighborhoods and move to a new anchorage. Today there is a Sheraton Resort off the port side and some local Polynesian beach homes off starboard. At the resort there is room service. In the rest of the neighborhood we get in a dinghy and boat over to the dock in Vaitape and start searching for the closest grocery we can walk to with our reusable shopping bags.

 

Our closest Polynesian neighbor has a home made up of 3 small simple thatched roof structures each with a porch. The one on the right has 2 rooms, each with a sliding barn like door that is always open revealing a large king sized bed that takes up most of the room. The middle structure is one room and has the same king sized bed, but there is more walk space on the side that faces the attached third structure which has no windows. We assume that is the bathroom and kitchen. Obviously the entire home is built to spend most of a lifetime outdoors. All the houses on this Motu are built on the narrow strip of beach sand that is the only flat land before the jungle covered peak rises up to dominate most of the Motu. The structures are shaded by tall palm trees with oak like trees thriving beneath providing lots of outside shade for living outdoors. There is a simple wooden dock with a small dinghy with outboard motor raised out of the water on a boat lift that is hand operated with 2 huge wheels that resemble the helm on Bella Donna.

 

Most of the Polynesians living in such homes are the traditional mother, father and children family. The kids are always playing and the adults are busy coming and going doing chores or just sitting in the shade to meditate on all the beauty around them. This home however has several Polynesian people that may or may not be related. There are small children from about 3 to 10, a couple of young men a young woman too young to be mother of the children, an older man and a person of the third sex, a mahus. An old Tahitian tradition is that for a family or community that desires it, a young man may impersonate a female and perform day to day life and chores as a female. The man will dress and behave like a woman. Not all are homosexual; however some are. This mahus may be performing the chores for the absent mother of this family. Anyway he is wearing a bright orange female bikini on the beach today.

 

In 1766 the first woman circumnavigated the world leaving France impersonating a male botanist. Jean Baret carried off the disguise until the ship reached Tahiti where the Polynesians detected immediately that she was female and pointed at her telling the French captain saying “vahine”, the Tahitian word for woman.

 

God Bless Bella Donna.