Tahuata Week2
Pacific Bliss
Colin Price
Sun 18 Mar 2012 21:28
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Tahuata
2
Hapatoni - Bay of
Dophins
 The welcome by the village
youngsters was a complete treat, totally excited and hugely enthusiatic
waving and screeming hello, it's so nice to be back on a small island
again. Having dispatched half a forest on the
dock we were then expected for lunch 'toot sweet', only our out board
decided to give up the ghost. only 2 hours latter we limped into the quay
with our rather over worked little engine. Lunch with Rose, Frederick,
Tafeta, Frederick jr., Evangelo all Marquesans are given 2 first names the one
we find almost unpronouncable with more vowel then constanents, and others of
the family was a delicious range of meat in coconut. Nothing here
is purchase if you can't grow or hunt it you go without bar the rice
and sugar. Eating with this wonderful family alway leaves us shamed
for one plate of food I'm able to squeeze in, they can demolish 3. By the
end of lunch plans were afoot to have Fredrick, big daddy take us on a tour of
the island the following day followed by lunch up the hill at DoDo and
Helens house the other folk on the beach.
     'Des guerriers'
 Cooking at home
in an oil drumRoads in Tauatata are not for the
faint hearted, pot holed and only packed down mud through the jungle doesn't
make for a particularly soft ride. But it does mean we have seen all
the island visiting the beautiful church in Vaitahu which was built by the
local commune though wierdly enough the wood - no doubt consecrated at Lourdes -
was imported from France and is now starting to show huge problems coping with
the local climate. So we're no able to stay a little longer in sleepy Hapatoni. We return back
to eat delicious wild pig with Dudu and Helen. Helen is a wonderful cook
and later in the week I spend time with her and
her French granddaughter trying out coconut
recipes
   The ladies play
bingo every Sunday, sometimes the stalks get so high the police are called
in!   Copra
drying   Who 'da urchin
anyway?  Each day the village old boys sit
quietly under the roof of the village meeting/storage area whilst gently carving
away. Whilst the children, a gaggle of rather wild little folk, play in the mud.
All villages on the islands host a small church that's well attended
daily. It seems the there's almost a full house each evening for
Mass. So at about 5.30 the mud clad children are barked at by there Mumma's and
frog marched back to a hose and some smart clean clothes, no child here would
ever answer back, when a parent barks it feels like a volcano is
errupting.
 Giving
a short slide show to the school kids. Mostly photos of our
trip.  Tafeta at work
on a pair of earings for Liz   s/v Odesyee with
Arnaud & Coco Tafeta's rather amusing 'car'   under the bonnet
with portable fuel tank for desiel! Staying longer turns into a bit of a
good thing. Not only was Colin and his village friends able to recover our
precious outboard engine, it meant we've been able to spend more time with Coco
and Arnaud our very special young French friends. Plus the day after
Coco's birthday we wake to find the bay full of dancing
dolphins. Despite the water being rather murky and full of
stinging micro organisms it's worth ignoring it to be able to swim with dolpins
for an hour. They stayed with us all day, so much so the children found
the spectical really rather dull with in a few hours. Taking a dinghy was
really rather excillerating being chased by these incredibly fast agile
mammals.
So the day started with Dolphins and
then we where treated to a treasure of a trip in search of hidden
Petrogliphs, Dudu and Tafeta were completely wonderful driving us and
talking about many of the histories of the island. By the time we left we
had eaten well where loaded with more regimes of banana's than Waitross sells in
a week and the proud owner of many beautiful bead and bone jewels all given to
us as friends.    Dolphins around the boat in their
hundreds. Gave a display of jumping and twisting like we have never seen
before.   We take a tour up to the petroglyphs
which we would never have found if we had not been with DuDu (an old French dude
who has settled in Marquesas for 20 years) and Tafeta who led the way into the
jungle up an unmarked path. Lots of tales of Marquesian history from Dudu
who interestingly said that mostly the local people do not show an interest in
their history - they live for the day and dont look back or forward. This
is very much in our understanding when we had been told that Marquesians start
the year with an empty freezer, then fill it and fill it until it is full.
then they eat fresh meat and fish for a year until it is time to defrost the
freezer, when they just feed it all to the pigs, and then start to refill
it. Marquesians have a deep fear of not having enough - just look at all
the meals we have had with the table groaning under the weight of food, most of
which remains untouched. So much for not wasint food that could go to the
third world.
   Dudu and
Tafeta Will Colin be brave enough to get one of these? Watch
this blog.....We where told before we arrived that
you where unable to barter things in the Marquesas anymore! Well this
statement seems to be correct all we seem to be experience is things being given
to us, We'll treasure them forever.
Hanamoenoa - Deserted Bay
on North Tahuata
For a bit of a break, and the
weekend, we pottered up to the North East of the island to a deserted bay with a
single coconut tree.
     Playing chicken
in the dinghy with a huge water spout |