A military police as dick jockey

Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Sat 8 Nov 2014 02:23
Sometimes you are very lucky and a series of things happen to your favour.
First of all, since it is a confused weather pattern with little wind, there is no swell in this bay that
is known to be a notoriously bad place. We learned yesterday that the bay is so unprotected that it often happens that their monthly cargo
ship simply skips them,
Actually the whole place is so unprotected that the small airfield is randomly visited by an airplane.
So if you want to come here from let's say Stockholm, you would fly ( we learned this from an Xpat yesterday) Stockholm - Paris- Shanghai- Auckland-Suva (Fiji)-Wallace- and there you might stand by for days or weeks to wait for the small plane to go here.
But yesterday, not only did we come in, but also Southern Pearl from Singapore, a container ship in the smaller region of ship sizes.
Anyway, as we went to the Gendarmerie (that is the french military police) yesterday we also learned there would be a party at the gym.
After 6 we went there and we found two french women behind a counter serving whatever you wanted to drink (not for free), and --- that's it.
Well no, there was also a disc jockey playing music and they had plenty of dicko light rotating in different colors so it would make any epilepsy go off like a snap. Wow I really missed something on the way, discolight is so small now a days, with LED you can make a small puck that
gives a hell of a variations and crazy patterns on the wall.
As this is normally a gym, all the machines were taken away and covered with palm leafes (the kids soon found them and we had to save their lifes now and then).
We were almost turning at the door since we thought - what kind of party is THAT?
But one of the women really said: "Entré, entré!" and I thought "easy for you to say", but we did and was that interesting?
Well one of the women we learned as we were sipping our beer for a price that even Sweden feels cheap, but I guess if a ship does not come in now and then the beer prices goes up... we learned that her husband was the discjockey and that he was one of the staff at the Gendarmerie, they move around the world depending on where he gets the next duty. Before Futuna, they were in St Martinique, and was that a contrast?
In St Martinique, she told us, they had to fight crime every night, here, they have never done anything. There is NO crime on this island.
They told us you can leave things anywhere and nobody takes it. There is no escape...I guess.
Well we had a great time with those two women, shouting as the Gendarmerist played loud music and our kids played with the kids belonging to
one of the french women. So what about them, what did they do? One was a teacher, she was moving with the Gendarmerist and found jobs were they came. The other was married to a Futuna/French guy she met in Ireland, so she spoke really good english (thank god).
   So they decide to move here to Fututna- why not? And maybe start a Pizzeria- well according to this wonderful energetic woman - it did not work out. Because of the ship ( I thought she said shit first, the music was so loud...). "Oh the ship?" I said and tried to look like I understood... Maybe they bring ready made pizzas?
Maybe .... well no you got me on this one.
Tell me...
When the ship does not come in, they have no ingredients, and then there is no Pizza to make....so they gave up.
Well as we were learning the hardship of making a living were you have 3000, not 5000 living souls (as I wrote earlier) and 2950 of them are polynesians, the other almost 50 came strolling into the "gym". Most people that came were Xpats, and all french. And to me french people are sooooo animated and soooooo energetic and they kiss each others chins back and forth, back and forth and I love it. There is a huge difference in the French and the English way of expressing yourself. You go from the fine tuned cynism and the ability to know everybodys name to a crowd of people that talk loud, energetic, that jump up and down if you do not understand and nobody knows your name and we do not know theirs either but we have been kissed, oh have we been kissed....
There came all the hospital staff, yes they have 15 beds here with french doctors and nurses (hopefully not in them) , and there came the teachers and finally the goverment revision crowd....
Most women actually, and since there was a lack of men you just stand up and dance, and dance. Then they go out and smoke, wich is also very unusual, for them, to have to go out... I guess.
Some Polinesian people showed up and danced disco as well for a while but suddenly the police jockey puts on a traditional polynesian song and all the islanders start a war dance with disco lights, the French and we try to mimic them but forget it, we just make fools of ourselves...
 
So this is what I started writing this morning and it all sounds like a made up story, you think, reality is more fun than fiction.
We heard that if we wanted to buy food we better get into the village before late, when the ship has been in you will have a temporary pile of food in the store.
So here I continue after coming back and we had a good lunch...
 
There was more to come, we took the dinghy to the dock, which at low tide makes it like a small mountain climb to get up.
Walked to what we thought was the only STORE on the island, walked inside and the piles looked just the same, came out and met the husband of the Pizzawanttomakewoman, and we learned he was not Irish even though he was drinking beer 10 in the morning, he was more a Futuna mix with a french maybe? Anyway he set us up to go with the village chief to the other island tomorrow, the chief being his cousin and pretty drunk already, but according to another French guy he still had 23 beers to drink before the day was over...
After that we were offered by another French to get in his car and he would take us to a real Supermarket. So we jumped in a Renault (what else?) and swooooosh we were in another world, a S U P E R M A R K E T, a French Supermarket with Brie, Bordeaux, Baguette you name it. And it looked like a real Supermarket, you know with shelves and flourecent light in the ceiling.....
When we came out 13000 Franc poorer all the guys who done shoping celebrated the day with another beer... and Swooooooosh we were suddenly in the back of a pick up truck and driven back to the dock.
 
Life is so much fun when you just go with the flow...