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...
|