Coconuts Aren't Free

“What kind of a crazy fool of a foreigner are you?!”  I’m being yelled at by a 12-year old Fakaravan girl on a bicycle by the side of the road.  She’s yelling in French, so I’m really just guessing at her words, but the meaning is clear enough.  Her tone is of exasperated incredulity.  And, I’m trying to figure out where things went wrong.

I first met Sandra about a mile down the road toward the wharf where we came from.  Glenn was going for a run to see how far he could get, and I had decided to walk instead.  There is only one road on this large but skinny atoll, so there was no danger of really losing each other.  But, by the time I saw Sandra and her sisters in the coconut grove, Glenn was well out of sight.

Sandra’s sister beckoned to me from across the road as I was passing.  They were pulling coconuts off the trees with a long pole.  “Do you want one?”  She asked in French.  I stopped.  She pointed at some green coconuts in the tree which are full of juice and coconut jelly.  I was definitely feeling parched.  “Well, yes.  Okay.”  Sandra pulled one down for me while two of her little sisters brought over a machete.  She hacked off the top and made a little hole in the side so that I could drink the juice without spilling too much of it down my front.  The whole operation took less than a minute, and I was impressed.  They handed me the coconut, and I took a sip.  The girls gathered around me, and I tried to pass it back to them to share.  They said no, which surprised me.  So, I shrugged, deciding that it was meant just for me.  “Merci beaucoup,” I said and carried on down the road to share the coconut with Glenn.

“What?  Did you think I would just give you the coconut?  That was hard work!  I had to pull it down and hack at it with the machete…” she continued her diatribe in French, embellishing her arguments with mimed gestures as though we were playing an angry game of charades.

Our conversation had begun pleasantly.  She had ridden up behind me on her bicycle.  I smiled and said, “Bonjour.”  And, we talked for 5 – 10 minutes about who we were and our families.  I told her about our travels so far.  She was very interested in hearing about the Marquesas Islands.  At some point, she decided to talk about the coconut, which I had stopped drinking.  I explained to her that I was going to share it with my husband who was running.  She clearly thought that was odd, and that sidetracked our conversation for a bit again.

“Oh!  You want me to pay you for the coconut!”  She looked at me as though I was a very slow foreigner indeed.  I proceeded to explain my confusion to her.  “You see, in the Marquesas Islands, fruit was given to us all of the time.”  Incredulity again dominated her expression.  “Really!  There was so much fruit – mangoes, guavas, bananas, coconuts, and limes – we couldn’t go anywhere without people giving us the fruit from their trees. “  “And, they didn’t want money?  They must have been rich villages,” she decided.  I explained that the people in these villages were not any richer than Fakaravans as far as I could tell, but that they had an overabundance of fruit.  They wanted to talk with us, and to trade with us.

I decided that the Tuomotus were different from the Marquesas Islands because of tourism.  It seems to be a much larger proportion of the economy in Fakarava is based on accommodating rich tourists in particular.  It is not cheap to get here, and it is definitely not cheap to buy most things here either.  I reached for my money bag.  “How much do you want for the coconut?”

She drew herself up to her full height of 5’4”, looked me in the eyes, and stated with a straight face, “One thousand francs.”  That’s over ten dollars for a coconut!  It was my turn to look incredulous.  She continued her rant from before, “You are rich and I am poor.  You should be supporting our economy!”  She carried on, saying something about her little brothers and sisters and trying to demonstrate how desperate their situation was.  I wasn’t buying it.  This was starting to feel like a hustle.

“I’m sorry, Sandra.  But I don’t have a thousand francs.”  This was true.  Our support of the town’s economy had reduced our stock of French Polynesian cash to just a few coins worth less than two dollars.  I gave her what I had, but she was unsatisfied.  She insisted that I should be able to make a phone call and get the money sent to me.  Or, I could go to the post office which is where the islanders do their banking.  I explained that I didn’t have anyone to call and that the post office only worked with the Tahitian banks, not American ones.  She was flummoxed.

Then I tried to describe to her the difference between those tourists who arrive by airplane or on the giant charter yachts and those sailors like us who are slowly exploring the Pacific.  Unfortunately, the topic of limited budgets and dwindling finances is not only boring for a 12-year old, but it is exceedingly difficult to explain with a grasp of French equivalent to a 2-year old.

Finally, Glenn reappeared and she gave up.   She said, disheartened, “The coconut is free.  I am giving you the coconut.”  I expressed my thanks, but I noticed that she was not offering to return the money I had already given her.  I didn’t really mind though.  I think she got a fair price for the coconut and I also got about twenty minutes of practicing my French speaking and comprehension.  She rode away as Glenn and I walked together sharing the warm juice of the coconut.

Gone Fishing

“Hey! Hey, Cynthia!  We have a visitor!”  This is a story from our second week in the Marquesas Islands.  We had just left Atuona on Hiva Oa the day before and spent the night at a sweet anchorage on the west side of Tahuata Island just a few miles south of Hiva Oa.  We were the only ones anchored here, next to a near vertical wall of coconut palms, and across a little bay from the village.

A cliff of coconut palms on Tahuata Island. Notice the dinghy in the water for scale.

 

It was Sunday morning and the sun was still struggling to peek over the green cliff.  The sea was dark, but glass calm.  We had slept in and enjoyed the still motion compared to the rolly anchorage of Atuona.  I was surprised we had a visitor because most Marquesans attend church on Sundays.  In many villages we have seen, the church is the most substantial building around, and going to a service is often touted in the guide books as a “must-do activity” for the tourists.  Indeed, the singing is quite lovely.

In any case, we had a visitor – a young fisherman with a very masculine Marquesan name full of T’s and K’s and I’s.  He had a fish and Glenn was trying to find out how much it would cost us to have fresh tuna for dinner that night.  I spoke more French than Glenn, which is to say, I knew how to conjugate one verb – to want.  I also brought out my French-English dictionary.

“Bonjour!  Comment ça va?”   (“Bonjour!  How are you?”)

“Um… nous voulons ce poisson.”  (“We want that fish.”)

Flipping through the dictionary, I found the word for “How much” and I made the international sign for money.  After a bit of misunderstanding, I got that the fish was not for sale.  Well, that was unexpected.  He wanted it for himself, for sashimi.  Hmmm.  I wonder why he stopped by then… I guess he was just friendly!

Then, he offered to take me fishing.  Just around the corner, he said was a great fishing spot.  It wouldn’t take long.  But, no, no, he (meaning, Glenn) should stay and watch the boat.  We won’t be long.  Hmmm.  Well, why not?  Okay!

Glenn thought to take a picture of us for evidence as I left on my fishing expedition without a radio.

 

I know you’re all wondering now if this is a good story or a bad one.  I’ll go ahead and kill the suspense right now.  I got a fish.  We weren’t gone very long.  He was right – it was a great spot for fish.  But, he didn’t want money.  He wanted to trade.  I wondered what I could offer to trade for a fish.

“Qu’est-ce que vous voulez pour le poisson?”  (“What do you want for the fish?”)

I didn’t understand his answer and I had to consult my dictionary.  “Fom,” he said.  How do you spell that?  Oh!  “Femme.”  Flip, flip, flip.  Um, yeah, femme means woman.

This was the start of a painfully awkward but hysterical interchange between us as I had to consult the dictionary for pretty much every word.  I was slowly translating by dictionary a man propositioning me in a small motorboat just around the corner from Glenn.

I tried playing stupid… “I don’t have any femme,” I said.  “You!  You are femme!” he said with a knowing but amused smile.  He really was friendly and unthreatening.  I’m sure he understood the chances that his charade would work were slim, but he was still giving it a shot.  I found out that he was from the local village, and that it was made up of mostly men.  So many villagers, particularly the women, had moved to Tahiti.  That’s where the money is, so that’s where they went. 

He allowed the conversation to drift away from his proposed trade for a while, but not too long.  Finally, I said, “Autre chose.”  (“Another thing.”)  He frowned, shrugged, and said,

“Okay.  You decide.” 

“But, what do you need?” 

“Femme.” 

“No.”

“You decide.”

That got tedious.

After a little bit, we caught a fish.  He pulled it in and dispatched it quickly, then turned his boat around heading back for Columbine.  We continued the repetitive sequence of our conversation most of the way back.  I would suggest something to trade, but nothing seemed to be right.  Finally, I had a revelation!  I know what he needs!  Wasabi!  He wanted his fish for sashimi, so he needs wasabi to go with it.  And, I had noticed it is not a common item in the stores in Atuona. 

“Est-ce que vous voulez Wasabi?”

“What is that?”

“Wasabi est pour sashimi!”

“Hmmm.  Okay.”  Shrug.

Well, he wasn’t excited about it, but I could tell he was a bit intrigued.  He had never had it before, so maybe this could be a good trade after all!  Unfortunately, all I had was some powdered wasabi, so I had to explain how to make it into a paste for dipping.  He eyed the Ziploc bag of light green powder suspiciously.  I had handwritten instructions “+ l’eau.”  Maybe he could Google it…

In any case, I had had an adventure.  And, we had a fish for dinner!  Nemo got the tail as a prize, which he gnawed on rather uncertainly for a while.  Overall, it was a fun day, but I’m sure there’s a moral to this story somewhere… Oh, yes.  Beware of lonely young fishermen who come calling on Sunday morning.  In fact, you can add pearl divers to that list as well.  I guess I’m slow to learn sometimes.

Nemo tries to figure out how to deal with this fish that's as big as he is...

Sailing Photos

After being away for several months and not posting any photos, I decided to pop some onto the blog. These will be presented without a lot of description, but I didn’t want the postings to get too far behind our travels. So here goes.

This was our favorite sail combination for the San Diego-to-Marqueses passage (at least for wind speeds from 10 kts to ~20 kts).

Here we are anchored in Atuona, Hiva Oa. This one was taken the day we arrived. The yellow flag we are flying is our quarantine flag which must be flown until we have officially checked in. Also notice the heavy fouling on the aft half of Columbine. After a month of having our topsides submerged (being heeled over) we picked up quite a lot of hitchhikers, mostly gooseneck barnacles. Also notice how tight this anchorage is. We were anchored bow and stern to keep from swinging into another boat. As soon as one left, another pulled in.

Here is a view from one of our hikes on Hiva Oa. The Marqueses Islands are high, mountainous islands that provide some great hiking. This climb started just outside of Atuona and offered great exercise and excellent views of the island and the bay.

Here is Taiohae Bay, Nuku Hiva, as seen from up on one of the surrounding mountains. We spent a couple weeks here and really had a great time. We hiked every other day, and worked on the boat a lot. This bay is pretty protected from the storms that continuously blow through, but there is a steady swell that causes all the boats to roll. There was also a fantastic music festival that we were able to attend. There were six bands, and they played from 5pm till 5am (no joke). It was mostly rock and reggae. Both were really interesting to hear, popular songs sung in either French or Marquesan or some mix thereof.

The Tuomotus are the opposite of the Marqueses. Here is a view of Kauehi Atoll from only a few miles away – you can hardly see the land. The max elevation is something like several feet. No good hiking here, but some really excellent snorkeling in the lagoons.

Our next stop is the Society Islands, which includes Tahiti, Moorea, and Bora Bora. Most of these are mountainous, so we can get our hiking shoes out again.