Working in Paradise
Charlie is the name of the helper from New Jersey, although you would never know he came from there. He has been here seven years, Australia and New Zealand before this. Now he is married to a Tahitian and has a French passport. His accent is heavy and vocabulary strange as he has been speaking Tahitian and French while living deep in the bowels of the backside of this island, the dark half that is not lit up at night when flying over it. In this area you will see the Tahitian flags, blue and white, the Free Tahiti, i.e. no French control.
Charlie wants to learn as many trades as he can, he works hard and clean. He has two children, half Tahitian, and wants to introduce baseball to their school. He has a large and beautiful tattoo on his whole chest depicting his life story with all of its struggles and rewards. In addition to Charlie we have two other former Americans on the work crew, Steve and Roger. They too have been here a long time and have gotten French passports, they are builders, doing new construction and remodels. Unlike Charlie they speak less French and Tahitian, but do have superior handles on the island ways and functional lingo.
We are in demolition mode right now, getting rid of the ugly stuff and planning on what will replace it. As much of the material is saved as possible as the prices of everything here are rather high, old 2x4s are like big cumbersome chunks of money, coveted by neighbors and carefully stacked. There is a small building supply store on this island, but the big ones are in Papeete, a ferry ride away.
The weather is generally warm, really and truly don’t need much clothes, ever, so forget much packing when coming here. The rainsqualls we had on Monday didn’t stop work, just felt like what a shower is supposed to feel like, warm and wet. Just before dawn the calls and clucks of various birds start chiming in, dawn comes in gently from the east, doors and window flaps open, the chickens are busy plucking up any insects. We will begin day three. Pier holes dug, concrete, hopefully agreement with the neighbors son whose deck seems to sneak into our zone, hmm, an as-is situation.
Claude and Barbara were speaking of looking for their house and comparing prices from Hawaii and other places. Here, one speaks in millions, just like in Santa Barbara, but it is in millions of Pacific Francs which in a simple conversion would be a million US pennies which means a house costing CPF 27,000,000. is costing US$ 270,000. So a fishburger down at Freddie’s local mobile diner (called a Roulotte) costs CPF 850, or US$ 8.50. Food is expensive here as very little is grown here, not that it couldn’t be, but other than some of the regular tropical stuff much food in imported from all corners of the world.
Charlie, Steve (former carpenter and foreman, Southern California surfer married to a Tahitian and here for a long time), and Roger (here for a really long time, also married to a Tahitian) all worked their butts off today in the gentle but sufficiently warm sun. The backdrop is the next-door Tiare Tahiti flower (Cape Jasmine, Gardenia) farm and the dropping down mountains of Moorea. This is Claude and Barbara’s back yard which will have a new deck and veranda with an outdoor covered kitchen, also an out door shower, a new Tahiti style extra room and more. Very few Americans live here as Claude is French (with a lot of American experience) he can live here as a regular resident, work (if he wants), own property, gets full medical insurance, and has one heck of a fun time speaking with all of the French people around here.
At noon and in the evening after work we make sure to walk (100 feet) to the beach and go for a quick swim, do the “bon jours” and walk out on the dock. Right there in this water are big sea cucumbers, very long skinny transparent needlefish, bright fluorescent blue and black and yellow angle fish, puffer fish, and manta rays. One of these days we’ll rent a couple of kayaks and paddle over to the motu, the lagoon island of which there are several. I met a 70+-year-old French guy who was telling me about his triathlon training (this is NOT me) but we did have a nice talk about the nice bike ride circumnavigating the island, it is basically all flat with one big hill.
Doing a remodel here is quite interesting, a different world of construction, mainly 2 x 3’s and 3 x 6’s and stuff like that. The stores use a combination of inches and meters; materials come from the USA, China, Australia, France, and everywhere else. We don’t have a car so deliveries come in small Japanese trucks with Tahitian drivers smiling as they check out the new gringo’s project. Tonight, after dinner, after sunset at the beach, I did my 6.5-minute cruiser ride to the neighborhood mini shopping center and wi-fi zone. It was a long and interesting day like all the rest, unpredictable, hard-working, full of little energies and dramas, amazing backdrop and a good therapeutic swim.
Charlie wants to learn as many trades as he can, he works hard and clean. He has two children, half Tahitian, and wants to introduce baseball to their school. He has a large and beautiful tattoo on his whole chest depicting his life story with all of its struggles and rewards. In addition to Charlie we have two other former Americans on the work crew, Steve and Roger. They too have been here a long time and have gotten French passports, they are builders, doing new construction and remodels. Unlike Charlie they speak less French and Tahitian, but do have superior handles on the island ways and functional lingo.
We are in demolition mode right now, getting rid of the ugly stuff and planning on what will replace it. As much of the material is saved as possible as the prices of everything here are rather high, old 2x4s are like big cumbersome chunks of money, coveted by neighbors and carefully stacked. There is a small building supply store on this island, but the big ones are in Papeete, a ferry ride away.
The weather is generally warm, really and truly don’t need much clothes, ever, so forget much packing when coming here. The rainsqualls we had on Monday didn’t stop work, just felt like what a shower is supposed to feel like, warm and wet. Just before dawn the calls and clucks of various birds start chiming in, dawn comes in gently from the east, doors and window flaps open, the chickens are busy plucking up any insects. We will begin day three. Pier holes dug, concrete, hopefully agreement with the neighbors son whose deck seems to sneak into our zone, hmm, an as-is situation.
Claude and Barbara were speaking of looking for their house and comparing prices from Hawaii and other places. Here, one speaks in millions, just like in Santa Barbara, but it is in millions of Pacific Francs which in a simple conversion would be a million US pennies which means a house costing CPF 27,000,000. is costing US$ 270,000. So a fishburger down at Freddie’s local mobile diner (called a Roulotte) costs CPF 850, or US$ 8.50. Food is expensive here as very little is grown here, not that it couldn’t be, but other than some of the regular tropical stuff much food in imported from all corners of the world.
Charlie, Steve (former carpenter and foreman, Southern California surfer married to a Tahitian and here for a long time), and Roger (here for a really long time, also married to a Tahitian) all worked their butts off today in the gentle but sufficiently warm sun. The backdrop is the next-door Tiare Tahiti flower (Cape Jasmine, Gardenia) farm and the dropping down mountains of Moorea. This is Claude and Barbara’s back yard which will have a new deck and veranda with an outdoor covered kitchen, also an out door shower, a new Tahiti style extra room and more. Very few Americans live here as Claude is French (with a lot of American experience) he can live here as a regular resident, work (if he wants), own property, gets full medical insurance, and has one heck of a fun time speaking with all of the French people around here.
At noon and in the evening after work we make sure to walk (100 feet) to the beach and go for a quick swim, do the “bon jours” and walk out on the dock. Right there in this water are big sea cucumbers, very long skinny transparent needlefish, bright fluorescent blue and black and yellow angle fish, puffer fish, and manta rays. One of these days we’ll rent a couple of kayaks and paddle over to the motu, the lagoon island of which there are several. I met a 70+-year-old French guy who was telling me about his triathlon training (this is NOT me) but we did have a nice talk about the nice bike ride circumnavigating the island, it is basically all flat with one big hill.
Doing a remodel here is quite interesting, a different world of construction, mainly 2 x 3’s and 3 x 6’s and stuff like that. The stores use a combination of inches and meters; materials come from the USA, China, Australia, France, and everywhere else. We don’t have a car so deliveries come in small Japanese trucks with Tahitian drivers smiling as they check out the new gringo’s project. Tonight, after dinner, after sunset at the beach, I did my 6.5-minute cruiser ride to the neighborhood mini shopping center and wi-fi zone. It was a long and interesting day like all the rest, unpredictable, hard-working, full of little energies and dramas, amazing backdrop and a good therapeutic swim.
posted by wdentzel at
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