Our Other Friends

Usually I get completely away from our lagoon-front work-zone about once a day, sometimes mid-day, sometimes not until evening. Using the cruiser bike is the quickest way, bouncing with those big fat tires over the little island ring road to the village. So far I haven’t hit any crabs, but they always get my attention, sometimes there are so many of these land crabs popping in and out of their holes, crabbeling their way across to other holes, that the palm covered road shoulders appear to be moving like the ripples in the lagoon. These are big light gray crabs bigger than my fist. They seem to be quite comfortable scurrying around those palm fields and hiding in their holes, haven’t yet seen any squished ones on the road.

The most amazing domestic animals around here are the poultry. Contrary to the savaged and desperate looking chickens eking out an existence in the Andes or the Amazon, the hens and roosters hanging out around here are tall, clean, colorful and very healthy looking. Beautiful deep reds, white, orange, curly long tail feathers, well tapered necks and perfect beaks. No scrawny featherless crouching beggars, these birds rule here, they might even be the direct descendents of the rosignol used for the French made skis. We are reminded of that their sovergnty each morning, little herds of them run around in just about every open area there is. Fortunately for use they choose to eat the cockroaches and centipedes and whatever else of the local bug population we don’t really want to see, too bad they don’t eat mosquitoes.

In our little lagoon zone there are several little clutches of mommy hens with little troops of chickies weaving in and out of mommys’ legs and the colorful bushes as they all look for munchies. These little families usually start out with about eight or ten members, by the end of the first week that has been cut in half, by the end of the first month the numbers are very low. The poultry population seems to be in perfect balance. After the first months of life, the chickies get big enough to survive the daily dangers, until the Tahitian owner comes along who is preparing for dinner. The ready-to-eat size are bartered, you see them being toted around between legs on mopeds and bicycles on their way to service.

You have to look pretty hard to find the bigger nasty bugs but when you score, the experience is universal, shriek! I couldn’t get over how fast those long wormy centipedes could cruise. First of all they are big and fat with a long stripe down their purple body. Their head has some nasty looking pinchers especially when it’s doing its defense stance thing, opening them up and staring at you. All of those little legs, at least one hundred of them, work fast giving it the mobility to crawl up or down anything, especially your barefooted leg. The cockroaches aren’t so special, just the regular big bug that moves as it pleases and stays out of sight, a nice meal for the chickens.

While lying in the white coral sand on the lagoon shore I saw the most beautiful lime green tern fly across my view, wow, no one ever told me about those. When I saw the next one I figured it out, the bright turquoise green water of the lagoon was reflecting up on the bird’s puffy white plumage. Other birds around here are the myna, typical of India and everywhere in between, they make their collection of screeches and yammering. Lots of little birds with crests or mixed colorful plumage jump around in the bushes and palms of the fields, if I had time to hike around more I’m sure there would be lots of discoveries made, these islands are a happy abundant refuge out in the middle of the ocean.

Our little cat is not looking like those generally seen on the American west coast, he’s Tahitian. His head is a little pointier, his coat has more spots on it than stripes, sort of like a little leopard, most of all his attitude is very laid back. He can lie on his back with legs spread out and head to the side, sleeping right in the middle of a busy room under construction. He hangs out on top of our tools or at the top of a lonely post looking down at everyone doing the building thing. In the evening he just pushes his way into you and does the purr things with great skill.

It’s the furry coated (usually pedigree) pet dogs that some of these French people have that I feel sorry for, they are being held hostage down here with clothing on them that would do fine somewhere in the foothills of the alps but looks pretty silly in the tropics, poor doggies. The Tahitians have their dogs too, short haired, healthy looking but very slow and passive. I guess sometimes they come out on the road and scare tourists, but all I’ve ever seen is tired looking mutts just hanging out on the sidelines, nothing to be afraid of.

Fishies abound in the little lagoon, long silvery clear needlefish, angelfish with bright colorful stripes, deep dark iridescent blue fish with lacy fins, and even plenty of Hawaii’s state fish the Humu-humu-nuku-nuku-apu-aa. Supposedly, just over by the little motu islands nearby our lagoon beach are manta rays, friendly ones, that swim around and jump out of the water doing tricks for the tourists in the glass bottom boats, haven’t been there or done that yet.