MONDAY, OCTOBER 7:

The humidity is very high this morning, because it rained last night. While waiting to settle our bill with Greg, a couple examining their week-long bill argues with each other over whether they had an omelet one morning or not.

A bus picks us up, along with a dozen of the Americans we’ve been interacting with all week. At the docks, I stand in line to exchange vouchers for ferry tickets. While talking with Chase’s wife Annette, a French woman manages to cut in line one person ahead of us and thrust money at the cashier. A French guy tries to do the same in front of us and I step into him, blocking his move. Our eyes meet. I smile. Peace, light and love. Annette does her exchange. I do mine. The Frenchman now tries to move in, but I usher a Polynesian man to the window. “You’re next,” I say.

French guy seethes. I smile some more and leave the rest of the line to fend for itself.

Boarding the ferry, we put our suitcases in metal bins, before proceeding to the lounge. The catamaran leaves the dock at 8:30 AM. The air-conditioning kicks in -- the first we’ve experienced all week. The cat bucks some waves, spray sheets the windows. Polynesian music plays over the sound system. A woman makes announcements in Polynesian and French. Hope they weren’t about anything important, like “we’ve left your suitcases on Moorea.”

All the Americans from our hotel have made arrangements to take a tour of Papeete and the island of Tahiti. The bus will then drop us at the airport at 4 PM.

Retrieving our suitcases from the metal bins, we walk thirty feet to an awaiting tour bus. A very large, round man named Bernie will be our guide. The tour begins with a drive through the streets of Papeete, which I quickly decide is not a place I’d like to spend much time. Bernie points out churches, car dealerships and the other important offerings of the city.

Our first stop is at hotel grounds overlooking the city. The luxury hotel has bankrupted but the view is still good.

At a coastal point called the “Blow Hole,” water builds up and shoots out of a hole in the rocks. Kris and Chase, the Utah kids, dive into the ocean beside the blow hole. Tara tells me that the guide for a French tour group also witnessing this little wonder of nature, makes snide comments about “crazy Americans diving into the sea.”

Later at a waterfall up in the hills, Kris and Chase outdo each other climbing up to a ledge where they just about disappear beneath the falling water.

“A few years ago, you’d have been doing it all with them,” Tara says.

“Nah,” I say.

“Yes you would. You always used to do dangerous things to scare me.”

“That was 20 years ago.”

“No it wasn’t.”

We stop at the Paul Gauguin Museum restaurant, which offers a native Polynesian buffet or menu sandwiches. I don’t recognize anything on the buffet and am not really in the mood for this level of ethnic experience at this price. We order sandwiches.

We knew before coming here that French Polynesia is more expensive than anywhere else in the world except Japan. I wonder how the people manage. The buffet is about $20. Gas is $4.60 a gallon. Cigarettes, $7 a pack at the hotel.

The restaurant is attached to a fish farm of some kind. Outside the restaurant is a long dock and on each side, enclosed areas for different kids of fish. While awaiting our lunch, Kris and Chase go out to investigate the fish. A few minutes later, Kris comes back with his eyes wide. “Don’t put your hand in the tuna section,” he says.

“I want to see them,” Tara says. I follow her out to view the fish.

We come to the tuna section. It’s full of huge circling fish. “What can a fish like that do to you?” I say.

“Richard, don’t?”

I put my hand in the water and splash. WHOA!!! I damn near do a back flip across the dock as a dozen fish leap out of the water to get my hand. “Shit! These are HUNGRY fish.”

“RICHARD!!!.”

At the shark section, I kneel down, put one hand around Tara’s ankle, use my other hand to splash. The shark doesn’t respond, but instantly two puffer fish shoot out from under the dock and come for my hand.

“RICHARD, THEY’RE POISONOUS!!!”

Our baquette sandwiches are not good but the French bread is filling. Tara loves hers, but she’s not a sandwich eater so her opinion doesn’t count. The kids take the remains of their food out on to the dock to feed the starving fish. A few bites of Cheyenne’s left-over chicken causes a tuna feeding frenzy.

Next stop, the Paul Gauguin Museum. The entrance fee is about $5. We have only 45 minutes here and no one else on the bus even bothers to go in. To Tara and I, this is an incredible opportunity and we’d ideally spend hours here. The museum offers about a dozen original Gauguin paintings, along with some of his personal belongings, wood blocks, photos and a model of “maison du jouir” -- his house on the island of Hiva Oa in the Marquesas archipelago. I imagine myself painting in his second-floor studio.

The painting collection includes one of Gauguin’s most famous works, “Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?” The heavy burlap canvas is huge. In 1897, a month after he painted it, he tried to commit suicide. I study the painting for a long time, trying to get into the head of the artist.

Gauguin, always a renegade, produced great works of art, lived an island life of debauchery, and fought endlessly with the church and French police. When he died in 1903, the Bishop Martin of the Marquesas wrote a note saying, “Death of a wretched fellow, a famous artist, an enemy of God and morality.”

At a tour stop to view a lighthouse, I talk with our guide Bernie alone. I’m still trying to figure out the tourism situation. I know there was a problem at the airport in 1995 and after that, the Japanese stopped coming and they have never come back. I’d heard the Polynesians were protesting the French government’s nuclear tests in the South Pacific. Tear gas thrown at the islanders was thrown back at the French police and the international airport burned down as a result.

Bernie says, “No, no. I was there. I was part of it. Molotov cocktails purposely thrown by the islanders burned down the airport. Actually, the people thought the Tahitian president was leaving on a plane and they didn’t want him to leave. They rushed the plane. A conflict ensued. It was supposed to be a quiet demonstration, but it got out of hand. The foreign press was here to cover the nuclear testing and they helped to agitate the people. Then the incident was reported in the international press and overnight tourism dropped to almost nothing. It was just beginning to come back when the terrorists struck New York.”

Bernie tells me how the Polynesian people play on French guilt. Part of the tourism problem can be blamed on the nuclear testing. “Every year our people go to France and come back with huge amounts of money to support the islands ... to make up for what the French government did to us.” He smiles a sly smile.

I won’t go into how the French managed to steal the islands in the first place, but  now, 200 plus years later, it seems their acquisition is far more trouble that it may be worth. I ask Bernie, “Is French Polynesia just a great big pain in the ass to France?”

Bernie leans back and laughs and laughs. “You better believe it,” he says.

Following a brief fern-grotto stop, at 4 PM the bus drops us at the Tahiti International Airport. The facility is closed down until 5 PM. All the surrounding outer shops are also closed.

When the airport opens to check luggage and issue boarding passes, we’re in the middle of a long line. A Frenchman with a cane steps through an opening in the line marker, right in front of us. Tara grabs my arm and squeezes. The squeeze says, “Please, for my sake, don’t.”

I let it go. Peace light and love.

An hour later, I’m rewarded in the gift shop. I ask the clerk if she has “Melatonin to sleep on the plane” (a natural sleep inducer in adults).

She shakes her head, but a Frenchman standing in line says, “I have some French sleeping pills, I can give you.”

I decline and thank him profusely, primarily out of disbelief. Maybe my French karma is complete?

No.

On board the French Corsair 747, our row of four across is right beside the bathrooms. The bathroom door two feet from my seat is broken, so everyone using it leaves it open and the perfume they use to cover odors emits non-stop. I realize I’m about to have an eight-hour olfactory experience. And although this is an overnight flight, there are no pillows.

My seat is broken and won’t stay up. Neither Hunter or I have working reading lights. The video system is so squiggly it’s unwatchable. The guy in the widow seat across the aisle stuffs his blanket into a crack four feet long overhead, because freezing air is coming through. If maintenance is this lacking within the plane, I wonder about the engines and electronics. 

Take off is at 9:30 PM. Tara is no sooner asleep in her seat than a French woman in the row behind her starts physically tapping my wife hard on the head. It seems the flight attendant has provided a meal for her child and the woman wants Tara to put her seat up so the child has more room to eat comfortably. I start to tell the woman where she can go, but Tara squeezes my arm, puts up her seat and is quickly back to sleep, sitting straight up.

No English is spoken for any of the announcements, although the plane is headed for Los Angeles with what appear to me to be predominately Americans passengers. But during an awake period, Tara says, “I think she is speaking English. It’s just that she’s speaking so fast and so badly, you can’t understand a word.“

“I heard the word chicken once,” I admit. “But I figured the French pronounce chicken like we do.”

* * * * *

Typing out this journal a week after our return, I can’t wait to return to Moorea. I’d prefer to travel on an American, British or Australian airline, however. The sooner we go back, the better. The outer islands also call. I would also prefer to go when French people are busy having a wonderful time somewhere else, but I do accept that they’re here to help me learn about resistance. And if they’re my karma, I’ve decided I’m their karma too. Since they’re here to learn from me, I don’t want to forsake my obligation by not providing them with a proper opportunity when destiny brings us together once again.

Richard and Tara at end of day on Cook’s Bay.

* * * * *

AFTERWORD 1:

Sunday October 13: Six days after our return home, we meet friends Jay and Julie for a pancake breakfast before driving up the coast to the Santa Ynez wine country. We plan a mellow afternoon of wine tasting at some of the premium wineries in the region. Since I’m not as wine oriented as the others, I’m the designated driver.

At our third winery stop, Blackjack Ranch Vineyards & Winery, two women are pouring out the samples. I’ve already stopped drinking so am paying little attention to the spiel from the woman tipping the bottles. Another woman is standing behind the bar, awaiting customers. She’s a very pretty light-eyed blond, probably about 40. When I hear her accent, I ask where she’s from.

“France.”

Warily, I put on my clown mask and start to tease. Her responses are funny. She explains that she’s been in the states for seven years and has been involved with horses in several Southern CA locations. When the conversation turns to horses Tara quickly joins in. Tara explains that her best friend Marie Matheson is also from France. I explain that French people usually attack me on sight.

She laughs, shakes her head. “French people drive me crazy.”

“Huh?”

“When I go back home to France they don’t recognize me as French anymore, so they treat me horribly. So I say bad French words to them. They drive me crazy.”

I give Tara a looooong “it’s not just me” look. Tara exchanges e-mail and contact information with this new Marie. I sense a friendship in the making. I’m going to have more French people in my life.

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