THIS SHORT STORY WAS WRITTEN BY H.O. SANTOS.
BY the time I got to Bora Bora I wasn’t shy anymore about asking strangers for favors. I always offered something in return and almost everyone seemed to appreciate that although I knew they mostly didn’t need what I had to offer.
Like yesterday. I spent a wonderful day on Motu Moute as the guest of a couple who tended a small watermelon patch on that barrier island, one of the many motus that surround Bora Bora. When I heard they were going to work on their farm, I offered to help for free. They thought I was nuts—the dry season was over, they said, and there’d be mosquitoes and gnats on the island. They laughed but finally said okay, undoubtedly to humor a fool as much as they needed help.
They weren’t kidding. There were lots of gnats and the mosquitoes were only waiting to take over at night. There wasn’t much work—there wasn’t enough weeds for three people to pull out and the plants were doing well. It was quite an enjoyable day for the island was beautiful and pristine—very few people go there to mess it up. For lunch we ate fish caught on the way over, broiled over charcoal from the coconut leaves I collected. I even managed to do some swimming in the calm lagoon waters.
I was on my third day in Vaitape, the main town in Bora Bora. It had a pier which wasn’t very busy—only little boats and small cruise ships docked there. For the third day in a row, I saw the brown dog that seemed to have made the pier his home. He would meet every ship that came in and look at the faces of everyone who disembarked, as if looking for a long-lost master who had sailed away one day and never came back. I wondered if his master had left his island home for the same reasons I left mine when I was twenty-one. I felt sorry for the dog because I had already learned what “you can never come home again” meant.
I worried about what I was going to do the rest of the day when I saw a le truck that looked like it might be a tour bus. I went to the driver and asked. Her name was Teróo and yes, she was waiting to take tourists from a cruise ship on a circle island tour.
“Can I help? I speak English.”
“What do I need you for, I speak English myself. Everyone in the tour industry does.”
“I don’t want any money—I just want to help you round your passengers up after each stop. Surely, you don’t want to lose any of them.”
She laughed loud in such an infectious manner I thought perhaps I had told a good joke. “I haven’t lost anyone yet. This is a very small island. How can anyone get lost?”
“Oh, come on. I’m sure you can find something for me to do to make your life easier. Besides, how can I get to see this island if you don’t let me help?”
“Where are you from, Chile or Castille?”
“Non, je suis philippin.” I wanted to impress her with my French.
“Well, well—I’ve never met a Filipino before,” she said with that beautiful laughter she had. “You can come with me but promise to tell me about your country.”
A LAUNCH from Wind Song, the high-tech French luxury sailing ship anchored in the bay, arrived at the pier to let passengers off for the tour. There was a dozen of them, mostly old Americans. As soon as they got aboard, we started on our way. There were already people from Club Med in the bus and we stopped at Bloody Mary’s to pick up another couple. Teróo was driving a regular le truck painted light blue and red, with wooden benches and open windows. I sat in the front with her.
We went in a clockwise direction along the road that circled the island. Our first stop was on a relatively high point just a few miles out of Vaitape. To the left we had a good view of the small bay, to the right were concrete bunkers and fortifications. Teróo explained the area used to be a submarine base in World War II. None of the old buildings existed anymore—they had either been torn down or reclaimed by the jungle.
I figured this was where James Michener was stationed during the war—the place where he wrote many of the stories in Tales of the South Pacific as he waited for the enemy that never came. I looked at Teróo, who appropriately looked like a cross between Bloody Mary and Liat in the movie, and pondered the likes of Lt. Joe Cable who saw beauty in Liat but at the same time found her unqualified to be a wife because of her color. By the time Michener’s book became a musical, Lt. Cable had been rehabilitated into one who protested “you have to be taught” to consider other races inferior. White America wasn’t ready then to look in the mirror and see its real self.
None of the passengers got down. I doubt if they knew or cared who James Michener was. Big band music and scenes of sailors and Marines in khaki uniforms scanning the horizon for enemy ships faded from my mind as the bus started moving again and jolted me back to reality.
The circle island tour doesn’t cover many historically important places for there is virtually none in Bora Bora. We stopped at scenic vistas—there was a lot of them—where the tourists got out to take pictures they can show back home. Farther along, Teróo stopped the bus at a secluded place where there were lots of trees and announced that those who wanted to relieve themselves can do so. “Women to the left of the road, men on the right,” she yelled. I told Teróo we did the same thing in the Philippines and drew a laugh from her. However, nobody wanted to go, probably too embarrassed to do even such a natural act outdoors because they had been doing it indoors all their lives.
Somewhere past the halfway point, we stopped at a wooden shack that sold souvenirs, snacks, and soft drinks. Teróo told everyone they were free to browse around for half an hour. As soon as they had gone, Teróo and I went to the back of the bus to chat.
“So how is it you’re here? I have never seen a Filipino here before, honest.”
“Oh, I was let go from my job in Los Angeles because sales was down. I wanted to go on a vacation before I start on a new job.”
“You born in the Philippines?”
“Yes, I went to America because life was hard for me in my country.”
“Isn’t the Philippines like this island?”
“Right, except there’s too many people. Even crowded Papéete seems wide open compared to the Philippines. I don’t know, but everything here seems familiar—not just the climate but the way the language sounds, the words, the way people go about their business. But we’re different, too. Perhaps we’ve changed so much that what we now have isn’t real anymore.”
“We’re changing, too,” she mused, “not always good. I don’t know how we were able to keep much of our customs. Look what happened to the Hawaiians…” She turned pensive for a while. “Anyway, how long are you going to stay here?”
“In French Polynesia? As long as my money holds out—I want to see as much of this area as I can. I’m beginning to think I can get a feel of what the Philippines might have been had things been different.”
“That’s nice.”
“I know I’ll never have another chance like this again. I don’t want to end up like these tourists who wait until it’s almost too late to enjoy travel.”
“I would like to travel myself but I can’t afford to go anywhere.”
“You’re lucky, this is paradise as far as I’m concerned.”
“But it still would be nice to see different places.”
Teróo didn’t want a soda so I got just one for myself at the snack bar. It was expensive as hell—three bucks—but that’s what they charged everybody everywhere, not just tourists at this tourist stand. Everything was expensive in paradise.
When I returned, I asked Teróo, “So how often does anything exciting come to stir everybody from their romantic attitudes here?”
“Not very often. You know I was in a Hollywood movie once? Mutiny on the Bounty. Those were exciting times.”
“The one with Marlon Brando?”
She laughed hard. “You’re a bad boy. I’m not that old—the one with Mel Gibson.”
“At least I didn’t ask if it was the Charles Laughton movie,” I teased back. “Yeah, I saw the Mel Gibson movie—lots of nude women, beautiful bodies, sexy…”
“I was one of them.” She gave me a big smile.
I didn’t say anything and smiled back. She looked pretty enough but she had gotten a bit heavy just like most Polynesian women tend to do when they reach a certain age.
She sensed my incredulity and laughed again. “I was only eighteen… you wouldn’t believe how beautiful and sexy I looked then.”
“I’m sure you were.”
“No, you don’t—you don’t believe me,” she said, shaking her head.
Our passengers were still milling about the store—a few had gone across the road to check out what was there. I smiled at the idea some of them may finally be relieving themselves after passing on the first scheduled pee stop.
“What islands have you seen?”
“Tahiti and Raiatea before this.”
“Then you should visit Huahine. That’s my island. I have a daughter who lives there in our old house. She looks exactly like I did when I was eighteen. You can stay there for free.”
“You’re very kind but I don’t want to impose on strangers.”
“You don’t know us Polynesians. I like you and you are my friend, and I want you to meet my daughter. You will see how I looked twenty years ago. She will be happy to meet you. School is over and she’s there with her grandfather, my father. My husband works in Papéete, you know.”
TWO days later I was at Farepiti Quay, the pier commercial ships use in Bora Bora, waiting to get on the ferry for the overnight trip to Huahine. Teróo’s daughter, Simone, was going to meet me in Fare when we get there in the morning. She had just finished high school in Tahiti and was on vacation before going off to college.
We slept on the deck of the ferry which also serves as a freighter. Many people had straw mats to lie on—I had none but used my jacket for warmth and my backpack for a pillow. It was getting light when a loud crunch woke me up. I heard voices and I understood enough to know we had hit something.
I was surprised nobody seemed too disturbed. People were calmly looking out over the side. One of them explained we were in one of the channels through the barrier reefs around Huahine. We had hit a sandbar—the captain had misjudged its depth because of the complicated tidal pattern. Happens all the time, he said. The biggest inconvenience was that we’ll be six hours late. We’ll have to wait until the tide gets high enough again for us to clear the sand bar.
I worried Simone might go back home when the ship didn’t arrive on time. I can call her on the phone but my Huahine trip felt like it was starting on the wrong foot—I had already caused her inconvenience.
We eventually got to the Fare pier by mid-afternoon. As our ship was coming in I saw the rickety stores and hotels across the tree-shaded street. Next to the pier was a snack bar. Off to the right was a bridge that two white kids—teenagers—on bicycles were crossing from wherever they may have gone to. They had white shirts and black pants, and the safety helmets required in America. I knew right away they were eighteen-year-old Mormon missionaries. They looked exactly like the ones we had in L.A. At their age, they probably didn’t realize how lucky they were to be able to spend a year of their lives among people of a different culture.
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