By our last day in Huahine, I still didn't know what to think of the local culture, and the relationship between the Tahitians and the French. It didn’t seem like the French had a lot of influence culturally, with large groups of Tahitians still living on family land with all their relatives, bartering, fishing, and never leaving the island.
It was clear from the moment we arrived at the airport (a single room with a beer stand in the middle of a field with a weekly flight in and out) that Huahine would be the most "real" and "real different" place we visited, so I tried to learn as much as I could while there.
Although we didn't get as involved with the locals as I might have liked, we did learn a little bit about the local politics. For example, the day we took the lagoon tour we learned that our guide was a member of the "Beautify Huahine" movement. He wore a shirt with a political expression on it that meant “Ha’apo is my village and I want to keep it clean.”
It was funny to think that even in the cleanest, most remote, emptiest places, people worry about garbage in the streets and pollution! When I thought about it more, I remembered seeing some French guys pouring gasoline in the ocean when refueling the boat, so I'm glad there are people who care about the environmental impact of that behavior - even in the middle of nowhere.
The other thing we learned was that the current president of Tahiti is really pushing for Tahitian independence. Apparently the import/export ratio is dramatically in favor of the French and he thinks they would do better on their own.
The independence-loving side of me thought this made sense, but all of the Tahitians we met said the president was crazy. The reason they gave was the amazingness of French healthcare. Apparently, if something happens to you on one of the islands, you’re flown to the main island, Tahiti. If they can’t fix you in there they fly you to New Zealand - all on the French dime. So I guess that’s the reason why the Tahitians have the best standard of living of all the people in the South Pacific.