We asked Beni why more Californians don’t come to Tahiti, considering it’s only 7ish hours away (which is not much further than Hawaii, a place that gets a lot of traffic.) He said he supposed most Americans didn’t want to deal with the foreign language, and the strange money, and the odd culture. And whenever people say things like that to me abroad, I always have such a strong urge to prove them wrong.
Especially Beni. A guy who seems very close-minded about other cultures, even though he lives in one. There are actually quite a few Europeans like Beni in Tahiti. People who left their home country for “paradise,” married a Tahitian woman, and now feel resentful and trapped. For example, we had read in our Moon Tahiti book that Papeete hosts a Saturday night food-truck-and-music festival on the waterfront, which Beni hadn’t really heard of it, in spite of being just down the street. He told us his favorite place to eat was a small pizza place near the hostel, and that Tahitian food overall was not very good. He was very open that he doesn’t try to speak the language, doesn’t pronounce the islands correctly, and thinks everything is in danger of being stolen at his hostel (although, to be fair, my iPhone did get stolen.) Beni says the day he turns 50 he can retire and take his family back to Switzerland, and he’s basically just buying time until that happens.
It was really strange to arrive in “Paradise” and immediately meet someone who feels so trapped there and has kept him so isolated from the culture (which I thought was very warm and welcoming.) I know that living on an island would never be fulfilling for me . . . but then, I would never lock myself into that kind of life. It’s a weird type of person who migrates to Tahiti and stays there in spite of being miserable, but it seems like there are quite a few of those people on the main island. Some pics - - the hostel Beni is "stuck" in.
