TWO WEEKS IN NOUMÉA: MEETING OTHER PEOPLE

Photo: The traditional vessels stand out in Port Moselle Marina, Nouméa.

vendredi, août 10, 2012 (Friday, August 10)

Ma mére d’accuieil wants us (Danny and me) to write a card for a friend of hers in USA.

I said: “Fine. Write it in French and we (Danny and I) can translate to English. We can work together to do that.”

I moved to the other class today, one level below the one that I was put in at the start of the week.

Sadly, my new tutor Justine is leaving this weekend for France because her father was sick.

Another student, Florence, will be leaving for France in four weeks.

During the break, I also spoke with another man named Ross.

Ross told me he was from Auckland and worked for in the software industry since the 1960s.

I told him that yesterday (Thursday), I was at the jetty and stepped onto the traditional Maori canoes that were bound for Auckland.

I said the sailors (Maori and other Pacific Islanders) were helpful and allowed me on board one of the canoes where I took some photos and asked them some questions.

I told him they were sailing to Auckland from here. They were in Solomon Islands in July for the Pacific Festival of Arts.

He was interested in what I said.

I later gave him my business card and he wrote down his email address for me.

(We are still in contact. A few weeks later he passed through Paris to go to Brussels and told me how his friends were doing over there.)

After class I walked across the road from CREIPAC to the University of New Caledonia. I later learned that the university had boarded the players from different countries that came to participate in the Pacific Games last year.