Three months and counting

As of last Sunday, I have now been in French Polynesia for three months. This is the limit beyond which EU citizens are not supposed to stay here, but a few weeks ago I finally got my paperwork together and turned it in to the DRCL (Direction de la Réglementation et Contrôle de la Légalité), the metropolitan (ie, French federal) agency in charge of immigration. I had to present proof of finances, proof of health care, proof of residence in French Polynesia, a photocopy of my passport, my permit for collecting endangered plant species, and a letter of support from the Délégation à la Recherche (the French Polynesian government agency with whom I collaborate), and fill out a two-page form. Now I have to wait a month or two to hear back on whether my residency has been approved. This all seemed like a bit much, given that French overseas territories are part of the EU, and that I thought EU citizenship gave you right of residency anywhere in the EU, and indeed it is apparently far more than what I would have to do in order to obtain residency in France proper (or as we call it here, "la métropole"). I learned today that back when EU immigration rules were being set up, French Polynesia realized it might be inundated by European immigrants, and was allowed to set up its own, more stringent, immigration requirements.

The process of adjusting has been easier than when I lived in Japan. A big part of this is that I am at an American research station, and interact daily with other American and British researchers, speaking English 80% of the time. There is a class of Berkeley undergrads here right now, and I have spent most of my free time hanging out with them or with their graduate student instructors. There are times that being here feels a lot like being at the southernmost of the University of California natural reserves. I certainly feel like there is a lot of commonality between the Southern Californian lifestyle and the Tahitian one, or maybe this statement just betrays my Northern Californian upbringing! Japan was very easy for me on one level because virtually everybody was as shy and reserved as I was, and because I got to hang out with a bunch of science grad students all the time. Japan was a lot more alien than Tahiti in terms of the lifestyle and culture, but at the same time, Tahitians are much more outgoing than Japanese, and I find that I have to become a lot more outgoing, a lot more ready to make jokes, than I naturally am. French Polynesia (especially outside of Tahiti) is also a much more rural culture, and since I've spent most of my time in cities, I don't have the knowledge or familiarity with the things people do and talk about. For instance, I'm male, but I can't build or fix anything to save my life. It's been interesting (and I have to admit I'm a little jealous) to watch some of the more outgoing Berkeley students develop a better rapport with local people than I have, even though I can speak French and they can't.

I have developed an appreciation for really good trucks, though, and occasionally, as I admire somebody's Toyota pickup, I have to remind myself that no, I am not buying myself one of those when I get back to Berkeley.

I had a good opportunity to remedy this last night, when I went to a fundraising event hosted by the association Te Pū 'Atiti'a (a community organization affiliated with the Gump Station) in the gymnasium in Paopao. None of us were quite sure what this event was going to be, and it turned out that we were a large part of it. The audience was mostly parents with children, and other local people, and a crowd of about 20 Americans from the station. The first half of the event was emceed by a group of comedians, speaking mostly in Tahitian with a little bit of French, who introduced teenage dancers, acted out ridiculous skits (it started, ominously, with an obese, tattooed man in skirt and bra who pretended to be a girl from Berkeley; there was also a Mike Tyson vs. Jet Li match), and pulled Americans out of the audience to try to get them to dance. Fortunately, I was the first person randomly selected, because all the other people who were selected after me turned out to be really good dancers. It is very Tahitian to try to embarrass new people, and I didn't quite realize until it was all over that the emcee was only pretending to not understand that my name was David, and didn't really want me to understand the instructions he was giving me in a mixture of broken English and Tahitian, so as to make it funnier for the audience. (There are pictures of this, but I haven't gotten my hands on them yet.)

The second half of the evening was a performance by Pa'umotu (from the Tuamotu Archipelago) musicians and dancers. They had come over from Tahiti for the weekend, and this morning when I got to the lab, all 20 of them were out on the porch drinking coffee with the people from Te Pū 'Atiti'a. I was invited over to meet them, but ended up sitting in the middle of the table with the most unfriendly person in the group. On my left, high school and college students joked amongst each other in French; on my right, a New Zealand Maori man and the Pa'umotu musicians alternated between speaking in English and using their own mutually intelligible native languages (Maori and Pa'umotu). When the musicians were given a tour of the station later this morning, I tried to explain my research to them in French.

The Executive Vice-Chancellor for Research from UC Berkeley is here now to visit the station (and to attend the 20th anniversary celebrations for the Université de la Polynésie Française on Tahiti). Yesterday I got to explain my research (in English) to him during his station tour; I think I'm going to have to work on explaining my research to non-scientist audiences! I had the benefit of being able to mention evolution to the Executive Vice-Chancellor, but with the Pa'umotu musicians, the fact that I was working on insects that resemble crop pests of noni seemed to get me somewhere. Last night those of us who are not undergrads got to go up to the Director's Residence for drinks after the tour; tonight I am invited again to dinner.