Community Christmas Fair in Moorea

Our Airbnb host told us about a local fair that was happening called "Noel pour tout".  It was a community event that was free for all and was a cross between a spring fair and a our school's "breakfast with santa" event.   The fair was held outside in a field starting in the afternoon and going into the night.  

We didn’t really know what we were getting into but decided to go check it out.  We arrived and it seemed like all of Moorea was there.

The kids had to line up to get a T-Shirt and a “punch card” that had all the different activities on it.  This served as their “tickets”.  There were booths and activities set up all around the field with a central stage where music and dance happened.  There were games we knew from school fairs at home like "go fish" and a variation of bean bag toss and letter writing to Santa. There were bouncy castles and trampolines.

A Tahitian santa showed up and kids could get pictures taken with him.  (The Canadian kids never liked pictures at home with visiting Santas, let alone in Tahiti...)

The highlights were: 

Watching the kids do a blind taste test of different Tahitian fruits, 

Vios jumping on the trampoline after waiting patiently for an hour for his turn.

Luna and I learning how to weave Polynesian flower crowns (A side note about the crowns. People, mostly women, but some men, wear these beautiful crowns as they go about their daily life.  Clearly it is an accessory for special events, but it is not a relic from another time, it is still very much a living custom, and a beautiful one at that.)

We spent 5 hours milling about at the fair, enjoying the atmosphere, the beautiful backdrop and drawing comparisons between the Moorean "Noel pour tout" and our fairs and events back home.  It was also 5 hours of never really knowing what we were doing, what was going on or what was coming up next.  Solaz noted that there were definitely areas of organization that could be improved for efficiency, which made for some good talks about how different cultures organize themselves.  

The culmination was the kids waiting in line for 2 hours, for what ended up being a tray of pastries and juice box for each kid.  

We didn't start the waiting thinking it was going to be that long, but it seemed that everyone we asked was as unsure of the plan as we were.  So we waited.  And people watched.  And for a few hours it felt like we experienced Moorea from the inside.  And it was fun.