January 2004 2004

Hello everyone,

I wish you all a happy new year for 2004 :
366 days of happiness, dreams and islands at the other end of the world.

The Gambier Islands are really at the end of the world, and the weekly flight seldom brings here more than a couple of tourists each week. The people who live here have managed to keep their Polynesian traditions, despite the influence of the catholic missionaries who tried, during the 18th century, to turn this small tropical paradise into a theocracy from which any idea of freedom or pleasure was missing. This explains the numerous churches, built on each island, which are decorated for the holidays (as there are no fir-trees here) with the top of tall araucaria trees (or Norfolk pine). Along the path that leads to the pretty church of Taravai, in front of which I have come to anchor to spend the last days of the year, grow tall poinsettia, the flowers of Christmas... here, they are as tall as trees!

December in Paris vas very busy for me, the Paris Boat show, several TV shows, then I have taken a plane, returned to Polynesia and taken up again the peaceful life on board my sailboat anchored in the Gambier. Yet I have some work to do, as I plan to edit on board my next film, shot a few months ago in Madagascar ; I must also work at my next photo album, due to be published next year.
In the meantime, my children, who study in Tahiti, come from time to time to spend some time with me, and as they are preparing their exams, I have to try to remember my mathematics... Not that easy under the sun!

The other day there was a strike at the local airline : it consisted for the worker that were on strike in welcoming the personal of the arriving planes, with flower leis, guitars and ukuleles , to try to convince them to join the strike ! Rather nicer than a strike in the automobile industry, don't you think?
Once again I wish you a great year 2004 !