Youtube drone video...When you see coconuts drying anywhere in Polynesia, you haven't a clue how much work it is to fill a 25 kilo bag. We helped for half a day and now i have sore hands and Daniela has a few bruises and a big blister.
Here are the steps they have to do, so you get your coconut oil in your heated kitchen.
You start collecting all fallen nuts from the ground. A steel hook helps you picking them up and when you swing it towards the pile you hit the stick with the backside of your machete and the nut gets off the hook and flies to the precise spot. It takes practise and now i
know why the Polynesian's are so good in "Petoncle". Next step is to break the nuts open with a big axe,hopefully right in the middle. Then you have 2 equal half's. You take out the sponge that grows in the older ones .This you make bread with, eat it for desert or feed it
to the pigs. The split open half's you pile up into a wall in a windy sunny spot to dry for 5 days. After that Rolfo and Daniela sit on a small bench next to that wall. A gunny sack on the bench so the nut doesn't slide away from you. A steel spoon with a sharp end helps you
to pry the nut out of the shell and into a bag. The husk you keep on a pile for BBQ and for a smothering fire when its nonos season.
A strong man or beefy girl carries the bags to the drying field. It has no trees for maximum sunshine and a frame to cover the white flesh with corrugated iron sheets for the night or the occasional rain shower. You do this for another 5 days and then the expert has to
separate the inferior quality from the good ones. Then you must bag them to exactly 25 kilos. The bags are kept in a dry place and a few copra boys share the gasoline for the 5 hour boat ride to the copra shed in town. They time it for the arrival of the cargo boat that
takes them to Tahiti. Before they load the bags , a local representative checks the weight and opens a few bags for quality control. They get 140 xpf /kilo or 1.40US$ or only 50xpf for second quality .Its a lot of work for the lousy 30$ you get for a heavy bag. But they are
lucky here. The French government heavily subsidizes the industry. I haven't googled what a Vietnamese,Thai or Philipino worker gets for the same!! I am sure its peanuts.
Its the only source of income here. If the French would not support it, everybody would move to Tahiti and the Tuamotus would be empty.
Its hard work, but you can do it together and blab along the way. I did a few hours with Dominique from Lausanne and then a lot faster with Gill pushing us ,Daniela, Lise, Dominique and Rolfo and the dogs hanging around fro scraps. A family can live with 50 bags a
year,with no money for extra vacation etc. They are not rich here, but a lot happier than the city freaks i know.