Another day of memory-making in the South Pacific was here, Sunday, October 20th. The clothes I set aside to wear for the first half of the day were set along with the extra change of clothes I was packing were ready. I had my early breakfast at the hostel, got showered up and dressed to go out, get a taxi that would take to the airport so I could get my rental car. I was renting a car so I could drive the island of Tahiti to explore. I arranged to pick up my car in advance at 7 am that morning because I wanted to ensure that I would be able to make it to the first part of my Sunday Adventure day, and that was church. To be honest, for as much planning and preparation I did for the whole trip, I was not able to find out for certain what time church was at “The Edlise Evangelique De Polynesie Francaise”. I had seen a couple of videos was what their services were like and read online other people’s experiences so I really wanted to go there.
So I left the hostel, walked one block down the street to the nearest taxi stop, got the cab that took me to the airport and went to check-in. The check-in line was painfully slow, and I was really concerned that I wouldn’t make it on time. And there, over a half-hour later, I filled out the rental forms, got the keys and walked out with one of the attendants to my rental car. The car was a compact, French brand. I had never heard of it and when the attendant was explaining the basic functions to me, it was all another small culture shock for me. I got in the car, turned it on and drove out from the airport parking lot to head back to Papeete. Oddly enough, I kept hearing the car dinging every time I hit a certain speed. I could not figure out for the life of me what it was and it was bugging me. I arrived back in the city and looked for the specific parking lot near the church so I could leave my car and walk to it.
After driving around a couple of blocks trying to locate the lot, I finally did. I parked the car in a corner and it was when I turned it off, I realized why it kept making a dinging sound: I was driving with the brake on. I felt really stupid about this because I thought about how much I must have burned up those brakes. But then again, the attendant didn’t tell me that the brake was on nor mentioned how the car would indicate that the brake was applied. In any event, I was about 2 blocks down from the church so I decided to walk over to it to see what time the service was. I walked up and saw that I was about an hour early, so then I decided to kill some time.
It turns out that I parked across the main highway from what looked like another park, next to the bay. The name of the place was Paofai Gardens and when I walked over there, I was totally not disappointed. The place featured plenty of palm trees, park playsets, tennis and basketball courts, but also beautiful gardens, right by the water. “This whole place is too good to be true!”, I said to myself. And next to the water were some boats on sandy shores and some giant, black rocks. I found a bench facing the ocean right in front of those rocks and sat there just to continue to be in awe of the Tahiti experience.
Some time was passing and I saw the time was coming for the church service to start so bid adieu to the Paofai Gardens. About to experience what church in Tahiti was like, I quietly got excited as I walked towards the front door. There were many people talking in predominately white clothing outside and as I walked past them, we greeted each other with “Bonjour!”. The men wore white dress shirts and navy blue pants while the women wore white dresses with navy blue bowties and white hats. I knew this before I came there, so while I didn’t own blue pants, I wore a white dress shirt and grey pants. Once inside, I walked up the stairs to next to the front, to get up to the second level on the church. It turns out that’s where most tourists sat too, so it worked out conveniently as I also got a grand view of the service and congregants below. I sat right next to the organ player for the service so it was quite fitting that I video as much of the service as I could without being too much of a tourist. It was quite a treat because although most of the service was conducted in French, English (for the reading of Psalm 121) and native Tahitian were also spoken/sung. The videos below will give you an even greater idea of why I wanted to check out this place.
That’s right. The perfect harmony in the signing you heard was not a choir or a recording. That was the whole congregation of the people in white signing that. I knew that the whole congregation sang in that fashion from videos I saw on Instagram from the church and it was amazing to witness it in person. After about an hour and fifteen minutes, the service concluded and we all went on our merry way. I walked out in awestruck of the amazing church service I experienced and headed back to my car. My Sunday in Tahiti was amazing and I couldn’t wait for the next part of my tour, so I got in my car and proceeded to find the next phase of the adventure: Finding a tropical waterfall on the island away from Papeete.
Due to the fact that this is only about half of my fun-filled Sunday in Tahiti, I will be continuing DAY 6 PART 2 in my next post for my INNER BLOG CIRCLE which will be sent out Friday. PART 2 will feature my top highlight of the trip and making more friends from around the world. Stay tuned!