Diwali in Noumea

I must begin with brief apology for my extended absence.

The blog was put on hold for a long time, as we are now living in Nouméa New Caledonia (Nouvelle Calédonia). I guess shore life seemed to pale in comparison to our recent adventures cruising, but there has been a request for an update, and life on land has it’s own adventures. I am unable to fill you in on everything which has occurred, but I will let you in some recent past events.

Diwali in Nouméa

Diwali is the Hindu New Year. Though Diwali was some time ago, we just celebrated it here, not that either of us is Hindu. We thought it would be fun to go, meet new people, and eat some good food.

I was highly encouraged to break out the sari I bought in Fiji. It's intended use was to cut up for craft projects, but since the holiday appeared before the crafts did I was left with something festive to wear. Mind you I never got a lesson, due to its intended use. So thanks to the powers of Google I was able to make an attempt at wearing a Sari. Dressing is the first challenge then one must walk, and finally there is dancing in a Sari. I will get to that later.

So we arrived and there were some Indians, and the women were all dressed in lovely traditional outfits. There were some non Indians dressed in traditional outfits (myself included). Like anything in New Caledonia the event was comprised of toute le monde: French, Polynesian, Malagasy, Polynesian, and South Asian, and Asian. There was one Indian dancer, and we were sad to see the festivities quite limited in terms of Indian events. I assume it is not easy to bring troops of people in for one night to entertain 200 hundred people.

I am also sad to report the food was quite disappointing. I am sure there are some wonderful cooks among the organizers, and cooking for over 200 is no easy task. I can only assume scale was the downfall to the quality of the cuisine.

Beyond the dancing we had our own entertainment at the table. I am sure any event planner with tell you seating is very important to the success of ones events, and this event was no different. Our first location was next to what we found out later to be the Malagasies group. We moved to the other end of the table for what we assumed would be a better view of the dancing – big mistake. We found ourselves seated amongst a most inhospitable group. The woman across from me was hysterical. She looked like a character actor: makeup circa late eighties and not a smile crossed her lips. Philippe and I just looked at each other and had to control our amusement. Another woman who was running around trying to look important was sitting near us as well, she was one of the organizers. Once she realized we had “ruined her plans” of being surrounded by people she knew she asked politely if we might move, doing her best impersonation of an Indian bow. We were quite happy to move, and our fellow diners were from Reunion Island. They seem to have colored our dining experience more than the food. Philippe knows the couple, and provided me some warning about them. Normally he is happy to speak about Reunion especially with people from there. There is small population of Reunion Diaspora in New Caledonia, so it does happen from time to time. This couple is the anomaly. Not only does he not care to speak about Reunion, but he just doesn’t care to speak much with them. This couple is quite entertaining to say the least. They are both full Indian, unlike Philippe who is Creole. I will not attribute their behavior to their ethnicity, nationality, or citizenship. I can say that bad manners or taste always translates. They are perfectly pleasant to when you first meet them, but as the conversation develops one discovers it is the choice and breadth of topics which limits fellow interlocutors’ enjoyment. With my limited French it was easy to understand that the conversation was limited to how hard everything is outside of Reunion, how much better Reunion is, how expensive everything is, and how they “have to travel so much” – to places like New Zealand and Italy on vacation. The couple who are in their 50’s and appear to be well traveled, but have never lived outside Reunion and do not seem to make for good overseas inhabitants. As you can see their life is “very difficult”. I hope everyone with think of them next time they think of someone in need!

I am able to report that DJs are the same throughout the world: cheesy dated music, too loud, and this one had a smoke machine to boot! We did dance a little, which is no easy task in a Sari. I am happy I used safety pins and can only assume I should use more in the future. We saw westernized Polynesian dancing. Think ballroom meets the Pacific, most of the steps are similar to a waltz, but as the song progresses so does the speed of the steps.

All in all it was fun to go out more for the cultural aspects than anything else. The pieces may not all be perfect, but the rough parts did compromise a whole evening which was fun. We stayed until 1am and the DJ was going strong, though the participants were dwindling.