Organize your move to French Polynesia

Like most of the posts here there is no reply. It tends to make the blog of french Polynesia useless. It might help if the original blogers posted information rather than posting questions.

Hi tetawelch,

These questions are aimed at helping people planning to move to French Polynesia.
As the website is participative, we invite you to share the useful info you might have or to share your experience with us. Why not introducing yourself to start with? It might help to get in touch with the other members .

Best,
Julie

Julie
I am an American who is married to a French Polynesian. She is from Raiatea. While I have never been to French Polynesia, preferring the Amazon and Andes, we decided that we would move to French Polynesia when I retire this coming December. That way my wife can be near her family. She left Raiatea over 25 years ago but returns for extended visits.
I have been following the French Polynesian newspapers and blogs to try and find what is really needed in French Polynesia and what I should trash or sell now. So far, I have found the newspapers on line to be the best for finding the general cost of living and what is happening now in French Polynesia, thanks to Google and Bing translate. Generally, the bogs have not been very useful.
We have two young girls and I have found nothing about schooling for them. I am not sure of the cost of shipping household goods vs. buying new. These questions bother me.
My wife has a lot of land, some owned by herself and some owned with her family.  So we will build a new house on her self- owned land. I just have no idea about the cost of building a two- story concrete house on the island. She says that her family will build it and I say I want to find out about home-builders. Are there any and how much more do they cost? What obligations to the family are created by paying them to build? For that matter, what family obligations do we acquire by moving to Raiatea? I have lived on other islands and have seen cross-culture marriages flounder because of unknown or undisclosed family obligations of marriage. Not that we will flounder, I just want to know the complications in advance.
In the final analysis, moving to a new culture is just that, a cultural experience. No matter how much you plan the economic and logistical costs of moving the big bug-a-boo is how people treat you and how are you supposed to treat people.
Anthony Teta-Welch

Julie

One of the problems for people moving to French Polynesia is the exchange rare, not the bank to bank exchange rate but the rate a person gets when they change dollars to XPF. Today, for example, the bank to bank rate is 89.35XPF to the dollar, while the change my dollars rate is closer to 83. So,if you are moving to French Polynesia, you get the 83XPF and you will lose nearly 20% of your retirement or SSN instantly when your money goes into a French Polynesian bank or is exchanged by you.

Ia Orana, I am a retired American living in Papeari, Tahiti, PK 52, with my Tahitian wife of 12 years. A few thoughts for you.
1. Yes, it is more expensive to live here, but stick with the wonderful seafood, pork, an island fruits and vegetables as opposed to imported foods and restaurants.
2. If you build a home, be sure to include solar hot water heating, and photovoltaic panels on the roof for electricity as electricity is expensive. While photovoltaic panels are expensive, they will pay for themselves quickly.
3. Don't bring over a car - buy it in Tahiti. These cars are smaller, most use diesel fuel which gets better mileage.
4. If you are planning on bringing over some household stuff, use a container and fill it up with things you really want to bring, and have it shipped by cargo ship. There are plenty of services that can do this for you. Make sure household stuff will survive in the tropical humid environment of Tahiti as most home do not have or need air conditioning (the electrical cost would be prohibitive). The tropical breezes here are air conditioning enough.
5. I wouldn't worry about family and friends. I have found that most if not all Tahitians are very tolerant and curious about other cultures-extremely friendly-always willing to help without expecting anything in return.  I have never had a problem or issue with Tahitians - sometimes with the snobby French however! I hope this helps.
Steve (Manarii Tane, my Tahitian name)

Ia Orana manarii
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I think we are ok on the food as my wife goes fishing at least 3 times a week here and will probably fish more on Raiatea.  She will spend days in her garden. From what I have read the foods we will be in most need of, bread, cooking oil and rice are well within range. Until I received your post I had not thought about pork as being readily available. Living on Jacksonville Beach, we currently eat a lot of soups, fish, French bread and, of course, wine.

Thank you, also, for the information on solar panels and cars. We have three cars and a truck, two in Florida and two on Guam, our other home. We will liquidate them.
We have a home in Raiatea, which I have never seen, but my wife is set on building a more open home for us to live in. She says that the one that is there is fine but no longer to her taste.

Household goods: Yuck. We have two homes full of stuff. We can get rid of most of that stuff but, we still have a lifetime of memories we will want to keep. I hope I can reduce it to a small container.

Your information on the Tahitians is welcome news.

Do you know anything about the schools?

Thank you
Anthony Teta-Welch

Ia Orana,

I have only had experience with Ecole Elémentaire Protestante Charles Viénot in Papeete, a private school and the high school (Lycée) in Taravao, a public school. They are based on the French system and are generally good. What specific questions do you have?
Manarii Tane

My kids do not know French. i am told that they will be put back a few years into elementry school and if they have not caught on within three or four months they will be released from school and not allowed to return. Is that true?

Ia Orana,
41I've never heard of a child being kicked out of elementary school for language. If your children do not know French, they will have difficulties until they learn some. Kids learn quickly, so you may want to enroll then in a French class before you move so they at least know some basic French. Also, there are some private language schools to help foreigners for a fee in Tahiti - I don't know about Raiatea.  All teaching is in French, so kids pick it up quickly. In later grades, they are taught Tahitian also. But most Tahitian kids already know Tahitian because parents speak Tahitian at home as well as French.

Nana,
Manarii Tane
PK 52, Papeari