Life in New Caledonia.
Well, coming from the Marshall Islands this place feels big, developed, rich, diverse…..The 400 km long island gives one enough space to be able to have the feeling to sit on a decent piece of land, almost continental! In Majuro one could enjoy both sunrise and sunset just by sitting on the same spot, since the 200 m of maximum width of the place, with no heights in between the two opposite sides of the islands, would not block the view of the sun movement. The sky and the ocean envelop the entirety of your view point. In New Caledonia, there are actually two coasts and mountains in between and one does not feel to be trapped by water. Nature is rich, flourishing, both underwater and on land. Biodiversity as well as endemism are spectacular. This is in fact a piece of land that detached from the main continent long ago to let speciation do its work on plants and animal and it is still far enough away from Australia to remain unique and spared by invasive species. Still some primary forests exist, and mountains are covered by endemic impressive columnar pines (Araucaria sp.) among Ficuses and bamboo and other gigantic plants. From mountain peaks to waterfalls all the way to the largest lagoon in the world, nature is queen and offers to the inhabitants of the island a good reason to be proud, if nothing else at least for the recent election as World Heritage Site recently obtained by several areas of NC. Locals are a mix of European-originated immigrants, coming mostly from France, the owner country, or Vietnam, from the times where manpower was requested, especially to work in the nickel mines. Kanak, the real local people of Melanesian group, mostly still live in tribes and the minority living in the capital Noumea doesn’t appear to have an extremely happy nor busy life. What is a great opportunity to have an idea of the local culture is visiting the Market on a week end when one gets the taste not only of local food (reef fish, vegetables, all sort of exotic fruits) as but also local music, art, and humanity. Arts are expressed as articraft (seashell jewels, wood carving, pottery), figurative arts (paintings and sculptures from both Kanak and Caledonians are shown in the different art galleries) and as music and dances often represented at the major theaters. Culture is however not that insistent in everyday live. Sports are played instead quite seriously especially by the French part pf the population: windsurfing, kyte-surfing, sailing and para-glading are the most obvious sports due to the constant blowing trade winds. Biking, hiking, kayaking…..all French people seem to always being on the move….to keep in shape. And of course scuba diving to admire the fluorescent corals, the step walls with their tiger sharks and the thick school of fish. There is not much of a tourism industry, most visitors coming from Japan and selecting small not-so isolated islands to marry and honeymoon on the reefs. Most of the income of the country comes from the nickel exploitation and first manufacturing, but the gains for the two provinces are irrelevant compared to the revenue obtained by the foreign exploiting companies.
Food is very French-oriented and one never gets tired of French bread cheese and wine, although we have to pay these commodities three times more expensive than in Europe.
