The kids were excited to show their Grandma who had just arrived from Hawaii the sites that they had already seen in Papeete. Their first stop was the downtown market of Papeete. They had been to the market just briefly when we originally checked into Papeete and wanted to get a few things done. Their plan really was not to go to get fruit, to buy some of the beautiful flower leis and crowns or to get some of the Tahitian Vanilla. It was to get the black pearls that they had received in Rangiroa drilled and mounted onto necklaces so that they could finally wear them. So they scouted out the various shops and found one that would drill pearls for them. They also asked if he would string it onto a necklace for them.

We negotiated a price of $2 for each of the 5 pearls that the kids wanted mounted. After the first pearl was drilled however, the person realized that the rest of the pearls were not a simple job of drilling through the pearls but rather would involve turning the pearls into a pendant as the rest were teardrop shaped pearls that would involve inserting a silver pendant clasp on the end and stringing that around the pearl. This process seemed to be a little bit more involved and it wasn’t until about half an hour later that we finally had all five black pearls mounted. Without hesitation the person doing the work advised that the pendant mounts were a little bit more but we were not about to complain as the entire bill only came to about $16 (15000 XPF).

The kids were all ecstatic to finally have their black pearl necklaces. We headed back toward our boat with Jaeden and Orin taking the dingy that they had motored from Marina Taina into town while the rest of us piled into the truck that the Maihi family had loaned to us. On the way home however Dailin and I took a little bit of a detour. I had an infection on my foot that was turning into a boil and he was getting an infection on his leg that was creating a big boil and causing his leg to swell up. It was a good thing we did however as the doctor confirmed that it was a staphylococcus (staph) infection. For the past two weeks both of us had been battling this infection and trying to disinfect it each day without any luck. It was getting more sore by the day. Jaeden, Eli and Teyauna were also fighting similar infections and so we all started taking doses of oral antibiotics. I was rather surprised as I did not realize this doctors office was in a private clinic (as opposed to the nearby public clinic). The doctor’s visit cost about $55 each (5000 XPF) for each of us and the medicine was a whopping $250. I later realized however that perhaps the medicine was so expensive because we had plenty of spare quantities for the others in our family that were fighting the same infections.

In the evening we were all anxious to head into downtown Papeete for a treat at the famous Roulottes. Every evening on the downtown pier area groups of vans with their own specialty of kitchen, descend on the city. It is much like a food fair in a mall except for the fact that all meals are prepared in the kitchens that these vans hold. We decided to share some wood fire cooked pizza’s and a few crepes for dessert. It was a reasonably priced treat and a definite highlight of out time in Tahiti.