Papeete: a water basket.
The name ‘Papeete’ derives from two words: ‘pape’ for water and ‘ete’ for basket.
It is said that during the reign of Queen Pomare IV (1813-1877), the monarch drank only from a basket of water, fetched from the spring in the palace gardens.
Today, these very gardens have been given over to French Polynesian governance. Although there is still an oasis of tranquillity set behind the buildings of power (open to the public, no less), this is the back yard of the Territorial Assembly, the Ministry of Finance, and the Court of First Instance.
So from poetry is born pragmatism. And it feels representative of Papeete’s wider story; a place of great natural beauty, reluctantly given over to the throes of governance, administration and bureaucracy.
