Le Mystere du Grand Massacre du Koala

The Mystery of the Great Koala Massacre
Written by Alto
Translated by Aniza


Je suis le roi dans cette maison, alors je peux faire comme je veux
(I am the king of this house, so I can do as I like)

Je veux tuer le koala. D’abord le cou!
(I want to kill the koala. First, the neck!)

Puis les petits yeux
(Then the little eyes)

Enfin, tout est sorti
(Finally, everything is out)

Mais non, c’etait pas moi! C'etait mon jumeau malefique!
(But no, it wasn’t me! It was my evil twin!)

Voila, le grand massacre du koala
(There it is, the great massacre of the koala)

Moi, j'etais encore endormi, donc je suis innocent de ce crime
(Me, I was still asleep, therefore I am innocent of this crime)


Alors....dis-moi, qui a tue le koala?
(So.....tell me, who killed the koala?)

Growing Pains

It has been over a month since we brought Alto home. Watching him grow up in these short weeks has truly been a wonderful experience. For the first week-and-a-half, Alto lived and slept outside. We made him a little makeshift home out of the terrace plastic three-seater serving as a ‘roof’, some cardboard boxes as the ‘floor’ and surrounded the whole thing in a nice long cloth, like a warm wall for his ‘privacy’. Inside, we rolled up a lot of newspapers for him to keep warm.

This cute little ‘house’ did not last long though. He whined all night (that’s just because he couldn’t bark properly yet at the time) and made little puppy yaps. Xav or I had to wake up every 45 minutes or so to see to his needs. Sometimes, he just wanted attention and other times he somehow entangled himself in his loosely tied leash and couldn’t get out of it. It was a nightmare!

Alto sleeps most of the day, coming alive only in the evenings and remaining active through the nights. Xav and I started taking him for long walks to the top of the mountain to tire him out. It worked, though not as effectively as we’d hoped. Then, one day, I made the mistake of allowing him to sleep in the house all morning until late evening. According to websites that I have surfed on puppy training, it’s all right to have him in the house as long as I can keep an eye on him all the time. He even has his own favourite places to sleep - like in the shower when it's cool and damp. Well, ever since then, he has stayed in the house.

Since Alto was too young to have bladder control, Xav and I would take him out for a pee (whether he wants to or not) as soon as he wakes up, every time. We’d also stop his water supply from bedtime onwards. Then, we used a huge cardboard box to block the living room area, where Alto slept, from the rest of the house. Finally, Alto learned to whine for us to open the door for him to go do his business. Even though our living room was not soiled anymore, we had precious little sleep throughout the night. Xav is a really light sleeper, so he’d be the one to attend to Alto most of the time (hey, I do everything else okay!!).

Now, more than four weeks and three vaccinations later, Alto is not only toilet-trained, he takes two walks per day (morning and evening), plays a heck of a lot more, bites everything from our shoes to the curtains (which are now ruined by the way). We had a lot to learn about domination and the vet showed us how to teach puppies to obey and know who is the boss. One technique that has consistently worked for us is to lift Alto by the neck, push him roughly to the floor and say in a loud commanding voice, ‘NON!’ (oh by the way, Alto is French ;D) and then ignore him until he comes to us.

What I can’t get over is how smart he is and how quick he learns things. For instance: Xav always gives me a missed call as he comes up the mountain so that our slow electric gate is already open by the time he reaches our house. I never realized how habitual this was until Alto began waiting at the front door, tail wagging hard, whenever the phone rings!

In fact, Alto has learnt a lot now. He knew his name by the first week and he understands and obeys these commands:
• bonjour (hello)
• au revoir (goodbye)
• fais pee pee (go piss)
• au pied (at heel/come to us) – we usually use this during walks
• viens ici (come here)
• bisous (kiss)
• va chercher (fetch)
• assis (sit)

Currently we are teaching him to coucher (lie down), pas bouger (don’t move) and apportes (bring/carry). We usually use apportes when we play with him and are too lazy to take back the toys we throw for him to fetch :D

Once when I was busy working on the computer on the couch, Alto came to me with les chaussettes (the socks, a toy I made for him by tying socks end-to-end) in his mouth, stood on his backpaws with his forepaws on the couch, touching my knee, and looked at me with this mournful expression in his eyes. I knew he was pleading me to play with him, so I did (I needed a break from work anyway!). One of his favourite toys is le coeur (the heart). It is a heart-shaped soft toy with outstretched arms, which Alto just adores!

Even now, Alto is already very protective (and possessive!) of us. He’s always where Xav and I are. He has already migrated to our bedroom now, and sleeps under our bed, with an option to join us on the bed when we wake up in the morning. Sometimes he gets a little boisterous and plays rough with us. This would normally include biting, growling and when he’s really annoyed, barking. But we’ve trained him to behave though, and he doesn’t bite unless in really rough play, and even then, he doesn’t chomp on us, if you know what I mean.

We are trying to get Alto to love the water. He absolutely goes crazy at the beach by digging his own hole to lie in, and burying his nose in a mound of sand, but he dares not swim in the waters voluntarily. We realized why when we brought him to a different beach – he was afraid of the huge waves at the beach we normally go to (Pointe Venus). The second beach at PK18* is calmer, with little or no waves, and it was at this beach that he swam to us for the first time.

All in all, Xav and I have had our hands full with Alto. It truly is like having a baby in the house – waking up in the middle of the night, disciplining him when he’s cheeky, potty training him. One cold rainy morning, to make up for not being able to go to the beach of for a walk, we made a smaller version of our pancake for Alto. Later on, Alto and I snuggled together on the couch, falling asleep with the sound of the TV in the background.

With Alto, our house will never look the same way again. And, believe it or not, now there is one more ‘person’ to fight with for the remote control!



*PK refers to pointe kilometrique, which means the distance in kilometres any place is from Papeete, the city centre. Therefore, PK18 is not the name of the beach, but actually a beach that is situated 18 km from Papeete.

And Then There is Light.....

God must have heard my silent (but nevertheless, loud) thoughts and complaints about the rainy weather. For today, He gave Tahiti back its sunshine :D

Yet, I am viewing this sudden gift of light only through my grainy windows, powerless to act upon it. Two reasons: It is Monday, therefore Xav is at work until evening AND I have a lot of writing work to do too.

I keep my fingers crossed that the weather will hold until Xav comes home, so that we can take a dip in the nearby black-sand beach called Pointe Venus. Already there was a brief shower for a few minutes just now.

Rain on Paradise Island

I have lost the view of Moorea Island. The one that I can see when I stand on the terrace before my garden. In fact, I cannot even sea the Pacific Ocean anymore! ☹ Instead, I hear the rush of water in a river that I never before knew existed somewhere in the deep recesses of the jungle behind my house.

It has been raining non-stop since Thursday. It has been raining so hard I have a natural swimming pool of muddy water instead of green grass in the garden. Of course, Alto is all excited about the pool – it becomes his very own private bathing pool. He traipses through the house leaving adorable little muddy paw prints. Now he has his own special paw towel, which I use to clean the mud off his paws before allowing him to step into the house.

The sun has a virtually short life during these rainy days. Dark, gloomy clouds pregnant with a zillion drops of moisture close over the sunlight, leaving all of Tahiti in a somber grey shadow. The wind blows incessantly, leaving a chill in my bones like never before. During these days, Xav, Alto and I keep an eye out for the rain to stop before hurrying out to take a quick walk up our little mountain.

With all this rain, who could believe that we really are on paradise island?

Breaking News!

Just a few days ago, there was a news report on Diego Armando Maradona, the famous football player, and how his holiday in Bora Bora almost turned into a litigation suit!

Apparently, this guy was holidaying on Bora Bora island, got a little too tipsy and hit a former Miss Bora Bora in her face with a glass. A major litigation suit was about to ensue (and he'd have been jailed at least 3 years), when the girl’s family dropped the charges – for a mere USD 6000!! That’s like 598, 697.84 French Pacific Francs (XPF).

With this amount, you can probably buy a second-hand Twingo car, it pays less than 4 months of our rent, pays for less than 30 fortnightly grocery shopping…….basically Xav and I think the beauty queen could have gotten a better deal. Maybe they were starstruck – I mean, how many people get the golden opportunity to be hit by a world-famous ex-footballer right? Even if he looks like this? ;D Read more: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060126-032505-9490r

Going Bananas!

About three weeks ago, Xav and I were confronted with the same question that Adam and Eve were probably struggling with like a gazillion years ago – should I take the forbidden fruit that tempts me oh so much? In Adam’s case, it was an apple. In ours, they were bananas :D

For weeks now, we’ve been eyeing a banana tree heavy with fruit just off the side of our house – the side that plummets into neverending greenery to what I can only imagine as the bottom of the mountain on which we were sitting on. There could well have been some houses scattered on the leveled parts of the mountain. We don’t know – we can’t see past the trees!

The banana tree in question was just at the tip of the steeped land which made it dangerous for us to attempt cutting the fruit off. Every time we thought about it, we decided against taking the fruit. Moreover we were not certain if the land on which the tree grew belonged to someone who would undoubtedly be incensed at seeing his banana tree de-fruited. So we left it at that.

But, temptation was there everyday, as the side door from our bathroom opens into a view of this tree. One fine evening, we could resist no longer and succumbed to this unbelievable enticement. We read up on banana trees on the internet and learned that when we cut off the fruit, the tree dies and another grows just beside it. Each tree bears fruit only once.

Excited at the thought of having delicious bananas, Xav purchased two machetes to do the job. Unfortunately he couldn’t find work boots, which are a necessary part of the operation, as we would be climbing down through knee-deep growth. In addition, Tahiti is well-known for its cent-pieds, or centipedes (cent is for 100, pieds is for feet = 100 feet! Cool eh?). Xav had already spotted one on this side of the house and we didn’t want to take the risk of getting bitten by these creatures. So we postponed it – again!

Not for long though! :D

Xav and I just put on our running shoes and he ventured down the side of the mountain, machete in one hand while the other held out at his side to achieve balance. The first attempt failed miserably, since it was too slippery and Xav was losing balance. Plus the thought of stepping into a dense growth of creepers is a bit unnerving. All sorts of thoughts run through our mind – are there centipedes, bugs, cockroaches (incidentally, we usually spot cockroaches from this side of the house too). Nevertheless, we were undeterred.

I believed it could be done – we just needed strategy. We grabbed a pail, tied a strong thin rope to it and anchored the end of the rope to the sturdy pole that held our fence. Then we lowered the pail until it reached the tree. This pail would later be used to place the bananas inside so that we could easily pull it up. Xav again treaded carefully down the steep incline, achieving his balance by holding on to the rope. In one hand was the machete which he used to chop through the thick undergrowth, making a small path for himself.

When he reached the tree, he made strong footholds before releasing his hold on the rope. Then, he quickly cut the fruit off – he had spied an army of black ants on another branch and didn’t want to risk having them creeping all over him. He placed the cut bananas in the pail and I pulled the pail up, with him holding on to the rope to climb his way up.

We were thrilled that we successfully managed to attain the bananas without any major problems. We needed to hang the bananas up, according to what we read on the internet. So we roped them up onto an unused curtain rail. The curtain rails here are made of wood, so they are solid enough to hold the weight of the bananas.

Two weeks later, the bananas were still green before we realized that we should have actually hung the bananas upside down! We immediately changed its position, and the next two days saw some change in colour – from green to less green and even light yellow – and the strong aroma of ripening bananas were finally present in the house.

Alas it was still too late to save the bananas! They had already begun spoiling during the two weeks that they hung the wrong way, and when we switched the position, it just speeded up the spoiling process. So, we didn’t manage to taste the forbidden fruit :( Is it possible that its ‘illegal’ attainment branded it sinful to eat, and therefore we have been denied this possibly delectable treat?

Who knows? We’ll find out soon enough – there is a second banana tree already bearing fruit ;D

Coming Soon!

Hi! It has been some time since I last wrote, but don't worry - I've not forgotten that the blog exists :D I've been pretty busy and all tired out with a little bit of work, lots of puppy-time and then some!

I'll update the blog within the next couple of days. Thanks for your patience! :D