Meeting with Atonia TINORUA, a Polynesian with many stories

Following the border and hotel closures, the Moana Adventure Tours team is using this free time to do activities with locals from Bora Bora including Atonia TINORUA. He welcomed the team members to his home to count them the stories about Bora Bora and its past.

The purpose of these activities is to bring together the team outside of work around a different theme each week.

Atonia wanted each Moana Adventure Tours employee to introduce himself in order to get to know the team better and to know which families each one comes from.

Atonia comes from a large family of 12 brothers and sisters. He lives in the mountains of Bora Bora, in a very beautiful and quiet place, surrounded by a dense and varied local flora. His little paradise is located above any kind of civilization. A true nature lover, he is known here as the guardian of the mountain.

He is passionate about Polynesian music. He always brings his Kamaka everywhere. He likes to share his passion with people and especially in his own little church that he built at home in his yard.

Proud to be a Polynesian, he attaches great importance to his mother tongue and encourages new generations to speak the Tahitian language which is an integral part of the Polynesian culture.

ANECDOTE
When he was a child, it was forbidden to speak Tahitian at school. The only language allowed was French.

As a child, he had to work very young to support his family. As his parents had very few resources, he cut wood, the “Purau”, and exchanged it with bread in the store because the bread was baked in the wood fire at that time.

Before Atonia move to the mountains, he used to live at Matira point, where he built a guesthouse, which no longer exists today. Every day, he took his customers to the “Hiro” bell on the To’opua Motu, in the southwest of the island, and count them the legend of the bell. Climbing up the rocks, Atonia picked up “Uru” (breadfruit tree) to bake them on the way back to the guesthouse and gave them to his guests. It was a place where he liked to take his clients. Since this period, the Motu To’opua is now inhabited and/or exploited, locals no longer have access to Hiro’s bell.

Atonia loves to share stories and experiences he has lived during his life. He has so many stories and anecdotes to tell that it can last several hours…

The whole Moana Adventure Tours team thanks Atonia for this moment of sharing and recommends you to go to meet him if you have the chance to. He is a person with a great soul, who loves to meet people and who takes care of others. He is also part of an association to help defend the Polynesian culture, heritage, and land.