The St. Gabriel church is a large, beautiful church that was built in 1868 when Taravai had over 2,000 inhabitants.  However, now there are only about 12 people living on the entire island and most do not use or attend the church on island.  Partly because it is in serious disrepair and also because there is no parishioner to hold service.  When one of the locals want to go to church, they hop in their panga and drive 6 miles to the mainland where they attend service at St. Michael’s church. 

The found loads and loads of wood piled up inside the church the first time we visited in April 2019.  We later learned that the locals planned to repair and renovate the church — at some point.  We were surprised to see that the work had not begun when we returned to Taravai in January 2020.  The wood sat comfortably inside the church when we returned again in December 202.

Rumors of Repair

By February 2021 we had heard rumors that they were going to start the work on the St. Gabriel Church.  They had a huge fundraiser and the local government was ready to begin renovations.

There are about 12 people who currently live on Taravai.  Valerie and Herve live in the “village” and they told us that they would repair the dock, add two water drains (from the mountains to the ocean), clear the mountainside behind and to the side of the church, and then set up scaffolding and a work tent.  All of this work took about 3 weeks.

The plan is to replace the tile roof with a metal roof (cheaper and lasts longer), remove all of the exterior plaster (by hand), then begin work on the interior.  Makes sense as why work on the interior when the roof is in bad shape?

Volunteers Begin the Work

The local government decided it would be “best” to ask for volunteers from Mangareva (the main village) to work on the St. Gabriel church rather than pay the locals of Taravai.  Much to the dislike of the locals of Taravai.  We saw the first group of volunteers come over from Mangareva to Taravai to volunteer to work on the church.  Sometimes there are 5/6 people and sometimes 30/40 people.  The volunteers come over on the Tokani, which is a glorified people mover.  They primarily use this vessel to transport people from the main village to the airport which is on a different motu called Totegegie (5nm away).  The Tokani takes the visitors to the lagoon inside Taravai and then the volunteers transfer to a barge to get to shore.  It is a process.

The volunteers begin on the roof.

The installation of the roof was very interesting. Nobody is strapped or tied in as they work on the roof.  Next, they only use hammer and nails.  They don’t use bolts or screws or anything more substantial to hold the roof.  Workers nailed the support boards to other wood.  Then the volunteers nailed the metal roof to the support boards.  Hope there is not a big wind gust or storm because it does not seem like the roof is secure at all.  I am sure they know what they are doing as this is not their first rodeo but still….

Removal of Plaster

Another group of volunteers begin the work of removing the old, dirty plaster on the exterior of the St. Gabriel Church.  There are layers and layers of plaster on all of the four walls and the steeple.  Workers covered holes, cracks, and weak spots with layers of plaster over the year.  It was and will continue to be a slow process as they remove the multiple layers of plaster with puddy knives by hand.

Update on Church Repairs

Matt and I stopped by Taravai on our way out of Gambier. We had hoped to see significant repairs and updates on the church as it had been 6 weeks since we were last here.

Inside repairs.  They removed the pulpit flooring and removed the cross which had rotted.

They removed the cross with Christ as it was rotted – hope they replace it altogether.

Coming up next is the adventure of our volunteer day at the St. Gabriel church.

Events from this blog post occurred during February and March 2021.  Our blog posts run 8 weeks behind our adventures.