André Saïd, the son of a man deported from Algeria for a minor offence at the end of the 19th century, was a well-known figure in the township of Vook (Voh),always friendly and helpful with everyone. His whole life long, he was a builder of relationships between the Kanaks or ‘natives’ as he called them, and the communities who came to work there - Europeans, Indonesians, etc. Living together, the common destiny, were his ideal well before the Nouméa Accord in 1998 set out this path for New Caledonia.