The Elfin Warriors frequently place thems'elves between the innocent and those determined to destroy them. You will find them battling the oil companies in order to protect the seas, standing up to the lumber industry to save the trees, struggling against the fishing companies to protect the whales, dolphi and porpi...
...
Then all of a sudden the anti-fishing fairy must have waved her wand and the fish were GONE! Toodled all the way down to the smoke-stacks and all we saw was a pod of porpi.
...
The porpi pics didn't come out very well.
...
Today we had a day off from training and we went porpoise watching. Well, it was supposed to be whale watching, but those darn killer whales were heading away from us and even though we were in those cool Zodiac boats that skip over the waves, our guides said we would never be able to catch them. Bummer. However, we did all get to wear these big, puffy, bright yellow, full-body "float-suits" that looked like something you would wear on the space shuttle. They did protect us from the wind and flying surf, but we almost lost our head coach Tracey Leone (who stands a shade under 5-foot-tall) when she pulled one on. So, because we couldn't see any whales, the guides found some porpoises. Or is that porpi? Anyway, they were very beautiful, super fast swimmers and were very playful, so although we didn't get to see the killer whales, at least we saw some wildlife in their natural habitat.

porpi = break/broken

(Was there another word following porpi? If so, then porpi could be an adjective here, eg.

You\'ll have to bring me a \"broken\" ...


From:
http://www.peter-klein.net/lojban/page697.html

Definition: breaks/fractures/shatters/[splits/splinters/cracks] into pieces



Sentence example:
i mi cuska lu ba\'a le stela cu porpi
I say \"I expect the lock is broken
http://wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/9106/msg00062.html

Not French, but LOJBAN! What\'s this:
http://www.lojban.org/

Lojban is a carefully constructed spoken language designed in the hope of removing a large portion of the ambiguity from human communication. It was made well-known by a Scientific American article and references in both science fiction and computer publications. Lojban has been built over five decades by dozens of workers and hundreds of supporters.

I think this is it!!

Is the context of this someone bringing something back from travels?

If so, this is probably a "Greek belt-buckle":

Photo thumbnails:
http://thesaurus.duth.gr/english/thumbs.asp?maximum=300
*** There is a porpi in the 3rd row, 6th picture over with a red background!



Also found on a Stanford site:
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/ozcons/2...

or

http://www.charvolant.org/~ozcons/archive/0104.html