November 15, 2007

Impressions of Tarawa
We’ve been here in the capital of Kirbati for several days now, and are starting to draw some conclusions, form some opinions and make some judgments about the place. For the first impression there are far too many people crammed together on this little strip of land. The entire eastern strip of Tarawa’s atoll islands is now connected by causeways, and is about 16 miles long. The widest part, at the southern end, is Betio (pronounced bezho) town, and it is about 1/3 mile from ocean to lagoon. That width only carries about 2 miles, and then it narrows to less than ¼ mile for the rest of the length. Betio has the customs office and the commercial wharf, and most of the industry in Tarawa, but there are villages scattered along the island line, any place the land widens enough to allow for buildings beside the road. In fact, although probably the best stocked store in Tarawa is a few hundred yards from the wharf, you can’t buy ANY local fruit or produce in Betio. That requires a “bus” ride (75 cents Australian each way) to Bairiki town, 5 miles north. Next to Bairiki Square are the Telecom office, two internet parlors, a couple dozen shops selling everything from food to outboard motors, and tucked behind a row of incredibly dark, dirty little second hand shops is the local produce market. There, at 4 long tables are women selling papayas, coconuts, tomatos, limes, bok choy, breadfruit, and pumpkin. A few have packets of ready to eat food; fish, rice and vegetable. All seem to take turns watching the tables, and rotating to the floor at the side where a perpetual card game is in progress. Their command of English is such that prices are often communicated with numbers of fingers shown. Fascinating in its way, but we soon absorb all the “atmosphere” we need there and move back out, past the little thatched houses with pigs tethered in the yards, to the shops along the street. Passing behind a restaurant I notice that the dishwashing station is set up outside the back door, handy to the garden hose faucet that is the only water supply for these buildings. We understand from a local man that there is a municipal sewage system as well as this water system, and the waste pipe extends out 300 meters into the ocean side to exit at a depth of 100 meters, so there isn’t too much pollution return. They had to abandon septic tanks long ago, to keep from contaminating the shallow aquifer that supplies the wells. I was astounded to find that there is significant water under the ground here, trapped in the hollow of the coral core of the island.. We saw people away from the town center extracting water from sloping PVC pipes exiting the ground, using improvised pumps made from a smaller piece of pipe with a leather flap at the bottom. It’s a slightly updated version of the bilge pumps used on square rigged ships 200 plus years ago; simple, inexpensive, and durable.
At each little cluster of houses we found there was one quite large pole building, with a steeply sloped roof that comes to within 5 feet of the ground and no walls. This is the maneaba, the community meeting place, and during the day some people come there to socialize and lay around in the shade with the trade wind breeze playing under the high roof. Also there are almost always people visiting from out islands, or from further down the atoll, who simply lay out their mats on the floor and spend the nights at the manaeba. Hotels are only for “I-matang”, Europeans, and there seems to be only one here, located near the airport, about 10 miles from Betio, near the new airport. Unlike at Funafuti where the airstrip still covers the best agricultural land on the island, the Kiribati people reclaimed the military airstrip immediately after the war, and replanted it with coconut, breadfruit, pandanus, papaya and banana. Houses and huts are now scattered among the fruit trees, with narrow, dusty paths winding among them, just wide enough for a single car to pass. A few people have cars or small flatbed trucks, but most rely on motorbikes, or walking and busses.
There is a noticeable difference in religious observance between Fiji and here. In Fiji, everything stopped entirely on Sunday, except church. In Funafuti, and here, most things close but in the afternoon a few businesses open, so food and fuel can be bought, and internet access is available. Also, in Fiji only on the water in rural areas would you see a man without his shirt on. Here, it’s quite common for men to work or play shirtless even in the middle of town. The women on the other hand still dress pretty conservatively, And when they swim, they seem to wear a light cotton lavalava over shorts into the water, take it off and tuck it into their waistband while they are submerged, than wrap up again as they leave the sea. Still, the convention doesn’t stop human nature. Almost daily I see a local speedboat load up a half dozen pretty, smiling young island women, and laughing and waving their cigarettes as they talk, they are ferried out to one of the offshore fishing ships or to a small tramp freighter for the afternoon. I don’t think they’re hired as housekeepers. There seems to be a rhythm to life here, and the weekends are family time. Along the narrowest parts of the atoll, and on the inter-island causeways, there are fireplaces and tables under the pandanus, casurina and frangipani trees that provide shade to the strip of land between the road and the lagoon. We went up to Bairiki on Saturday, and saw hundreds of groups of families and friends cooking on fires, swinging in hammocks between the trees, playing soccer in scrubby clearings by the beach, swimming and fishing in the lagoon. The people here are friendly and open, if a bit shy, and I think what we saw on Saturday may explain part of that; these people grow up belonging, accepted, a part of a community that expects a certain standard, and offers a deep sense of security. I think it’s the way the human race evolved, and the way we all lived, a long, long time ago. And I think that if we’re going to survive as a species, we need to get back to that. Have a look at the newly released IPCC report, and notice the tone. The “me first” profit driven model has led us to where we are now, and in a few decades it will drown this little nation. Who gave us the right to trade their island for our air conditioning? We didn’t know that was the trade when we started living that way. We know now. How will we respond? Ted