U is for unforgettable! Kiribati is a country that few people back home I spoke to before I came out here had heard of it.    It is well and truly off the beaten track and down a dead end cul-de-sac as far as being on a major route for international travel destinations go but it is a truly remarkable place and well worth a visit if you ever get the chance- just get off South Tarawa! I’ve had so many experiences over the year but here are a few things that I will cherish and remember fondly when I look back on my time here: The waters of Tarawa lagoon are an impossible shade of turquoise. North Tarawa and the outer islands are simply stunning. The beaches of North Tarawa and the outer islands are picture postcards. They are beautiful, unspoiled jewels and lack the resorts, crowds or other downsides of modern mass tourism. That being said accommodation on North Tarawa and the outer islands can be a tad  basic but is more than adequate- and you will be contrib...

N is for- North Tarawa North Tarawa consists of a string of islets stretching along the norther edge of the lagoon from Buota in the south to Buariki in the north. At high tide you can take a ferry across the channel between North and South Tarawa for 50c but when the tide is low you can simply wade across the 500m gap that separates the two. The coconut covered islets are separated in places by wide channels that can be crossed at low tide and a track winds its way through the villages to Naa at the northern tip of the lagoon.   North Tarawa is like a different world to the heavily populated South and I’m sure is more like South Tarawa would have been before the population got so large. The population of North Tarawa (2015 census) is about 6500 and so is much less densely populated to the South which is home to more than   56,000 people. We often walk from Tebon te Keke to Broken Bridge for a swim, a walk of about an hour each way. The track winds past villages an...

I wrote the following post back in early March and never posted it as I was coming to terms with living out here. It got lost in the events of my mother’s death and I’ve just rediscovered it so thought I’d post if for you, my musings on how our world view is influenced by geography and our experiences growing up. World view  How is your outlook on life, and view of the world, formed? It comes from a large range of factors including: where you grew up (place), socio-economic status (class), family type, family beliefs and traditions, your age, gender, sexual orientation, income, education, life experiences, occupation, culture, language etc. It is in effect the lense through which you see, filter and interpret the world around you. That lense begins to develop as an infant and all your experiences and interactions impact upon it and are distilled by it. In short your experiences, culture and background affect how you view the world round you. World view is usefu...

G is for Garbage : Okay, so I mean rubbish but was struggling with a G word so have borrowed the American equivalent. Rubbish is a major problem out here, there is a weekly rubbish pick up but a lot more recycling and separation needs to be done. The landfills are pretty full and are squeezed into the little land available that backs onto the lagoon. There is not much land available to dump excess rubbish and a some of it ends up on the street, beaches, in the lagoon and ocean. There are occasional clean ups of different beaches etc and there are a number of people working here to improve waste management systems but more needs to be done, to curb the rubbish problem. Landfill   With regards to household waste, almost everything goes into our green bags which are collected once a week and by everything I mean everything- plastics, glass bottles, tins, everything- which is put in them and ends up in the landfill. The only thing separated out is aluminium cans which people ...