Reflections- U to Z

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 contributing directly to a local community and not some faceless corporate.

The  i-Kiribati people are friendly and welcoming and always quick to laugh, at themselves or each other in a really good natured, fun, self depreciating way. Laughter is never far away in the office and it is refreshing to be in a work environment where laughter is so near the surface at all times.

The kids, like kids everywhere are full of curiosity and really want to say hi and give you a hi-five. I will miss the “Mauri i-matung” cries of the kids as I bike down the island each day.  

Sunsets, this is the land of 1000 sunsets. Almost every night you get an incredibly beautiful sunset. Locals seem to be a bit blasé about them but for me, I can’t help but find a quiet spot and sit awe as the colours deepen and night descends. Koakoa restaurant just across the road from where I live is the best spot in South Tarawa to enjoy a drink, a meal, some good company and watch the sunset over the lagoon. Magic.

The beauty of North Tarawa and the outer islands. Kiribati is a beautiful place and really is like nowhere else on earth. A thin ribbon of land in the middle of the Pacific ocean, that fact alone blows my mind when I fly in and see how narrow this land is and yet people have lived here and an amazing culture has flourished or hundreds if not thousands of years. Speaking of which…

I-Kiribati culture. Family and community are at the heart of life here. The people retain their own unique culture and word view and traditional i-Kiribati dancing, held at every official botaki (festival/event) is truly amazing to watch. The young men that danced at the graduation of MTC on my final day blew me away.

Young people at MTC. The young people at MTC are truly inspiring. I-Kiribati are quite shy and reserved and when I first arrived the trainees really were too shy to speak to an i-matung. Now though, where ever I go I am greeted with a “Mauri Craig” or “Mauri Sir Craig” from the trainees. I can’t help but admire their fortitude and commitment to their studies. New Zealand students wouldn’t tolerate the conditions that they endure as they train- on site 24/7, overtime punishments for very minor infractions (which means doing extra duties at the weekend instead of going on shore leave to see family), isolated from family and friends, not even a week break between the three six month study blocks.  The 18 month training programme for the seafarers is hard, as is the life they have chosen, being away from family for ten months at a time is hard, but they are making sacrifices to provide for their families. I have nothing but the deepest admiration for them.

99 IDF students about to perform their dance at my farewell botaki

My Farewell Botaki- on the last Friday of my stay the students and staff put on a  farewell botaki (party) in my honour. I had assumed it was for the captain superintendent who is also leaving after 30 months in charge of MTC. He is heading home to Germany to be with his new wife. However, he will return in February to hand over to his successor and so they will have his farewell then. I was not really looking forward to it, I hate being the centre of attention and would have been much happier hidden at the back, but no there I was front and centre.

As it turned out I needed have been worried. I was blown away by the harmony of the students singing, the warmth for the other English teacher Karee as she performed the master of ceremonies, the incredible dancing of each class as they performed their own dance in my honour but more importantly the sheer happiness and fun the students showed throughout the event. As I said to them in my speech, as far as I was concerned it wasn’t a farewell for me, it was a celebration to them for all the hard work they had done throughout the year. The whole event really highlighted for me the joy that bubbles beneath the surface of i-Kiribati culture. It was an incredible, and humbling experience for me and one I will always treasure.  Speaking to Karee afterwards we agreed that an event such as that for the students at the end of each year would be a great way to celebrate their success before the more formal graduation ceremony. I hope they take that suggestion on board.

Vegetables and Volunteers

Fresh vegetables oh how miss thee. The shortage of vegetables was, and is, perhaps the biggest challenge facing us i-matung out here. Things (I’m talking to you carrots and onions!) are available and seem to be in regular supply then suddenly vanish, sometimes or months at a time. You can’t take anything for granted. The reality is the soils are poor and there is little land available to grow things on. The Taiwanese have the only large scale garden on South Tarawa and are running workshops teaching the locals how to garden but it has been a very intensive process- needing to create compost to improve the soils from scratch not to mention a lack of bees here makes pollination a problem. However, that being said a number of people do try to grow their own vegetables and maybe in time this trend will increase. Maybe hydroponics will be the solution and I know that there are some small scale hydroponic efforts being established.

One of the major downsides of the shortage of fresh fruit an vegies is the reliance of most people on poor quality food imported from Fiji, Aust & NZ such as noodles and fizzy drinks such as coke. Rice is heavily subsidised and a staple of the diet and people here eat a lot of it, and do so in huge portions. If people don’t have jobs rice is readily available as is fish for the lagoon. However, the poor diet has a couple of major consequences of the people here. One is stunting. Lack of nutrients when kids are young stunts their growth and Kiribati has one of the highest rates of stunting in the Pacific. The other major consequence is type two diabetes is prevalent. A recent survey found 50% of the people studied had type two diabetes! Both these facts are extremely disturbing and are examples of the challenges people face due to the lack of fruit and vegetables and poor nutrition. One of the teachers I worked with this year was due to have part of her foot amputated due to diabetes. She put off the operation and died of blood poisoning before she could be operated on. She was in her thirties  and there was no need for her to die. Unfortunately stories like this are the reality of life out here.

Volunteering

What can I say? This experience has been life changing in many ways and has been one of the highlights of my life. There are many volunteers out here and each and every one has left friends, family and the comforts of home behind to come out here to do a job and maybe make some positive change in the country. We all share a sense of altruism and a belief in wanting to make the world a better place and it really is refreshing to be in a community of people who are all doing something meaningful to try and improve the world around them.  We all come from different backgrounds and countries but all share a common bond. It really is awesome to have been part of such a community, if only for a short time. We won’t change the world but at least we have all put our hands up and travelled to one of the lesser known corners of the world to try and help foster change for the better. Imagine the world we would live in if everyone did that. So I take my hat off to each and every volunteer for putting aside family, friends, career and comforts of home to travel here to Kiribati to try to make a difference. The world needs more volunteers!

As well as the volunteers I need to take a moment to acknowledge and thank the people at VSA in NZ that do so many things to make life out here as easy as possible for us. The old adage is that it takes a village to raise a child, from a volunteering perspective it takes an organisation like VSA to make our volunteer assignments work and to help solve problems when they arise. I can’t express enough how impressed I have been with the organisation and the support they have shown me whenever I needed help. They are an incredible bunch so thank you VSA for everything! 

W is for Weather

What can I say about the weather here except that it is hot every day. You can’t get much more consistent weather anywhere in the world- the temperature hovers in a narrow band of 31-32 degrees each and every day of the year. Sure, it drops to about 27-28 Celsius at night but the temperature is incredibly consistent. The weather that I will miss the most when back home is the coolness as the wind rises and a sudden down pour sweeps in off the ocean or the few times when the the clouds rolled in and rather than a tropical downpour we had an hour or two of gentle rain so similar to a summer rain shower back home. The one or two occasions we experienced this was so different to the rest of the weather out here and was memorable as a result.

X is for Xenophobia

Okay so I couldn’t think of anything for x. Xenophobia is not a problem here, at least in my experience. The people are warm friendly and interested in learning both us i-matung and our ways. I’ve not had one negative experience whilst here and will miss kids as I’m biking home saying Mauri i-matung! If you are having a bit of a rough day the greetings from the kids on the street as you walk or bike past really picks you up.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are some i-Kiribati who don’t like having foreigners here, and must feel a sense of injustice at the inequalities between their incomes and those of the expats. However, as I’ve said I’ve never heard of, nor seen, an evidence of xenophbia or anti-foreigner sentiment since I've been here. The people are some of the friendliest that I’ve had the pleasure to meet and although they can be reserved till they get to know you they have an incredibly positive outlook on life and a warm, rich sense of humour.

Youth  

Okay, so I’ve already covered youth in the posts on opportunities and population growth. However, the truth is that Kiribati has an incredibly young population. I am constantly staggered at the number of youngsters under the age of 10 running around. I worry about what the world they are going to inherit will look like and also at how much more the population can, and will grown by, out here. What opportunities will these kids have? Will the issues that their country faces be solved by the time they become adults, or will they have become worse? My gut instinct is the latter, that the increasing number of people on this fragile island ecosystem will continue to put undue stress on it and that the future for these kid face is not to hopeful. I really do hope I’m wrong. I’d love for all young people here to be trained up and have meaningful employment opportunities when they are adults. Will there be opportunities for them all? I don’t know but unless progress is made then I am not too hopeful of a brighter future for them, especially those living on South Tarawa.

I do love the energy of the young people I’ve been working with at MTC. The farewell that they put in for me as one of the highlights of my stay. The final week at course the students had completed all their assessments so each class prepared a dance that they were going to perform at my farewell.  As I told the students at my farewell speech during the ceremony as far as I was concerned it was not a farewell but a celebration and acknowledgement of all the hard work that they had put into the year and that is was to celebrate all of them finishing their years studies.

 The dancing was incredible, each class choreographed their own dance incorporating elements of traditional dance and their own ideas and modern music. One of the classes even learned the haka Ka Mate and performed that, adding their own i-Kiribati twist to it. That really blew me away, that they would go to such lengths to try to incorporate a haka into their farewell for me. I feel extremely privileged to have been the recipient of such an hour from the students and highlighted of me the cultural links that bind all the peoples of the Pacific together. 

The dances were entertaining, funny and the whole audience, which was all the staff and students, were caught up in the energy they created. It really was a celebration, a chance to let their hair down and as such was an outstanding way to end my time here. Although I had been dreading it; it turned out to be one of the highlights of my time in Kiribati and something that I will always treasure.

Z is for Zucchini

Okay so I’m grasping at straws again. I haven’t seen a bloody zucchini in months not that I enjoy eating the world’s most bland vegetable. In fact I’ve enjoyed being in a zucchini free place for the last year.

Conclusion

Anyway, hope you enjoyed a small window into my year in Kiribati. It’s been everything I hoped for and more. The challenges have been in areas I least expected it. I don’t for one moment regret coming out here but I am looking forward to getting back to my old life. It’s been a great opportunity to reflect on my life so far, to take time out from the normal daily grind and really think about what I want to do from here, but also has given me the opportunity to look back on the people and events that have shaped my life so far; I’d have not done that had I stayed in NZ.

I’m looking forward to getting back home but also have a tinge of sadness about leaving here- it gets under your skin. I know I'll probably never have the opportunity to return to Kiribati. I am leaving with a greater appreciation for home, my family and my boring old life. Has it been a selfish self indulgence? Most certainly. My only regret really is that my Julie was not able to share the whole experience with me but she was at a place in her career that it wasn't possible and that is cool. We both needed to do what we needed to do. I‘m just glad she was so understanding and accepting that this was something I had to do, for me. However, I am glad that both she and Finn got to come out and see first had a very different way of life to that which we have back home and experience, if only for a few days, life in Kiribati.

Have I changed as a result of this experience? Undoubtedly and I’m not sure I will ever be quite the same person I was before I left on this adventure and I think it will take a while to adjust to returning to my normal life.  

So I now turn my back on the coconut palms swaying on this microscopically narrow strip of land in the middle of the endless expanse of the Pacific, away from the incredible turquoise waters of the lagoon and from the warm friendly i-Kiribati people. I turn southwards and gaze across the endless miles of the mighty Pacific ocean towards the shores that are my home.  I will leave these seldom visited islands knowing that this has been a truly profound experience and one that I will never forget. I wish nothing but the best for Kiribati and her people.

I think it fitting to finish with a traditional i-Kiribati farewell:

Te Mauri                    (Health)

Te Raoi                      (Peace)

Te Tabomoa              (Prosperity)

Craig