Off to Kiribati

I have been referring to the country as Kiribati as long as I have been thinking about coming here. But whenever I have mentioned where I am headed to people in the Solomon Islands or anywhere that knows the country, they have been calling it Kiribass. I thought as first that this was just some name they knew, but I guess I have been wrong the whole time. In the Kiribati language, anytime there is a “ti” in a word, it is pronounced as “s.” There are apparently only 13 sounds total in the Kiribati language. Now if they were going to adopt the Roman alphabet for spelling anything, I don't know why they didn't adopt “s” for the “s” sound, but I guess it's their prerogative.

After arriving in Honiara, I went and collected my stuff and the Bulaia guest house and waited there for a while before heading to the airport. It was going to be another all nighter, as the flight was at about 2 am. I'm going to have stop that. I'm glad that the next flight, to Fiji, is at 8 am. I saw Clifton again. I was glad about that as I hadn't seen him to say goodbye before heading to Auki. And as we talked, he told me that he also knew Chris Porter. It really is a weirdly small world in some ways. Clifton had helped Porter's business with the government.

Anyway, I headed to the airport and caught my flight. We landed first in Nauru. I have no idea what's in Nauru, but it just one small island and most of the passengers got off there. There were only about 15 people who took off for Kiribati. I did see in the airport at Nauru, though, that Nauru is the location of one of the major data gathering stations for the US agency studying global warming. Maybe that's it.

And then it was off to Kiribati. I don't know exactly how to describe landing in Kiribati. It's like another world in a lot of ways. Kiribati is a nation composed of 16 or 18 islands. All but one of the islands (I think) are atolls. That means that they are ring-like and have lagoons in the center. Most are open, but there is one island that is almost a closed circle, so it has an almost enclosed lagoon. There are three groups of islands. There is the “main group” I guess, encompassing the island of Tarawa (which is the seat of government), and 8 or so other islands nearby. At the other side of the nation, off to the east, there is another smaller groups of islands, including Christmas Island. These islands are actually to the east of the international date line, so for many years, this country had the distinction of having two different dates, depending on where you were situated. After they gained independence, however, the government decided that that was silly, so they decreed that the whole country was going to be on the same side of the date line, so they moved it. This essentially made Kiribati the country that is the most easterly-situated country in the world. In the center of the country is a third group of islands, currently referred to as the Phoenix Islands. These islands are the reason I decided to come to Kiribati.

There is a website called www.ted.com. It's an organization that holds symposiums a couple of times a year. They tape the talks given by people, on all sorts of topics, on the website. One of those talks was by a man who helped set up the Phoenix Islands as a marine park, one of the largest marine parks in the world. I was struck by the story because the Phoenix Islands have one of the best fish stocks in the world as well. But instead of exploiting the fish stocks and basically bringing devastation to the area because of fishing, Kiribati decided to go the more difficult route and establish the area as a protected area. And I figured that a country that would do something like that deserved a look. So I thought that if it wasn't too difficult, or expensive, I would come take a look. I am not going to get to the park. It is too isolated and costly to get to, and there isn't much to see anyway (a few rocks and birds), but the country should be enough.

As we arrived in Kiribati, we descended through the morning clouds, which had a truly cool bunch of colours from the sunrise, we approached this spit of sand with a bunch of coconut palms on it. That is how it looked from a distance. As we got closer, it didn't change much. It really is just a narrow bit of sand, held together by palms and mangroves and the currents (and now some pavement and seawalls). We passed over the landing strip, not even really an airport, and curved around to come in and land. I learned later that the reason for that is to alert people and animals that a plane is landing shortly. There is no fence around the airport, so anyone can wander around. I guess they need a warning at times that planes are coming.

The terminal is a cinder block building. I don't think there is even a building for check-in. You arrive and go in where it says passengers only. (I will find out for sure tomorrow when I fly to one of the outer islands to experience something of the real culture of the country.) The arrival hall, immigration, baggage claim and customs areas are all in the same place. You just kind of turn around to do each thing. And then you are out in the parking lot. But there is no information booth outside, or taxi stand (there aren't actually any taxis here). There is a police office, and one of the officers was very helpful in pointing me to the right spot to catch one of the mini-buses going along the road in either direction to the various towns on Tarawa, both north and south.

I did catch one, with the help of a local, who was quite amused when I didn't really know where I was going. But he made sure I got to where I was going, even though I didn't have any local currency on me either (there are no currency exchange booths, or ATMs, at the airport either), only when we got to the hotel and I tried to ask how much of the Solomon currency to pay, he just waved me off. I had a free ride. I guess what I read about Kiribati being a very friendly place was true. While we were driving along, there were spots where the island isn't much more than 50 meters wide. And on one side there is crashing ocean, while on the other side are the calm waters of the protected lagoon. It really is amazing, and alien in ways that can't be explained.