Wandering Around South Tarawa

I really wanted to like Kiribati. I had seen that documentary about the Phoenix Islands, and the photos of Kiribati that had been part of that program. I had read about how friendly the people were. And I really wanted to like the country. But, to be honest, I was finding the country to be kind of a chore. It's hard to find cheap accommodation. Restaurants are few and far between. Bus drivers will just drive on by. I'm not sure if it's just me, or whether they do that to everyone, but they seem very impatient and I would be passed by a number of minibuses before one would stop for me. And there is just not much that is of interest to do. Not much anyway that is easily identifiable. Perhaps if I had visited the tourist information office instead of the tour office, I might have learned of more to do, but everyone I talked to suggested the same thing. There are only a few things of interest on Tarawa and then it's kind of boring. And I was getting kind of bored.

In an effort to find some redeeming thing about Tarawa, and of Kiribati in general, I set out early on my last day in the country. I wasn't sure of the name of where I was wanting to go, so when I flagged the first minibus down, I was a bit slow on being able to tell the driver where to take me. And he just drove off and left me. That was annoying. Then I decided that the airport was close to the eco-aquaculture farm I thought might be interesting. So the next minibus that stopped for me, I said the airport and they let me on. While I was at the airport, I took a photo of the facility. Apparently there is going to be a survey team coming in the next few weeks to start the upgrading process of the airport and road. It should be interesting because there is only one road on the island.

From the airport, I headed towards the eco-farm. Along the edge of the road, on the lagoon side, it looks like they are trying to reclaim some land. Those mangroves are planted in awfully neat rows for it to be Mother Nature's idea.

Then I reached the eco-farm. I thought it might be interesting, but it's just a working farm for the cultivation of milkfish. And because it's just a working farm, there really isn't any tourist facilities associated with it. No information placards, no people about to explain anything, nothing. What there is is a whole bunch of pits with water in them, many interconnected by pipes and such, and fish. Lots of fish.

So next it was out to the end of the island in the middle part. There is more or less a boomerang shape to Tarawa. But at the end of the south part of the island, as it turns towards the airport and the north part of the island, there is a road that leads to the turn part of the boomerang shape. (I am just going to assume that makes any sense at all, and leave it for you to figure out.) The village there is called Temwaiku. I thought it would be just a short way. I mean, how far can the island go in that direction, when most of the island is a couple of hundred meters wide, at most? The answer is that it can go really far. Almost an hour later, I had rounded a curve and was heading in the general direction of around the eco-farm and back to the airport. But I hadn't found the end of the road yet. I did find many of the same sorts of houses I had seen on Abaiang, but not much of in the villages of Tarawa.

By that time it was getting time for lunch. After a few aborted attempts at finding a place to eat (some places seemed to be restaurants, but were not; others were restaurants, but were closed), I was told where to find one, by catching a bus. While I was looking around though, I found what I think is the only place on Tarawa with a curb on the road. It was right near the hospital.

I finally got to a Chinese restaurant, where I met a couple from Australia. We were chatting for a while and they told me about something that sounded interesting near the Kiribati Parliament building. It's another eco-farm project funded by the Taiwanese government. It is to grow milkfish as well, but associated with the farm, they also have a little aquarium with a bunch of tropical fish. I enjoyed talking to them, but he was far more optimistic than she was. She just had something negative to say about almost everything he would point out.

I headed off to the Parliament and took a better bunch of photos of it. 

 

There was also a pretty cool mosaic map of Kiribati.  Apparently Kiribati, in area is the size of Australia.  It's just that it is more than 99 percent water.

Then I went next door to the eco-farm. There were little plaques showing how big the pools were and how many fish they had. I found the aquarium part as well. There were some interesting looking fish.

The caretaker of the farm appeared and watched while I looked at the fish. Then he explained a little bit about the operation of the farm. This was already much better than the first farm. He told me that they have a number of pools and they are working hard at building a stock of mature fish that can be bred. They are trying to develop a bait stock. Milkfish, because of their colour and shape, are attractive to tuna and make good bait. So young milkfish, if a viable stock of breeding fish can be establish, could become a good export or business opportunity for Kiribati. This farm was an attempt to do that. However, it takes seven years for milkfish to become mature to where they will breed. This farm had been in operation for 6 years already. The man tending the farm had been there for about 2 and a half years. Because milkfish take so long to mature, the farm is actually very expensive. The fish need to be fed, as they are captive and in pools that don't have food coming into them. They need to be tended and their numbers need to be monitored. He told me that they can only change the water when the tides are high enough and that is when the moon is either new or full. The rest of the month, they are unable to change the water, as they don't have pumps to do so. If the numbers get to high in the pools, then the oxygen gets depleted and the fish die. There are some sort of phytoplankton in the pools that put oxygen into the water through photosynthesis, but that is only during times of sunlight. At night, there is danger to the fish, as there is during times when there is lots of cloud and rain. And Kiribati has just begun the rainy season. The fish in the large pools are for food (there is a separate pool for the breeding fish), but it is a losing proposition for the farm. It takes 2 kilograms of food, over the course of however long, to grow a fish to 1 kilogram of weight. That is in addition to the time and manpower involved. Fish food is 4 dollars per kilogram, so 8 dollars for a 1 kilogram fish, plus the time and manpower cost. But the fish can only be sold for 4 dollars, as that is the going rate for any fish caught in the sea. The man at the farm seemed a bit perturbed by it all. But, he's still there, raising fish.

Following the little tour and explanation, I headed back to the guesthouse and got ready to leave the next day. While I was sitting there, I met a man who was staying there. He was from Fiji. He has been there on and off for almost five months, working. He is working to transfer some property and equipment from BP Oil to the Kiribati government. He doesn't have much to do, except pay a security guard and paint a fence or two, but he has to spend three weeks at a time in Kiribati on Tarawa, with only a week or so back home in Fiji. I told him he must get very bored. He just hung his head a bit and agreed.

As I said at the start, I really wanted to like Kiribati. In the end though, I enjoyed the visit and I am glad I went, but it's not a place I would recommend as a place to travel. It would be interesting to stay for a while working and getting to know the people, but it's most definitely not, at this point, a tourism destination.