Onward to Abaiang (Kiribati)
Taratau, Iranimwemwe (the boatmen) and I took a three-day trip to the neighbouring atoll of Abaiang to see how the coral cover on the outer reefs had responded to the reported bleaching several months earlier.
We were kindly housed by a family in the centre of the large oval atoll. Taratau, Iranimwemwe and I slept in an open-air bwai, a traditional sleeping platform preferred by the i-Kiribati. The breeze off the ocean made for the most comfortable nights in all my time in the Pacific. It also inspired a lengthy brainstorm on how a bwai could be fortified to withstand the winter snows at my family cottage in Ontario; lengthy, because I to explain that fluffy white stuff my i-Kiribati colleagues has only seen on only television can be very heavy.
In order to get permission to visit the reefs, we had to ride by moped (barefoot, ask me why I have so many blisters) to the north end of the atoll to visit one of the unimane, or elders. Taratau gave him the, ahem, traditional gift -- two sticks of tobacco -- on our behalf. Then, as a first time visitor hoping to do some work on the island, I had to be "blessed". I was taken to the ruins of an old home next to the beach. The unimane picked up some sand and asked me to rub it on my cheeks. He said a few words in Kiribati and placed a vine ripped off a nearby tree around my neck.
It may have been a traditional ceremony. It may have been done for my benefit at the urging of the kind Taratau. I don't know. Frankly, I don't even know how I could ever find out. There isn't a lot of literature on Kiribati.
The trip back from Abaiang pretty much summarized the entire Kiribati experience. The boat we used was basically an eighteen foot open shell with no seats. It was not comfortable, nor at all safe, especially for an open crossing between atolls. Before we could visit the final sampling site, we had to pick up three additional passengers: a local with the fisheries department, an elderly woman, and her young grandchild. As we pushed past the shallows, I noted with concern that upwind was a sky of a 17th century European paintings inspired by repeating readings of the Book of Job.
Taratau and I sat on the front rail to push the boat past the tidal flats. I watched the grandmother chew apart a palm frond and debated whether the scars covering the little girl's legs were a reflection of a childhood spent on a humid island where cuts and mosquito bites never heal or an undiagnosed severe allergic reaction, perhaps caused by eating one of the many foreign package of crackers whose label included the phrase "may contain traces of nuts" in Malay.
Before reaching our final sampling spot, we made two more stops to pick up passengers. If ever there are questions as to why I did not conduct more detailed benthic surveys or visit more sampling sites in Kiribati, I will offer the following as an explanation:
As I mentioned, we embarked for Abaiang with three people and a couple bags of snorkeling gear. By time we finally set off for the final sampling spot and the trip back to Tarawa, the boat housed eight people, including myself; the young girl, fast asleep on the wooden plank in the middle of the boat (something only a child or my narcoleptic friend Yogi could do); the grandmother weaving something from palm fronds; a fisheries officer hand-lining for tuna; Iranimwemwe, smoking cigarettes while surrounding by eight full tanks of petrol; a young boy asleep near the bow; and finally, Taratau and another man cracking open coconuts with a wobbly knife whose blade would later plunge into the sea, perhaps skewering the tuna that had eluded the fisherman. There were also two large bags of coconuts and two massive coolers full of fish.
Most of the ride, I watched the grandmother and wondered how my own grandmother, who though almost 92 years old and partly blind remains rather spry thanks to the birth of her first great-grandson and a well-documented mean streak, would handle such a journey. When I saw the woman was using the palm fronds to roll cigarettes, for herself and the boatman, I realized my grandmother would prefer this boat to any family gathering, because at least here she would be allowed to smoke.
[A final digression. Afterwards, I wondered whether my grandmother was Ok, as if spontaneously thinking of her were some telepathic signal like those documented in the Time-Life books of the paranormal advertised on Channel 29 from Buffalo when I was a kid. The channel always gave the impression that unlike our orderly society in touch with nature, where documentaries proliferate on the CBC and the channels signed off at 1 am with photos of the natural wonders of each province and territory to a bombastic orchestral rendition of the national anthem, across the lake was a 24 hour land plagued by mysticism and fears of the unknown. Recently, I've begun to wonder whether those initial impressions were true.]
We were kindly housed by a family in the centre of the large oval atoll. Taratau, Iranimwemwe and I slept in an open-air bwai, a traditional sleeping platform preferred by the i-Kiribati. The breeze off the ocean made for the most comfortable nights in all my time in the Pacific. It also inspired a lengthy brainstorm on how a bwai could be fortified to withstand the winter snows at my family cottage in Ontario; lengthy, because I to explain that fluffy white stuff my i-Kiribati colleagues has only seen on only television can be very heavy.
In order to get permission to visit the reefs, we had to ride by moped (barefoot, ask me why I have so many blisters) to the north end of the atoll to visit one of the unimane, or elders. Taratau gave him the, ahem, traditional gift -- two sticks of tobacco -- on our behalf. Then, as a first time visitor hoping to do some work on the island, I had to be "blessed". I was taken to the ruins of an old home next to the beach. The unimane picked up some sand and asked me to rub it on my cheeks. He said a few words in Kiribati and placed a vine ripped off a nearby tree around my neck.
It may have been a traditional ceremony. It may have been done for my benefit at the urging of the kind Taratau. I don't know. Frankly, I don't even know how I could ever find out. There isn't a lot of literature on Kiribati.
The trip back from Abaiang pretty much summarized the entire Kiribati experience. The boat we used was basically an eighteen foot open shell with no seats. It was not comfortable, nor at all safe, especially for an open crossing between atolls. Before we could visit the final sampling site, we had to pick up three additional passengers: a local with the fisheries department, an elderly woman, and her young grandchild. As we pushed past the shallows, I noted with concern that upwind was a sky of a 17th century European paintings inspired by repeating readings of the Book of Job.
Taratau and I sat on the front rail to push the boat past the tidal flats. I watched the grandmother chew apart a palm frond and debated whether the scars covering the little girl's legs were a reflection of a childhood spent on a humid island where cuts and mosquito bites never heal or an undiagnosed severe allergic reaction, perhaps caused by eating one of the many foreign package of crackers whose label included the phrase "may contain traces of nuts" in Malay.
Before reaching our final sampling spot, we made two more stops to pick up passengers. If ever there are questions as to why I did not conduct more detailed benthic surveys or visit more sampling sites in Kiribati, I will offer the following as an explanation:
As I mentioned, we embarked for Abaiang with three people and a couple bags of snorkeling gear. By time we finally set off for the final sampling spot and the trip back to Tarawa, the boat housed eight people, including myself; the young girl, fast asleep on the wooden plank in the middle of the boat (something only a child or my narcoleptic friend Yogi could do); the grandmother weaving something from palm fronds; a fisheries officer hand-lining for tuna; Iranimwemwe, smoking cigarettes while surrounding by eight full tanks of petrol; a young boy asleep near the bow; and finally, Taratau and another man cracking open coconuts with a wobbly knife whose blade would later plunge into the sea, perhaps skewering the tuna that had eluded the fisherman. There were also two large bags of coconuts and two massive coolers full of fish.
Most of the ride, I watched the grandmother and wondered how my own grandmother, who though almost 92 years old and partly blind remains rather spry thanks to the birth of her first great-grandson and a well-documented mean streak, would handle such a journey. When I saw the woman was using the palm fronds to roll cigarettes, for herself and the boatman, I realized my grandmother would prefer this boat to any family gathering, because at least here she would be allowed to smoke.
[A final digression. Afterwards, I wondered whether my grandmother was Ok, as if spontaneously thinking of her were some telepathic signal like those documented in the Time-Life books of the paranormal advertised on Channel 29 from Buffalo when I was a kid. The channel always gave the impression that unlike our orderly society in touch with nature, where documentaries proliferate on the CBC and the channels signed off at 1 am with photos of the natural wonders of each province and territory to a bombastic orchestral rendition of the national anthem, across the lake was a 24 hour land plagued by mysticism and fears of the unknown. Recently, I've begun to wonder whether those initial impressions were true.]
My home for a couple of nights
Sample quadrat from our survey
Our sampling boat, paked full of people coconuts and fish