Note: The story below first appeared in Santana Magazine during 2000. Robby adds an update at the end. Enjoy.
"Dozens of naked coffee-colored children burst from palm-covered huts and rush at us screaming, "I-Matang! I-Matang!" The smallest boy, thumb firmly planted in his mouth, toddles after the gang until they stop a safe distance from us, giggling and pointing. Most have never seen an I-Matang, a foreigner, in their village.
Lorraine and I wave wildly from our bicycles and holler, "Mauri, Mauri," - "Hello" in Kiribati (pronounced "kir-EE-bas") -- the language of Tabuaeran. For hundreds of years, Tabuaeran Atoll, part of the Line Island chain, was named Fanning Island after an American "discovered" the 4-mile by 8-mile ring of coral islets, about 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. When the Republic of Kiribati, formerly a British colony known as the Gilbert Islands, bought the atoll in 1983, they named it Tabuaeran. Few places are more remote, yet this isolated speck of land, barely 6 feet above sea level, supports 1700 I-Kiribati -- hardy Micronesian atoll people.
Lorraine and I are riding borrowed bikes down a sandy country lane overarched by tall fluttering palms to Eten, the southernmost and newest village on the atoll. Tabuaeran sits four degrees north of the equator; the December sun is harsh, breaking through the canopy in broad explosions of light and heat. With each passing mile, the road deteriorates, inhabitants are more sedentary, and we become more a spectacle.
As we ride through the third sleepy Micronesian village along the lonely road, the children stare in awe, and adults halt their chores - laying coconut meat (copra) in the sun, washing clothes, cleaning today's catch - to gawk. Everyone waves and smiles. We ride on and yell, "Tiabo" (pronounced "SA-bo") - "good-bye." The gaggle of giggling children marches into the road, watching spellbound until we round the bend.
To our left, tradewinds whip the surface of the aqua lagoon into a heavy chop. Rectangular swatches of brown - seaweed farms--pepper the lagoon along the shallows. A few hatless women stand waist deep in the salt water, tending their seaweed, oblivious to the tropical sun that could broil I-Matangs in a few hours. To our right, the jungle grows so thick; we can neither see nor hear the ocean breakers hammering the exterior reef. We hear only the creak of bicycle pedals and the constant sandpaper sound of palm fronds tousled by the wind.
We cross carefully over an ancient patchwork bridge, while huge black and white frigate birds ride the wind a few meters over our heads, coasting and gliding, waiting for the right moment to plummet and snare lunch from the shallows. Hundreds of tiny black crabs, each bejeweled with a gaudy crimson claw, sense our coming and scamper down their burrows. "Look out, Honey!" Lorraine yells, as I nearly run over an edible sand-colored land crab rarely seen during the day.
The road turns from the lagoon to become two parallel paths through a meadow of bunchgrass, purslane, and morning glory vines. I fall in behind Lorraine to let oncoming bicyclists pass -- we have to remember to ride on the left. Nearly everyone rides bicycles here. There are no cars, only a few scooters and two "co-op" trucks that haul copra and dried seaweed to the main village near the pass.
I flag down a large woman on a bike, and she stops, carefully balancing two children -- one on the cross bar, the other crouched precariously on the handlebars. Lorraine lifts her shoulders, and asks "Eten?" The Kiribati woman smiles and points to a break in the bush farther down the road. The kids just stare. I say, "Koraba" - "Thank you," and we dismount to walk our bikes down the trail toward the lagoon.
Pungent smoke from smoldering coconut wood assaults our nostrils as we wend our way through succulent-type bushes with fat leaves. The undergrowth breaks abruptly into a clearing, and we have arrived in Eten - the youngest village on Tabuaeran, named after Biblical paradise. The people here are recent immigrants from overcrowded atolls to the west.
After Kiribati received their independence from England in 1979, they bought Tabuaeran and its sister island to the north, Teraina, (formerly Washington Island) and began a resettlement program. The government offered parcels of land to selected families who were willing to leave their homes and begin anew. Most arrived on the deck of a tramp steamer carrying shoddy suitcases crammed with utensils, tools, and memorabilia. The residents of Eten are pioneers, literally hacking their new homes from the jungle.
Coconut trees lay helter-skelter where they have fallen, fanned red-hot by the wind, but burning slowly because they are green. Most houses are palm-covered lean-tos. Better abodes, built several feet above the ground, will come later. Chickens scratch the coral searching for tasty centipedes; pigs tug at foot ropes securing them to trees, stretching to reach anything outside their circle. Blowzy ducks waddle by. A baby enjoys her bath in a big wash tub filled with brackish well water. Upwind from the smoldering trees, the ever-present sweet odor of drying seaweed fills the air.
The mood is languorous until several mutts bark at the intruders, and all eyes are upon us. A spry old man named Tabuia, brings up his bucket of water from the well and hurries to greet us hollering, "Teroi, Teroi!" - "Welcome!" Tabuia's body is lean and hard after sixty years of atoll life, and his wide bare feet crunch the coral and twigs painlessly. He no longer climbs coconut trees -- he has children for that -- but he could. His graying hair is neatly trimmed; his gait assured; and his deep chocolate eyes gleam above his broad Micronesian nose.
His Australasian ancestors arrived in the Western Pacific atolls from Southeast Asia maybe 3000 years ago. Two millennia later, Polynesian navigators visited, probably from Samoa, settled, and intermarried, creating the blend of cultures and physical attributes now known as Micronesian. Like many Pacific islanders today, Tabuia sports a wide toothless grin. He strides up and greets us like long lost friends, belying the fact that we'd met only a few weeks before at a dance celebrating our arrival in Tabuaeran. . . . Today, in Tabuia's burgeoning village, I notice he is proudly wearing the pink polo shirt we had given him that night at the dance. He has also donned his best lava-lava (sarong) for the occasion. At first, I had thought, "How great to find a place where people still wear traditional garb." Later I learned that traditional Micronesian garb was grass skirts and loincloths or total nudity for females till after marriage-- missionaries brought the lava-lavas and "mother hubbard" dresses. Strolling toward Tabuia's home, I ask about his family.
He answers solemnly. "My mother, she died a couple months ago. That's her over there." He points to a rectangle of stones around a slightly raised mound of gravelly sand. Land is scarce on atolls, so deceased are often buried in the front yard. Glass is scarcer. Bottles are never broken intentionally, but when one does, shards are scattered on graves to keep dogs and people off.
Lorraine squeezes his hand, "We're so sorry, Tabuia." "That's okay. That's the life. She passed in her sleep one night. She was eighty-three. That's okay." With no doctors, and just a few antibiotics and Kiribati folk medicine, when someone gets sick here, they often die. We pass two weathered old ladies; skirts hiked up shamelessly, hands rolling rhythmically on their thighs. They are twining the coarse fibers of te ben - the mature coconut - into sturdy cord. Like most local women, their thighs are hairless.
Suddenly the mood changes. "See, everyone else is good," and Tabuia's family surrounds us, smiles flashing like fireworks. Public touching between males and females, especially embracing, is prohibited in Kiribati society, but since we are I-Matang, it's tolerated. I lightly hug Tuienga, Tabuia's wife, and briskly shake hands with Teuare, his eldest son who speaks fair English. Teuare welcomes us and says, "Sorry, my little brother, Maungaunga, cannot be here. He is taking tests for school. If he passes, he will go the University in Tarawa. Only five children from the Line Islands can go."
"You must be very proud," I say, and he nods.
A small hand takes mine and I look down into the adoring eyes of Merry Claire, Tabuia's youngest. She seems to have developed an instant crush on me. I speak to her in Kiribati and English but she's too shy to answer. Kiribati children study English; I know she understands; but embarrassed, she scampers away to play with her sister, Oboria.
"You must be thirsty after your ride," Teuare says, and lashing his ankles together around a coconut tree, quickly slithers up like a caterpillar. Several huge green coconuts -- moimotus -- thud heavily to the ground. Without the coconut palm, atoll life would be impossible, and the islanders have five names for the different stages and uses of the ripening nut. Moimotus are for drinking.
Atoll people also drink well water, but they boil it first. Fresh water is less dense than salt and floats in an aquifer in the coral just above sea level, but it is usually brackish and sometimes tainted by latrines. They are somewhat acclimated to local bacteria, but Lorraine and I cannot risk getting sick, so we drink only coconuts ashore.
Back on the ground, Teuare deftly husks and hacks off the tops of the nuts with a huge machete. The nectar is sweet, nutritious, and high in potassium - Nature's Gatorade.
"You cut your leg," Lorraine says, pointing at Teuare's calf, and before he can say, "It's no problem," she has broken out the first-aid kit we always carry. She knows that our friends have no bandages or ointment. A duck waddles up to watch the proceedings, and when she has finished, it's time to eat.
We crawl into their lean-to and sit cross-legged on hand-woven pandanus mats. Tabuia's eldest daughter is pounding rolls of pandanus leaves with a huge mallet to soften them for weaving. Tuienga begins frying breadfruit on a tiny kerosene stove and Teuare finishes cleaning a freshly slaughtered chicken, which he tosses onto a makeshift grill over the open fire. We pass out small gifts for everyone and talk about recent changes on Tabuaeran.
Like their ancestors, these Pacific islanders know how to get everything they need from the sea, lagoon, and land. When they first arrived, there was nothing to buy, so money was useless. Cargo ships, carrying scant supplies, used to come from Tarawa maybe three or four times a year. There used to be plenty of fish and their society remained cashless until the population grew.
"Ai!" Tabuia exclaims, clasping his knees and rocking back and forth on his butt, "Before, we'd put out our net at night and find forty bonefish the next morning. Now maybe two or three. We have to go farther across the lagoon to find fish." Like everywhere, they must earn money to import food to offset dwindling supplies in Nature.
Tuienga passes around fried breadfruit. It has a texture between French fries and potato chips, but its flavor is heartier than both. Lorraine takes a bite, rolling her eyes in delight. Tuienga has pressed fresh bonefish into balls with island spices and she pops them into the hot oil.
"Used to be plenty of sharks too; we had to be careful," Tabuia continues, "Now we hardly ever see one."
The shark population has been decimated to supply fins for Japanese soup bowls. The same thing has happened to sea cucumbers -- once ubiquitous throughout the lagoon - harvested and sold to make money to buy rice and flour. Copra is a renewable resource, but knocking down the coconuts, splitting them, and fighting off rats while the meat dries, is hard work for forty cents Australian per pound.
"How is the seaweed business?" I ask.
"It's good," Tabuia responds. "A hard working family can make a thousand Australian a month (about $400 US) but most people don't like to work." He points at his thirty-three-year-old son and continues, "Like Teuare. He'd rather play and sleep, go to feasts." Propped on one elbow, Teuare smiles proudly.
"It's hard to teach my children the importance of work," Tabuia insists. "It's no different in our country," Lorraine says, and I add, "Money changes life, doesn't it Tabuia?" He nods.
Almost everyone on Tabuaeran now grows and sells seaweed, which is used to make pharmaceuticals and emulsifiers. People have cash so the cargo ships come more often. On our bicycle ride, Lorraine and I had noticed several new solar panels atop houses, and heard a few boom boxes. We had also spied discarded D-cell batteries along the once pristine road.
Teuare brings the chicken and lunch is served including the tasty bonefish and marinated babai, or swamp taro - a root crop that grows in deep pits, takes three years to mature, and is harvested only for special occasions. Most islanders use Nature's eating utensils - fingers - but Tuienga gets out ancient silverware for her I-Matang guests. Traditionally, the dominant male -- in this case Tabuia -- will not eat until we are finished to ensure sufficient food, so while I chew, I ask him to reminisce.
Tabuia's homeland was called the Gilberts when he was born on one of the southern atolls -- he still calls his countrymen Gilbertese, instead of I-Kiribati. He graduated from the police academy and worked as constable, transferring from island to island. He did stints on guano-producing Ocean Island, Kanton Island, and moved here with his first wife in the early sixties.
"Ai! When I was constable on Fanning for Burns Phlip, (the copra plantation owners) you could not walk across the land without stepping on crabs. Not many now. There were maybe 300 Gilbertese working the plantation. We didn't fish much because the company ship brought food when they picked up copra - lotsa good food from Australia, different than island food.
"We couldn't have chickens because the company didn't want us feeding them copra. Plenty centipedes!" And he shakes his hand like he just got bit. "Now we have plenty chickens; chickens eat centipedes. Lotsa people now; people eat crabs."
Merry Claire has been eyeing me, averting her gaze whenever I look her way. She finishes eating and rushes out to join other kids watching from a distance.
Tabuia continues matter-of-factly, "My wife, she died here so I moved to Washington Island. That's where I met Tuienga." He flashes her a loving look.
"We married and transferred to Abaiang, and I got smart. Figured if I always work for somebody else, I never have time for myself, so I started growing seaweed. Quit constable and made more money - much better life. Then the government offered us land on Fanning. No more fish in Abaiang; too many people; so we packed what we could carry and left. We are here more than a year now." It's Tabuia's turn to eat at last, and Tuienga passes him his plate.
A gust of wind rattles the lean-to. A dog moseys up, looking for handouts, and Teuare chases him off. Tuienga has lit a cigarette rolled from "Irish Cake" stick tobacco inside a pandanus leaf. Many people smoke here, and it smells strong, a little like incense. Tabuia finishes his lunch and asks, "Would you like some sour toddy?"
The Kiribati language has many English words or derivatives therefrom like "ponkin" for the local squash. Sour toddy is the fermented sap of the coconut tree. Instead of letting blossoms form, "tree-cutters" climb the tree, cut the spathe, and wrap it tightly with coconut cord. They lash a bottle underneath to catch the sap - toddy -- as it drips. They must fight off bees, trim the spathe, and empty the bottle twice a day.
Sweet toddy replaces sugar in Kiribati breads and tea (another British holdover) and they boil it to make heavy syrup called kamaimai, similar to our maple syrup. If they leave the toddy on the tree for three days it ferments, creating "sour toddy," the only alcoholic beverage on Tabuaeran. Lorraine and I try some, politely finish ours, and both make mental notes to decline next time. Perhaps it's an acquired taste." Finish story from 2000.
Daily life has changed little since I wrote the above. Sadly, Tabuia, Tuare, and Mauaungunga have all passed away. Cute little Mary Claire is grown and about to finish secondary school (like our high school) on Christmas Island, 180 miles southwest of Tabuearan. Tuienga and one of her daughter, Oberia, have been to visit us on Southern Cross and Tuienga made us beautiful Pandanus mats for our teak salon table. Oberia is grown and married and pregnant. About a thousand more people have moved here since 1996 and Eten has many more completed "houses" and new faces.
There are lots more trucks and motorbikes plying the ancient road and less fish in the lagoon. Most of the seaweed farms have withered because the seaweed company went bankrupt, but the government is working to get it going again. Norwegian Cruise Lines has built a large compound where the old plantation houses used to be on the north point alongside the pass complete with massive generators, air conditioned housing for staff, lawns, the only bathrooms on the atoll, wet bars, large bar-b-ques and ovens for feeding 2000 cruise ship passengers, volleyball court, basketball court, and so on.
Silence is gone; one of the generators runs 24/7 to power the compound, Although the locals use the basketball court and the dart board in the usually empty "Sand Bar" year round. the rest of the facilities sit idle except perhaps 6 days a year when the ships (huge floating cities) come, disgorge their human cargo; stock the refrigerators and bars; cook 2000 meals; wine and dine everyone; and then load up all the food, drinks, garbage and people and leave six hours later without ever dropping anchor. Other than Lorraine and myself, the only other non-Kiribati people here after the ships leave are a Canadian resident manager and Spanish engineer who live in the NCL compound.
Eleven years ago, Tabuarean had a mostly cashless economy, but people still "cut copra," and the fallen US dollar has helped their purchasing power greatly. NCL brings money here through land leases, employment, handi-craft selling and so on and many grass shacks now have solar panels, batteries, DVD players and TVs. Also disposable diapers.
Because "I-Matangs" are no longer a rarity, (unless one walks or rides far from the compound) we are slightly less of a spectacle. Still, kids come up to touch our different skin. One day the ferry driver, (my "tariu" - brother) Banu, put his closed fist alongside mine and stared for more than a minute pondering. He pointed at his hand first and then mine and said, "Black; white." I responded pointing at his hand, "No, brown," and then mine, "Pink." He threw his head back and roared in laughter, "Different but the same." Most of the gorgeous traditional coral and thatched "maneabas" (meeting halls) where we used to dance have been replaced with sterile concrete and corrugated iron ones and a new government building houses the Clerk, Treasurer (bank), Customs, Police, etc. There were no musical instruments before and now 2 or 3 full electric bands with guitars, base, piano, drums etc. provide music for the semi-wild Kiribati "twist." Beer and hard liquor are available now and there are occasional drunken fights (as there are everywhere) but the place is still mostly crime and violence free, thank goodness. No Amber Alerts here. Importantly, the Kiribati people are as kind and warm and jovial and generous as they always were.