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Swampy land near the airport.
B. Montgomery, 1992 |
In 1992 I visited Kiribati for a week and stayed at the only decent hotel on Tarawa. I was amazed at how thin the atoll was. In some places it seemed only 50 metres from one side of the island, the lagoon, to the other side, the ocean. The whole place was awash with water and swampy areas made agriculture impossible. (I imagine with climate change things will only get worse.) The shops had even less variety than those in Nauru and there wasn't much to do except sit in the shade and try to cool down.
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The Sex Lives of Cannibals
(Broadway Books, 2004) |
The Sex Lives Of Cannibals is a travel book which goes into far more detail of life on Tarawa. The author, J. Maarten Troost, spent two years in Kiribati and writes a refreshingly funny account of his experiences there. His frustrations with obtaining fresh water and something interesting to eat are familiar ones to expats in the central Pacific. Troost's quirky voice and sometimes contrary nature make some of his anecdotes hilarious. His way of solving the neighbourhood's noise pollution (ie: loud irritating music) is one that had me chuckling.
There is a fair amount of swearing, so if you can't stomach profanities you may have to give it a miss. But I highly recommend this to expats throughout the Pacific and other island nations. So much of the content will make you nod and say 'That's right..., island time.'
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