So it dawned on me that I’m not giving you all much of a
real-life picture of things here in Tuvalu and as a result I will rectify that
will the next few posts hopefully!
Firstly plane days are the highlight of our working week here
at the TANGO office – and actually they are exciting days for the whole
community! The planes are supposed to come on a Tuesday and a Thursday although
sometimes they don’t! The “air traffic control tower” is next to my office and
the reason for the quote marks will be clear from the picture below! As you can
see that is a lady standing on a corrugated roof with a walkie talkie and that
is right next to my office!
As you can see we have literally a front row seat every time
the planes come in! A siren sounds a little before the plane arrives to let us
know its coming and then another one right before which means we’re not allowed
to cross the runway… until it lands after that its fine! We normally wander over to the community hall
next to the “airport” to watch who is coming and going! It’s a big deal here!!
A couple of weeks ago there was no Thursday plane (insert dum dum dum, tension
building sound effect) so we had a replacement one come the following Wednesday
– and a special Australian Royal Air Force plane came on the same day, bringing
the Prime Minister back from Fiji! That was a good day! Mainly because we happened to be having
dinner out and the crew from the Air Force plane were staying at the same place
and they gave us cheese and fruit platters! You may all think I’ve gone mental
but the food situation here is tricky! You can rarely get fresh fruit and it’s
always expensive and cheese is like gold dust! The Air Force aussies fast became our best
friends! The funniest part was that
they started to say how wasn’t it so cute that all the locals had turned out on
the runway to welcome the Prime Minister back… We had to tell them that
actually they were interrupting prime sport playing time and the locals were
just waiting for them to land so they could get back on the runway for
volleyball, rugby, football or basketball!!
As well as an infatuation with planes the people of Tuvalu
also place a high value on their pigs.
That’s right pigs! During the
consultation I’ve been working on I’ve heard the same story three or four times
and it goes like this:
When the royal visit reconnaissance team (I like to imagine
them in camo gear but it was probably a very dull man with a clipboard) arrived
they were worried about the smell of the pig sties that run pretty much all the
way along the side of the runway (behind my office, on the ocean side of the
island). The discussed it with some
local officials and expressed that weren’t they worried that the smell of the
pigs (which isn’t even noticeable from my office) would put off tourists?! When the officials told them that if you
asked local Tuvaluans whether they want more tourists or their pigs… they would
all say “PIGS” I think the British were suitably stunned!
But its true the Tuvaluans love their pigs! And some of them
are being moved in preparation for the Royal Visit – heaven forbid they could
just see Tuvalu as it is! Most families
have pigs, the one I’m staying with had 13 when I got here but there was a
feast and one had to be donated so now there are 12. Yesterday I went to a
funeral of a young Tuvaluan boy that died in a gas explosion in a house he was
staying in, in Fiji and there were 7 pigs roasted in pits as part of the feast!
The picture below is some pigs foraging in one of the
islands “Borrow Pits”. These holes are what
remained after the Americans (in their infinite wisdom) dug up the island and
used what they removed from the pits to build the runway!! Geniuses! So now
there are approximately 8-10 of these pits at the northern and southern ends of
the island. The poorest members of the
community live around them, rubbish gets dumped in them, pigs walk about it
them, mostly there are ignored by the government because it’s a case of
out-of-sight out-of-mind, and the people that live there, on the whole don’t
have the capacity to force them to do anything about it! So they live pretty
much in squalor and in shanty town looking properties over dirty water
pools! They are pretty depressing to
see. I will go with Masi (my Tuvaluan
sister) and get pictures at some point to better show the problem.
As I’ve said Tuvaluans make the most of any space available
to them for any number of events – i.e. runway = sports arena! So I wasn’t
massively surprised when Masi invited me to a concert that was for Children Day
and that had representatives from the youth groups of all the 9 islands, at the
tennis courts!
It was ace lots of traditional dancing and singing even if
the venue was unconventional!
The dancing and singing is a common occurrence they will use any excuse
to have a feast! Then there is lots of
drumming, chanting and dancing after eating fish and pig (not
together!) I tried to video it to include
here but it didn’t turn out so good will try again and upload when I’m able.
Finally we went out on the boat last week to go diving,
snorkelling and surfing (not all of those relate to me!) but the other guys we
went with also were fishing and they caught a huge Sailfish!!
Can’t help but feel a big insignificant with my relatively
tiny fish I caught my first weekend, which by the way was beginners luck
because I’ve caught nothing since!
On that bomb shell I shall sign off! Laters ;) xxxx
