One Month Down

Diving is on.  We located somebody that has tanks and fills them and also weight belts.  These were the only two things we didn’t bring from Australia because of their weight.  We are looking at a dive next Saturday and the choices are ship and wrecks from WWII or corals and fish.  I think we will begin on the wrecks, but will see what the conditions are like first.

Work is going slow, but nothing I wasn’t expecting.  I am sure that when I leave I will still be discovering things that I wish I had known when I first arrived, but hey, you get what you ask for and if you are not specific enough, TOUGH!!!

There was a bright patch at work when I was able to run through some of the processes with the staff.

Health and safety is always an issue in third world, as it is at home.  The other day I was shown a picture of somebody standing on a chair to install some IT gear on the ceiling.  No problem with that you say, but the chair was on a table so they could actually reach the ceiling.

The same day as I was on my way to work on the bus I noticed somebody chopping down a big tree branch.  Nobody appears to have thought about where it was going to fall - on to the road, and there appeared to be nobody there even slightly worried about stopping the traffic.  Not sure how that one ended up.

I also discovered a great power lead at work and thought it required a pic.

The air cond must leak and the cord must have broken

 

This place shows up some of the Australian workplaces for looking after staff and not being too tight.  Any meeting that runs into lunch gets free lunch and any meeting that runs after work gets dinner.  I decided only to work my normal hours (08:15 to 16:15) and not stay back so have missed out on at least 1 dinner, but I have had 2 lunches, cooked, not club sandwiches.

My air conditioned office has not had air conditioning for a few weeks now due to renovations going on.  That together with power being out most days due to road works.  I have had electric drills, saws, grinders, etc on one side of my office and a generator on the other.  No noise cancelling or reduction methods here.  To top that off they have been painting the office as well.  Hopefully it will all be finished in the next week or so.

That thing I wrote about the work bus being air conditioned was all wrong.  Sometimes it is just open the windows.  Music selection has even varied.  For the last three days the home journey has been Taylor Swift at full blast.  Lisa would love it, but I could do with my hearing back and pounding head gone.

Speaking of buses, the drivers don’t have any idea of what they are supposed to do.  The Main Road has bus bays every few hundred metres, but when somebody is waiting in the bus bay, the driver either stops on the road, or pulls off slightly.  The result is no traffic can get past when vehicles are coming the other way.  Usually people wait for the bus just before or after the bus stop, so the bus stops right there for them, or the passengers stand about 20mtrs apart causing two stops.  All traffic, including buses, seems to stop whenever and wherever they want, no matter if they are causing a traffic jam or not, and sometimes they even leave their vehicle on the road while doing some shopping.  The other annoying ones are those who drive at 10kph and even speed up to 20kph at times.

When I first started catching the work bus I noticed a van with a flat tyre just driving along the road.  Luckily it was a dual wheel setup so he still had one “good” tyre.  This lasted about two weeks before I didn’t see him again.  That is until this week, and no it wasn’t fixed, instead the tyre was non-existent.  It was a bare rim with no tyre on it.  I haven’t seen that one before.

The Main Road has many speed bumps along it so, as you do, you try to avoid them instead of slowing down, but the road builders were smart when building the road.  They placed small cement barriers between the road and pedestrian path around some of the speed bumps.  The other day I saw one bus drive down the pedestrian path without slowing down to avoid the speed bump, and he wasn’t going slow either.

One thing that surprised me with the road is they have at least one school crossing where they block the road to let the kids cross every few minutes.  Sometimes there has been a policeman on duty as well.

Accidents do happen on the roads here.  Last weekend we witnessed a head-on at relatively low speed, about 30kph.  One of the drivers jumped out of his car and dragged the other driver out and started to belt him before passers-by stopped him.  He continued to chase the other driver and still threw a few punches.  We decided to get out of there quickly.  On the way home we saw the result of yet another accident, and when we went out for dinner that night we saw another one.  The following day I was shown a car that had run off the road and into a tree – obviously doing more than the speed limit.  The rule here is if you are driving and have an accident, keep driving to the next police station, no matter what.

With all that, we are now the proud owners of a Daihatsu Terios Kid.  Look it up on Google.  It is cheap to run and gets over all the bumps in our entry road.  The only thing we are missing are implements to change a flat tyre.  I have told the seller I require these tools and he is now looking for them.  I wonder if I will get them…

The other day I saw what our entry road looks like after rain as we had some good showers overnight.  I think I will bring back my hiking boots as avoiding the puddles after just an overnight shower was a little tricky.

The road/lane into our place.  Some of those holes are deep.

Kiribati has one Special School and we were lucky enough to be shown through it in our first week.  After seeing through a Special School in Australia, this is a far cry from that.  Resources are virtually non-existent but at least they have specially trained teachers.  Probably nowhere near the quality of training in Australia, but they are trying.

As part of the Special School, last week we received invitations to the launch of the Kiribati Deaf Sign Dictionary.  This was a part of Kiribati Sign Language Week which is a week where the country, or at least some parts of South Tarawa, focus on the issues around the deaf.  I asked the organiser how many more dictionaries she needed to print and how much it would cost to get them produced – about $500 to $1,000.  Anybody got any friends who are printers that would like to assist?

Sweeping up leaves here seems to be a national pastime around your house and shop.  Everywhere you look somebody is sweeping up leaves.  That’s nice you say, BUT, they are leaving the rubbish.  I don’t understand.

With the concerns about global warming and the very real concern about rising sea levels, you would think that people in Kiribati would be leaders in reducing pollution and taking care of their own local environment.  I suppose they haven’t had years of education and focus around cleaning up the environment, something Australia has done for many years.  It appears OK for Kiribati to ask the rest of the world to act on climate change, but sadly they fail to address those very same issues in their own country.  I suppose they are no different to many other countries, but I would have thought at least they could try to set an example.

For those surfers out there it looks like you have to take it when you can.  We have had a few weeks of good surf (for Kiribati that is) of around 1-1.5mtrs and the occasional bigger wave, but now we appear to be back to the small wave under 0.5mtr.  The wind appears to be related – funny that.  So those kite surfers and surfers thinking of coming over will just have to take their chances if they come, otherwise it’s a case of sit in the water and enjoy it.

Fishing on the other hand is apparently exceptional with both good deep sea and lagoon fishing.  Not sure whether you can fish from the shore, but I would suggest you need to go out on a boat or find some other watercraft to get you out.  There is a fishing competition every month around the full moon, but I’m unsure how you get to be a part of it.  Let me know if you are interested and I can find out further details.

Now that we own a car here we need to keep the dust off it.  Due to a lack of water, it looks like the idea is to race outside and wash the car while it’s raining.  Denise refused to do that earlier this week when I asked her.  He thinks I have nothing else to do but pander around after him, we all know he’s delusional.  Have to wait for the next rain…

I have a lovely time with the children at the English speaking school. Tuesday I did reading with the individual students. Class one was first and I just used my skills from when I was doing support a reader at All Saints. After morning tea, I had Class 6A. I had 5 students who were quite daunted to have to read to an imutang. It was lovely to hear them read and grow in confidence.

On Thursday, there was no library but class 6B was without a teacher, so I went up to help. I was the teacher for 3 hours. We talked about ourselves and wrote stories and then they have to get up and speak of all their classmates. After morning tea, we worked on Pie graphs and had them busy until I left. The class next door wanted me to go in to them but their teacher said they would have to wait until Tuesday and Library. In that short time in the class, I really enjoyed myself and I think they had a good time too.

Saw the local patrol boat (courtesy of Australia)

First Week at Work

Yippeee!!!  At last we have found our dive gear.  It had been sitting at Customs at the airport here waiting for us to claim it.  I was told yesterday that I would need a letter from work to avoid any additional fees and taxes.  I had been told that the fees and charges were 15% of the value…OUCH!!!  In the end I didn’t need the letter and it cost me nothing, and it was dropped off to my door today.  How lucky are we.

All we need to do now is find a local with tanks, weight belts, and an air compressor to fill the tanks.  I'm told they are here...somewhere.

We do have internet at home at the handsome cost per month of $100 for 10GB – OUCH again, but that was the cheapest alternative.  We could have paid up to $500 per month for 500GB.  If there is one thing they know here it is how to charge for little luxuries.  I checked our usage of the 10GB plan and after 3 days we had used 30% of it so we are now back to turning it on only when we need it.

The other option is wait for the weekend when it is $1.99 for 500MB.  Denise had 100MB remaining after 2hrs this morning.  She allowed updates to come through.  I wait until work to download anything big.

The good thing is Viber and Skype both work over here, but we are only connected to the net at home, so you will need to prearrange calls or ring in the evening after 6pm (4pm Brisbane time) and hope it’s when we have the internet turned on.

For those who want to see our house on Google maps, enter the following coordinates

1°19'56.7"N 173°00'47.9"E

Looking East

The house

Looking West

I have also attached more pics of home as the seas were calm.  It is looking West and East, and looking back at the house from the edge of the Pacific Ocean.  Now we have our dive gear we can see what is out there.  It does look like a rocky bottom under the waves, but I’m hoping there is some coral at the edge of the breakers.

Looking from one end of the house towards the Pacific Ocean

The final picture is looking from one end of the house to the back door.  In the foreground is our computer table, on the left is the lounge/entry area.  Down the right wall is the bathroom (with washing machine) and our bedroom is the next door down.  On the left are two other bedrooms.

"Safe" ladder

I decided to add another to show I have installed one of three fire alarms.  Note the bracing on the ladder – proper third world health and safety.  The ladder initially only had the string as bracing.  After it moving a little while I was screwing in the first alarm I decided to add the belt as a backup.  I knows, but that is the only ladder I had.  It was that or stand on the table.  I thought the ladder was safer…

Does anybody have any idea of how to clean and keep clean tile floors when you live 20mtrs from the sea?  All ideas welcome.  The problem we have is the floors seem to be permanently coated in salt from sea spray.  While I asking for ideas, does anybody know how to get rid of geckos.  We have been told to leave the geckos as they eat the insects.

We still haven’t found a car, but have seen a few.  The criteria is that prefer station wagon, must have high clearance, room for us plus dive gear, working air conditioning and mechanically sound to last at least 11 more months.  Suburu seems to be the car of choice here.  I have also seen many Hongba (yes, that is a g in there) motorbike.

Work is now 1 week down and I’m still discovering things - no surprises there.  I expect this will continue for the whole year.  The good thing is I have made progress and discovered they do have some good processes and procedures, they are just not documented.  As they say in Australia, there are many opportunities for improvement.

The good thing is that the area I work in is the maintenance team so we have working air conditioning most of the time.  The air conditioning only stops when the power is out and that appears to be a daily occurrence.  Funnily enough, we don’t seem to have power problem at home - so far anyway.  I hope it stays that way as air conditioning seems an essential for good sleep, particularly if there is no sea breeze.

My work supplied PC didn’t arrive until I was leaving on day 1, so when I powered it up the next day I had issues, so back to IT.  Luckily they live in the next office.  I have been back to IT to sort things out with my PC and connections to their network and the internet at least twice a day, and we are still not quite there yet.

There is a free air conditioned work bus (what doesn’t have air conditioning here?) that takes me to and from work each day.  It is about 12kms and takes between 35 and 45 mins depending on what is on the road.  I get picked up around 07:25 and am usually at work by 08:10.  My work hours are 08:15 to 16:15.  The bus leaves work around 16:25 and usually drops me off around 17:00.  The walk from home to the Main Road (yes, that’s the name of the main road) takes about 5 mins, but you must remember to amble or you will end up in a lather of sweat.

Entertainment on the bus depends on whether it is going to or from work.  Going to work it’s talk back radio and the host appears to be asking locals questions and seeing if the host can catch the local out - much to the enjoyment (giggles and laughter) of those on the bus.  The afternoon trip is either music (usually played on two video units, one of which the driver watches), or listening to Parliament (they are sitting now).  The music selection on the afternoon drive appears to be about six songs so I should know all the words soon, or at least the ones in English.

Denise’s Bit

My week has had its ups and downs.  I have cleaned to my heart’s content and washed like only Mrs Wishy Washy could do with a twin tub machine.  It is quite the job juggling the water so I don’t manage to electrocute myself.  I now have the cord well and truly off the ground, I just have to be careful not to coat hanger myself on the cord.

I have been grocery shopping; what an eye opener!  The plane must have bought vegies.  There was cauliflower, broccoli, radish, ginger, leeks and celery.  So for a whole cauliflower $9.?? / kg and the one I picked was $13.00, I decided that I could do without it this time.  Celery, $7.50/half, one leek $8.50, so I have to pay it or I don’t get fresh veg.  I paid $1.00 for an egg.  I will have to go and see the ladies in the village to see if I can get eggs from them.  We can’t get potatoes here, so to make up for the lack of potatoes we had potato Deb.  Well I stuffed it the first I made it but have excelled myself tonight.

My down days are when I feel a bit trapped but I get over it fairly smartly.  While Peter was at work I received an invitation to go to the High Commission for a swim, he would have liked to have gone but he missed the ride.  I just wish that we could find some transport for ourselves.