A little bit about my life in the Peace Corps
It's 7 pm, my time. I'm sitting at a computer at the office of the Peace Corps in the Republic of Kiribati (pronounced Keer-a-biss) in the equatorial Pacific.The sun set about a half an hour ago. The rhythym of the Pacific Islands is at least predictable: you know the sun will rise at 6:30 every morning and set at 6:30 every evening.
We do our work in the morning; sweeping fallen breadfruit tree leaves into the burn pile, climbing to the top of a cocunut tree to coax the sweet milk from a tapped spathe, preparing the day's meal for the children before they are sent off to school. The meal will be, almost invariably, fish and rice. The fish comes from the ocean. The rice comes from...well, I'm not sure. It's called Fiji rice, but to my knowledge they don't grow rice in Fiji either.
I'm now on Tarawa, the capital island of Kiribati. It is the most "developed" island in the nation. We have running water, electricity, varying types of foods and, obviously, the internet. I heard a rumor that there is even a cell phone tower now...a new development since my arrival here almost ten months ago. My group, K31H, is in from our outer islands for two weeks because of conferences and, let's face it, to enjoy some of the comforts from home, including that thing that isn't available on most islands: alcohol. Nearly all of the outer islands in the Gilberts group are dry.
The rest of my time I spend on the island that I've recently become comfortable calling home. Aranuka is nearly on the equator, less than a latitudinal degree away. It's hot. And humid. Recently we've been getting a lot of rain due to tropical storms near Fiji and Vanuatu, otherwise it's dry in more than the alcoholic sense.
I live in a house made of sticks and with a thatched roof. My drinking water is collected into a raintank from a tin roof on the hospital. Every morning, I fill two buckets with water from my neighbor's well and carry them to my house, into my bathroom. I then dip a cup into buckets, pour it over my head. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Due to the steady diet of fish and the neccesarily more active lifestyle, I've lost 55 lbs. and gained quite a bit of muscle in my upper body. My hair is shaggy and relatively unkempt, and my bushy beard is sure to win the Peace Corps Volunteer Best Beard award for the conference, if there were such a thing. If I had bet Torrey actual money on who could grow theirs better in the 3 months between conferences, I would be rolling in twenty dollar bills with nothing to buy. In short, I look like what you would think a PCV would look like.
It's odd about this place-when you first arrive, you don't have enough words to begin to describe how different it is than what you're used to, but after your adjustments nothing really changes and so you have very little to write home about. Work is difficult. As a Health Volunteer, are main goals are to try to change the behavior of a large group of people into a healthier lifestyle. Anyone who knows anything about psychology knows that behavior change is a very difficult thing to do. Our focuses: Water Sanitation, Anti-Substance Abuse, Nutrition and Physical Fitness and HIV/AIDS Awareness and Prevention. The problem with the Anti-Substance abuse project is that few people live long enough to see the long term effects of smoking and heavy drinking. The average life expectancy is 55, anyone living past the age is considered an unimwane (old man) or unaine (old woman)...terms of respect. In the old days, the unimwane were the law, the government of the island. All disputes were settled by them, all knowledge passed from them.
Geography/History Lesson of the Day
The Republic of Kiribati was born in 1979. Before the phosphate ran out on the island of Banaba (now called the lost island because very few people live there and the island is basically destroyed) it was a British colony. Phospate ran out in 1975. Kiribati gained independence in '79. Do the math.
Kiribati is located about a thousand miles Northeast of Australia. It lies roughly halfway between Hawaii and Australia. It's composed of the Gilberts, Phoenix and Lines group of flat, corral atolls. They are spread out in roughly 2 million square miles of ocean, with a land mass of just over 1,000 square miles. Kiribati, so named for the local pronounciation of the word "Gilberts", has remained relatively unchanged for over a thousand years. It is one of the least developed countries that the Peace Corps goes to. The only really harmful things (alcohol, tobacco, high fat canned foods) have come from the I-Matongs, or foreigners. Now the Peace Corps is trying to clean it up a little.
The Battle of Tarawa, one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, was fought in Betio, Tarawa, between the Americans and the Japanese. Kiribati people don't own guns.
It's a peaceful, family centered culture. Children are swapped like recipes, and they all get the love and care they need, even if it isn't from their biological mothers or fathers.They say it takes a village to raise a child, and anyone who refutes that should live on Aranuka for a few months.
It's taken me time to realize the person I'm becoming. Everyday I'm thinner, and my beard grows, and my skin darkens. Everyday, I recognize the face in the mirror a little bit more.