Early September on Tarawa

We were tooling down the road and pulled up on a family apparently moving their home.  This is a buia (pronounced like the marines would--boo-yaw) on the back of a Nissan p/u truck.  Who says there are no Red Neck motor homes on Tarawa?

We took a little excursion out to the north end of the island (far as you can walk anyway) and at the end of where we could drive was a lovely crossing to the next island.  We rolled up our pants and waded in.  It was about 300 yards across.  Here are three intrepid waders.

Here are the rest, ready to embark or disembark as the case may be.

When we got to the other side there was a noticeable starboard list while everyone removed their port shoes.  They are sitting on a little outrigger (more modern than the hollowed-out-log kind).  It has a little trolling motor on the back.  We rode it back on the return trip because by noon the tide had come in and a walk across would have been somewhat above our waist.  Manageable but more wet than we wanted to  be.

The hardy hikers (hardly hiking) after crossing the crooked bridge.  It was a little worse for wear but easily passable.

 
Fun in the trees.  They dared me to climb one so I did.  Sister Waldron kept seeing visions of the cherry tree incident so the next tree I didn't climb, I just imitated.  Looks just like me, don't you think?  The branches of these trees have the most incredible stickers.  They must be related to cactus somehow.  I wouldn't risk it again except maybe on a double-dog dare.

This is one of the little villages we passed on our hike.  It was so pristine up here.  Much less population/congestion and therefore less pollution.  Still friendly, the people were gracious and smiley.  You can see a water storage tank dead center in the picture.  Further north they were still using poles and buckets to dip their water from a well.

This is a picture of the crossing looking back to the main island.  Really quite picturesque--Sister Waldron didn't hurt it either.

The other day we found a formidable homesteader in the pantry.  On the left you see a 32 oz can of  fruit cocktail--just to give you some size perspective.  Sister Waldron was surprised but not apoplectic like some of her daughters would have been.  We captured and put him out.  We don't hold with no homesteadin' sod-busters in our territory.