Back to Paradise

I recently came back to Tarawa after being away for several months. This time I knew what to expect and so could remain relatively relaxed during our touch down on the short air strip. On my first trip, I have to admit that I wondered if we might end up in the sea but this time I rather enjoyed the thrill of having my guts pushed up to my throat as the pilot slammed onto the brakes.

The place is as beautiful as a place can be. The pure blue shades of the sky and the many colors of the sea from clear celery green to emerald, turquoise, saffire and violet I imagine must be soothing for every soul. People enjoy a social life along the main the road, which is still a dust bowl except when it rains and then becomes a river. I prefer the river option. The day ends with the sun slowing descending through heavy clouds into the lagoon and I fall asleep to the sounds of the waves and dog fights. 

I returned to what seemed to me to be a cosmetic shortage--the shops were out of toilet paper, tooth paste and deodorant.  Shortly after I arrived there was a murder in my neighbourhood. A man stabbed his X wife in the throat in front of their two sons as he thought she might have a boyfriend. It didn’t seem to matter that he had left her for another woman.   Some divers looking at an underwater ship wreck found three bombs left over from the 2nd World War and the Australian Marines and Navy flew in on a private plane and quickly detonated two of them. Believe it or not it was raining fish.