June 2, 2008

Tuvalu

I spent a week doing some work on this tiny island nation. The place is just incredible, and hard to describe! It’s like the 4th smallest country in the world, and lies halfway between Hawaii and Australia in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Find that on a map! The runway is just about half of the island, you can just make it out on one of the photographs from the plane. An alarm sounds, and people need to clear cars and pigs off the runway, and as the plane lands there are lots of people waving and greeting you. The plane only lands once on Tuesdays and Fridays, so its quite an event! Its really remote (I think its about the most remote place on the planet Ive been so far) so theres very little fresh veg etc. The people are really friendly and welcoming, so its was a joy! I was meant to go fishing at night with some locals, which involves catching flying fish with a net (!!) but unfortunately the trip was cancelled last minute. Pity I couldn’t stay longer… It is at the forefront of the battle against climate change, a slight rise in sea level will inundate the place. One cant imagine such a world exists...

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