Transportation

Moving around Tarawa is not really difficult it’s just how it is. There always seems to be people needing to go somewhere for some reason and not at a specific time. The main form of transport is privately owned, loved and often battered 15 seater mini buses and a few larger ones.  The buses run along the one main road the width of the atoll, about 28 miles. Displayed in the buses front window is a sign indicating one of two destinations, both are to the East end of the atoll, just one village is a little further and doesn’t have to travel across the airstrip. Once the destination is reached the bus simply turns around to the other side of the road and heads West. With nowhere but the one road to travel blinkers/indicators are not really required, but lights are, they are used day and night and flashed to tell passengers that the bus is full. The buses with a working horn use their “peep peep” to indicate a full load and provides another opportunity in patience as the waiting may be a while. Luckily my longest wait of 90 minutes hasn’t been repeated ! All in all it’s a pretty basic system and given there are no timetables you simply wait for another bus.

This is a developing country and the idea of capacity building is no more evident in the numbers of passengers and what can be transported on a bus. Simple activities can be life enhancing and one that has me chuckling is doing a bus passenger head count, that’s so long as I’m on the bus not just being peeped or flashed at. One occasion saw 12 persons travelling in 6 seats, including the driver and a plastic tub of food, I was starting to wonder if i was in some sort of Guinness book of records project. On another occasion I kindly thanked the I-Kiribati gods or dogs the day I shared a trip with 28 other passengers and felt like I’d won bingo as didn’t have to sit in the back row. 

Opps, forgot to take photos of mini buses so here's a picture of a passenger boat.

The bus drivers are often young and male and are accompanied by the important conductor who are generally older and female. She collects the fares and tells the driver when to stop along with holding the role of allocating seats when the local system breaks down.  Knowing what to do as far as where to sit and when to move in an I-Kiribati bus is equivalent to most Westerners being conscious of what to do in a lift, where to stand, look etc. If you are lucky enough to catch a bus with spare seats you have moments to make the strategic decision as to where to sit. Each time a new passenger gets on the bus you are required to move further back, if you end up in the back row by the time you get off it’s likely that every seat has had several bottoms on it, the isle is filled with more people, fish or bags and everyone has to get off to let you out. If only the driver could synchronise the loud love songs or Christmas carols blasting out of the speakers with seat swapping then maybe I-Kiribati “musical chairs” could be the next big thing.

It’s hard to know why designated bus stops don’t exist with lovely neat lines showing who has been waiting the longest. It could mean a job for a roadside bus conductor and I wouldn’t be so peeved when waiting 30 minutes for a bus and a person comes out and stands 10 meters back down the road and they get collected and I get the flashing lights. I guess such a scheme could upset the “island time” apple cart or fit the game of luck on the bus system. This is a system that works, doesn’t appear to have road rage, gets people somewhere sometime, sees bus doors open and close more than these people have had hot baths and provides entertainment to at least this I-matang.  

 This is one very flash bike, and a not so flash nite club !

At least the airbags went off ! This car body (and many, many others) make adventure playgrounds for the kids.

 Next up - it's time to clean the office