coconut and coral in the middle of woop woop: What job, where.................

The skills required by AVI for this Community Education and Advocacy role for a Disabled Peoples Organisation seem to match what I had to offer, that was the start of my Kiribati adventure back in August last year. First up was where the hell is this place? Hitting modern technology and the zoom button it didn’t take too long to realise that South Tarawa is a very small place and a long way from anywhere else. South Tarawa sits just above the equator and is a three hour flight to Fiji it's closest neighbour. Research into this country informed me that the average temperature for every month of the year was 28 degrees. The temp range sits between 24-31 degrees and with South Tarawa added to my smart arse phone weather app this was my first experience of such heat, albeit virtual it was a good introduction to one of this countries constants.

An intense recruitment process took place mostly looking at ones ability to cope in a developing country, being in an isolated destination and working with little resources including limited access to fresh food. The interviews went well and one of my referees reassured them that I wasn’t having a mid life crises, was a nice person but to watch out as I didn’t like the heat and may go mad and kill everyone !

AVI have a long history of placing volunteers here to I knew I was on a well trodden path. Iit was hard to know what my job would be and what I was actually going to do, but with 20 odd years experience in the community sector I wasn't feeling too fazed about that. The 5 months from applying to having a departure ticket this was a good amount of time to raise a million questions, sort out what it was I thought I couldn't live without and get rid of any notion of going to an island Paradise.

Will I need my extra large knitting needles, my hair cutting scissors, a years supply of chocolate and coffee............... Email contact with other volunteers informed me that Internet access was available most times and was a life line, make sure to pack "a sense of humour"and yes there were a few statues to "tag", statues that appear to all look the same, the story goes that the (short arse) male artist modelled them on himself !

In the months before heading off on this adventure I packed up my stall in an antique centre, became best buddies with the 82 year old at the storage facility as I squeezed more "stuff" in and managed to drive over 5,000ks across 4 states of Australia and played netball in another "masters games". I reckoned it was worth getting any travel out of my blood and spend time with my family and friends as Kiribati didn't seem to be on anyones "bucket list" or make more than a few pages in any Lonely Planet publications. This was going to be the last of my wide open spaces before hitting an atoll.