Anxiously Engaged in Kiribati

  As you already know, yesterday, there was an 8.8 earthquake up north in Russia.  This caused monitoring organizations to put many of the pacific islands including Kiribati on a Tsunami warning.  It was interesting to watch the people.  No one reacted strongly.  The traffic patterns didn't change, people were still out in the water and the children continued to play.  I think they were waiting for the Kiribati government to declare the warning before they reacted.  It doesn't matter because we only had a few strong waves which were only 6 inches higher than normal.   This is the sunset from our back balcony the day of the tsunami.   So Beautiful! I never tire of this view.  It just shouts "hope" to me. There is a USA based organization call Project CURE, which collects and donates used medical equipment to hospitals in developing countries.  Our part of this project was for the church to pay the shipping costs.  A 40...

 It's independence week again.  Actually, it's a two week celebration.  Keith and I went to the fishing competition again.  Loved it.  We also attended the MHS Cultural Day.   The fishing boats lined up for the competition - beautiful  The winner was 61.5 lb yellow fin tuna  There's a beauty contest  and the winner is chosen for Miss Kiribati. She serves for a year Former President of the country of Nauru, Marcus Stephen.  We will be going there in about 6 weeks.  Sashimi - raw fish served in a soy/pepper sauce.  The people call this Disneyland. It's part of the Independence Celebration  One of the rides at "Disneyland"  Students dancing for Cultural Day  This is a typical drum used in their traditional dancing Part of the dancing is someone  who sprays perfume on all the dancers. The perfume is really strong.  We took a couple of trips to North Tarawa.  The first one we walked with other seni...