Life Cycle of a Kiribati Woman

tamanagirl — Sat, 22 Nov 2014 06:41:35 GMT

My main passion in life is to fuse together all the things I love- tall ship sailing, photography, travel and humanitarian work. Oh, and comedy writing! Basically, I love to learn. I love photography because it makes other cultures more accessible. I recently have started sailing as a deckhand on tall and it has afforded me the chance to see the world from the sea and it's the most beautiful perspective in the world. I believe I now officially have salt water in my veins! My main goal in life is to contribute to the communities I visit and I have done most of my traveling as a volunteer. Recently I went to Morocco with Dr. Patch Adams and spent ten days clowning in orphanages and hospitals. I was also a Peace Corps volunteer for two years, teaching English as my contribution to the village. I am also on track to spend a month or more with Floating Doctors in Panama. It is my firm belief that travel should always have a component of exchange, not just taking. I want to immerse myself in these cultures and learn from them. As a photographer, I offer an open-minded perspective and a genuine connection to the subjects in my pictures. I respect them and want other people to also.

A Local Encounter that Changed my Perspective - Perspective

tamanagirl — Sun, 7 Apr 2013 07:39:36 GMT

My first Easter Sunday on Tamana Island began with one word.
“I-Matang.”
It meant “foreigner” and it was a word I was used to hearing while I adjusted to life as an American volunteer teaching in the Republic of Kiribati. For the last eight months, I had been working tirelessly to belong; to be considered a Kiribati person. But when I entered the big stone church on the beach, the heat already sealing my pores and christening my new yellow muumuu with sweat, I heard people murmuring the word and realized they weren’t talking about me.
A glance out the large open windows revealed a luxury yacht docked in Tamana’s swimming channel.
The church was a fever dream of color and smell that day, as if everyone had anticipated this odd visit. Men wore sarongs of bright, stiff fabric in yellow, orange and red and everyone was coated with the latest Australian knock-off perfumes. Women’s baby powdered necks craned to look at the yacht woman in a royal wedding- appropriate black hat and a transparent white sundress with the wispy straps I’d been warned against in my volunteer manual.
So this was the I-Matang.
When the service wrapped, the well-groomed woman introduced herself an American author who was retracing the path of Robert Louis Stevenson for her latest book. I lapped up her English and greedily accepted her invitation for Easter brunch on her yacht. There was a moment’s pause when I realized no one else had been invited, but I tried to shake it off.
Aboard the boat I gorged on quiche, fresh mango and turned down champagne in a crystal glass. I told stories of men singing in the tops of coconut trees as they cut toddy and my host mother’s dirty joke- telling prowess. I talked until I saw the crew’s eyes glaze over. I self-consciously adjusted my muumuu sleeves and wished for the rowboat to return to take me back. The chic woman loaded my arms with magazines and wished me luck like she thought I needed it. I did the same.
When I was back on land, I found my friends. They were sitting cross- legged on the dirt floor, waiting for me to return. I was handed a piece of rank salt fish that curled over my hands and they fanned flies away from me while I ate. I told the tale of the yacht people in great detail. We looked at magazines and laughed loudly without holding back. It was as if the joke was that, in trying so hard to belong with them, I missed the fact that I already did.
The only person in Kiribati who’d ever considered me an
I-Matang was me.

See

Life Cycle of a Kiribati Woman

A Local Encounter that Changed my Perspective - Perspective