Atoll People -- By Kai

Life on an Atoll and life in a city are very different.

There is a lot more effort put into getting the everyday basics that we take for granted,
like food, shelter, fuel, water.

Gaston and Valentine get most of these things by using the natural resources available to them or trading for the things they do not have.

When Gaston wanted to rebuild his dock, he didn't go to Home Depot. He and my dad and two other men, went to go to another Atoll to cut down trees that would make long enough planks to support his dock--there were no trees on his motu that were the right type for building. This meant, he had to take his boat to the other atoll, get someone to drive the boat and hold it outside the reef, while HE jumped out of the boat (he had to jump four feet from the boat to the edge of the reef and the drop off from the edge of the reef here is 900 feet!), while holding his CHAIN SAW ABOVE HIS HEAD, and then wade to shore (past all the sharks), run a mile through the forest and cut down thirteen trees and carry them on his shoulder BACK to the beach, swim them out to the boat (through the break), haul them into the boat, take them back to his motu, leave them on the beach to dry for a day and then beat them with sticks to get the bark off.. finally, at the end of the day, he had his thirteen poles.

This is just one example of how hard they have to work to do each little thing, where they live.

The thing about the way they do things, that is unique, is how connected they are to their environment.
They feel like everything they need--they already have.

Things that they cannot get from the natural resources around them, like gasoline for their engines or flour for baking or stuff that we take for granted, like light bulbs and batteries..they trade for.

They trade fish that they catch, copra from coconut husks, Valentine also runs a small cafe and gets paid by visiting cruisers for her lobster dinners in either cash or trade items (like, dish soap, clothing, and chocolate).

Living the way that these people do, as opposed to my culture, where we go to the store for everything we need, makes them more conscious of what is happening to the natural world around them and because of this, they never take it for granted.

They are very careful about how they treat the motu and the reef because their lives depend on it, completely.

They only fish for what they need or take what they need.

One sad thing we learned when we were there, is that they never tell cruisers their secret spot for lobsters because they are afraid they will go and take them all--like the one time they told someone where to hunt for coconut crabs, that person went and took 15 crabs! A full grown coconut crab is 10-15 years old... by taking so many, this person wiped out the entire population of crabs on that motu. When we asked them how they felt about cruisers after this, they said, that they understand that many people form the city do not understand how the "natural things work".