We arrived in Tuvalu on one of two weekly flights that land on the only patch of premeditated concrete in the entire country.. The wind was blowing from the front and the pilot, who knew the local airs, he told me with the same enthusiasm as someone who returns home after a long absence, that he liked to make that curve in the air, with a lot of swing, to fool the headwind and land suddenly at a time of zero wind. Like a break in a big band.
Read In Sweden there is a soap bubble, Read In Sweden there is a soap bubble. Read In Sweden there is a soap bubble, the four or five posts were perfectly aligned and the whole of Tuvalu, except maybe some elderly or expatriate, was deployed here and there on the track, on the grass, in any location with visibility.
Read In Sweden there is a soap bubble
– and all these people? - I asked the pilot surprised, who looked at the inhabitants of the atoll with a satisfied smile.
– are all. They come every time we land. Seeing a plane for them is the most extraordinary thing there is.. It is the most important event of the week. they get fancy, bring their handicrafts, and take the opportunity to meet, chat, and so they see new people, outlandish clothes, different faces, suitcases and hats. It's your access to the rest of the world. I think there is only one TV in Tuvalu, in the house of an elderly gentleman.
– How strong - I said looking at the Tuvalians hugging each other as if they had not seen each other for months -. And with so few flights, why do you use the airport?? What is it for? - I asked the pilot curiously.
– they play football. The runway is the national soccer field.
It is true. The six days I spent in Tuvalu the boys played soccer on the, especially when evening fell, and the girls came and went shyly, they sat, they got up and watched them play.
A mini state in an atoll arm
Tuvalu has 10 698 inhabitants, to July 2013, and it is the fourth smallest country in the world, with only five atolls and four coral reefs. the largest atoll, where is the runway and television, a Funafuti llama. the motu – or emergent ground arm – widest of Funafuti measures 12 km long, 400 meters at its widest point, and it is the largest area in the entire country. Throughout it, everything that a State needs to be a State is randomly arranged, except for the prison and the hostel., who are at the airport.
Tuvalu has 10 698 inhabitants, to July 2013, and it is the fourth smallest country in the world, with only five atolls and four coral reefs
On the main avenue is the Bank of Tuvalu, Hospital, the chamber of commerce, the two fire trucks, the chinese restaurant, a clothing and pen store, several chickens walking around happily and the only national bus line. In some side street is the colonial-style government building, yellow, built by the chinese, where each office is a ministry, and the cyber cafe, a stamp and postcard business and an establishment that acts as a store-gas station where one can buy chicken, slippers, loose cigars and coconut cookies.
no advertising, no posters, no ads. Near the hostel there is a lonely bar where a mother, a daughter and grandmother who serve local and traveler beer told us they didn't care if the whole Tuvalu was flooded, that they did not think of abandoning.
The rise of the waters
Experts say that since it is so small and flat, It will be the first country to disappear when the water level rises due to global warming. And the truth is that the inhabitants explained to us that, although it was a long time before the waters completely covered the earth, there were fewer and fewer fruits and tubers because the roots filtered the salty sea water.
Although New Zealand has offered asylum to those who want to leave, everyone I spoke to told me they weren't leaving.
Although New Zealand has offered asylum to those who want to leave, everyone I spoke to told me they weren't leaving, that they preferred to stay until Tuvalu sank, rather than go to a civilized country or any other place. However, the flooded parts were visible and abundant., and periodically there were showers that, wherever they caught you, they forced you to wait because of the curtain of water that was mounted that prevented you from crossing any street or garden. Motorists and cyclists sometimes got out of their vehicles and took cover anywhere waiting for it to subside., and the sun or the moon barely shone again, everything was back to normal.
simplicity
One night I went to an elegant restaurant at the foot of the government building., where they ate a fish that tasted exactly like the sea. There I met two Frenchmen who had come from Paris to make a salable and visual documentary about the misfortune of Tuvalu., country condemned to perish under the waters, whose inhabitants were surely crying out for clemency from some neighboring country. One, I think his name was Guillaume, he also earned his living as a perfume salesman, with whose samples he went from one place to another in search of flourishing markets where to distribute a chanel number 5 or a Lancome Tresor. He had no samples left and all the Tuvalenses smelled suspiciously of European fragrance..
He had no samples left and all the Tuvalenses smelled suspiciously of European fragrance..
– I don't want to go back – said -. I thought we were going to find ourselves in a country of unhappy flooded, of rabies patients, of diphtheria, of people begging in the streets between mudslides and without air conditioning... and these people are absolutely happy, He doesn't need anything else - and he made a dramatic pause as if, suddenly, don't be in a hurry anymore - we have extended the mission by one week. I have given them all the perfume samples, t-shirts and even a pair of flip flops, I sleep better, in the mornings I do nothing, and I spend the time chatting with the boatman in a kind of incomprehensible English.
– The other day we saw a UFO – said the other Frenchman, straighter -. I want to stay.
They were the link with the daily, the pinch that reminds you that you are not in an invented dream. I thought for a moment in the subway, on television channels that buy documentaries, in the barefoot children of Tuvalu playing with the chickens, in loose cigarettes, UFOs and the fish that I had just taken. From our table we could see the immense Pacific enduring the black night, the waiter came to tell us if he could sit down.
