On the day after Christmas, which apparently the rest of the English speaking world calls “Boxing Day”, we went ashore with EOS II in order to make a quick visit to the village before once again moving anchorages. This “quick trip to shore” turned into an all day event, because there was a big celebration with a traditional dance competition among all the villages of the island (it turns out that there’s 13). The dancing went on all day from 11am to about 5pm. The local people were very nice to us and treated us like royalty, giving us front row mats to sit on and giving us all sorts of food and drink, including packaged cookies and water that tasted like smoke. This dance competition was a special thing to see, because it wasn’t a show being put on for tourists; this is what they would have been doing whether we were there or not, and we had the good fortune to get to be a part of it.
The dancing of Kiribati was noticeably different than that of Tuvalu; The movements were less fluid with short abrupt movements of the head, arms, and hands. However, the singing and the drums that accompanied the dancing were very similar to what we had seen in Nanumea, Tuvalu. I put together a video of the dancing in Tuvalu and Kiribati, which you can see if you missed it.
Boxing Day Dance-Off in Abemama
The very best part of the day had to be when Kiani (4 year old from EOS II) was included in one of the dances. They decked her out in the full costume, taught her a few moves, and then let her perform with a group of kids. It was a riot! The place erupted in cheers and laughter, and Kiani had the time of her life. Even Alex was close to admitting that it was worth coming to shore to see… he was laughing so hard he was almost crying.
Here is a link to a funny write-up by Lahnee on the EOS II blog about Kiani’s day as a star :
After the dance off we walked around the village a little and found a couple of small stores, and Lahnee bought some flour that only had a few bugs in it.
Gresham Family Exodus 