All of our office hours make it nice to have Saturdays to do a little sight-seeing and get out of the city. Last Saturday we went to a place about an hour and a half outside the city called Brooklyn. It's beautiful, just like everywhere else we've gone in Australia! It's sad that the pictures I take just don't do justice to the beauty of the places we go.
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| This is the Brooklyn Bridge!!! Australian-style. |
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| Long Island!! Not quite like the Brooklyn Bridge and Long Island in the United States though... |
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| These are the local fishing boats, men actually go out to the ocean each day in these boats and catch fish to supply the local restaurants and stores. |
We took a ferry that went around the islands just to see the sights from somewhere besides on land. We got off the ferry at one of the little islands and just walked around the island for a while. It reminded me of Catalina Island off the California coast, it's so small that they don't allow cars. Everyone walks, bikes, or drives a golf cart around!!
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| No paved roads, just dirt paths. |
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| This is a eucalyptus tree, these trees are long-lived and hard to kill. You can see how big it is because we look so small next to it! |
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| I'm not sure if Australian sunsets are especially beautiful, or if I just didn't take the opportunity to enjoy the ones at home. |
Grandkids:
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| This is a poinsettia, just like the ones we buy at Christmastime. Down here though, if you planted your Christmas poinsettia outside, it would grow great big! The weather is just right and poinsettias love to grow big here! |
She is from the island nation of Kiribati. See if you can find it on this map:
That's a long way to drive, but at least in the United States you could drive that far all on land. For the country to Kiribati, most of the drive would have to be in a boat on the water. The land isn't very big, in fact, if you combined all the atolls together, there's only a total of 313 square miles of land. Another interesting thing about Kiribati is that most all of the atolls are only six feet above the water. Think about that, if the highest part of your country was only that far above sea level, you might have to worry about your house getting washed away in a big storm with big waves. In fact, there are people who are worried about Kiribati sinking because of global warming. There are other problems Kiribati has because it is so low in the water. Here is a link to an NPR video about Kiribati: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vywtkqre4c
The biggest atoll in all of Kiribati is called Kiritmati, or Christmas Island (it was named by Captain Cook, I'm surprised at how many islands there are in the world that he got to name!).
Kiribati had been a British protectorate since 1892, and they didn't get their independence until 1979. Aunt Becky was born in 1979, so that gives you an idea about how young Kiribati is as a country. The first Christian missionaries were from the Boston Missionary Society; they came in 1850. The Catholic missionaries arrived in 1888. Latter-day Saint missionaries didn't come until 1975. You can read more about that here: http://kiribati-lds-pioneers.wikispaces.com/TimeLine It is interesting to read about the first man on the timeline, Waitea Ataria, if you click on that link you can read more about him. Probably only adults would be interested in reading the things on the link, but you might like the pictures of the first schools and of the houses.
The islands of Kiribati were important to the United States in World War II. On December 9, 1941, two days after the bombing Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded the Gilbert Islands. A few months later, in August of 1942, the US Marines had three battles to try remove the Japanese from the islands. The most well-known battle was the Battle of Tarawa. It was one of the bloodiest battles off WW II. Also, from the Butaritari Atoll, the US military carried out its first successful raid from a submarine on August 17, 1942. It was called the Makin Raid.
I'm going to end today with a little video of Sister Tarie sharing her testimony in the Kiribati language. You won't be able to understand what she says, because she's speaking in her island language. If you listen closely though, I think you will be able to recognize at least two words she says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdlAK1ERWac&feature=youtu.be
Next week I will tell you more about her and tell you about the island she lived on, she didn't live on the main island where the capital city of Tarawa is. She lived on a smaller island. I recorded her telling a story about diving for a sea turtle and how she helped her dad catch a giant sea turtle for them to eat!!
Here's another You Tube video of pictures taken from lots of atolls in the South Pacific. They are beautiful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzBV75XFhy8
I think I might like to go on a vacation to one of these places, what about you? Do you want to come with me to see these beautiful islands in the Pacific ocean?
I hope you all have a happy week and enjoy the beginning of your summer vacation. Did you go to the zoo yet? Grandpa and I love you and miss you very much!!
The interesting thing about Kiribati is that you don't pronounce the word the way it is spelled. It's pronounced, 'Kiri bus'. They roll the 'r' like a Spanish 'r', so it ends up sounding closer to 'kitty bus'. If someone in your family speaks Spanish, have them say 'kiri bus' and roll the 'r'. That's how the islanders say the name of their country.
I like Sister Tarie a lot. I like to listen to her talk. She had to learn English in order to come on her mission to Australia, she grew up speaking Kiribati, and only heard English at school. She went to the church school in Kiribati.You can read more about the church school later. I am putting in a link that tells about how and when the church started a school in Kiribati. I thought I would tell you a little bit about her island country because I think it is very interesting. Before I came to Australia, I didn't even know there was a country called Kiribati. Uncle Adam and Uncle Mike probably knew about it because there's some pretty interesting World War II history that happened here, but I had never heard of it. There are 33 islands that make up the country. They are in three groups: the Gilbert Islands, the Phoenix Islands and the Line Islands. They are all not actual islands, they are what is called an atoll, which is a ring shaped island made of coral with a lagoon in the middle. They are formed on top of old volcanoes. If you want to read more about how this happens look here:
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| This is one of the atolls in Kiribati. |
Of the 33 islands that make up Kiribati, 21 have people living on them. There are so many islands in Kiribati that they extend1,300 miles across the ocean. That's as far as driving from Boise to Branson, Missouri!
The biggest atoll in all of Kiribati is called Kiritmati, or Christmas Island (it was named by Captain Cook, I'm surprised at how many islands there are in the world that he got to name!).
Kiribati had been a British protectorate since 1892, and they didn't get their independence until 1979. Aunt Becky was born in 1979, so that gives you an idea about how young Kiribati is as a country. The first Christian missionaries were from the Boston Missionary Society; they came in 1850. The Catholic missionaries arrived in 1888. Latter-day Saint missionaries didn't come until 1975. You can read more about that here: http://kiribati-lds-pioneers.wikispaces.com/TimeLine It is interesting to read about the first man on the timeline, Waitea Ataria, if you click on that link you can read more about him. Probably only adults would be interested in reading the things on the link, but you might like the pictures of the first schools and of the houses.
The islands of Kiribati were important to the United States in World War II. On December 9, 1941, two days after the bombing Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded the Gilbert Islands. A few months later, in August of 1942, the US Marines had three battles to try remove the Japanese from the islands. The most well-known battle was the Battle of Tarawa. It was one of the bloodiest battles off WW II. Also, from the Butaritari Atoll, the US military carried out its first successful raid from a submarine on August 17, 1942. It was called the Makin Raid.
I'm going to end today with a little video of Sister Tarie sharing her testimony in the Kiribati language. You won't be able to understand what she says, because she's speaking in her island language. If you listen closely though, I think you will be able to recognize at least two words she says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdlAK1ERWac&feature=youtu.be
Next week I will tell you more about her and tell you about the island she lived on, she didn't live on the main island where the capital city of Tarawa is. She lived on a smaller island. I recorded her telling a story about diving for a sea turtle and how she helped her dad catch a giant sea turtle for them to eat!!
Here's another You Tube video of pictures taken from lots of atolls in the South Pacific. They are beautiful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzBV75XFhy8
I think I might like to go on a vacation to one of these places, what about you? Do you want to come with me to see these beautiful islands in the Pacific ocean?
I hope you all have a happy week and enjoy the beginning of your summer vacation. Did you go to the zoo yet? Grandpa and I love you and miss you very much!!
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