Tuvalu Toodle-oo (Cont.) | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Tuvalu Toodle-oo (Cont.)

Today's Question
How do you make primitive snowshoes? answer

What should you do if you get lost driving in a snow storm? answer

Today's Question
What is the greenest ski and snowboard on the market? answer

Can I really damage a coral reef with sunscreen while snorkeling? answer

What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine December 2002

Page:

Tuvalu Toodle-oo (Cont.)

IF IT WERE UP TO ME, I'd give them the half-billion and throw a big farewell bash. Maybe it would look a little like the election-night party I attend near the end of my stay, at the house of Kamuta Latasi, the feisty 66-year-old former prime minister who, as a member of the opposition in parliament, is looking for a return to power. Dozens of relatives and supporters are sitting on plastic lawn chairs in his yard drinking Chinese beer. A pair of pigs are roasting in the ground beneath a tarp, and a sea turtle, still alive, flails in its overturned shell, awaiting its turn on the coals.

Latasi, who is known as "the old warrior," was driven from the highest office in 1996 when he insisted on removing the Union Jack from Tuvalu's flag. He is a staunch nationalist who would prefer that the government focus its efforts on planting coconut trees, improving schools, and restoring some of Tuvalu's peaceful life, rather than on getting caught up in international affairs.

"When I was prime minister," he says, standing by the above-ground concrete tomb of his father beside his front porch, "I was very strong on suing the U.S. and the British for damage they did to us during the Second World War. But why are we trying to do this new lawsuit?"

Latasi tosses an empty beer can at a stray dog that is licking leftovers from a paper plate. "I believe that climate change is happening, of course," he says. "Deep in my heart I know that something has gone wrong here, and it must be the work of man, and not just nature. But who are we? Tuvalu is powerless. How can we stand up to the might of the industrialized world? We'll be a laughingstock."

At midnight we learn that Latasi is reelected to his seat in parliament, but that he will be unable to build a coalition to support his bid for prime minister. "Please remember," he implores me, "that Tuvaluans are human beings, not just hungry animals on a rock."

The night wears on and the party descends into a raucous, drunken free- for-all. Before I stagger away, I meet a burly man named Siligama Taupale, dressed in dirty jeans and a white tank top inscribed with the words tequila sunrise. Siligama is 38, but he might as well be as old as Tuvalu, because his story of disaster and survival, incredible as it sounds, is a useful reminder that truth and myth are not easily disentangled on this island.

At sunset on May 14, 1997, Siligama left the harbor at Funafuti in a 16-foot plywood boat with a 40-horsepower outboard motor. He was going tuna fishing just beyond the atoll, near the islet of Fualefeke. When night fell, he put down his anchor, consisting of a stone entwined in a rope. He started drinking "hot stuff"-hard liquor-and fell asleep.

"I wake up and see no land," he recalls.

"The anchor broke. My mind say, 'Don't worry.' But where's Funafuti? For two days, no worry." He had no compass and no flares, only a hand mirror to reflect the sun's light. "Yeah, I get afraid. I think, 'I'm dead.' I don't want to die."

After three days Siligama spotted a fishing vessel. He had saved enough gas to power his way over to his rescuers. "I see them and I say, 'Please help me, please help me.' But they no help. I write the name of that boat in my boat with a screwdriver: Young Star. After that I stay in my boat crying."

Who knows why Young Star didn't come to the aid of the fisherman? Perhaps its crew members were busy with their own affairs. Perhaps they didn't believe he was in genuine peril. Siligama saw more boats over the next weeks and months than he can remember, but he gave up asking for help. He didn't care about dying anymore.

He ate fish and birds that he caught with his hands. He drank rainwater from the floor of his boat. He sucked on his beard, which had grown down to his chest, for any moisture that gathered there. His clothes disintegrated. He spent hours staring at a tattoo on his shoulder of a woman's face. "Sometimes in rain-very cold. Sometimes in sun-very hot. Big waves come, big storms. I talk to God. I see my daughters' faces everywhere, in sky, in water, in bottom of boat." He goes silent and begins to move away from me. "I don't want to tell my history," he says. "It make me cry to remember."

After five months and three weeks adrift, he was spotted by a Korean fishing boat, the Logas, near Christmas Island, about 1,800 miles east of Tuvalu. The Korean boat took him aboard. He couldn't walk or keep down food for several days. "Thank you to the Logas for your help to me," he says, as if I were the one who had saved him.

Siligama was afraid of the ocean for a while. To get by, he took odd jobs working construction. But he still goes out fishing when he has to, which is pretty often, in order to put food on his family's table. He has stayed in Tuvalu, though what he'd really like to do is move to New Zealand. Perhaps one day the government of New Zealand will grant his wish.

Page: