festivites

One of the most important holidays in Kiribati is Independence Day, which is celebrated on July 12th every year. This holiday commemorates the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1979 and is celebrated with parades, speeches, cultural performances, and feasting.

Another significant holiday in Kiribati is Gospel Day, which is celebrated on the second Monday in December. This holiday marks the arrival of Christianity in Kiribati, and it is celebrated with church services, singing, dancing, and traditional feasts.

Tabiang Day is another important holiday in Kiribati, celebrated on November 8th. This holiday honors the traditional leaders of Kiribati and features ceremonies, speeches, and cultural performances.

In addition to these holidays, many other festivals and cultural events take place throughout the year in Kiribati, including the Te Riri Cup (a canoe racing competition) and the Eto Feast (a celebration of traditional music and dance). These events are typically community-based and involve the participation of local families and organizations.

seasons

Kiribati has two main tourist seasons:

1. Dry Season (April to October): This is the peak season of tourism in Kiribati, with great weather and lots of sunshine. The temperatures are warm, and there is little to no rainfall during this time. It's recommended to bring light clothing, sunscreen, and insect repellent.

2. Wet Season (November to March): During this season, Kiribati experiences occasional rain showers and high humidity. However, the wet season is also a great time for surfing and fishing. It is recommended to bring waterproof clothing, mosquito nets, and insect repellent.

It's also worth noting that due to its proximity to the equator, Kiribati experiences relatively consistent temperatures throughout the year, with average highs ranging from 84°F (29°C) to 88°F (31°C).

visa

Citizens of most countries require a visa to enter Kiribati except for those from visa-exempt countries like Fiji, Samoa, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. Some special visa rules and requirements for citizens of certain countries may include:
- Citizens of China and Taiwan must have a valid Australian or New Zealand visa.
- Citizens of Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nigeria need approval from the Immigration Department in Kiribati before applying for a visa.
- Citizens of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Palestine, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen are not eligible for a visa unless they have dual citizenship with a visa-exempt country.

The cost of a visa to Kiribati varies depending on the type of visa and the applicant's nationality. As of 2021, the average cost for a tourist visa is AUD100-150 (USD70-105), while a business visa costs around AUD200-250 (USD140-175). It's important to note that these fees are subject to change and applicants should check with the Kiribati embassy or consulate in their country for the latest information.

souvenirs

Kiribati is a small island nation in the Pacific with a unique culture and handicrafts. Here are some of the best souvenirs to buy from Kiribati:

1. Woven mats - made from pandanus leaves, these mats come in various sizes and colors and can be used as decoration or for sitting on. Prices range from $10 to $50 depending on size and complexity. They can be found in local markets or souvenir shops.

2. Carved wooden items - such as bowls, spoons, and figurines, are popular souvenirs in Kiribati. Prices vary depending on the item's size and intricacy, but they usually cost around $20 to $60. You can find these items at local markets or souvenir shops.

3. Shell jewelry - necklaces, bracelets, and earrings made from shells are popular in Kiribati. Prices vary depending on the type of shell and the intricacy of the design, but usually range from $5 to $30. These items can be found in local markets or specialty stores.

4. T-shirts and clothing - with Kiribati designs or logos can be found in souvenir shops or local markets. Prices vary based on the quality of the material and design, but they usually cost around $15 to $25.

5. Coconut oil - is a popular souvenir in Kiribati. It is sold in small glass bottles and can be used for cooking, skincare, or haircare. Prices range from $5 to $15 depending on the size of the bottle and the brand. Coconut oil can be found in local markets or specialty stores.

If you have 1 week

Kiribati is a beautiful island nation in the Pacific Ocean that offers unique experiences and stunning landscapes. Here's a one-week itinerary suggestion for you:

Day 1: Visit the Phoenix Islands Protected Area
The Phoenix Islands Protected Area is one of the largest marine protected areas in the world, encompassing eight coral atolls and two submerged reef systems. You can take a guided tour to explore the area's diverse marine life, including sea turtles, sharks, and colorful fish. The ecosystem here is still relatively untouched by human activity, and it's a great opportunity to appreciate nature's beauty.

Day 2: Explore the capital city of Tarawa
Tarawa is the capital of Kiribati and offers a mix of traditional and modern culture. You can visit the Kiribati Cultural Museum to learn about the country's history and art or enjoy some local cuisine at one of the many restaurants. The beaches in Tarawa are also worth exploring, with white sand and turquoise waters.

Day 3: Take a boat tour to Abaiang Island
Abaiang Island is known for its coconut crab population and traditional crafts like weaving and canoe making. You can take a boat tour from Betio Wharf in Tarawa and spend the day exploring the island's beaches, lagoons, and villages.

Day 4: Visit the 40-metre-high Banaba Island
Banaba Island was once home to one of the world's richest phosphate deposits. The mining activities, however, have left the island severely damaged. Still, Banaba Island is worth visiting to see the abandoned buildings and learn about its history.

Day 5: Go fishing in the Pacific Ocean
Kiribati has some of the best fishing spots in the world. You can hire a boat and go on a fishing trip to catch species like tuna, marlin, and mahi-mahi. It's also a great opportunity to enjoy the ocean breeze and take in the stunning views.

Day 6: Relax on the beach
Kiribati has some of the most picturesque beaches in the world. Spend the day relaxing on the sand, swimming in the ocean, and soaking up the sun. Some good options are Ambo Beach, Bairiki Beach, or Bonriki Beach.

Day 7: Visit Maiana Island
Maiana Island is known for its scenic beauty and friendly locals. You can take a boat tour from Tarawa and spend the day exploring the island's lush vegetation and white-sand beaches. The locals here are known for their traditional dance and music performances, which you should definitely check out.

Overall, Kiribati offers an authentic Pacific Island experience that is hard to find elsewhere. From breathtaking natural wonders to unique cultural experiences, Kiribati has something for everyone.

If you have 2 weeks

Great to hear that! Kiribati is a beautiful island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, and you have plenty of options to explore during your two-week itinerary. Here's my suggestion:

1. Visit Fanning Island (Tabuaeran): Fanning Island is one of the most beautiful islands in Kiribati, with white-sand beaches, crystal-clear water, and incredible coral reefs. You can enjoy swimming, snorkelling, or scuba diving. It's also a perfect place for fishing and water sports.

2. Explore Tarawa Atoll: Tarawa Atoll is the capital of Kiribati, and it has many things to offer. You can visit the National Museum of Kiribati, Betio War Memorial, and Bairiki National Government Center. You can also check out the local markets, where you can find traditional handicrafts made by the locals.

3. Go to Butaritari Island: Butaritari Island is another stunning island that you can explore. It is known for its beautiful lagoons, coconut groves, and traditional villages. You can also try your hand at fishing or take a walk along the beach.

4. Experience Christmas Island: Christmas Island is an uninhabited island that is home to some of the rarest bird species in the world. You can take a guided tour to see the red-footed boobies, frigatebirds, and other seabirds that inhabit the island. It's a unique experience that you won't find anywhere else in the world.

5. Attend a traditional dance performance: Kiribati has a rich cultural heritage, and you should not miss the opportunity to attend a traditional dance performance. You can learn about the history and culture of the country while enjoying the music and dance.

Overall, these are just a few suggestions for your two-week itinerary in Kiribati. You can adjust the schedule according to your preferences and interests. These places are worth visiting because of their natural beauty, cultural significance, and unique experiences they offer. Enjoy your trip!

Culture

Songs (te anene) and above all, dances (te mwaie), are held in high regard.

Kiribati folk music is generally based on chanting or other forms of vocalising, accompanied by body percussion. Public performances in modern Kiribati are generally performed by a seated chorus, accompanied by a guitar. However, during formal performances of the standing dance (Te Kaimatoa) or the hip dance (Te Buki), a wooden box is used as a percussion instrument. This box is constructed to give a hollow and reverberating tone when struck simultaneously by a chorus of men sitting around it. Traditional songs are often love-themed, but there are also competitive, religious, children's, patriotic, war and wedding songs. There are also stick dances which accompany legends and semi-historical stories. These stick dances or "tirere" (pronounced seerere) are performed only during major festivals.

The uniqueness of Kiribati when compared with other forms of Pacific island dance is its emphasis on the outstretched arms of the dancer and the sudden birdlike movement of the head. The Frigate bird (Fregata minor) on the Kiribati flag refers to this bird-like style of Kiribati dancing. Most dances are in the standing or sitting position with movement limited and staggered. Smiling whilst dancing is generally considered vulgar within the context of Kiribati dancing. This is due to its origin of not being solely as a form of entertainment but as a form of storytelling and a display of the skill, beauty and endurance of the dancer.

Traditionally, the staple diet of the I-Kiribati was the abundance of seafood and coconuts. Starch based carbohydrate sources were not plentiful due to the hostile climate of the atolls with only the northernmost atolls being viable for constant agriculture. The national crop bwabwai was only eaten during special celebrations along with pork. To complement the rather low consumption of carbohydrates in their diets, the I-Kiribati processed the sap and fruit of the abundant Pandanus and Coconut trees into different beverages and foods such as te karewe (fresh daily sap of the coconut tree) or te tuae (dried pandanus cake) and te kabubu (dried pandanus flour) from pandanus fruit pulp and te kamaimai (coconut sap syrup) from coconut sap.

After World War II, rice became a daily staple in most households which is still the case today. Majority of seafood, fish in particular is eaten sashimi style with either coconut sap, soy sauce or vinegar based dressings in use often combined with chillies and onions.

Coconut crabs and mud crabs are traditionally given to breastfeeding mothers, with the belief that the meat stimulates the production of good quality breastmilk.



Kiribati has competed at the Commonwealth Games since 1998 and the Summer Olympics since 2004. It sent three competitors to its first Olympics, two sprinters and a weightlifter. Kiribati won its first ever Commonwealth Games medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games when weightlifter David Katoatau won Gold in the 105 kg Group.

Football is the most popular sport. Kiribati Islands Football Federation (KIFF) is an associate member of the Oceania Football Confederation, but not of world-governing body FIFA. Instead, they are member of ConIFA. Kiribati National team has played ten matches, all of which it has lost, and all at the Pacific Games from 1979 to 2011. The Kiribati football stadium is Bairiki National Stadium, which has a capacity of 2,500.

The is home to a number of local sporting teams.

Edward Carlyon Eliot, who was Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (now Kiribati & Tuvalu) from 1913 to 1920 describes this period in his book Broken Atoms (autobiographical reminiscences) Pub. G. Bles, London, 1938.

Sir Arthur Grimble wrote about his time working in the British colonial service in Kiribati (then the Gilbert Islands) from 1914 to 1932 in two popular books A Pattern of Islands (1952) and Return to the Islands (1957). He also undertook academic studies of Gilbertese culture.

John Smith, the last governor of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands wrote his memoir An Island in the Autumn (2011).

J. Maarten Troost's more recent autobiographical experiences in Tarawa are documented in his book The Sex Lives of Cannibals (2004).

Alice Piciocchi's illustrated essay, ''Kiribati. Cronache illustrate da una terra (s)perduta'', (2016) Milan: 24 ORE Cultura, also translated into French (2018, éditions du Rouergue), tries to write and portray a comprehensive encyclopaedic book of nowadays Kiribati.

Religion

Christianity is the major religion in Kiribati, having been lately introduced by missionaries, because of its remoteness and the absence of any significant European presence until the latter half of the 19th century. The population is predominantly Roman Catholic (58.9%), with two main Protestant denominations (Kiribati Protestant Church 8.4% and Kiribati Uniting Church 21.2%) accounting for 29.6%. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (5.6%), Baháʼí Faith (2.1%), Seventh-day Adventist Church (2.1%), Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other small faiths together account for less than 2% (2020 census).

Demographics

The November 2020 census showed a population of 119,940. About 90% lived in the Gilbert Islands, with 52.9% of them on South Tarawa, including Betio, the biggest township.

Until recently, people lived mostly in villages with populations between 50 and 3,000 on the outer islands. Most houses are made of materials obtained from coconut and pandanus trees. Frequent droughts and infertile soil hinder reliable large-scale agriculture, so the islanders have largely turned to the sea for livelihood and subsistence. Most are outrigger sailors and fishermen. Copra plantations serve as a second source of employment. In recent years, large numbers of citizens have moved to the more urban island capital of Tarawa, where Betio is the largest town and South Tarawa reunites larger towns like Bikenibeu or Teaoraereke. Increasing urbanisation has raised the population of South Tarawa to 63,017.

The native people of Kiribati are called I-Kiribati. Ethnically, the I-Kiribati are Oceanians and Micronesians, a sub-ethnicity of Austronesians. Recent archaeological evidence indicates that Austronesians originally settled the islands thousands of years ago. Around the 14th century, Fijians, Samoans, and Tongans invaded the islands, thus diversifying the ethnic range and introducing Polynesian linguistic traits. Intermarriage among all ancestral groups, however, has led to a population reasonably homogeneous in appearance and traditions.

The people of Kiribati speak Gilbertese, an Oceanic language. English is the other official language, but is not used very often outside the island capital of Tarawa. It is more likely that some English words are mixed in their use with Gilbertese. Older generations of I-Kiribati tend to use more complicated versions of the language. Several words in Gilbertese have been adopted from European settlers, for instance, kamea is one of the Gilbertese words for dog, kiri being the Oceanic one, which has its origins in the I-Kiribati people hearing the European settlers saying "come here" to their dogs, and adopting that as kamea.

Many other loanwords have been adopted (like buun, spoon, moko, smoke, beeki, pig, batoro, bottle) but some typical Gilbertese words are quite common, even for European objects (like wanikiba, plane – the flying canoe, rebwerebwe, motorbike – for the motor noise, kauniwae, shoes – the cow for the feet).

Christianity is the major religion in Kiribati, having been lately introduced by missionaries, because of its remoteness and the absence of any significant European presence until the latter half of the 19th century. The population is predominantly Roman Catholic (58.9%), with two main Protestant denominations (Kiribati Protestant Church 8.4% and Kiribati Uniting Church 21.2%) accounting for 29.6%. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (5.6%), Baháʼí Faith (2.1%), Seventh-day Adventist Church (2.1%), Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other small faiths together account for less than 2% (2020 census).

The Gilbert Islands where 90% of the Kiribati population live, boast some of the highest population densities in the Pacific, rivalling, without any tall building, cities like Hong Kong or Singapore. This overcrowding produces a great amount of pollution, worsening the quality and length of life. Due to insufficient sanitation and water filtration systems, worsened by the fragility of the water lens of the atolls and by climate change, only about 66% have access to clean water. Waterborne diseases grow at record levels throughout the islands. Poor sanitation has led to an increase in cases of conjunctivitis, diarrhoea, dysentery, and fungal infections. Around 57% of adults smoke tobacco products on a regular basis, the highest proportion in the world. Due to this and other "lifestyle diseases," such as type 2 diabetes, there has been a drastic spike in amputations on the islands, doubling in a few years.

As a consequence, the population of Kiribati has a quite low life expectancy at birth of 68.46 years. Even if this data is of only 66.9 years, provided elsewhere, Kiribati ranks last in life expectancy out of the 20 nations of Oceania. This life expectancy is 64.3 for males, and 69.5 for females and there is an infant mortality rate of 41 deaths per 1,000 live births. Tuberculosis has a small presence in the country, with 365 cases per 100,000 a year. Government expenditure on health was at US$268 per capita (PPP) in 2006. In 1990–2007, there were 23 physicians per 100,000 persons. Since the arrival of Cuban doctors in 2006, the infant mortality rate has decreased significantly.

Most health problems are related to consumption of semi-raw seafood, limited food storage facilities, and bacterial contamination of fresh water supplies. In the early 2000s, between 1 and 7% of the population, depending on the island, were annually treated for food poisoning in a hospital. Modernization and cross-cultural exchange of the late 20th century brought new issues of unhealthy diet and lifestyle, heavy smoking, especially among the young, and external infections, including HIV/AIDS. Kiribati is the country with the third highest prevalence of smoking in the world, with 54–57% of the population reported as smokers.

Fresh water remains a concern of Kiribati – during the dry season (Aumaiaki), water has been drilled for instead of using rain water tanks. In recent years, there has been a longer than usual Aumaikai season resulting in additional water having to be drilled from beneath the water table. This has introduced water-borne illnesses, compounding the health problems within Kiribati.

The Human Rights Measurement Initiative finds that Kiribati is fulfilling 77.2% of what it should be fulfilling for the right to health based on its level of income. When looking at the right to health with respect to children, Kiribati achieves 93.8% of what is expected based on its current income. In regards to the right to health amongst the adult population, the country achieves 92.2% of what is expected based on the nation's level of income. Kiribati falls into the "very bad" category when evaluating the right to reproductive health because the nation is fulfilling only 45.5% of what the nation is expected to achieve based on the resources (income) it has available.

Primary education is free and compulsory for the first 9 years, beginning at age 6. Mission schools are slowly being absorbed into the government primary school system. Higher education is expanding; students may seek technical, teacher or marine training, or study in other countries. Most choosing to do the latter have gone to Fiji to attend the University of the South Pacific, and those wishing to complete medical training have been sent to Australia, New Zealand or Cuba.

The education system is organised as follows:
* Preschool for childhood from 1 to 5 years;
* Primary school (Class 1 to 6) from 6 to 11 years;
* Junior secondary school (Form 1 to 3) from 12 to 14;
* Senior secondary school (Form 4 to 7) from 15 to 18.

Kiribati Ministry of Education is the education ministry. The government high schools are King George V and Elaine Bernacchi School, Tabiteuea North Senior Secondary School, and Melaengi Tabai Secondary School. 13 high schools are operated by Christian churches.

The University of the South Pacific has a campus in Teaoraereke for distant/flexible learning, but also to provide preparatory studies towards obtaining certificates, diplomas and degrees at other campus sites.

The other prominent schools in Kiribati are:
* the Marine Training Centre in Betio;
* the Kiribati Institute of Technology;
* the Kiribati Fisheries Training Centre;
* the Kiribati School of Nursing;
* the Kiribati Police Academy;
* the Kiribati Teachers College.

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