Kukurei Diving @ Kiribati

One fine Sunday afternoon, we were talking over some cans of beer.
We discussed about a name of our diving service.

Emil(our manager) suggested to use Japanese,
but I suggested that it should be a Kiribati language name.

There are a lot of diving services around the world.
Some of them are in developed countries like Hawaii.
But many of them are in developing countries like Maldives, Palau or Thailand.
And almost all of them are managed and operated by foreigner like European or Japanese.
They employ local people in low salary...

I think the ocean is its local people's, not foreigner's.

Our diving service in Kiribati is all managed and operated by Kiribati people.
That’s a great point of us.
I think that is a kind of "Fare Trade" .

So I strongly suggested a Kiribati name to impress that point.

Then we pointed out some Kiribati words as the name.
-Mauri
-Te ke roi
But these were not the greatest.

That's where an idea came about from Mimi.
"Kukurei!!"

Kukurei?
Kukurei Diving....

Oh, That sounds great!!
"Kukurei" means "happy".
Kiribati people often use the word in their conversations and songs.
It has a good meaning.
It also has a good feeling to hear and easy pronunciation for English speaker and Japanese speaker.

Kukurei Diving!!

All of us perfectly agreed with her idea!!

We still at the first stage of full diving service,
but we are going ahead step by step, day by day.

In March, we had the 1st dive meeting at Ambo Lagoon Club.

We introduced ourselves,
and talked about diving over a beer.

They kiribati have been trying to set up a full operation commercial diving service in Tarawa!
We Japanese are looking forward to go diving in Tarawa!
So we will share the same dream.

We realized that there were some problems.
-A big boat need repair.
-Some of Tanks need repair.
-We need more weights.
But we will be able to resolve the problems.

Anyway it was a great meeting for us!
We are sailing out!!

Mauri!!

I'm Takashi.
I'm staying in Tarawa, The Republic of Kiribati,
from January 2011 to January 2012,
working as a Japanese international cooperation volunteer.

And I love scuba diving.
When I knew my new working place,
I thought "I'm lucky, I can enjoy diving many times in Kiribati!!"
Then I started to search diving services in Tarawa,kiribati,
But I couldn't find it out at all.....
Oh my god!!
There is no diving in Tarawa Island.
No diving, No Ocean countries....

But finally,I could encounter a person who is planning to open diving shop.
I had been contact with him by e-mail.
And we decided to cooperate each other to set up a diving service in Tarawa.

This blog will be a story of our challenge,
and the other side of my life in Kiribati.

I kukurei!

Kam raba!
Ti a bo!!