The previous discussions make it possible to argue that there are certain occupational aspects linked to networking, multidirectional flows and exchange that can be observed in the I-Kiribati seafaring experiences. Firstly, the long absence from home, which has in the last couple of decades been up to two years at a time, interspersed with often short time periods at home, from a few weeks to several months. Strong cultural connections to Kiribati are, secondly, responsible for networking across dynamic space and over long space and time distances. These include the preservation of cultural knowledge, practices, and remittances flows as part of seafarers’ family and community obligations. Lastly, the exchange of old and new experiences combined with the ‘adventure’ of moving between and observing unfamiliar places, the strict working conditions, and the new multicultural experiences onboard, that merge with old values and the homeland experiences of seafarers.^[10]

In order to place such aspects within content, I will look at some different examples. Seafarers usually experience a mixture of fear and excitement at going onboard merchant vessels for the first time, especially when they are single and this is their first time away from home. The excitement may then wear off, and feelings of longing for their homelands become prevalent. These feelings may deepen as men begin to cope with the monotony of work on vessels and the confined spaces that allow them little personal distance from their colleagues.^[11] One 34 year old man had been working for a period of 16 years for SPMS at the time of interview. His first trip was on a general cargo vessel for a period of two years which he started when he was 18 years old. He talks about the excitement of this first experience in 1983: ‘I thought it was [as though] I started an adventure. … I was still single. I met my wife in 1988 and we got married in 1992’. He then goes on to explain how he boarded his first ship in Durban, a place he had never been to before, where it was freezing cold from his point of view, and how he journeyed from there to Brazil. The following quote expresses his feelings:

When I asked more specifically, what exactly he loved so much about ‘his’ country, this seaman explains that the main reason was ‘the family’, and then generalising his experience with other I-Kiribati, who also always will return home for this same reason, says, ‘you know [Kiribati is] very easy especially for living and all that kind of thing; especially, the activities that we are doing all the time; we can’t do that on the ship’. This example shows the close relationships that the I-Kiribati seamen keep with their home country as a place they belong to because their family lives there and because this is the place of their upbringing, where family land is based and also where they know how to get around.

Remittances as a means for networking and keeping in contact have been discussed in detail among scholars working in the Pacific (for example by Connell and Conway 2000; Koteka-Wright 2006; Lee 2007; Marsters, Lewis and Friesen 2006). A more detailed discussion on remittances flows between seafarers and their families can be found in Borovnik (2006). A key point of this chapter is that as previously mentioned, overall remittances sent back to Kiribati (and Tuvalu) have increased. Remittances are often sent both to individual family members and to seafarers’ personal bank accounts. In some cases seafarers have arranged joint bank accounts with their wives. Remittances from seafarers are of particular interest because they are usually arranged upon boarding vessels, and these arrangements guarantee, usually, a relatively steady flow of income for dependents, interrupted only when a seafarer is in between contracts. In the Kiribati context, however, it has been demonstrated that not only is there a direct benefit for individual families from remittances, but that remittances will reach a larger group of extended family members through firstly, the system of bubuti, or non-refusable request, that allows extended family members to request money, goods or favours when in need; and secondly through family and community obligations, such as providing school fees for nieces and nephews and sending money directly to churches or communities; and thirdly through obligations that family members receiving remittances have to follow up (Borovnik 2006).

This system is well illustrated by the following example: at the time of this interview the interviewee was a retired seafarer of unknown age. He had participated, as he explains, in one of the first intakes into MTC in the 1960s, although he had stopped working in 1986 as he needed to come home to support his mother who had become very ill at that time. This man now lives with his wife and extended family on one of the outer islands of Kiribati, and remembers that he used to send back fifty (Australian) dollars to his wife and thirty dollars to his parents in his early years of deployment. Then after a while, he sent more money. He explains:

The money he kept monthly while working on board could vary from twenty to fifty dollars, and this was spent on drinks, clothes and smaller items needed. The amount of money this man had sent to his own bank account lasted him and his family for five years after he retired. However, while still employed, his family enjoyed the use of a stereo, a motorcycle, a radio, a kerosene stove and a suitcase.^[12] He also used to bring back perfumes, necklaces and a ring for his wife. His earnings allowed him to regularly contribute to the Catholic Church, sometimes three hundred dollars, sometimes one hundred, depending on what he decided at each time. After his mother died, he would have liked to go back to work, but his wife wanted him to stay at home, so he did. Instead he helps out now with some casual jobs in his own community.

In order to make time on board more bearable some family members and wives send items to their men, such as pillow cases, Te Uekerae, the local newspaper, video tapes filmed by a local company with traditional I-Kiribati features, photos and even audio tapes with greetings. A 37 year old woman married to a seafarer, working as cook, explains:

With the help of these few illustrations it is possible to explain some of the characteristics of exchange and regularity that accompany the very particular circumstances that seafarers and their families have to abide with. The combination of a strong sense of family and cultural connections and obligations with activities that help following up such connectedness have established a well working multi-directional and multi-dimensional network of transnationality between seafarers and their families. Aspects that explore newly learned ship-board community values and understandings have not been included in this chapter, although these form part of the articulations of seafarers’ transnationalism. What we can see, with help of the above illustrations, is that through direct flows between individuals the wider extended family networks and community are also included. Even the conservation of seafarers’ identity with their home countries are a consequence of such flows.