Chapter 47

The first two years on Nauru were a never-ending series of new experiences. We worked hard, but every day we enjoyed seeing the results of what we did and how the changes we were making changed the lives of our citizens.

The National Bank of Nauru was welcomed as a member of the Asian Development bank and became home to many billions of dollars that we maintained and protected on behalf of the Judge. His departments parked millions upon millions of dirty cash in our bank, and used them to fight terrorism, rogue regimes, and despotic warlords, who would harm the USA.

One immediate change we made was evicting the representative from the People's Republic of China, and his staff. Nauru had for far too long been victim of changing political convictions, and China made a habit of exploiting Nauru's government through all the changes. We had no need to provide the communists a foothold on Nauru any longer.

Nauru's leaders accepted bribes from Australia, and Russia in exchange for the 'questionable' recognition of Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia. The various governments tended to have their alliances affixed using Velcro, as they were subject to change at the writing of a check. Nauru's citizens never seemed to get to enjoy the benefit of any of the international bribes, however.

When Australia bullied Nauru's last administration into reopening the detention centers and accepting inconvenient refugees, many citizens of Nauru had seem enough and began a campaign of peaceful resistance to their island home being used as a political, Final Solution, for foreign regimes. Upon taking over from the committee, we ordered all detainees to be freed, and resettled wherever they wished to be transported. The detention centers were retrofitted into schools for our children.

The hardline refusal to allow Nauru to continue to be Micronesia's dumping ground did not sit well with China, Australia, and New Zealand, but the renewed trade, liberal spending on our part, and overwhelming public support for our venture, softened their selfish agendas and allowed us to co-exist, if not be close friends. When their hospitals began to send patients to ours, they had to re-evaluate their attitudes whether they wanted to, or not.

The average Nauru annual income was well below three-thousand dollars when we took over, and quickly recovered as farming took hold, and our neighbors decided to trade with us. We employed every able bodied adult, that wished to work and paid wages that guaranteed at least a two-hundred percent increase in their yearly income. With low cost electricity, fresh water, and additional water through existing desalinization plants, the cost of living was reduced at the same time earnings increased, making our island a good place to live. Some of our neighbors thought that giving natives those socio-economic advantages would lead to uprisings, and violence, but we experienced none, other than a few malcontents, funded by corrupt corporations, who quickly discovered that Judge Thorson was not a man they wished to stand before and be sentenced.

We intended to put about two-hundred million dollars a year into Nauru, until it could sustain itself. The funds would rebuild the infrastructure, pave a few roads, improve life by improving people's homes, and providing at least, some transportation assistance from one end of the island to the other. Jim hit on the idea of importing a fleet of Neighborhood Electric Vehicles, NEV, to stash around the island, in cinder block houses, where they would be charged and ready all the time. it worked just as Jim hoped, and before very long you would see natives rolling around the island in silent, electric cars, going about their daily lives and enjoying the unique ride.

As health conditions and educational opportunities improved, people began to feel proud of their island and bragged about the changes they were helping make. Much to the consternation of those remnants of the former corrupt regimes, Nauru's people were independent, free, and making money for the first time in memory.

Though the official language on Nauru is Nauruan, a distinct Pacific island language, English is far more common, and the language of our business and trade. It has been that way for many years, and Nauru citizens speak it very well. Sandra makes sure both languages are taught in her schools, and we enjoy a bilingual population.

Our biggest challenge is obesity, and diabetes. Rebecca immediately instituted weight management, exercise, and healthy diet from the first day in her clinic and hospital. Well over ninety percent of the population is obese, and the accompanying health challenges need constant vigilance. Sandra took on health education with a vengeance, making personal hygiene, self-monitoring of weight and physical condition, a standard part of the lessons in every classroom, every day. As our fresh produce supplanted packaged foods, people began to lose weight, feel better, and move about more. The accompanying emotional lift became noticeable very soon after.

Jim commented on the great fishing along our reefs, and we contracted with an American resort company to promote Nauru as the ultimate fishing experience. Since the company owned a fleet of deep sea fishing vessels, they housed their visitors onboard and ferried them ashore as necessary, to shop, dine, and see our doctors. We hired youngsters, typically high school aged, to patrol the shores and pick up all trash, including that floating in the water, and left behind by lazy fishermen.

Our goal was to protect our fragile environment and instill pride in the young people for their homeland. It worked. Ours are the most carefully tended beaches in Micronesia.

One odd thing we had to overcome were the plethora of limestone piers, left when the phosphate played out. They were everywhere, and severely limited agricultural opportunities. We decided to plow them down, blast what we couldn't knock over, and lay down a bed of clay, with top soil above it for farming. It worked far better than we hoped, and the various compounds actually made our soil a little more fertile, which we never imagined.

When we had several miles of played out mines, flattened and filled, we pumped desalinated sea water over the area for weeks, and allowed everything to settle down, before adding top soil, and seeding. It was brutally expensive, which is why the former regimes took the money and stuck it in their pockets. We paid out a lot of money, and then spent a lot more to see the project through.

Nauru became a model for self-sustaining island living, and everybody knew it. What everybody also knew was how corrupt the regimes controlling neighboring islands had become, and how great an opportunity existed to improve life for those residents. In that regard, I made some high powered, big-ego, enemies. Jack was constantly on watch to keep me out of harm's way.

At least twice Jack's crews shot imported trouble makers, who came to Nauru to kill me. As Winnie said at the time, "If they didn't intend to die, they wouldn't have taken up the gun." Jack was confident that they extracted all the information available from the killers, and we had a good idea who hated me enough to send shooters after me.