atomic batteries to power! turbines to speed!

Oldest was asking us about this line yesterday morning. It was sampled in a song he was listening to and we all had our theories as to where it was from. Turns out to be Robin from the old TV show of Batman. Old fat Batman one of us said -- the ones where you could see his nipples and he drove a modified Pontiac.

Then, last night after dinner something strange happened in Tuvalu. The main road, which stretches across the island from the water not far from our hut to the ocean on the other shore -- was oddly quiet.

Youngest said he heard people speaking on speakerphones, but it turned out to be megaphones. There were lots of flashing lights, like a parade in the dark...we ran outside hoping it would be what we thought.

Traffic at a near standstill, lights and men all over the roadway --
and something gigantic and shrinkwrapped (imagine the dryer they used to melt the wrap!) moving verrrrrry slowly down the road.

We had seen it before, an object the size of our home, having been taken off a ship at one end of the island and being pulled near to the other shore. A transformer. Huge trucks with men on platforms lift the wires of traffic lights and telephones so it can pass beneath, men walk alongside of it with walkie talkies, police are scattered around admonishing people to pull to the sidewalk!

It's all very dramatic and slow, like a slow, quiet military procession.

We stand shoeless, sockless watching this spectacle that is so out of place. We wait until it is completely out of sight, until the strangeness of it sinks in, until our feet are cold and the cars start moving more quickly past us. The first time it happened we had to go back in to our dinner party and talk it through to assure ourselves that such an odd thing really had occurred.

Last night we just went in to dinner, homework and bed.