Independence and UN days

Ok finally I'm getting around to a long overdue post about Palau’s Independence and UN day holidays. 

October 1^st was Palau’s 19^th Independence day from when they became a republic in 1995. In true Palauan fashion the details of events where rather thin on the ground. All we knew were that everything was going to happen under the both sides of the KB bridge. Amanda was going to be working on the Airai side of the bridge with a community group running a salt awareness campaign as well. 

Both Independence & UN days had plenty of small stalls selling various bits of food however the drawcard for Independence day was the speed boat races. I believe this is a pretty big event on the Palau calendar and we noticed about a month out various boats appeared on the water in practice. Personally the races weren’t as interesting as I thought they’d be, I only ever saw a two boats in the same race and the boats didn’t seem that fast. I do know at some point in the day one of the drivers did some sort of flip and was tossed out of his boat. I understand he was ok. There were some fireworks later in the day but we had moved onto to a house warming party and missed them. Here are a few pics from the day.

Koror side of the bridge checking out the races

Now onto UN day, which to most of us ex-pats is a pretty weird holiday to have and I still don’t know the meaning of it. Either way I wasn’t complaining. Yet again various stalls were set up selling food however the draw-card for today was traditional dancing by various states. Again not the most exciting day but fun to check out some traditional dancing etc.

'Chips' style cop bikes on the right

New skate ramp built for the kids by the current Civic Action Team