Nauru was called the Pleasant Island by the Whalers during the earlier days of whaling in the Pacific. This name may have been a result of the friendly reception given by the Nauruans to expatriates during the earlier contacts with "white" sailors.

Obviously the experience of meeting other people must not have been that pleasant for the "isolated" Nauruans because now when you arrive in Nauru you get neither smiling faces nor lays placed on your neck as many Pacific Islands do.

Nauruans are a very reserved race and from what I saw not very quick to make friends with expatriates. If you live there you get most of the time an uncomfortable feeling that you are not welcome. My experience during the six years we lived on Nauru confirmed this fact but to prove that it is dangerous to generalize when dealing with human beings, Joey Dabwido has proved to us to be one of the exceptions to this rule.

I met Joey Dabwido on my first working day on Nauru. I started with Nauru Phosphate Corporation as a Power Station Oversees and Joye was a trainee on my shift. Joye was doing his boiler attendant certificate and I was supposed to help with his training. Our friendship started during the long night shifts and Joey soon brought me to his house, introduced me to his family and took me for my first dive on Nauru. Joey enjoyed talking to me and was very interested to know about the countries where we come from and lived in. Joey had been a sailor in one of the Nauruan ships and therefore had some exposure to the outside world.

With the time our friendship grew stronger and extended to our families. Joey and his wife Seravina were regular visits to our house and Joey's many nephews where "clients" of our swimming pool and good friends with Rita and Erica.

Three months after I started in the boiler house I was promoted to Assistant Services Superintendent and became responsible for all the mechanical areas of the Services department, which included the two power stations and all the workshops. I stopped working directly with Joey but our friendship continued to blossom.

I was appointed "honorary" member of the Dabwido family and played in the family's volleyball team and spent some fantastic nights catching noddy birds at the Top Side with Joey and his relatives. During all this time the two families became closer and Joey’s interest for Portugal grew to a point that he decided to come with us during one of our holidays.

Joey, like all Nauruans, is a very lay back person and never in a hurry to go anywhere. When the time came to leave Nauru... guess what? Joey had not organized the passport or the visas to come to Europe with us let alone booking any flights. Our plans where to stay for a couple of weeks in Macau before heading off to Europe and therefore I told Joey that we would meet with him in Hong Kong as soon as he would receive his passport with the respective Portuguese visa.

Well... Joey was not very happy and most likely thought we would leave without him and therefore decided that he would solve the problem Nauruan way. We left Nauru for Macau and we were there a few days when we received a phone call in the middle of the night from a very disturbed Joey Dabwido. Joey was "under arrest" in Hong Kong after arriving at the airport without a valid passport and armed only with a "letter" stating that he was Mr. Dabwido on the way to Portugal for holidays with Mr. Costa.

We spent the next few hours franticly trying to locate the Nauru Consul and save Joey from spending some unpleasant time on a "South East Asian dungeon".

Next morning Filu and I went to Hong Kong to find a very frightened Nauruan in a hotel in Nathan Road. We also met a very upset Nauru Consul "spitting chips" because of the constant stream of troubles caused by the casual Nauruan travellers. He could not believe that Joey was going to Europe all alone. The time came for us to leave to Europe and Joey's passport and visa was still not ready. Again we left a very concerned Joey on a strange country all on his own. We gave him the address of our friends Manuela and Adelino in Macau and told him to let them know when he would depart to Portugal so that we would pick him up from the airport in Lisbon.

Several days later and already in Lisbon we received the news that our Nauruan friend was finally on the way to Portugal.

Joey spent two weeks in Portugal and met our families and friends and his kindness and easy going personality left a mark on anyone who met him. Still today, sixteen years later everyone remembers and talks fondly about Joey Dabwido.

Portuguese love to eat charcoal grilled sardines but Joey prefers them "au natural’. On a family gathering, Joey was the focus of attention when he ate the sardines raw.

We took Joey to some of the typical places in Lisbon and as usual Joey managed to add a Nauruan touch to the occasion:

At the bullfight Joey attempted to throw the brand new Texan boots to the "Toureiro". After a "Toureiro" finishes fighting the bull he walks around the arena and receives the applause of the audience. The ladies normally throw him flowers, hats and scarves which he returns in an act of gallantry. Well…Joey saw the ideal opportunity to get rid of the boots, that he bought for the occasion but were strangling his feet. Thank God I saw it in time to save the Toureiro an unpleasant surprise.

The visit to a nightclub and a strip tease show which Joey found very uncomfortable especially with the presence of Filu and Belinha making smart remarks and inviting Joey to comment about the anatomy of the dancers.

The visit to the Feira Popular (Luna Park) where Joey almost caused the daredevil bike rider in the Poço da Morte (the death well) to kill his little daughter. In this attraction a rider carrying his little daughter on his back rides a bike in a metal cylinder. The audience stays on the top of the cylinder and at the end of the ride people throw money into the cylinder to show appreciation. Normally people throw the equivalent to fifty cents or one dollar bills. Well…Joey was very moved with the fact that the little girl was risking her life and decided that one hundred dollars was a small price to pay for such a risk. When the rider saw one hundred dollars bill floating down the cylinder he almost crash the bike. Attempting to get to the note quickly he forgot that he was defying gravity and needed to keep the speed of the bike up.

After two weeks Joey returned to Nauru being probably the first Nauruan to ever set foot in Portugal. The people that met him were left with an indelible mark of his kindness and generosity.

After six years on Nauru we decided to emigrate to Australia and settled in Tasmania. Joey kept in touch with us and, one Christmas he decided to visit us.

Joey and Seravina had two girls and named the eldest Anna Paula after our girls Ana Rita and Erica Paula.

One day he rang us and told that he was to come to spend some time with us but would like to travel on the ferry from Melbourne to Tasmania. Knowing Joey and his disregard for rules and regulations I told him that he needed to book the trip in advance because during the Christmas season it was very difficult to get tickets to and from Tasmania and in particular when travelling with six people.

You would think that Joey would listen to my advice? Wrong… one day he rang and told me that he was in Melbourne with all his family plus two nephews and no way to come to Tassie. Joey Dabwido had arrived in Melbourne and went straight to a car yard, bought a station wagon and drove the family to the wharf to learn then, that all ferries to Tasmania were booked out for the next three months. Obviously plane tickets were not available also and we end up having to charter a plane to bring the Dabwido’s to Tasmania.

With six Dabwido’s arriving we panicked a bit. Obviously we did not have enough space in our house but fortunately the house next door was empty and we end up renting it for the duration of the holidays.

The two families spent two weeks together and around the many barbecues we had all over Tasmania we recalled the good years we spent in Nauru. Rita, who had forgotten the Nauruan language was already speaking like one by the time the holidays were over.

The Dabwido’s returned to Nauru after a couple of weeks touring Tasmania and our contacts resumed to a couple of postcards at Christmas.