Majuro, Marshall Islands, April 6th: the Pacific's forgotten countries

It's been ten days, ten days of tropical heat with little or no wind, ten days anchored in a lagoon infested with trash, in which the sewer of close to 30,000 people ends up every day.

You may think I am being over dramatic. Well for once I am not. Infinity is a safe haven in this country forgotten by all but the United States. Bound by their sense of duty, their indisputable honour, they now take care of all the countries they've used as nuclear testing sites... sort of.

More will come in June on that topic, but you can't ignore the Bikini atoll got ravaged by a nuclear bomb testing campaign as early as 1946, making an area of a few thousand square nautical miles unlovable for more than sixty years.

Imagine a strip of land, with a lagoon in the middle, a few square kilometres of sand and palm trees, pounded in the name of science, progress ... wining the arms race with the USSR to prove that liberal capitalism is better than communism, or maybe to see who has the largest one ...

Anyway, the Marshall Islands are sort of a US protectorate now, they sort of benefit from a free trade exchange agreement with the United States. Thanks to that, they have a US post office, Dr Pepper, Jiff peanut butter, Cheetos and a massive tuna exterminating industry. Woo-effing-hoo.

The people of the island are just about as involved in conserving their ecosystem as they've been educated about the consequences of open sewer, plastic and trash dumps on their health and the ecosystems. Thanks to a lot of initiatives from the Marshallese government, this is slowly changing but it will take time to clean up.

It's hard to feel the attraction one has for any new culture, new population and new natural wonders when all you get is reserved locals, an open-sewer lagoon, trash being piled up, and piled up, with no plan to to anything about it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming the people of this extraordinary country (over 1000 sand & coral atolls). They are the victims of yet another abuse of a more modern society abusing their I mean, according to Wikipedia and the Guardian: "Over the years, 67 weapon tests were conducted, including the 15-megaton Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test that created significant fallout in the region. The testing concluded in 1958. Over the years, just one of over 60 islands was cleaned by the US government, and the inhabitants are still waiting for the 2 billion dollars in compensation assessed by the Nuclear Claims Tribunal. Many of the islanders and their descendants still live in exile since much of the islands are contaminated with high levels of radiation since the time of the U.S. nuclear tests till this day."

The Marshallese people have just been moved and removed, and given little money and our unsustainable consumer habits as a compensation.

This is fucked up. But it's the way it is: an entire culture was polluted and slowly taken over in the name of science, progress and civilisation.