Kiribati

In Kiribati’s creation story, everything begins with sand and water.

Before the world existed, sky and earth were a closed shell. The creator felt his way through the darkness and found sand and water inside. In one version, Sand and Water are the parents of the first beings.

The country itself is built the same way. Kiribati consists almost entirely of low coral atolls, with no mountains from which the islands have been carved. Much of the ground is sand and gravel from coral and shells, carried up over the reefs by waves and currents. Grain by grain the islands grow, and transform.