Fongafale is the largest and only properly settled islet of Funafuti atoll. It is twelve kilometres long, in places only a couple of hundred metres wide, and the whole of life on the capital atoll happens along its single coral-and-tar road. The international airport runs the length of it; the government buildings, the bank, the hospital, the school, the wharf, and almost every house in the country sit either on the lagoon side or on the ocean side of that one strip.
Walking the length is the best way to see it. You pass through the central villages of Vaiaku, Alapi, Senala, Fakaifou, and the smaller settlements at the northern end, with the lagoon flashing turquoise to your left and the dark Pacific breaking on the reef to your right. People wave from porches, dogs sleep in the road, and you will be invited to sit down at some point — accept. There is no other way to understand what it means to live on a thin coral island in the middle of the Pacific.