It was quite common for bored and jealous members of the Nauru police to cruise in their Land Rovers at night around the hosties single quarters and note the number plates of any expatriates parked outside. A warning then given to the hosties not to entertain expats in the evenings regardless how innocent the intentions of the visits were.
On a tiny atoll like Nauru (takes 20 minutes to drive around the whole country) it was amazing and disconcerting to hear about the gossiping. One classic story which was true, involved an Air Nauru flight engineer booking a six minute call to his wife in Australia. This was done through the Nauru international switchboard who told you when time was up.
Having gone well over the six minute call, the F/E remarked to his wife that he had better say his goodbyes as he had exceeded the paid for six minutes. The voice of the Nauruan switch operator interrupted his goodbye sweet nothings with "It's OK - you can keep on talking".. He had listened to the whole conversation.
This type of eaves-dropping had more serious ramifications when another private conversation was listened in to between an Air Nauru pilot who lived on Nauru with his wife and another pilot in Melbourne, in which conversation was about pilot industrial action that had just occurred. Within a few days the pilot living on Nauru was sacked by the Government. The conversation had been leaked by the switch operator to the President of Nauru.