"It's better to go back to the island. On Tarawa we don't stay because we don't have a job."
She said the family would return to the tiny atoll of Tabiteuea, where Mr Teitiota grew up and his parents still live - a 38-square-kilometre atoll comprising two main islands and several islets with a population of just under 5000.
Mrs Erika and the children have never lived there.
"It's very hard because it's salty. They can't get good water. They still use the well water but the problem is it's salty," she said.
Mr Teitiota is due to be deported at 1pm today. Mrs Erika said she and the children would stay another week to get immunisations for the children, who have never been outside New Zealand and have no immunity to tropical diseases.
The two older children, who have been at Birdwood School in Ranui, are at home today.
"They don't want to go to school because they know their dad's gone. The oldest one is really affected by it," Mrs Erika said.
But she said her husband accepted that their deportation was "God's will".
"I just spoke to him yesterday and he said I do everything for my kids," she said. "I'm ready to go for it."
Birdwood School principal Mike Carswell said the two older children Yolisa, 7, and Tebukaiti, 5, were "lovely children who were doing well and making friends".
"We are very sad for the children and especially that they have been taken away from their home," he said.
Although the parents' work permits expired in 2010, he said the Ministry of Education advised him to enrol the children as "timebound" students with a time limit of December 12 this year.
MP: Deportation 'A blow to the family
Te Atatu MP Phil Twyford said the deportation of Teitiota will be a blow to him and his family and to the local Kiribati community.
"As the local MP, I had asked Associate Immigration Minister Craig Foss to allow the family to stay in New Zealand on humanitarian grounds.
"This is very sad for the family and the Kiribati community. We gave it our best shot. Unfortunately it wasn't enough."
Mr Teitiota's wife Angua Erika said she asked Immigration New Zealand for an extension so she can make arrangements for herself and her New Zealand born children.
They're now flying out next Wednesday, and luckily have somewhere to go when they get there.
"We can stay with my family there in Kiribati."
"We feel sad but we can't do anything else, for me and my husband it's okay but we're just concerned about our kids."
Mr Teitiota's lawyer Michael Kidd told TV3's Paul Henry show that his client was held "incommunicado" and hasn't been able to contact his family.
"It's not a good situation and as a New Zealander I'm sad it's happening in our name, it's going to cause enormous problems in the Pacific," Mr Kidd said.
Mr Kidd said he believed the Supreme Court has "left the door open" for further cases, but in Mr Teitiota's case there wasn't "the political will to change the legislation".
Mr Teitiota will go through transit in Fiji and end up back in his country "in a couple of days", Mr Kidd said.
"At least he's going to get there before his family."
Mr Kidd said Mr Teitiota's children were not immunised against diseases present in Kiribati, which was a concern to him.
The case has highlighted the need for the Government to do more to tackle the threat of rising sea levels to low lying Pacific nations like Kiribati and Tuvalu, Mr Twyford said.
Associate Immigration Minister Craig Foss received a briefing on the case last night and declined to intervene after the case was dismissed by the courts.
Yesterday, Prime Minister John Key said there was no question that Mr Teitiota was an over-stayer, and not a refugee.
"I am sure people feel for the guy - they have got their family here, all these kinds of things. But unfortunately he is not unique in that, and we have to be in the most part consistent."
On the issue of climate change, Mr Key dismissed the notion that New Zealand should consider looking at accepting people on the basis that their homeland was threatened by rising sea levels.
"I am certainly not ruling out that a future Prime Minister and a future Government wouldn't take that compassionate view, and I suspect actually that they would. But it would be on genuine grounds that they actually can't live in their country."
Reverend Sumalie Naisali yesterday told media that people in Kiribati and Tuvalu were the "vulnerable of the vulnerables", and would be the first to lose their countries to rising sea levels.
He himself had moved to New Zealand to give his children a better future, and that was what Mr Teitiota had done, and his children were born here and knew no other country.
"There is no employment opportunities in Kiribati, there is population density in Kiribati, there are no education opportunities for the children."
Mr Twyford said focusing on the issue of whether he was a refugee was disingenuous, as the courts had already decided that was not the case.
Instead, Mr Foss needed to intervene on humanitarian grounds, particularly because the children were New Zealand-born.
Green Party co-leader James Shaw said the case was the "canary in the mine", and there would soon be "a flood of people from the Pacific Islands" because of climate change.
Kiribati's capital, Tarawa, is struggling with rapid population growth.
In South Tarawa about half of Kiribati's 110,000 population live within an area of 13sq km, with most living in slum-like conditions.
New Zealand is working with other donors to try and address issues, including by improving access to fresh water, upgrading sanitation facilities, and developing a new subdivision just south of Bairiki Airport.
- additional reporting Newstalk ZB
