A real teacher!

Last night I met the two Dartmouth volunteers that will be on my island with me. Their names are John and Gabe and they seem to be really nice guys. Poor Gabe was sitting at my table for trivia and the rest of the WorldTeach volunteers were giving him hell for going to Dartmouth. They were relentless. The guy definitely stuck up for himself but had a sense fo humor about the situaction. How can you not?

Also last night I got licensed as a REAL Marshallese teacher. I got a nice little 7 X 9 card to prove it. I also go the chance to meet my principal who is awesome and very excided to have me at the school. He let me know that my host family is set and I'm stoked because my host dad is a doctor on the island which makes me feel much better about getting injured or watever happens. Yay! i also talked to the volunteer who was with that family last year and she says that they speak English very well and they they are a pretty Westernized family. In a way, this is good beccause they will give me a little more leeway as far as mistakes and misunderstandings. I'm getting really pumped about this and I can't wai tot have my own classroom!

Rain in Ajeltaki

So unfortunately I bought a Wifi card and the log out pop up didn't come up so I can't log out and I have to spend the remaining 50 minutes so I might as well type up my blogs instead of copying and pasting....

News from Ajeltaki! We went into town today to have our language lesson and meet the principal of the Majuro Coop School. Both were awesome, I'm trying really hard to learn Marshallese and I can remember vocabulary but when it comes to sentences, my brain shuts down. I'm sure when I'm on my own little island, it'll stick a lot better.

So as I've tried to show through descriptions, the place I'm stayin is a little run down. This is what happens to the building on the island because the weather and sun is so much harsher and the landlords/government/tenants don't have the money to fix up their buildings. In addition, the way that land works here is that someone will own a huge chunk of land and build some houses on it and lease those buildings to the people of the RMI. There are VERY FEW people who ever own a house. Basically only the landlords of these properties will own their house and the rest of the people rent. Even the government, even the airlines lease the land for the airport. This as I think we all know, doesn't motivate the tenants to do any repairs or renovations on their houses because when their lease is up, they may not even live there anymore.

Okay, so this all ties in to what happpened today. First off, at around 4 am, the entire room was woken up by a huge rainstorm. I'm talking monsoon-style rain. Eventually we got back to sleep only to wake up in the morning to see that our kitchen area had been flooded. Water was leaking through the roof and the wires were sparking. After speaking with our directors, they told us that someone was going out to fix it while we're in town. The problem with this is that Marshallese-time is not the same as American-time. That person, for whatever reason decided not ot show up, so when we returned to the school, we had to hurry and clear out the food and utensils from the kitchen and we're no longer allowed to use that area. Because the man didn't com to fix the problem, the roof was in danger of collapsing. Luckily, the kitchen section is a ways away from the sleeping section. So I'm fine everyone! We just have to eat PB and J's for a night and cross your fingers, someone will be by to hook up the stove in the other area.

Love you all!

Sea Turtles and Muumuus

So unfortunately I wrote out some really witty and funny blogs but I can't find the USB plug in on this computer so I think I'll have to improvise...

I'll figure this whole thing out soon.

Anyway, there is a story I wanted to share with everyone about the first night a group of us decided to go out into Majuro to a couple bars. We currently live in a school in Ajeltaki which is about 40 minutes away. The only way to get into town is to hitchhike but it's common here and not dangerous. So we get all gussied up in out new muumuus which are amazing! Our field director said that "You can never go wrong with a muumuu here." This seems counter-intuitive but we go along. So everyone is dressed up and taking pictures like we're going to a Marshallese prom and it starts to rain. Well, the rain here lasts only about 20 minutes but it's basically monsoon style rain. We wait it out and meanwhile cars keep passing and when it finally stops, so do the cars. We wait on the side of the road for about 30 minutes and then we start walking. Now, in our group of 7, there is only one guy with a flashlight or headlamp. We're all following him and get about 100 yards when a truck pulls over. Riding in the back of a truck is the closest thing to air conditioning in Ajeltaki so we were all stoked. A couple of us hop up into in the bed of the truck and in the darkness we seem a dim outline of something lying in the bed. There is a chorus of "What is that?!" The people about to climb in are one leg out and one leg in, frozen trying to see what's in this truck. Finally, the guy with the flashlight shows up, points it into the bed and we see a HUGE ****ing SEA TURTLE lying on it's back, waving it's flippers. This thing took up half the space of the truck bed and was clearly still alive. We all hopped down and stood gasping/laughing while the driver laughed and sped away. Needless to say, that ended all desire to go out and I spent the rest of the night playing cards.

*Marshallese people eat sea turtles...

I had a couple other stories but I'm going to wait until I can figure out the USB. I also have pictures but those will have to wait til next time as well.

Bar lo eok!

First Days...

Sorry everyone for not posting earlier but this is my first trip into town. I'm currently staying at Ajeltaki Elementary school, sleeping in a classroom. This is about 35 minutes from downtown Majuro so it's a little bit of a trek to get some internet.

So far, I'm loving the island. The people are amazing and friendly and...a little nosy. The first time we ventured out of the school, out directors received phone calls from several, meaning at least three people, notifying them that we got a ride with so and so and we went to this store and were wearing this and that. It's a pretty small island and EVERYONE knows who we are even if they don't say so. It's a little bit like Ukiah. :)

The first couple days we mostly settled in and got to know each other. Yesterday was our first true day of orientation. We has a class on the introduction of ASL, American sign Language. One of my fellow volunteers is deaf and he'll be hopping around the islands, working with Special Education classrooms. It was really interesting, this might be a new language for me to learn...

Then we had our first Marshallese language class which is amazing. The language here is so beautiful but fast paced and the instructors are wonderful. I can't stay too long on the computer but just wanted to update you all a little bit.

Bar lo eok! (This means, See you later)

My Destination: Wotje