Going to the Small(er) Island

This weekend, I got to go on a camping trip with my mama, baba, and two other ripelles to what everyone calls the "small island". This term encompasses a whole group of smaller islands that are uninhabited but in the same atoll as Wotje. It took an hour canoe ride but we made it just before it got dark outside. And yes, I rode in a handmade, traditional Marshallese canoe. Pictures to follow, whenever I get a chance to upload.

On the island, we ate freshly caught fish, slept in hammocks under the stars, ate coconut pancakes and made our handicrafts. The guys went out fishing, but my baba says he will teach me to sail the canoe and fish with the long net, so I wasn't too jealous. All in good time. I got to spend some quality time with my mama and practice my Marshallese skills such as starting a fire with a coconut, using a machete to cut me some coconut juice, and eat a ridiculous amount of pandanus.

All in all it was a good trip. Here are some pictures from earlier, sorry about the delay in the blog update.

PS to Kathleen's mama: I heard her on the radio on Wednesday, so maybe someone fixed her radio? She's doing good, although I haven't seen her in a bit. I think there was a party on Wodmej this weekend so she didn't come over. My baba has told me that she will come fishing with us sometime so that's good. Hope everything's good with you guys and thanks for the emails!

Back to my Island

So this morning, I get on a flight back to Wotje. Of course this is conditional on whether the plane actually flies. There is a funeral on another island so the planeis chartered for the morning. There may not even be a flight. But just in case, I wanted to say thank you to everyone for sending me letters or packages. It is extremely appreciated since communication here is so unreliable, the one thing that does show up on a more consistent basis are letters.

My time in majuro has been spent running around trying to find supplies for the next 5 months and also applying for jobs. I was able to piece together several resumes and cover letters but the bulk of mysearch will have to be done when I get back. There is only so much I can accomplish in 2 days with borrowed internet. Nevertheless, I enjoyed my time in Majuro, I got to spend time with the other amazing volunteers, learn some new guitar songs (thank you for putting up with me Matt) and eat a ridiculous amount of cheese. All in all it was an awesome trip but I'm glad to be going back to Wotje.

This may very well be the last blog post for the next 5 months because the internet on Wotje is off again, on again. Most recently, off again. So if you don't see an update for awhile, that's the reason. I hope you all have an amazing New Year and I'll see a lot of you in June!!!

Iokwe!

MIR and the various characters

After spending 3
days and nights at MIR, I can say that it is one of my favorite places in the
RMI. We would do our mid-service modules
and then at night head down to the bar and mingle with who ever was there. The first night, we met the Minister of
Finance who hung out with us and bought the World Teach a round of beers and
then introduced us to the Marshall Islands wrestling Olympian, Waylon?. He told us all about his wrestling history
and where he's going in the next couple of months.

The next night, we
met a guy from the Kwajalein base who actually knew Anna and was dating the
previous WorldTeach on Santo. He was an
interesting character and gave us all sorts of information about Kwajalein and
what it's like to live there.

Finally, the last
night we were there, we met Yvonne, who has an amazing karaoke voice and is
super friendly. We figured out after talking to her that she actually lived
very closet o Liz, another volunteer in Chicago. Small World.
All in all, we met some amazing people in the MIR
lobby/restaurant/bar. Made some awesome
connections and had some interesting convesations. Go MIR!

Shopping Extravaganza

My time in the
Majuro during mid service has been fun and definitely needed. When we first got into Majuro, it was a bit
of a culture shock. Coming from a small
island of 600 people into Majuro with 15,000 people. Crazy.
The cars and the taxis and the CHOICES.
Going into the Payless here to buy groceries took me more than an hour.
I ended up only buying yogurt, milk, cheese and cereal. Oh and pop tarts. Why did it take me so long? Well, I frequently stopped in the middle of
the aisle and just stared at all the different things. I had to peruse EVERY aisle and look at all
the stuff just in case. It was more of
an entertainment outing than an actual errand.
In Payless there are about 20 different types of cereal. That was too much for me, I can't even
remember seeing so much diversity since my time here. Can you imagine how I'll react when I go to
Safeway in the States? I'll need a whole day to pick up a dozen items.

One of my favorite
Majuro pastimes is to go into each and every store and look at all the
stuff. I've been to dozens of stores now
and I've bought hardly anything. I just
like to look at the things. I feel very
much like a country bumpkin. There are
some things in the RMI that cost a ridiculous amount though. For instance, toilet paper is on average
12-15 dollars for a 12 pack. I might be
wrong but I think that's excessive.
Candy here is outrageous. For
those little miniature snickers bags, it's 7-8 dollars. What?
Sorry, about that, it was a bit of a boring rant but I thought you
should know…