A short jambo to the small island

It was my baba's birthday party/picnic on Saturday and we went to a small island with everyone even remotely related to him and had a picnic. It was amazing. Potato salad, quarter legs, breadfruit, some delish chocolate cake I made him...all of it was perfect. We also decided to pick up Kathleen and her and I went snorkeling and saw some beautifully colored coral and the cutest little yellow fish ever. No sharks yet though. I breathe a sigh of relief whereas Kathleen is frustrated.

On the ride home, it was night time and let me get semi-poetic for a minute. Imagine, cruising along in a boat, there are little glowing fish underneath you, all the stars in the sky above you, and skipping along beside the boat, hoards of flying fish. It was probably the most beautiful thing I've seen since I've been here. Wow. I know this place is difficult and like all nations, has it's problems, but the sheer natural beauty of living in a place like this is amazing.

For Kathleen's Mama: She was having a rough time for awhile, she had a sinus infection, but she got her mail and her glasses and I think she'll be feeling better the next time I see her. I think the snorkeling helped too.

PS the baby turtle in the picture got eaten. Sorry :(

This Last Week

School is going alright, I could be doing better in
6th grade, but for some reason, everything I try has no effect. Getting them to do their work or to listen,
or to just stay in their seats is a Herculean effort. All my other classes are much easier, well,
comparatively. For 8th grade, we're
studying poetry and I'm very impressed that they seem to understand stresses,
rhymes and syllables. We've been able to
create some interesting couplets in the last couple weeks. 5th grade is doing a space unit and I'm teaching
them about the moon and also using a partner reading program to try to boost
their reading skills. 3rd grade is in
the middle of studying the animal kingdom, our next animal group are birds. They really love it and I'm excited to teach
them about animals. I've also made them
a small storybook since our textbooks for 3rd grade haven't arrived. We just finished reading the Turtle and the
Rabbit for our Reptile week. That's
what's going on in the classroom.


Vaccinations

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera
so I don't have any pictures of the island wide vaccination day. It was interesting to see the whole school
get funneled into to small Wotje hospital to receive their flu shots. The kids were cute, coming up to me and
telling me that they were scared and that it would hurt a lot. This was all in Marshallese mind you. I responded that it only hurts a little bit,
like a pinch. And then I demonstrated
this to them. They all thought that was
hilarious and they went around to each other saying, "e jab metak"
and then would pinch each other. 6, 7,
and 8 grade went first and of course, they came out and were telling the
younger kids how it hurt so much and that they wanted to cry. The little kids' eyes got big and they were
moaning and looking around for a way to escape when I told them, "E
riab!" (It's a lie!) and then they
all started
Now after all this time and energy
convincing the kids that they shouldn't be scared and that it's okay, I
couldn't pull it together enough to get my shot. I told them all that I already got my flu
shot in America, which is a lie. I hate
shots and I unless it's required, I don't want them. Hypocrite?
Absolutely.