The Landing of Laura

My field director is here for a visit. She'll be here all week, although she's spending the first half with Kathleen in Wodmej. There is a lot to tell, but it would all be boring without pictures to post with it. I'm going to wait a little bit before telling any of the stories until I get the pictures uploaded. It will be more fun that way.

I'll tell you all aobut the last few weeks, don't you worry. Here's a little snippet: boy carrying dead cat, 1 am corn beefing, True Blood, fishing (sort of), the arrival of the ship, and dengue strikes Ailinglaplap! (not Wotje)

Reef Fishing

Last Friday I got my taste of fishing on an outer island. My 8th grade girls took me out to the reef on oceanside at 11 pm and this is what went down:

We tromp through the jungle, avoiding poisonous centipedes and angry dogs

We sneak past the officials at the high school and down onto the reef

Since it was low tide, we were able to walk really far out on the reef

The process of catching the fish this way is to get two girl together, find a rock on the reef, turn it over, and there should be some fish sleeping underneath

When they see a fish, the machetes start flying and they chop at the little guy until his floating face down in the water

Another girl, carrying an empty rice sack grabs the fish and the group moves on

This is apparently reef fishing. Before you scoff, let me say, the fish are asleep, but if you miss them with that first machete slice, they definitely wake up and speed away. There's not a lot of room for error.

Despite all this, I caught 4 fish!! Small, but we fried them up on Saturday and ate them at our picnic. It was pretty satisfying to be eating my own catch. Didn't quite fill me up, but I was happy.

Unfortunately, no pictures, I didn't want to drop my camera in the water...But here's a good one that made me laugh when I saw it. Enjoy!