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.

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…

Ripelles are Party Animals

This weekend I was
invited to 3 different parties. The
first was a an opening party for my new school. The senators from 3 different atolls came and gave speeches including
the assistant to the Ambassador. There
was lots of food and quite a few people there. Let me say that those senators and guests left with some awesome swag. They got a bouquet of Wotje wots, a lei, a
crown of Wotje wots, a little model canoe and a HUGE basket of food. It was nuts. The next party was for Women's
Day and it happened at the Protestant church. There were a lot of decorations and singing from various groups. The women served some more amazing
Marshallese food in the trademark coconut leaf plates. More singing and dancing. The last party was the wild one. One of the teachers, Connie, had a birthday
party and Kathleen, john, Gabe and I went. They served some more excellent food and then Glenn, Connie's uncle
coerced us to get up and give a "program" which means dance and
sing. Kathleen had taught me the
birthday song from TGI Fridays just in case so we were prepared. We sang our song and before we could retreat,
they had turned on the stereo and were dancing with us. I got thrown around like a rag doll. Marshallese women are shy and mild until
there's music . Then they turn into
professional wrestlers. Connie ran
inside to get clothes which she roughly pulled over my head and then she
smeared lotion on my leg and face. Kathleen
had the same done to her. We didn't know
what to do so we continued to dance. It
was a very bizaare thing. To my
astonishment, John and Gabe were not exempt. They were pulled on to the dance floor and Connie dressed them in
dresses and smeared lotion on their faces too. Then I'm not sure what happened, but Gabe was running and the ladies
were chasing him. They ended up tackling
him onto the floor where they proceeded to spank him and wipe more lotion on
him. At this point, Kathleen and I were
standing there trying not to die from laughter. We went back to our table with our pilfered clothes and hair accessories
and watched as Gabe was attacked. It was
pretty hilarious. After that excitement,
we all decided to go home, but not before they gave us more food to take home
and big piece of chocolate cake. I guess
it was their way of making reparations for the near slaughter of Wotje's
ripelle population. All in all it was a
great weekend and on Monday, Connie came up to me and invited me to the
Christmas party in December. I have
plenty of time to study up on my self defense moves before then.