Giving thanks....

People here do not celebrate thanksgiving, but us Americans have the day off.

I would like to take the time to give a few thanks:

First, I would like to thank my family and friends who are behind me 100% in this experience since the beginning, from texting/emailing me to face timing me to mailing me care packages and letters, I couldn't have survived this far without you guys!

Thanks to the Ministry of Education, EHDI (Jean), DeafWorldTeach and WorldTeach for allowing me to have this experience of a lifetime.  Thanks to Judy for contacting me and making me reconsider everything. 

 

I am very thankful for technology that makes it possible for me to keep in touch with my family and friends back home as well as keep up with some American news.

I am also thankful to everyone who donated money and made it possible for me to buy a lot of stuff for the kids here--books, toys and games for both the brain and the body.

I am thankful that the people I have met here so far are very welcoming and willing to integrate me into their culture by showing me stuff, giving me food and answering all my questions honestly without laughing at me 😄.

4 months!

In the past month, I....

-celebrated a baby's first birthday (Kemen)

-Tried lobster, mussels, crab

-Forced myself to eat and swallow a sushi roll

-Tried stand up paddling (not as hard as I thought it would be)

-went on home visits alone

-had a home visit with naked baby (hilarious!)

-went to Eneko... Beautiful!

-First time I ordered tuna on my own (tuna salad) and loved it!

-saw Marshallese oven 

-watched women make Marshallese roof from pandanus and coconut leaves 

-read 10 books (total: 29 since I arrived)

Well, the fourth month anniversary has arrived.  By the time the fifth month rolls along, Abby will be here! 

Marshallese roof

This week must be my lucky week.  TWO cultural experiences this week.  

I have one child to do home visits for in Ajeltake which is between the airport and Laura, about 15 miles from the hospital way out in the country.  It takes about 45 minutes to get there by regular car (not a taxi). When we got there, we found a bunch of women sitting on the ground on mats with dried leaves around them.  I asked Chinilla what they were doing, and she said that they were making a roof for Marshallese huts (the kind you imagine houses on an island would look like with leaves covering the roof).

  

We watched them bind the large pandanus leaves with the leaf stem from a coconut tree.  They used some kind of tool (that they made themselves from metal... In ancient times, they used a whale tooth) to puncture a hole in the pandanus leaf to push the leaf from a coconut tree through so they will stay attached (they are technicially sewing two pandanus leaves together).  They are made piece by piece then put together on the roof.  It was very fascinating to watch!  Of course, I had to ask them if I could take pictures.  The women fixed their hair so they would look good haha.

You can see the coconut leaf stems next to her on her right

Woman working.... And a baby

Pile of finished product is on her left, unfinished product is in front of her. 

Close up of the tool that they used to make the holes... And the holes with coconut leaf stem through them.

It's really fascinating how the Marshallese people use every part of a plant to make things.  

Marshallese oven

The Marshallese people tend to cook over an open fire, so naturally I assumed that they do not bake things.  Well, imagine my surprise when I went on a home visit to see them baking cookies.  Wanna see how??? 

Ta-da!  It is technicially an open fire in an enclosed place.  The oven is made of wood with iron for the racks and to hold the fire in the box.  The fire is made outside of the oven, and then inserted into the oven using a wooden stick with a nail (the box has holes in it for the nail to go through).  The cookies that came out of the oven was very good, very chewy.  Still amazed! 

Eneko!

Today I finally went to Eneko.  I have been wanting to go since the interpreters went during orientation (4 months ago!) and told me all about it.  It is past Enemonit, about a 35-40 minute boat ride from Majuro.

There is one Marshallese family living on the island to help keep the island clean and running. 

They have a hotel room, volleyball court, picnic area, many trees, kayaks that you can take out onto the water and a floating dock, and of course bathrooms!

When I arrived, the first thing I did was to take a quick dip into the water.  The water felt cooler (and looked much cleaner) than in other places I have gone swimming.  After the quick dip, I walked around the island over to the Oceanside.

Oceanside of Eneko looking towards the exit of the lagoon, with four more islands

Sun shining through coconut trees

After walking a while, I found a path that leads back to the beach, so I took it. 

Looking back through the path to the ocean 

When I arrived back to the beach, I swam out to the floating dock nearby.  It was a hard swim with the waves.  Mad props to swimmers! 

View of the water from the dock

View of Eneko from the dock.  The white house  on the right is a hotel room I believe.  

Once on the dock, I looked down into the water, relaxed and slept a bit, then I tried to swim back to shore.  I kept on going sideways so finally I got ahold of the rope holding the dock near the shore and just used the rope to get myself back to shore.  Then it was time to whip out my hammock!

It was very nice and relaxing to lay in my hammock, swaying with the wind and reading my ebook on the phone. It was a bit windy and that, along with my wet clothes, made me feel a little chilly.  I read my book and tried to stay warm til it was time to go back to Majuro.  

This island is also supposedly where you do not have to cover your shoulders and knees.  I didn't feel right walking around so "naked" so I wore a t shirt and shorts. I guess I have become so accustomed to Marshallese clothing norms. 

Home visits

The EHDI coordinator and I have been doing home visits together since I arrived because Marshallese people are shy and not comfortable around people who are not Marshallese.  She went to a conference in Texas last week so I have been doing them on my own for two weeks now.  

It's been an interesting experience.  Most parents are able to read/write English to some degree.  We usually try to communicate by lip reading (hard because they pronounce things differently) or gestures before goog to written English.  They also teach me Marshallese while I teach them sign language so it works out both ways! 😄

Today I had a first: home visit with a naked 3 year old boy. 😄. I arrived to their home to see him standing out near the driveway.  I wasn't sure if it was the right boy or not but he led me to his mother and I figured it was the right boy. I just had to giggle in my head... Welcome to Marshall Islands! Lol!

Young children are often naked for whatever reason and I guess I was bound to encounter this experience sooner or later. 😄

Laura Beach Day

(From last week...)

One of my favorite places to go to in Majuro is on the other end of the island-Laura Beach.  It is all the way through the "country" of Majuro where the water is clear and seems to be untouched.  

On Saturday, I decided I needed some time away from everything and a reason to try out my new hammock (thanks, Jenny!) so I hopped on a taxi and rode all the way over to Laura.  It took about an hour to reach there although it is only about 30 miles away.

When I arrived, I found two good trees, set my hammock and then saw the dark skies over by Rairok (I think) and hoped it would go away but it did not.  It started to rain, a little at first then the wind came and it started to pour.  I hurriedly packed everything and found shelter.  Good thing because the storm only increased its strength and lightning/thunder came.  I stood under the shelter for about 15-30 minutes waiting the storm out.  While I was under the shelter, there was another group cooking food.  It was cool to watch them cook Marshallese style, using an old tire rim to hold the fire in and cooking hotdogs on top of a pan. 

After the storm seemed to pass, I emerged back to my original place only to have it rain again so I went back to the shelter, thankfully only for about 10 minutes before the rain stopped. 

The water was low so I could see all the corals and tide pools so I walked over to the water line and explored the tide pools.  

The other volunteers arrived at this time and found a teeny weeny kitty meowing and trying to stay out of the rain.  It was cold, hungry and scared so they took care of the kitty.   It's very adorable!

Eno the cat, not enno (delicious in Marshallese language hahahaha)

Compare this pic to the previous hammock picture... See how low the water was! (And dark the skies were)

Next to our beach site, there was a group of people that we knew from various places on Majuro.  One of the guys wanted us to play volleyball so we did, we joined a Marshallese volleyball game. It was so much fun but very hot in the sun!

After the game, I went into the water to cool off.  There were some children playing with a stand up paddle board.  I have always wanted to try it.  When one of the guys asked me if I wanted to try it, I jumped at the chance!  I got the hang of it after 3 times of falling off.  It isn't as hard as I thought it would be.  You just need to balance yourself on the board.  Of course we had to take a few pictures! Photos coming soon!

We left the beach, walked along the road to try to find a ride, either by hitchhiking or a taxi.  We had a bit of a hard time finding a ride when a truck stopped to let us on.  We rode in the back of the truck with like 15 other teenagers.  It was a very good ride back into town, the entire 1 hour of it! We stopped at various houses along the way to drop children off and at one of the houses, they gave us a pan of rice, the truck driver gave us some chicken and that was our dinner.  If the Marshallese people offer you something, you can't really turn it down which is how I got over many things that I didn't like in America (fish, beer, etc).  

It was a great day, full of unexpected events!