April 18 Sabbath: Matt from the Laura school came down and is staying on the other couch for the weekend as is his habit. We all got up and Matt went with a group to the beach. Cameron and I went to church. Sabbath school was late starting again, but was very good. Then between ss and church Dennis, who helps run the Diabetes Health Center did a presentation on the W from NEWSTART, which is Water. Familiar to me, but a good reminder about the benefits of drinking plenty (of water).

After a lunch that consisted of making burritos with black beans, cheese, jalapeno salsa, lettuce, imitation scallops, etc with Ramsey, Ashley, Carli, and Cameron, the SM's were talking with Cameron about their experiences for the year and a few suggestions on improving next year based on some issues that the group encountered, mostly based on SM's not really upholding the standards they agreed to when signing up to come and the issues that was creating for some of the local church members living on the island. Apparently, during the orientation some of the islanders expectations were explained and others were not and the tensions created by not having clarification on some of those things until after people had been offended was the result. I think it has a lot to do with the arrogance many other countries sense from Americans in whatever way we do things being 'the right way'. Even when it is the right way (or more enlightened or pc), we should always keep in mind that 'When in Rome, do as the Romans”. From a biblical point of view Paul said it best when he said (paraphrased) that even when we ourselves know certain things are not sins and have no bearing on our salvation, if we know that by doing those things we make life harder on our weaker brothers, we ought not to do them. Eventually Cameron suggested we make a little trip out to walk between a few of the islands off Rita point. So he and I drove out and picked up a couple 7th grade boys and did just that. The timing of the tides was about right and the water was up to just over my knees crossing over. Cameron says on a good day you can walk out to the first seven islands from Rita point. We did not do that much. I found a few beautiful shells, but of course they were occupied and I do not need them so much that I need to kill a creature for its home. I did find and keep a delicate little puffed sand dollar. I am also realizing that I will need to get some more substantial slippers as the ones I am using are wearing out already, but they are much more comfortable than I remember flip flops being in the past. Who knows? They are immensely practical here.

Vespers was a fairly long song service and then they played a trick on us. They asked everyone to move to the front of the church. After giving that a few minutes with little movement, the reason was revealed. Each row would come to the front and sing a favorite hymn or religious song for everyone else. This meant that several rows towards the back were going to be solos, since they were in rows by themselves. Actually a few people slunk out the back as the front row was doing their song. There were three of us in our row and I think we did adequately. One of the last groups had five people, but only one lady sang and she played the guitar, performing a song in Marshallese that was very beautifully rendered. Pretty much everything here is designed to be participatory and for the most part I think it is a great idea.

Just after we got back to Cameron's place a storm hit and he said it was the strongest storm he has experienced in eight months out here. The rain pounded and pounded, the wind was making itself well known, the power went out twice for periods of half an hour, one of the windows was blown out of its track (but apparently this has happened before because several nails were in place to keep it in close to normal position. We taped the windows just in case one of them shattered. There is some damage visible in a number of places, fences blown down, sheets of metal from roofs knocked off, lots of down palm branches and other debris.

There is a video rental place down the street and someone picked up Ong-Bak 2, a martial arts film starring/written/directed/choreographed by Tony Jaa. I remember hearing a number of enthusiastic reviews for the first one when it came out, but I never saw it. The funny thing to me is that every single movie at the rental store is pirated. Every dvd has the stores brand name imprinted on it and they come in a paper sleeve, but you will not find a legal copy anywhere. All the video rental places are like this here and this one specifically is part of a chain. Even the cases on the shelves have home printed covers and descriptions of the films. And based on being in that store, the marquee at the movie theater, and seeing signs at other stores, the genres of choice on the island are horror and action, especially fighting like UFC. Anyway, the movie was subtitled from the original Thai, and was a fairly typical martial arts film with plenty of over the top fight sequences and a love story wedged in for good measure. Exciting to a point, then just plain unbelievable.

April 19 Sunday

Today was an adventure. A very large group, including many children and 7 people here in the Marshall's to adopt children, went to the rim island of Enekot. The adoptors (sp?) had three babies with them and a case worker from the government to observe. Apparently, this is a popular spot for adoptions, since it is has well established connections with the US and the paperwork/time involved is thereby greatly reduced. We had plenty of time to play frisbee with hordes of kids, go swimming, toss a football around, etc. Then we had a big feast, Marshallese style. I contributed cous cous and with the big group everything was eaten. I left immediately after eating with the goal of walking around the island looking for shells. All the way to the end of the island on the lagoon side I could see back to where the group was. Once I rounded the end of the island and was on the ocean side, I was out of view. I was not carrying a watch but kept checking the position of the sun because we planned to leave about five. Well I found many intriguing things at the end of the island and all along the ocean side, including a number of shells I would have liked to keep if they hadn't been already occupied by crabs. It seems that all the most beautiful shells are occupied either by their original or secondary tenants. Emptys have not been nearly as pretty. Lots of three and four inch sea urchin spines littered the shore. There are numerous black worms or anemones or sea cucumbers, I'm not sure which. They stretch out to almost a foot, but do seem to be anchored on one end. They retract quickly when touched. I guess that is sounding more like an anemone, but it is not like any I have ever seen before. I also spotted several gray eels all between two and three feet long. They are very fast and do not wait around at all once they are aware of my presence. I tried to get a picture, but never timed it right. I did use the movie function on my camera for the first time to capture a panorama from the island and also a brittle star crawling towards water. The water was at low tide and I was only ankle deep in the tidepools that stretch almost a hundred yards offshore. So as you can imagine I was finding plenty to keep me busy. And as I neared the full lap of the island, I was slightly disturbed to not hear the sounds of the quads that the little boys are running nonstop around a track on the island interior. Then I broke into the clearing and could see across the island that the picnic area was empty and the boats were gone. Uh Oh.

My first impression was that they must have wanted to leave earlier especially with the three babies and had gotten tired of waiting for me, when they were unsure where I even was, and just left in frustration and annoyance. I walked over to near the dock and there is a family that lives there. They were having dinner (I still do not know what time it was since my watch was in my bag and it was gone with the rest of the group). They told me the boat had already left, but were unsure about how long ago that had been. I went back to the picnic area and saw that their was a half bottle of water and an unopened Pepsi, so I was not going to die of thirst, which had become my second concern. I got into one of the gazebos as a small rain shower came through. There was shade and protection from the pigs and dogs there and I could have made a night of it there, with the plan to get a boat in the morning when someone would come by. It certainly would not be cold and I could do this quite easily. As I was contemplating these options. A young man from the house by the dock came over and asked what had happened. I explained and he thought for a while. Then said he had a boat, but was not planning to go to Long Island (the main island) until morning for work at the airport. He said I could stay in his hut and we could go in the morning. That would have been fine with me, but he thought some more and said if I could pay for two gallons of gas he and his friend would take me over now. I told him I did not have any money or my cell phone, since they were in my bag, but I would promise to get him two gallons of gas. So he retrieved his boat and his friend waited with me at the dock. The guy who owned the boat was named Justin and his friend was Jonathan. They are 18 and 20 respectively and said they are the only family each of them has. We talked about a number of things: Arno (they really hoped I would get to see it), the storm (they had been drunk and missed it), how it was that I am so old and do not have any children, the jellyfish bloom that appeared as it got darker, the names of some of the islands, where I was staying, etc. All the while I was thinking, how am I going to get money for two gallons of gas. I did not have Cameron's cell number memorized. I was sure I could call the school from the dock, but they would only have the office number listed and that would not help me. I had my camera with me and was thinking I could give it to someone working at the dock as collateral to borrow some money and retrieve it the next day when I could come back with cash or maybe explain it to a taxi driver and let him hold the camera long enough to get me to the SDA school and retrieve my wallet. But finding someone with enough English to make that work was certainly iffy. I could easily walk from the dock back to the school if I could cover the gas for my rescuers and did not need to use a taxi, but it would be an option to explore.

Well all that was unnecessary. As we approached the Shoreline dock, there were Toshiro, John, Sara, and four other kids from the group. They were all excited and laughing about the whole situation. They told me it wasn't until about halfway back that Sara (who we had been playing frisbee with) asked Cameron where I was. He has thought I was on the roof of the boat with some of the other boys because his bag and mine had been brought on the boat and he assumed it was me who did that. Cameron and another man, John, had gotten another small boat and gone back to see if I was still on the island, and since it was getting dark enough by that time, we missed each other on the water. The family on the island told them I had gotten a ride and they returned, getting back just after I did. The kids had my bag, so I covered the two gallons of gas for Justin and Jonathan and they left to return home. It is just one of those situations were everything worked out in the end and was an adventure to share with everyone else. We helped dry dock John's boat and dropped him and his boat motor off at his house. The kids wanted to Jambo (cruise around in the back of the pickup) for a while and we did, eventually dropping them off at their homes and heading back to the school ourselves.

This morning (Monday) Cameron and I got up early and left for Laura at 7am. He had a couple meetings at the Laura school. When we arrived, he did what he had to do and I walked out to the Laura point with more time to explore. I got a picture of a thatch house and some of the first gardens I have seen here, They were large and well maintained. I think based on Cameron's info, they are a side project of a Baptist couple that runs a school very near the gardens. It was good to see them flourishing. At Laura point I paid my dollar to be on the property and not wanting to miss my ride again, took careful note of the time and alloted a half an hour to walk along the lagoon side of the beach, then return and do the same thing on the ocean side and get back to the center close to when Cameron would be ready to pick me up. Again, I was fortunate to hit it at fairly low tide and it was through gentle lapping waves that I made my way along the lagoon. There were few striking shells, although the further I got from the point itself the more I did see. I found a very nice puffed sand dollar, about twice the size of the one I found before. They are so delicate compared to almost every other shell or object on the beach I am amazed any of them survive to be found intact. Extremely light, an almost paper thin shell and lacework-like patterning on the face. Aside from that find, my hour on the lagoon side had been a disappointment in shells, but extremely tranquil as I was the sole entity on the beach. Once I started on the ocean side I almost immediately began finding large shells. That may seem counter intuitive (it was to me at first), since we would expect more pounding waves and the rough corral reef to break most of them up. But the break point is nearly a quarter mile out from the beach and what actually hits the beach is closer to the waves in a bath tub. The problem again is that many of the fanciest shells still have mollusks inside, so they stay in the tidepools, but this time I did find a number of keepers and most were much larger than I've encountered up to this point anywhere else.

I got back to my pickup point right on time and had to wait a little while for Cameron to arrive. I had “Their Eyes Were Watching God” and read a chapter from that, but then Isaiah, a 25 year old from nearby came over and wanted to talk, make sure I was okay, etc. There was a group of them heading out to do some spearfishing. He waited with me until Cameron arrived. At the airport is a sign saying the Marshallese are the friendliest people in Micronesia and so far that has been very true (I can't compare against any other Micronesians, but the Marshallese are very helpful and friendly). On the way back from Laura, I took some video of the landscape, the narrowness of the island, passing techniques, a school getting out, etc. The video files are too big for me to attempt to load here. Maybe in Guam We also stopped and got some ice cream (first time since leaving the states – it was good and very fast melting in the heat) and later stopped again so I could try Green Milk Tea with Bubbles. The bubbles are actually solid balls in the drink that most closely resembled gummy bears in taste and texture. It was a mildly sweet tasting drink and something I would definitely try again. After getting back Cameron had to be in the admin office and I have been jotting down my notes from the past couple days. Now I just need to make a trip over to MIR and get this posted.

I also need to spend some time learning to break my notes into smaller paragraphs, but that can wait....