April 25 Sabbath: First a few more notes from Friday. I had planned to go to MIR where I could use the internet for the afternoon, but never made it, mainly because the two weeks leading up to May 1, which is Constitution Day for the Marshall Islands, are filled with track & field, games, spelling bees, essay contests, etc for all the students and the schools compete for various recognition. I got invited to watch the 4th and 5th graders participate in a tug of war competition. Lots of students were waiting in a field when we arrived and the ropes were there (with some eager students practicing), but no other adults (and no judge). We had also brought a frisbee, a volleyball,and a football for while we waited. Cameron actually had to leave to bring some of the older kids over to the public high school for some indoor events. I waited at the field throwing a frisbee around with a bunch of random kids. The biggest challenge is to make sure each kids gets thrown to in a fairly even distribution, even the littlest guys that really can't throw it back. They are so happy just to be included. The tug of war never took place, which meant a lot of disappointed 4th and 5th graders, but eventually Cameron came back and we did do a couple pulls with all the kids that were still hanging around. And we also had a few girls versus boys challenges (there were quite a few more girls than boys and they won two out of three that way)

Then we did a Jambo with as many kids as would fit in the pickup, dropping many of them at their homes before bringing the rest back to the school. There was still plenty of time before sundown, so Cameron and I went to the bridge to jump. The tide was fairly high but heading out, so there was a decent current flowing out of the lagoon into the ocean. That just meant we had to jump in on the lagoon side and swim to the edge quite quickly. I don't think the jump was more than 20 ft, but it was a lot of fun. We only did it a couple times each, then some other people showed up at the jetty, including some parents of students at the school, and Cameron thought it might not be showing the best example to be doing that. I can understand that. Apparently it is only us crazy white foreigners that ever jump off the bridge.

Vespers was a song service and a short talk by one of the high school students and then a rare early to bed night.

So Sabbath after church, Linzi, Carli, Matt, Junior, Tarzan, Cameron, another boy and I had lunch together. We made breakfast burrito type things and it was funny to watch the Marshallese boys eat those for the first time. Very suspicious at first. Matt has been suffering from an ear infection for the last few days and cannot hear anything unless you speak up quite a bit, so his week of teaching was rather rough. He is on antibiotics, but had not really noticed any improvement yet. Linzi had been sick for a few days last week and her students were complaining about missing Art class with her. Some of us played Denarii, a Bible based trivia game, after eating. Then I read for awhile and took a nap for an hour. After evening vespers, Daniel, Cameron and I went to Youth to Youth house to play some ping pong, but when we arrived they were locking up the building an hour early. Someone had smashed the last ping pong ball they had and that ended the evening. Cameron had an extra ball with him and donated it to them, but they still closed early. No matter, there is always something to do. We went back to the school and played a couple games of volleyball in the gym. Cameron kept playing and I made the mistake of picking up one of the littlest kids and swinging her around in a circle. Instantly I had ten other little ones at my legs, each begging for a turn. I had to keep that up for almost an hour and a half, putting one on my shoulders and carrying another one upside down while I ran a lap around the gym, twirling them around, flipping them, pretending to lower them head first into a large trash barrel, etc. Again the main challenge it to make sure you are spreading the turns around, because they have a hard time 'sharing' and they all need 'just one more, please Mr Autin'. After a while most of them had to go home and I was left tossing a volleyball to two little girls. Back at Cameron's we played a game of Scrabble with Matt and then watched “Nothing But The Truth”, a movie I had not heard of before (could be fairly new) that dealt primarily with 1st Amendment rights, the protections journalists have regarding unnamed sources, and the power of the executive branch to disregard those rights. It was 'inspired' by actual events, but was not based on any particular instance. There were strong ties to Bush's justifications for invading Iraq, the jailing of witnesses (who refused to testify or reveal sources) during the recent Congressional investigation into steroid use in baseball, and the general erosion of our freedoms since 9-11 under the guise of 'safety'.

April 26 Sunday: Slept in until 9 then got up, refilled our filtered water supply, got some laundry started and planned to go out to the island of Enemanot with the Hawaiians. We made macaroni and cheese again (using it up, now I've had enough for a while) and while we were doing that Cameron found out that the group of kids he had planned on bringing could not come after all. That turned out to be a blessing. We were running short on time and gave Daniel, Jezriel, and a few of the Filipino contingent a ride over to CMI (College of the Marshall Islands) and headed for the dock. Nobody was there, and the boat was still tied up off shore. Larry had apparently already left with a smaller boat and after waiting half an hour (and not being able to get in touch with any of the regulars) we went home. So Cameron made a few more phone calls and a Taiwanese friend of his wanted to meet us at the jetty to swim in the ocean. I'm not a strong swimmer, but I had a lot of fun. There are several ladders attached to the jetty and as long as you time it right you do not get battered too much against the rocks. And it really is a good workout; you can essentially stay in one position swimming against the current and whenever you get tired move over a few meters and stand on a shelf of coral. There are a few rocks you can climb on and jump into the big waves as they approach. From a few spots you can also jump straight off the jetty when the right sized wave comes through. The coral is not very forgiving to human flesh though and I have several cuts and scrapes on my feet and ankles and a black toe where I stubbed it against a rock and burst a few blood vessels. Nothing serious.

Cameron's Taiwanese friend Sophie, brought watermelon. There is a Taiwanese Technical Institute on the island and one of their main projects is a large teaching garden. The watermelon came from there and it was a very good one. Afterwards, they wanted to watch Amadeus, a film I have already seen and had no pressing desire to see again, so I went to use the internet and then walked home between rain showers.


April 27 Monday: A couple things happened today. First, Liam, who I mentioned in earlier notes, booked himself a flight home. Even though he was being disciplined, they had not planned on sending him back. Of course I do not know the whole situation, but from my brief contact with him, he generates a feeling of hostility all around him and if he has been that way all year, it is no wonder there have been problems. So we took him to the airport at 2 pm and we also brought Isabelle, one of the dogs that roam the school's property. A former SM had gotten the paperwork taken care of to have her shipped to Hawaii for quarantine and eventual emancipation to the mainland US. But of course it is never as simple as it could be and the baggage handlers required us to buy a can of dog food and tape it to the outside of the kennel and do a few other hoop jumps. That taken care of we went to event two for the day: the island wide fifth grade spelling bee. This is one of the events related to the festivities building up to Constitution Day on May 1. There were 13 schools participating from Delap, Uliga, Rita, Luara, Ajeltake, Long Island, Woja and Rairak and included public schools, Catholic, Baptist, LDS, SDA and Cooperative schools. Each team consisted of three students who worked together to come up with the spelling of the words. The first four rounds were moderated by a Marshallese woman from the Dept of Education and she had quite a bit of difficulty pronouncing the words herself. This was definitely an additional hurdle and cost several teams points. After a few complaints, a different member of the Dept of Ed moderated the rest of the rounds and things improved dramatically. The teams were under a three strikes and you are out format, with the top three teams earning cash prizes $100, 75, and 50 respectively. The tournament started just after 3:30 and after three and a half hours we were down to four teams. That can partially be chalked up to the generous three strikes, but also to the diligence of the students. Another half hour and we had Rita Baptist winning, with Delap SDA taking third. Collywobbles was the winning word. Even my spell checker as I type this isn't sure about that one, but I know it is spelled correctly, although I thought it was typically TWO words. We took the three team members and their teacher, Kari, and got a couple pizzas and then ice cream and brought them to their homes.

As soon as we arrived back at the school Toshiro and Junior were waiting and said we had to leave right away to attend his uncle's birthday party. So that is were we ended up. I was already full from the pizza and ice cream, but Cameron (who ended up giving his ice cream to another kid) got some more food and ice cream. There were 50 people, mostly kids, in a small house, to celebrate Toshiro's uncle's 53rd birthday. He is the fourth of the 17 kids I mentioned before after talking to Toshiro's mom. A ukulele was passed around and a large number of people played a song as it got to them. Then several people made speeches and toasts to the man of the hour and they sang a traditional island birthday song as we each went up to him, shook his hand and put money in a bucket for him.

April 28 Tuesday: I finished John Grisham's The Runaway Jury today just before the 6th Grade Spelling Bee. Delap SDA was one of 12 schools competing. After three hours and I lost count of how many rounds, Delap took second place behind Rita Baptist School. This edition of the spelling bee was a vast improvement over yesterdays, primarily because they had a native English speaking member of the Ministry of Education reading off the words and sample sentences. The first several rounds used words from a list that all the schools had been given to practice with. After that it was a free for all and some of the words I was amazed were spelled correctly. A rather impressive thing to witness. Concierge, fluorescent, synonym, and chronological were some of the words at the end (all spelled correctly). I missed the final words because I was getting some pictures of an incredible sunset from a nearby pier on the lagoon. This time the parents of the kids from the team were there so we did not take them out for pizza; they already had plans, but we took 5 of the other kids and got soft serve.

Back at the school Cameron had a board meeting, so I cooked pigs in a blanket and made some brown rice with broccoli. Then I did some more reading before sleep called to me.


April 29 Wednesday: After a quick midmorning trip to EZPrice for some supplies for the school, I hung out and started reading The Chamber by John Grisham. One of the SM's, Scott, brought most of Grisham's books and I've borrowed a couple. Each store has one type of most products and usually only a handful of cans or boxes of that item. In some ways I imagine this is what it was like in the Soviet Union before the borders were greatly relaxed. The difference being if you know which store carries the brand you want, you can get just about anything. Now the old man on the bus does not seem quite as eccentric. He just knew where what he wanted was. Another little incident out here reminded me of riding a city bus in SF while the driver read a newspaper propped up on the steering wheel. I did not like that. The other day we took a ride where a passenger was playing ukulele and it was out of tune. So he handed it to the driver who calmly tuned and played the uke, while continuing to drive the whole time. Safety first!

At one we will be heading out to the 4th grade spelling bee, which will be in Marshallese. This should be an adventure for everyone involved. Marshallese is still in its early stages as a written language, and much like written English before things got standardized with printing presses, you can spell many things however you feel like. The main greeting for example, Jokwe, is also spelled iakwe and no one bats an eye. One SM mentioned that he showed his word list (for the fourth graders) to some of the eight graders and they did not know how to spell most of the words.