Today on the bus ride back from Laura we passed a funeral procession. There was the ambulance at the lead (which serves as a hearse on the island) and about twelve cars following, all loaded with people. There is no central cemetery on Majuro, although many churches have a small one on their grounds. What appears to be far more common is that each family has their own plot on the property they own. This is clearly evident once you leave the city and have more land around the houses. They dot the countryside, a few here and a couple over there, most are well maintained, but some will only be identifiable by the tops of the crosses or headstones poking up from the abundant plant life. The bus driver pointed out the funeral chapel and a second service was underway as we passed it. We also encountered the first car accident I have seen on the island. It was a solo crash where a car had launched off the road, over a small palm tree and into a house. With a 25 mph speed limit the damage was impressive. I do not know if there were injuries, but the police were there and the ambulance was not, so I suspect everyone survived, despite the lack of seatbelts.

The bus driver lived in Orange County for five years in the late 90's and we talked about what is going on in California now and the economy as a whole. He was clear that the islands were largely unaffected by the economic woes of the US, but he was also clearly worried that it would not stay that way. I asked him about the presence of the Japanese and other asian groups and he told me the biggest difference is that only the American's have put money into developing the Marshall's. The Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese simply siphon money from the islands and send it back to their home countries. He really misses driving in the US and seemed to like taking trips from SoCal to Oregon and Washington on I-5 with his family. Now he is limited to a 30 mile circuit from one end of the island to the other. Both buses drivers (one out to Laura and one back) said they only work as much as they feel like, so if they make one trip and feel tired, they go home, but usually they make three or four trips in a day. Everything is relaxed like that and if you happen to need a bus when all the drivers feel tired, you are on your own.

The other funny thing that happened on the buses today was on the way to Laura. One of the passengers was an elderly man. I had been told that the Laura bus is essentially an express, and doesn't make too many extra stops between the endpoints, but also had been warned that that is really up to the bus driver and that can vary tremendously. Anyway, the elderly gentlemen called for a stop shortly after we left Rita. He hobbled into a store and came back shortly with a 20 pound bag of rice. We proceeded a while and he called for another stop. This time he came back with another 20 pound bag of rice (different brand apparantly that was important). A third time he called for a stop and had the driver pull in behind an obviously abandoned gas station. There was a little shop back there and after a few minutes he was back on the bus with a sack of something. At least it was not another bag of rice. When he called for stop number four, he got out and took the one bag of rice that had a handle and his grocery sack, heading for the back of a house close to the road. I thought that this was obviously his stop and so I hopped out with the other bag of rice and followed him. He indicated for me to put it down with the other bag on a small porch and I went back to the bus. Everyone on the bus was chuckling and a minute later I realized why: here came the old man with one bag of rice and the groceries. He loaded them back into the bus and went to retrieve bag number two. Not sure what the point was of all that, but it did amuse the other passengers. I guess I should point out that the buses are really not buses. They are essentially VW minvans, although I did not pay enough attention to mark a brand (definitely not VW). So once we were all loaded up again, we continued down the road. We must have been getting close to the old man's final destination, because he was jabbering at the driver and we slowed down. The old man wanted the driver to turn right into a hedge with a tree beside it that would have scraped over the bus like one of those arms in a car wash. After two tentative attempts at this the driver balked and went a short way down the road where there was an obvious road marked. We turned here and drove in a couple hundred feet to where the man wanted to be let out. There was no way we could have gotten there by following the old man's proposed course. And this time when he got out, he got out for good. The rest of the trip up to Laura was in a uproarious bus as they all made jokes about what we had just collectively experienced. That much I could tell, even though I understood not a word of it.