April 30 Thursday: Well the fourth graders did not do so well in the Marshallese spelling bee. The SDA kids were actually the first school out. The language is basically supposed to be phonetic, but even knowing that, I would have gotten nowhere. They use more letters than the Hawaiian alphabet, but fewer than standard English. It was extremely difficult for me just listening to even catch what some of the words were. While that was going on, I had a plate with some local fish (very good, with a buttery flavor), rice, another dish made with pumpkin (how they make it is a mystery, because I can't think of a comparison, but it was definitely pumpkin), and a desert made of coconut and date. Sorry I did not get a picture. I also had a frozen container of Bob juice. Bob is the local name for the pandanas fruit, which is quite similar to pineapple both in appearance and taste. I know why we do not have them on the mainland though: they are the size four or five pineapples put together, but are much closer to an artichoke in actual edible material. Not very efficient. So Bob juice is the pulp and juice that is crushed out of a pandanas.

In the evening John, Kari, Carli, Cameron, Frederic, Junior and I went to Rita to spend time with the other kids (and we picked up a couple on the drive over. We sang songs for a while, then I told a story (with Toshiro's mom translating) for the 20+ kids that were there. We did not stay too long this time because Toshiro's family had a few things to do. With the extra time we ended up watching Anchorman. I had not seen it before and now I am caught up on a few more pop culture references like “I love lamp”.

So now today (Thursday) has been reasonably busy. I had breakfast at Diabetes, then went into several shops, buying a Tshirt and talking with a man named David who is from India and has lived in Majuro for four years. He told me there is only a small contingent of 5 people from India living here. He stressed how important it would be for us (Gabe and I) to spend some time in Agra (where the Taj is), Goa (which he called paradise), and recommended a couple other points about his homeland. He said when I first walked into the store that he thought I was Indian. I spent three hours online at MIR, which was packed at lunchtime. Then bought new slippers, since my $2 pair is already almost worn through. Not sure what I expected for $2, I probably got my money's worth. I tried a Famous House Papaya Juice drink, made with papaya juice and milk, which was good but overly sweet. I stopped at the bank since tomorrow is a national holiday and picked up some cash for the next couple weeks. When I got back to the school they had just let out classes for the day and the debate team from the high school was already gone. I know where they are holding the debates and I think I'll take the half hour walk down there to see what happens.

Just as I was heading out the door to do what I said in the last sentence I got a text from Cameron. They were on their way to the school and then out to the debates. So I just waited and got a ride with everyone else. The debates were being held at the capital building. Three were held yesterday and three would be held this afternoon. The SDA school was up first against GRE. Not sure where they are from. The debate topic was whether the RMI government should favor Marshallese for jobs or more qualified persons from other countries and was conducted in Marshallese. It is hard to say how it went, but the audience roared with laughter at points made by both sides, so it was at least a funny debate. (later in the evening we found out that SDA lost 30 points to 26.5 points). Midway through the second debate we left and took everyone back to the school.

It is easy to tell that Constitution Day is a big deal here. All during the past week there have been crews planting flowers in the road medians, Marshallese (and for some reason, Taiwanese) flags have appeared all over the place and things have been spruced up in general. Several times today processions of police cars have driven by sirens blaring as they escort various dignitaries around the island. Just after the sun set we followed a large crowd out to one of the nearby fields and the men were doing tug of war, island against island. We watched Majuro beat Arno and then heard that down the road a bit a Volleyball game between girls from Arno and a team from Honolulu was going on, so we headed that direction. There was also a basketball game going on between two other islands. I watched the end of the basketball game and then joined Cameron in watching the final game of the volleyball match. Arno won. Then there was an intermission and an Arno men's team was going to play a team from the island of Emon. This ended up being a tremendous match, with Arno having a couple better servers and a slightly stronger net presence. The games were 25-21, 24-26, and 16-14.