May 4 Monday: We had had hopes of making it to Arno today, but Dennis, who has been acting as a sort of liaison with the Arno chief, went sailing on Sunday in a small boat and late in the afternoon they lost their rudder. They were stuck overnight on one of the rim islands and had to be rescued this morning. So everything is getting pushed back again. At least everyone was safe and in good spirits after the rescue. I spent most of the day in the principals office at the school and as usual it is a nonstop beehive of activity. Kids coming in to get excused for this or that, parents paying bills, kids checking out balls to play with, or just to play guitar, or ukulele or see what is happening. Cameron and I had lunch at Diabetes. In the afternoon, I finished another book. In the evening Cherise, one of the Filipina girls that works at the Wellness Center, came over for dinner. She has been here ten months and has the option for staying another year, but has not made her decision. She likes the work, but misses things like malls and her friends. She told us about the rescue of the disabled sailboat, since she was one of the people that found and picked them up. Everyone thinks they were lucky because the sailboat was far too small for them to be trying the trip they were doing and they actually capsized twice before the rudder broke. They had spent the night at a small island that had an abandoned shack on it

May 5 Tuesday: We met with Dennis this morning and talked about the school in Arno. While we apparently have full support from the chief and his family (including a willingness to add a church after the school is in place), Dennis thinks it might be more productive to concentrate on building up the SDA schools that already exist. He is especially concerned that two new schools are going to be opened on Majuro in the fall. He is very interested in working on ways to make the school tuition as low as possible (his goal is free) because the scholastic results completely support the SDA schools as the best learning environments on the islands. The people would come, no matter how many schools were out there if they could afford it. He does want a school in Arno it is just not as much of a priority for him. We talked about some of the challenges of building in Arno: no on site power, getting materials over there by boat, types of construction, etc. He and Cameron talked about health education for a while and ways to really make a point of healthy eating with at least the older kids. I guess the CMI (College of Marshall Islands) has done a study and the kids that go to the private schools on the islands average two inches taller than their public school counterparts and this is attributed to diet primarily. (The families that can afford private school can also afford more and healthier food). The average family out here is living on an income of about $300 a month. Private schools mostly cost about $100/month. This makes it an obvious hardship for a good portion of the families out here. We stopped by the Taiwanese bakery and I got a piece of chocolate cake for later, Cameron got some french bread and a milk tea.

Later in the day I had a meeting with Larry, the manager at Do-It Best, which is the equivalent of HomeDepot in California. We talked about what type of building materials are most common, durable in the weather here, options for power in Arno, getting the cargo dropped at Arno most effectively, We have been told there is a 60 foot concrete slab already poured at the school site, but we need to make sure it can support a building on top of it and whether we can push for two stories or not. I think it was productive and we should be able to work with them on this project. Then I went across the street to MIR and had a late lunch and used the internet for close to three hours. I walked down to where the Assumption Catholic school is located because there are a few local craft shops nearby. So now my box is nearly full and ready to send back home. On the way walking back to the school I had some Papaya juice. School was already out and some of the little kids were running around the campus, including Dolly, Tonita, Lonnie, Alibert, and many others. We played with them for a bit (but as always, never enough) and finally got them unlatched from our legs long enough to escape the school grounds to go to the Tide Table. It is another restaurant and the second place on the island with free internet access. It was my first time there (MIR is a lot closer), but Cameron had been talking about Taco Tuesday, their Spanish food theme night and it was packed. If that was typical, then I'm glad I have been using MIR, because it is a lot quieter and I think the internet is much faster and more stable there. I did not need to use the internet, but Cameron got on for a while. The power went out partway through the meal to great cheering from the diners, and they quickly switched to generator power. We were both stuffed by the time we left and decided to walk rather than take a taxi back. And since we were walking, we stopped at Youth to Youth house for some ping pong and weight lifting. Then continued our walk home, passing the power line that was being repaired from the earlier power outage, and on to sleep.

May 6 Wednesday: Both Cameron and I have runny noses this morning. Cameron started sniffling yesterday afternoon. I'm not sure where we got it from, but most likely from some of the kids we have been playing with. Dennis was going to give us a call this morning and we are waiting on that, but we will probably call him if we do not hear from him soon. Right now I have been watching 7 or 8 people out at the reef edge fishing as the tide is making its way in. With my runny nose I feel like sleeping more, and maybe I'll do that for a while. Which I did. After that I went to Payless on a mission: get fresh fruit and vegetables to fight the cold. They were having a sale on apples, I got oranges, bananas, a giant red bell pepper, some baby carrots, etc. When I returned and the SM's saw I had apples, several left immediately to get their own: the sale price was very good. I find it is best to get extras anyway, since almost always I end up sharing bits of apple or orange with the kids that are hanging around and they love them. In the late afternoon several kids came looking for Cameron, I had them come in while we waited for him to return. I was cutting up apples and giving them pieces of orange and carrots. It is almost surprising how much they liked them given that they seem to be used to eating tons of junk food and candy, but since they liked it I spread what I had around. I can easily get more, it must be rare for them to get raw fresh food like that. I only got a couple to try the bell pepper and only one of those liked it. I did not go to see the Rita kids tonight since I was feeling so stuffed up all day. I went to bed at 9:30 to try and get extra sleep, but woke up several times throughout the night, so it evened out to a normal amount of sleep for me.