Well, the overall status is pretty good at the moment…all elements included. I got a huge envelope of mail today, I had patience in school and actually enjoyed it (yikes didn’t see that one coming), I just got back from an awesome weekend at the farm and then a visit to Ine, Lauren is coming for 2 days this week, and I get to go to Majuro this week! Things are great.

Melissa and I went to the farm as usual on Friday night – and that was a bit of an adventure. We were completely looking forward to the opening on Francis’ new store – which will have ice cream and cold drinks – yet to our dismay, Francis was nowhere to be found and the store looked just as it did last Friday…empty and not finished. That said, our plan to buy meat to cook for dinner fell through and we ended up eating plain cooked pasta with plain mashed potatoes. It was a delicious and highly nutritious meal to say the least. We relaxed by ourselves and woke up to a morning of rain and a breakfast of last nights’ left overs. We did save one potato to fry like hash browns though, so that spiced it up a bit! When the rain stopped we went to the farm and did our normal work, only this time, in a bit of rain. I did manage to walk straight into a piece of wood with a nail sticking out on it though and fell straight down. That hurt A LOT. I was sure I was going to get stitches, and I felt like a bit of a baby when I looked in the mirror and only saw a huge red mark that later scabbed over and left a nice bruise. My head did not feel very good the rest of the day.


When we finished on the farm we had our normal lunch with Benjamin and Tarkien, and then began our eventful trek to Ine, where Melissa lives. The beginning of the ride wasn’t bad and there wasn’t much rain. We stopped to make our weekly phone calls and then stopped to pick stuff up at my house. For some strange reason I decided to grab a trash bag, and that was definitely a genius idea. Not more than 10 minutes after leaving my house it was down pouring! Our bags were safely stored in bags in my rusty basket…but we were getting soaked. The roads aren’t ideal for biking in the first place and they definitely aren’t ideal for biking in the rain. The rain added to the already lake-like puddles and re-slicked the fallen palm fawns and coconuts. Wet plants slapped our face and scratched at our legs as we peddled along. Rain soaked our guams as the puddles of dirt splashed all over our arms and legs; what was not covered by our clothes, was quickly covered in mud. The bikes made a large clanging noise with each rock that we hit, and it was often loud enough to make me glance back to make sure my basket and wheel were still attached. I was sure I was going to lose a wheel. It you hit a coconut or a rock or a fawn – which there were zillions of – at just the right angle, it sent you flying into the jungle (and I use that term literally). There were at least two times that my bike managed to hit a coconut at just the wrong angle, and since my bike doesn’t have breaks I went veering off into the trees. I was a little scared and an hour and forty five minutes has never seemed so long.

We eventually made it though and enjoyed a little down time. Ine is beautiful and I got to meet her family. Her family is really amazing, and I am jealous of so many things. It is not that I don’t like my family, hers is just a bit less serious and leaves her alone a bit more. They do nice things for her all the time and really respect her space and things. They are a blast to hang out with and talk to, and it was just really cool being able to really hang out with a different family. They don’t go to church every day of the week and they don’t read the bible at dinner. It was a nice change of pace. Friday night was mellow and lots of reading and playing cards. We helped her sister make banana bread too – and that was amazing!! I wish Lukoj had bananas!

Sunday was amazing. Melissa and I got up relatively early and biked and hour to the end of Arno to go ‘island hopping!’ We biked, this time in the sun, for a while and then got off and walked the rest of the way. We waited to the tide to go out and then walked over to about 4 different tiny islands. It was really awesome. The islands are mainly dead coral and shell searching was a lot of fun. We sat down and enjoyed a picnic on one of the islands and all around just had a lot of fun. Heading back I could tell later I would be regretting not putting 50 sunsccreen on, as my forearms already stung like a sunburn. (I definitely regretted it later that night too…and I regret not buying the Aloe that Phil so intelligently suggested when we were shopping. I said, “No, I’ll just use the sunscreen I am buying so I won’t need aloe.” Genius idea Taylor…not.) We went back to Melissa’s and hung out for a bit before it was time to bike home. The bike home wasn’t as bad as the day before, but the puddles were definitely still left over from the day before. I only took one detour into the jungle this time, but I really wish someone could have been there to witness the ride. I just would have loved to watch myself peddling so fiercely over all the rocks and coconuts and fawns and heading off the road so many times. It was definitely scary not having breaks cause you either had to crash to avoid a bigger crash or just hope for the best and peddle though.

Back in Lukoj though it was nice to finally relax and not bike. I had been biking for the majority of two days and was ready to be done. Girls from school came over asking if they could wash my clothes – which I thought was a little strange – but they loved it. Hahah they washed and hung everything and somehow I think they managed to actually clean them. When I do it, they always seem to get dirtier – but I think they might actually be semi-clean now. Strange! Anyways, that was my wonderful weekend and now it is time to lesson plan. I had a good day today, so hopefully the rest of the week will follow suit. Knowing the Marshall Islands…maybe not…but at least I have Majuro to look forward to soon! That can get me through anything. And Lauren will be here for 2 of my 3 more days. Woo hoo.