Community

I have definitely settled into a bit more of a life here. Still no routine and still get frustrated – but I feel like this life is normal now and not just something crazy and abstract that I have no connection to. It feels more like my home now and I feel like I am a true part of the community. I think a lot of it has come with my outgoing and accepting nature of their culture – but they are finally giving into the fact that I love Marshallese culture and don’t want to be “the ripelle.” They give me babies to hold, they make me do yard work, they always correct me when I do something ‘out of culture,’ they yell hi and invite me to come eat and talk every time they see me, and they aren’t scared to talk to me anymore! My favorite thing that everyone does now is when there are other ripelles here they always look to me to translate when they don’t understand what they are saying…ahah they trust/understand my Marshallese enough now to be able to ask me what other people are saying! I suppose the index cards next to my bed (still being updated) are paying off! I have found this new sense of community here and I am loving it. I don’t have to love everything about this place, but to feel at home and accepted is an important part of being happy - so it is nice to have that working with me right now.

As for the past couple of days – we had our three days of school this week and life pretty much continued as it has been. In school I had the older kids read books they have been practicing to the younger kids – practicing alliteration and speech elements – and that was a successful and fun activity. They younger kids loved it, the older kids got stuff out of it, and the teachers got off easy and didn’t have to teach their class…so it was a triple win situation!

I studied some more amimano and started making some bracelets to send home for Christmas. They may not be the cutest things in the world…but you all have to wear them! I jamboed on the beach with Jumina, Atlynn and Aribut the other night after beat until 1 AM teaching them kartwheels and fun stuff like that. It was so refreshing to run around on an open beach, with thousands of stars and a full moon, and just have simple fun. I love that that is my life right now. So simple…so unfeigned…so pure. Just life. (Well the environment is pure at least…maybe not the food.)

Last night I had the girls from grades 6 and 7 sleep over at my house…thaaaaaat was fun. Haha I haven’t had a sleep over like that since my 10th birthday! (With the exception of my going away one with kels and tit ☺) It was back to the ‘who can stay up the latest game,’ and I was definitely the loser. I really wish I had batteries in my camera to take a picture of it…it was definitely a site to see! There were 4 of us curled up on my sleeping platform area (3 side by side and one laying horizontal) and then there were 4 girls curled on the floor (2 on the orange float from Whitney!) and then two more little girls in the outside room sleeping on my mosquito net. We were sleeping Marshallese style to the extreme! We watched center stage, ate Oreos, talked about boys and did all the fun things that you do at sleepovers. The only non-fun part was the part when they all got up at 6 o’clock after going to bed at 2 am. I could have gone for another 5 or 6 solid hours of sleep! But that’s ok…I will make up for it today.  

I am more than ready for bed right now at 6:30 after we spent the ENTIRE day, and I say that with no exaggeration, weeding. We practically cleared the entire town of any form of weed…EVEN IN THE WOODS! We started at 8 this morning and at finished at 5 tonight with an hour break for lunch; and we did nothing but clear the jungle making enormous mountains of weeds and trees. (lots of compost material at least) Apparently everyone does it every so often and Ajuon pays the church $30 for it? I am not sure what the point of that is…but oh well…it looks nicer I suppose. For lunch….get ready for this one…we ate TURTLE. Yikes. I was a bit scared but to be completely honest, it was one of the most delicious tasting things I have had here! They fried it with garlic and black pepper and yummmm. Delisch. It is more on the chicken side as far as meats go, but it’s really a kind of its own. It doesn’t have a fish taste, but I would say it had more that taste than chicken…with the texture of chicken and its sweeter. That was a really bad description…so pretty much I just recommend you try it if you have the chance; it’s good.

Ok, that’s all. Tomorrow I am going to make the nursery for my garden!!!! We have all the materials now and the PTA is coming to help made the cement and rock wall on Tuesday. We have most of the dirt in, will make the beds Tuesday and are taking a field trip to the Arno farm on Wednesday. This is finally happening and I am very excited about it.

Things might just be continuing to move in a positive direction. We will knock on wood though, because you never know with how things go here.