Still able to cause drama, even way over here. . .

While mom and Reese were visiting I experienced a bit of – well – drama if you will. Upon my return from Majuro I found out that while I was gone someone had convinced my father that the reason I was going to Majuro, other than to get my mother, was so that I could start a family – and the reason JunJun was also going was so that he could come get my mother with me and I would introduce them because that is apparently who I was starting the family with! Nice, huh? So Whelor, the vice chairman of the PTA always jokes around – and since JunJun and I are friends, and he is single, he apparently made a joke about that to someone, and this being the Marshalls it traveled back to my father. When he heard about this he took it very seriously and called a meeting to discuss finding a new host family for me because he no longer wanted me living on the Christian Campus because that would be against the laws since we aren’t married. Sweet. Anyways, when I heard about this I was shocked. (Marshallese culture if you talk publicly with someone who is single it means you will be dating. Most people understand its not the same for ribelle, but apparently some don’t…aka family.) I went into lunch one day and confronted my dad about the situation, and it was almost like he wasn’t expecting me to deny that I wanted to start a family or that that was the reason I went to Majuro. He said the whole town was complaining to him about me living on the Church campus and having people come to my house and talk to me and they told him to call a meeting and look for a new house for me. Upon hearing this I was in a completely horrible mood, thinking everyone thought I was a bad person – because that’s essentially what he told me – and was about ready to pack up and go home with my mom.

After talking to many people, however, I found out he had lied about the whole situation and he was the only person making any deal of it. No one had gone and talked to him, and everyone was very surprised when HE called a meeting to discuss this issue because no one knew there was even an issue.

Extremely long story short, I decided that regardless, because of all past issues and for sake of my happiness I thought it would just be better if I moved. So – I asked Lona if I could move in with her, she said yes, Lauren came back from Majuro with me when I had gone in to bring mom and Reese back, and we moved!

I wish I could say it was a breeze…but it was far from it. While Lauren was in Lukoj the family acted very nice and understanding and they agreed it would be a fine idea. They said it was very important to watch the church and they thought it would be good if they just did that…but I would definitely still be part of the family, I could come over if I ever needed anything, they would be there. Yeah…right. Lauren and I packed up my things and moved Monday after school. It was beginning to be nighttime and was about to rain so we were in a hurry and didn’t have time to bring all the stuff to the school. There was quite a bit of stuff, so when I left I put a lock on the door and planned to come back the next day. At the time I left my mom was conducting church and dad was nowhere to be found, so I just left. Didn’t think it would be a big deal. Wrong. OHHH so wrong.

The next morning I came to school at the normal time and went over to the house to drop Lauren’s stuff off. Apparently they hadn’t liked that I put a lock on and had broken it off and gone it. Their stuff was on the ground and my stuff was all moved around and kids were running around with my things. Not wanting to get all worked up – I didn’t say anything and just went to school. During break I brought some students over to the house, went inside and took out the rest of the stuff. Ohhhhh man was that a horrible thing to do. After school I was sitting working in the garden and Mama comes over and starts SCREAMING at me in front of the entire school. “Who said you could enter our house. You had no right to go inside my house and get your things. You need to ask before entering that house. My contract is over, is it not? I was done last night, that is no longer your house anymore. Its MINE and you did not ask before entering.” I attempted to ask her why she broke the lock of, but that went no where, I was clearly not going to get a word it. She stood there yelling at me in Marshallese for a good 5 minutes before Anderson come over and told her to go home and not go back to the school. Papa called a meeting with all the parents after school to discuss the issue, yelled at Lona and me for about 10 minutes while waiting, and simply made no sense. (Not even worth trying to write about it.) The meeting, however – that was funny. He was expecting it to be, OH dear, she was way wrong – but it turned into the town basically being like, “What are you doing. Why did you lie to her and tell her we complained and wanted a meeting. You called the meeting. Why didn’t you tell her about it? Why are you being dishonest, you are supposed to be the reverend of this town. What kind of person are you?” He was a bit flabbergasted and felt embarrassed I think… as he should for doing what he did.

Now, I am living down the street with Lona, her husband Jeffery, Tarri and Telene who just came over from Majruo. It is so relaxing, a much better house, and simply great. There are no kids around really, which is a fabulous change – I have a nice walk to school in the morning – I get to have a blast with Lona – I get to do work and actually be treated like an adult and have responsibilities – and I just get to do whatever I want without being treated like I am 10. It is amazing. The only downgrade…no bathroom. Haha its ok though, according to the entire town I am a Marshallese girl now – no longer American – so its not a big deal.

Ok – well I think that is the majority of what has happened in the past month…not bad only 3 pages. Ha sorry. Oh – school has gotten a bit better – Movie is taking initiative, keeping a time sheet and enforcing some rules finally – and the garden is going well. We should be eating our first batch of tomatoes in the next week or so! Delicious.

My writing break is now over though and I am going to try and get back to writing on a regular basis so I don’t have to do these crazy long catch ups.

I hope all is well with everyone back at home. Don’t forget to keep writing lettersssssss ☺ Like I’ve said a million times, letters are like Christmas presents here. They never get old and are the best thing ever.

Miss you all lots.

Wow, it has been a long time since I last wrote...

I guess I took a bit of a break from writing… I will attempt to do a ‘short’ recap – but knowing my writing it might be a long entry. Sorry.

Christmas in Lukoj
Christmas in Lukoj was a different one for sure…didn’t exactly feel like Christmas – but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just different! We got up early early in the morning and started cooking. We cooked cake, spaghetti, pig, chicken, fish, rice…you name the staple foods and we cooked them. The members of our church branch from Ine and Madeline had come in the night before, so there were lots of people working to prepare the food.

At around 10 we all got together and started the Christmas church service. Surprisingly it was much shorter than expected and was over in about an hour. After that we started the biit that we have been practicing for the past couple months and the songs. We started with the Sunday school kids…they did their songs and biit and then we moved onto the youth, then the woman and then the men and then the families. We went through this for each town and each performance was between 30 and 60 minutes! So including the lunch break we were about to wrap it up at 7; but then Arno showed up. SOOOO of course we had to start from the BEGINNING. Hahah we repeated EVERYTHING we had done the entire day starting at 7 pm! It wasn’t that bad though…we were dancing and singing ALL day, throwing candy, laughing and playing and we finally ended everything at about 1:30 am. After church ended I went down to the lagoon and called the fam so I could talk to them as they were opening presents in America…probably the closest I was going to get to making the day feel like Christmas.

All in all it was a fun day and I am certainly glad that I went back to the island for it and didn’t stay in Majuro.

The day after Christmas Liza and her boyfriend, Josh, come to Lukoj and stayed the weekend. We did lots of cooking and exploring the island learning to do Marshallese things. It was a lot of fun to have them here for the weekend and I think it was nice for Liza to be able to show Josh something outside of Majuro. It really is SO different out here than it is in Majuro and I think for people to really appreciate the Marshalls they have to have an outer island experience.

On Sunday night we all went down to Arno- expecting to stay at Francis’ but were denied when we found out there were guests there who were not exactly willing to share any of the 6 beds. That was nice of them. We ended up sleeping on the floor of the Bahi church with bags of produce as our pillows, and let me tell you 5 oranges don’t exactly make the most comfortable pillow. Quite sub par actually. We managed though – and Monday morning took the Kirataki back to Majuro and I started getting excited for MY VISITORS!!!!!!

The next few days were nice and relaxing – and it was fun because I got to see a ton of the volunteers who had made is back since the last time I was in Majuro. It was awesome to get to share stories and talk to people who were sharing very similar experiences to mine – being on an outer island. New Years night Annie (volunteer who is also on Arno, but too far away to ever go see) went to Mosquito town and celebrated with people from Lukoj that I knew were in Majuro. Lona, the kindergarten teacher was in town with a few of the students who had been in Lukoj for Christmas with their families. They passed out presents, danced and simply had a traditional Marshallese good time. At about 11:45 Lona wanted to come to the block party (big celebration in the center to town) with Annie and I, so we started walking with a few girls. We were about 10 minutes away when the news year came – so we all stopped in the middle of a random road in Majuro, did a countdown and had our own little celebration. It was probably the most eventful New Years I will ever experience. Haha We made an appearance at the block party for a while though and at about 3 called it a night. The block party was insane…it was pretty much 7/8 of the Majuro Atoll in the same place, completely and disgustingly drunk, walking around doing nothing. Seeing it made me completely glad I didn’t end up leaving the Majel party in Mosquito were I genuinely had fun.

New Years morning I got up early, talked to dad on the computer, and then rented a car to head to the AIRPORT!!! I picked up Telene, Atlynn and Lona, who wanted to come, and we were off. Seeing my mom through the customs gate waiting to enter the oh so wonderful city of Majuro was the most excitement I think I have felt in the past 6 months! I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. We waited for them to come out – clearly had a rather extravagant reunion – made introductions – gave them their welcoming amimano – and headed back to Majuro to start all the catching up we had to do.

The three of us stayed in Majuro for a few days before heading back to Arno and tried our best to entertain ourselves – not the easiest thing to do in Majuro. We went to Enimanet Island one day with Kurt, which was nice and down to Lora beach another day– and other than that walked around taking pictures and ventured to local places looking at scenery.

On Tuesday we finally caught a boat to Arno and started our real adventure. I heard that my mom already posted a little something about the trip – so for the sake of your time I’ll skip over that part. I am sure she did a plenty wonderful job expressing how much she absolutely loved it and how she really, really wanted to stay and sleep in my luxurious home with me, eating the most delicious food she has tasted since…well…ever.

Extremes

Posted by Taylor's Mom who just returned from a visit with her.

Less than 24 hours ago Reese and I were walking the shores of Hawaii during a 10 hour layover on our return from the Marshall Islands. It was a gorgeous day, warm and sunny, 85˚. This morning I woke up and it was -12˚. A bit of a rude awakening to say the least. Although a 97˚ change in temperature is pretty extreme, nothing could prepare me for the extreme change we encountered going from here to the Marshall Islands. What a culture shock. Seeing Taylor for the first time in six months was truly amazing. To see that gorgeous smile and wrap my arms around her for the biggest and longest bear hug, was the best. Oh, how I've missed those hugs. But, for the next two weeks she was all ours and I couldn't wait to settle in and hug her as much as I wanted. We flew in to Majuro, which is a two hour boat ride from Taylor's island. Taylor happened to be in Majuro for mid-service training and was able to pick us up at the airport, so it worked out perfectly. Majuro was quite the eye-opener for Reese and me. Although I've seen the pictures, read the blog and spoken with Taylor, nothing could have prepared us for what it was actually like there. The extent of the poverty on Majuro was unbelievable. Driving back from the airport we were struck by the living conditions of the majority of the people there. And the garbage. Taylor had told me about the garbage problem but until you see it, it's hard for words to accurately describe what it's like.

The beaches are used as the dump. You can't swim on Majuro.

A common sight - trash bins that never get emptied.

Luckily, the car ride was about 20 minutes, giving us time to let the shock set in a bit before we set out on foot. Taylor took us on a walk to the homes of some of her students and other World Teach volunteers. It was funny to see the reaction of the small kids. I'm not sure if they had ever seen a young white boy before, but he caused quite a stir. In addition to following us down the street, they all wanted to touch him. Reese wasn't phased a bit and gladly interacted with them.




After a few too many days in Majuro due to the boat not working, we finally left for Arno with Taylor assuring us that it wasn't anything like Majuro. She was right. From the minute we arrived in the harbor you could tell it was different. The shores weren't completely littered with trash, it didn't smell, the road wasn't lined with sad, lost looking people. The scenery was gorgeous, the people welcomed us with warm smiles and open arms. Taylor's smile broadened a little more knowing she was "home".

The dock to Arno

The one and only road in Arno - an hour and a half walk to Taylor's

The next two weeks were, shall we say. . . interesting. I have to hand it to my daughter for living this life for so long. It's not easy. Yes, you do and can get use to it, but it doesn't make it any easier. A simple cup of coffee isn't simple anymore - it involves gathering coconut husks to start a fire and fetching water from the catchment container. I remember Taylor telling me how much her hips hurt sitting Indian style on the floor at meals. I didn't pay much attention to it until I had to sit Indian style and realized just how uncomfortable those woven coconut mats really are - they hurt. I now have sympathy for her. Almost every imaginable thing that we do here and take for granted, takes longer and is more difficult on Arno. Bucket showers in the tropics - doesn't sound too bad - until you realize that the rain water is pretty chilly and standing around naked pouring cold water on you cup by cup isn't that much fun. Sleeping? Getting used to sleeping with tiny bugs crawling all over you came much quicker to me than I thought. When I looked at my sleeping mat and saw how many thousands of bugs (and I'm not exaggerating) were crawling around, I thought I would die. Taylor assured me I would get used to it. I did. Sort of. I had no choice. I put my head lamp on that first night to read and wondered why Taylor was giggling. It didn't take me long to figure out that the bugs are attracted to the light and made it impossible to read. There were so many bugs, they were going up my nose. She gave up reading before bed the first night she was there, I did too. Thinking of sleeping in? Not a chance. An orchestra of roosters start at the crack of dawn and they live right outside your window.

Reese, not too sure about the dish washing station.

Taylor's house - our home for the next two weeks.

Dinner being prepared in the cookhouse.

Momma showing us how to eat whole fish.

It didn't take Reese long to get used to using his hands to eat. . . he loved that part.

All in all, it was an amazing trip. Now, having been there, I have even more respect and admiration for what my daughter is doing. I knew she was a tough cookie to begin with, but now I'm even more amazed at her strength and determination. It's not easy living down there, it's a life filled with constant challenges and frustrations. Somehow, she's handling it all with grace.