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.