Jelter, End of Orientation, and Moving Into My New Home

This past week has been packed full of fun, entertainment and change.


On Wednesday and Thursday our group (plus the Dartmouth volunteers) went to an outer island called Jelter on the Majuro Atoll. This was a great experience—especially for the people living on Majuro—to get an outer island-like experience. We husked coconut, people wove plates and baskets out of palm fronds, and we went spear fishing during the day and at night. This opportunity gave me some insight on how people on outer islands live and eat. We ate canned corned beef and rice for lunch, a whole coral reefs worth of fish for dinner and even more fish and coconut crab for midnight snack. Think of the coral reef exhibit in an aquarium and how much each one of those fishes cost…I must have eaten many expensive fish.
Besides the many species of fish I was able to consume, the highlight of the trip was spear fishing. It gave me an opportunity to see many different types of sea creatures and the opportunity to try and bring back a snack…though I am still pretty bad at this activity.
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Friday was our last day of orientation. We arrived here 4 weeks ago and time has flown by. It does not feel like I have spent that much time here, which is probably a good thing since I still have many more months to go. To end orientation we had a dinner and talent show where about half of the volunteers participated. I do not have any talent show talents, so I did not participate (though, I was asked if I would MC the event and I politely declined). I am very impressed with all of the volunteers that in the program, and after seeing the talent show I was surprised at how many talented people we had among us. It was a night with laughs, music, and all around good fun.
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Also on Friday, some of us moved into our permanent housing into the teachers dorm on the Marshall Islands High School Campus (which also includes Majuro Middle School and NVTI—the school I will be teaching at). There are 10 teachers staying on the MIHS campus, but only 9 bedrooms in the dorm. There is a house about 500 feet from the dorm that was supposed to house one or two of the volunteers, however, the day before we were supposed to move in, some construction workers did something to the sewer line and the toilet in the house exploded. As a result there are 10 people living in the 9 bedroom dorm.
People living in the dorm: Me, Dan, Tim, Ben, Courtney, Amy, Mariko, Elizabeth, and Robbye. I will get a group picture of us up at some point so that you all can see.
In the Marshall Islands, nothing seems to go as planned or on schedule. (A little side note, last week the Ministry of Education officially decided that there will be no official start date of school this year). Currently the two airplanes of the Air Marshall Islands fleet are ‘broken’ and as a result, many of the volunteers going to outer islands are unable to leave Majuro. If they do not leave by next Friday, it is likely that many of them will be moving in with us at the dorm. This is good because we are not ready to see everyone leave yet, we won’t get to see our friends until December, or in some cases May, but also they need/want to get to their islands so that they can begin their teaching. We will see what happens in the next few days.
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Thanks for all of the comments on my blog and the emails and facebook messages. I love to hear from all of you. I will try to get more pics up soon.

And yes Becky, it does look as nice as the pics I have placed on here.

Also please feel free to send this blog to anyone you want. I am always up for more readers.
:)