Some of the old letters have been located and will be posted within a day or two!
This photo was taken outside my house in Buoj. Rainbows are disgustingly common.
I’m just going to start from the beginning… The Marshall Islands is one of just a few all-atoll nations. Millions of years ago, before the volcanic islands sunk, there was more land mass- something like Hawai'i. The islands are very, very skinny, and islets in the Ailinglaplap atoll are not an exception. I live on Airok (sometimes spelled "Aerok") in Buoj village. Airok is about 6 miles long and most seems less than 1/8 mile wide. There are about 220 people living in Buoj. In general, the soil in the Marshalls is not incredibly fertile, but on Airok we have three kinds of bananas, limes and papayas, as well as Pandanus, Breadfruit and Coconut.
I have my own house on the property of my host family. There are 10 people in the family- my host parents, Percy and Lapanij, their two children, her neice’s family and her mother. I’m very fortunate to have my own space and as much privacy as I need. For some volunteers lack of privacy is a problem… Though, my hammock and space along the lagoon are pretty popular with the kids!
Food… I’m eating many of the foods I try to avoid at home- white rice, shortening, high sodium foods, etc, but I’ve definitely learned that, at least for now, portions are what matters because I lost a lot of weight during my 4 months on Buoj. For breakfast I eat ramen, donuts, pancakes or crackers. Lunch and dinner include white rice and a meat- fresh fish about half the time and canned tuna, corned beef, spam or canned beef stew the rest of the time. An average of a couple times a week I am served local foods like coconuts, breadfruit or pandanus. We also eat chicken and pig on occasion- but usually at parties.
There is one small shop in Bouj which sells canned meats, sugar, rice, soap, flour and sometimes things like m&ms and soda!
The school is about ¼ mile from my house. There is one main building made of cement blocks with 4 classrooms and a small “office” that is currently being used as an extra classroom. There are also 2 single room buildings close by being used as classrooms. The Kinder kids have class in another part of town. I teach 7 classes a day: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 combined and 7 & 8 combined for 20minutes – 1 hour a class. I also teach an adult class once a week. Primarily my duty is to teach English, but I use other subjects often- geography and math are the most popular. The children are the most wonderful part of this experience. Overall they are very well-behaved, and many problems in class are easily solved by tighter lesson-planning.
Generally, men and women live separate lives. Women focus their energy around the home- cooking, cleaning and landscaping. Men collect coconuts for food or copra production, fish, do projects that require manual labor and just hang out. There aren’t many jobs on the outer islands, copra making is difficult work with little payoff and it is heavily subsidized by the government…. I feel like this same information may be in one of the more recent blog letters. In December a ship came to pick up several months of copra and doled out $10,000 in cash to residents of Buoj...
More soon!
