First Marshallese Party

On Saturday after some P90x action, jumping off the dock into the lagoon, and participating in my first game of volleyball here, we attended our first Marshallese party!  It was held for a young man who is moving to Iowa to complete his senior year of high school.  We were asked to sit at the main table along with the young man the party was for, his father, and his grandfather.  We were served our plates second after those men.  On the plates were chicken (the same chicken they were cutting up the night before), a hot dog, some sort of amazing potato & egg salad (it tasted like mashed potatoes), a brown rice dish with vegetables & meat, fish (both fried & raw), and a heap of white rice.  Soda and bottled water were also served.  Everything was delicious!!!  I made a decent dent in the food, but there was no way I could finish everything they had served me.  We girls ended up splitting the raw fish; we were all nervous to try it, but Liz & I took it like champs (Anna had a different reaction—without even trying it, haha!)  As we ate, a group of other high school aged guys were singing along with a ukulele—while we couldn’t understand what they were singing, it sounded beautiful.  After dinner, we played some more volleyball (which I was SO excited about!!), sat around bwebwenato-ing (chatting), and just soaking up the experience.  It definitely made my day!  Afterwards, Naoki brought us to meet another Philipino family on island.  Conor, a previous volunteer that taught on Ebeye, had told us about this family during orientation.  They were like his ‘host family’ while he was here; they we had heard all of these amazing things about them, so we were definitely excited to go & meet them!  Afterward we headed over to Naoki’s house for some drinks.  The other JOVC volunteer, Kenta, was also there.  He just came this weekend & will be teaching math at the Catholic high school on island for the next 2 years.  We taught them a few ‘American’ drinking games; it was hilarious, they were great sports, and we had a really good time!  

****video coming soon....

The feast

 Liz & Naoki

Late night Lagoon swimming