Sharing

I don't think I have written much about how hospitable people here are. Today I was reminded of that during my run.

I was running the causeway, which at some parts is litterally a dirt road in the ocean and at parts closer to the islands it gets wider to include little beaches and trees. As I was on my way back to Guegeegue I noticed some young boys off to the ocean side of the road. They seemed to be playing on the rocks near the shore. As I ran past them they motioned to me, so I stopped running and said hello. One of the boys offered me something that was in his hands. I automatically assumed that it was something from the ocean and asked, "What is that?" He looked at me funny and answered,"Chicken." At first I didn't understand, because I thought the black and brown object in his hand came from the ocean. I figured I misheard him, which happens often. I got closer to the boys and looked at what they held. "Maybe some sort of jellyfish or the insides of a giant clam," I thought to myself. Instead I asked, "What is that?" again. The boy just held the thing to me. That was when I got a whiff and realized, yup that is chicken like he said. I laughed a little at myself and told them, "No thank you, I can't eat when I run." The boys smiled at me and I ran away.

I couldn't help but smile at the encounter with the boys. Can you imagine going for a run in a park in the states and someone coming up to you and offering some of their BBQ? That is exactly what happened. The Marshallese culture has really shown me what it means to take care of people. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the generosity around me.

I developed a new rule in my classroom this semester because this generosity was interrupting my class. Our school has a "no food in classrooms" rule, but I don't make my students abide by it in my classroom. I figure the people selling the food benefit from the students buying food, learning is easier when a person isn't hungry, and eating helps the students maintain their energy so they don't sleep. The problem was every time a student had food they were sharing it with the entire class. If a student on the right side of the room wanted some chips from another student on the left side they would do one of three things: 1. yell for the food to be passed, 2. get up and walk straight across the room, 3. ask the person next to her to ask the person next to him, and so on. All of the above were disruptive to the classroom so I made a "No Sharing" rule for my class. That goes for food during class and for pens, pencils, and erasers during tests (yes two students will pass back and forth one pen during their test). Funny to go from trying to force 2nd graders to share to implementing a "No Sharing" rule.

A Chick Hunt

Easter is this coming Sunday. I can't believe how quickly it has arrived. I haven't had the opportunity to decorate eggs or go on an egg hunt, but I did have a Chick Hunt!

A few days ago I went to visit Sebastian. Earlier that day he brought a baby chicken to his house to play with. He LOVES chicks so much. Somehow he lost it in the house. Terry and I spent about an hour searching the house for the chick. Eventually we found it behind some stuff, behind a chair. Sebastian played with it for a little while, but the chick needed to go back to his mother so he could eat and such. Terry distracted Sebastian so I could bring the chick back to the family's house.

I was holding the chick walking down the path thinking how funny it was that I was just searching for a chick in someone's house. The chick managed to jump out of my hands and run into the bushes. I chased after it, in my long skirt and flip-flops. If anyone was watching me they would have seen me crawling and climbing through the bushes with no apparent destination. Eventually I realized I would never catch the chick if I didn't change my strategy. I would move towards it and it would just run further into the bushes away from me, which was easy for him but increasingly hard for me. I started to throw rocks so the chick would be forced to run towards me. After about thirty minutes of rock throwing and maneuvering around the branches I caught the chick.

I came out covered in dirt and pieces of tree. Had any of the children been around they probably would have caught the chick in less than five minutes... I am not as talented as them. haha.

An After Finals Walk

Yesterday after finals Matt, Stefani, and I walked to Nene, the island north of Guegeegue. We had so much fun. One man lives on the island, he watches over it. I have never seen one person who has so many chickens, there must have been about twenty! We went snorkeling and it was amazing! The coral was so beautiful and we saw fish that we have never seen in Gueegeegue. The most exciting part was we swam with a shark!! Matt went in first and saw it before Stefani and I were even in the water. I was scared to go in, but I decided to go anyways expecting that it had moved on. After swimming for about ten minutes Matt spotted it again! It was about four feet long. We watched it for a short time then swam on to look at more coral. After another thirty minutes it came back! We decided that since it wasn't afraid of us, we should be afraid of it and we got out of the water. What an exhilerating snorkeling experiance.

After we walked down a path through the center of the island. The trees were sooo cool. I found an old rotted out tree stump and inside was a little egg! In one spot there were lots of burnt coconuts and all around them were tons and tons of hermit crabs. Some of them were as big as my fist!! I wouldn't want to be pinched by one of those!!!