Sailing Micronesia 2018: February 16, 2018

February 16, 2018

Today started out with kayaking to shore to give the rest of the files to Mr. Tom at Jabor Elementary. When I got to the school, he asked me if I could wait a few minutes as the students gather outside for morning announcements, prayer and national anthem. Many seemed surprised that I sang the national anthem along with them. Never learned what the words meant, but I do know it and it does mention god in it many times and no one seems to be upset by that.

Next thing I knew all the kids and teachers turned to me and said thank you and later Mr. Tom asked me if there was anything I’d like to say. I mentioned that I was thankful for opportunity to be there and see the school and the children and wished I could stay longer to help out, get to know them better and that maybe someday I’ll return. It would be nice to work there for a while as it’s a lovely place with such kind people.

Mr. Tom and I went inside and I copied the files to his computer and was even able to get the teacher fonts into word for him as well as fix the template I’d made for spelling sentences which didn’t seem to translate well from my computer to his. I left there and headed over to the Catholic school which was deserted. Finally, I saw an open door in the building next to the church and there was a man sitting inside with his shirt off. After getting on a shirt, he came outside and introduced himself as the parish priest. After explaining my reason for coming, he mentioned that Sr. Lumia was over at the high school.

At the high school, there was no sign of sister and the two teachers I’d met the day before said she’d be back, but I knew Pete was eager to get sailing to Emidj before the afternoon storms that were predicted. After waiting around for a bit, I decided to head back to the school and at least drop off the gifts we had to give them. My mistake, I should have just gone to the dock and paddled to the boat. Sr. was back at the church speaking with Father and after some discussion and a try in the computer lab, she decided the staff computer might be the best place to upload the files. Rather than uploading the files, it whipped both memory sticks completely of all the curriculum I’d spent over eight hours organizing. The gifts I’d brought elicited no thank you and were placed on a table in the computer lab. After a bit, the computer teacher arrived as the all school field day was having a recess and teachers and students returned to the school. He confirmed that the data was indeed gone and said, “Sorry about that. “ At that point, I did decide to leave after greeting some of the children and not so happily, headed for the dock. The Catholic school had state of the art computers, the best I’d seen anywhere in RMI and yet…let it go, Lise, you can always do the files over again and as Pete said, it should go quicker the second time around.

Pete had almost everything ready to sail and soon we were heading across the lagoon to Emidj Island roughly 7 miles away. It took us a couple of hours to get there as we had to keep a close eye out for sand bars and coral pinnacles which unlike Majuro were scattered across the lagoon here as well as dodging a pretty ominous looking storm. It was quite windy and often a bumpy ride as the waves often hit broadside, but still seemed nothing like the journey here, but I did end up sick again, starting first thing in the morning which wasn’t fun. Still not quite certain what it is, but Pete made sure to oxidize the drinking water bottles, though I have a feeling it might have been some fake crab we had and now it will be fish bait. The anchoring went smoothly and we decided to go for a snorkel and check out the sea plane ramp for working on the boat. It is a huge cement structure built by the Japanese in WWII, they took the islands from the Germans who’d been occupying since WWI. I decided to snorkel around the shore for a bit and found that much of the reef had been ruined by the westerlies that came through three years ago and had done a great deal of damage to the coral in Majuro as well, but it was still interesting to see all the fish and the sea cuccumbers which are much smaller and a charcoal color, much darker than those in Majuro.

A bit later, we decided to kayak to shore and go for a walk on the island. We saw some children playing volleyball outside the school and it has to be the saddest school I’ve ever seen. About in line with the old school in Roatan, but they had a new school recently built, which is the one I helped out at when I visited there on scuba vacations two years in a row. My thoughts turned to the Catholic school from this morning and how foolish I’d been to give them so many of our gifts figuring we could restock in Pohnpei. This small two room school barely had desks and chairs, let alone computers.

As we kept walking on after giving out a candy to each of the children, we came to a home that was an old war bunker. Outside there was an older gray-haired woman was crouched on the ground tending to two roasting breadfruit which was probably their meal for the evening, a few girls playing and an older man in a chair under a tree a ways behind the woman. She was a lovely lady with a bright open smile and when I offered her a candy, she readily accepted as did the older man. It’s unusual in Majuro to see the older women with white or gray hair as they all dye their hair from a pretty young age. Kids in high school already have white hairs among their lovely thick black hair. We left after asking to return to buy some breadfruit if they had any extra. I’d love to have gotten a picture of the scene and people as it just struck me as so unique and lovely.

As the path seemed to end this way, we turned around and walked past the dock on to the path that leads to the town. It was very beautiful and rustic with remnants of WWII among shacks among the lush tropical plants and trees. There was a sweet puppy and a larger dog who didn’t seem to happy the puppy was getting all the attention, but would not come over for a pet. We passed a church that was beginning to decay, but you could tell the time and effort once put into this building. We didn’t meet too many people on our walk, a few children running about here and there and a mother walking with her young son. No one said no to the offer of a sweet.

Both tired, we didn’t get too far before deciding to turn back to the kayaks and head for the boat.

It was an early dinner of BBQ chicken and rice with some cut up raw veggies and then shortly afterwards off to bed as I still wasn’t feeling too well and was tired to boot.