February 20, 2018 - Exploring Emidj

February 20, 2018

It was a slow start today and the morning whiled away reading a book and just relaxing a bit after a huge breakfast of potatoes, eggs and toast. I was supposed to be baking for the crossing and just wasn’t in the mood, so put it off in the hopes that the evening would bring more enthusiasm for baking. It didn’t and luckily, with some battery problems, we eventually decided to spend a couple more days here later that evening.

In the meantime, I did make more cookies for us to take to the school along with the printouts from Sunday, which wasn’t much, and I was sad not to have been better prepared with gifts for the school such as badly needed books for the children to read. We visited each classroom and talked with the Kinder teacher, giving her our printouts as she seemed to be the lead teacher at the school. I hope to write to Matt at PSS and see if he can do something to help out in sending some supplies. I gave him a wealth of information to help with teaching reading and it would be nice of copies could be made and sent here along with the teacher’s two requests, some manipulatives like blocks for the kids and a CD player so they can listen to music. The Taiwanese gifted solar panels to many of the islands including Emidj, so there is electricity for the CD player. There are no computers on island, but I mentioned Mr. Tom had lots of files should the school ever get a computer. Their copying machine stopped working quite some time ago.

We left the school and went back to the house with the older woman and man with a bag of cookies and hopes of buying some breadfruit, but only saw some younger men one sitting on a cement area left from the Japanese while another was repairing a canoe sail. Their house was an interesting old bunker that surprisingly wasn’t destroyed during the war. So, we handed off some cookies and turned back to visit Marie and Tutu.

Arriving at Marie’s house, we found her at her store which was a cement pad with a tin roof and netting surrounding an area with two lawn chairs and a small hut with bags of rice inside and a license from the government for her to run the store. All around there was laundry hanging and it seemed she was quite the entrepreneur or at very least an extremely hard-working woman. The puppy was coming over for attention and the bigger dog was barking at us as pigs and chickens roamed about. She smiled at us and beckoned us to come in and sit down which we did after taking off our sandals. Asking about her leg, she showed us and it was greatly improved and she in much lighter spirits than two days ago when we first met her. She brought us some bananas and rolls from inside the store, where there was a pot of rice cooking that we were offered as well. As we ate the bananas and rolls, she mentioned she’s be right back and after a while returned with some salted fish. Thankfully, I was able to follow Pete’s lead in how to pull it apart and eat it. Tutu soon showed up and we talked for a while. We asked if we could buy some coconuts, pandanus and breadfruit as we still planned on leaving the next day and she said the boys could bring them out later on the canoe. Asking permission to look at the ruins from the Japanese occupation and with a sincere thank you for the meal, we headed down the road.

We spent well over an hour exploring the island and looking at the ruins being mindful not to walk through people’s yards or too close to their homes, but most smiled and nodded their heads in welcome. At the end of the island as a woman walked to her house while breastfeeding a baby, a naked little boy and girl with a short dress were playing barefoot on the coral. The boy ran behind a rock wall and kept peeking out at us while the girl stood in place, wide-eyed watching our every move and I wondered if they’d ever seen ‘ribelli’ or strangers before as even waves of greeting and smiles elicited no response, so we proceeded on our way.

We returned to the kayaks and at the school stopped to take pictures of some of the kids who were eager to pose for the camera. They were also quite interested in the kayaks and we paddled off for the boat and as it was too early yet to start dinner, we put on masks and snorkels. While Pete was checking the paint job insuring it was holding well, I snorkeled to shore on the other side of the seaplane ramp to explore. There was the vehicle graveyard. Huge remnants of rusted chassis were dumped buy who knows into the lagoon after the war and it was quite interesting to see one after another being taken over by sea life with fish swimming around the coral growing on the remains of a sad time of occupation for the people of these islands.

Time to make dinner which tonight was “Beef Not!”, dried vegetarian chunks which I cooked in beef broth, so much for the vegetarian, and added to fixed up canned tomato sauce for a spaghetti dinner. I had planned to make a salad with the few remaining fresh lettuce, but decided that could wait until tomorrow. The boys did show up with a huge pandanus, a bag of coconuts and two breadfruit, so we gave them some cookies and ten dollars and were left wondering if it was enough, even though the boys seemed quite thrilled and surprised.

An early sleep for Pete and my hopes of a shower long forgotten as I fell asleep reading a book in the salon.

A boy from the school posing for a photo

An old WWII bunker that was home to the older woman cooking the breadfruit

Children playing volleyball with their teachers at recess

The bright colors of the church entryway

WWII remnants near a cemetery

A bunker at the end of the island

Another bunker in the middle of the jungle

Old meets new with WWII ruins becoming a foundation for a newer home

WWII remnants by the church

Bottles with fermenting liquid as a boy relaxes in the hammock

Japanese artillery guns on the ocean side

The JetBlue Frisbee from my cousins Tim and Rich has found a new home at Emidj School to the delight of the children