Saturday

I have a cell phone! I will be sharing it with Sarah Mclaughlin and Erin Garnett. The number is 011.692.545.3228. I’d suggest getting an international calling card though, if you plan on calling. Texting also works.
We, the 9 Dartmouth Volunteers, are living together in a dormitory on Majuro for orientation and will head out to our respective teaching sites on August 17-18. I’m pretty excited to go out to Kili. I wasn’t at first, but I have found out a lot of great things about it. It has a sand place to swim and fish – apparently there are big pelagic fish available. Also, the education system is very well funded. This is because Kili is inhabited by descendants of those that were moved out of Bikini Island for the nuclear testing. Due to the hardship they experienced at that time, they get a lot of money from the US government as compensation – they are many of the more wealthy people in the Marshall Islands.
During these three weeks of orientation, we get Marshallese language lessons every morning, followed by lectures on pedagogy and other aspects of living and teaching in the Marshall Islands. My language instructor, a 12th grader and Marshall Islands High School, also taught me how to climb a coconut tree. Then Jakob Appelbaum, a Dartmouth Volunteer who knows more about hunting, fishing, and gathering than “Guns and Ammo” magazine, taught me how to use a machete husk and break open the coconuts we collected. He lived on Tokelau (near Samoa) for six months, so he is very familiar with Pacific Island life.
We played soccer last night with some Fijians and, before that, boot! I was proud to bring our own Ultimate Frisbee game all the way out here. During the soccer game, an American volunteer (World Teach) got hit in the nuts; we had to stop for a few minutes while everyone, American and Fijian, laughed at him. It’s nice to know that, despite differences in culture, there are some things we all share.