Walking the Reef and Culture Day

It's currently Manit or Culture Day in the Marshall Islands. The three day weekend is a huge blessing and I'm writing this post at 1:30 pm our time. There is a huge fair like event at the Alele Museum in Majuro and most of the schools show up and perform. Later in the day there are also competitions between students ranging from coconut husking, sack races, tug o' war and juggling. I might head back there to check out the competitions but I decided to check mail and post a blog entry first.

One or two nights before Charlie left for the US Annie, he and I decided that we were going to head across the reef one night to throw away our garbage. Earlier that afternoon Charlie had told a few of the kids that they could stop by our house at 8:30 to play the ukulele and we decided to ask them to come with us. At around 7 the power went out in Ejit and shortly after a torrential downpour began. We need electricity to power our water pump so Annie decided that she was going to take a shower outside. Charlie and I agreed so we went out and had a great time.

The rain stopped and at 8:00 the kids were already at our door waiting for 8:30 to roll around. We left early and asked them if they wanted to come with us, making sure that their parents were okay with it. There were about 8 of us and we had 2 flashlights to share between all of us and half way across it started to rain again. Hard. The kids were not prepared and they were freezing. Most of them had on t-shirts and a pair of shorts. One of them had a sweatshirt and Joki was shirtless. We finally make it across the reef and hide from the rain underneath one of the street stalls in Rita. When the rain lets up, we make the trek back singing random camp songs to keep the kids focused (Knick-nack paddy whack, the ants go marching...). Finally we make it home and drop of the kids one by one at their houses and apologize for getting the kids wet. As we drop of the last kid the power kicks back on and saves the day, perfectly encapsulating life in the Marshall Islands.