Last Tuesday night we had our second Kammem in three weeks. This one was huge and Annie and I were really excited about it because a large number of our kids were going to perform traditional dances. They had been practicing for weeks and we kept hearing how tired they were. We had school the next day and Annie and I were ready for a shit show the next morning but prepared.
The preparations were crazy and one of the major attractions was the pig. In the Philippines the full pig is roasted on a spit (I forgot the name. Sorry mom). In Hawaii and other places it is cooked in an underground oven. Here the pig is slaughtered and then boiled in a huge pot. On our walk to school each day we pass by a pig pen and every day we see or hear the pigs there. The biggest one was on the Kammem menu and Annie was sad. She’ll post more about him later.
Kammem’s usually start at 8 o’clock but at 7:30 it started to rain. Hard. We waited for the rain to subside but then the power died. Annie and I made our way over to the basketball court where the Kammem always is and were told that the party would start when the power came back on. At 8 PM we heard that power would be back at 9 PM. After 9:15 rolled around we heard that power would be on at 10. By 9:45 there were around 10 to fifteen kids lying on a mat (and each other) on the floor taking a nap and finally at 10:30 power came back on. This time around we were ushered to the head table immediately because I accidentally made eye contact with one of the community leaders. At the table there were huge plastic containers full of food and when we sat down we were served an enormous platter of meat. There was a full lobster-sized crawfish on each platter, the best cuts of turtle (I enjoyed it more this time), chicken, and of course our friend piggy. I wasn’t that hungry and I was extremely careful this time. I didn’t touch the shell fish and stayed far far away from the potato salad and sashimi. We ended up going to sleep at 2 in the morning.
School on Wednesday was hard but we were able to drag ourselves out of bed on time. Then right before school starts at 8:30 we lost power again. Unfortunately for us, the Marshall Islands Energy Company (MEC) lost generators during an accident and cannot meet the 12 megawatt energy needs of Majuro during peak times. In order to prevent the other engines from overheating they need to shut off power to the outermost lines. This means that Laura and Ejit have been losing power during the day for the past week. The part for them to fix it is apparently expensive and only made in Germany. They’ve ordered it and we’ll see if we get power soon. I have my own suspicions but I won’t post them here. Send me an e-mail if you want to hear about it.
That’s all for now. This Friday was the Marshallese President’s Day so it’s a 3 day weekend. I’ve got relaxing and work to do.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Good for people to know.
Post a Comment