Third Email to the Fam

Email from Cari to her family:

yokwe mama and baba

just thought i'd shoot you guys a quick email...been in town for several hours doing some shopping and seeing off laura, the first volunteer to leave! she got on a boat with like 110 other people...she'll be on it for 4 days until it gets to her island. crazy! it's a "field trip ship", which goes around to lots of different islands and sells things to the islanders (cigarettes, food, other supplies). it was so sad saying goodbye at the dock..then i realized pretty soon we're all gonna be going! well i suppose that's pretty optimistic...they keep telling us to be prepared to wait around. you know how that goes...island time. i'm on the big plane though (the little plane has stopped working in the past few days) so i HOPE i hope all goes well. i can't wait to get out there. i bought a ukelele today...starting learning some chords last night and decided i should go ahead and get one to take out to namdrik. oh speaking of buying things i have now charged about $150 to my debit card--not because i don't have enough money, but because i didn't have enough cash with me when i was buying the ukelele and a bunch of outer island supplies (container, buckets, shampoo, peanut butter, etc etc). sorry bout that--i don't think that should overdraw me but maybe you should do a quick check. we've had a lot of sessions recently on logistics...how to use the radio for checkin (weekly), our majuro "buddies" (who will send us things if we need them from majuro or whatever), blabla. apparently there's a 30 pound limit for luggage on air marshall--HA! the rest of it will be send as cargo IF there's room...i hope to god there's room. one kid last year didn't get ANY of his stuff except for the 30 pounds until Christmas. we went to the government building the other day, got to see where parliament (nitijela) meets. they actually start a session in about two weeks. yesterday we had a talk by this guy Jack who is a ribelle but he's in charge of the Bikini trust fund. it was really fascinating to learn the details of the nuclear testing and what happened to the displaced Bikinians and everything that is still unsettled with compensation. I'll write a letter to explain more about that. This guy's been here for a long time (he did Peace Corps in like the 70's), has a Marshallese wife and lots of kids. really knowledgeable. i've made really good friends with those little girls i was telling you about, and all of the other neighborhood kids. every evening when i get off the bus at ajeltake, they're waiting for me and Annie, a returning volunteer who is fluent in Marshallese. the two of us hang out with them until dinner, playing games and i get to practice my Marshallese. yesterday we played baseball with the tennis ball that i brought and a stick. also played a game that's like duck duck goose on crack, called "pako pako...something" which means shark shark and then the third thing which i can't remember in marshallese means sea cucumber. yes, shark shark sea cucumber. and you have to run around the circle if you're the sea cucumber and try to catch the shark...but you have to keep running until the group counts to ten...juon, ruo, jilu, emen, lalem, jijino, jimjuon, ralitok, ratimjuon, jonoul! i am seriously sore from running around with these kids. i'll be sad to leave them but i know there will be a lot of children to hang out with on namdrik! oh also they've renamed me Lilo, which is the same name as this adorable little 2 year old that hangs out with us. in south africa i was buli, now i'm lilo. i like it.

thanks so much for all the packages. just for more ideas, you can always send:
more peel and stick envelopes
lots of packing tape
lined paper
dried fruit

love you guys, don't worry we'll talk again before i leave! <3 Cari

written by  CariLeighAnn on August 12, 2009 from Majuro, Marshall Islands
from the travel blog: WorldTeach Marshall Islands
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