8/21/07 Part 1

So much has happened since my last blog entry. I am now in Gugeegue, but I am going to start back in Majuro.
They took us to an outer island within the Majuro Atoll to get some perspective on what life is like out there. Gugeegue is neither Majuro nor an outer island, but somewhere in between… but I’ll get to that. The name of the island was Jelter, and it was tiny, but amazing. We did cool stuff like husk coconuts and grate the meat, which we then sprinkled on balls of starch and enjoyed immensely. The snorkeling was awesome – Connor and I saw a black tip in about 20 feet of water. What’s interesting is that, even after that happened, I still signed up for the night spear fishing trip. I am absolutely terrified of swimming at night in the ocean – night scubadiving has ever fascinated me at all – but I decided to get over it. So, I got on a tiny little boat with 5 other volunteers and three Marshallese guys at about 9pm, and we went about 3 miles out into the lagoon, and then, armed with a flashlight while my buddy carried the spear (there wasn’t enough for everyone), we jumped overboard into the pitch black water. Honestly, I was terrified the entire time – you can only see what is in your flashlight beam, so I was constantly waving it around trying to see if I was being stalked by a tiger shark (reef sharks don’t even phase me anymore). The hardest part about fishing at night is spotting because the fish are all hiding but if you do find them they are very easy to catch because they are asleep. I was apparently a pretty good spotter though, or just lucky, because my buddy caught the biggest fish (about 10 inches) not caught by a Marshallese guy. I, coincidentally, speared my first fish ever today (it was only about 5 inches long, but that’s definitely worth catching by Marshallese standards), but I digress.
On Saturday, we all said our goodbyes at the orientation farewell dinner and then went to the outrigger hotel for some great karaoke. The outrigger is considered the nicest hotel in the islands, and it’s where all the Pacific Islander officials stay when they come in for conferences. A couple of weeks ago, when we were having dinner with our principals for the first time, we were introduced to the former president of the Marshall Islands, the current president was eating dinner under escort outside, and a few tables down was the former president of Senegal. It’s a high profile place. With that in mind, you can see why I was utterly shocked when, while sitting at the hotel’s bar waiting to sing Elton John’s Circle of Life, a cat-sized RAT climbed up my leg, onto my crotch (at which point I looked down at it’s fat furry face looking up at me), and proceeded to launch off of my chest in a flying leap over the bar as I threw my beer across the room. It was a strange experience, and I didn’t even get a free drink out of it.