Day 18

Day 18:

 

            Today was an absolutely FANTASTIC day. I’ll start with the beginning because that only makes sense, but just trust me when I say that you will want to read on and find out what I did today.

            Eric had been in contact with a few people on the island that his grandfather’s friend knew. Turns out Eric’s grandfather is friends with the person that negotiated the contract of free association that the Marshall Islands has with the United States. When Eric’s grandfather caught wind of the fact that we were coming here, he contacted his friend who then contacted the person that he worked with on the free association, a Marshallese man named Tony DeBrum.  Well, Eric had been trying to get in touch with him since we landed and for one reason or another they couldn’t catch each other. Until about a week and half ago when Mr. DeBrum called him back during auditions actually, and invited him to come out with him on his boat to one of the outer islands and told him to bring his friends. Well, today was the day to go to that outer island. I was awakened by the piercing sunlight at 8:00 a.m. Almost everyone was already up by then. We were supposed to meet at the Tide Table around 10:00 following a call from Mr. DeBrum that we were expecting around 9:30. At about 8:50 a.m. Ben, Anna and Ally left the apartment walking to Tide Table. I stayed behind to finish eating my Jimmy Deans and microwavable waffles that I bought yesterday at Payless. I was working on a mashup of Outkast’s instrumental “So Fresh and So Clean” with the acapella of Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Boogie Wonderland” over top of it when, at 9:24 a.m. Eric got the call. We were mobilized and out of the apartment in about  seven minutes. Peter and Professor Garrod stayed behind because they had to meet with Horatio and the Hamlets respectively for the play.

            So Edie, Eric, Robyn and I caught taxis to Tide Table. We waited at Tide Table for a while, it was about 10:30 a.m. when the boat arrived and then we packed about 15 people on the boat and began our adventure. The boat took us northward into the lagoon. We had been here 17 days and had yet to get off the island of Majuro and see the outer islands. Not only that, most of the group hadn’t been in the water yet. We got a taste of the water, somewhat literally, when Ben, Eric and I jumped off the bridge earlier this week. We passed several small islands as Eric or Senator DeBrum explained to us who owned them or something interesting about it.

            When we finally pulled up to the island we’d be staying at we couldn’t believe it. It was much more green than Majuro, probably because Majuro is so industrial and, dare I say, commercialized – at least in comparison. It was low tide so we had to get out of the boat and walk a bit to get to the beach. We helped the DeBrums carry the various coolers and bags onto the island. One cooler was rather light; when asked what was in it, Senator DeBrum said that it was his catch from that morning. I snuck a peak inside and saw about six fish, each one about 12”-16” in length on ice. I knew it was going to be a great trip.

            As we walked up on the island we noticed lots of chickens running around, that wasn’t abnormal though. There are chickens running stray around Majuro all day long. There were just so many more trees. Banana trees. Coconut trees. Breadfruit trees. Hibiscus trees just so many gorgeous trees. Senator DeBrum gave us a quick tour of the island. He also informed us that there exists a bird on his island, that was believed to be extinct, but was found and preserved. It’s called the Micronesian Emperor Pigeon – Ratok species. We were lucky enough to get a glimpse of this bird atop a breadfruit tree. It wasn’t like the pigeons I had seen. It had similar posture but it had a vibrant purple breast that made it rather easy to spot.

            Next we walked to the other end of the island, it was only about 200 yards in length. Tops. And maybe 80 yards in width. A very small remote island. But it was gorgeous. Since it was low tide we could walk from the island along the ocean floor. The nearest island to the north was about 75 yards away and so we walked on the ocean floor between the two islands. Four of the DeBrum kids were out there playing and it turns out they were chasing eels. They found and killed two of them. Eric wanted to make sushi out of them. I passed on all that. We never walked to the other island but we could have. We then walked Eastward out towards the ocean. I didn’t go far enough to enjoy the wave of the ocean but Eric, Anna, Robyn and Derek did. Edie and I passed on that and went back to the island. On the island, Eric and Ally had been husking coconuts and learning how to eat them. Shortly thereafter we found the hammocks hanging between two palm trees. We were posted up there when the wave wanderers came back. Just then, Senator DeBrum met us at the hammocks with a plate in his hand. On this plate there was one of the fish that he had caught. Fully cooked. But it wasn’t cooked like we eat it back in the states, it wasn’t filleted, it wasn’t scaled it wasn’t anything but cooked. The whole fish was on the plate, in fact the whole fish didn’t fit on the plate. The head was still attached, the mouth was still open and the guts were still inside. Senator DeBrum then showed us how to eat the fish. He took a knife and very smoothly cut back the scales of the fish, and picked the meat of the fish right off the body. It was a very primitive way of eating but being that I was in a different world I felt compelled to take part. So I did and the fish was great. Then he took a mature coconut and cracked it open, cut out some pieces of the coconut and encouraged us to eat it with the fish. I passed on that but enjoyed several pieces of the fish. None of us could believe we were on such a beautiful island. Right about the time we finished eating one side of the fish, the Senator notified us that the food was ready. There were two ladies smoking food over a small pit on the ground. They had chicken, the groupers that Senator DeBrum had caught and hot dogs. They also had some fresh es cargo. I tried that too. When in Rome right? I had a beer with lunch, a XXXX and after that we decided to go out for a swim. Tide was still pretty low so we had to go pretty far out to get a good swim in. I hadn’t been in the water in forever, minus the jump from the bridge. It was nice to get out there and actually swim again. The last time I had swam was the summer before freshmen year when I did a small water workout as apart of my basketball training.

            We spent a good amount of time in the water before coming back to shore and drying off. The tide was getting hire but it was still pretty low. Once we got tired of sitting in the sun we got back in the water. That was the brunt of my day. I lounged around a remote island eating chicken and drinking beers in the ocean with one of the Ministers of the Marshall Islands. Eric said it best when he said, “Tony DeBrum is like the John McCain of the Marshall Islands”. He is. And that same guy is one of the CHILLEST dudes I’ve met. Today was one of the greatest demonstrations of generosity that I’ve ever seen. He invited 8 complete strangers out to his island and treated us like royalty. Maybe it’s because merely being at his island was crossing into another world for us, but the fact that he fed us all until we were full and supplied us with more beer than we could all drink definitely added to the enjoyment. The best way I can explain today is, think about your ideal vacation spot. Now take away all the tourist crap. Take away all the commercial stuff. Take away the McDonald’s and TVs. But keep the scenery and that’s where we kicked it today. The water was so blue that you could see the bottom at any point in the day. Derek let me borrow some of his goggles and we observed the coral reef and some of its inhabitants. It was just amazing. It’s the best day trip I’ve ever been on bar none. Apparently there’s a group of Marshallese in Cincinnati somewhere. He’s going to get me the information on them, I’d love to meet up with them sometime in the Queen City and speak some Marshallese. I’m sure they, as well as I, would appreciate that. I haven’t even begun to use the words that I would like to use to describe today other than utterly amazing. There will probably be a detailed short story written about this which I will post as well, but until then just believe me when I say that my day was awesome. I really don’t mean to boast about my day. I only wish to let my readers know that I was blessed with the opportunity to chill on one of the most beautiful of God’s creations today. I’ll try my best to get up pictures from today and if I don’t I’ll make sure to let you all know where you can see them if they happen to be on someone else’s Facebook page or something. If that doesn’t work, tons of pictures will go up when I get back to the states.

            After the trip, Senator DeBrum invited us back to his house anytime. Every night from 7 – 9 is apparently a party at his house, so I think I might stop back by there sometime. After that we came back to the apartment and Eric made omelets and home fries for Garrod and Peter since they weren’t all filled up like we were. After dinner we sat around, blogged about the day, graded papers, wrote out lesson plans etc. Teacher stuff. And now, it’s time for me to call it a night because I have to teach in the a.m. and hear my students complain about what I said about them during parent teacher conferences. Until next time, from Majuro, barloeok.