Majur...WHAT!!!!!

Well I'm here and boy is it hot....not unbareable but very warm. I have so much to say. So I guess I better start at the begining. We landed at around 10am on thursday (thats wednesday for you all) and meet my fellow volunteers. There names are Chris and Diane. They were great. The weather was hot and sunny and the water was everywhere. We drove to our house minus our luggage. When we arrived at our house It was hard to believe that i would be living here for two years. The walls and floor are nothing but cement and the condition is in need of repare. The bathroom is also very interesting, but i did find the toilet facinating. It uses salt water from the ocean. (the question still remains....where does it go when I flush?...) After having a tour of our church and school aka "The Project", because it has been under construction and will remain underconsruction for an unlimited amount of time. We headed to Laura, The island of Majuro is a big U with the far end named Laura and the end near us named Rita. Anyway we dove to the end where we were able to watch our first sunset and drink from coconuts. It was way cool. And apparently a bit of a JV tradition. The next couple of days were a wirl wind of events, from meeting our principle, Fr. Rich our prist and the children who hang around. One kid in particular. his name is Kon and it suits him well aparently he opperates the kinder balack market...lol and smuggles snacks on to the school grounds and sells them from a higher price. He I can tell by his feet and the sores on his legs that he has had a hard live. The two of us played with the other kids as well and ended up using Jenga bloxs to consruct a tower. He also taught me his handshake and i taught him one to....Now everytime I see him he insists that we shake hands...not once but twice. Saturday was Diane's 23rd Birthday so we went out to dinner, I had a burger it was mmmmm good. On Sunday Chris and Diane had people from church over for brunch there was about 15 of us...seveal nuns and a couple people from the community. Emily Jacqueline and my self attended mass on both Saturday night and Sunday morning which is what the 5 of us will do every week, because the english mass is on Saturday, but were unable to all attend this week cause Chris had to cook brunch...Speaking of cooking...I need recipies...I am supposed to cook dinner on Friday, and am sure I will be able to come up with something for this week but would love to receive suggestions for the future cooking I will be doing weekly. Yesterday.....(Monday for me) We went to the US embassy and had a small social with the ambasador She attends our parish along with several of the Embassy staff. Many of the other voluneer programs were also there it was nice. Today Jacqueline and I had the fun task of clean our desks in the teachers office and boy was it fun...but at least now I have my own work area in an air conditioned office.


Ok So I kinda was getting side tracked. These are just a couple of things that I have observed since arriving in Majuro.
1) its hot
2)air conditioning is nice...i love going to the grocery store
3) all the children who hang out at our house and color are very friendly and their parents most likely have no idea where they are.
4) there are MANY other volunteers here...ie World Teach, Dartmouth Volunteers, Japanese Volunteers, peace core, and there have been many volunteers before me.
5) My community is great and we are geling nicely
6) rats are huge
7) I dont have an ear for Marshallese...and will require hours of practice
8) the reason why i am here is ever changing...and the question of weither i am as a volunteer doing more harm or good is going to be ever present.
9) Taxi rides to the store are only 50 cents and are a great way to enjoy AC
10) the house phone is out of order.
And finally....
No matter how much I write I can not capture everything I am experiencing in words.

Ok so here is some basic Logistical stuff for those of you who are interested.
I will be teaching 2 sections of both(drum roll please...) Sophmore biology and Junior English.
There are 7 periods in a school day and will always have 4th and 7th off.
Each one with in our community is required to cook dinner once a week and do dishes once a week. The high school students do not rotate for classes, instead the teachers do.

Most likely I will check back in a week love you all XOXO