Weather

You would think living on an isolated island would mean that the weather would be monotonous.  Maybe some rain, maybe sun, with a little wind here and there.  I guess that is how the weather is supposed to be here on Kwaj but with this being an El Niño year, the weather has been anything but monotonous. Take a look at our collection of weather photos since we arrived on island. 

When we first arrived, most of our day was filled by sunshine although it always rained at least once a day.  But the rain would come and go and you would be left with this beautiful view.

Sometimes when it rains it pours.  And I guess we have yet to see it really pour here as we haven't seen the roads flooded but by our to-date standards, there have been a couple of good down pours.

Lightning and thunder is very rare here on the island.  But we have read that if there is to be any lightning storms, September is the most likely month for this to happen.  Sure enough we had at least a half a dozen lightning storms during the month of September. 

Sometimes cloudiness produces the most brilliant sunsets! 

Sometimes after storms we get these beautiful full sky rainbows.

Since we arrived on island the winds have blown almost predominately west.  Everyone calls them the westerlies.  Apparently westerly winds are not normal here.  According to the meteorologist on island, the last time westerly winds dominated for such a long time was 1997.  Right now the winds are at the highest they have been since we arrived on Kwaj.  I have been amazed by how much palm trees can bend and how they don't snap off in half with such a heavy top.  So far I haven't seen any trees break but palm fronds and coconuts like to fall down so you have to be careful walking under trees in the high winds.  

We ventured over to the lagoon side of the island this evening to check out the waves battering the west side of the island.  The lagoon was very choppy with waves crashing over the side of the rock wall.  This wave came up and over the rocks drenching Oliver and I as I was snapping some pictures.

Quick Review

Yet again I am playing catch up! I am not sure how we have managed to get so busy but we are.  Carson is on swim team and doing cub scouts.  Oliver just started pre-school and is also playing basketball.  Seeing 3 and 4 year olds in basketball is the cutest thing I have ever seen! Aaron is doing ultimate frisbee 2 times a week and I am playing soccer 2 times a week.  And this doesn't count all the countless parties (birthday, pcs-ing (when people move on or off the island), just for fun, etc). Aaron and I also started our dive certification so we will be finishing that today with our last open water dives! I will have to make a post on that by itself soon.  For now, here are a few photos from the last few weeks: 

Oliver's 1st day of Pre-School

A great way to be welcomed to Oliver's new school! A sign just for Oliver!

Oliver was determined to walk to school but I was trying to get him to ride in the trailer so this is the photo I was granted as I was trying to negotiate with him.

We had the honor of being granted permission to tour USS John Paul Jones.  MIT's work here parallels this destroyers (yes some military ships also double as research vessels too!) so the officers were very excited to have people aboard that understood what all the different components were on the ship.  We were personally shown around by the Commander Officer which was a special treat! We loved hearing stories from someone so experienced in the military.  I later learned that this ship was also used in the recent Battleship movie.  For more information about this ship click here.

It was amazing to see the inner workings of the ship! Carson was so excited to sit in a seat of power! Carson has the ship's hat on, usually reserved for the crew (the Commanding Officer was very generous allowing us to purchase a hat for Carson and a belt buckle for Oliver).

After our tour, Carson and Oliver (and the rest of the MIT kids) were presented with the ship's coin by the Commanding Officer. 'In Harm's Way' was written everywhere on the ship.  Later I learned this is part of the ship's motto taken from John Paul Jones words, 

"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm's way."

Oliver turned 3 on Sept 21st! We had a fun little gathering of friends and Oliver received some gifts from family stateside which was a super special treat.

Carson not only started swim team but he had his first swim meet.  He was nervous but swam and had a lot of fun.  In the picture he is the one below the diving board.  He swam 50 yards each of freestyle, backstroke, and breast stroke (his favorite stroke).

Oliver at Basketball!

My Trip To Ebeye Island

This last week some friends and I ventured over to Ebeye (pronounced ee-bye), the nearest populated island to us.  According to Wikipedia, Ebeye is known as the ghetto of the Marshall Islands.  Although Ebeye is part of a 3rd world country, I didn't think it was as bad as I was thinking it would be but things are still pretty rough on the island.  A lot of houses have no running water or electricity and in the central district there is almost on average 20 people living in a house.  I have heard of numbers as high as 40 actually living in a tiny shack though.  I still can't quite figure out their government structure.  Although I do know they have a queen/princess that sets social standards.  So when us women go to visit, we have to make sure we wear dresses/skirts that cover our knees and shoulders so we do not offend the queen.  This applies to all women on Ebeye as well.  

Here are some pictures from my trip:

Here is a barge on the same pier as the ferry that goes over to Ebeye.  Our personal items that came from the states was packed into containers like the ones you see on this barge and sent over.  This barge makes the same circle of deliveries between the continental US, Hawaii, Guam, and Kwaj over and over again.

I sat on the top deck of the ferry so I could see around the lagoon (this is the part of water in the middle of the surrounding islands).  It is a 30 minute ferry ride between Kwaj and Ebeye.

The 1st thing we did on Ebeye was go shopping!  I am so glad I had a guide as most if not all Marshallese run their shops out of their homes.  You will walk down an alleyway and voila there is a shop.  Unless you know what you are looking for, finding the shops is almost impossible (that is unless you want to try doors of houses to see if there is a shop inside). People are very nice so maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing.  As a greeting you say Yokwe (pronounced Yuck Way, means hello, goodbye, and love). And Komol Tata (prounouced as it looks with 'o' saying their letter sound and 'a' sounding like ah) means Thank You Very Much.

Some things you find are normal household items.  For instance I found a rake for the leaves in my yard (yes we have leaves although they don't drop in season, they drop year round!).  Women also make these beautiful clothes by hand.  So I picked up some skirts like the following. 

Sometimes you find 'interesting' items too just like this. The ingredients didn't seem too strange but the name grabbed our attention as we walked by it in the store. 

With a population of over 15,000 people living on 80 acres of land I was surprised to see cemeteries scattered all over the island.  Land is already so scarce that I fully expected cremation to be common practice.  Over 50% of the population is under 18 so maybe that is why cemeteries can still exist on the island.  There may be problems in the future as their population continues its exponential growth!

Housing varies by a large degree on the island.  I am not sure how this house is even standing as it goes from smaller to larger as it goes up.  I am assuming that multi families or maybe just 1 really large family lives in this house.

Some houses are very sad looking such as this one made out of aluminum siding and plywood/cardboard.  It does look like this house might have some electricity however based on the wires running into the house on the right corner.

This house was probably the most beautiful on the island.  Although the materials weren't what we are used to in the states, the paint job makes it look very prestigious.  We talked to the owner and found out that her son painted the entire house.

If you have enough money, some people will buy or build their own containment system for rain.  I am not sure how or if they treat their water but this is a luxury to have 'running' water in the house.  Most containers were on the ground.  This was the only 'on house' system I saw during my visit.  

Schools are lacking on Ebeye.  There are not enough schools for the high number of kids.  Some of the schools looked to be little better than a shack where other private schools were like this one in the photo.  I am not sure what it takes to get your child into a private school but I am told schools like these are mainly staffed by American teachers.  The kids also wear uniforms.

Here are some school kids from the school picture above.  It seems like maybe they don't have a recess area so on breaks they just end up out on sidewalks and the road.  Some came into shops with change to buy a bag of chips and a soda.  You can see the school on the upper left past the truck.

Something that is quite amazing to me about Ebeye was the cars.  Some families have hardly anything, schools are lacking, there is no infrastructure at all yet there are taxis and personally owned cars all over the island.  Gas is very close to $7 per gallon yet people drive everywhere and the island is a 1/3 the size of Kwaj where there are no personally owned vehicles allowed. It seems like children are often left to entertain themselves but they don't seem to have any issues finding fun things to do like these boys here playing some basketball.

Okay the last of my photos.  After a couple hours of wandering we decided a taxi ride around the island would be great so we could all take in everything we were observing.  All Taxis are trucks with benches in the back.  So you just hop in (very interesting in a skirt!) and go.  It was 75 cents per person to ride around the island (again not sure how the taxis stay in business when gas prices are so high!).  

Aaron's Special Day at Work

So Aaron has one of the coolest jobs ever.  It brought us out to the South Pacific. But the other day was a super special day at Aaron's work.  He got to ride in a privately chartered helicopter (sponsored by his job) around the Kwajalein Atoll.  They landed on any island that had equipment that his work uses and got to see the Atoll from a view that only a few get to see.  The new work schedule out here has afforded us much more family time together.  Aaron leaves for work around 7:30 am then returns home for lunch between 11:30 am and 12:30 pm.  Goes back to work until 4:30 pm then comes home.  We all get to see Aaron much more than we did in the states (where sometimes he would work beyond the boys' bed times).  And we get to do things as a family after dinner, like cruise around on the island on our bikes, or go swimming at the beach, or even go on a nature hike (this is surprisingly Oliver's favorite thing to do after dinner).  

Here are some pics from Aaron's best day ever at work:

Beginning of 4th Grade

Yet again I am playing catch-up.  We have all survived the Kwaj Crud and are feeling back to our normal selves again.  Right as we were recovering from the Crud, Carson started 4th Grade (that happened on August 27th).  He was very nervous but had a great 1st day.  He made us ride to school with him and pick him up for lunch and after school for a few days but the next week he became more confident and rode to and from school alone.  One of the unique things about school here (and Aaron's work) is that they get to come home for lunch.  Carson goes to school from 830 am to 1130 am, has lunch break from 1130 am to 1230 pm, then school again from 1230 pm to 330 pm.  It has been a great experience to prepare proper lunches at home for all of us! Here are few pictures from Carson's 1st day of 4th Grade!

Carson loves biking to and from school! One of the norms on island is rain.  It rained as we were biking to school then started pouring right as we arrived at the school.

Oliver and I escorting Carson to school.  Aaron was taking the photo from the back.

Carson with his teacher Mrs. Primo 

(there is usually only 1 class per grade, K-12.  Carson's school building is comprised of K-6th grade)

 

Even in 4th grade, Carson still enjoys a hug from his momma

Oliver and I picked Carson up after school.  As you can see it is still raining!

Oliver in his rain gear.  Riding behind my bike can be a wet affair especially when it is raining and there are puddles.  So Oliver has a full body rain suit, boots, and an umbrella to keep him dry.

The Kwaj Crud

Less than a week on the island and we have all been hit with the Kwaj crud.  It sounds like everyone experiences different symptoms (probably depending on what is going around) but for us we are experiencing cold like symptoms.  While the cold symptoms aren't too terrible, we are all really tired and feeling under the weather.  I knew we would come down with something as we just traveled half way around the world.  People come from all over and bring their little germs with them and sometimes your body just doesn't have the right memory cells to fight an illness off quickly.  On the bright side, we are all adding memory cells to our defense system which will help us fight off similar germs in the future!

(Photo Credit: http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/immunity/immune-detail.html)

Catching Up

As many of you probably know by now, we made it to our new home and are mostly settled.  Because we have been so busy setting up our new home, the blog has had to wait (although there has been plenty of ideas in my head that I could go into great detail about!).  But to keep this blog to a readable size, I'll try to keep my thoughts brief.  

Initial thoughts on the island: it is absolutely beautiful here!  It is unlike anything I have ever experienced and every day I am thankful to have this opportunity to travel.  So I will never use this blog to complain although I can see things that might bring some people down.  I'll get to those in a moment.  Everyone here is so nice! From the Marshallese people who come here to work to the American's that live here.  You cannot go anywhere without people waving or stopping to talk to you (whether it is someone you know or someone who knows you are new to the island).  

Some things I could see people could complain about (but I won't!): Rain! It rains at least once a day it seems and we are currently in transition of seasons...meaning we are not even into the rainy season.  But the rain here isn't what one would expect. It is really warm along with the air temperature being warm so even though it will rain buckets, getting wet isn't really a hardship unless being wet drives you nuts.  Bugs: roaches, ants, and geckos have all been in our house since we arrived although I am told they really prefer to not be in your house.  Roaches are bigger than what we had in Georgia which was surprising to me.  From my experience with big bugs in Georgia however I will not hesitate to squish a roach.  So it seems that their numbers in my house have decreased dramatically since we arrived.  Even the ants seemed to have tapered off as we have set up our house.  The geckos are really small (mostly around an inch long) and are a good 'bug' to have in your house.  They are cute and they eat other bugs! 

Food and Mail: I have been pleasantly surprised by the food selection here.  There is a decent supply of organic products and produce but there is also a huge supply of processed foods.  That is the case in most US grocery stores though too.  Items come and go here, for example: right now there is no yogurt on island because the shipment that came was not at the right temperature; I am assuming it was trashed because of safety reasons.  Mail is also sporadic.  I have only ordered things through Amazon at this point so it seems some things have come pretty quickly (within 6 or 7 days) and some of my other things took about 6 weeks to be delivered.  I'm not sure where mail/packages go or if they sit somewhere for a long time but there is no such thing as instant gratification here (which isn't a bad thing!).  Patience is key with all things here.  Enjoy some photos now!

This was in the plane as we were getting close to Kwaj so I am assuming this is part of the Kwajalein Atoll (atoll just means a group of islands that form a chain)

Our items from the states was delivered on the 3rd day were were here on island: which is apparently unusually fast! Another thing to be thankful for!

When I saw this massive pile of boxes...I just thought why did we bring so much stuff?! We were fast though and had almost all of the boxes unpacked the same day that our boxes arrived! 

Now we are getting to the point where we can enjoy everything the island has to offer us.  One of those things is snorkeling! I have yet to go out but Aaron and Carson have already been out twice and are starting to grow fond of the fun activity.  

One of our goals here was to limit electronic time.  Since we just got our tv set up yesterday that hasn't been a hard thing to do but I don't think it will be a hard goal when this is your backyard.  Every night we go to the lagoon side of the island to swim and watch the sunset.  

This was the best sunset yet!