Day 42: Friday, 7/1

Well, hello July. Didn't imagine seeing you here... or more precisely, seeing you while I was here. Nevertheless, here we both are. Happy Fisherman's Day everyone! A Marshallese holiday that's sort of like fishing home opener back home but everyone hops on someone's boat and head out to try their hand. Of course, their hand is much more skilled than ours and the kind of fish they get, well, it would put even the best northern to shame :)

We opened the day by, you're never going to guess, checking email! HA – I bet you thought I'd say “having breakfast”... well, that comes second or third these days. Getting ready, getting Grace ready, checking email... ah, there's breakfast – a fast dropping 4^th on the list.

We'd sent an email yesterday to Senator Klobuchar's MN office and heard back from them this morning. They'll try to help us but first need us to sign and send back an information disclosure document so they can gather information on our behalf. We had to write a description of the situation and what we'd like them to assist with. My overall feeling is that the help will arrive after the visa, however, we will carry it forward (with our agency in the lead) to see if her office can help us/them improve the process for those in the future. The U.S. Embassy here is trying to get the authority to process the paperwork on island (they had it once but it was taken away) and maybe these types of instances will help. I may be mistaken but another LSS family who was here over two major holidays (Christmas and New Years) and had their stuff delayed because of it, still went home earlier than we will. (I hope she'll post a comment if I have my information wrong)

Regardless, we did venture out to the Tide Table for breakfast as we'd spotted a small internet station there that advertised the ability to print and fax as well. It was about $3 to print the 13 pages of material we needed to fax and then $3 per page to fax! ARGH! Oh well... it was sent and now we wait. We're getting good at it... correct that. Jeff has always been a pro at it, I'm getting better.

We ran into Melody who was just finishing up her breakfast. Give the Tide Table's tuna omelet a try if you go there... don't salt it first though, they season the tuna before putting it into the omelet. It's rather tasty! John was already off getting Andrew ready a they were heading out to another island for a day trip. They start the big weigh-in later today at 4 or 5 so we plan to go back and meet up with them again.

The afternoon went by pretty fast. Before we knew it, it was 4:30 so we gathered a sleeping Grace (big surprise, right?) and headed over to have some dinner. We arrived and as I was trying to text Melody, she called and said she saw us arrive and to come up to the Tide Table. John recommended the Korean short ribs which I'd considered trying on earlier visits – they were very tasty! Andrew, being a typical 3 year old, was full of energy and didn't want to sit still. He kept crawling under the table from mom's side to dad's side... making mom a little unhappy. The floor is not so clean pretty much anywhere here and she also saw a small cockroach under the table. I've long since stopped looking for bugs because you will find them. If they stay hidden, then I pretend they aren't there.

After dinner we walked down the road a ways to where we could walk into the dock area. I don't know the name of the place and can't really tell you how to get there but it's where a lot of fisherman from the outer islands bring their catch in to sell. At the end of Fisherman's Day, the boats were bringing in their catches to weigh for the big contest. There are two days of fishing but on this day, the largest fish caught was a 600+ pound marlin... HUGE! We took a photo of Jeff and Grace standing next to it. I'll upload it to the photo page but in that picture it has already been partially cleaned/butchered? Not sure what the right term for a fish that big would be. They'd weighed it earlier whole, took it away to clean it, then hung it up again after all the others were done.

We ran into Larry at the weigh-in. He's the one who runs the Do It Best hardware store. I'm not sure I've met a nicer, more genuine guy. He said there was a big party on Enemanot this Sunday and we should come back out. We introduced him to the John, Melody and Andrew and he invited them as well so now we have for sure plans to head out there on Sunday. Andrew was pretty cute – he's been picking up more Marshallese words and gave Larry an unsolicited “yokwe” that was returned in kind... then wanted Larry to hold him. Which, he did and seemed not at all bothered to do so. Very cute.

We tried to make it back to the RRE before the rain came but had to take shelter in an overhang for a while just like the locals. Grace was getting kinda fussy so we said goodnight and headed back to the MIR with a couple not-so-quick stops to pick up some beer and rum for our Sunday jaunt to Enemanot. Finally back at the room and SO looking forward to a hot shower after giving Grace a bath... and there was no hot water. I could do without but poor Grace was none too happy with the tepid bath water. She's a trooper though and doesn't cry (yes, it's happened more than once) – she just shivers and shakes her fists at me with this “mom, what are you doing to me” look. We get her in and out quickly and then take her outside to warm up. Yes, odd. Outside with wet hair to warm up. I hear the weather in MN is about the same as it is here today. The temp is around 86-90 every day and the humidity, while a lower 60% today, is normally around 75%. That extra 15% makes a big difference.

We're out of internet cards once again so I'll post this later today (Saturday) after we can go get more. It's only about 5:00 am right now – I'm up from a 4:00 feeding and then I couldn't get back to sleep. I'm hoping I get home before I've fully adjusted to the time zone here so I don't have as much jet lag... my internal clock has been holding out for officially 6 weeks today. Yay, me.