Partytime

Hi everyone!

It was a busy week, and a very successful week food-wise (oh no, here I go again...). On Wednesday night, we were just sitting down to our weekly bowl of fresh chili. Yes, Wednesday night is chili night, and if that ain't marital bliss, I don't know what is.

So anyway, so we were sitting down to hot chili, and a kid shows up with about a 10-pound loin of fresh, bleeding yellow fin tuna. This called for a rearrangement of dinner plans, to say the least. Fortuitously, we already had some hot sushi rice cooked, so we finished our chili and dug into sashimi with a will. Fresh tuna doesn't need a thing but a little rice, soy sauce and a touch of wasabi. We ate until we couldn't move, and then we ate a little more. About half of the loin still remains, so we're going to sear it up tonight, I think.

Continuing the food streak, the next day we received an invitation, along with all the teachers, to a party thrown by the newly elected Speaker of the Nitijela, the Marshallese governing body. They elect senators from each island or atoll, and then the senators elect a president and a speaker. At least that's my understanding. They recently had a vote of no-confidence for the former president and speaker and relieved them of their positions, so they just elected these new guys, and the new speaker is the senator from Jaluit. But, to get back to how this affected us and our taste buds, he had a Marshallese party on Thursday night. Since alcohol is illegal here, parties are mostly about eating a lot, some singing and some dancing.

We arrived about an hour and a half after the advised start time (6 pm), and ended up waiting another solid hour and a half until it was time to start. Marshallese time, everyone says. Well, it's hard to be philosophical about time when you've postponed your normal 6:30 pm dinner time to 9 pm. I observed to Pshell that eating is one of those few pleasurable things for which the anticipation of it is NOT as good as the actual event. But hey, volunteers can't be choosers.

When it finally got started, we were ravenous, and there was a pretty impressive spread, including 10-15 dishes involving breadfruit and coconut, a whole roast pig (a revelation of fatty goodness), some fish dishes, and fresh, glorious, tiny bananas. As guests of honor (read: white people), we were seated at the head table with the host, the other American teacher, the two Mormon missionaries, and the Catholic priest. Motley crew. The benefit of being a guest of honor is that you get to go through the line first, of which we took full advantage. But once we were through, a never-ending line formed, stretching off into the warm darkness. Saying that nearly everyone on the island (except for the high school students, so maybe 500-600 people) came through that line would not be a gross exaggeration.

Towards the end, they set up a keyboard and mic and showed off some of the Marshallese skill for music. I don't like their music very much, but I do admire how everyone seems to be very musical. One of the older women came to our table and was trying to get one of us to dance, and I didn't want her to go away disappointed so I danced with her for a minute or two. After that, things wrapped up, everyone lined up to say thank you and shake the hand of the host in the traditional way, and we left shortly after.

That's about the extent of happenings in the last couple weeks...our Field Director is coming for a visit in a week or two, which we look forward to as a change of pace. Also, we have a short week the week after next, and we're REALLY looking forward to that. Thanks for reading!