Yachties and Girls' Club

One of my students on Monday after class

 This weekend was amazing. Friday night, there was a meeting at Marshall Islands Resort for the yachties, who are these old people who sail around the world and race their sailboats around the lagoon on Sundays. Vee, Becky, Jayne, and I met, Jacob, a 28 year old from Lake Tahoe, CA who sailed his boat with two friends, Reese and Collin, from CA to the Marshall Islands. They're planning to sail around the whole world. Jacob cashed in his retirement (yes, at 28) and bought a 38 foot sailboat. Reese bartended at Tide Table, another restaurant, and he's helping Professor Garrod build the sets for the play, so these three are actually friends of Professor Garrod's. We got to talking Friday, and Jacob invited us on his boat for the weekend to sail to Eneco Saturday morning, spend the night on the boat, and do the yacht race on Sunday. We also met three helicopter pilots from New Zealand who are stationed on a tuna fishing boat and use their helicopters to spot tuna. They're at port for 3 weeks before taking off on the boats again. One of the New Zealanders, Yannis, and I made plans to go running together Saturday morning before Eneco, and we actually followed through on the plans, which was a blast! On our run, we stopped at his friend Jacob's (another Jacob) house who was a Dartmouth '07 and is working at the Environmental Protection Agency in Majuro and sat in his living room and drank water together. It was really random.

Jacob sailing "Genesis Earthling"

We boarded the boat at 10 on Saturday to go to Eneco. Jessica, a 30 year old who works at a non profit here, Youth to Youth, was on board too for the weekend. She's hosting Reese at her house through couchsurfing.com, a website that gives you free houses to stay at anywhere in the world. Jessica is really interesting- she got her masters at St. Andrew's in international security, was in the Peace Corps for 2 years in Ethiopia, and also lived in Isreal. Jacob's boat is called "Genesis Earthling," and it's totally hippie and he's an intense Buddhist. He has all these quotes and surfboards hanging everywhere, all this incense in his boat, and all this organic health food everywhere. He hasn't cut his hair in 2 1/2 years because he says that he read a story about how in some war the Navajos who were drafted into the army had to cut their hair against their will and religion, so now he doesn't cut his hair. So we sailed to Eneco, and then the New Zealanders (we were calling them the Kiwis), Yannis (my running buddy), Dan, and Nick were already on Eneco and they swam out to the boat to meet us.

Inside of "Genesis Earthling"

Sailing the boat

Jayne and the Kiwis + Jacob

We spent the whole day hanging out on the boat, and I jumped off the 20 foot mast into the water! It was terrifying...Jacob had to climb up to the top with me and coach me through it. I was literally up there for 10 minutes freaking out about jumping in. The water was about 60 feet deep though so it was totally fine, but SO scary. And then Vee jumped off and did a belly flop! That was actually hilarious. Nick the Kiwi got it on video- watch out youtube. Jacob did a backflip off the top of the mast! Then, Reese took me spearfishing, which is when you use a slingshot spear and go free diving and catch fish. I hit one fish, but it didn't spear all the way through so I didn't kill it. But he got a couple, and then Collin also got a bunch, so at night we had a giant bonfire on the beach and cooked the speared fish! Around the bonfire, we all played family band. Reese played his ukulele and Jacob played his trumpet (so badly it was too funny). The boys camped under a tarp on the beach (and it poured over night so that was a little rough) and us girls got the boat for the night.

Jumping off the mast

Bonfire

Becky, Vee, and I hanging out

Reese and his speared fish

In the morning on Sunday, Collin and I spent 30 minutes swimming the kayak we sunk back to shore. I used some water polo treading skills (now I'll be slightly in shape for training trip). For breakfast, I climbed a palm tree and picked some coconuts. I felt like such a jungle woman. Then, Reese and I swam to this other catamaran that arrived that morning and was moored next to us. It was owned by this 65 year old French dude with his hot young Brazilian mistress and they invited us on board to check it out! It was such a nice boat, and they sailed it from the Ivory Coast! They barely spoke English but we talked to them for a little and then they gave us a huge fish to take back to Jacob's boat. We sailed back to MIR for the yacht race after that. It was pretty funny, we showed up right as the race was starting and literally got creamed. We came in about an hour after everyone else but had the best time. We just spent the whole day dancing on the deck listening to oldies and singing so loudly.

Jacob and the coconut

The yacht race

When we got off the boat, there was a yachtie award ceremony at MIR. There was a raffle for the crews, and Jayne and Vee randomly won both bottles of rum! Vee and I bought the boys a bag of rice for their boat for provisions as a thank you, although nothing can be a big enough thank you for this weekend.

Jacob, Reese, and Collin at MIR

Monday morning, I started another week of school at Majuro Middle School. I taught my two morning classes. I gave them a warm up question, we did a review of last week's material, which was yes/ no questions and wh-word (what, why, where, when) questions, and then I gave them a 10 minute quiz. I also had them free write for 10 minutes in their journals using a prompt about their family. After class, I got to respond to some emails, and then I spent some time lesson planning for tomorrow and grading the quizzes and warm ups. Tomorrow's lesson will cover proper and common nouns and possessive nouns. Last period, I had my second girls' club meeting. We went over nutrition, and played a lot of games in the classroom. They move through activities so quickly! I end up having to come up with so many games on the spot. In a 40 minute period, we talked about the food groups, had a vegetable off, did a human knot, played freeze tag, I did a little freestyle rapping, and we played duck duck goose. This club seriously makes me stay on my toes. After the club, I hung out with four of my students and we took selfies. They asked to friend me on Facebook, which I'm not sure how I feel about, but the pictures she took are hilarious. One of them has an app on her tablet that puts your face into a frame with the band One Direction, so she and I are in this photoshopped picture with One Direction. I really want to get a copy of that.

Hanging out with students after the girls' club

"One Direction" Photo

Working at girls' club

More student- they love to make hand signs in pictures!

On Tuesday, I taught my two classes in the morning, then covered last period for Zin, my mentor teacher, who had to go to a workshop. Every Tuesday from now on I'll have to cover that class because he always has a workshop then. It makes me wonder what would happen to the class if I was not there. After school, I got my first ukulele lesson from one of my students, Christina! That was a blast, and can't wait to keep learning!