March 3, 2008

Shining Star
My star is shining brightly this week with the publication of the newspaper with my picture on the front page, highlighting my work with the kindergarten class that I’ve adopted. I’m also featured on page 8 making handicrafts with our Marshallese instructors. I feel like a celebrity, and was being noticed everywhere I went on Thursday (the day the paper came out).
I’m also very busy in my new role as Membership Director of the Yacht Club, and am meeting new people every day: I met the Chief Justice of the court to renew his membership. (It’s very easy to be a “big fish in a small pond” here.)
There is an article on page 15 of the paper about the Yacht Club and the mooring project. This was a project already underway when we arrived. The club received a grant to install some moorings in one of the popular get-away anchorages in the lagoon. We have been to Enemenet a few times and love to snorkel and swim there: the coral is beautiful. We want to maintain the area for everybody and the coral gets damaged with repeated anchoring. It is hard sometimes to anchor without getting tangled in the coral. So the yacht club is putting down moorings for the use of everybody. Not only do the yachts go out there, but plenty of Marshallese go out in their power boats for the weekends. So as well as putting down the moorings we are also trying to educate the locals about the benefits of the coral reef and the advantages to tourism. There will be a group of high school students there tomorrow and Ted will be one of the teachers to talk to them about the reef.
Today (Friday) is a holiday – Nuclear Survivors and Victims Day. This relates to the nuclear testing done by the US in the 1950’s on Bikini Atoll and other surrounding islands. We are now in the third generation of victims who are still suffering with cancer and birth defects from radiation poisoning. The Marshallese have gotten a very bad rap from our government for years in trying to get compensation and get their islands cleaned up. Bikini atoll is still unfit for habitation and the vegetation shows high levels of radiation. The Bikini islanders were transferred to another, much smaller island for the testing, believing they would be able to return home after the testing was done. There are now generations of Bikini Islanders who have never seen their home island and are living in unsuitable conditions, crowded on the small island of Kili, which has no central lagoon and no coral reef (important for fishing).
This morning we sailed up to Eneko (close to Enemenet), with 3 of our crew to deliver them to the island for a weekend get-away. There is a small house here which can be rented for the night. Our girls will be cooking us dinner tonight. (Next week we have another yacht race and will have 5 girls on the boat as crew.) Tomorrow we will sail the few miles to Enemenet to do our bit for the mooring project and Sunday will take part in the island clean-up, a yacht club sponsored project to clean up the ocean side of Enemenet. It is incredible how much trash gets washed up on the islands from the ocean.
This morning it was raining and looked as if it would be a crappy day, but now the sun is out and our girls are sunbathing on the nets. It is lovely to be out here; we are only 7 miles from town, but we are away from the hustle and bustle and are surrounded by clear water and a lovely palm tree covered island with a white, sandy beach. We need this break every once in a while. So life is good here. Karen