Weeks 21 AND 22 in Tarawa

This rainbow welcomed the students back to school this week (yes, it rained the 1st day of school).  School was supposed to start a week earlier, but on January 28th the principal announced that school would start a week late!  We were shocked.  Such a thing would never happen in Utah.  We started teaching a class on assessment (testing) on Feb.10th, and we've been very busy also preparing for school wide literacy testing, coaching new mentor teachers, and preparing to teach a student teaching class.  We also serve as part time Sunday School teachers and YM/YW advisors.  That's why we missed last week's blog. Sorry about that.

We continue to eat well as attested by our lack of weight loss.  Sister Sumner threw together a wonderful Nacho Grande for lunch last week when we didn't have a lot of time to cook.  I can't believe we ate the whole plate.  We've been able to figure out how to make some of our favorite dishes such as pizza, spaghetti, cinnamon twists, cookies, and even fruit salad despite having to substitute for many ingredients that are not available here.  I'm getting spoiled by Janet's homemade bread.

On January 12th a volunteer group of dentists and dental hygienists from the Deseret International Foundation arrived.  They not only cleaned our teeth but even cut our hair.  They have been doing this at their own expense for a dozen years.  We often took them thank you treats for family nights.  What a great group.

John Millar and Ameet Kumar arrived here on Thursday, February 5th.  John has served as the TVET area director for several years but is now retiring.  Ameet is his replacement.  The dinner and cultural presentation was to honor John and the dental group.

The traditional Stick Dance is always fun to watch. I would attach some video but our internet is impossibly slow.  These dances are usually performed by members of the Service Center and school faculty and their wives and children.  We can tell by their facial expressions that they truly enjoy doing this despite the many rehearsals in the heat and humidity.

Of course the ladies put on fascinating dances that usually involve a lot of hip shaking.  If you look behind the dancers, you can see a large wooden box laying on the floor.  The men beat on this box amazingly hard with their bare, flat palms.  It has got to hurt, and the sound can be heard all over the campus.

We had to change our 45th Wedding Anniversary plans to Saturday, February 7th because of the celebration for John Millar and the dental group.  We went to the Hotel George restaurant in Betio.  The atmosphere and music were lovely, but next time we'll eat at the Golden Restaurant.  We were less than impressed with the food here.

On sun shiny days the glare from the roof of the adjacent building is blinding, so I put up some curtains in our office which can be closed to take the edge off the glare.  Sister Sumner reluctantly made them with a lot of pressure from me since she didn't think we needed them.  Our office, however, was the only office without curtains.    I had to improvise a way to hang the curtains, but so far they are hanging just fine.  We've had some nice compliments on them already.  We couldn't help but notice last Sunday that many of the girls' white Sunday dresses were made out of the same material.

When we go walking early in the morning, the students are busily engaged in cleaning the campus grounds.  We had to smile at this group of girls all dressed in their shiny new school uniforms carrying new pink brooms to sweep around the dorms.

The Young Men/Young Women's opening social was a bust and a blast at the same time.  It was a bust because just before the start of the meeting, Microsoft decided to start downloading updates to my Windows 7.  By the time I borrowed another computer to show the new YM/YW Theme Song video "Embark" the meeting was nearly over.  After the meeting, they played "guess the name on my back" game.  Sister Sumner baked over 12 dozen cookies and Sister Alldredge, the mission nurse cooked another 5 dozen for the refreshments. Needless to say, there were no cookies left over.

The young ladies you see in these two pictures are NOT the MiaMaid or Laurel Presidencies. They are, in fact, the Young Women's Presidency.  The Young Men's Presidency is also composed of 17 and 18 year old students.  We are just their advisors. It is neat to see them start to learn about leadership.  We try hard not to take over from them so that they can grow in their callings.  The Kiribati culture makes them painfully shy around us.

This picture was taken in the front of the school office.  There have been lines of new and hopeful students filling out lots of paperwork.  There are many more applicants for Moroni High School than there is room for.  The kids know this and it helps them to realize how blessed they are to be here.  We feel the same way.  It's hard to believe we have been here 5 months already.  What a joy it is to teach with the Spirit helping us understand each other.  It's a good thing, too, because sometimes we have a hard time understanding their English.  We hope we can help them learn to speak more clearly.

Week 20 in Tarawa

Our first faculty meeting of a new school year.  Lita, our principal is welcoming everyone.  The TVET couple, Elder and Sister Bogh and we are always asked to sit in the front and allowed to take care of our business first.  We'd just as soon sit with the rest of the teachers. The faculty meetings lasted half a day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  On Tuesday we did a presentation on comprehensible input in the SIOP model of teaching.

The men always sit on one side and the women on the other.  Bare feet are common.

 

 

 

This was picked from plants on the campus just that morning.  Often the female teachers stop and pick a flower to put in their hair first thing in the morning.

Lunch was provided all three days of the faculty meetings.  It was ordered from a local Chinese restaurant (of course, all restaurants here are Chinese) and was very good. 

We are spending more time in the office these days.  I have to share my desk with Elder Sumner if we want to work together on the same project.  We have found that we work best if we each do a part separately then edit them together.  Otherwise we drive each other crazy.

We reorganized the books so that they are in the same order as the book list compiled by the Rasmussen's. 

On Thursday we met in the Service Center Conference room for a WebEx online seminar with Bruce Yerman, Elder and Sister Aland, and the area ITEP couples.  They introduced the new Mentoring program.  This is under the direction of the principal, but basically run by the ITEP couples.  Our job is to train the mentors and follow up with their mentoring work. We have two new teachers, and two student teachers, one from BYUH and one from USP.

On Saturday (Friday, Utah time) we took our picture to support the #discoverthebook Facebook event.  We joined thousands of people all over the world in testifying of the Book of Mormon. Reading it together everyday has been one of the spiritual highlights of our mission.  We recommend it to everyone who wants to obtain the blessings promised by our prophet.

Week 19 in Tarawa

This past week is the first week we picked up, husked, cracked open, and scraped our own coconuts.  We found three newly fallen ripe coconuts as we walked behind the Maneaba on campus.  We went online to see how to husk them, but decided not to use the teeth or the butter knife methods. We decided to use the machete the Rasmussen's left in our apartment.  No senior missionaries were harmed in the husking of these coconuts!

I opened the coconuts the way I had seen my dad do it.  I used an electric drill to drill two holes in the "monkey face", poured out the liquid, and then tapped them around the middle with a hammer to crack them open.

I used our "katuai" to hand scrape and shred the coconut meat.  It's hard to see in the picture, so I will describe it: a katuai is a sharpened, fluted blade mounted on the end of a saddle that you sit on.  There a many forms on the internet, but ours is made of welded rebar.  I cut a piece of wood to put on top of the rebar so it would be more comfortable to sit on.  I had seen a local use one, so I imitated her technique of rolling the coconut while scraping the meat inside the coconut shell.  I was more wasteful than the local, however, because I stopped scraping before I got all the way to the shell.  Our shredded coconut meat had very little brown pieces of shell in it. Sister Sumner wrapped the shreddings in a towel and twisted the towel to squeeze out the coconut milk.  We haven't yet decided what to make with our coconut, but macaroons sound awfully good to me. I mixed the juice with my orange juice to give it a nice coconutty flavor.

On Monday, the 19th of January, Dr. Wayne Chisholm, Dr. Ian Shields, and their team arrived in Tarawa.  Dr. Chisholm has been coming twice a year to Tarawa (as well as several other south Pacific islands) at his own expense for the past 12 years.  He does dentistry for the senior and young missionaries, the young prospective missionaries, and as many of the Moroni students as he can fit in during their 3 week stay.  They cleaned our teeth and did a fine job using tools and techniques very much like those used by our dentist and hygienist in Utah.

One of the chairs had a broken support, so Dr. Chisholm asked me to make a brace to hold the chair back at the right level.  I was able to find some wood and make the chair support shown in the picture. I was wishing I had the tools in my own shop, but it came out alright anyway.

Saturday evening, January 24th, we witnessed three baptisms performed in the ocean right behind our apartment.  Something wasn't working right in the on campus baptismal font, so they came walking behind our place when we noticed them.  The surf was heavy at nearly high tide close to a new moon, so they had a hard time getting out to where the water was deep enough.

This wide angle view shows the beautiful sky that served as a magnificent backdrop for the baptisms.  You can also see the heavy surf coming in.

The 9 year old girl was carried out by one of the missionaries to a small pool right next to the sea wall where the surf was less rough.

The sister missionaries on the left and right are the ones we had over for Sunday dinner two weeks ago.  Seeing this baptism helped us remember the true purpose of our service here as ITEP missionaries: bringing souls unto Christ.  Preparing education lessons, we sometimes forget that we are here for more than just teaching education classes.  While our immediate focus is on building the capabilities of our teachers and helping them receive their Teaching Certificates, ultimately we are here to build God's kingdom.


We listened to talks from our Bishopric and their wives in church today.  We will be getting a new Bishop soon since Bishop Banemone was just called last Sunday as a counselor in the new stake presidency.  One of them referred to the General Conference talk by Larry S. Kacher entitled "Trifle Not with Sacred Things".  You may remember how he spoke of nearly getting swept out to sea along with his wife.  The couselor had had a similar experience, and talked about the importance of not being swept away by the currents of the world.  He had grown up on an outer island and thought he knew the ocean well.  He would have been lost had he not been rescued.  Stay away from worldly currents, he warned us.  Having just seen the baptisms the evening before, his talk really struck home with us.

Week 18 on Tarawa

Our week 18 started with a group family home evening.  President Weir let us preview his missionary copy of "Meet the Mormons".  We had popcorn and water and watched on a wide screen projector.  It was just like home.  Tuesday, the 13th, was someone's birthday celebration.  But since we had a senior dinner Sunday evening, we had already blown out the matches and had cake and ice cream.  It was just like home.

On Thursday, Elders Nielson and Johansson of the 70 arrived to reorganize the Tarawa East Stake.  As usual, there was a wonderful cultural evening with dancing and food.  The program really was well done.  They practiced for a week before the performance.

This is one of the young men's dances.

On Friday the senior couples hosted Elders Nielson and Johansson for a delicious lasagna dinner. Elder Nielson shared some inspirational stories about President Monson and Lavelle Edwards.

After the dinner Friday evening, Taraia, our school's head secretary, invited us to a celebration of her daughter Mary's 21st birthday.  It was quite an event all by itself with much pomp, dancing, and food. 




You can see the elaborate cakes in the picture below.

Sunday was our stake conference, and unlike any meeting we attended in the past 4-1/2 months, people had filled up the building half an hour before the meeting started. We were lucky to find two seats together indoors.  Chairs were set up in the surrounding halls and rooms and a PA system let them hear the meeting.  We had FM headsets so we could hear the English translation.

The Saturday leadership and adult sessions were only 1 hour apart, so we invited the senior couple who lives off campus and the mission nurse to have pizza at our place.  We actually had real cheese, real ham, black olives, mushrooms, and green peppers.  It wasn't quite as good as Papa Murphy's, but it was really very tasty.

This is a picture of a wonderful meatloaf that we made together on Sunday.  We thought we'd let you know that we are actually eating quite well.  We have much more than fish and rice as our bathroom scale can attest. So far neither of us has lost any weight.  Boo hoo.




The final picture below shows us back to teaching.  It has been a long break and it actually felt good to be working again.  This technology class is the first class we have taught in the computer lab.

Week 17 in Tarawa

This has been a slow week for us as far as adventures go.  We've been focusing on getting ready to teach our classes which start next week.

We drove to Betio on Saturday to do some shopping, and Sister Sumner brought her cell phone camera for a change.  Here are some of the sights during our trip:

The roads had really gotten bad during the last three weeks of nearly non-stop rain.  We were happy to encounter road work right in front of Moroni High School.

This grader was not just filling pot holes, it was actually tearing up the asphalt.  It even removed the speed bump which had been right in front of the MHS entrance.  The cars and especially the buses really zoom by, now that the roads are somewhat smooth.

We call this Gilligan's Island.  At least that's what the other senior couples told us they call it.  At low tide, you can walk right out to it on the sand.  We hope to do that one day in the near future.

We stopped for gas in Betio (pronounced Bay-so) and Janet noticed this strange stairway to nowhere right across the street.  Maybe it's somebody's Stairmaster exercise program?

On the way home, before we got to where the grader had smoothed the road, we encountered some really rough road right in front of the legislative buildings.  You can see the Kiribati flag on the entrance.  Notice the cars weaving all over the road.

Here are some more cars weaving right in front of us.  Just behind and over the top of the black car you can see an open bed truck full of people.  Many travel this way here, but it would never be allowed in the U.S.

While shopping at Moel's in Betio we found something we had never seen before: a real bone in ham!  We decided to go for it even though it cost $160 AUS for 22 pounds.  We let it thaw a bit and then proceeded to cut it apart with knives and a hack saw.  We needed to freeze pieces that were small enough to feed the two us.  We did save one large piece to use as an Easter ham when we celebrate Easter with the other senior missionaries.

We also found this really neat set of storage bowls.  We needed some small and large ones, but what really sold Sister Sumner was how neatly the bowls and lids stack.  It's a real pain trying to match bowls with lids when they are stored separately.

This is a picture of Sister Sumner's favorite table cloth. We have purchased 3 or 4 since coming here because ladies don't eat on Formica table tops like men do.

Saturday evening we went to a soap making demonstration by a group of LDS members from Australia who call themselves the Liahona Foundation.  They actually came last week and conducted several hundred baby wellness examinations.  They were able to help many families with undernourished and ill children.  These ladies stayed an extra week to conduct cleanliness classes, teaching the local people about the nature of germs, nutritional and infectious diseases, and natural remedies for many illnesses.

We're looking forward to hitting the ground running with our next set of classes as school starts up next week for the teachers.  Students don't actually come until early February.

We've enjoyed the summer break.  Now it's back to work.

Week 16 in Tarawa

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!!
We've had a lot of rain this past week; the rainy season has finally begun.  We had noticed this heart shaped plant formation months ago, but the rain has finally brought out the lovely pink flowers which form the words MORONI HS inside the heart shape.  A week later the pink blossoms were gone.

Following a long standing Sumner family tradition, we put together a jigsaw puzzle on New Year's Day.  It rained all day so we were glad to have something to do indoors.  We had a wonderful New Year's Eve dinner with the other senior couples before dropping in briefly to the stake New Year's Eve dance.  We left before anyone had a chance to ask us to dance, but we did dance briefly in our own apartment.  We also managed to stay up until midnight for the traditional New Year's Eve kiss. How romantic.

On Saturday, January 3rd, we took our first excursion/adventure to Broken Bridge.  On the way we stopped at this open air LDS chapel in Buota so our senior missionary nurse, Sister Aldredge, could visit a pair of sick sister missionaries.

While we were at the Buota chapel, we were approached by the driver of this truck.  He was stuck and wanted to borrow our jack.  The jack didn't help, so we asked him to try backing up while we pushed.  It worked!  He, his wife, and his load of children were very happy.

After driving to the northern tip of Buota, we parked the van and went out across the channel at low tide.  The water was only ankle deep and was pleasantly warm.

We saw the only traffic light on Tarawa, which wasn't working and wasn't needed.

We finally made it to broken bridge, where we stopped to cool our feet in the warm water while we ate our snacks and applied Band-Aids to our blisters.

 

 

On the way back the tide had started to come in.  We looked back to see Elder and Sister Waldron hip deep in the channel that just 2 hours earlier was only ankle deep.

They returned the favor and took a picture of us looking towards the Buota side of the channel.

 We stopped to take pictures of the boys jumping off the bridge to Buota.  While this bridge isn't broken, there were places where the bridge bed was rusted through so we could see right down to the water!

This is what happens when you forget to put sunblock on your sockless, sandaled feet.  Ouch.  The Band-Aids mark the places where my previously unworn Teva's rubbed me the wrong way.

All in all our first visit to the less inhabited parts of the island was an eye opener.  While there is electricity, the people on North Tarawa live in a more primitive state than most people on the South Tarawa island.  It was beautiful, clean, and peaceful.  The people were friendly and happy.  The laughing children followed us, especially when Elder Waldron began sharing some of his trail mix with them.

We imagine this is what it was like here 200 years ago when there were fewer people and less western influence.