Old News : Coconut, Bōb, Kuuj im Kiru in Ebeye

    Here a few stories from last semester:


Coconut - We actually don't have a lot of trees on the island of Ebeye itself, but we still can get a fresh coconut every now and then from an outer island, as a gift or something like that. Our first coconut here was in Guegeegue at the evangelistic meetings, and I must say it was delicious! :) They were picked off the dwarf tree the deacon had planted by his house for easy picking. After we drank the coconut, he cracked them open, and we used a piece of the husk as a spoon to scrape out the meat. So yummy! (I think this picture is funny and just wanted to share it! We are the 3 SMs to Ebeye who were able to attend the orientation in Hawaii before we came.)

Pandanus  or "Bōb"

Bōb - This is said halfway between "pop" (soda) and "pup" (like puppy). Known elsewhere as Pandanus, this fruit is VERY strange. The tree is covered in small spikes on the leaves, trunk, and even the fruit. It grows in a big clump thing bigger about the size of a basketballx2, and when it's ripe, they break apart each small section. It's yellow-orange inside and extremely stringy...
   The first time I was offered Bōb my piece was not cut up, so they told me to just gnaw on it and suck the juice out of it. I felt like my mouth was full of hair for the next 3 hours until I could do a major flossing! I really like Bōb though, and especially in smoothies, or cut up.


Kuuj im Kiru in Ebeye - "Cat and Dog of Ebeye".

    One day, as we were walking home from church, we choose to walk back on the beach. As we walked we heard a pitiful cry coming from under a big flat rock. As we tried to find what it was, we found a small, wet kitten hiding near the ocean. We could not see any cats around, and she looked like she had been neglected for quite sometime, so I took her out. We carried her home and held her in our apartment for about one hour. But since some teachers are allergic to animals (and here you better not get started on taking in strays) we knew we couldn't keep her. We cleaned her up, fed her, played with her for a while, filled up our hearts and hers with love, then gave her to a student. Problem: Another child stole the kitten and tried to throw it over a fence into a "safe area" from dogs where she was going to play with it...I think it died from that. :(
    Our students informed us in the fall that there was a dog and puppies under the maintenance shed at school... I was able to hold and play with one of the puppies who kept running out. :) The poor mamma was not in good shape, but between all the students and teachers who felt sorry for her, she definitely survived. She picked a good place to raise her 3 babies. One died, and then the kids wanted the other two. The one had kind of claimed me, and we couldn't think of a name, so I asked them how to say puppy in Marshallese. The name stuck, and one of my students took Kiru in Ebeye home for me (to Guegeegue I believe) and has raised him. :)