Birthdays and Projects

We looked for birthday cards here on the Island for 2 weeks and could not find any in the stores or shops. We had not figured out yet what we wanted to do for birthdays so we were getting behind in some of our birthday wishes to family. We decided we would make a sign for each person with their name on it in big letters and then in small letters we wrote some of their characteristics we saw in them. Then one day we went around the Island and took some pictures of us holding a sign with a particular person's name on it. First we had some of the boys here at the school hold up a large "Happy Birthday" sign. Then we went to different spots and held up the other individual signs. When we finally took a good look at the pictures we realized that the smaller words could not be seen or read very easily so we took a picture of each sign and sent that to the birthday person so they could read it better. So for some insight on Kiribati culture, people's birthdays are ONLY celebrated on their 1st, 21st, and 50th birthdays.

We are glad each and everyone of you are YOU and a part of our family.

Here are the pictures-

 

 

 

The week was a good one. Bill worked with the Shop teacher to get all of the larger equipment cleaned up and the rust removed.

Also met with the FM group about some of the projects going on around the campus. There is a new roof going on a couple of the classroom buildings.

And then there are some smaller projects like the support pillars for the Maneaba are being repaired and repainted.

They are converting an old storage room into a temporary art class room.

Bill worked with the purchasing group to finally get the new storage refrigertor bought and delivered. Just in time for the pie baking and meringue making lessons.

Susan was in Fashion Design part of the week because there was a seamstress from one of the businesses in town that came to teach the students how to make their own patterns for making their own clothes. Susan said it was quite an involved process.

During our time off we also went around to just see some of the local shops and markets. One place we stopped was the fish market where some of the fishermen sell their daily catch. Then across the street there were several fish smokers smoking fish fillets. Love the local cultures and businesses.

This is an actual local bus business. It is a truck which stops and people jump in the back. Doesn't cost much, between 20 and 50 cents. There are other buses which are 12 passenger vans with air conditioning and loud music.

Bill has a friend named Suri who brings him breadfruit and coconuts. Bill asked him to bring him some brown coconuts so that he and Susan could scrape out the coconut meat. The locals prefer the young green coconuts because they drink the water inside which is good for you. But the older brown coconuts they don't like. But the older brown coconuts is where the best coconut meat is found and is where coconut oil is extracted from. So he brought us about 6 brown coconuts and we scraped them and then froze the meat for baking uses later.

We also had a bunch of bananas and some papaya brought to us. The bananas were green when we got them but they ripened up in about 4 days. So Susan made some banana bread.

Well we hope you enjoyed this week's blog. Next week we'll add some Kiribati vocabulary and greetings.
We would also love to hear from all of you. So please leave a comment for us to read.

Korabwa
Elder & Sister Belshe