Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Manit Day

This past Friday marked the celebration of Manit (Culture) Day. From late morning till the end of the afternoon, Marshallese kids got to enjoy song, dance and storytelling. I recorded a few videos but unfortunately can't post them yet (they're too huge!). But when I go to San Francisco in November I'll have a fast enough connection to hopefully share the most EPIC tug of war battle in history. It lasted more than a minute and luckily my digital camera managed to capture the sounds! Wow! So stay tuned for Epic Tug of War by the end of November.



Traditional weaving was on showcase in the form of a couple of huts built to give a little shade to some of the kids hanging out at Manit Day.



This next photo is of a hermit crab in a re-telling of the Marshallese story of the "Hermit Crab and the Needle Fish". It was funny because several large ladies spent about 5 minutes trying to get all these kids into position for the telling of the story. It's about a race between a hermit crab and a needlefish. But the hermit crab is sneeky and gets all his buddies to line up along the route of the race. So every time the needlefish, who's obviously a lot faster, calls out to the hermit crab, "Where are you?" - the hermit crab directly ahead of the needlefish answers. So it seems that the hermit crab is always one step ahead and wins the race. Reminds me a lot of our own story about the Tortoise and the Hare... only there's less of a moral to the story (unless I missed something).

And of course, no event in the Marshall Islands is complete without BBQ chicken!

2 comments:

Dad said...

Looks like the sun is back and life is good in the Marshall Islands. What is the San Fran trip all about?

Steve said...

The San Francisco trip is related to my student F-1 Visa in the U.S. They didn't take my program into account when they designed the darned thing and it stipulates that I can't be outside the U.S. for more than 5 months at a time. I'm spending 10 months in the Marshall Islands, so I needed to cut it in half with a trip to the U.S. Unfortunately Hawaii wasn't an acceptable option.
So I'll be staying with Ali's cousin Leah, visiting the sites, and taking advantage of HIGH speed Internet! Oh how I miss thee.