This afternoon, Paul, TC, and I decided to take a longer jambo around Bouj. Plus, I wanted to deliver the cookie bars I made for Claire's host family to thank them for the coffee and crackers the previous day.
We decided to walk around before we stopped to drop off the cookies since we usually end up chatting for a while.
The first group of people we came across were some young boys playing basketball. Paul jumped in and blocked the tallest of the boys, which surprised him because he hadn't seen us walking up. Paul told them his name was Shaquille O'Neal. The boys laughed and two replied that they were Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan.
Our next stop was at the store. We stopped to buy some baking powder - only $2.75 not too bad for being so far away from major stores.
As we were walking, a girl named Thia joined us. She asked, "What are you doing?" I said, "We're getting exercise." She showed me she understood the word by taking off at a run for about 3 seconds. Then a very pretty 14-year-old girl named Monica started walking with us and talking with me. She asked where were we from and why we came to Bouj. I was impressed that she was practicing her English.
We came across a big group of little girls. I remembered that we had yet to take a jumping picture on Bouj. So, TC served as photographer while the girls and I jumped - even the teen. Our best one has me with my eyes looking like they are closed, but I think that might be my half-Asian side or the fact that the sun was super bright. However, the rest of the picture is great because all, but 1, of the 7 girls has her arms up, and they all have a big smile. Plus, I'm wearing my green and purple muumuu (thanks again, Amber) and the girls have bright shirts of different colors - baby blue, yellow, lime, red, grass green, royal blue, and then the last girl had a multi-colored muumuu. It's like a jumping rainbow.
A little naked guy came and wanted to join in on the jumping. However, he didn't quite get it, so one of the older girls helped him out. She picked him up and jumped with him. The picture is kind of funny because it's all these girls in colorful clothes jumping and a little brown naked boy is in the center.
Once we started walking again, all the girls joined us. They serenaded us as we walked - mostly Marshallese songs, but Thia also sang "Lean on Me." I joined in, but her voice was way better.
The girls stayed with us pretty much the whole time, some even followed us to Claire's host parents house. We gave our gift of cookies to her host Mom, whose name is Flomina. She liked them and asked if the recipe was something that she could make with ingredients in the outer islands. So we exchanged recipes, I gave her the cookie recipe (thanks Nestle Toll House), and she shared her pancakes (and the recipe) with us.
Interestingly enough, I finally figured out how to spell their last name. We had brought our little notebook in so that we could actually write people's names down to help us remember them. I had thought their last name was something like "Woriji" because that is what it sounded like to me. When I saw it written, it was Horiuchi - a Japanese name, just with a Marshallese pronunciation.
This isn't the first time I've been surprised by Marshallese-Japanese names. On Kwaj, one of our friends who works at the PDR told me that she had a Japanese name. I asked what it was and she told me, "Ueko." I said, "Oh yeah, that is a Japanese name." Then she said, "Yes, it's W-I-T-K-O." That made me stop and think, then I realized that is the Marshallese spelling of the name.
Throughout the Marshalls, there are people with Japanese names since there was a Japanese presence here from 1919, when the Marshalls were taken from the Germans and given as a mandate to Japan. Japan lost control after losing WWII, though there were actual battles where control was taken (Kwajalein, Roi-Namur, and Enewetak). However, due to the Americans island-hopping strategy, some of the islands with Japanese on them were bypassed, so there were Japanese here even after the major battles.
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