Katchii

Wednesday, October 20, 2010 

We slept in, then TC made a yummy breakfast of pancakes.

We discovered that not only are there mosquitoes at this anchorage, but there are plenty of flies.  All day, we killed flies.  TC and Quincy were the main flykillers.  Quincy had fun stalking the flies, smacking them, and "feeding them to the fishes."  He was quite proud of his abilities and his job.

After lunch, we headed to shore.  I really enjoyed our walk, as the road was quite shady with a pretty constant view of the lagoon through the trees.  Plus the wind was blowing across the lagoon and provided us with a cool breeze. We discovered that most people live on the lagoon side, which once the trades start up will no longer be quite as cool, but it will be protected.  We met teachers Walden "as in Walden Pond" and Jack.  They've only been here since September.  Before that, there had been no school on the island for over 10 years.  Families had to move to Wotja or Airek to get their kids a school.  They currently have about 20 kids.

Chien, who we had met the evening before, found us and led the way to his house, where he served us delicious coconuts.  I am wondering if perhaps I am acquiring a tasted for coconuts since I'm learning to be able to drink more and more of them.  After we drank our coconuts, TC cracked them so that we could feed the geese and chickens.  As soon as they heard the coconut being cracked, they ran towards TC.  It was a pretty funny sight.  The geese ate the coconut meat pretty darn fast.  They were like typewriters 

And we finally found out why there are geese on so many islands.  They are pets with a purpose.  They are aggressive enough and large enough to attack/eat/scare rats.  The cats do nothing. They said they didn't know what they'd do without the geese 

I got in some jumping pictures with kids.  I have to thank Alex for giving us something to do that brings out so much happiness in the kids. There are always lots of smiles and laughing when we're doing jumping pictures.  Later, when the same kids ran into John, Paul, and Quincy, they saw that they had cameras and automatically started jumping up and down.     

As we were leaving, we checked out the fish drying in the sun.  Their fly deterrent is old VHS tape waving in the breeze on sticks.  It worked okay (there were still quite a few flies on the drying fish).  

TC and I left the island, so that we could go play in the waves.  He swam/snorkeled and I kayaked.  We planned to swap while we were out there.  I made sure to have my booties on.  I had so much fun surfing on the waves in the kayak.  I was laughing constantly, even when I wiped out and got smacked in the head/neck by the kayak.  Because I was having so much fun, TC decided to let me use the kayak the whole time.  On the swim back, the current going out was pretty strong, so TC got quite a workout.  Halfway back, he decided to climb in the kayak with me since the current was so strong, he was at a standstill.  He had tried standing up and found he couldn't stay standing.