Planting Trees

An important part of life here in the Marshall Islands, especially in the outer Islands, is planting trees that we can get food from. Today many Marshallese people are struggling finding ways to provide the everyday needs for their families. This is one of the ways many Marshallese believe will help them and their families in the future. I have many neighbors trying to make gardens full of many trees that they can get foods from. They tell me that life today in the Marshall Islands is getting harder and that’s why they create gardens. I also have gardens where I can get food to eat when I have no choice in what to eat for that day. We can also eat and drink from the coconut tree. All of these things are what we Marshallese expect would help us in the future when life gets harder. We Marshallese have to try growing more fruit trees or other trees that would give us food and drink whenever we need them. To all the Marshallese out there: we have to joined hands together and will find ways to make life easier by growing more trees on our beautiful Islands of the Marshall Islands.

The Lost Boy of Jeh Ailinglaplap

Once upon a time there was a boy name Jepti. Jepti was born and grew up in Jeh Ailinglaplap with his parents. One day they went to Buoj which is also in Ailinglaplap. The Chief of the Atoll lived in this place. The reason why they went there is because every year all the people of Ailinglaplap went there to give food to the Chief of the Atoll. They also prepared their songs and dances to play them to their Chief because this is one of their customs

 One day in Buoj Jepti went to play with the kids from Buoj. Afterwards, they went to the middle of the islands and they gathered flowers to bring to their village for decoration. While they were picking the flowers, it began to rain and the children ran to the village. When they arrived at the village, they realized that one of them was missing – Jepti. They returned to the place where they had been picking flowers and looked for him. They searched around and called for him but they didn’t find him.

The next morning, the Chief of the islands told all people to go to the middle of the island and find the lost boy. All the people went to find Jepti. They searched everywhere but they didn’t find him. Jepti’s parents were very sad and couldn’t sleep because they were so worried. After three weeks, a man went to the middle of the island and saw Jepti. “Where have you been?” the man asked. The boy said, “I was with my parents” The man grabbed the boy and took him to his real parents. The boy told all the people that he was taken by the Elves.

Bonald Andrike

Life In The Days

It’s really hard for me to stop thinking about my grandfather. Whenever I’m alone I recall all the stories he told me about how he grew up all alone in Pohnpei far from his home island, brothers and sisters and especially his parents. My grandfather was the first one in his family to graduate from high school and get his Bachelor’s Degree. During his high school years, he wore only one pair of clothes for a week and would hand wash his clothes after his classes on the weekends. For breakfast he would eat a type of food that is made out of bread but is really dry and has no taste. Sometimes he would skip lunch to get his assignments done. For two years he was living by himself until a miracle happened to him. One of his classmates took him as a brother and brought him to his family. My grandfather learned their language fast and spoke it well like he was born there. After his graduation he then moved back to the Marshall Islands and started out fresh. His first career was a teacher at Marshall Islands Christian High School down at Rongrong, one of the small islands near Majuro, the capital city of the Marshall Islands. A year later after his oldest sibling’s funeral, he and his girlfriend moved to Boston to attend college and achieve something more than his high school diploma. After getting his degree he and his beautiful girl friend moved to Hawaii and have been living there ever since. What I like about my grandfather is that he doesn’t complain or get mad easily about anything. The only reason why I’m still in school is because my grandfather’s stories keep me motivated. My grandfather use to say “whenever you are quitting on something you’ve already started, then you are quitting on me”, and so I keep on moving with all I can.

Abashai Langrine

Being a Mom and a College Student

Being a mom is great but can be challenging at the same time when you’re not only focusing on your family but also concentrating on your studies. This is very challenging because in this culture a woman should stay at home and take care of her family – this is the main priority if you want your kids to grow up to do great things in life.  However, recently modern moms are raising children and attending college at the same time to achieve a better life to support the family.  Being a mom and college student can be tiring because the priority is her family and making sure they are well-taken care of, but on the other hand, she needs to fully concentrate on her studies to achieve good grades.  It is very hard for a student mom to take care of her family and study hard to achieve her goals in completing her degree. A college mom sometimes needs to make sacrifices or put aside other things she cares about in her life and concentrate mainly on her studies so  her dreams can come true for her and her family.  In fact, in maintaining her family role day by day she needs to make sure that her family doesn’t feel left out or feel that they are not important people in her life. As a result, she needs to concentrate on her studies to able to pass her classes to achieve her goal.  This is what every college mom is striving for: a better education and a better job for her family’s sake.

JEnos 

Returning to Majuro

Coming back to the Marshalls Islands was so exciting. I left when I was ten years old. The At that time, the Marshallese people were respectful, loving and caring, and also it was a very beautiful island. Now that I am back and 21 years old, everything is very different. Marshallese women back then usually respected their loved ones, but nowadays most of the mothers go to the clubs wearing inappropriate clothing drinking and dancing with other guys that are not their husbands. They have no more respect for their loved ones, but the most unbelievable thing is that they now want a younger or a richer man to be with instead of their baby daddy. The same goes for the fathers – they leave their children with other family members so they can go to the clubs and look for a younger and prettier girl just to get back at their wife. Living life nowadays in the Marshall Island has changed because the leaders of the family which are the mother and father have no more respect for love and one another, and they might even blame the children for their problems. Therefore children stop loving and caring for their parents. This island used to be to so beautiful but now it is so dirty. People throw trash on the road and in the beautiful ocean. The beautifulness and the loving are fading away from the island and the people of the Marshall Islands.

Tikiko Kiona

Traveling from place to place

One thing I am interested in is to travel from place to place. I have been to almost half of the
islands here in the Marshall Islands. During my first trip to Jaluit with my parents, my older brother had his graduation ceremony. There were almost a thousand peoples on Jaluit High School campus during the ceremony. My first trip from Ailinlaplap to Majuro was the best trip I ever had in my whole life. I traveled by myself, and there were many exciting things that I hadn’t seen before. It was a long trip. When the ship captain announced that our ship was going to arrive in Majuro I felt nervous because I didn’t know where I would go. While I was on the dock I didn’t see my brother who was going to pick me up and take me to his house. I felt sad and nervous because I didn’t know anyone there. Later I saw him, and we filled up his car and started going to Laura. Travel from place to place is one of my favorite things in my life.

Making Copra

My family makes copra. The steps include cleaning a big area to bring the coconuts, what we do to them and what we to them afterwards. First we clean an area so that we can bring many coconuts. We clean it so that it’s not hard to move around and work together because I have many family members. Cleaning a big space well is a lot of work.  Next we take the coconuts from under the coconut trees. We need to cut the middle of the copra, so we use an axe to open them, then put them inside a pack or something big and carry them to the sun so that they change their color from white to red. After we leave them in the sun for three days, it is time to take the copra out from the coconut. We use a knife to take off from main part of the cover. We then put the dried copra on a big table and make sure the place we put the copra is protected from birds and pigs. The last step is putting the copra inside a big pack and tie it using a big and long stick, and carry it a car. Finally we give it to the landowners to take, and they will give you some money, like 1 pack for $12. That’s how my family makes copra.

Farming On Aur Atoll

Farming is important to my parents and me because there are many things we do on our farms. Our two farms are not very big, but it is important to protect it from the local animals. On one farm which is located 100 feet from the lagoon we plant only panana, but on the farm located 200 feet from the house we plant only taro. My parents and I visit our taro farm to plant more because we don’t want to go hungry. Sometimes we go hungry because some animals have destroyed our crops and we have to replant again. After we replant the taro and panana, we use coconut leaves to make a wall to protect our plants from animals like pigs and chickens. Every Saturday, we clean our farms and replant panana and taro. When the boats from the Majuro Atoll don’t bring food, we use our farm to get food so we should not hungry. Our two farms are not big enough to support all the people of my island, but it’s enough for my family. Sometimes people steal our plants because they get hungry. After school every day, we watch our plants and make sure that nobody steals them from our farms. Also it’s important to plant because we are in outer islands and we don’t have enough money to buy food. There are not enough jobs to make money to buy food, but the only way to live is to work on our farm to plant our food. 

Puppy Love

Today most young people take life so easy in Majuro. Some think that once they have a partner in life, they will be happy. They haven’t thought about their future and the future of their families. All that’s on their minds is what is currently happening around them. Young lovers think that love is all they need to become happy in life. Now most teenagers today fall in love at such a young age. Some have already started living with their boyfriends or girlfriends. These young lovers are mostly high school students, many of them have already stopped going to school, believing it is no longer necessary. Being together with their partners is what happiness is for them, not knowing that there is a harder life ahead. But by the time they have a baby, they realize how hard life is and start having regrets. It’s heart breaking to hear about the teenagers having these problems when they could’ve been the Marshall Islands’ future workers. Sometimes I just wish these problems didn’t exist, but nothing and nobody can change the decision of these young lovers. Everything in life has decisions to make - good and bad. So when these young lovers choose the wrong path or make the wrong decision, it’s left for them to decide whether to challenge the hardship of life or to start from where they left off, and go back to school and try to finish. It’s only right to choose the smartest idea at these moments in order to have no more regrets. Life might look easy but in reality, it is the hardest work ever.

Family business

             Everyone in my family does business. My family has influenced me from childhood so I like business and I wish to be a businessman. Every day when I finish school I come back home to help my family to watch the store so they have enough time to rest. My dad watches the store until 1:00am. If he doesn’t get enough time to rest, he won’t have the strength to work. Our business has many taxis. My dad and uncle need to manage the taxis, so if there are any problems with the cars they will fix them as soon as possible. We have to manage the store and taxis, and it keeps us busy. In my family, everyone has to arrange their work time to make sure that everyone has time to work and rest. I like business more than anything else. I like to smile at customers, and see the smile of customers.

Copra

Every day life in Wotje is good. The people in my home atoll always want to work on making copra, from coconuts. Many people around the Marshall Islands are working on copra every day. Copra is what keeps us alive. We can drink it, eat it and earn money from it. Making copra is not an easy thing to do. It is hard to rip out the meat from the copra skin, but the people manage to do it. The people can live longer by working with their copra every day. After they rip off the meat out from it skin, they dry it over the warm fire or under the sun. My family dries the copra over the fire because it is the fastest way to dry it. After that, they fill the copra pieces into the bag and get them ready to be weighed. The people use material such as knives, axes, bags, wheel barrow, and steel stake. People used axes and stakes to cut and take off the husk, and bags and wheel barrows to collect the copra and pile them together in one place. People use knives to cut the copra into small pieces. Although harvesting copra is not an easy thing to do, my family does it to earn money.

My family's life

Many years ago my family’s life was very difficult in many ways. As I look back over the years, I see that my family always has struggled. My parents are uneducated and it is hard for them to provide everything for the family’s needs. My mom and dad have seven kids including me. Our life is not that easy because we are so many in the family and only my dad can support us. During that time my dad was the only one who had a job. He was the only one to help us even though his salary was not good enough to cover our needs, but he still wanted us not to feel how we struggled. My dad’s goal was for us to complete our education. During that time five of us were attending school: my brother was in high school and four of us were in middle and elementary school. While we attended school we still had problems getting our taxi fare or things that we needed at school. But one thing that my dad always challenged us to do was try our best without any complains because one day we would have a good life. Sometimes we saw him really exhausted and sick because he worked hard for the family, but did not quit. He knew that if he quit everything would be chaos. There would be no school for us, no food and our family in the future would have the same problems. Now I can see how hard it is to take care of seven of kids at the same time. When I compare our life today, it is very different than our life before. Everything has changed and I know that this has come from the hard work of my father.

Friends

Friends are the people who put a big smile on our face and peace in our minds every day. Having friends in our life really makes us more confidents, easy-going, and happy. They are the ones who struggle with us with our obstacles and pains that we are going through in this life. They are ones who knows our feelings and the ones who we can share our thoughts and secret to. Friends are like family too. We can count on them for our weaknesses, and the can help us with our needs like family. Nothing in this wide world can understand how we feel, what we like and dislike – only our friends really understand us. It feels so light and secure when we have friends. People who have friends in their lives are the luckiest, happiest, and most blessed people in the world. I have a friend who is like a sister to me. Her name is Ahnew. She is the one who I share my pains and secrets with. When I’m in need, she is willing to help me even though the situation is tough. She is the one who really knows me well. She knows what I like, and she knows when I’m in pain even though it is hard for me sometimes to let it out. And she always understands my situation. When I’m in trouble, she is always ready to stand behind me and help me out. She is the one who helps me with everything. I’m so blessed and happy to have her in my life because without her my life wouldn’t be as easy and happy as it is.

My life, My kids

Being a mother to two children is hard work.  I have to think about my children’s well being.  I also have to think about their homework.  Every day I go to school, and there are things that concern me.  My two kids are in school while I also go to the College of Marshall Islands.  One goes to Baptist school and the other goes to Assumption school.  While I am at school concentrating on my studies, I have to think not only my studies but my children’s as well.  But sometimes I get very tired and I just can’t help them.  So, when I don’t pay attention to them they don’t do their homework.  Sometimes they forget about their chores and I have to remind them.  When they have functions at their schools, I have to worry about preparing them.  If they are sick, I have to go with them to hospital or stay at home taking care of them.  I am also the one to pick up their report cards and I worry about their grades too.  When I have to stay longer at the college, I must send somebody to them up from their school since our home is far away.  They have to stay with friends or relatives waiting for me to get them.  This is very hard for me and sometimes I feel so tired.      

Being Educated

Being educated is really important. One of my teachers from 5^th grade at Laura Elementary School was my favorite teacher. He taught science in my class at that time, and he was always prepared for class and teaching students. He was a good teacher because he was organized and educated. He also brought food for his students each day during class in the morning. Every student in the class was really interested to learn from him. Sometimes he had a field trip for the students to go someplace or look at something related to our studies. He attended the college BYUH. He was the best teacher that I’ve never had.

My Alcoholic Brother



I am worried about my older brother. His name is Berny, and he works for a company in Majuro. He is an alcoholic. My brother enjoys going to work each day but doesn’t know that at the end of the week he’ll get a paycheck.With his paycheck he has to pay for food, the bills, and his clothes for work. The one thing he knows when he gets his paycheck is that he will pay for alcohol. My brother can drink five bottle of alcohol at one time by himself. My brother is a terrible person in my family. If he wants to drinks alcohol but doesn’t have money, then he’ll make trouble until somebody gives him money. My brother doesn’t care about dying or facing dangers. A few weeks ago, my brother went for drinks with his friends at a local bar. Two days later, he came back home injured because his right arm was bleeding. We covered his wound with pieces of cloth until it was covered. At that time he said, “I promise that I won’t drink any more in my life”. Next day, he was feeling better than ever. He went to work each day for two weeks. At the end of two weeks, he got his paycheck and forgot his promise. He went to drink at the bar and didn’t come back home at night. The other day he came in with a drunk and disgusting face. My brother is an intelligent person. But when he feels money in his hand, his mind is weak. My brother can’t change this habit in his life. Even now he is doing the same thing – drinking to get drunk.

Fishing in Wodmej

Fishing in the outer islands on Wodmej Wotje is one of the activities that all men are interested in. I grew up on the island Wodmej with my parents and I know how wonderful it is when it comes to fishing time. All men are working together, not just four or five men, but all men have to work together and help each other. Fishing is not the easiest thing to do. You’ll spend half of a day in the ocean side or on the reef. I grew up with my father who was a good man and taught me how to be a fisherman. Every Saturday I wake up in the morning and prepare all the things we will use while we are fishing. When it’s the outgoing tide, my father and I take the hook and the spear. When we are at the end of the island, we see many men crossing the channel and other men are walking on the reef north of the island. My father told me that I have to walk on the reef because the channel is very deep for me. As we looked for the group of fish which called Mole, a man who was standing on the reef very far from us saw a group of Mole. The group of mole went beyond us, and at this moment we started to make a big circle to bring in all the fish. When all fish are inside the circle we close it so that no fish can escape. After we bring all fish inside the circle, we kill them all and each man receives fifty or sixty Mole. Fishing is an interesting thing I like to do in my life every Saturday. Fishing together is very important and it gives us lots of time to work with our neighbors and friends.

My Grandfather

       Ishmael John is a well-known landowner and a leader of the people on Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. He owned Eniwetok and Ujelang. Eniwetok is part of the Marshall Islands, but it’s very far away from here in Majuro, and was one of the islands that destroyed in 1954. He was Marshallese, so when I was first time know everything; he wanted me to follow where ever he goes on the atoll or on the fishing trip. Every day after I school he taught me everything, especially how to be around other people like how to greet people, and show respect. The time he was taught me he was between thirty and forty years old. He was really healthy. Every morning at four o’clock he would wake up, make coffee and then feed the pigs and chickens. So when everyone woke up he had already done everything. Sometimes he even cooked breakfast. He was very kind to anyone who visited him. He is active in every kind of job, and he is creative in the many things he does. My grandfather was elected to a local council when he was fourteen, and he is still on the council today. He is the popular vote ever in his Islands. Today my grandpa is now the acting mayor of his islands. I also think that my grandpa taught me everything before I stay with myself.

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How People Contribute money to the Churches

People here in Majuro always give their money to the churches. It is believed that when you give money to the church you will have more money, for the Bible says, “Giving is gaining”. This means that when you give a lot to God, you will receive more money from him. Every Sunday my family attends church because my dad is one of the deacons here in Majuro. We always give money to the Protestant Church in Uliga, and the reason why we give money is because we follow what the Bible says. It is written in the Bible that those who offer what they have to God’s churches shall be with him in the land that he is preparing for them. We also give money to the church because we want to help other churches around the Marshall Islands, such as those churches in the outer islands that are old. The money that we offer to the church can also rebuild other churches in the outer islands. Another thing is that the money you give to churches can also helps the reverend with his needs. People in the community also do this because it’s a tradition for the Marshallese people and it’s a number one priority here in the Marshall Islands. There are three lessons that we can learn from offering all our money to God. They are: giving money without concern, giving to help others, and giving to help the reverend.  When you do all this three things then you will gain more money and God will help you throughout your life.


The Woman and Her Two Daughters



Mothers should love their children.

 In this story there was a woman and two daughters on

a small Island. The elder daughter’s name is Jowl and the youngest daughter’s name is Aurok. The woman loves the younger daughter more than the elder daughter. Every day when she goes somewhere she brings many delicious foods for her youngest daughter, but she doesn’t give her elder daughter food. She does this many times but the elder daughter doesn’t complain because she loves her mother and her younger sister. One day the woman gets mad at her elder daughter and sends her from her house. The younger daughter really misses her sister. She doesn’t want to eat, sleep, or play and all she wants to dois cry. One day when the mother is gone from the house the younger daughter goes to the jungle and looks for her sister. She brings her sister to the house and feeds her. When their mother sees them she tries to kill them but they run away. This story is really interesting to me. The story means that we must make everything equal for all the people who we love, and respect one another. It means we must loveanother and not hate anybody.