Cheeseburgers in Paradise

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated this blog, but after a camera tragedy, I’ve finally got my photos back, plus a new cam (thanks Mom and Dad!) While these stories and experiences may be a month or two old, I had to be sure that I wrote about one of my favorite trips of the entire year.

The month of December in the Marshall Islands is essentially a perpetual Christmas celebration with all students’ minds aloof from class. Beat practice (a type of Marshallese dance) goes late into the night, making for sleepy children and annoying whistles that are meant to keep the tempo during practices, but usually end up in the hands and mouths of the neighborhood kids who see no need for time restraints on these aforementioned whistles. The first Friday of December was Gospel Day, some sort of church related holiday that I don’t know a lot of details about except for that I didn’t have school. Seizing the opportunity, I decided to take the next Monday off school to create an extra-long weekend for my first outer island journey to Arno.

An Angel Bird in Arno

Arno is an atoll located directly east of Majuro and currently has 5 WorldTeach volunteers throughout it. My plans were to stay with my friend Kim, whose placement is in Arno, Arno and living with a host family. Climbing into the Roxanna boat, I was absolutely filled with butterflies since I needed a break from Majuro and had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. The ride throughout the lagoon was fairly calm, but after speeding under “The Bridge” (literally the only bridge here), we hit ocean and that’s when I realized that the ocean is not a force to be reckoned with. I don’t have a lot of ocean going experience, but the waves we crashed through were absolutely MASSIVE…everyone in the front of the boat was completely soaked (I was lucky enough to sit next to the captain since I think they felt bad for the ri-palle girl). For about an hour, the boat slammed up and down, bouncing me out of my seat and making me take back my previous thoughts that maybe an hour long rollercoaster could be really fun.

After arriving in Arno, I managed to find a ride to Kim’s house where the amazing weekend was just about to begin. Kim’s house is a simple structure with plywood and a tin roof, but the real estate is absolutely unbeatable. Complete jungle in the front yard, with a sprawling backyard filled with coconut trees leading to the iar (lagoon). Kim and I jamboed all around Arno during the weekend, and the iar was definitely a top spot. Lucky for us, a bungalow had just been built near her house so Kim, her boyfriend Godfrey, and I snagged a sea kayak and surfboard and hit the lagoon. When I compare the waters in Rita where I live to the waters of Arno, it’s literally day and night. Rita is polluted, dirty, and deemed unsuitable for swimming by the EPA. Arno on the other hand is crystal clear, brilliant, and straight out of an image you would conjure if you were to imagine paradise.



While I could go on forever about how amazing Arno is, I’ll just give some highlights and hopefully the pictures can fill in between the lines.

Awesome Arno Moments: bwebwenatoing (chatting) in Marshallese with Kim’s family and the Arno community; a night walk on the white sand beach, surrounded by shadows and light from the full moon; trying to make copra, a coconut product traditionally made by the men; making cheeseburgers ocean side at Godfrey’s house from food just brought on the boat (definitely not a typical outer island treat); eating rice and tuna with my hands and being the ri-palle who couldn’t quite get it right; drinking coconuts whenever I wanted, approx 3-4 a day; night jambo-ing with Kim, Godfrey, and Sam (Ulien, Arno volunteer) to another part of Arno in the pouring rain wearing trash bags as a failed attempt to stay dry; wearing muu-muus that could have fit a 400-pound woman; going to church while zoning out to the waves lapping nearby; riding on a bike with no brakes on a narrow stretch of land where I could literally fall onto the lagoon beach or the ocean rocks on either side; eating fresh yellowfin (Mahi-Mahi) sashimi just after seeing it get sliced to pieces; getting an amazing send-off with beautiful songs, amimono (handicrafts), and libukwe (local shells) by Kim’s school; receiving amazing hospitality as a stranger in a new community; realizing that I was in the middle of nowhere in paradise without a care in the world.


Godfrey in a ni (coconut tree)