October 26, 2007 (Day 14)

Jacqueline had gone out to breakfast before Shelby and I got up. Email went around the school about our performance. 4th grade teacher asked Jacq to have us perform the legend for her class. She came back and said she had bad news, she pulled a fielding and scheduled a performance for us at ten. We got up and showered and dressed fielding took us to school and we performed. The kids seemed to really like it. One Marshallese boy couldn’t figure out how we had found out about the RMI all the way up in Alaska. They asked a few questions and then we had to go. Our flight was later that day around 6:45ish. We had a little while before we would head down at 4:45. Julian and the kids were coming over on the ferry at about noon so after we headed down there to meet with them. Julian and Dano couldn’t get on boat because it was too full. The girls came and we hung out with them for a little while. The boys were coming over at around 3. We had to go drop off our bags to be searched but then we came back to the terminal. Julian and Dano came over and they gave us more gifts, it was very generous. We took pictures and then we had to go because we still had to say goodbye to Ona and Ava. We spent a little while there and then headed off to the airport. We were running a little late and a very nice guy in a golf cart gave us a ride down. When we were in the airport, fielding forgot that he still had our key so he ran over and dropped it off. We were in the airport for a little while waiting to board. When we got to Majuro, we had already missed the nuclear club meeting because we were supposed to have been back in Majuro on Thursday. The flame tree picked us up from the airport and we had cheese pizza for dinner. Dora Heine, a girl we had met the week before from the Nuclear Club, joined us for dinner. We went and sang karaoke with Dora and her cousin. We were pretty tired and fielding had already left so we went back to our rooms. Shelby and I weren’t really that tired so we stayed up for a long time and talked and listened to my ipod. Then around 12:30 or so we went to sleep.

October 26, 2007 (Day 14)

Jacqueline had gone out to breakfast before Shelby and I got up. Email went around the school about our performance. 4th grade teacher asked Jacq to have us perform the legend for her class. She came back and said she had bad news, she pulled a fielding and scheduled a performance for us at ten. We got up and showered and dressed fielding took us to school and we performed. The kids seemed to really like it. One Marshallese boy couldn’t figure out how we had found out about the RMI all the way up in Alaska. They asked a few questions and then we had to go. Our flight was later that day around 6:45ish. We had a little while before we would head down at 4:45. Julian and the kids were coming over on the ferry at about noon so after we headed down there to meet with them. Julian and Dano couldn’t get on boat because it was too full. The girls came and we hung out with them for a little while. The boys were coming over at around 3. We had to go drop off our bags to be searched but then we came back to the terminal. Julian and Dano came over and they gave us more gifts, it was very generous. We took pictures and then we had to go because we still had to say goodbye to Ona and Ava. We spent a little while there and then headed off to the airport. We were running a little late and a very nice guy in a golf cart gave us a ride down. When we were in the airport, fielding forgot that he still had our key so he ran over and dropped it off. We were in the airport for a little while waiting to board. When we got to Majuro, we had already missed the nuclear club meeting because we were supposed to have been back in Majuro on Thursday. The flame tree picked us up from the airport and we had cheese pizza for dinner. Dora Heine, a girl we had met the week before from the Nuclear Club, joined us for dinner. We went and sang karaoke with Dora and her cousin. We were pretty tired and fielding had already left so we went back to our rooms. Shelby and I weren’t really that tired so we stayed up for a long time and talked and listened to my ipod. Then around 12:30 or so we went to sleep.

October 25, 2007 (Day 13)

Shelby and Fielding went to Ebeye at noonish. They came back and we had a performance at 3 at the school, Jacq didn’t go because she works for the gov and she didn’t want to get in trouble. Performance went rather well. We asked them questions and gave them objectives and stuff. We had a few really stupid remarks that we could have done without, but it was ok. After performance we talked to a few Marshallese girls then we went home and Shelby told Jacq that she mentioned to some girls why she didn’t go. Jacq was a little upset but she played it off with a joke so Shelby wouldn’t feel bad.

October 24, 2007 (Day 12)

We woke up and got dressed for our performance at the Ebeye school later on that day. We went out to breakfast and headed for the school and Deo had everyone assemble in one of the classrooms for our presentation, This presentation was a little bit different than what we had been doing. We set up objectives and told the kids some of the themes and ideas that appear in our piece. We planned to ask them questions after they had seen our presentation to see how well they payed attention. Of course, there was some difficulty in getting the kids to follow everything, but most of them got it, which was good. At the end, after we had finished our presentation and questions, we threw bubble gum to everyone, which they absolutly loved:) Then we went over to the gym and performed again for some of the older kids at the school. This time we didn't do the teaching part because the gym was so large, it was hard for all of them to hear hear us and answer questions. After we were finished we played the documentary "A New Island" about the Marshallese people living in Arkansas by Dale Carpenter. While the movie was playing a named Rogan came up to us and thanked us and gave each Shelby and I a necklace, which was probably my favorite gift form the entire trip. Another man named Jack came up to us and gave us some feedback about what was not mentioned or incorrect in our piece, which we were grateful for because we want all of our information to be as correct as possible and show it in a respectful way. After the movie was over we left and headed back to our hotel and got our bags and headed for the terminal to go to Kwaj. We didn't really have anything else to do for the day so we went down and bought underwater cameras to take with us snorkeling. Before we went out snorkeling we went back home and ate lunch. During lunch we began playing a game of Uno, which turned into a never-ending game which got very tiresome. After what seemed like forever, Shelby finally won and very graciously rubbed it in mine and Jacqueline's faces, which was all in good humor of course:D Then we went and borrowed the snorkel gear from Ona again and left for the beach. We took a bunch of pictures, although I'm not exactly sure how they would turn out because they didn't have zoom or anything like that. Shelby and Fielding decided that they would go back to Ebeye and walk around again while Jacq and I stayed on Kwaj. We went to the Micronesian shop again and then to the library to check our emails. Then we went home and took a shower and I worked on homework for awhile until I fell asleep on the couch. Shelby and Fielding came back and Shelby told me that we would have another performance the next day, besides the one that was already planned. After that we went to bed.

October 23, 2007 (Day 11)

This morning I woke up early because I wanted to see the sunrise, which was around 6 AM. Jacqueline woke me up and we walked down to a beach where we could get a good view. Once we got there we started taking pictures with different exposures to get different angles, it was very beautiful. I also noticed that the little rocks on the beach kept moving around, so I bent down to take a look and saw that there were bunches of little hermit crabs! They were everywhere and I was so afraid that I was going to step on them. We also took tons of pictures of them. Once the sun had completely risen, we began walking home and to take a shower. Today we would be going over to Ebeye and we were going to spend the night, so we had to pack a few things for an overnight stay. Once we were all packed, we cleaned up the house, because we didn't know if we would still have the house when we got back. We went over and Julian picked us up and took us out to Gucci-gu, which was where the school was where we would be performing at. We got changed and headed over to the performance. The students had prepared a welcoming show kind of thing and presented us with a lot of really great gifts. We did our performance and there were these two dogs that were bothering us on stage and wouldn't leave us alone, it was kind of funny actually. After we were done we presented gifts to seniors at the school, they were to be the first graduating seniors the school had, which was a great accomplishment. Then we went over to the Catholic school across the field and did another performancefor them.The same dogs followed us over and tried to steal the stage from us, it was pretty funny actually. We hung around for a little while and talked to people from the school and exchanged stories about the places we live. They thought that Alaska was very intrigueing. After we were done there, we went back and got a ride with Julian to town and it started raining so we stopped and ate dinner. It rained really really really hard. Shelby and I got in back of truck and they took pics of us, Julian took us around to the hotels and then helped us settle in. We watched the news for a bit, then Shelby and Fielding went out for a walk around Ebeye at night while I did homework and talked to Jacq a little bit. When they got back Shelby and I worked on interview questions for a little while and then went to bed.

October 22, 2007 (Day 10)

Jacqueline and I had gotten up before Shelby, so we decided to go out to breakfast while she was getting ready. Today was the day of the Marshallese Trade Fair and it started at 9:30 AM. While we were eating, Fielding stopped by and told us that Shelby was going to meet us at the Trade Fair later on. We finished breakfast and ran back home and grabbed our bikes and then headed off for the school, which was where the Trade Fair was being held. There were tables everywhere covered with the most beautiful handicrafts and trickets. I met up with Shelby and we walked around looking at all of the different tables to see what we could buy. We each ended up buying some jewelry, traditional maps, and hand-woven ornaments. We also bought little trinkets for the rest of the kids on the DDF team back in Skagway. Of course, I ended up spending way more money than I had planned to, but I'm glad I ended up with the things I bought. When we went outside, Shelby and I saw a stand that was selling fresh coconut, we went over to buy some and were very excited. However there was a man in front of us that we had talked to, and he knew that we wanted it, but he bought all of it! We were very upset. After we were all done there, we went down the street to the Micronesian Shop and bought even more things, but it was all worth it. However we sort of had to rush because we still had to catch the boat over to Ebeye to meet with Deo Keju, Darlene Keju's brother. We went back home and then to terminal to go to Ebeye. Once we got to Ebeye we looked around for Deo and found himat his family's store, he brought us to his home and allowed us to interview him. After we left Shelby played volleyball with some kids but tripped and fell on the sidewalk, which was kind of funny. We went shopping around a little in Ebeye and then took a water taxi back to Kwaj. Then we went to the cultural center and then the library. We were Invited to picnic after a soccer game across the street, but we didn't stay very long. We left and went to the cafeteria to get something to eat. We wanted to go swimming again, but it was already getting dark out. At the beach, there were a bunch of kids there and it was too dark to see anything in the water, so we didn't stay very long. We headed back to our house and practised for a little while with Jacqueline and Mr. Fielding. The day had left us with several new gifts and handicrafts, as well as very tired. After we were done practicing, we went to bed.

October 21, 2007 (Day 9)

We woke up and went over to Ebeye at about 8 am so that we could go to a church service. Julian met us at the dock and showed us around a little bit and took us to a place where we could get some breakfast. After that we walked down towards the church. As we were walking down, Shelby and I made friends with two little dogs who were very cute, but seemed to be homeless. It was sad. We got to the church and before the service; Julian introduced us to the minister. While we were there, a little puppy came up and he was very very cute, but Jacqueline wouldn’t let us pet him because we had already sanitized our hands. The dogs on Ebeye were very dirty and not many of them were very well taken care of. Then we went into the church and the dogs tried to follow us in, we didn’t mean to, they just really liked us ☺. The little puppy ran inside and almost went to the bathroom, which would have been very bad, but someone came and took him out. The service began and the minister welcomed us. The entire thing was in Marshallese though and Julian tried to translate when he could, but we didn’t understand nearly any of it. After the actual service was over, several different singing groups came up and performed and through out bubble gum and money, which was very generous of them. The church service was really wonderful and so lively. After it was over, Julian took us around town. One of his students, Dano, had come to the church service with Julian and walked around town with us for a little while. They took us over to Julian's house and introduced us to his wife, who was very nice. However she had a cold and couldn't come out with us. We left Julian's house and went out to lunch. We found out that Julian had been part of Operation Homecoming at Kwajelein years before. After lunch, we had to get going to catch the boat back to Kwajelein. Once we returned, we went over to Ona's to use her phone and she let us all call home. I told my mom about the evil little Picasso fish and she laughed at me. After we were done calling home, Shelby and I had decided to go and buy some lettuce to feed the turtles at the pond. Mr. Fielding showed us again how to get to the turtle pond and we assured him that we would find our way back home easily enough, considering we were on an island. We hung out at the turtle pond for a while and fed them, we figured out that there were three turtles in there, we had previously only seen two. They were so huge, it was amazing. We competed a little on who could get the turtle to come over to us, it was fun. By now, the sun had set and it was dark out. We both had little head lamps to help us see in the dark. We started heading back, and of course, we got lost, on an island, impossible right? Not so much. We ended up riding our bikes pretty much entirely around the island and almost went into a restriced area before we finally made it home. Once we got back we told Jacqueline and Fielding that we had in fact gotten lost and they laughed at us. We got ready for bed and went to sleep, and that was the end of that day.

October 20, 2007 (Day 8)

Today is the day that we would fly over to Kwajalein Atoll. we got up and packed and said goodbye to Isaac and other people that we had gotten to know during the week. The flight was fairly short and we arrived. Once we got off the plane, we went inside of the airport and we had to line our bags up against the wall. This is a military base, so everything had to be checked out by guards and dogs to make sure that everything was safe and secure. Once this was all done, we filled out some paperwork and got our temporary ID's done. Finally we were allowed to leave and we grabbed our bags and went outside. Then we met Ona, who was technically our host while we were there, although we didn't actually stay with her, we had our own house to ouselves, which was very nice. She had Ava with her as well, Ava is her daughter. She was only a little over a year older, and she was so incredibly cute. We walked around the airport for a little bit and looked at some old WWII relics. Then some Marshallese kids and an adult came up to us and presented us with flower leis, which were very beautiful. The man's name was Julian and he was the principal of one of the schools over on Ebeye island. He had brought with him a few of his students as a welcoming committee for us, which was awesome. We loaded our bags onto the truck, which would take them to the house we were staying at. We said goodbye to Ona and Ava and went out to lunch with Julian and the other kids. Shelby and I had a great time talking to and getting to know the other kids, they were all right around our age, so it made a little bit easier to connect with them. After lunch we walked back to the boat dock with them because they had to return to Ebeye for the night. They were only given day passes and had to leave the island at a certain time. After we left there, we walked over to Ona's house and picked our bags and carried them over to our house, which was right down the street. the house had three rooms, so Shelby and I had to share a room again, but it was pretty big, so it wasn't so bad. After we were finished settling, we sat down and talked about we would do for the rest of the day. Ona had mentioned that we could borrow her snorkel gear if we wanted to, I had never gone snorkeling before, so Shelby, Jacqueline, and I went snorkeling while Fielding went over to talk with Ona. Snorkeling was so much fun. I saw some very amazing looking fish that I had never seen before. The coral was also very beautiful. Shelby then came over to Jacqueline and I and told about this little fish that charged at her as if it were attacking. We, of course, laughed at her and went to check it, but the evil little fish attacked us too and Jacqueline pulled a muscle in her leg. Despite the evil little fish, the experience was amazing and I'm glad we did it. Later on we found out that the evil little fish was called a Picasso fish, which suited it well because it looked sort of wonky. Once we got back to our house, Fielding had rounded up some bikes for all of us to use to explore the island with. We started out and Mr. Fielding took us down to the turtle pond, which was really cool. We rode all around the island and then went to the store to pick something up for dinner. We went back home and cooked dinner and Shelby, Jacqueline and I started playing the food chain game. However we were all very tired at that point because we had done quite a lot of exploring and running around that day. We ended the game a little early and went to bed.

October 19, 2007 (Day 7)

We woke up and began getting ready for the day. Shelby had a bit of a malfunction with her shirt, but we resolved it. Finally we were both ready so we sat down with Fielding and Jacqueline and began preparing questions for our interview with Giff Johnson later on that day. After we had finished this, we had to take a taxi out to the Marshall Islands High School for our performances later that day. We were told that we would have hundreds of people in performance, so of course this made us a little nervous. Once we got there, we talked the guy in charge and we found out that each performance would really only hold about 400 people each, which wasn't as bad as the original estimate. However we had to perform on a stage in an outside gym that had no walls. The first performance was pretty difficult because Shelby and I had to be loud enough for everyone to hear and to overpower the children outside at recess. After our first performance got ove, we split up and ate lunch with some different seniors at the school. The girls that I sat with told Mr. Fielding and I some traditional legends and stories from the Marshall Islands. Our second performance went over much better. After the performance was over, Lily (the woman from the day before) came up to us and told us how much she appreciated our performance and that she had a daughter in the school. She also presented each of us a pair of homemade earings made from coconut and pandanus leaves. Then we all went inside and talked with the teachers about some more Marshallese stories and legends. They also presented us with two gifts. One was a handmade star-shaped wall hanging. It had a shell in the middle that was supposed to symbolize the love that they held for us. The other gifts was a miniature outrigger canoe. Both we very beautiful and generous gifts, that when we returned to Alaska, we gave them to our school. As fun as it was talking to them, we had to get going to meet Giff Johnson for an interview. We met up with him at the Marshall Islands Journal office and walked down the street to the coffee shop from there. We sat down and ate lunch while interviewing him. He really was a really great person, not only had he let us interview him 3 or 4 times, but he gave us new and great information each time. After lunch we went over to Bikini Town Hall and performed out in the parking lot for some of the Bikinians. Even though many of them could not understand us, they were all very moved and grateful to us for performing the piece. The Mayor of Bikini, Eldon Note, invited us out to dinner for later on that night, of course we agreed. First we went back to the hostel to get ready for dinner. I got into the shower, but then Mr. Fielding came and told us that Senator Abacca Anjain-Madison was coming over to talk with us, since we hadn't had the opportunity yet. I immediately had to get out of the shower, which I barely had time to turn the water on even. We talked to and interviewed Abacca for a little while. We asked her several questions, ranging her her father and his role in government, to the present plans for clean-up of Rongalap atoll. She was very informative and helpful in her answers and we were glad that we finally were able to meet with her. However we had to cut the meeting a little bit short because we had dinner plans with Mayor Note. We went over to the Tide Table for dinner, which was very good. Shelby and I talked with Mayor Note nearly the entire dinner. Also John (a Bikinian that we had met a few days earlier) came and gave Jacqueline, Shelby, and I a flower and then performed a traditional Marshallese dance for us. The entire day had been very busy, yet very tiring as well. After dinner, we went bakc home and took showers and got ready for bed. The next day we would head off for Kwajalein, which would be another adventure in itself.

October 18, 2007 (Day 6)

We got up around 7 AM because we had a performance later at about ten. We went and ate breakfast at the Flame Tree and then went back to Fielding and Jacqueline’s living room and practiced for a little bit before we went to actually do our performances. A little before ten we went down to Youth to Youth. Our first group was specifically for the CoOp Middle School and a few invited VIP’s, such as Senator Tomaki Juda, Jack Niedenthal, Jim Plasman and a few others. The performance went fairly well considering that it was for a group of school kids. After our performance we handed out pins and pens to everyone and thanked them for coming. An elderly woman named Lily came up and personally thanked us and asked us to write our names down for her. Then I ran into another woman who greatly appreciated our performance and she gave me a flower made from dried pandanus leaves, it was very generous of her. After our performance we left for a while and went to Bikini Town Hall and met with Jack Niedenthal and interviewed him there. We also went and checked out the Rongalap Town Hall, it was right next door. The afternoon seemed to fly by and before we knew it we headed back to Youth to Youth for our performance. Our second performance was at 6 PM; this one was an open invitation to all community members. While Shelby and I were practicing outside we met two teachers from Ejit Island, they were very nice people and they seemed genuinely interested in our project. Then we saw Scott Stege, and he said that he had enjoyed our performance that morning. Then our time came and we went inside as Jacqueline and Fielding introduced us. This time the performance was a lot longer because Youth to Youth performed songs in between every drama piece. After everything was over we got up on stage and sang with Youth to Youth. They taught a song that they sang both in Marshallese and in English so that we could sing along as well.
(Together we can make a difference, together we can change our lands. As we all join our hands, it’s a miracle. We can make a difference, together we can.)
The nuclear club had attended this performance and they invited us out to dinner at the Marshall Islands Resort. Mary Silk, the head of the club, drove us down and introduced us to everyone in the club. Shelby and I sat down at a table full of girls while Fielding and Jacqueline sat at the other table next to us. We had a great time talking to all of them and getting to know each other. We talked a lot about the differences in our cultures and it really was a great night.

October 17, 2007 (Day 5)

Before we had gone to sleep the night before Jacqueline told Shelby and I that she would wake us up at 10 AM the next morning so that we would have time to get ready for practice at the Youth to Youth Center. Of course I was still experiencing a little jet lag because of the enormous time difference in the Marshall Islands. I woke up right about the same time as the sunrise, which was at about 5:30 AM. I figured that it was probably way too early to be awake, but I couldn’t get back to sleep. At around 6:30 AM, Shelby came and knocked on my door, apparently she had woken up very early as well. She asked what time it was because we thought that maybe Jacqueline had forgotten to wake us up. We talked for a few minutes and I told Shelby to go look what time it was and she came back saying that it was still really early. At this point I was already awake so I decided to take a shower and get ready, since Shelby already had. Then Jacqueline came by when she was supposed to and she was surprised to see that I was already awake and ready to go, but she wasn’t. After everyone was up and ready to go we practiced our speeches a little bit and then we left to go to Youth to Youth to practice for our performances the next day. When we got there Lunes showed us around some more and then we started practice. We attracted a little crowd and it was interesting. After we had practiced for a couple of hours some more Youth to Youth performers came and they all started singing us songs. They were practicing which songs they were going to perform during our presentation the next day. This went on for about an hour and a half and it was really fun, it was so awesome to just sit and relax. During this time it started pouring down rain, it was torrential, it was awesome. It was so loud that we could hardly hear each other talk. I really wanted to go outside and run in the rain but Jacqueline wouldn’t let me, so I went and took pictures of the little kids running in the rain, it was really cool. After it stopped raining we broke for lunch for about an hour. When we got back we practiced more, more, more, and more, it was LOADS of fun. Finally around 6 we left to go home for dinner. We ate cheese pizza again, and it was still pretty good. Mr. Fielding and Jacqueline had moved into the hostel that morning so we now had a living room to practice in, which is exactly what we did. We practiced until about 10:30 or so and then we went to bed. Shelby and I were now sharing a room, to try to save us money all together.

October 15, 2007 (Day 4) and October 16th

We got up at about 4 AM and had to go wait outside for the taxi to take us to the airport. We got on the plane and Shelby and I were actually sitting next to each other and Mr. Fielding and Jacqueline were in front of us. The flight took about 5 hours and I was working on memorizing my speech on Marshall Islands history. I also slept some, just because it was a long plane ride. It was a rather interesting flight though, we left Hawaii at about 8 AM Monday morning and the flight was only 5 hours. We got into Mauro at about 11 AM Tuesday morning, it was very strange, we skipped Monday afternoon and night. : D As we flew over Majuro, it was the most amazing beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It was the first time either of us had seen an atoll not from a picture.

Finally we landed and when we walked outside, it was like walking into a sauna because it was so hot. We walked towards the airport and Jacqueline took pictures of Shelby and me in front of the ‘Welcome to Majuro’ sign. We waited in the airport for a while until our bags came in. Finally once we got through customs we were met by several people who were associated with Jack Niedenthal and they all had leis and flower crowns for us, it was probably the nicest introduction I’ve ever experienced. Jack’s wife had made them all for us, they were absolutely gorgeous and they smelled very good. However because they were real flowers, they didn’t last very long and they died soon after. Lani (Jack’s assistant) drove us into town to the Flame Tree, which was where we were staying. The man that ran the hotel and hostel was named Isaac and he was very nice. He showed us to our rooms and we settled in and set out to explore Majuro. Kathy Stratte, the principal of one of the schools we performed for, came and picked us up and showed us around a little bit and then drove us over to the Youth to Youth Health center and introduced us to everyone. There we met Lunes, one of the managers; he was also very nice. The people that we met in the Marshall Islands are probably the nicest and most generous people I have ever encountered. We set up plans for what we would do the next day for our practices at Youth to Youth. Then we walked around for a little while and had lunch at a little restaurant across the street from the Flame Tree. After we had walked around for a bit we came back to the hotel and ate in their restaurant. We ordered the cheese pizza and it was the cheapest best cheese pizza I’ve ever had. It was also the cheesiest pizza I have ever had. It was seriously like in one of those movies where the cheese is oozing off the pizza, it was amazing. After dinner we went back to our rooms and settled in for the night. We had had a very busy first day just exploring Majuro. This surely would be the start of an experience that I will never forget.

October 14, 2007 (Day 3)

The flight to Honolulu was about 6 ½ hours; it was a very long flight. While we were on the plane, I worked on memorizing my speech most of the time. Then Jacqueline came back and asked me if I could work on the script for FGM because Beverly Keever, the author of News Zero, wanted to look at it. I couldn’t find it saved anywhere, so I worked on it from scratch. It took up almost the rest of the entire flight. I couldn’t remember everything so I left a few blanks and asked Shelby to finish it up for me. We had to sit back down then because we were getting ready to land, so Shelby didn’t actually get to finish it. When we landed Mr. Fielding ran off to try to find us a taxi. He also called the people that we were supposed to be meeting with and Robert Barclay, author of Melal, actually offered to come and pick us up, which was really nice. He took us out to eat and then he showed us over to the beach. We stayed there for about 5 minutes or so, we took a few pictures and that was about it. Then he took us to our Hostel to drop us off. He was really nice and was pretty interesting to talk to. He told us about how someone is trying to make his book into a movie, but it’s in the early stages right now and he is going to go down with the director to the Marshall Islands to look around Ebeye and maybe see if there is anyone to cast in the movie. When we got to the hostel, it wasn’t actually open yet. We decided to just set our stuff there for the time being and go explore for a little bit. But before we left I spotted a little green gecko on the wall, it was so cool and I took pictures of it. Then we went out and walked around for a little bit. We came to this little bookstore that Mr. Fielding had been to before called Revolution Books. They had some really cool books in there. Most of the books in there were from opposing viewpoint of the US Government and President Bush’s administration. We bought a few books but then we had to hurry because we were supposed to meet with Daniel Kelin, author of Marhsall Islands Legends and Stories, at Volcano Joe’s, a small coffee shop. We got there and Dan was a really nice guy also. We started our interview with him. He told us a lot about Darlene and about Youth to Youth and he spoke very highly of them and told us about all of the performances they had done over the years. He took us over to a store do that we could stock up on video camera tapes and batteries. Then he took us over to his apartment for a minute so he could run upstairs and grab a copy of his other book and sold it to Mr. Fielding. Then he drove us back to our hostel so that we could check in. We got settled in to our rooms and we met a woman who had been staying there for several days waiting for her daughter to come in from Iraq. Mr. Fielding went and called Beverly Keever and she wanted us to video tape her and record her when we interviewed her. We went back to Volcano Joe’s to have some dinner before we met up with her. Beverly showed up and we went over to the library for the interview. She really knew a lot about the nuclear testing as well as other information of ‘nuclear testing’ else where in the USA. Her interview took up about an hour. She told us all about different events that had to do with nuclear testing all around the US, we could tell that she was very interested in the subject and was glad that young people, Shelby and I, were taking the time to research and become interested into the topic as well. When we were done we walked her back to her car and then we headed back to the hostel. We finished settling into our rooms and Shelby and I went up to take showers. We had to be up early to leave very early the next day so we went to bed pretty early.

October 13, 2007 (Day 2)

We got up and Forest took us to the airport. We had a little bit of wait, but not too long. We got on the plane and headed off for Seattle. As we were getting off the plane Jacqueline came up running behind us yelling, “Linda Meyer? Linda Meyer!” Shelby and I thought that she had gone crazy but then she explained to us that some woman named Linda Meyer had taken Mr. Fielding’s bag with all of our electronic equipment in it. We were worried that we wouldn’t be able to get our bags back and Jacqueline went to ask them to page the Meyer’s. Luckily they walked back our direction and we stopped them, they hadn’t even realized that they had the wrong bag. We got everything sorted out and then we went in to the Seattle Bakery to get some breakfast. We were supposed to leave soon, but the plane hadn’t even unloaded yet. We waited around for a while until they told us that our flight was canceled because the pilot hadn’t shown up. Then they directed us to another terminal and Mr. Fielding went to customer service, which was packed, to try to figure out what was going on. Finally they got us loaded onto a plane but we sat on the ground for like two hours and they told us that they were having engine difficulties. We were delayed by nearly four hours. When we finally did get to Los Angeles, we had missed our connecting flight to Honolulu. The airport put us up in a hotel room for the night and while we were waiting outside of the airport for the hotel to pick us up Shelby said, “You know I really like LA, it’s actually really great.” Jacqueline, “What exactly do you like about it, could you put that into words for me?” Shelby, “Well there’s just something about it, LA just has a very unique smell.” Jacqueline, “No, urine has about the same smell.” It was a pretty interesting conversation. We stayed at the Marriott, it actually pretty nice. The hotel had a very nice courtyard so Shelby, Jacqueline, amd Mr. Fielding went out there to practice going through her speech, while I stayed in the room to finish memorizing my speech. A little while later they came back and we got ready to go to bed because we had an 8 AM flight the next morning.