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.