Turtles and Taro

I was going to start this blog with what a wonderful day we had and how we were treated as royalty and I've never met so nice of a people (which is all true). But after the last few hours, I have to say that I am going to show how shallow I actually am and make the beginning of the blog be about me...yep, after weeks without any female friendship at all, I finally got an hour and a half by myself to be a girl and watch a chick flick, while Andy and Jake went to shore for the drinking circle and for Jake to play on the beach with the local kids. About 15 minutes into my chick flick (while sitting in my underwear drinking a coconut...fabulous day), Andy came back and told me he was taking not only the computer, but the generator AND THE TV!!!. Yep, he had made a copy of Act of Valor ("Andy's MOVIE") for one of the guys, and while they were "testing" it on a tiny portable dvd player, he offered up our TV for a movie night. They sent him back to the boat quicker than he could say NO!!!.....seriously, I wasn't happy. You can only imagine what I was thinking, but I'm going to really try and let it go...


Not letting my own issues get in the way... this was a wonderful day. I've never met a nicer group of people. We went in this morning for Mass and we were met at the door with fresh lei's for our heads from our friends Michaeila and her daughters. After Mass we were whisked off to our friend Sasario's house for his daughter to fry up some fish for us and give us some taro. They also had lei's for us and every time I looked at Andy I thought of that lemur on Madagascar with the flowers poking up out of his head... spitting image.


As we waited for the party to start, I suggested we go say hi to Michaeila and her family. When we got there, they asked me if they could decorate me in tumeric, as in the spice. I had seen a few people in church all dusted up, so I said sure. Saralee (or Juralee...not sure), made me take my shirt off so I was just wearing my bikini top and took a HUGE can of tumeric and covered me with it. Did you know tumeric was yellow? I do now. It's yellow (and takes more than one shower to come off). I'm not sure what this had to do with Mary's Ascension, but everyone seemed to really like it. Jake and Andy were wondering if it was just "seasoning." I assured them I wasn't fat enough, and it was just for local entertainment. They wanted to paint my face with lipstick as well, but I kind of drew the line. I have an aversion to lipstick, even in my own culture.

Quite attractive, don't you think?  Matches
the flowers on my head nicely.

Turtle meat from one turtle (and the fat too).

We went and waited with our other friends while they divided the turtle up between everyone as well as the smoked fish they had been preparing for the last few days. They each drew a name from all the island households and prepared baskets for each one (think "dirty santa" without the dirty). The island had actually gotten together and made a basket (two, actually) for us as well! It was really neat to hear our names called out, but I can't feel but more than a little bit of guilt for taking so much from them! We had a basket of 4 land crabs, a bunch of bananas, two curried fish, a papaya, and a huge amount of taro. Then we had another basket full of taro and rice and on top of all of that, we had about 8 coconuts and a pound of smoked fish. Oh yeah.. almost forgot...we got our share of turtle. And it was good. I have so much to say about that, that I just don't have the room or the time.

This is the fire that's used to loosen the shell from the turtle.
If you look close you can see the tail sticking out on the right
hand side of the picture.

Smoked fish to be rationed out.

People starting to bring their gift baskets.

Starting to hand out the baskets to everyone.

Everyone waiting to hear their names called.

The men mostly picked up the baskets and the women watched.

Our name was called!  Look at that elaborate basket.
It had a top and bottom put together by some sort of
woven hinge.

I think Andy looks like King Julian on Madagascar
with his headdress on.

We ended up having two baskets, but this one had the
best goodies...crab, fish, bananas, papaya.

After many swims in the ocean (tumeric kind of stains the skin), a chick flick later (on a VERY small computer screen), and watching my son eat turtle, I have decided we really live an extraordinary life.

We have decided to stay a few more days to watch the "Christmas Drop." The US Airforce flies from Guam to many of these small islands and drops a Christmas package (with a parachute) full of stuff for the islanders. They're scheduled to come here on Wednesday and we thought that would be a site to see. Should be interesting.

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