YOKWE B...

I guess this is it. I'm only a few hours away from getting myself into a great ordeal of taking 7 flights and traveling for 48 hours. Considering the latest news, this should be quite an adventure. I'd like to think everything will be fine, and I'm actually looking forward to reading and thinking about what just happend during the past 2.5 months.

Ebeye Hospital staff gave us a very warm fairwell celebration. There was singing, dancing, thankful speaches, and of course gifts. It was great to hear what our presence meant for the hospital from the staff's perspective, and the whole ceremony of saying goodbye was rather sad - in a good way.
To my left is Joseph Dizon, hospital's new IT Director, who just arrived from the Phillippines last week. To my right is Clann Clament, his assistant, Marshallese dude who we worked with most of the time here. It is up to these guys now to keep the hospital's network alive and the satellite equipment in good shape. I guess good luck, and kommol tata.

Burmese Dinner - Part 2

In addition to cooking us lunch everyday this week, the doctor (Cho Cho) and house husband (Maung) prepared another dinner for us. Cho Cho cooked everything, while Maung was entertaining us with his excellent stories he overheard on Fox News channel. The food was great as usual, and none of the dishes were the same as during last dinner. In this picture Cho Cho is wearing a traditional Burmese dress - unfortunately, Maung has changed from his traditional Burmese skirt by the time the picture was taken. We're obviously wearing traditional stupid U.S. summer clothes. The moon was huge today and probably full, so I tried to take pictures and this is probably the least terrible one. Their house is right on the ocean, and it's great to just sit on the porch and stare at the ocean and enjoy the cool breeze. Maung says if you do that for a few hours, you'll taste salt on your lips.

Party at Rihna's House

Along with the webmail service we deployed in the hospital, we created a "formal" bboard. E-mail now works lightning fast, so people post all the time. They also don't read everything before they post, so same things get posted a lot. Here's a third or so re-post about the party:

Sailing on Mali

Somehow we got invited to go sailing on a really sweet boat called Mali, owned by two coolest / weirdest guys ever. Due to yesterday's fun night, Conrad didn't quite make it, but I did - and had a blast. Seven of us sailed north for about 3.5 hours to get to Bigee - an island, which Marshallese believe to be haunted, so no one lives there.
We anchored a few hundreed feet away from the island, and I swam and explored the jungle, snorkled around the coral heads and all the other fun things. The top picture is overlooking Kwaj on our way back, while this one could be called "that's what danny looks like when he's steering a boat he had no idea existed a few hours ago, with people he has never met, to an island he's never been to at 9am on a Sunday morning."

Roi-Namur

Today we finally made out to Roi-Namur, which is another, smaller army base at the north side of the atoll. We took a 20-person plane there, and the 20-minute ride was quite shaky. Especially on the flight back, which happened during the storm, but we made it - the flights are standby, so doing this trip with no official business is quite tricky because there's not enough room on the plane.
The island is a lot more lively and has a lot more vegetation than Kwaj - jungle style. There's also old bunkers like this one that were left here since the times of conflict between U.S. and Japan in the Pacific. The bunkers are nothing special, but deserve a picture I guess.
About a 100 feet from the airport there's this Parrot~ something bar, which if you can read the sign, is a place where people just bring their own stuff to drink/eat and hang out. People there are way more chill and laid back. On this picture you can see Conrad playing some lame dice game where you loose money.
There's a few really big dishes there, the biggest one pictured here. According to people who may or may not have any idea what they were talking about, but were the only ones around, it is used for "tracking stuff in space." Either way, it's pretty huge - the effect from waves can be seen even in this picture.

International Brestfeeding Day

As we are wrapping up our work here at Ebeye hospital, we find some more or less useful things we could do besides completing our main projects. Earlier during our term, Conrad gave a bunch of presentations about Excel, and on this picture you can see me teaching doctors and administrative staff how to use PowerPoint. Doing that feels really weird for some reason, but it's helpful.
Right after my PowerPoint workshop, all hell broke loose, as it turned out to be the Inter national Breast feeding Day. With at least on delivery each day (!) on the island, hospital staff thinks it's necessary to promote breastfeeding. So they get a bunch of toys, sing Brestfeeding songs, and make a party out of it.
The "baby show" consists of mothers with their babies walk out on stage and collect their bucket with toys from the hospital director, while everyone is clapping. Because breastfeeding is where it's at I guess. This guy Allen had the coolest baby we thought. We're thinking of making him a new network administrator, because he's always happy and optimistic, and with the network here, it's probably the best qualification for the job.

Sailing After Work

The very first time we went sailing here in June I met this guy Jim who was pretty cool and likes sailing. He was only learning how to do it back then, but by now he is already licenced, which is more than I can say about myself:) Recently, he got bought a Cat 20 boat and for a while we were trying to go sailing together.
So today we were finally able to go out after work. Even though it wasn't very windy, it was still really sweet and relaxing. The boat is kind of small, and is appropriately called "Menehune," which is little people of Hawaii - Hawaiian leprecons. It's slow, but it can be rigged in a matter of a few minutes. I want one.

Burmese Dinner

Yesterday we were invited to one of the doctor's house for dinner in honor of her birthday. This couple is from Burma (a country currently known as Myanmar), and they live on Ebeye not far from the hospital. The food was amazing and there was way too much of it, so we got quite a few leftovers boxed for us, as the hosts wouldn't leave anything on the table. A younger woman on this picture is their neighbor.
She's also Burmese and her name is Ei Ei. On Ebeye residents of lagoon side and ocean side get electricity for 4 hour periods only and take turns. On this picture you can see how as soon as the light bulb starts shining, Ei Ei hurries inside her house to make the best use of the 6pm-10pm power window. During the World Cup, people here could watch the interrupted AFN (American Forces Network) signal from Kwaj. Due to the power situation, they would have to watch one half of the game at someone's lagoon side house, and then relocate to the neighbor's ocean side house for the second half.