Traveled to Ebeye

This weekend we went to Ebeye, which is the island 6 miles to the North of Kwajalein up the reef.  Ebeye is an island about half the size of Kwaj, but home to nearly 12,000 people.  Ebeye is considered a third world nation and has no American presence on the island.  It really opened our eyes to what life is like for the Marshallese.  We walked the island and observed the living conditions of the residents of the island.  From a teaching perspective, it was very good to see where some of our students live.  The people were incredibly friendly and all of the little kids wanted to give us "high fives" when we would walk past them.  We were also able to enjoy a restaurant on the island, our first sit down restaurant since we left Nebraska!  Check out the pictures below for a glimpse of the island.

A young girl was washing her clothes in the ocean.  The water supply is not always available to the Marshallese.

Housing consists of piecing together wood scraps and tin pieces that people can find.  

Only half of the kids have the option of going to school due to limited availability of space.  Therefore, at all hours of the day you will see young children out and about with out any adult supervision.  

Here is a graveyard and a house in the background.

Basketball is one of the most popular sports on the island.  This picture was taken during school hours, so we assumed these were some of the kids with out the opportunity to attend school.  

Fishing...sort of.

We are now fully into the swing of school and work and haven't had as much time to post on here as we would like, but are thankful for a day off today to post a few things.  School is going well and we are enjoying our classes and the students.  We are working hard, but liking it.  In the last week we started our scuba certification classes and had fun watching the huskers play early Sunday morning.  Here are a few pictures and some stories to go with them.

This weekend we were able to go out with some people who have a boat and they took us to a few awesome places around the lagoon.  This is called the Prinz Eugen and it is a German tanker that was captured during WWII.  It was taken to Bikini Atoll where it was used to test the effects of the first Nuclear Bomb.  After the test it was dragged to our island, and it had enough damage that some high winds came up and it was turned over.  It is well over 100 yards long and was pretty fun to snorkel around.  Many people have carved their names into the boat over time and it is now mostly covered in rust and coral.

Last Sunday I had the chance to go fishing with a few guys, so Mindi and I boarded a boat and went out.  We only caught one fish and i got to reel it in.  Our fishing trip was cut pretty short though.

Our fishing trip was cut short because I got so incredibly sea sick that we had to come back.  This is me finally back on the dock trying to stop throwing up.  It was pretty miserable.  I got sick on the way to the fishing spot, and couldn't quit "chumming the water" as they call it when someone throws up over the side of the boat.  After letting my breakfast go a few times we got the first bite and the guys on the boat started yelling at me to go to the back and reel it in.  I went back there and started to reel it in, but it was about 200 yards out and they didn't slow down the boat to make it easier.  After 10 minutes of them screaming at me to reel faster and being called an assortment of names for how slow i was going we finally got the fish into the boat and i headed straight for the railing so i could dry heave some more.  I found out that the first time someone goes fishing they make them reel the fish in by themself, instead of taking turns at it, and they scream at them the whole time to speed up.  After that my stomach and my arms hurt.  Anyways, i was leaning over the edge of the boat after the fish was in, just trying to stop throwing up, when one of the big waves (They were about 10 feet that day) crashed over the side of the boat and completely took me out.  It was at that point that I thought we had better go back or I may leave my stomach out to sea.  Oh, and i better add who didn't get sick, my wonderful wife who is much tougher than I!  The other guys who were fishing like to remind me of that fact when i see them.  I will try some dramimine or something next time we go out.

We saw our first turtle while snorkeling on Monday!  I tried to swim after it, but this is the closest I got.

Some other fish we saw while snorkeling.

Anyways, that is a small update from the last week, and it was nice to have a long weekend with labor day. 

Scuba, Spearfishing, and School

Well it has been a few days since we posted, and we have been very busy.  School has had most of our attention as today was the first day with students!  We were both quite nervous when the day began, but it went very well.  Mindi has 7th, 9th, and 10th graders and Matt has 8th, 9th, and 12th grades.  We had some fun with the students today and enjoyed it quite a bit.  I (Matt) can't figure out how to set up his fish aquarium, since the pumps are really old, so I am bummed by that, but that isn't such a big deal.  The kids were really nice and respectful and that made it a smooth transition into school for us.  

The picture above is of a black tip reef shark, and this one got pretty close to me.  Mindi and I were out on the beach and a guy came walking by with a spear gun.  So i asked if i could follow him out into the water and watch him shoot fish.  I followed him and a few minutes later he shot a parrot fish.  He brought the thing up and pulled it off the spear with blood and guts filling the water.  About 30 seconds later this shark, which was about 6 feet long came swimming up to us.  It was very interested in the fish and didn't hang back like the other shark we had seen.  It was swimming around us and toward us.  The guy with the spear gun swam at it and it took off pretty fast and we didn't see it again.  It was pretty awesome!!!!

We went on a discovery scuba dive this week and really enjoyed it.  We just went out into a few feet of water to test it out.  Mindi's eyes are closed in the picture, but it was the only one our instructor took! We are going to start our scuba certification training soon and will be ready to dive in the next month!  We are very excited for that!

Here we are underwater trying out scuba diving!

Bigi

This weekend we were able to go on a field trip up to another island called Bigej, or Bigi as they call it. Only a few families live on this island, but other than that it truly is a remote island in the middle of the pacific.  It was pretty awesome. The coral grew out from the island in sections, separated by white sandy areas with crystal clear water. We wanted to post a few pictures of our outing! We will definitely have to take anyone who visits us here to this amazing place! ;);) I am trying to get the underwater camera down, so here are some fish from there. Other than that, we are doing well, just getting ready for school to start up on Thursday.

We feel like this could be a honeymoon picture, but we are constantly in awe of the fact that we live here. We hope it never settles in.

Here are a few damsel fish that were swimming around us.  They are one of our favorites.

Nemo!  These little fish kept darting in and out of the anemone that was growing with in the coral.

This little fish wanted to play peek-a-boo with us and wanted its picture taken.

On Bigi, the coral heads seem to be larger than the ones around our island.  They grow from a depth of about 25 feet and up to near the surface of the water.

These large clams are one of the coolest things to see since they are so colorful.  This was one of our favorites we found.  When little fish would swim by it would close up to protect itself.

Shark Attack!!!

Ok, there wasn't actually a shark attack, but there was a shark sighting!  We went snorkeling the other day and a little 4' reef shark went swimming by.  He was about 20 yards off, so Mindi was ok!  We had been talking about when we might see our first shark swimming with us, so we were excited when we finally saw one.

Not much else to report.  We have spent a large amount of time in our classroom this week getting ready for school.  As soon as we are both planned through our first unit we are going to reward ourselves by golfing.  Give us a call sometime! We would love to hear how everything is going back home.

Oh, and in case someone has a strong desire to send any care packages to:

Matt and Mindi Gerber
PO Box 495, CMR 701
APO AP 96555-0005

We have been dying for some single packages of Crystal Light mix.  An assortment of flavors would be nice :)  And there are no baked lays anywhere on island!  Mindi prefers sour cream! Of course, since we aren't in Nebraska anymore there is no Dorothy Lynch, either! haha  Oh how we miss some of the delicacies we took for granted back home and figured it never hurts to ask!  Haha we love you all!

Our Private Beach

Hello everyone!  We decided to post some pictures from one of our favorite spots on the island!  It is called coral sands, or what we like to call it, our private beach.  It turns out that people don't really travel very far from their houses around here and everyone goes to the beach close to the residential area.  However, Mindi and I like to ride our bikes a few miles and get away from everyone and come here.  Literally we spent 4 hours here today and we were the only ones for most of the time. We sun tanned (burned places that we missed with sunscreen) and did some snorkeling!

 There is us.....all alone......haha.

This is a trigger fish, very beautiful. Matt got a really good shot since these things are quick and don't like you being close to them. Most of the time Matt tries to get a picture of them they retreat into their holes in the coral. Who knew fish lived in holes?!

These are Damsels. Not sure what else to say about them but they were sweet and there were tons!

Once again, Matt got an amazing picture. This is the largest coral head at the beach. When the sun is out it makes it so much easier to see the color of fish and what you are actually swimming in. When a rain cloud appears and begins dumping it gets kinda murky and a little eerie.... But all is well I haven't been eaten by a shark yet :)

Just one more picture we wanted you guys to see from Coral Sands. 

UPDATE

Things have been going really well. School starts on the 25th and we have been working in our classrooms quite a bit. We still feel like we have a ton of work to do before the first day, but at least we have our wheels turning. We went to church again today and we really do like it there. We feel very comfortable and the worship and sermons have been uplifting. 

On Saturday night we had supper on the beach with a couple teachers and their families. The whole night made us feel like this was becoming home and that we are going to be just fine here. We continue to meet a lot of people and everyone is really nice, helpful, and encouraging. It is nice to wave a familiar faces when we are out and about. 

Our shipment comes in on Sept 7 so it will be like Christmas that day. We are really excited for our things to get here. But, we did go ahead and buy a convection oven and burner so now we are able to do some cooking from our rooms. This is just another aspect that has helped us to feel normal and like we are at home instead of just on a vacation. 

We love and miss you all. You are all in our thoughts and prayers. 

All The Places We Go

Here is a picture of our BQ's. Our windows are the 2nd and 3rd from the left on the 3rd floor!! I thought you would all want to know that. We get to see those palm trees every time we look outside.

This is the a picture of our main street. It is kind of hard to see what all is down this road, but let me tell you! There are three stores - one is like a walgreens, one is like a small department store, and that last is similar to a hardware/electronic store. Oh and there is a beauty shop and post office!

This is the where we are spending most of our meals. It is called the PDR (Pacific Dining Room or Pacific Cafe). The picture shows you the view when you first walk in the door. After the salad bar you can go right and left to get the main dish! It really isn't that bad in fact we have enjoyed most of the meals there.

This is the food court which has Subway, Burger King, Anthony's Pizza, and Baskin Robins. This is also were we went for our first date night on the island. Matt got buffalo wings from Anthony's (they burnt his mouth) and I got Subway. Yes it was very romantic! Although the whole time we were there we wished we were at LAZLO'S :(

CHURCH! This is where we went this last Sunday to church. It is the first open air sanctuary that we have ever been to. It was amazing when we were singing the worship song 'Grace Like Rain' as we watched, smelled, and even felt the rain that was pouring down around us. We really enjoyed the service - the music and sermon were good and we look forward to going back next week.

We love and miss you all very much!!!!!