Well, on island, I discovered the real truth to this. It at first was a normal day. I woke up, I went to school, I taught some English (whether it stuck or not I don't know, but I would like to think that I made an educational difference - but I digress), I came home. I decided to go on a walk with my two little brothers to a church because some of the women where practicing singing for a church thing. Well, the sky started to turn very dark (now if I was an all telling fortune teller, I would have realized that the heavens were about to open up and tens of thousands of gallons of water was about to be dumped, but I am no fortune teller). And there was something weird happening with the tide. It was huge. It was like high tide on a very powerful performance enhancing drug - or the scientific word is "king tide." Well, one of those was happening. The tide was literally coming over the sandbar. It was as if the sandbar was nothing, a tiny speck in its path to ultimate destruction. It was incredible. And lets just say that when both forces combine, you are going to get a flood. Nuf said.
Well, once Babba finds us and we (host brothers and myself) race back to our home in the downpour, and then you would think that the fun is over and that we are safe in a nice, dry house. HAHA, fooled you. Next thing you know, the roof is leaking. So lets place many many buckets. The tides are going nuts, break over the sand dune, and bam, knocking at our front door. Now its race to see if we can pick everything up off the floor and onto higher ground (and by higher ground, I mean the beds, which are maybe 2 feet off the cement floor). And then the flooding comes into my room. I quickly move everything onto higher ground (because having a wet mattress sucks). And I put my books (that were originally on the floor) onto my giant tupperware container that was used as a dresser. Did you know that giant tupperware containers can float, even if it is full of clothing and has many many many many big books on top. NOOOOOOOOOO. That sucker floats and rolls over (like when you teach a dog new tricks). So then all my books are now in the water - shoes are floating everywhere - packets of ramen are sailing through - leaves, sticks, small rats, and other rather disgusting debris are washed in as well.
Have you ever had sopping wet books. They are incredibly heavy. And I actually rang out my Marshall Language Manual. Thats right, twisted it like you would a wet towel. And quite surprisingly, a lot of water came out. Now that I think about it, it would have been funny if a lot of Marshallese came out of it as well (haha, let's just say that I was a very unmotivated slacker to learn Marshallese).
So now, everything is wet, and water is coming in at all angles (up, down, left, right, sideways, backwards) and we are having a blast. (Fun side note, right when the flooding was starting to occur, I noticed that Babba was trying to get work done, but all the kids were getting in the way. So I grabbed my shampoo and we all took showers in the rain. But after I dried off, I just got wet again, no luck.) And people start coming over - the boyfriend, neighbors, people on the other end of the island. "Where is the ribelle going to sleep?" Ah, I was going to sleep in this bed, with my sister Bajin (who rolls a lot and kicks) We manage to eat something, and drink coffee, and the children go to bed. And I go to bed to. It was incredibly cold and all I can say is thank goodness for that extreme fleece blanket with the motorcycle on it.
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