Liberation Days at Aur

April 17

We've had a wonderful time at Tobal, Aur, enjoying the Liberation Day
celebrations.

We already wrote about all the field day activities. On Sunday, a day of
church and rest, we joined the crew of SuperMario on a trip to the North
Pass, where we would do a drift dive through the pass. It was a great day -
the diving was fun, and Mike and I had a great day. John stayed behind on
Renova to fight off a cold.

On Monday, the Liberation festivities continued. We went ashore and watched
several baseball games, were served another delicious lunch and bought
several handicrafts from the local women. We returned in the evening to
watch the grand finale event...the SPELLING BEE!! All the student of both
schools (Tobal and Aur) competed for the honors. We finally left at 10:30,
and the spelling continued until after midnight. When we returned in the
morning, they had resumed the spelling contest. In total, the finalists had
been spelling for over 7 hours!! WOW.

After the closing ceremonies, the Aur residents quickly packed up and loaded
the boats to return to their island before lunchtime. The island of Tobal
became very quiet. John helped James to fix his outboard. Mike and I walked
the island with Kendra (WorldTeach volunteer that we met here on our last
visit). We all returned to Renova for a dinner of pork stirfry later that
evening - a rare treat for Kendra!

Labels: Aur, Marshall Islands, visitors, cruisers