Likiep

Finally an update from Likiep. It is quite a different looking village here. The whole atoll was purchased in the late 1800 by two of the traders, Capelle, Portuguese and De Brum, German. Most of the people here are descended from those two, so most last names are one or the other. We met a lady today who has 60 grand children and several great grand children. She is 74, one of the older islanders we have met. She had 12 kids. Two of her daughters had 9 each. She is a DeBrum. Her brother is the one who talks to us on the Yacht net on the HAM radio every day.

According to a web page I saw, they have 18 buildings here that the historical society is interested in cause they were constructed between 1865 and 1905. One is falling in, but most of the others still have families living in them. There is African Bermuda grass growing everywhere. There are giant old trees lining the bay that were planted by "the old folks, long ago". It makes it a very picturesque view. The old houses are very European and look just like in the old movies of the South Pacific. Many of the homes have furniture in them whereas most of the other islands have only mats on the floor. They seem more sophisticated here in several ways. They haven ovens for baking made of barrels in a brick house whit a coconut husk fire underneath, instead of a ho;e in the ground lined with coral rock. Many of the paths (streets) are lined with rocks and rows of flowers.

They recently got internet and cell phones here. I have been helping with the internet some, but haven't sent any mail out yet. It is extremely slow. They don't know what the problem is and I haven't really looked at that part yet. There was supposed to be a repairman on the flight today, but he didn't get off the plane. They get 2 flights a week as long as the plane is not broke. Taiwan gave them the satellite dish and 2 years service free! They said it worked better last month.

We had the Mayor, James Capelle and the internet lady, Frida, out for supper last night. I asked him if he wanted Marshallese food or "cruiser food". He chose cruiser, so it was meatloaf, corn onion soup mix poured over potatoes and baked and cornbread. Followed by chocolate cake. They wanted several recipes including the cornbread!

Today we went to see the clam farm. They raise several varieties of the giant clams for sale to salt water aquariums. They are only 1 1/2 to 2 inches across when they sell them (about 1 1/2 years old). They keep the adult clams in the lagoon and bring them up and put them in a tank when they are ready to spawn. Then catch the fertile eggs (100s of thousands of them) and keep them in special tanks til they are about 1/2 inch wide. Then the give them to the locals to raise in special trays they float inn the lagoon. They have to scrub the algae off every few days and in 6 to 9 months they are nearly 2 inches across and sell for 2 to 5 dollars each.

Then we walked around handing out blow-pops to the kids and a few adults claiming to be kids. Trinda and the kids both really enjoy it! She also gave a few more of the large eye needles the women like for doing their handicrafts. We plan to stay here several more days before heading back to Majuro.