June 15^th, 9:55pm

Today was labor!  My kind of day.  Beach cleanup with Ulithi kids (they’re hardly kids, but I like the way Ulithi kids sounds…).  Massive pile of old palm fronds and cut up logs, from their former loooong trunks, felled by Maysak’s gales.  Some of the Ulithi guys scale the remaining trees and bring coconuts and in this moment, in the heat, their water is the most refreshing thing I think I’ve ever had.  Working in a long skirt is not the greatest but if feels kinda nice in a way.  When in Rome.  After lunch and much cooling down (or attempting to cool down – have I mentioned it’s freaking hot here?), some of the Ulithi girls cane to the lodge and taught us how to weave coconut frond plates!  The boys can do it, too, though I’d much rather eat off of one that the girls made, just sayin’.  The lovely ladies who cook our food at the lodge brought out lava lavas for us to wear, and Skyla told us the story of her first lava lava.  It is a woman’s traditional wear that she dons at age, never to wear any other type of garment around her legs again.  They are very pretty and colorful, but thick and stiff and must be tied just so.  We did an okay job… okay.  So we sit and weave and  craft and drink coffee and wear our new lava lavas and talk.  We make gifts for each other out of things we find.  It is lovely and at this moment I feel like I could be here forever.   

PS, I cut my knee on some coral on the first day out and I think it’s getting pretty infected.  Cool.