Journal 12/8/1982
P1 Dancing with joy
The Rongelap airfield was opened this Monday by an Air Marshall Islands flight. Rongelap people prepared a welcome including dancing.
Journal 12/13/1991
P1 ADB $7 million to develop fisheries
A $7 minion loan and technical assistance package to develop a locally based fishing industry in the Marshall Islands has been successfully negotiated between the Marshall Islands and the Asian Development Bank.
P1 MJCC celebrates the big tenth
It was 10 years ago that the clank, clank, clank of the ponderous cement block making machine of Marshall-Japan Construction Company began its produce of excellent quality blocks at the firm’s location on therein road in Delap. Branched out beyond the one service of block making, MJCC now serves the Majuro community with its Daihatsu dealership, and a wide-range of construction and electronic equipment.
Journal 12/16/2011
P3 Arno court dedication
The Bikarej, Arno basketball court that was built by WorldTeach volunteers and island residents in memory of the James DeBrueys will be dedicated Saturday. According to Laura Sundblad, Steven DeBrueys, James’ brother, has arrived to be present for the ceremony. James died along with three Marshallese who were attempting to travel between Arno and Majuro about one year ago.
P8 Tontaake finds long-lost relative
When Uein Buranibwe climbed out of his boat onto the reef at Namdrik after 33 days of drifting, he thought he had arrived back at Marakei, his home atoll. “He told me, ‘wait, I’ll find some people,’ and he went off down the island,” said Temaei Tontaake, his younger companion. But it didn’t take long for Buranibwe to work out that he was not standing on Marakei. “When he realized it wasn’t Marakei, he came straight back to where I was with the boat,” said Tontaake. “He told me, ‘prepare your knife, we don’t know where we are.’”
So the two carefully walked down the path until they came to a nearby house. They knocked on the front door. “But they wouldn’t open the door because they heard us speaking a different language,” Tontaake said. “So we walked a little farther on and came across a Marshallese guy having his first smoke of the day. They couldn’t understand him and he couldn’t understand them, so they got him to walk with them back to the boat. “Then he realized that we had drifted in,” Tontaake said. By this time the Marshallese and Kiribati guys had managed to communicate a bit by using some English words. Then they were taken to the one person on Namdrik who speaks their language, a resident named Neinikeu. She was the wife of another Marakei drifter who floated into Namdrik more than 50 years ago and stayed. The previous drifter, Bairo, died some time back. But he was the uncle of Tontaake, which made the two present day drifters feel right at home: Not only did Neinikeu speak Kiribati language, she’s their relative. Because she took good care of them on Namdrik, they left their boat for her.
P18 Lengthening the threads of life
Seated on the simple wooden floor, heads bent in concentration and hands nimbly working the threads, a group of young women are creating high quality jaki-ed. They are soaking up weaving skills from their instructors and all are hopeful of becoming masters of the art. Participants in the USP weavers’ apprenticeship program. Banitha Jesse, Patsy Hermon, Asenath Saul, Susan Jieta, Nikiej Betwel, Moje Kelen, Mona Tatak, and Betty Lobwij.