Journal 1/1/1982
P1 More spending, less singing
Christmas and money; money and Christmas. There seems to be a correlation between the two. In the few days before Christmas, stores around the capital were crowded with shoppers, particularly at Robert Reimers store. People were buying like crazy. Like there was no tomorrow. It seems like the spirit of Christmas has shifted from religion to business or from churches to stores. At Uliga Protestant Church, there were fewer jeptas and the Christmas activity ended around 9pm. Last year, it ended around five o’clock in the morning. According to some, the real Marshallese Christmas spirit this year was at Laura. —Akio Heine
Journal 1/4/1991
P1 Capital crack
A circular crack in the ground surrounds the north end of the capital. The big question everyone is asking about the capital building is will it have to be torn down? After talking with Capital Improvement Program, McConnell Dowell and Marshall Islands Development Authority people, that is certainly one of the options that will be considered. But no one wants to make any predictions until the drilling and core sampling is finished in two weeks. What they suspect is that somewhere under the surface there is a void — an air pocket — that was undetected during the engineering work down before the building was put up. When the weight of the building reached a certain point, the pressure was too great and the sub-surface area collapsed, causing the cracks in the cement foundation.
P1 NCT chairman Aloot promises speedy action
Sebastian Aloot was appointed by Cabinet as the newest chairman of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal and promised nuclear claimants speedy action to resolve radiation claims. More than 5,000 individual claims have been filed with the Tribunal.
P4 Celebrating 40 years in Marshalls
Maryknoll Sisters got together in Majuro on the weekend to celebrate their 40th anniversary. Doing the honors on the care were Sisters Aurora, Rose Patrick, Emily and Camila. Other sisters joining with the group: Sisters Dora, Lucille, Mary, Rose Ann and Joan.
P2 Jepta dances in street because church is full
At the Bukot Nan Jesus Church, there were hundreds of people gathered to watch the shows. The church was small for the crowds, so the jeptas did their dancings outside in the street. The jeptas who danced there on the ocean side road at Delap not only their songs were good but their beats. The crowds really enjoyed a dance from Leroij Atama Zedkaia’s jepta from Rairok. Some of the leaders of this jepta were overjoyed and carried away because instead of following the group they just separated from their lines and did their own action.
Journal 12/31/2010
P13 Candy strike
We learned an economics lesson watching jeptas (dance groups) on Christmas Day. Thinking back to the 1980s and up to recent years, what stands out in our minds about the Christmas Day celebration is huge volumes of candy and deacons busy sweeping the floor after each jepta’s last dance. Virtually all jepta members had bags — in some cases, those huge shopping bags with zippers that people carry on airplanes nowadays — filled with candy and other goodies that they’d throw to the audience as they circled around the church on their last number. Hundreds of kids waited eagerly, diving for bits of candy. Last weekend suggests those days of wild candy throwing sparking riots in the churches as kids raced to grab their share of candy may be a thing of the past. We watched five jeptas at Laura Protestant Church and another four at Full Gospel Church in Rairok: Several had no candy at all, and the ones that did bring candy offered precious little. Maybe one in 10 members had a bag of goodies to toss out to the audience. The telling fact was how little rubbish there was on the floor after most dance groups. The downside? The deacons did not get as much exercise as past Christmases cleaning up the church after each group, and the kids weren’t as happy as in the past.