Shopping for a picnic...

We've had around 10 days of very windy, cloudy and rainy, rainy, rainy days so we thought we'd take advantage of the nice weather on Thursday and have a beach picnic. We shopped at our two favorite stores on the way to the beach. The first one is Marg's Kitchen. The woman holding Norah is Rita Cabrera. The kids will be playing with her niece's kids later this week. In another blog we'll have to share some of the clapping games Amelia and Elise have learned playing with some other local kids. I especially get a kick out of Rock, Paper, Scissors Saipan Style. :-)

Marg's Kitchen is a great place to get sweets and meals at a very reasonable price. We especially like the homemade lemonade (limes I think). A very tall icy glass for only 65 cents. The girls like the brownies for dessert and I really like the bread pudding. A super large block for under a dollar. For meals we like chicken kelaguin and tamales gisu...both have spanish and pacific islander influences.

Our next stop was the Saipan Fresh Market. There are lots of markets like this but we seem to end up at this one a lot. This is where the girls like to get fresh coconuts and bananas. For a dollar you get to drink the juice out of the coconut then they'll use a long hatchet type knife to crack the coconut in two pieces and scrape the inside with a scraping tool, then you get to eat the soft, jelly coconut. There's a photo here of local ginger. They said that this is used to make teas and other drinks. Either way, both local and regular ginger sells for around $1.50/pound. Much better price than at home! The purplish thing is a banana flower or heart. I was told this is very tough and needs to be sliced thinly and cooked a long time. The girls are seen holding a local mango and jackfruit. Next blog entry we'll talk about the picnic! :-)

Norah!

Norah is growing up fast! She's been very interested in food for the last few weeks and has even sampled a few things. She LOVES watermelon and coconut juice the best so far. Here is a photo of her latest achievement. She has been doing the "gorilla sit" for about a week now. Here she is about 10 seconds before she face flopped to the bed. :-)

Tooth Fairy in Saipan!

Saturday at breakfast Elise lost her first tooth!!! Yea!!! That tooth had been hanging by a thread for a few days. And it was perfect timing because in the book we've been reading, Junie B. Jones Toothless Wonder, Junie just lost her tooth, too! So, it was very exciting Sunday morning to learn that yes, the tooth fairy does come to Saipan. :-)

...a little side note. Saturday night, Brent, our friend from Guam told Elise that when he was a little boy the tooth fairy would leave $100 under his pillow. Luckily the tooth fairy does not leave $100 under the pillows in Saipan (at least not our pillows). Brent, we can't wait to tell your little boy that story when he gets bigger. ;-)

Street Market Scenes

We thought you might enjoy some more shots of Garapan Steet Market. We decided to get dessert this time. Delicious! We had the Ginatang Bilo Bilo (in the big metal pot). The description is tropical fruits in coconut. Here's a link that shows a good photo and a recipe. http://www.nibbledish.com/people/berks2click/recipes/ginataang-bilo-bilo-filipino In the family photo Norah is looking pretty unhappy....she wanted some coconut juice! :-)

The Girls!

So, we've had a request for some updated pictures of the girls! Never a problem. :-) Here's a few shots of us having some fun around Garapan. Norah is just about 4 1/2 months (can you believe it???), Amelia just turned 9 and Elise is 6(and 3/4) and about to lose her first tooth! We're wondering what the tooth fairy brings in Saipan.  We hope you enjoy these. We especially like the ones of Norah in her first Bob Marley shirt, Amelia under water and Elise snuggling with her little sister at night. Have a great Wednesday, Iowa!

Saipan Real Estate 101

There is a huge difference in the ends of the housing spectrum in Saipan. We're not sure if this is due to lack of pride in ownership. (Currently land can only be owned by descendants of the Northern Mariana Islands - Chomorro or Carolinian - this is only about 22 percent of the population.)  Or if a large part of the problem is due to the immigration of foreign contract labor workers under the previous Commonwealth Northern Mariana Island immigration laws. These people can't own the land and cannot afford decent housing so often live in makeshift barracks - made from shipping containers and tin roofed, dirt floored shacks.  Minimum wage in Saipan is around $4.50/hour. The reason Isra is working here is because of the Federalization of the immigration laws. This means that the federal immigration laws are now being applied and will hopefully eliminate the problems that come from human trafficking. Here's one link for more info on the problems created under the old laws. Sorry for this reality check! We'll have more upbeat news next time.  
http://akaka.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=speeches.home&month=3&year=1998&release_id=1298

Garapan Street Market

We are staying in Garapan, Saipan which is one of many villages on the island. Every Thursday night there is a street market where local food is sold at pretty reasonable prices. (It about killed me to pay almost $10 at the grocery store today for a pound of strawberries! Groceries are very expensive.) Anyway, the street market is a great way to get a good meal and try something new. Lots of different types of food are offered - sort of representing the various groups of people on the island. Just a few include Filipinos, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and my favorite groups: the Chamorros and Carolinians. Chamorros were probably the original people of the island with Carolinians not too far behind. They tend to use lots of coconut in many dishes or spicy peppers. We definitely ate too much and washed it down with lots of coconut juice!

I'll post a bunch of photos here of the market. I tried to take photos of the signs with the ingredients listed. This will help give you a taste of the Chamorro language as well. Let me know if it's too hard to see and I'll try to type it out.

Sorry to hear about your blizzard Sioux City! We're trying to send some warmth your way. :-)

Amelia Earhart

Today we went to the Old Japanese Jail. There is a theory that Amelia Earhart and her navigator were captured by Japanese soldiers during WWII and held prisoner here for espionage. There are two different cell buildings. One building has many cells and was thought to be used for male prisoners. The other building has four cells and was most likely used for female prisoners. Some believe that Amelia Earhart lived out her final days in the cell shown before dying of dysentery. When we visited we saw a sort of shrine that other visitors had left. Amelia (not Earhart :-) and Elise are standing looking into the cell that was believed to be Amelia Earhart's. Above the doorway was a crucifix (with pilot goggles) and a melted candle and in the doorway someone had left flowers, a coconut and a note that read: "A.E. You may be gone but you are not forgotten."

wave, wave, big wave blog

Yesterday I went to the beach with Amelia and Mom (and Norah). The water was too strong for me because the coral was being moved and it hit my feet. So I beach combed with my mom. Then we went to a calm beach and then I went swimming with Amelia but it was too stinky.
Love, Elise

funky restaurant

Dear Everyone,
Yesterday night we all went to a restaurant that you can sit on the floor. There are mats on the ground but they are not very comfortable.

Santa brought my sister, mom, and me some snorkeling gear. So now we are going snorkeling with Monaka. If you are wondering who Monaka is, she is one of my dad's friend's wife.

(To be continued.)
But any way!
Love, one of your family members or friends or classmates and of course students,
Amelia

Small World...

We've been meeting a lot of friendly people on our trip. The other day we met Tatoshi and her little girl Kadodi. (guessing on the spellings :-) They were visiting from Japan. When I told Tatoshi we were from Iowa she said, "Oh! I love Iowa!" Apparently she had gone to YMCA camp near Dyersville and remembered the baseball diamond in the corn field. Her daughter is three and is now learning English.  Kadodi loved meeting Norah especially.

Today we met Joe Kani. His wife is originally from Oregon and both are retired teachers. Also, they live part time in Indonesia. Talk about a small world! Joe was getting ready to fish for White Snapper with his spear in this photo with Amelia. The water was very rough today though so he decided to swim instead.

going coconuts

Here are Amelia and Elise going coconuts! They generally climb almost anything anyway but they really wanted to get a young coconut out of the tree. They really like to drink the juice straight out of the green coconuts. I'll try to get a shot of that next time they have one. And no, they didn't get to the top of the tree...not sure how well our health insurance plan works here.

Food for thought...

Saipan is made up of many, many different cultural groups. We'll try to go into that in a later blog. However, right now there are a lot of Japanese and Russian tourists. The restaurants and grocery stores seem to cater mostly to the Japanese tastes. So...we thought we'd share some of our recent dining experiences. :-) Breakfast is the most interesting one for us so far. This might explain the health and longevity of many Japanese. The picture of the plate shows a variety of vegetables, fish and lean meats with rice porridge (okayu) in the bowl topped with chicken, spring onions and pickled vegetables. Miso is also commonly served. But Amelia did find something she really likes and I refuse to buy at home. Maybe it's not so bad when I can't read the nutritional values...

The next photos are especially for my sushi lovin' friend (and you know who you are! ;-) How about some spam sushi? Not sure how popular that really is. The sushi shots were taken at an inexpensive grocery store we've been using.
Hmm, need to go check out some desserts next! :-)

Snorkeling at Wing Beach & Obyan

Jan. 1 & 2

We've done a lot of exploring while Isra has New Year's Day and the weekend off. Wing Beach is toward the Northern tip of Saipan and Obyan Beach is toward the Southern tip. Both are beautiful beaches with lots of sea glass, coral and shells washed up on shore. The endangered Green Sea Turtle uses both areas as nesting grounds. We did see some tiny turtle tracks in the sand today at Obyan Beach. :-) We hope you enjoy some of our snorkeling shots!