The 11 hour church service

I spent a week on an outer island called Wotje. It was remarkably different from the outer island I went to this previous spring, Jaluit. Somehow I had this idea that all small Pacific islands were more or less the same. Well, I was wrong, but I won’t bore you with the details of how small island A differs from small island B. What I will do is tell you about how much time I spent in church on Christmas.

Marshallese have developed a Christmas tradition called jepta. Jepta is a general name given to any type of large group dance. At Christmas, numerous groups – which can be organized by age, gender, professional or academic affiliation, etc. – prepare a jepta. Each group dances into the church, sings a few songs, dances some more, throws out some candy, and gives some money to the church.

The idea is good. However, what I was unprepared for was that each group on Wotje had prepared jeptas that averaged about one hour in length. There were 11 groups. I sat in church from 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM, with a lunch break in between. OK, I lied. We didn’t get there until about 11:30 AM, but the actual church service did last 11 hours, even if I wasn’t present for all of it.

It’s New Year’s Eve today. Unlike last year, there will be no large public block party because this year New Year’s Eve falls on a Sunday (the theme of this post is religion). Instead, there was a much smaller block party last night and there will be two smaller inside parties held tonight at two different locations. It looks like I’ll attend both before the night is over.

School is going well. The TOEFL is less than two weeks away so preparation has reached crunch time. I feel more confident this year than last, mainly because I’ve been able to build on last year’s experience and because I have more control over the preparation process this year than last. There’s also more students who will take the TOEFL this year, which I consider to be a very positive development.

I never mentioned that I am now a host uncle. My host sister had a baby about two months ago. My host mom flew to America to be with her. She’s been there ever since but she, my host sister, and my host nephew will all be coming to Majuro immediately after the new year. I’m actually kind of excited since Chinese population control policy has determined I will never have any nieces and nephews. This is about as much of an extended family as I’ll ever have.

Alright, I’m off to grade a few papers. Hope everyone’s holidays were happy.