The surf was pounding yesterday, and little boys were having a blast riding the waves, which are usually so gentle here in Marulaon. When we heard the updated position of the ship at 5:00, we decided to go ahead and defrost the fridge and freezer, one of our kids' favorite things to do.

 

 

 

Aaron and I each slept with one ear open in case the ship came in the middle of the night, but when daylight began creeping into the sky, the Kosco still hadn't come. We ate bananas from Ofoaen and slathered them with peanut butter. Moses came by asking for some oil since the little village stores were out, and he had heard that the ship had made it to Sege, which is out West, but a little closer to the Russells. So I walked over to Skita's house because her sister had borrowed my big 1.5 liter container of coconut oil (which is liquid at Solomon Island's room temperature!). Skita was still asleep, but I found Daris peeling potatoes for breakfast in their outdoor kitchen. Eta went to find the oil for me while I chatted with Skita's family, who thought the ship was still in Noro, way out West. I came home under skies that were only spitting rain, poured a water bottle full of oil for Moses, and sent Benjamin down to deliver.

 

When everything was tidied up in the house, we decided that we might as well play a family game since it had begun pouring rain outside and we couldn't go visit with our neighbors. While the kids set up the game, I tried to check radio/e-mail again since it hadn't worked earlier in the morning. This time I connected and discovered the tropical storm warning in my inbox! Almost all of my messages came through, but the program kicked me off before it was quite finished. Since we have six adults out in villages right now, we sing out on the radio before we tie up the radio waves with checking our e-mail (sometimes a process that takes 30-60 minutes). I always turn down the volume when we are checking, because it's that lovely dial-up sound when the radio/e-mail is working. So, I turned up the volume, sang out to my colleagues that I was going to try to connect again, and lo and behold, the SITAG director replied from Honiara! She heard us trying to connect and thought she might try and talk to us. She didn't have any updates on the ship, and neither did we, but after only a few seconds of chatting, we heard an unmistakeable, “Koscoooo, Koscooooo”. It was 8:30, perfect timing for a day trip...