Mauri! (Part II)

Mauri (pronounced like Howdy, but with an M), is said at the beginnings of all the meetings, and is repeated back to the speaker. It is used as "aloha" is used in Hawaiian.

I don't know if it is because we were "Ematong" (I know that's not how it's spelled, but that's how it's pronounced, and I don't know how to spell it! :) ). But anyways, Ematong means "white person". As I was saying, I don't know if it was because we were ematongs, or if it is just their culture, but everyone, everywhere we went, would wave and say, "Mauri", or shake our hands and say, "Mauri, Mauri". When we got back to Hawaii, and people walked around looking straight ahead or down at their feet, I really missed the friendly Mauri of the Kiribati (pronounced Kid-a-bus) people.

So these next pictures are some of our first "Mauri's" with mom and dad and Christmas Island.


This is where we will call home for a week - Christmas Island.


The landscape of Christmas Island - lots of brush, and some man-planted palm trees. Not what you picture a tropical island in the pacific.

The airport terminal.

There they are - waiting on the other side of the fence. I can see them from my window, but they haven't seen us yet. At this point, I was shaking like a leaf - I just wanted to run to them. So naturally, we were the very first off the plane! I told Ira we should be the last ones off, and he said, "that will just be that much less time you can spend with them." There wasn't a minute to waste - so we got off as fast as we could!



Lots and lots of hugs, laughter and tears. It was SO good to get to see my parents after 13 months and 11 days (but whose counting?). I could hardly believe they were real. It felt so good to get to share hugs and hear their voices and laughter. And it didn't hurt me a bit to give them all the hugs that people back home asked me to give them!

They brought us these Kiribati head-dresses. They are used the same as Leis are used in Hawaii.
And we brought them...