Friday, July 8 (RMI time)

Today we start the journey home.

I started by sleeping-in. I was up until after 4AM, which is not the right thing to do the day before travel. It started simply enough, by trying to catch up on blog posts before I leave and it all falls out of my head. Around 2AM I thought to check in with the guys in the U.S., who were just getting to work. Around 3AM Grace woke up and wanted a clean diaper and bottle, so I complied. I finished making my last post, and crawled into bed around 4AM.

Claire let me sleep in, but I was mostly awake not much after 9AM when she told me she wanted to take a shower and had a spa appointment at 10AM, so I needed to get up to be with Grace. I didn't need to, as she could have put Grace, who's sleeping, back in her Pack-n-Play®, but I said to let her sleep and I'd get up. Claire showered and I checked some e-mail and stuff; it's getting to be the end of the day in the U.S., so I thought there might be some more from them. There wasn't.

Claire left for her spa appointment, and Grace continued sleeping. She woke up for a little bit, but after some bottle, she slept more on the sofa while I did stuff on the Mac and watched the movie channel. Around 11AM Claire returned from her spa treatments. She had a little pedicure and massage, and was much rested and ready to resume packing maneuvers.

We've traveled enough to know I shouldn't help with the packing. I did set some clothes aside to keep in our carry-on baggage, in case something happened to our checked baggage. It doesn't happen often, but we went to Boston once and they delayed our baggage until the next flight. The kind lady with the airline pleasantly offered to ship the bags to our hotel when they arrived, and apologized for the inconvenience. In that case, it was very inconvenient, as we were boarding a ship for a week-long cruise to Bermuda. They did beat the ship away from the dock, and we had our luggage. Ever since that adventure, though, we keep enough for at least the next day or few in our carry-on.

While she began her packing frenzy, I took a shower. She was still packing when I was done. I ran to the lobby to try to pay the bill, but something was wrong with their credit card machine, so I pledged to return and try again. She was still packing when I returned. I'd texted earlier about returning the car, and the gal came by and took the keys and fees, and wished us well on our travels and future with Grace. Claire continued packing.

She finished packing well after noon,and still none of our birth-family had come to visit. We'd tried to pass on to bubu that they were welcome any time after noon as we'd certainly be done with our morning errands. It was starting to get a little late, so we decided to run to the restaurant, thinking if they arrived they could join us there.

We've noted often that it takes some time to get service and food in the restaurant. Even today this hasn't bothered us, and we thought it would actually work in our favor as we might be able to have guests and pass some time chowing-down a little bit. We ordered some iced teas and our food, and waited. Uncle Sam happened down at the same time, so we shared some good-bye banter with him while we ate. He sat at a nearby table, begging off getting too close as he wasn't feeling well. Thanks, Uncle Sam; we appreciate the effort.

Around 2PM, or just about the time I finished my Chicken Adobo, Claire noticed our birthmother's brother, Junior, outside the restaurant. He came in, saw us, and left. Shortly, we were visited by our birthmother, and one of the waitstaff translated that they were waiting upstairs for us.

We left fairly hastily, and were greeted by a mob of birth-family members. It seemed like all of them were there, and a few people we didn't recognize. Only bubu and jimma seemed to be missing; probably at work or otherwise preparing.

We invited everyone in. The birth-family quickly took seats. The adults took seats on the sofas, the older kids took remaining sofa space or lingered behind the one that wasn't pressed against the wall. The little kids sat happily on the floor or bounced between older kids and adults. I grabbed a couple of plastic chairs from the deck, but was offered the bigger sturdy chair. I'm not quite sure why.

There was a little bit of chatting back and forth. Mostly the Marshallese chatting amongst themselves, and some with the few English-speaking. I distributed what few sodas we had, and then a game was made between me and the little kids of refilling cups with Mountain Dew. Getting them amped up seemed like a good idea at the time.

I burned off some of that energy by engaging the little kids in trivial hand tricks, like itsy-bitsy-spider, or that trick some of us can do pressing our palms together and twisting our hands just so that our middle fingers pass through and wiggle on the other side. And there was a little energy burned off by picking them up and twirling them around a little bit. When I'd done that at their home they were a little unsure. They seemed to enjoy it, but later we found out that there wasn't so much human jungle-gym play. There's a lot of WWF wrestling, but not a lot of pick up and spin around. I think one difference was a little girl neither Claire or I could recall seeing before. She was cute and seemed to speak a little English, but between age, volume, accent, and excited little girl squealing, it was hard to tell what she was saying.

During part of this play I excused myself to try to pay the room bill. There'd been no progress in getting the credit card machine working. Technically, the machine was working fine. It's that little number pad, card swipe machine that calls the processing center and passes the information via modem. The modem couldn't make the call, complaining “no line” on the display. They'd called the NTA to get it working, as we weren't the only one trying to do things by credit card. I again said I'd return to try again.

Before long, one of the adult women, who until that moment hadn't revealed she spoke English. She said how glad they were to have us adopt Grace, and how much the family liked us and how they were glad that we were part of the family. Stuff like that. I'm no good recalling conversation, so that's paraphrasing, not diminishing what she'd said. It was touching and sincere and made us both tear up.

Then Junior asked Claire and I sit down and they got the birth-family to settle down on the other side of the room. She explained there were some Marshallese customs when people were leaving, including giving some gifts and singing some songs.

We'd seen some of this at the birthday party a couple days ago, but thought it was for the birthday party. Evidently some of that overlapped with their farewell customs. This time, though, it was Claire and I at the center of the procession of gift-givers. They sang a traditional song, which we've now heard a few times, and the kids first, and adults after, brought ornaments and other handicrafts. They sang a couple other songs, too.

Then they put us on the spot and asked us to say something. Claire eloquently expressed how glad we were to become family, and how much we enjoyed spending time with them, and how much we look forward to continuing that contact. She also thanked them for Grace, saying she was so beautiful and perfect, and promised that we'd take really good care of her and make the whole family happy.

Then they put us on a bigger spot and asked us to sing a song. We're not big singers, even with the assistance of the radio. Sure, we know a bunch of songs, but honestly, they're a little hokey. Plus, we've yet to sing something like they had sung for us. Claire sang the only thing that sprang to mind, Grace's favorite lullaby: the Minnesota Twins rouser. I was going to join in, but was pretty sure that I'd both scare the children, but also loose the little bit of composure I had left.

Customs done, we returned to the party, with the kid twirling and everything. There was a knock on the door, which on its own is not surprising, as throughout the older kids were leaving and returning, sometimes closing the door behind them so they'd knock to re-enter (and sometimes propping the door open and letting themselves in). This time, though, it was bubu, which made everyone laugh when we also called her that. She always smiles and seems to like it when we greet her that way.

She took a turn holding Grace, and chatted with us and the others who'd been there. She was definitely the matriarch as everyone listened when she said something. I made another run to try to pay the bill again, but no go. I returned and suggested that maybe we could take everyone downstairs for ice cream. Despite the air conditioning and the effort to shut the door between the suites, the room was stifling hot. Bubu called ahead with such a big order, and said we could go down in a few minutes.

While we were waiting, I offered the stuff that we weren't going to be taking. Not meant as a gift, certainly not like they had put together, but because there was stuff we'd purchased during our seven week stay, and either not used or wouldn't take home with us. There were a couple of styrofoam coolers, and a pair of place settings, and a laundry basket, plus a bunch of food stuffs. Things like that. They were very pleased at the offer, and started grabbing just about everything in sight. We had to curb them from grabbing the few things we'd left out that were ours, or that belonged to the hotel. Bubu sent the older kids home with the stuff, and told them to return to the restaurant for ice cream.

We headed down to the restaurant, where I confirmed the giant ice cream order. They were preparing it (I'm not sure that calling ahead prepared anything in advance), and said to go ahead and sit anywhere. Since the little kids were all amped up, I suggested we sit in the area just outside the restaurant, which was fine with everyone. By the tray, they brought to-go cups of ice cream and distributed them to the younger and greedier kids first. Not the the young ones were the greedy ones, but a couple of the older boys jumped in first, to make sure they got theirs, I guess.

After everyone got a cup, except Claire and me, the women bid farewell and took the little kids home with them. The little kids all gave a warm yokwe to us, and probably thank-yous, too. We joined our birthmother, her girls, and bubu in the bar area, which was occupied by just one fella. A few of the older boys stuck around for a while, but eventually they made their way home, too.

The time was sneaking past 5PM, so we headed to the room to do a final pack and pull everything down for the trip to the airport. Claire and Grace and the few that would be joining us on the journey to the airport made the last packs, and I lugged everything down the stairs. The bags made their way to the walkway outside the lobby.

I tried one last time to work with the front desk to pay our bill. They were very apologetic, and understood that we were under a timeline and wouldn't be sticking around until their machine got fixed. They jotted down the credit card information and left it at that.

We then had a little bit of calm as we waited for the shuttle to return. Britton, the driver, had taken it to get someone else from somewhere else, but was going to return in time to get us to the airport before the plane left.

Grace was a bit fussy, having missed all of her afternoon sleeping due to the party. We were a little happy about that as it would probably make her tired for the trip, but at the moment she was having a hard time coping.

Add to that the heavy, heavy rain, and it was a sad, hot, tense time. The shuttle wasn't there, it was past 6:30PM, when it was supposed to leave for the airport. Britton had been there, but left to take care of a burnt out light, and had said he'd be back in “three minutes.” We knew on island time that could mean anything. I'm sure our concern was for naught, and it may have seemed like we were anxious for the wrong reasons, but we were anxious nontheless.

Bubu had joined us as we waited in the covered area where we expected the shuttle to be. The kids had mostly settled down, and while not sleeping, Grace was calm in the warm air. We chatted a last time with the family as much as we could, and then, finally, Britton appeared and whisked us away.

Our birthmother and her girls joined us, as did her sister, and another woman that I'm not sure I was introduced to. The girls sat in the back of the van, but it didn't sound like they were chatting at all. I sat in the front seat with Grace, who was calmly taking in the rain and traffic. Britton took the road much faster than I had, even on clear days, obviously much more comfortable with the road, weather, and traffic abuses he could get away with.

We made it to the hotel just after 7PM. That gave us about a half-hour to spare to check-in before they stopped accepting passengers. That's 90 minutes before the plane is scheduled to leave, which is a little weird, but maybe it's because the few people that work there do more than the one job of checking-in people.

At the airport we found Maddy, who lives nearer the airport. She wanted to see us off, and we were glad to see her. In addition to just being swell and friendly, she also helps make sure nothing is lost in translation, both between us and the birth-family, but also with the airport people.

They open all of your checked luggage, and dig through it, looking for who knows what. They don't have TSA keys, so they asked me to remove the locks. As soon as they finished, they ran the bags back behind the counter. I had to ask them to bring the bags back out to put the locks back on. The locks are, of course, to keep un-clever people out of the bags (as a strong pliers will break the lock), but also to help keep them secured shut. That is, until a zipper pops open or something like that.

We were then allowed to check-in and get our boarding passes. We queued up and approached the counter when the gal in front of us was done. We showed them the letter the embassy had given us, and they shrugged it off and gave it back. I'd grabbed Grace away from her aunt, Baby, in case they wanted to see she was there and traveling with us, but they were either indifferent, or observed without making any special notice as they checked our passports. The guy did whatever they do, attached our baggage claim checks, and sent us over to the departure fee lady. We paid our $40 ($20 per ticket, Grace got out for free), and were allowed to collect our boarding passes.

We returned to hang out with our birth-family one last time. Everyone took a turn holding Grace and saying good-bye. We made our way toward the door to the boarding area. Tears were shed, and hugs, and more tears and more hugs. Then it was our turn, so we waved one last time and disappeared through the passenger-only door.

We quickly made our way through security. “Quickly” might be misleading. We made our way through security without incident. Taking off shoes and belts and pulling the Mac from the bag and coins from pockets and all of that took some time. We assembled ourselves and made our way into the next room, the passenger waiting area.

There is a little snack area in there, so I nabbed some sodas. I realized at that time that I'd not had anything to drink or eat since half-finishing my lunch about six hours before. I was starved and terribly thirsty. We propped Grace on the table there, changed her diaper, gave her a bottle, and in the calm of the waiting room, she fell asleep at long last.

We relaxed, regained our composure, and prepared for a long first leg of our journey taking care of Grace while stuck in lounge chairs. Thankfully, we're upgraded to business class (I guess there isn't really any “first class” any more), so at least they'll be a little roomy, but still there's little room for three.

While we were waiting, I finally had an opportunity to meet up with Jack, the guy who made the movie Lañinbwil's Gift. He'd invited me to visit his office, but we hadn't made or found the time while we were there. Coincidentally, he was leaving on the same flight. We chatted a little bit, and I told him about my plan to start a call center or IT out-sourcing operation. He works in a different kind of economic resource office, but does know the people, or the people who know people, who can help make that kind of thing happen.

He really liked my approach, and noted that it was refreshing to hear an idea that was meant to help the people of the Marshall Islands. Of course, there are lots who come there and think of ways to take advantage of the people. He noted that while there are plenty of intelligent and well-meaning people there, there aren't many entrepreneurs, or much “thinking outside of the box” from the few that are there. He said, if you want to find a group of people happily centered in the box, they're on the Marshall Islands.

Eventually they made boarding announcements, so I returned to where Claire and Grace were waiting. We gathered our bags and I collected Grace, and we made our way to the door. The heavy rain had gotten heavier, and was, in fact, raining sideways across the runway. They gave us umbrellas to make the hike across the tarmac to the plane, but between the bags and baby and wind, they didn't do too much. At least I thought they didn't until we got in the plane and I saw how wet Claire had gotten as she blocked Grace and me with her umbrella. I had a hard time holding the umbrella steady in the wind, and so Grace and I got splattered on, but Claire got downright drenched from hip to knee.

We made our way into the plane, stowed our carry-ons, settled in, and began to relax one more time. Coincidentally Jack was in the other window seat in the same row, but rather than bore him for five hours I let him do whatever he was doing on his Mac during the flight, and I focused on being comfortable and helping Grace.

They played the movies Adjustment Bureau and The Devil Wears Prada. Part way through the second one was my turn to hold Grace as she woke up and wanted some attention. Claire took her to the restroom, for which she had to trudge through coach as they made the business class restroom free of baby-changing tables. She lamented that there was probably no way I would have been able to do that, as there's barely any room in there. I noted that I could barely use the restrooms on most airplanes as they're just too small to twirl around in, between locking the door and doing whatever and washing up.

We landed, and when it was our turn made our way off the plane. We looked for the customs person that the embassy said would be waiting for us, and didn't see one. Claire asked the gal that was directing the crowd, and she said to go to any agent and we'd be OK. The nice lady took our passports and visa paperwork, cooed over Grace a bit, and took us to the waiting area. Unlike the comfortable room off to the side, with access to restrooms, like we'd been promised by the embassy, it was a couple of crinkly sofas behind a cubicle wall.

While we waited, we were asked our names, and for the number of bags we'd checked. We told the guy, and he left. We didn't know what for, but that guy had gone ahead and grabbed our bags from the carousel for us, so when we were done, all we had to do was grab the cart and go. Thanks, guy!

We hadn't raced out of the plane or anything, but by virtue of being near the front had gotten out early. We had to wait until the rest of the plane cleared customs before the guy who could help us came to help us. He asked where the packet was and we said the one agent took it. He came back and found it sitting basically in the open where she'd left it, within arm-reach of anyone walking out of the customs area. Good security, people. He confirmed our address, asked for a phone number, and went away for a little bit. He came back, welcomed Grace to America. He told us everything was in order, we're free to go, and that they would mail be a packet with whatever we need to do next.

We found our bags, from the friendly guy, and made our way through customs without any hitches. They one guy asked us if we had any food. We said baby formula and candy bars. He chuckled and said that would be fine, and let us go. The next gal asked for the form they give you on the plane, checked that it was written on both sides, and let us go.

We paused by a big board of hotels, looking for ours, to see if they perhaps had a shuttle. They weren't on the board. I cracked open the Mac and pulled the hotel's web page from the cache, and we called the number. It gave us voicemail saying to call back during the day.

We decided to just taxi in. We crossed the street and told the taxi dispatcher where we were going. He directed us to a Lincoln, and the lady driver got out. She said to put of the little bags in the front, and load the trunk with the rest. The bags were too much for the trunk, but she had straps and promised nothing would be lost. The ride to the hotel took about 15 minutes, and cost just under $30, but we were at the hotel.

We had a small hiccup with the hotel. It was totally Claire's fault...and I mean that with total humor. When she made the reservation, she had forgotten about crossing the dateline, and so she made the reservation for when we'd be arriving on Majuro time. We left Friday night, and so would be landing Saturday morning. Except, by crossing the date line, we landed on Friday morning. The hotel clerk was plenty accommodating, and was able to add a day to our stay. She wasn't able to give us the same rate, but at least we'd have a room to stay in. We checked-in, they brought a crib and our bags. We took quick showers and turned in. In a hotel room. In Hawaii.