Today’s guest writer for Remembering RMI is Bonny Taggart, who sailed into Majuro with husband Ken on December 9, 2007. They left the Marshall Islands on October 7, 2016.
There are so many memories from my nine years in the Marshall Islands, but none fonder than the joy shared with the children at the three Delap Children’s Christmas parties I held in December 2007, 2008 and 2009. By the third event, we had over 168 children, and at each party we took photos of the kids that are still on my computer. I often look at those photos and wonder what has become of each child.
Smaller events seared in my heart include dancing on the Shoreline stage with Marie Maddison to a traditional women’s dance: Marshallese music is such happy music. Then one year I was honored to be invited by Daisy Momotaro to the Note double wedding, with over 600 guests, at the Long Island Hotel. But the AMI flight to Ailuk near the end of my time in Majuro was the perfect ending to nine glorious years. I spent 10 fabulous days on Ailuk, assembling treadle sewing machine tables with the men and teaching the women how to use the machines. They fed me lobster and fresh fish every night, and I enjoyed a screaming-fast ride across the lagoon on a tipnol. Rufina Jack and everyone on the island made me feel so at home. However, the most satisfying thing I did all those years on island was to manage the renovation of the Alele Library and Museum in 2013.
Bonny’s treasured friendships
My time in the Marshall Islands was made all the more special because of the wonderful relationships I enjoyed with so many Marshallese people. The most treasured of these people are Daisy Momotaro, Nika Wase, Mona Levy-Strauss, and Miram De Brum. (I’ll always remember the day Miram came to the rescue when a woman at MIR was trying to give me her two year old.) And the musicals I have produced over the years with “the Professor” would not be the same without the contributions of these four women. In fact, everything I was able to accomplish during those nine years was due to the support of so many Marshallese men and women, but especially the families Momotaro, Reimers, Kramer, and, of course, the “Pinho girls.” And almost nothing would have been done without the “aloha” of Larry Hernandez!
I am always “tickled” at the feeling of “coming home” whenever I return to Majuro, whether I have been away for a few days on a trip to Aur for the weekend, for ten days to Ailuk for a project, for three months to visit family in the US for four months to Fiji, or after fifteen months in South Carolina. Even now, each year that I have returned to produce the musicals with Andrew, it still feels that way. And I am glad that I still have a way to stay connected and give back to the RMI, all the way from South Carolina, through my grant writing work for the NGOs and the local governments.
Remembering RMI is a series that appears occasionally in The Marshall Islands Journal. The author has permission to reprint the series on this site. You can subscribe to the Journal by visiting the newspaper’s website: marshallislandsjournal@gmail.com.
