My house in the Marshall Islands is 15 feet from the ocean’s edge. That is not saying a lot because everything here is about 15 feet from the ocean’s edge — but it is still special to me. At night, when I am laying in bed, I can hear the ocean. It is a quiet, white roar that lulls me to sleep and wakes me up again come morning. When everything is working just right there is a breeze that comes in off of that ocean and into my room. It makes my curtains sway and dance and it cools me off. That ocean that is 15 feet from me is the same ocean I had back home — the great Pacific Ocean.
The ocean is an important thing for me here. Not only is it a link home, it is my air conditioning. On nights when there is no wind, my room temperature gets hot and heavy with humidity and I am left to toss and turn on tangled sheets, slowly sweating and melting into my own bed.
On nights like that I can’t sleep and when I can’t sleep I hear things. The first night that I spent in my house I woke up to this strange scuttling sound. It was a small sound but in my quiet, personal hot-box it seemed to shake the walls. I sat up in bed and turned on a flashlight. There on the floor was a big, reddish cockroach exploring a the puddle of water I had spilt from my Nalgene right before I went to bed. Carefully and slowly, so as not to scare off my prey, I grabbed a thick book (“Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens) and floated it over the roach where he felt out with the puddle his huge antenna.
BOOM! I dropped the book but the roach had sensed what was coming and almost avoided the strike altogether, but two of his legs were caught under the oppressive weight of Victorian literature. The roach clawed at the air from the flat of its back and struggled to free its legs. Then, as I moved in for the kill with a second book (“Teacher Man” by Frank McCourt) the little beast did a desperate thing which I am sure I couldn’t do in a similar situation. The roach ripped his body away from his legs and scrambled back under my bed.
I stared at the legs sitting there, and I contemplated cleaning them up, but it was late and all I wanted was to find some sleep during that sweltering night so I laid back down.
As the night went on and the Pacific failed to give me more breeze, I woke up and out of curiosity, shined my light down on the legs of the cockroach. The legs were covered by ants. I shrugged, and went back to sleep. The next morning when I woke up there was nothing on my floor. No hobbled roach, no missing legs and no ants.
It was the circle of life.
So, things are very nice at my house when the Pacific is wafting up a breeze, if not then things get downright savage.
In my house I will have one roommate. His name is Hemant and he was an investment banker in New York for three years before he came here. When we all opened accounts for our meager volunteer stipends and were debating between checking and savings, Hemant did the only sensible thing and opened up both. Hemant is a nice guy but is so sarcastic sometimes you do not know what to do — laugh or run.
Aside from the two rooms for Hemant and I, there are a kitchen/living room and a bathroom. Both are pretty good sized but as there is construction going on a few feet from the side of the house every morning so when I get up to make some coffee in my boxers there are construction workers busy building the new section of the high school and that can be a bit awkward.
The living room is a pretty big section of real estate and when the Pacific is kind, it stays pretty cool. We have not been able to make much use of it however, as a volunteer named Cox has used it for his bedroom until he gets a boat to the outer island where he teaches.
To get to my house you have to walk past the dorm, where eight other volunteers live, on this thin little path that is severally overgrown. Every time that I am on that thing, especially at night, I am paranoid that I am going to get bit by one of the poisonous centipedes that live on this island. It wouldn’t kill me, but I hear that it hurts pretty bad.
All in all life is pretty good 15 feet from the ocean. Life is even better when it is whipping up a breeze, but I don’t have to worry because the windy season will be here in about a month, and those will be some high times when I sleep right through the scuttling sounds from the floor.
The love you give comes back in the end.
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Friday, August 31, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
The Walk of Shame
Spearfishing is not like what you see in the movie “Cast Away,” where Tom Hanks kills a fish from 30 feet away by flinging a sharpened stick into shallow water. Spearfishing actually involves strapping on snorkel gear and swimming around with a spear and a sling made up of rubber tubing and shooting at the bigger reef-fish as they poke around in the coral.
The first time that I learned how to spearfish was about two weeks ago on a small island called Jelter. Out there the fish were plentiful and rather stupid. They din’t seem to notice when you cocked back your spear and they made aiming easier by staying in the same general area. By the end of that first day I had caught seven fish and was feeling pretty good about myself.
In Majuro, however, catching a fish is decidedly harder. This weekend I went out with some friends into the Majuro Lagoon to test my luck.
One of the problems of living in such a small community, and being a minority within that small community, is that everyone knows everything that you are doing. As we walked down to the water it was hard to hide what we were up to. We all had fins, snorkels and five and a half foot metal spears. As we walked everyone that we saw gave us questioning smiles and giggled with whomever they happened to be standing with. The one Marshallese friend going with us, Sonny, walked a few feet behind the group.
Once in the water I found there to be plenty of fish to go after, the only issue I had was that the fish were just too dang smart. All of the city and country stereotypes seemed to be true. The country fish were more docile and easier to get a hold of while the city fish were quick and always one step ahead of me and my spear.
I couldn’t catch anything and the ele around my waist, a wire belt where you hang the fish you have bagged by poking them through their eyes, was noticably empty. For some reason, every shot I took with my spear was just a little ways off in one direction or the other.
As I paddled around I saw a really big octopus with eyes as big as mine that could have saved me from a walk of shame back to my house empty handed, but I did not take a shot because I wasn’t sure if it was good to eat. Later on as I was telling my friend Jeremy about it (he has been spearfishing for two years) and he was surprised I hadn’t gone for it.
“Those are really good eating,” he said.
When I found out the process for catching an octopus however, I was happy I hadn’t done it. To catch an octopus you first get it riled up by poking it with your spear. Then, when it gets angry enough, you stick your hand at it and it will wrap all of its tentacles around your arm. Once this happens you bring it up to the surface, pull back its hood and bite it between the eyes to kill it.
Seriously, that is a little too hard-core for me.
Anyway, after five hours of fruitless fishing the whole group headed back with our eles hanging empty from around our waist.
Everyone we passed stared and pointed and Sonny walked a good 20 feet behind us.
Later that night a taxi driver told me he had seen me that day.
“Yes, I saw you walking,” he said. “I wondered, ‘where are all of the fish they caught today?’”
“We just ate them all raw on the beach,” I lied to him.
He didn’t believe me.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
The first time that I learned how to spearfish was about two weeks ago on a small island called Jelter. Out there the fish were plentiful and rather stupid. They din’t seem to notice when you cocked back your spear and they made aiming easier by staying in the same general area. By the end of that first day I had caught seven fish and was feeling pretty good about myself.
In Majuro, however, catching a fish is decidedly harder. This weekend I went out with some friends into the Majuro Lagoon to test my luck.
One of the problems of living in such a small community, and being a minority within that small community, is that everyone knows everything that you are doing. As we walked down to the water it was hard to hide what we were up to. We all had fins, snorkels and five and a half foot metal spears. As we walked everyone that we saw gave us questioning smiles and giggled with whomever they happened to be standing with. The one Marshallese friend going with us, Sonny, walked a few feet behind the group.
Once in the water I found there to be plenty of fish to go after, the only issue I had was that the fish were just too dang smart. All of the city and country stereotypes seemed to be true. The country fish were more docile and easier to get a hold of while the city fish were quick and always one step ahead of me and my spear.
I couldn’t catch anything and the ele around my waist, a wire belt where you hang the fish you have bagged by poking them through their eyes, was noticably empty. For some reason, every shot I took with my spear was just a little ways off in one direction or the other.
As I paddled around I saw a really big octopus with eyes as big as mine that could have saved me from a walk of shame back to my house empty handed, but I did not take a shot because I wasn’t sure if it was good to eat. Later on as I was telling my friend Jeremy about it (he has been spearfishing for two years) and he was surprised I hadn’t gone for it.
“Those are really good eating,” he said.
When I found out the process for catching an octopus however, I was happy I hadn’t done it. To catch an octopus you first get it riled up by poking it with your spear. Then, when it gets angry enough, you stick your hand at it and it will wrap all of its tentacles around your arm. Once this happens you bring it up to the surface, pull back its hood and bite it between the eyes to kill it.
Seriously, that is a little too hard-core for me.
Anyway, after five hours of fruitless fishing the whole group headed back with our eles hanging empty from around our waist.
Everyone we passed stared and pointed and Sonny walked a good 20 feet behind us.
Later that night a taxi driver told me he had seen me that day.
“Yes, I saw you walking,” he said. “I wondered, ‘where are all of the fish they caught today?’”
“We just ate them all raw on the beach,” I lied to him.
He didn’t believe me.
The love you give comes back in the end.
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Wednesday, August 22, 2007
A lot to a Name
There is a lot in a name. People always have stories about their names. It is usually stuff about whom they are named after specifically.
I am named after my Uncle Tim so I always tell stories about my Uncle Tim. It is usually the one where he lifted a hay bale that was so heavy it snapped a tendon in his arm so his muscle rolled up like a window shade. It is pretty cool because he can flex it and you can see all of the muscle bunched up at the top. I think that I tell it because maybe, just a little bit, it makes me tougher by association.
Here in the Marshall Islands it is no different. A lot of the names have a pretty good story behind it. My friend Katy has a pair of host-sisters that are named “Silver” and “Gold.” I guess that those names are pretty self explanatory. Everyone wants to get their hands on a little silver and gold. Or maybe I am wrong, maybe those names come from a song.
Then there is the guy who was named “C & T.” No on really knew what to make of that. “C & T,” huh? Finally, when he spelled it out, we found that “C & T” is actually “Sea and Tea.”
“Those were my parents’ two favorite things,” he said.
There is a girl here named “Mississippi River,” a girl here named “D-Daddy” and a boy named “Chuck Norris.” Those are all first names.
It got me to thinking about what it would be like if every kid in the world was named after their parent’s favorite things. There is a couple in my group who said that their kid would be named “Twizlers and Beer.” I think that my kid would be named “Banana Cream Pie” and his brother would be “John Steinbeck.”
My Dad would have a son named “Airplane,” my Mother would have a kid christened “Peach Candy” and my sister would have a daughter named “Forester” — which is her dog.
This new naming system would cut down on a lot of the nervousness of meeting your girlfriend’s parents. If she was named “Volunteering in an Orphanage,” then you would probably be OK, but if she was “Cocain,” then putting off the meet and greet might be a smart idea.
Another thing to consider is how people grow into their names. Think in your head and recall certain names and instantly someone you knew who had that name will pop up and that name will instantly denote his or her qualities.
For me, “Luke” means popular, “Chris” means nice and “Andrew” means athletic.
So what if your favorite candy was taffy, but then you started to meet a lot of “Taffy’s” who were really bad people — would you still like taffy?
My guess is no because there is a lot in a name and a person changes that name a lot or a little when they have it but it is never the same after someone has it.
Like “Adolf,” “Cher” and “Becks,” most names are loaded.
Anyway, I will just wait until I meet a kid named “Foreigner” or “Tall and White” and then I will get to know that family.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
I am named after my Uncle Tim so I always tell stories about my Uncle Tim. It is usually the one where he lifted a hay bale that was so heavy it snapped a tendon in his arm so his muscle rolled up like a window shade. It is pretty cool because he can flex it and you can see all of the muscle bunched up at the top. I think that I tell it because maybe, just a little bit, it makes me tougher by association.
Here in the Marshall Islands it is no different. A lot of the names have a pretty good story behind it. My friend Katy has a pair of host-sisters that are named “Silver” and “Gold.” I guess that those names are pretty self explanatory. Everyone wants to get their hands on a little silver and gold. Or maybe I am wrong, maybe those names come from a song.
Then there is the guy who was named “C & T.” No on really knew what to make of that. “C & T,” huh? Finally, when he spelled it out, we found that “C & T” is actually “Sea and Tea.”
“Those were my parents’ two favorite things,” he said.
There is a girl here named “Mississippi River,” a girl here named “D-Daddy” and a boy named “Chuck Norris.” Those are all first names.
It got me to thinking about what it would be like if every kid in the world was named after their parent’s favorite things. There is a couple in my group who said that their kid would be named “Twizlers and Beer.” I think that my kid would be named “Banana Cream Pie” and his brother would be “John Steinbeck.”
My Dad would have a son named “Airplane,” my Mother would have a kid christened “Peach Candy” and my sister would have a daughter named “Forester” — which is her dog.
This new naming system would cut down on a lot of the nervousness of meeting your girlfriend’s parents. If she was named “Volunteering in an Orphanage,” then you would probably be OK, but if she was “Cocain,” then putting off the meet and greet might be a smart idea.
Another thing to consider is how people grow into their names. Think in your head and recall certain names and instantly someone you knew who had that name will pop up and that name will instantly denote his or her qualities.
For me, “Luke” means popular, “Chris” means nice and “Andrew” means athletic.
So what if your favorite candy was taffy, but then you started to meet a lot of “Taffy’s” who were really bad people — would you still like taffy?
My guess is no because there is a lot in a name and a person changes that name a lot or a little when they have it but it is never the same after someone has it.
Like “Adolf,” “Cher” and “Becks,” most names are loaded.
Anyway, I will just wait until I meet a kid named “Foreigner” or “Tall and White” and then I will get to know that family.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Monday, August 20, 2007
Bring in the Red the White and the Blue
Over 1,700 US service men and women will be coming ashore to Majuro in the coming week. They will bring their hammers, saws and nails and they will resurrect, repair and revamp a dilapidated section of Rita Elementary School.
As the standing population of “repelles,” or Americans, on the island usually idles around 350 people, this large influx of pale skin will surely make a splash.
The word “repelle” literally translates from Marshallese as “those who wear pants” and came about when the first missionaries arrived on the islands in the late 1800's. The foreigners wore pants then and they will most certainly wear pants now — at least I hope. The foreigners also taught all of the islanders that it was indecent to walk around showing so much skin and they covered them right up.
This outsider influence is still felt in the Marshall Islands — sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a bad way.
The normal start date for classes in the Republic of the Marshall Islands is August 20, but as Rita Elementary will be teeming with white-uniformed sailors, that start-date has been pushed back until September 10. I am slotted to be a sixth grade teacher at Rita, so this means that I will have close to a month of twiddling my thumbs.
Don’t think that I am whining because I am not. I am nervous to start teaching classrooms packed to the brim with sixth-graders so I welcome any extra time I can get to prepare for the ruckus that is headed my way.
However here is the thing; as Majuro welcomes any help it can get from the US — it gets a majority of its economy fueled by US Government dollars pumped into the country as part of the compact set up to alleviate damages stemming from nuclear testing on Bikini Atoll — it cannot very well turn down the offer.
In this circumstance though the help means that the children of Rita will have their class start-date pushed back three weeks. While that might not seem like a lot of time to be missing class, when you consider that the kids will most likely not have an opportunity to make up the class time they miss it makes you think — is it really helping that much?
OK, having good classrooms is very much a need in the education machine, but why couldn’t it have been done earlier, perhaps in the summer when it did not conflict with education. Also, why couldn’t this job have been done by a Marshallese company? It would have created jobs and got the community involved in improving their own educational establishment. And if the US Government had to become involved, why couldn’t they have worked out a schedule where class and construction went on at the same time?
As of now the US flag is coming in once again to save the day.
I have nothing against helping people out — that is why I am here — and I think it entirely noble that my home country would help out in the Marshall Islands, but it gets to a point where charity is not longer a boon and is more of a burden.
Having things provided effectively sidesteps the whole process of learning how to do them in the first place. What happens to the Marshall Islands when the current compact ends in 2022 and they are on their own. Will they still need the US to come in and fix their classrooms?
The Marshall Islands is a country low on resources to fuel their economy. Fish and coconuts just are not cutting it. If they are going to become more self-sustained, then they will have to get better educated, and fast.
That means that three weeks is a very long time for Uncle Sam to keep kids out of classrooms.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
As the standing population of “repelles,” or Americans, on the island usually idles around 350 people, this large influx of pale skin will surely make a splash.
The word “repelle” literally translates from Marshallese as “those who wear pants” and came about when the first missionaries arrived on the islands in the late 1800's. The foreigners wore pants then and they will most certainly wear pants now — at least I hope. The foreigners also taught all of the islanders that it was indecent to walk around showing so much skin and they covered them right up.
This outsider influence is still felt in the Marshall Islands — sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a bad way.
The normal start date for classes in the Republic of the Marshall Islands is August 20, but as Rita Elementary will be teeming with white-uniformed sailors, that start-date has been pushed back until September 10. I am slotted to be a sixth grade teacher at Rita, so this means that I will have close to a month of twiddling my thumbs.
Don’t think that I am whining because I am not. I am nervous to start teaching classrooms packed to the brim with sixth-graders so I welcome any extra time I can get to prepare for the ruckus that is headed my way.
However here is the thing; as Majuro welcomes any help it can get from the US — it gets a majority of its economy fueled by US Government dollars pumped into the country as part of the compact set up to alleviate damages stemming from nuclear testing on Bikini Atoll — it cannot very well turn down the offer.
In this circumstance though the help means that the children of Rita will have their class start-date pushed back three weeks. While that might not seem like a lot of time to be missing class, when you consider that the kids will most likely not have an opportunity to make up the class time they miss it makes you think — is it really helping that much?
OK, having good classrooms is very much a need in the education machine, but why couldn’t it have been done earlier, perhaps in the summer when it did not conflict with education. Also, why couldn’t this job have been done by a Marshallese company? It would have created jobs and got the community involved in improving their own educational establishment. And if the US Government had to become involved, why couldn’t they have worked out a schedule where class and construction went on at the same time?
As of now the US flag is coming in once again to save the day.
I have nothing against helping people out — that is why I am here — and I think it entirely noble that my home country would help out in the Marshall Islands, but it gets to a point where charity is not longer a boon and is more of a burden.
Having things provided effectively sidesteps the whole process of learning how to do them in the first place. What happens to the Marshall Islands when the current compact ends in 2022 and they are on their own. Will they still need the US to come in and fix their classrooms?
The Marshall Islands is a country low on resources to fuel their economy. Fish and coconuts just are not cutting it. If they are going to become more self-sustained, then they will have to get better educated, and fast.
That means that three weeks is a very long time for Uncle Sam to keep kids out of classrooms.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Sharks
“There might be sharks,” he told us. “If there are, they might come within 10 or 15 feet of you, just stay calm and enjoy them. They are majestic.”
I gulped and gripped the edge of my lawn chair.
“Now, if one of the guide flicks his light back and forth, then that is time to get in the boat and get out of here,” he said with the light of the fire shining on his features in a harrowing way.
As I had gone spear fishing for my first time earlier in the day, and come back with a reef fish about the size of my hand that was tasty to eat on the fire, I figured I was up to the challenge. The group of people who wanted to go was too big to fit in one boat so I got stuck going in the second shift.
I watched the first boat go off into the starry night and sat in my hammock, awaiting my turn. The minutes crept by and I felt myself dosing off to the gentle lapping of the lagoon. When the first group came back it was close to 10:30 at night and I was considering sitting the trip out.
Plus all of the waiting had done a good job of marinating my fear of losing an arm or leg to a curious shark.
Finally, as the second group was getting ready to leave, I rallied myself to the idea of going out into a reef at night, spearing fish so their blood would be dispersed near roaming sharks and seeing what it was like to be out at sea in the dead of night. I used the logic of, ‘if I don’t do this now, I will kick myself later.’
The ride out to the spot was amazing. The stars overhead were more plentiful and bright than any nightscape I had seen in my life and the wake of the boat glowed green as phosphorescing algae got misplaced.
I didn’t speak the whole way out. I was too busy swallowing my Adam’s apple.
When we finally got out there, after stopping and starting many times to avoid the high reef heads, our guide started pairing us off with Marshallese. By luck of the draw I got a guy about my age with a sick sense of humor named Caleb.
“Ohhhhh, black tip sharks, white tip sharks,” he said to me in his best Halloween voice.
I decided to ignore the joke and laugh it off, the first group to go had not seen any sharks, and I hoped that I would not either.
Splash, into the water we went.
We were both carrying spears, but Caleb had the light, so I followed him as we poked along the reef shelf.
The first place we went was to the edge of the shelf where it sharply dropped off to utter blackness. On the way there, swimming through water no more than four feet deep, Caleb spotlighted a fish for me. I snapped him up on my first shot so things were looking good.
Right when we got to the edge though Caleb swung his flashlight down into the dark water and there, cruising with sanguine back and forth swishes of his tail was a black tip reef shark. It was about four to six feet long (hard to be exact under water) and he looked, well, absolutely majestic.
Caleb tried to scare me again by making low moaning noises, but for some reason, which I completely cannot explain, it didn’t bother me, and I was just happy to have seen one.
For the next half an hour or so Caleb and I teemed up to spear a multitude of fish across the reef. He would spotlight a fish, slow and lackadaisical due to the time of night, and I would try and skewer it. When I missed (often) he would grab it with the business end of his spear.
By the time that we got back to the boat we had a belt absolutely brimming with fish. We headed back to the shore and I regarded the stars and the glowing water.
Back at the camp our guides taught us which fish we could eat raw and so I chewed on the raw fish I had caught not an hour before, laughing with the Marshallese as they made fun of my hesitation.
That night as I swayed to sleep in my hammock, the image of the shark swept threw my mind…
I gulped and gripped the edge of my lawn chair.
“Now, if one of the guide flicks his light back and forth, then that is time to get in the boat and get out of here,” he said with the light of the fire shining on his features in a harrowing way.
As I had gone spear fishing for my first time earlier in the day, and come back with a reef fish about the size of my hand that was tasty to eat on the fire, I figured I was up to the challenge. The group of people who wanted to go was too big to fit in one boat so I got stuck going in the second shift.
I watched the first boat go off into the starry night and sat in my hammock, awaiting my turn. The minutes crept by and I felt myself dosing off to the gentle lapping of the lagoon. When the first group came back it was close to 10:30 at night and I was considering sitting the trip out.
Plus all of the waiting had done a good job of marinating my fear of losing an arm or leg to a curious shark.
Finally, as the second group was getting ready to leave, I rallied myself to the idea of going out into a reef at night, spearing fish so their blood would be dispersed near roaming sharks and seeing what it was like to be out at sea in the dead of night. I used the logic of, ‘if I don’t do this now, I will kick myself later.’
The ride out to the spot was amazing. The stars overhead were more plentiful and bright than any nightscape I had seen in my life and the wake of the boat glowed green as phosphorescing algae got misplaced.
I didn’t speak the whole way out. I was too busy swallowing my Adam’s apple.
When we finally got out there, after stopping and starting many times to avoid the high reef heads, our guide started pairing us off with Marshallese. By luck of the draw I got a guy about my age with a sick sense of humor named Caleb.
“Ohhhhh, black tip sharks, white tip sharks,” he said to me in his best Halloween voice.
I decided to ignore the joke and laugh it off, the first group to go had not seen any sharks, and I hoped that I would not either.
Splash, into the water we went.
We were both carrying spears, but Caleb had the light, so I followed him as we poked along the reef shelf.
The first place we went was to the edge of the shelf where it sharply dropped off to utter blackness. On the way there, swimming through water no more than four feet deep, Caleb spotlighted a fish for me. I snapped him up on my first shot so things were looking good.
Right when we got to the edge though Caleb swung his flashlight down into the dark water and there, cruising with sanguine back and forth swishes of his tail was a black tip reef shark. It was about four to six feet long (hard to be exact under water) and he looked, well, absolutely majestic.
Caleb tried to scare me again by making low moaning noises, but for some reason, which I completely cannot explain, it didn’t bother me, and I was just happy to have seen one.
For the next half an hour or so Caleb and I teemed up to spear a multitude of fish across the reef. He would spotlight a fish, slow and lackadaisical due to the time of night, and I would try and skewer it. When I missed (often) he would grab it with the business end of his spear.
By the time that we got back to the boat we had a belt absolutely brimming with fish. We headed back to the shore and I regarded the stars and the glowing water.
Back at the camp our guides taught us which fish we could eat raw and so I chewed on the raw fish I had caught not an hour before, laughing with the Marshallese as they made fun of my hesitation.
That night as I swayed to sleep in my hammock, the image of the shark swept threw my mind…
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
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Sunday, August 12, 2007
Hitchin' It
The thumb is a very powerful thing.
Way back when, in the dawn of time as cavemen were just learning the ropes of fire, it allowed us to make tools and thrive rather than survive. It has changed over the years to be sure, but it is still an important part of humanity.
Now, thumbs up means a good movie and thumbs down means a bad movie and no one needs rules when there is the rule of thumb. Here on the Marshall Islands the thumb is also powerful. It is your ticket to a free ride. Hitchhiking in the US has long ago gone to the wayside as a dangerous activity reserved for those desperate or dangerous.
For people here on this little coral atoll, it is just the decent thing to do.
There is one main road on Marjuro. Where the island permits it there are small outlets of side roads, but for all intensive purposes, one cement vein pulses through the atoll. It is not like there is some great worry that someone will pick you up and take you on a joyride to shady sights unseen and spur off a televised nationwide search like back in the states.
It doesn’t matter anyway because a nationwide search here means someone climbs a coconut tree and looks around because the Marshall Islands, at their highest point, stand a mere seven feet above the sea level.
I shouldn’t put light on the dangers of riding with strangers but here on this little remote speck of coral, I feel safe jacking up the thumb and hoping for a ride. The benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
Sure, in the back of a truck I am exposed to the elements, but in this heat and humidity, I probably needed a shower anyway. Yeah, with my head looking over the top of the cab, tongue lolling out like a dog going to the lake, I get my fair share of insects in the mouth, but I need the protein anyway because rice sure isn’t doing it for me. OK, people talk to me in a language I don’t really get, but then again, I get to listen to people talk in a language I don’t really get.
Also, and this is the best part, a hitchhikers thumb is a free pass to get a glimpse into the Marshallese culture I wouldn’t normally see. That little back window is a little portal into a world that I am usually not privy to.
I see Marshallese couples dressed in their Sunday best holding hands, I see children making faces at me and young men resting on their window sills, cigarette dangling from their lower lip, contemplating palm trees and beach-scapes.
Most of all I see what it is like to trust someone whose name you don’t know. I sit and trust that they will drive safe enough that I won’t be flung from the back of the truck. I trust that they will stop when I want them to and I trust that they won’t go too far out of the way to bring me to where I am going.
Gas in the Marshall Islands costs in upwards of $4.50 a gallon and most people here make less than that an hour and still, almost every time I jump in the back of a truck, the driver goes out of his way to get me where I am going.
The Marshall Islands has a culture that is extremely community-based. This can be frustrating in the classroom when you ask for unique responses about what a kid’s favorite song is and he is only comfortable saying what his neighbor said, or when you find your pen missing at the end of the day because personal property is a weird concept here and everyone thinks everything is, well, everyone’s; but when it comes to hitching people pick you up because if they were in the same spot they’d expect it from you, community-based culture it is a fabulous thing.
It has fostered my faith in trust — and that lesson all came on the end of the odd digit out.
The love you give comes back in the end. --------------------------------------------------------
Way back when, in the dawn of time as cavemen were just learning the ropes of fire, it allowed us to make tools and thrive rather than survive. It has changed over the years to be sure, but it is still an important part of humanity.
Now, thumbs up means a good movie and thumbs down means a bad movie and no one needs rules when there is the rule of thumb. Here on the Marshall Islands the thumb is also powerful. It is your ticket to a free ride. Hitchhiking in the US has long ago gone to the wayside as a dangerous activity reserved for those desperate or dangerous.
For people here on this little coral atoll, it is just the decent thing to do.
There is one main road on Marjuro. Where the island permits it there are small outlets of side roads, but for all intensive purposes, one cement vein pulses through the atoll. It is not like there is some great worry that someone will pick you up and take you on a joyride to shady sights unseen and spur off a televised nationwide search like back in the states.
It doesn’t matter anyway because a nationwide search here means someone climbs a coconut tree and looks around because the Marshall Islands, at their highest point, stand a mere seven feet above the sea level.
I shouldn’t put light on the dangers of riding with strangers but here on this little remote speck of coral, I feel safe jacking up the thumb and hoping for a ride. The benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
Sure, in the back of a truck I am exposed to the elements, but in this heat and humidity, I probably needed a shower anyway. Yeah, with my head looking over the top of the cab, tongue lolling out like a dog going to the lake, I get my fair share of insects in the mouth, but I need the protein anyway because rice sure isn’t doing it for me. OK, people talk to me in a language I don’t really get, but then again, I get to listen to people talk in a language I don’t really get.
Also, and this is the best part, a hitchhikers thumb is a free pass to get a glimpse into the Marshallese culture I wouldn’t normally see. That little back window is a little portal into a world that I am usually not privy to.
I see Marshallese couples dressed in their Sunday best holding hands, I see children making faces at me and young men resting on their window sills, cigarette dangling from their lower lip, contemplating palm trees and beach-scapes.
Most of all I see what it is like to trust someone whose name you don’t know. I sit and trust that they will drive safe enough that I won’t be flung from the back of the truck. I trust that they will stop when I want them to and I trust that they won’t go too far out of the way to bring me to where I am going.
Gas in the Marshall Islands costs in upwards of $4.50 a gallon and most people here make less than that an hour and still, almost every time I jump in the back of a truck, the driver goes out of his way to get me where I am going.
The Marshall Islands has a culture that is extremely community-based. This can be frustrating in the classroom when you ask for unique responses about what a kid’s favorite song is and he is only comfortable saying what his neighbor said, or when you find your pen missing at the end of the day because personal property is a weird concept here and everyone thinks everything is, well, everyone’s; but when it comes to hitching people pick you up because if they were in the same spot they’d expect it from you, community-based culture it is a fabulous thing.
It has fostered my faith in trust — and that lesson all came on the end of the odd digit out.
The love you give comes back in the end. --------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Hunger for Learning
Uliga and Rita, the two towns on the northeast end of Majuro, are two of the lowest income communities on island. For my very first taste of being an educator in the Marshall Islands, I got the pleasure of working with kids from these towns in a summer camp.
The summer camp is just a thinly veiled ploy to get warm bodies into chairs so volunteers, such as myself, will have a tiny glimpse of what they have gotten themselves into. The way that they get kids to skip the tail-end of their summer vacation is to literally drive a minibus down the street and herd kids on.
I was paired with three other volunteers and we were teaching basic music to fifth and sixth graders.
For my part specifically I was in charge of reading the kids a story about the sounds we hear all around us and how people can use those sounds in music. Before I got up in front of the kids I was not nervous at all. I had a good story, I had a good plan and I have always enjoyed an ability to connect with young people — I thought I was set.
Turns out I was wrong.
First of all, the minute I stood in front of the class, my mouth went completely dry and my shirt sucked onto my body with sweat.
I asked them how they were doing.
No one spoke.
I asked them if they wanted to read a book with me.
Nothing.
I read them a book and asked them what they thought.
Crickets.
I immediately had a ridiculous amount of respect for each and every one of my teachers I have ever had. I can’t imagine needing to think of things for me and every other trouble-making kid I grew up with to do every day. I don’t know why every classroom in the country is not experiencing riots all of the time.
Being up there in front of so many eyes made me nervous at any hint of silence and so I started to rush through everything I planned.
When I found out that the copies of the story I handed out were in the wrong order, I brushed past them instead of stopping and trying to salvage them. When the kids didn’t understand my vocabulary words right away, I moved onto the next thing.
The problem was, I had no next thing, and the kids were growing restless. Suddenly my lesson on sound was extremely acute to only one person in the room — me.
There came the uncomfortable sounds of shifting desks and low murmuring. The kids were asking what time it was and I was sure that if I didn’t do something soon I would have a spirited, if not bloody, rebellion on my hand. The situation called for drastic actions.
Recess.
In the classroom with me was a local American teacher who had been observing me.
“Don’t get too down on yourself,” he told me after the kids had filed out. “This is your first time teaching, and most of these kids are just really hungry.”
I walked outside and saw my whole class hunkered down against the wall, ravenously eating their lunches that were provided by my program.
Suddenly the draw of summer camp became clear; it was a chance to eat a warm and ready meal.
These kids came from Uliga and Rita where finding a job can sometimes be tough and eating breakfast is no sure thing.
They didn’t need my lesson on noises, the rumbling of their stomach was making racket enough.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
The summer camp is just a thinly veiled ploy to get warm bodies into chairs so volunteers, such as myself, will have a tiny glimpse of what they have gotten themselves into. The way that they get kids to skip the tail-end of their summer vacation is to literally drive a minibus down the street and herd kids on.
I was paired with three other volunteers and we were teaching basic music to fifth and sixth graders.
For my part specifically I was in charge of reading the kids a story about the sounds we hear all around us and how people can use those sounds in music. Before I got up in front of the kids I was not nervous at all. I had a good story, I had a good plan and I have always enjoyed an ability to connect with young people — I thought I was set.
Turns out I was wrong.
First of all, the minute I stood in front of the class, my mouth went completely dry and my shirt sucked onto my body with sweat.
I asked them how they were doing.
No one spoke.
I asked them if they wanted to read a book with me.
Nothing.
I read them a book and asked them what they thought.
Crickets.
I immediately had a ridiculous amount of respect for each and every one of my teachers I have ever had. I can’t imagine needing to think of things for me and every other trouble-making kid I grew up with to do every day. I don’t know why every classroom in the country is not experiencing riots all of the time.
Being up there in front of so many eyes made me nervous at any hint of silence and so I started to rush through everything I planned.
When I found out that the copies of the story I handed out were in the wrong order, I brushed past them instead of stopping and trying to salvage them. When the kids didn’t understand my vocabulary words right away, I moved onto the next thing.
The problem was, I had no next thing, and the kids were growing restless. Suddenly my lesson on sound was extremely acute to only one person in the room — me.
There came the uncomfortable sounds of shifting desks and low murmuring. The kids were asking what time it was and I was sure that if I didn’t do something soon I would have a spirited, if not bloody, rebellion on my hand. The situation called for drastic actions.
Recess.
In the classroom with me was a local American teacher who had been observing me.
“Don’t get too down on yourself,” he told me after the kids had filed out. “This is your first time teaching, and most of these kids are just really hungry.”
I walked outside and saw my whole class hunkered down against the wall, ravenously eating their lunches that were provided by my program.
Suddenly the draw of summer camp became clear; it was a chance to eat a warm and ready meal.
These kids came from Uliga and Rita where finding a job can sometimes be tough and eating breakfast is no sure thing.
They didn’t need my lesson on noises, the rumbling of their stomach was making racket enough.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, August 5, 2007
L to the Azy
Oh lazy Sundays, how I love you.
Today I woke up and with four friends decided to see how far down the road out thumbs could take us so I gathered my snorkeling gear and camera and headed out to the central road of the island.
It didn’t take long for someone to stop and pick us up.
“You WorldTeach?” He asked. “I always help the WorldTeach.”
We climbed into the back of his red pickup and cruised out along the narrow road further than any of us had been before. As we drove along we saw family after family of Marshallese enjoying their day of rest. Most people simply DO NOT work here on Sunday so it is a day of rest and religion.
At a parking lot a few miles down the road the man pulled over and we hopped out. We walked down to the shore and spotted some pristine, white-sand beaches further down the way so we hiked on.
With the sun was beating down heavily on our backs I was getting very eager to jump into the water but as we got further and further from the parking lot the bushes and trees along the sand started filling up with the rustlings of little kids. From out of nowhere the bushes parted and a young boy hopped out.
“Yakwe!” he shouted to us.
Mikey was 13 years old and as I sat on a log with him and regarded the horizon he asked me, “you like coconuts?” to which I shook my head yes. Mikey counted out how many people were in our group and ran off.
As we waited the sky mixed and contorted on itself and darkened quickly.
When Mikey returned with his arms brimming with husked coconuts the storm was over us. We all scurried into a fort that Mikey had made and watched the world turn itself over as we sipped on sweet coconut milk.
Not bad for a Sunday afternoon.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Today I woke up and with four friends decided to see how far down the road out thumbs could take us so I gathered my snorkeling gear and camera and headed out to the central road of the island.
It didn’t take long for someone to stop and pick us up.
“You WorldTeach?” He asked. “I always help the WorldTeach.”
We climbed into the back of his red pickup and cruised out along the narrow road further than any of us had been before. As we drove along we saw family after family of Marshallese enjoying their day of rest. Most people simply DO NOT work here on Sunday so it is a day of rest and religion.
At a parking lot a few miles down the road the man pulled over and we hopped out. We walked down to the shore and spotted some pristine, white-sand beaches further down the way so we hiked on.
With the sun was beating down heavily on our backs I was getting very eager to jump into the water but as we got further and further from the parking lot the bushes and trees along the sand started filling up with the rustlings of little kids. From out of nowhere the bushes parted and a young boy hopped out.
“Yakwe!” he shouted to us.
Mikey was 13 years old and as I sat on a log with him and regarded the horizon he asked me, “you like coconuts?” to which I shook my head yes. Mikey counted out how many people were in our group and ran off.
As we waited the sky mixed and contorted on itself and darkened quickly.
When Mikey returned with his arms brimming with husked coconuts the storm was over us. We all scurried into a fort that Mikey had made and watched the world turn itself over as we sipped on sweet coconut milk.
Not bad for a Sunday afternoon.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
OK, enough already!
I am just about fed up with things here. If it is not one thing than it’s another.
If it is your turn to clean the dishes, the kitchen and the bathroom then of course, the water goes out. So then you are stuck hauling buckets of water from the silo just so you can wash up. The biggest problem with that is the path to the water goes directly through the territory of some nasty red ants. These ants just absolutely go to town on your feet. If you walk in their area, they will chow down on you innocent skin — and these guys are not happy to just take a nibble. They burrow their little devilish heads deep and spread their disgusting poison which causes you to itch and turn an unhealthy shade of purple so then you are forced to pick out the ant between your thumb and pointer finger. As you do it, you can literally see your skin tugging out as the jaws of the ant clamp tight, and then you have to kill it.
Let me tell you, this is frustrating for me because when I was little, ants were my favorite organisms in the world. I would put them in jars and watched as they burrowed, so for me, killing these ants is like you strangling your favorite childhood teddy bear...
So you have that going for you...
Then, if you finally snag some free time from the hustle and bustle orientation to go to the post-office and grab some stamps the old-timer behind the desk tells you that they are out of stamps, when you can clearly see stacks of them sitting behind the guy, and that you should probably try the bigger post office a few miles down the road.
“But the bigger post office down the road will be closed before I get there,” you tell the man, “couldn’t I please buy some of those stamps behind you?”
“Down the road...” he says and points his decrepit old finger to the outside.
So you leave, cursing under your breath, and get caught in a rain-storm...
Just about had it up to here, I tell you.
I guess that the biggest thing is that I am used to living on my own time. I am used to having my own space and my own pace.
Back home, for the most part, I could get up when I wanted to, go to sleep when I wanted to and unwind when I wanted to. If I felt like letting my mind and self settle I could go out on my balcony and decompress, people watch and pick through myself at my leisure.
Here, everything is packed together. People are never alone, and this orientation is no different. It is hard to go and steal some time for yourself, and when you do; you go and get your rump bit.
I guess this is the perfect crash-course for me for living in a new culture for the next 10 months. And I know that these feelings will pass because I have had them before. I hated Spain at first and grew to like it so much I went back, for a time in Chile, I considered coming back early but it turned out amazing and I know that I will get through this and be grateful I did.
Just right now, at this moment, I have had it up to here.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
If it is your turn to clean the dishes, the kitchen and the bathroom then of course, the water goes out. So then you are stuck hauling buckets of water from the silo just so you can wash up. The biggest problem with that is the path to the water goes directly through the territory of some nasty red ants. These ants just absolutely go to town on your feet. If you walk in their area, they will chow down on you innocent skin — and these guys are not happy to just take a nibble. They burrow their little devilish heads deep and spread their disgusting poison which causes you to itch and turn an unhealthy shade of purple so then you are forced to pick out the ant between your thumb and pointer finger. As you do it, you can literally see your skin tugging out as the jaws of the ant clamp tight, and then you have to kill it.
Let me tell you, this is frustrating for me because when I was little, ants were my favorite organisms in the world. I would put them in jars and watched as they burrowed, so for me, killing these ants is like you strangling your favorite childhood teddy bear...
So you have that going for you...
Then, if you finally snag some free time from the hustle and bustle orientation to go to the post-office and grab some stamps the old-timer behind the desk tells you that they are out of stamps, when you can clearly see stacks of them sitting behind the guy, and that you should probably try the bigger post office a few miles down the road.
“But the bigger post office down the road will be closed before I get there,” you tell the man, “couldn’t I please buy some of those stamps behind you?”
“Down the road...” he says and points his decrepit old finger to the outside.
So you leave, cursing under your breath, and get caught in a rain-storm...
Just about had it up to here, I tell you.
I guess that the biggest thing is that I am used to living on my own time. I am used to having my own space and my own pace.
Back home, for the most part, I could get up when I wanted to, go to sleep when I wanted to and unwind when I wanted to. If I felt like letting my mind and self settle I could go out on my balcony and decompress, people watch and pick through myself at my leisure.
Here, everything is packed together. People are never alone, and this orientation is no different. It is hard to go and steal some time for yourself, and when you do; you go and get your rump bit.
I guess this is the perfect crash-course for me for living in a new culture for the next 10 months. And I know that these feelings will pass because I have had them before. I hated Spain at first and grew to like it so much I went back, for a time in Chile, I considered coming back early but it turned out amazing and I know that I will get through this and be grateful I did.
Just right now, at this moment, I have had it up to here.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
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