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.
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4 comments:
According the MI Journal, the US offered a ship visit with assistance. I have to assume the RMI specified the rebuilding of a portion of RES as the project they wanted the sailors to tackle.
The RMI could have responded "No Thanks" to the ship visit or picked a different project.
Or the RMI could have welcomed the ship visit (and the dollars it will bring into the hotels and restaurants and stores) and turned down the assistance altogether.
I liked this post. I always knew you had a little commie hiding inside of you : )
Sounds like there's more to the story. Some choices were available and maybe, just maybe, the right choice was made.
Hmm, it seems that the RMI had a choice here, and you are correct, it does bring in plenty of dollars for the economy, and like I said in the post, I have nothing aainst helping, my issue comes when there could have been alternatives in timing. If they had wanted to, they could have made it so the ship came at a time (summer) when there would have been no conflict, or they could have worked after school was out each day (3-7).
Obviously I am new to the situation, and so there may be things that I am not seeing. Accepting the ship visit and not the help is an interesting idea.
I do think that tourism is the best hope here, so just having the ship visit could have been a good thing.
The whole point could be moot anyway because many families that are living in the classrooms now (making teaching in the impossible) are stuck here because both planes to outer islands are down.
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