In the Republic of the Marshall Islands, militaries have come and left. Ours, and others, have built cement structures with metal cylinders to shoot missiles and rain bombs. Foreign men have been here during hostile times, far away from their loved ones, thinking they could die.
A war came through these islands and atolls and while the shaking of military might has left, there are remnants that still stand.
Outside on the beach in front of my house, there is a rusted machine with gears exposed, the teeth of which are broken and disfigured. Chipped and decayed like the remains of a robot, the ocean will turn this to sand over time --- but it has not happened yet. In the lagoon there are planes that sit swaying with bits of seaweed growing on their hulls. They are stationary ghost figures in gloomy tides.
The military men also left big, hollow shells that simply do not go away. You can burry them, sure, but where?
When the war left his place, it kept its thumb-print here.
These echoes of a not so distant time could be a bitter reminder of when the Marshallese people played host to men who they did not understand and played a part in a war they had no business being in. These relics could be a sore-spot of anger and regret.
Strangely it is not that way — at least from what I have seen.
You will hear bells when you are here. They ring out during the day and sometimes at night. They ring out when church has over and those who have finished worshiping their God make their way home. They chime when school starts and finishes. Some families have their own bells.
Children take up pieces of coral in-hand and bang the bells then they are noddy and when they wish to play tricks. It is a game that never grows tired. Children double over in laughter, collapse in the fun of ringing a bell when it should stay silent.
And so, on this island, you will hear bells at any given time and you will know that something important like school or church has finished, or maybe you will think of cheeky kids having a laugh, collapsed on the ground and it all comes from the bells.
These bells come in one size. They hang from buildings and metal stands. They stand a little more than five feet tall and are long and cylindrical. They are open at one end and they slope closed on the other.
They used to be a tool for the military. Our military or another — I am not sure. They are thick shells and even though they rust in the salty and humid air, they hold up. They will for a while. They used to be evidence that this place was taken by a military, held, contested and passed from one hand to another.
They used to be a thumb-print of a time when foreign men smoked foreign cigarettes as they prepared to fight a foreign war.
They don’t stand for that anymore.
They are just bells and they help people know when they should go to things like church or school. They are not devices that will lay waste to groups of people. Sure there are some that collapse in front of their reverberating strike — but it is children laughing at a good joke and not people dying in an attack.
Militaries have come and left this place, and there are remnants that remain.
There are also bells here now.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Going the Long Way
There are two ways that I can walk into town from where I live. One goes on the main road and passes restaurants and shops and is on the lagoon side. The other way I can go winds its way along the ocean and through a neighborhood.
Here the houses are crowded closely together and all seem to be growths and extensions from one another. There is a tiny graveyard with little bleached white graves and a basketball court that is squeezed in tightly between two houses and could probably only fit two men standing shoulder to shoulder. There are bare light bulbs dangling from outside walls with orange extension cords and small tables and stoops where the older men and women sit and play a game that is close to checkers but not quite checkers.
The most noticeable thing about this neighborhood though is the people — they are everywhere.
The parents and grandparents line the borders of everything and laugh, work and talk. The kids fill the street and the small ally-ways like water fills a bucket. They hang out of door ways and from the limbs of trees. They pulse in groups of three or five or 20. They run and chase each other or all crouch and lay around some found object to analyze and dissect it. Babies are held by their big brothers and sisters sit on stairs with their siblings and comb out the tangles in their hair. Mothers call children in for dinner and fathers sit in groups with their arms folded and make jokes.
In this neighborhood that sits next to my house, you can feel community pulsing.
I have always known that I live in a section of Majuro called Rita, and I could get home in a cab with this information, but it was not until I went through this neighborhood that I actually felt like I knew where Rita was.
Coming from a place like the United States to a place like the Marshall Islands puts me in a strange spot. I am here to help and volunteer. My job description is to teach the youth so they will have a better future that they might not have otherwise had.
My mission, by its very definition, puts me into a position where I notice what these kids do not have and I attempt to alleviate that — help them onto a more even playing field with the rest of the world. So I find my mind snapping to the mold of noticing only what the people lack.
Every time that I pull water from the kitchen tap I have to first boil it for three minutes to kill any nasty microbes that could be lurking inside. This is just one example of a thing that I put onto the list that has formed in my head of what disadvantages the youth here have. “They cannot simply drink water whenever they want,” I think to myself. “That is so sad.”
When I found the real Rita however, something inside me started to change. While these kids have a lot of things to get over — poverty, poor infrastructure, spotty education and sometimes questionable nutrition to name a few — they also have some highlights to carry with them.
They have community in a trump suit.
In some places in the developed world kids are corralled off into mowed lawns behind white fences because otherwise it is dangerous. They play ball with their friends they invite over or maybe with a brother or sister, but they don’t have what the kids here have. They don’t have a roving and pulsing community of kids that are free to pursue whatever interest captures them on any given day. They do not have parents that line and pad the neighborhood.
Most of them don’t have a place like the real Rita.
So, when I walk to town, I like to walk down the street where the corrugated tin houses are stacked up like matchstick boxes on a store shelf and the children and community ebb and flow naturally like the tide.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Here the houses are crowded closely together and all seem to be growths and extensions from one another. There is a tiny graveyard with little bleached white graves and a basketball court that is squeezed in tightly between two houses and could probably only fit two men standing shoulder to shoulder. There are bare light bulbs dangling from outside walls with orange extension cords and small tables and stoops where the older men and women sit and play a game that is close to checkers but not quite checkers.
The most noticeable thing about this neighborhood though is the people — they are everywhere.
The parents and grandparents line the borders of everything and laugh, work and talk. The kids fill the street and the small ally-ways like water fills a bucket. They hang out of door ways and from the limbs of trees. They pulse in groups of three or five or 20. They run and chase each other or all crouch and lay around some found object to analyze and dissect it. Babies are held by their big brothers and sisters sit on stairs with their siblings and comb out the tangles in their hair. Mothers call children in for dinner and fathers sit in groups with their arms folded and make jokes.
In this neighborhood that sits next to my house, you can feel community pulsing.
I have always known that I live in a section of Majuro called Rita, and I could get home in a cab with this information, but it was not until I went through this neighborhood that I actually felt like I knew where Rita was.
Coming from a place like the United States to a place like the Marshall Islands puts me in a strange spot. I am here to help and volunteer. My job description is to teach the youth so they will have a better future that they might not have otherwise had.
My mission, by its very definition, puts me into a position where I notice what these kids do not have and I attempt to alleviate that — help them onto a more even playing field with the rest of the world. So I find my mind snapping to the mold of noticing only what the people lack.
Every time that I pull water from the kitchen tap I have to first boil it for three minutes to kill any nasty microbes that could be lurking inside. This is just one example of a thing that I put onto the list that has formed in my head of what disadvantages the youth here have. “They cannot simply drink water whenever they want,” I think to myself. “That is so sad.”
When I found the real Rita however, something inside me started to change. While these kids have a lot of things to get over — poverty, poor infrastructure, spotty education and sometimes questionable nutrition to name a few — they also have some highlights to carry with them.
They have community in a trump suit.
In some places in the developed world kids are corralled off into mowed lawns behind white fences because otherwise it is dangerous. They play ball with their friends they invite over or maybe with a brother or sister, but they don’t have what the kids here have. They don’t have a roving and pulsing community of kids that are free to pursue whatever interest captures them on any given day. They do not have parents that line and pad the neighborhood.
Most of them don’t have a place like the real Rita.
So, when I walk to town, I like to walk down the street where the corrugated tin houses are stacked up like matchstick boxes on a store shelf and the children and community ebb and flow naturally like the tide.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Help!
OK, so my class is in dire need of reading material. We have lots of good books to read but we need news magazines. I think that for a lot of these kids, the outside world is as real for them as the Marshall Islands is for most of you all. This is a situation I think needs to be fixed. So, any newsy magazines (or anymagazines for that matter because pictures are awesome) you should drop in the mail and send my way!
Much Love
Tim Lane
c/o WorldTeach
PO Box 627
Majuro, Marshall Islands
RMI
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Much Love
Tim Lane
c/o WorldTeach
PO Box 627
Majuro, Marshall Islands
RMI
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Goodbye
The Marshallese people have a very specialized verb in their language. It came into being as a necessity. The verb is “Lokon wa,” and to my understanding, it means to see someone’s back as they sail away.
The verb is to say goodbye without really ever knowing when you will say hello again.
Long ago, when canoes sailed off on expansive journeys across the Pacific, many Marhsallese people didn’t know if they would ever see their loved ones again. They were left with the lasting image of their friend or family member being swallowed in a vast ocean-horizon.
“Lokon wa.”
It may seem that the word is archaic in our era of cell phones, internet and airplanes, but I am not so sure — at least not here. It seems to me that the Marshallese people are in a cultural transition that will keep this particular verb relevant for a while longer.
There are two things that the majority of Marshallese children want to be — a teacher or a nurse. On this island, finding a steady-paying job other than those two professions can be difficult. People can try to work in shops but upward mobility is hard in this private sector so many people choose to pack up and leave for the land of opportunity — the United States of America.
Through the US Compact with the Marshall Islands, citizens here can move freely to the US and try their hand in our economy with little to no red tape, so people do it. Actually, whole families do it. And when families move to find jobs communities of ex-islanders gel together. There are populations of Marshallese all over the US, but locally there are large groups in Salem and Portland. Sometimes, Marshallese children born to these families don’t see much their home country and are more American than Marshallese. They use American slang, don’t know much of their mother tongue and their parents can’t bring the family home as much as they would like because plane tickets are so much money.
“Lokon wa.”
Until relatively recently the Marshallese were subsidence-livers. They would get by on the things that they could grow or catch in the sea. It was a lifestyle where community pooling was crucial to survival.
This is reflected in the culture here still. People share what they have and they are more comfortable being together than being apart.
This is slowly changing however. People want good health care and a reliable supply of food and water so they leave their outer islands and come into the mainland where they are more guaranteed of meeting these needs, and rightly so. However, they are leaving behind the simple outer island lifestyle of living off the land and having life-lessons like sharing intertwined with their survival.
“Lokon wa.”
This specialized word came to be a long ago, before everything that is happening now was even a glimmer in Father Time’s eye, but the word still holds on grimly to its relevance. The RMI is in the midst of a painful change from a place with just a rich history to a place with a rich history and a future. This change is unavoidable and as it has been with every other place in the world where “progress” has touched, a part the past is left behind. Efforts to hold onto cultural practices like canoe building are underway, but it is impossible to keep everything perserved — it is contrary to the nature of progress.
“Lokon wa.”
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
The verb is to say goodbye without really ever knowing when you will say hello again.
Long ago, when canoes sailed off on expansive journeys across the Pacific, many Marhsallese people didn’t know if they would ever see their loved ones again. They were left with the lasting image of their friend or family member being swallowed in a vast ocean-horizon.
“Lokon wa.”
It may seem that the word is archaic in our era of cell phones, internet and airplanes, but I am not so sure — at least not here. It seems to me that the Marshallese people are in a cultural transition that will keep this particular verb relevant for a while longer.
There are two things that the majority of Marshallese children want to be — a teacher or a nurse. On this island, finding a steady-paying job other than those two professions can be difficult. People can try to work in shops but upward mobility is hard in this private sector so many people choose to pack up and leave for the land of opportunity — the United States of America.
Through the US Compact with the Marshall Islands, citizens here can move freely to the US and try their hand in our economy with little to no red tape, so people do it. Actually, whole families do it. And when families move to find jobs communities of ex-islanders gel together. There are populations of Marshallese all over the US, but locally there are large groups in Salem and Portland. Sometimes, Marshallese children born to these families don’t see much their home country and are more American than Marshallese. They use American slang, don’t know much of their mother tongue and their parents can’t bring the family home as much as they would like because plane tickets are so much money.
“Lokon wa.”
Until relatively recently the Marshallese were subsidence-livers. They would get by on the things that they could grow or catch in the sea. It was a lifestyle where community pooling was crucial to survival.
This is reflected in the culture here still. People share what they have and they are more comfortable being together than being apart.
This is slowly changing however. People want good health care and a reliable supply of food and water so they leave their outer islands and come into the mainland where they are more guaranteed of meeting these needs, and rightly so. However, they are leaving behind the simple outer island lifestyle of living off the land and having life-lessons like sharing intertwined with their survival.
“Lokon wa.”
This specialized word came to be a long ago, before everything that is happening now was even a glimmer in Father Time’s eye, but the word still holds on grimly to its relevance. The RMI is in the midst of a painful change from a place with just a rich history to a place with a rich history and a future. This change is unavoidable and as it has been with every other place in the world where “progress” has touched, a part the past is left behind. Efforts to hold onto cultural practices like canoe building are underway, but it is impossible to keep everything perserved — it is contrary to the nature of progress.
“Lokon wa.”
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Goodbye
The Marshallese people have a very specialized verb in their language. It came into being as a necessity. The verb is “Lokon wa,” and to my understanding, it means to see someone’s back as they sail away.
The verb is to say goodbye without really ever knowing when you will say hello again.
Long ago, when canoes sailed off on expansive journeys across the Pacific, many Marhsallese people didn’t know if they would ever see their loved ones again. They were left with the lasting image of their friend or family member being swallowed in a vast ocean-horizon.
“Lokon wa.”
It may seem that the word is archaic in our era of cell phones, internet and airplanes, but I am not so sure — at least not here. It seems to me that the Marshallese people are in a cultural transition that will keep this particular verb relevant for a while longer.
There are two things that the majority of Marshallese children want to be — a teacher or a nurse. On this island, finding a steady-paying job other than those two professions can be difficult. People can try to work in shops but upward mobility is hard in this private sector so many people choose to pack up and leave for the land of opportunity — the United States of America.
Through the US Compact with the Marshall Islands, citizens here can move freely to the US and try their hand in our economy with little to no red tape, so people do it. Actually, whole families do it. And when families move to find jobs communities of ex-islanders gel together. There are populations of Marshallese all over the US, but locally there are large groups in Salem and Portland. Sometimes, Marshallese children born to these families don’t see much their home country and are more American than Marshallese. They use American slang, don’t know much of their mother tongue and their parents can’t bring the family home as much as they would like because plane tickets are so much money.
“Lokon wa.”
Until relatively recently the Marshallese were subsidence-livers. They would get by on the things that they could grow or catch in the sea. It was a lifestyle where community pooling was crucial to survival.
This is reflected in the culture here still. People share what they have and they are more comfortable being together than being apart.
This is slowly changing however. People want good health care and a reliable supply of food and water so they leave their outer islands and come into the mainland where they are more guaranteed of meeting these needs, and rightly so. However, they are leaving behind the simple outer island lifestyle of living off the land and having life-lessons like sharing intertwined with their survival.
“Lokon wa.”
This specialized word came to be a long ago, before everything that is happening now was even a glimmer in Father Time’s eye, but the word still holds on grimly to its relevance. The RMI is in the midst of a painful change from a place with just a rich history to a place with a rich history and a future. This change is unavoidable and as it has been with every other place in the world where “progress” has touched, a part the past is left behind. Efforts to hold onto cultural practices like canoe building are underway, but it is impossible to keep everything perserved — it is contrary to the nature of progress.
“Lokon wa.”
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
The verb is to say goodbye without really ever knowing when you will say hello again.
Long ago, when canoes sailed off on expansive journeys across the Pacific, many Marhsallese people didn’t know if they would ever see their loved ones again. They were left with the lasting image of their friend or family member being swallowed in a vast ocean-horizon.
“Lokon wa.”
It may seem that the word is archaic in our era of cell phones, internet and airplanes, but I am not so sure — at least not here. It seems to me that the Marshallese people are in a cultural transition that will keep this particular verb relevant for a while longer.
There are two things that the majority of Marshallese children want to be — a teacher or a nurse. On this island, finding a steady-paying job other than those two professions can be difficult. People can try to work in shops but upward mobility is hard in this private sector so many people choose to pack up and leave for the land of opportunity — the United States of America.
Through the US Compact with the Marshall Islands, citizens here can move freely to the US and try their hand in our economy with little to no red tape, so people do it. Actually, whole families do it. And when families move to find jobs communities of ex-islanders gel together. There are populations of Marshallese all over the US, but locally there are large groups in Salem and Portland. Sometimes, Marshallese children born to these families don’t see much their home country and are more American than Marshallese. They use American slang, don’t know much of their mother tongue and their parents can’t bring the family home as much as they would like because plane tickets are so much money.
“Lokon wa.”
Until relatively recently the Marshallese were subsidence-livers. They would get by on the things that they could grow or catch in the sea. It was a lifestyle where community pooling was crucial to survival.
This is reflected in the culture here still. People share what they have and they are more comfortable being together than being apart.
This is slowly changing however. People want good health care and a reliable supply of food and water so they leave their outer islands and come into the mainland where they are more guaranteed of meeting these needs, and rightly so. However, they are leaving behind the simple outer island lifestyle of living off the land and having life-lessons like sharing intertwined with their survival.
“Lokon wa.”
This specialized word came to be a long ago, before everything that is happening now was even a glimmer in Father Time’s eye, but the word still holds on grimly to its relevance. The RMI is in the midst of a painful change from a place with just a rich history to a place with a rich history and a future. This change is unavoidable and as it has been with every other place in the world where “progress” has touched, a part the past is left behind. Efforts to hold onto cultural practices like canoe building are underway, but it is impossible to keep everything perserved — it is contrary to the nature of progress.
“Lokon wa.”
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
First Week
First week of teaching... Is it always this exhausting? My voice hurts, my patience is thin and I am not sure how much longer my weary legs will allow me to walk...
The kids are funny though...
And they seem to have a ton of energy...
Just need to tap that somehow... Some sort of Matrix thing...
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
The kids are funny though...
And they seem to have a ton of energy...
Just need to tap that somehow... Some sort of Matrix thing...
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Kids...
I was sitting on my bed, reading a book, listening to my fan and feeling pretty dang good when I heard a rattling sound followed with a thump outside of my window. I held my place in my book with my finger and I cocked my ear to the side for a moment or two and when the sounds didn’t return, I got back to reading.
Not four lines back into my book, I heard another thump. I leaned up in my bed, pulled my curtain aside, and peered into my back yard. There I saw two kids underneath the coconut tree that sits on our property. One was knocking down coconuts, while the other was gathering them up and throwing them over the fence. One saw me looking at them and yelled at his friend. By the time that I had got outside they had vanished — with my coconuts.
Cheeky kids.
I was walking down the street with a friend when I heard shouting from around a corner. I turned into a side street and saw about eight pairs of kids wheel-barrow racing. Their faces were all alight with smiles. The race started out even, hands slapping the pavement like horse’s hooves around a race track, when a pair that consisted of an older kid and a younger kid took the lead. The older kid just picked up his tiny partner and sprinted to the finish. Everyone laughed at the joke.
Fun kids.
I was eating lunch at a restaurant that overlooked the lagoon. It was a very hot day and outside of my window, I saw a group of kids leaping off of a cement dock into the lagoon. They looked so happy, and most of all very cool, so I cleared out the pockets of my shorts, took off my shirt and ran out to join them.
“Who are you?” one kid asked.
“I am Tim,” I said. “Can I swim with you.”
“Well I am in charge of this,” the kid — all of seven — said to me. “And that will be no problem.”
I hesitated in my jump, pretending to be scared to get laughs from the kids.
“You just got to go like this,” the lead kid said and did a running flip into the water.
Athletic kids.
I was mowing my lawn when a boy came out and started to assist me in pushing the mower. Whenever I turned it off to pick up some trash we had accidently shredded up, he would stoop down with me to pick it up. Then, when the mower engine was turned off, he would make the sound with his lips.
Helpful kids.
I went spear fishing with some friends and we had a pretty successful day. As with any time that you catch reef fish here, we asked some local kids what was good to eat and what was not. Most of the fish we caught were spiny red ones.
“Are these good to eat?” I asked a boy of about 10.
“No, these red ones will kill you if you eat them,” he told me very seriously. I was very disappointed but I didn’t feel like risking it and dying because I had eaten poisonous reef fish so I took them off of my ele, the wire belt I wear to hold the fish I catch, and dropped all of the offending fish onto the sand. The little boy and his friends gathered up those fish and headed away.
“What will you do with the fish?” I asked.
“We will either eat them or sell them,” he told me.
“I thought that you said they were poisonous,” I said.
“Oh, they are, but only in the eye and the tail,” he said. “We will just cut these off before we eat.”
Smart kids.
Anywhere I go I see children and they are always excited about it. They run out of their yards and away from their games to ask me what my name is and to just say hi. They come and they hold my hand and give me high-fives.
Cute kids.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Not four lines back into my book, I heard another thump. I leaned up in my bed, pulled my curtain aside, and peered into my back yard. There I saw two kids underneath the coconut tree that sits on our property. One was knocking down coconuts, while the other was gathering them up and throwing them over the fence. One saw me looking at them and yelled at his friend. By the time that I had got outside they had vanished — with my coconuts.
Cheeky kids.
I was walking down the street with a friend when I heard shouting from around a corner. I turned into a side street and saw about eight pairs of kids wheel-barrow racing. Their faces were all alight with smiles. The race started out even, hands slapping the pavement like horse’s hooves around a race track, when a pair that consisted of an older kid and a younger kid took the lead. The older kid just picked up his tiny partner and sprinted to the finish. Everyone laughed at the joke.
Fun kids.
I was eating lunch at a restaurant that overlooked the lagoon. It was a very hot day and outside of my window, I saw a group of kids leaping off of a cement dock into the lagoon. They looked so happy, and most of all very cool, so I cleared out the pockets of my shorts, took off my shirt and ran out to join them.
“Who are you?” one kid asked.
“I am Tim,” I said. “Can I swim with you.”
“Well I am in charge of this,” the kid — all of seven — said to me. “And that will be no problem.”
I hesitated in my jump, pretending to be scared to get laughs from the kids.
“You just got to go like this,” the lead kid said and did a running flip into the water.
Athletic kids.
I was mowing my lawn when a boy came out and started to assist me in pushing the mower. Whenever I turned it off to pick up some trash we had accidently shredded up, he would stoop down with me to pick it up. Then, when the mower engine was turned off, he would make the sound with his lips.
Helpful kids.
I went spear fishing with some friends and we had a pretty successful day. As with any time that you catch reef fish here, we asked some local kids what was good to eat and what was not. Most of the fish we caught were spiny red ones.
“Are these good to eat?” I asked a boy of about 10.
“No, these red ones will kill you if you eat them,” he told me very seriously. I was very disappointed but I didn’t feel like risking it and dying because I had eaten poisonous reef fish so I took them off of my ele, the wire belt I wear to hold the fish I catch, and dropped all of the offending fish onto the sand. The little boy and his friends gathered up those fish and headed away.
“What will you do with the fish?” I asked.
“We will either eat them or sell them,” he told me.
“I thought that you said they were poisonous,” I said.
“Oh, they are, but only in the eye and the tail,” he said. “We will just cut these off before we eat.”
Smart kids.
Anywhere I go I see children and they are always excited about it. They run out of their yards and away from their games to ask me what my name is and to just say hi. They come and they hold my hand and give me high-fives.
Cute kids.
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Here Comes the Navy
The big news in the Marshall Islands this week was that the US Navy ship, the USS Palau, came to town. Seventeen hundred American men and women walking the streets of Majuro. Everyone knew they were coming and people whispered to each other on sidewalks and in stores, “1,700!”
I was less than thrilled at the prospect of the men in white descending upon my new city. A lady told me that the last time a Navy ship came into port, two years ago, they were rowdy, unruly, broke the only ATM in town and threw quarters to the children.
I asked her what was wrong with throwing quarters to the children.
“Well, nothing is wrong with it,” the lady said, “until every kid you see bugs you for money for months after the Navy has left.”
The first night that the Navy was in port, I did not leave my house. I stayed in my room and read a book. I did not feel like walking the streets with my countrymen as they threw back a few to many cold ones and gave my country a bad name.
Plus, the whole quarters thing — I needed my quarters for cabs and coffee — I could not afford to just start flinging them to every kid that asked.
The next day I set out to observe the damage on Majuro. I walked from my house in Rita, along the main road. At first I saw nothing. It was morning as usual in Majuro. Chickens and pigs shuffling in the dirt for food and stray dogs and cats chasing each other. Children swam in the lagoon, which sat like a teal pearl in the bright morning, and men and women sitting in front of their houses, fanning themselves.
I scratched my head and wondered where the 1700 rowdy and unruly sailors were.
About halfway into the center of town I started to hear a low rumbling sound. I thought to myself, ‘OK, here it comes.’
As I got closer to the noise, however, I found that it was nothing like what I had expected. There were no passed-out sailors or doors hanging loosely on their hinges. Instead there were just Navy men and women hard at work constructing playground equipment in front of Uliga Elementary School. I knew that the Navy was going to do some humanitarian work, I just didn’t expect it to be the first thing I saw.
Later on I learned from the USS Palau’s priest that those men and women I had seen working on the playground equipment and the other projects of improvement going on around town had elected to do the work themselves. It was all voluntary.
While the Navy had taken my school, Rita Elementary, off of the list of improvement projects, they still were doing much around the rest of the town — and it was being done voluntarily.
When I finally got to town there was a line of almost 100 Navy men overworking the sole ATM in town. At the Flame Tree bar I heard people from the military getting rambunctious. And then, to my chagrin, a gang of kids asked me for quarters. This was more of what I expected. As I stood there though, an Australian friend came up to me.
“Imagine how rough that is,” he said. “You spend months trapped on a boat and all you want is a cold brew to wash down your throat and you can’t get any money out!”
Earlier, I had the opportunity to go out on the USS Palau and tour it. It is not like these men and women are sleeping in King’s quarters. They are stacked in bunks like sardines and I am sure that even on a ship as large as the Palau, the walls start shrinking after a while and people go stir-crazy.
I still don’t agree with holding off school in the RMI for another week so the Navy can work and yeah, the Navy got a little rowdy and clogged up the ATM when they were here but I can forgive them these offenses. They have helped out Majuro and the RMI and they deserved a little fun.
I will never, however, forgive them for throwing quarters to the children.
The love you give comes back in the end.
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I was less than thrilled at the prospect of the men in white descending upon my new city. A lady told me that the last time a Navy ship came into port, two years ago, they were rowdy, unruly, broke the only ATM in town and threw quarters to the children.
I asked her what was wrong with throwing quarters to the children.
“Well, nothing is wrong with it,” the lady said, “until every kid you see bugs you for money for months after the Navy has left.”
The first night that the Navy was in port, I did not leave my house. I stayed in my room and read a book. I did not feel like walking the streets with my countrymen as they threw back a few to many cold ones and gave my country a bad name.
Plus, the whole quarters thing — I needed my quarters for cabs and coffee — I could not afford to just start flinging them to every kid that asked.
The next day I set out to observe the damage on Majuro. I walked from my house in Rita, along the main road. At first I saw nothing. It was morning as usual in Majuro. Chickens and pigs shuffling in the dirt for food and stray dogs and cats chasing each other. Children swam in the lagoon, which sat like a teal pearl in the bright morning, and men and women sitting in front of their houses, fanning themselves.
I scratched my head and wondered where the 1700 rowdy and unruly sailors were.
About halfway into the center of town I started to hear a low rumbling sound. I thought to myself, ‘OK, here it comes.’
As I got closer to the noise, however, I found that it was nothing like what I had expected. There were no passed-out sailors or doors hanging loosely on their hinges. Instead there were just Navy men and women hard at work constructing playground equipment in front of Uliga Elementary School. I knew that the Navy was going to do some humanitarian work, I just didn’t expect it to be the first thing I saw.
Later on I learned from the USS Palau’s priest that those men and women I had seen working on the playground equipment and the other projects of improvement going on around town had elected to do the work themselves. It was all voluntary.
While the Navy had taken my school, Rita Elementary, off of the list of improvement projects, they still were doing much around the rest of the town — and it was being done voluntarily.
When I finally got to town there was a line of almost 100 Navy men overworking the sole ATM in town. At the Flame Tree bar I heard people from the military getting rambunctious. And then, to my chagrin, a gang of kids asked me for quarters. This was more of what I expected. As I stood there though, an Australian friend came up to me.
“Imagine how rough that is,” he said. “You spend months trapped on a boat and all you want is a cold brew to wash down your throat and you can’t get any money out!”
Earlier, I had the opportunity to go out on the USS Palau and tour it. It is not like these men and women are sleeping in King’s quarters. They are stacked in bunks like sardines and I am sure that even on a ship as large as the Palau, the walls start shrinking after a while and people go stir-crazy.
I still don’t agree with holding off school in the RMI for another week so the Navy can work and yeah, the Navy got a little rowdy and clogged up the ATM when they were here but I can forgive them these offenses. They have helped out Majuro and the RMI and they deserved a little fun.
I will never, however, forgive them for throwing quarters to the children.
The love you give comes back in the end.
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