Game of the Year

I coach the Rita Elementary School sixth grade basketball team. We play other local elementary schools and I just want to say we are awesome. We call ourselves the sharks and we have about three pairs of shoes between the 10 of us – and that’s counting me.

We don’t run the fastest, we don’t shoot the straightest and heaven knows we don’t have the tightest ship on floor, but last weekend, for a game we were the best team in the world.

We went into the game 1-3 with our only victory coming from a team that was depleted because of some nasty plight with the flu. Before that one win we had been humiliated by two other teams and forfeited a third game because we couldn’t get enough players to the game in time. Our team psyche was a little down and as we watched Uliga Elementary School go through their warm-ups with the laser precision of the Phoenix Suns a ripple of fear slinked its way down our collective spines. Look at their three-pointers – they are strong enough to shoot them. Look at their lay-ins – they actually make them. Look at their passing – people catch the ball.

Some of the kids who were not actually playing in the game but who had come to be our cheerleaders came up to me with their heads hanging low.

“We are going to lose, Mr. Tim,” Lani said. “They are very good.”

“We will not lose, Lani,” I said and suppressed a gulp of fear.

In the world of Marshall Islands Elementary coaching, this game was a career-making game. This was the kind of game that people would praise or ridicule the coach for years to come. It was Uliga up against Rita. A grudge match of two neighborhoods barely a five-minute walk away from each other. Everyone knows that you play hard against other teams but you play with your teeth bared and claws out when it is against your neighbor, your rival.

I led my kids through our scrambled warm-up. We tried to emulate Uliga’s precision but the Sharks, well the Sharks are more concerned with watching Laijab trying a behind-the-back-into-the-net lay-in (zero chance of success) or watching Johnson try and talk to one of the girls from Uliga (a pretty much sure thing).

Anyway, the point is that I was trying to get them to make lay-ins and they were only concerned with cracking each other up.

At least they were not nervous.

In the few minutes after tip-off I saw our team make a basket for Uliga after confusing which way they were to go after tip-off, run into a ref and go down by 15 points. Things were not going well…

So I called a time-out. I had seen coaches on TV do this from time to time and I figured that at this point that would be the best thing to do. We huddled in close and I kept my message short and to the point. Stop shooting three-pointers, you will never make them, stop trying to do behind the back passes, Steve Nash you are not and please, please, please do not sit down on the court to rest when the other team is shooting free throws!

I don’t know what happened but soon enough after that the RES Sharks had taken a two-point lead after getting to the line and making good passes. I found myself jumping up and down on the sidelines and barking at refs. On the final possession with seconds ticking down to zero, Laijab grabbed the most amazing rebound I have ever seen this side of the Pacific and the buzzer sounded.

The kids ran in, I was hugged and high-fived and I found myself huffing and puffing as much as my kids.

I don’t want to brag or anything, but we pretty much rock out here in the Marshall Islands.

Go Sharks!

Halfway Home

My time volunteering here in the Marshall Islands has come to a very critical point. I am no longer counting the months I have been here and am rather counting the months until I go home. In the beginning conversations would go something like this.

“Wow, can you believe we have been here for a month already?”

“Yeah, that is crazy.”

Now those interactions are a bit different.

“Wow, can you believe we only have five months left here?”

“Yeah that is crazy.”

I am past the half-way point folks, and I am not sure how I feel about it. Like a college student in his senior year I am thinking about the next step while I am mid-stride.

That’s the perfect situation for a fall.

Growing up is a strange thing. Like a plastic bag in a wind storm, it is hard to pin down. Last year, as I was just leaving the kiddie pool of college to be dunked in the ocean of the “real world,” my good friend Gina asked me what the meaning of life was.

I told her some answer I heard once in a movie so I could seem wise. Inside I was secretly screaming with every tiny fiber in my body the same question.

Suddenly my life wasn’t defined by 9 am classes, big dining halls and text messages telling me where the best party was. People had jobs to go to, I had insurance bills to pay for and no, my new boss at the Pioneer was not interested in giving me an extension on my assignment because of the mean bout with the flu I had just gotten over.

All of the things I used to have in college suddenly served to remind me that life was forever going to be different. I found myself wishing that I had savored it more instead of being in such a rush to get out of there.
I don’t want that to happen here.

I don’t want to wake up in six months and think that while being home is nice, wasn’t that sweet when I went surfing in my front yard in just a pair of shorts? When the overpowering Oregon fall rains sweep in and I am facing yet another gray day, I don’t want to regret not hiking to the next island over at low-tide and watching the sun play hide and seek in cartoon clouds from my hammock.

I have five months left. That’s five months to go to as many different islands as possible. That’s five months to learn as much Marshallese as I can. That’s five months to joke with my students, to spearfish, to snorkel, to wear flip-flops, to sail and to live in a tropical coral atoll thousands of miles from anywhere.

Maybe if Gina asked me today what the meaning of life is I would have a better answer. I could tell her that while I am not sure, I have an inkling that it has something to do with opening your eyes every morning and deciding to discover the day.
And while that might sound like a tag line from a Hallmark card, it works for me. The next step back into the “real world,” the United States, might be even more shocking to me this time around, but I know one thing — during my next blustery winter Oregon day I will not be thinking, “I wish...

Scandal of the Decade

I think that most scandals are touched off with some tiny slip-up. Some action or phrase that could have been easily contained, but for whatever reason was not and the avalanche was triggered. In Watergate for example, a whole mess of trouble could have been avoided by simply being more careful with flashlights.
In section 6B it was a smile.

Johnson Nelson (names have been changed to protect the innocent — namely me from ticked off parents) is the coolest kid in sixth grade. He is the trend-setter and the best basketball player in the school. He started wearing one of his sleeves rolled up and within days everyone was doing it. He oiled his hair one morning and then the next day the tiny store across the street sold more coconut oil than candy for the first time in its history.

On top of all of this, Johnson is one of the smartest kids in sixth grade too. This can be a dangerous combination because not only does he know that he can get away with anything socially, he can also barely work in class and still outscore everyone.

Usually, to his credit, Johnson is a very good kid. One of my favorites. He likes to laugh and joke with me and most of the time, he will humor me and my remedial assignments. I was always glad to have the popular kid in school on my side.
Kids listen to me because if they don’t I will send them outside or quietly wait them out. Kids listen to Johnson because, well, he is Johnson.

Saying no to Johnson as a sixth grader at Rita Elementary School is akin to telling Michael Jordan that while you are flattered by his offer of court-side seats to the NBA finals you would rather not go.

However, since returning from winter break, there was something different about Johnson. He was not entirely sold on me being the “cool teacher” anymore and like an actor who peaked at how the script ends, he suddenly seemed to know that whether I gave him a 100 percent on the next essay or a zero, the impact on him later in life would be minimal. He came from a well-connected family, already was far ahead of his classmates and 20 years from now he would have a comfortable life regardless of me.

Well, I would have noticed nothing out of the ordinary if it was not for Johnson’s sparkling smile. I was collecting their essays on winter break. When I collected Johnson’s essay he flashed me his effortless smile — it made me look twice over his paper.

It wasn’t his paper at all. His friend Theo had written the whole thing for him (like I said, when Johnson asks you to do something, if you are a sixth-grader, you just do it). I compared the false paper with the one that Theo was turning in just to be sure— the same handwriting, Johnson had cheated.
This discovery made me examine all of the other papers with the scrutiny of a post 9-11 airport. There were other forgeries. I found two other of Johnson’s friends with papers written by someone else.

And it was all tipped off by a little smile.

I wish I could say it is all better now. I wish I could tell you that all of the kids involved had learned a lesson, but you’ll have to wait on that because I am not entirely sure.

I had a big talk with Johnson, all about how he was the coolest, smartest kid in class and he needed to be a good example. He cried and I felt horrible.
If only I had never seen that smile.

Complaining

Stay with me for a second while I whine.

Seriously, I just need to complain for a little bit... It will probably be therapeutic for me and maybe it will be entertaining for you.

So this last Monday was a sad day for me. It marked the end of my Winter Break and brought my nose down close to the grindstone again. Don’t get me wrong — I enjoy what I do. It’s just that I was not quite ready to leave the hammock lifestyle of making the ever tough decision of either napping or reading all day.

Yeah, yeah, I am sure that I am getting no sympathy from all you Oregon folk shivering through another frigid, grey day but still, stay with me for a second.

I went from spending every day laughing with my family and girlfriend to saying a tearful goodbye in the Majuro airport with like 30 Marshallese people watching. By the way, that is no exaggeration, there were so many people watching me that I felt like I should have charged admission.

Sniff, sniff, “I am going to miss you so much, Tiff...”

Sniff, sniff, “I am going to miss you so much too, Tim..”

And out of the corner of my eye I can’t help but notice people watching with mouths gapped open and eyes wide... All that was missing was previews and popcorn.

So that is another reason why going back was so tough on Monday. I went from having this huge fun time with a bunch of people I loved visiting all of these beautiful places that made me feel like I was walking across the cardboard face of a postcard to telling Christy to stop spitting spit-wads at the wall. It felt like the day after a really good party.

Talk about a hangover...

And here is the thing, my kids were all right there with me. Joanna didn’t have her usual spark-laden attitude, Josephine only told me “whatever” once and Laijab didn’t make one inappropriate comment about wanting to make Tiffany his wife.

Everyone was flat.

So I struggled through Monday, came home and calculated how many days until I got on that fabulous air-conditioned flight and got back to my loved ones.

One hundred and fifty six days. Dang.

On Tuesday I decided to try something a little bit different. I decided to just be completely honest with my class.

“Hey class,” I said. “The reason that I have been grumpy is because my whole family and my girlfriend all just left and I am feeling pretty dang sad about it all and I am just a little bit frustrated... How about all of you?”

They stared at me for a while. They raised their eyebrows. I felt like they were making the same face my Dad did when I offered to take his car off his hands for the night when I was 16. Like, “did you really just say that?”

“What does grumpy mean?” Christy finally asked.

“It means when you are kind of fed up and just want to growl,” I told them and made a lion-like rumbling in my throat. The kids laughed and suddenly there was life. At least I had that going for me.

“We miss Ms. Tiffany,” Christy finally said.

“Me too,” I told them.

“What are we going to do now?”

“Lets learn about poetry.”

“That is so boring Mr. Tim.”

“Just stay with me for a second, class,” I said.

There was that attitude I loved...

Goodbyes

Well after having my girlfriend and family around for the last few weeks, it is coming to an end today. In a few hours I will go to the airport and wish them a safe flight as they go back to Oregon, Starbucks, cold weather, Burgerville, fresh fruit, new music, reliable transportation, TV, snow, skiing, stress and leave behind the Marshall Islands, hot humid weather, snorkeling, coral reef fish, taxi's that cough and sputter, rice and chicken for every meal, agonizing boat rides, dancing children, flowers, shells, inefficiency, poverty to the extreme and fierce dogs.

It is a blessing and a curse the modern era we live in. Family and friends can travel thousands upon thousands of miles and be on your doorstep, where ever that may be, tomorrow but by the same miraculous concept they can be taken away in the same amount of time.

Much love to all and hug the person next to you --- unless he looks dangerous in which case RUN.

This is My Fresh Start

This is my admission to you — sometimes I am not the best person I can be. There are times when I can be a better, but I simply choose not to be. When I look back on those times where I messed up, I burn with regret.

For example, sometimes I lose my patience with the kids here in the Marshall Islands when all they really need is just that much more love.

“Mr. Tim, do you like Akon?” Laijab asks me.

“Get back to your seat, Laijab, we are having a test,” I say.

“You like his new album?”

“GET BACK TO YOUR SEAT!”

I could have, and should have, handled that differently. I could have told him that I was going to give him a great big bear hug if he didn’t go back to his seat. I could have tried to dance with him, I could have sang to him, I could have done a hand stand or I simply could have asked him again to sit down — anything would have been better than getting angry with him.

Also, sometimes I am not the nicest guy to my family when they have flown thousands of miles to a tiny speck of coral floating in the Pacific even though they have been my biggest supporters in this life of mine and I owe almost all to them.

“Tim, we want to leave at nine tomorrow,” my aunt Glenda says.

“Nine is so early,” I whine.

“Well, it is not that early,” she tells me. “When we went to Laura Beach we left at eight.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” I snap. “I was driving!”

If I could rewind that tape it would be different. Maybe a “thanks for the suggestion,” or a “well, to be honest that seems too early for me, do you think we could go a little later?” would have been more appropriate. No one deserves to be treated rudely when they are simply trying to help with planning.

There are many other things I did in 2007 that I am not proud of. I didn’t write some of my best friends half as much as I should of, I sometimes littered when I didn’t see a trash can, sometimes I pretended in conversation that I had read a book when in reality I had not even touched that book, I secretly liked to gossip when I openly condemned it, I drank orange juice straight from the container — even when it was not my orange juice, it was my roommate’s, and I had no right to drink it, I lied, I cheated at card games, I settled on bad lesson plans when I could have made good ones and I judged those I don’t know just to name a few.

You know what though? It doesn’t matter. Something incredible happened. January first came and left and it wiped my slate clean. In the middle of the street, as one of the first people in the world to bring in 2008, I kissed my girlfriend, danced to Marshallese rock-a-billy music and breathed the sweet smell of a fresh start.
The fact that the sweet new year fresh start reaked of drunk-man vomit did not dampen my optimism.

I won’t be perfect in the new year — nobody well — but I will try and improve as much as I can.

Whoever invented New Year’s was a genius. He put a reset button on life. There are many things we cannot control in this life. We have no say who our parents are, if we are smart or dumb or if we are tall or short but what we can control is what we do when that reset button is pressed. It is our chance to try and improve.
This is my admission to you — I plan on trying my hardest.


The love you give comes back in the end.
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