The Bells

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.
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