10/12/07
this is an article i found on yokwe.net about what was happening a few weeks ago... systematic power outages are not fun. boo dependence on foreign oil.
MARSHALL ISLANDS: Ebeye Facing More Black-outs
Ebeye, one of the most densely populated islets in the Pacific, is without fuel to keep running its power plant. Since Wednesday, the local power company, KAJUR (Kwajalein Atoll Joint Utility Resource), has been running 4-hour shifts of power, rotating to the lagoon side of the island and, then, to the ocean side. Ebeye, the second largest urban center in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), is only a quarter of a mile wide and a mile long, but home to 12,000-plus Marshallese.
There is no word as to when more fuel will be arriving at Ebeye. The other major urban center, Majuro, which is the seat of the RMI government, is also experiencing power outages.
The interruption of power, which limits water and sewer systems as well, greatly impacts the health and safety conditions of the island.
About 1,400 Marshallese workers travel about three miles by ferry to where the United States Army Kwajalein Atoll missile facility is based.
"All night long without power was a real blow to us workers because we didn’t get a good night of sleep, and yet we still come to work just like nothing happen the night before," a worker explained during last year's power outrages.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
11/22/07
Unfortunately, our internet has not been working at all for the last month or so. It’s hard to get motivated to blog if you can’t post it. The National Telecommunications Authority is the telecommunications monopoly here in the RMI, and they are the most incompetent, unreliable, ignorant organization I have ever interacted with, plagued by a dearth of technical expertise and utterly lacking any form of work ethic. Fortunately, our principal has stopped payment for our defunct internet, which makes me feel better about this country’s failure to benefit from capitalism.
Anyway, school continues. Sort of. The buses have deteriorated. We have not had a normal schedule day for the last 2 weeks, and they are few and far between. Our “emergency 1-bus schedule” has become the norm, and even it has occasionally been abandoned when neither bus is functioning, and the kids have no way to get across the 5-mile causeway. The lunch program, which was cancelled by the government because the vendor contracts were not advertised using the proper procedures (let’s punish the kids and teachers for a mistake that had nothing to do with them), has since been reinstated, but the vendors have stopped showing up, most likely because they haven’t been paid, leaving hungry kids and frustrating the teachers that have to cope with a classroom that can’t learn because they haven’t eaten all day. Our principal informed our senator of the dire transportation and lunch program issues, and he felt that the best thing to do would be to just close the school… permanently… which would mean there would be no public high school available for a city of 14,000. Our principal, however, is admirably refusing to cancel any school, (he went to a conference in guam for administrators called “Breaking Rank II” on how to reform struggling schools and came back slightly inspired) so we start whenever the first bus can limp over and adjust the schedule accordingly every day. It makes it hard to plan a lesson when your class could be anywhere from 30 to 55 minutes long, but we are still learning. My chemistry classes have mastered predicting ionic compound formulas using oxidation numbers and my honors biology class can tell you the chemical equation for photosynthesis.
We had our first report card night 4 weeks ago, and it was a very interesting experience. The meeting took place in the “library” of the elementary school on Ebeye, which is carpeted, so everyone had to leave their flip flops outside the door. At the front of the room was a table with a karaoke microphone and amp, where laura sat, and then behind that were a dozen or so chairs for the teachers. The parents, maybe about 70 or 80 of them, all sat on the floor in front of us in mumus and tank tops. After some announcements were made regarding the new no mercy attendance policy, which has turned out to be somewhat of a bluff, the teachers were each handed a stack of report cards to distribute. The parents were mostly all too afraid to say their child’s name loud enough for me to hear (clearly I am very intimidating), let alone ask questions (it was also supposed to be time for them to conference with us), but some were curious. Some “parents” picked up 5 or 6 report cards – they are all related anyway, so it really doesn’t matter… we were just happy someone cared.
A few weeks ago I went to one of the two established “bars” on Ebeye. It’s called Mon-la-Mike, or place of the handsome Mike, named after its owner, and the above mentioned senator, Michael Kabua. While interesting, I would not call my time there fun. There are tables, a dance floor, and even a bar where you can buy Budweiser, bud light, or tamiroff vodka (a Smirnoff knockoff) for $4 a drink. The music was all synthesized and in Marshallese, although some were American songs translated and set to an “island beat.” After each song, the music would stop for a minute and everyone would leave the dance floor. Then, another song would come on, and every man would get up and ask someone to dance. Staci was asked to dance every song, mostly by men who had children or grandchildren. I was asked to dance by the married women we came with, who are in their 30s and 40s, and whose husbands paid for all our drinks and drove us there. That was fun, but other than that it was sad to see the alcoholism, the grown women brawling, and the bathroom that looked like it was from the set of the horror flick Hostel. But the senator is surely making bank.
I am a coach. Sort of. I take 8 boys to the army base once or twice a week to play games in their intermural B league, which consists of us, the army high school kids, and 3 adult teams. We are 4-0, and I sometimes play and do very little advising since Marshallese people pretty much have their volleyball skills under control. Hold on, have to interrupt this by informing you that while I am sitting here writing this, Staci is scooping cups of ant-infested sugar into a pile of apples smuggled from the army base to prepare apple pie for thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Such is life on gugeegue – we need the extra protein anyway. Back to volleyball – while watching the games and seeing the 5 foot kids whomp on 6 foot white guys (most of whom are pretty ignorant when it comes to the country they are squatting in) is entertaining, the hassle of logistics is unbelievable. The scooter cannot be driven at night because the headlamp is broken already (surprise, it’s a POS “Kinetic” made in India), so I have to sit in the hot stairwell of the packed bus after school, praying I don’t fall out of the open door into one of the muddy craters, and arrange for the vice principal to pick me up at the dock after the game and drive me back to gugeegue. All in all, I leave at 330 for a 630 game and don’t get back until 1030. It’s a huge time commitment, and it would be fine but I am stressed the whole time we’re there because the kids want to wander all over the place when they aren’t on the court. I may or may not be the coach for the softball team.
I am a member of the 2nd largest scuba club in the world. And the best part is, I don’t have to pay membership fees, because the president “Cowboy,” likes that I am volunteer and decided to waive the $300 annual fees. I have the combination to the tank room and unlimited access. I did my orientation dive with Cowboy himself and was lucky enough to accomplish one of my life goals: swimming with a manta ray. He was just a 4ft baby (they get to be about 12-14 feet across), but it was still a humbling experience. I have a short video of him, but I was very distracted by the animal itself, so the camera is not usually pointed at him.
Last Sunday, I was enjoying the sun at our defunct dock on gugeegue, doing flips off the pier and watching the big fish eat the little ones, as I often do on weekends, when a small boat approached. As the people on board came into focus, I recognized a blonde head – the son of my sponsor on the army base – he and his father, a visiting boat inspector from Guam, and the captain of the Worthy (the main boat that monitors all of the missile testing and has huge radar towers on it and is away for weeks at a time) had come north to do some surfing. They saw me from the boat, realized who I was, and decided to invite me. We went to the reef they usually surf at, and I got to do some bodyboarding and snorkeling on a new reef, and then hang out on a completely deserted sandy beach. It was an unexpectedly awesome day.
Unfortunately, our internet has not been working at all for the last month or so. It’s hard to get motivated to blog if you can’t post it. The National Telecommunications Authority is the telecommunications monopoly here in the RMI, and they are the most incompetent, unreliable, ignorant organization I have ever interacted with, plagued by a dearth of technical expertise and utterly lacking any form of work ethic. Fortunately, our principal has stopped payment for our defunct internet, which makes me feel better about this country’s failure to benefit from capitalism.
Anyway, school continues. Sort of. The buses have deteriorated. We have not had a normal schedule day for the last 2 weeks, and they are few and far between. Our “emergency 1-bus schedule” has become the norm, and even it has occasionally been abandoned when neither bus is functioning, and the kids have no way to get across the 5-mile causeway. The lunch program, which was cancelled by the government because the vendor contracts were not advertised using the proper procedures (let’s punish the kids and teachers for a mistake that had nothing to do with them), has since been reinstated, but the vendors have stopped showing up, most likely because they haven’t been paid, leaving hungry kids and frustrating the teachers that have to cope with a classroom that can’t learn because they haven’t eaten all day. Our principal informed our senator of the dire transportation and lunch program issues, and he felt that the best thing to do would be to just close the school… permanently… which would mean there would be no public high school available for a city of 14,000. Our principal, however, is admirably refusing to cancel any school, (he went to a conference in guam for administrators called “Breaking Rank II” on how to reform struggling schools and came back slightly inspired) so we start whenever the first bus can limp over and adjust the schedule accordingly every day. It makes it hard to plan a lesson when your class could be anywhere from 30 to 55 minutes long, but we are still learning. My chemistry classes have mastered predicting ionic compound formulas using oxidation numbers and my honors biology class can tell you the chemical equation for photosynthesis.
We had our first report card night 4 weeks ago, and it was a very interesting experience. The meeting took place in the “library” of the elementary school on Ebeye, which is carpeted, so everyone had to leave their flip flops outside the door. At the front of the room was a table with a karaoke microphone and amp, where laura sat, and then behind that were a dozen or so chairs for the teachers. The parents, maybe about 70 or 80 of them, all sat on the floor in front of us in mumus and tank tops. After some announcements were made regarding the new no mercy attendance policy, which has turned out to be somewhat of a bluff, the teachers were each handed a stack of report cards to distribute. The parents were mostly all too afraid to say their child’s name loud enough for me to hear (clearly I am very intimidating), let alone ask questions (it was also supposed to be time for them to conference with us), but some were curious. Some “parents” picked up 5 or 6 report cards – they are all related anyway, so it really doesn’t matter… we were just happy someone cared.
A few weeks ago I went to one of the two established “bars” on Ebeye. It’s called Mon-la-Mike, or place of the handsome Mike, named after its owner, and the above mentioned senator, Michael Kabua. While interesting, I would not call my time there fun. There are tables, a dance floor, and even a bar where you can buy Budweiser, bud light, or tamiroff vodka (a Smirnoff knockoff) for $4 a drink. The music was all synthesized and in Marshallese, although some were American songs translated and set to an “island beat.” After each song, the music would stop for a minute and everyone would leave the dance floor. Then, another song would come on, and every man would get up and ask someone to dance. Staci was asked to dance every song, mostly by men who had children or grandchildren. I was asked to dance by the married women we came with, who are in their 30s and 40s, and whose husbands paid for all our drinks and drove us there. That was fun, but other than that it was sad to see the alcoholism, the grown women brawling, and the bathroom that looked like it was from the set of the horror flick Hostel. But the senator is surely making bank.
I am a coach. Sort of. I take 8 boys to the army base once or twice a week to play games in their intermural B league, which consists of us, the army high school kids, and 3 adult teams. We are 4-0, and I sometimes play and do very little advising since Marshallese people pretty much have their volleyball skills under control. Hold on, have to interrupt this by informing you that while I am sitting here writing this, Staci is scooping cups of ant-infested sugar into a pile of apples smuggled from the army base to prepare apple pie for thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Such is life on gugeegue – we need the extra protein anyway. Back to volleyball – while watching the games and seeing the 5 foot kids whomp on 6 foot white guys (most of whom are pretty ignorant when it comes to the country they are squatting in) is entertaining, the hassle of logistics is unbelievable. The scooter cannot be driven at night because the headlamp is broken already (surprise, it’s a POS “Kinetic” made in India), so I have to sit in the hot stairwell of the packed bus after school, praying I don’t fall out of the open door into one of the muddy craters, and arrange for the vice principal to pick me up at the dock after the game and drive me back to gugeegue. All in all, I leave at 330 for a 630 game and don’t get back until 1030. It’s a huge time commitment, and it would be fine but I am stressed the whole time we’re there because the kids want to wander all over the place when they aren’t on the court. I may or may not be the coach for the softball team.
I am a member of the 2nd largest scuba club in the world. And the best part is, I don’t have to pay membership fees, because the president “Cowboy,” likes that I am volunteer and decided to waive the $300 annual fees. I have the combination to the tank room and unlimited access. I did my orientation dive with Cowboy himself and was lucky enough to accomplish one of my life goals: swimming with a manta ray. He was just a 4ft baby (they get to be about 12-14 feet across), but it was still a humbling experience. I have a short video of him, but I was very distracted by the animal itself, so the camera is not usually pointed at him.
Last Sunday, I was enjoying the sun at our defunct dock on gugeegue, doing flips off the pier and watching the big fish eat the little ones, as I often do on weekends, when a small boat approached. As the people on board came into focus, I recognized a blonde head – the son of my sponsor on the army base – he and his father, a visiting boat inspector from Guam, and the captain of the Worthy (the main boat that monitors all of the missile testing and has huge radar towers on it and is away for weeks at a time) had come north to do some surfing. They saw me from the boat, realized who I was, and decided to invite me. We went to the reef they usually surf at, and I got to do some bodyboarding and snorkeling on a new reef, and then hang out on a completely deserted sandy beach. It was an unexpectedly awesome day.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
10/14/07
One of the weirdest (and coolest) parts of my life here is the causeway. It’s a 4 and a half mile stretch of coral reef that was dynamited and then mixed with garbage and stacked up to form a somewhat solid surface connecting Ebeye and Gugeegue. It is by no means a road. Even a hummer would struggle to surmount its copious sand dunes and jagged craters. It is miraculous that the school buses get here on time as often as they do… which is not often.
Last week, nature did her best to reclaim the causeway as her own. The winds reversed, and the waves from the lagoon side came splattering over the fringe of the causeway, leaving rocks, sand, coral, and tires all over the gravel. The buses had to take turns shoving and pulling each other through the thickest parts of the sand to make it through. On Thursday, we had golf as usual. It was a lot of fun – but on the way back, it was insane. The plan was for me to take the scooter back with Lorie, an 11th grader who lives on Gugeegue and needed a ride home. I am still new at riding the scooter, much less with another person on board. When we got back to Ebeye from Kwaj it started to monsoon. It was not rain. It was sheets of solid water. There isn’t a working drainage system in Ebeye. The road was soon under about a foot and a half of water. It was dark outside. Every little kid has come out to dance naked in the streets. Imagine, literally hundreds of kids screaming and dancing in the road that now looks like a swimming pool, the majority of them completely naked. Lorie and I got on the scooter, and tried to navigate through the river of children, constantly honking the scooters horn. The horn, however, only got them more excited, and a mob soon formed around the scooter, and they began to run alongside us in the pouring rain, with me not really even able to see if we were on the road or someone’s front porch (there are no yards). Finally, we got out of Ebeye, and slowly maneuvered our way back to gugeegue. Occasionally I just started laughing at how ridiculous it was – a wave would splash me as I tried to avoid a huge crater filled with water only to plow through a pile of rubble, causing my entire body to ache. Where else in the world?
Some funny stories about teaching. In biology, we learned about protists last week. One example of a protist is an amoeba – it is the textbook example, and so I had them draw the little guys in their notebooks. Halfway through their class, Jonathon raises his hand and says “Mr., it’s 9’o’clock, may I go drink my medicine?” Sure… come back immediately. After class, I asked Jonathon, who showed me his Ziploc full of antibiotics, “hey, are you okay – what did the doctor say you have?” “An amoeba.” Haha. Who says microbiology isn’t applicable to Marshallese life?
Next to my house, a little workshop has been set up by our carpenter, who usually builds desks for us, but has recently been cannibalizing our deceased truck. Students usually hang out in the workshop during the day because it’s shady and teachers avoid it. The other day, I went to check out what was left of the white whale, only to find “ionic bond” carved into the left side of the hood and “molecular bond” carved into the right side. At least my chemistry students are remembering some of the terminology….
In my biology class, we are learning about cells. One part of the cell, the cilia, are tiny hair-like structures that help the cell move and sweep food inside. On the wall of the workshop there is a pornographic drawing that was recently added. I noticed, however, that it had been labeled. The private areas of the pornography were not-so-privately labeled as having cilia….. How could I even be mad? An educated allusion – that’s just hysterical.
One of the weirdest (and coolest) parts of my life here is the causeway. It’s a 4 and a half mile stretch of coral reef that was dynamited and then mixed with garbage and stacked up to form a somewhat solid surface connecting Ebeye and Gugeegue. It is by no means a road. Even a hummer would struggle to surmount its copious sand dunes and jagged craters. It is miraculous that the school buses get here on time as often as they do… which is not often.
Last week, nature did her best to reclaim the causeway as her own. The winds reversed, and the waves from the lagoon side came splattering over the fringe of the causeway, leaving rocks, sand, coral, and tires all over the gravel. The buses had to take turns shoving and pulling each other through the thickest parts of the sand to make it through. On Thursday, we had golf as usual. It was a lot of fun – but on the way back, it was insane. The plan was for me to take the scooter back with Lorie, an 11th grader who lives on Gugeegue and needed a ride home. I am still new at riding the scooter, much less with another person on board. When we got back to Ebeye from Kwaj it started to monsoon. It was not rain. It was sheets of solid water. There isn’t a working drainage system in Ebeye. The road was soon under about a foot and a half of water. It was dark outside. Every little kid has come out to dance naked in the streets. Imagine, literally hundreds of kids screaming and dancing in the road that now looks like a swimming pool, the majority of them completely naked. Lorie and I got on the scooter, and tried to navigate through the river of children, constantly honking the scooters horn. The horn, however, only got them more excited, and a mob soon formed around the scooter, and they began to run alongside us in the pouring rain, with me not really even able to see if we were on the road or someone’s front porch (there are no yards). Finally, we got out of Ebeye, and slowly maneuvered our way back to gugeegue. Occasionally I just started laughing at how ridiculous it was – a wave would splash me as I tried to avoid a huge crater filled with water only to plow through a pile of rubble, causing my entire body to ache. Where else in the world?
Some funny stories about teaching. In biology, we learned about protists last week. One example of a protist is an amoeba – it is the textbook example, and so I had them draw the little guys in their notebooks. Halfway through their class, Jonathon raises his hand and says “Mr., it’s 9’o’clock, may I go drink my medicine?” Sure… come back immediately. After class, I asked Jonathon, who showed me his Ziploc full of antibiotics, “hey, are you okay – what did the doctor say you have?” “An amoeba.” Haha. Who says microbiology isn’t applicable to Marshallese life?
Next to my house, a little workshop has been set up by our carpenter, who usually builds desks for us, but has recently been cannibalizing our deceased truck. Students usually hang out in the workshop during the day because it’s shady and teachers avoid it. The other day, I went to check out what was left of the white whale, only to find “ionic bond” carved into the left side of the hood and “molecular bond” carved into the right side. At least my chemistry students are remembering some of the terminology….
In my biology class, we are learning about cells. One part of the cell, the cilia, are tiny hair-like structures that help the cell move and sweep food inside. On the wall of the workshop there is a pornographic drawing that was recently added. I noticed, however, that it had been labeled. The private areas of the pornography were not-so-privately labeled as having cilia….. How could I even be mad? An educated allusion – that’s just hysterical.
Friday, October 5, 2007
10/3/07
On Sunday, we took a trip to Kwaj, where the military base is. After half an hour in the bus, which is now broken because there are apparently no fan belts on island, and then an hour on a ferry, we walked through the fake metal detectors and put our bags of laundry through the x-ray machine. Welcome to Little America. Kwaj is the most non-military military base ever. I think there are 30 or so people there out of 1500 that are actually in the army. The rest are all contracted by aerospace companies. It’s kind of like Pleasantville – everyone rides around on bicycles to their cute cinderblock houses, mostly oblivious to the problems of the country that surrounds their leased plot of land – and with all the amenities of home, how could you not be. We had to be signed in by our sponsors, relinquish our passports, and then we had permission to roam the base. Our sponsors are really awesome families that are willing to help us out once every couple weeks when we want to do laundry (in a machine that actually washes clothes rather than one that pulls and pushes until things rip in half – I really liked my pink striped boxers…oh well) or get some American fast food, or call home! After talking to mom and dad from a “California” number for an hour or so, we grubbed out on some pizza and quesodillas (CHEESE!!!!) and French fries. Then I thought about working out at their awesome gym. That thought lasted about 30 seconds. Then we went to the beach, because believe it or not, we don’t have many sandy beaches in our lives. Just lots of water, sky, palm trees, and lava rock. Plus, it was the first time the girls had worn actual bathing suits since we got here. When the missionaries came here in the mid 19th century, they made sure that the one thing (and perhaps only) the Marshallese people took from Christianity was that Adam and Eve were very, very embarrassed when they realized they weren’t wearing clothes, and that they should be too. So, women here are not allowed to wear pants, or anything that shows separation between their thighs. They all wear skirts or dresses that go well below their knees, and cleavage is out of the question. It’s okay (well, maybe a little bit frowned upon) to be promiscuous with 14 year olds, or to miss work because you’re an alcoholic and haven’t stopped drinking in 4 days… but for God’s sake, woman, don’t show your navel! Anyway, it was a good day. I even got to take a hot shower. Unfortunately, we can’t shop at the base’s store to bring buckets full of cheese and real produce back with us.
Today was the 4th meeting of the health club. Instead of walking the causeway, I have been running. I let the kids (and other teachers) walk a ways ahead of me for about half an hour and then catch up to them. Today I ran the 4.5 miles in 36 minutes, which for me is pretty awesome. Since there were only 7 kids walking, I decided I would bring some money in to buy them all fruit at the grocery store (i.e. apples). I’m still not sure why, but for some reason I thought that $40 would be a good amount of money to take. I stuck it in my shoe (since my shorts don’t have pockets and I carry my shuffle in my hand) and ran off. I spent about $13 on fruit for the kids and ice cream for me, then somewhere between the store and the place we walk to in order to hitch rides back to gugeegue, $27 fell out of my shoe. There is a very happy little kid on Ebeye tonight. I was not pleased, especially when I considered I had just dropped 10% of my monthly stipend.
For those of you that have sent me packages, thank you very much!! I have gotten some from the S’s of Knoxville, Grams, A. of Va Beach, and of course my parents. I’ve also gotten a letter from the Knoxville grandparents, and a belated grad present (thanks!). You guys are all helping me help other people. Also, if you sent me a package but I didn’t get it – which apparently has happened – Aunt N! – I’m really sorry… I am just as appreciative! Hopefully it will turn up soon.
Also, if you are thinking of sending a package my way, a small amount of couscous and/or baking cocoa would be much appreciated, as these are things my personal chef enjoys cooking with and that I recently found out I enjoy eating, and that are not available on Ebeye.
On Sunday, we took a trip to Kwaj, where the military base is. After half an hour in the bus, which is now broken because there are apparently no fan belts on island, and then an hour on a ferry, we walked through the fake metal detectors and put our bags of laundry through the x-ray machine. Welcome to Little America. Kwaj is the most non-military military base ever. I think there are 30 or so people there out of 1500 that are actually in the army. The rest are all contracted by aerospace companies. It’s kind of like Pleasantville – everyone rides around on bicycles to their cute cinderblock houses, mostly oblivious to the problems of the country that surrounds their leased plot of land – and with all the amenities of home, how could you not be. We had to be signed in by our sponsors, relinquish our passports, and then we had permission to roam the base. Our sponsors are really awesome families that are willing to help us out once every couple weeks when we want to do laundry (in a machine that actually washes clothes rather than one that pulls and pushes until things rip in half – I really liked my pink striped boxers…oh well) or get some American fast food, or call home! After talking to mom and dad from a “California” number for an hour or so, we grubbed out on some pizza and quesodillas (CHEESE!!!!) and French fries. Then I thought about working out at their awesome gym. That thought lasted about 30 seconds. Then we went to the beach, because believe it or not, we don’t have many sandy beaches in our lives. Just lots of water, sky, palm trees, and lava rock. Plus, it was the first time the girls had worn actual bathing suits since we got here. When the missionaries came here in the mid 19th century, they made sure that the one thing (and perhaps only) the Marshallese people took from Christianity was that Adam and Eve were very, very embarrassed when they realized they weren’t wearing clothes, and that they should be too. So, women here are not allowed to wear pants, or anything that shows separation between their thighs. They all wear skirts or dresses that go well below their knees, and cleavage is out of the question. It’s okay (well, maybe a little bit frowned upon) to be promiscuous with 14 year olds, or to miss work because you’re an alcoholic and haven’t stopped drinking in 4 days… but for God’s sake, woman, don’t show your navel! Anyway, it was a good day. I even got to take a hot shower. Unfortunately, we can’t shop at the base’s store to bring buckets full of cheese and real produce back with us.
Today was the 4th meeting of the health club. Instead of walking the causeway, I have been running. I let the kids (and other teachers) walk a ways ahead of me for about half an hour and then catch up to them. Today I ran the 4.5 miles in 36 minutes, which for me is pretty awesome. Since there were only 7 kids walking, I decided I would bring some money in to buy them all fruit at the grocery store (i.e. apples). I’m still not sure why, but for some reason I thought that $40 would be a good amount of money to take. I stuck it in my shoe (since my shorts don’t have pockets and I carry my shuffle in my hand) and ran off. I spent about $13 on fruit for the kids and ice cream for me, then somewhere between the store and the place we walk to in order to hitch rides back to gugeegue, $27 fell out of my shoe. There is a very happy little kid on Ebeye tonight. I was not pleased, especially when I considered I had just dropped 10% of my monthly stipend.
For those of you that have sent me packages, thank you very much!! I have gotten some from the S’s of Knoxville, Grams, A. of Va Beach, and of course my parents. I’ve also gotten a letter from the Knoxville grandparents, and a belated grad present (thanks!). You guys are all helping me help other people. Also, if you sent me a package but I didn’t get it – which apparently has happened – Aunt N! – I’m really sorry… I am just as appreciative! Hopefully it will turn up soon.
Also, if you are thinking of sending a package my way, a small amount of couscous and/or baking cocoa would be much appreciated, as these are things my personal chef enjoys cooking with and that I recently found out I enjoy eating, and that are not available on Ebeye.
9/29/07
The scooter is awesome. A lot of fun. It is a surreal experience to zoom down a causeway made out of dynamited reef and garbage avoiding potholes at 45km/h and look out on one side to see a calm lagoon and some islands in the distance and on the other side huge waves and endless ocean.
We had soccer again on Tuesday. Our numbers went down to 15 or so, but that made it much easier because boomer was sick, so it was just me coaching and reffing. I have officially challenged Father Hacker’s High School to a scrimmage. It should be fun. If it doesn’t work out, the kids seem to be having a lot of fun anyway, even though they keep asking me when they are going to kwaj to play the army kids, which isn’t happening this year because of a miscommunication.
We had our Manit Day (Marshallese custom day) school picnic on Thursday. The kids and some of their parents came in and set up loud speakers that blasted Akon and that song about beautiful girls that make that guy suicidal all day. The kids played volleyball, soccer, and basketball. They are really really good at volleyball, although they play a little differently – there is no need to take all three hits to set up a good spike because none of them are tall enough to do that, so it usually goes over in one or two hits. Boomer and I went swimming at the dock after playing with the kids, and some of them joined us later. I pushed one of my 10th graders off the dock. It’s a 7 foot drop, but he was already swimming. I felt a little bad, but then 5 minutes later he pushed me off… “F in biology this quarter, eh Jojabot?” The day was followed by hours of a game called Flick that we play with the Fijians that live on Gugeegue. Flick is kind of like playing 8-ball pool, but with checker sized pieces that you slide across a wooden board by flicking a bigger checker sized piece at them and trying to knock them into holes. It’s very relaxed to begin with, but when you mix it with ritual Kava drinking, it’s a sedative. Kava is a drink that comes from a root found in some pacific islands (not RMI, I don’t think) that they grind up and then filter through a sock into a big bowl, and then scoop it out using half coconut shells. There is much rhythmic clapping each time someone receives a shell from the distributor, and you are supposed to clap once before and once after you drink it or something like that. I just clap all the time to be safe. I was kind of excited to see what effect it would have, but besides being very zen-like, it just made my throat feel like I had sprayed some vick’s chloroseptic in it.
Yesterday was actually Manit day, all of the teachers and administrators from the public schools were invited by the assistant secretary of education to take a boat out to an “outer island.” It took about an hour to cross the atoll, and when we arrived, it was literally a seen from Lost. There were abandoned radar stations and huge white spheres on towers (presumably with satellites inside) that reeked of the Dharma Institute, and a 4-story, 50 yard long rotting freighter lodged eerily against the dock. Apparently the army used to have 100 people living there, along with the 100 or so Marshallese that still do live there, but in the early 90s they were able to switch over to remote access, and now the Army just pops in once and a while on a helicopter to make sure the Marshallese people know they can’t use the antennae as clothes lines.
The picnic was alright. I’m actually not a huge fan of most traditional Marshallese food. A lot of breadfruit was consumed. The way the food was prepared and served also made me a little nervous. Before we left, everyone took their raw meat they brought, unwrapped it, and dumped it into a huge cooler on the boat to let it all marinade together in the sun…. Staci started vomiting at about 11 pm last night – 12 hours later, she’s still not out of bed.
The snorkeling was good though – clownfish, huge schools of giant rainbow parrotfish, and a few eagle rays. And while we were eating a pod of dolphins swam by. Just another day.
The scooter is awesome. A lot of fun. It is a surreal experience to zoom down a causeway made out of dynamited reef and garbage avoiding potholes at 45km/h and look out on one side to see a calm lagoon and some islands in the distance and on the other side huge waves and endless ocean.
We had soccer again on Tuesday. Our numbers went down to 15 or so, but that made it much easier because boomer was sick, so it was just me coaching and reffing. I have officially challenged Father Hacker’s High School to a scrimmage. It should be fun. If it doesn’t work out, the kids seem to be having a lot of fun anyway, even though they keep asking me when they are going to kwaj to play the army kids, which isn’t happening this year because of a miscommunication.
We had our Manit Day (Marshallese custom day) school picnic on Thursday. The kids and some of their parents came in and set up loud speakers that blasted Akon and that song about beautiful girls that make that guy suicidal all day. The kids played volleyball, soccer, and basketball. They are really really good at volleyball, although they play a little differently – there is no need to take all three hits to set up a good spike because none of them are tall enough to do that, so it usually goes over in one or two hits. Boomer and I went swimming at the dock after playing with the kids, and some of them joined us later. I pushed one of my 10th graders off the dock. It’s a 7 foot drop, but he was already swimming. I felt a little bad, but then 5 minutes later he pushed me off… “F in biology this quarter, eh Jojabot?” The day was followed by hours of a game called Flick that we play with the Fijians that live on Gugeegue. Flick is kind of like playing 8-ball pool, but with checker sized pieces that you slide across a wooden board by flicking a bigger checker sized piece at them and trying to knock them into holes. It’s very relaxed to begin with, but when you mix it with ritual Kava drinking, it’s a sedative. Kava is a drink that comes from a root found in some pacific islands (not RMI, I don’t think) that they grind up and then filter through a sock into a big bowl, and then scoop it out using half coconut shells. There is much rhythmic clapping each time someone receives a shell from the distributor, and you are supposed to clap once before and once after you drink it or something like that. I just clap all the time to be safe. I was kind of excited to see what effect it would have, but besides being very zen-like, it just made my throat feel like I had sprayed some vick’s chloroseptic in it.
Yesterday was actually Manit day, all of the teachers and administrators from the public schools were invited by the assistant secretary of education to take a boat out to an “outer island.” It took about an hour to cross the atoll, and when we arrived, it was literally a seen from Lost. There were abandoned radar stations and huge white spheres on towers (presumably with satellites inside) that reeked of the Dharma Institute, and a 4-story, 50 yard long rotting freighter lodged eerily against the dock. Apparently the army used to have 100 people living there, along with the 100 or so Marshallese that still do live there, but in the early 90s they were able to switch over to remote access, and now the Army just pops in once and a while on a helicopter to make sure the Marshallese people know they can’t use the antennae as clothes lines.
The picnic was alright. I’m actually not a huge fan of most traditional Marshallese food. A lot of breadfruit was consumed. The way the food was prepared and served also made me a little nervous. Before we left, everyone took their raw meat they brought, unwrapped it, and dumped it into a huge cooler on the boat to let it all marinade together in the sun…. Staci started vomiting at about 11 pm last night – 12 hours later, she’s still not out of bed.
The snorkeling was good though – clownfish, huge schools of giant rainbow parrotfish, and a few eagle rays. And while we were eating a pod of dolphins swam by. Just another day.
Monday, September 24, 2007
9/23/07
I’m going to try to put less comma splices in this next one. Sorry.
On Tuesday Boomer and I coached the first meeting of the club soccer team. We will be meeting once a week until basketball season starts. Usually there is an actual team that gets to go to kwaj to play the military kids, but some form of communication failure occurred and they didn’t schedule us in. So, we are playing each other, and maybe the kids that go to the much smaller private catholic high school on gugeegue. The first meeting was hysterical. There is only one place on this atoll that isn’t inside the base that is suitable for soccer. The catholic high school has a field (no goals, no lines – just lots of open space with rocks and some weeds), and since I am friends with the principal there, I just asked him if we could use it. So, there were about 30 or so kids who were interested in playing. All of them were guys. They showed up in their school uniforms. Two kids brought shirts to wear. They all were wearing pants. No one had sneakers – they all were wearing flip flops or playing barefoot. The school had some used sneakers donated to it but I told them that they needed to bring their own socks to borrow them. There were about 3 kids that could dribble the ball and pass it in the direction they wanted it to go. We used backpacks as goals. We only had one soccer ball because there is only one on this entire atoll besides what is on the base. We are meeting again on Tuesday.
This week was kind of crazy. I had the kids make models of atoms out of modeling beeswax that was sent to me by my wonderful mother. I gave each lab group a Ziploc bag with blocks of wax and some toothpicks inside and a post-it note with an element symbol on it and told them to show me the protons, neutrons, and electrons. They all seemed excited, so I went back to my desk to take attendance. When I looked up, I noticed that all of the guys in the class had pulled out switchblades to cut up even chunks of beeswax. While the resourcefulness of this was admirable, it was a little disturbing. Why are they all carrying switchblades to my class? They all got As that day. Just kidding. Sort of.
Another strange thing happened to me on Friday. I had given out a test, and a girl raised her hand and I walked over. One of the questions on the test asked specifically about the “lab” where we modeled atoms – a trick I have been using to try to get them to come to all the classes. Anyways, I knew earlier that the girl had missed the day because she was signing adoption papers at court to give her 1 year old child to her parents (she’s 16) so that it (he) can live on the army base as a dependent of her parents – if you are Marshallese but you work on the army base, you can live there… sometimes. So, her absence was technically “excused.” Should I let her skip this question because she made some unfortunate life decisions and consequentially missed school? I decided I wouldn’t… and that’s my new policy… I’m not going out of my way for kids that miss class for any reason… it’s overcompensating, but there need to be consequences. Right now my bio regular is doing better than my bio honors class because honors is first period and I only get half a class every morning because they all sleep through the first bus. Too bad they are all going to fail first quarter. Maybe an F will help wake them up.
Some awful things have happened this week as well that have reminded me that I do not in fact live in a perfect island paradise with extra helpings of garbage, but an actual real city with real problems. The school has two special education students, one of whom cannot really speak. It came up in a teacher’s current events class that on Wednesday night, that student was raped by several men, which is why she has not been to school in the past couple of days. The students did not seem particularly disturbed by this, so Staci decided to start a young women’s club to talk about these issues and nominated boomer and me as faculty advisors to the new young men’s club. Yikes.
Also scandalous and almost as appalling, it was reported in another class that one of our students’ girlfriend (who is not a student) met an American visiting ebeye from the army base on Kwaj, had sex with him, and allowed him to videotape (or perhaps it was done without her knowledge), and he is now selling the tape to people on Ebeye, and several of the students have seen it. Yikes.
Just in case anyone here is reading this – I don’t know the validity of either of those incidents, they are just things that have been said by students at the school.
In other news, today a truck delivered solar panels and a motor scooter to the school for us. The motor scooter has been supplied to replace our pick up truck with recently and mysteriously lost its front windshield after spending the day with the school’s maintenance/construction/all-purpose workmen crew. It had already lost its rear windshield, and had no brakes, and with only 26000 miles on its 2004 body, it’s very sad to think that it will not sit and rot for eternity on gugeegue because it’s not worth the cost of replacing the broken parts.
One more troubling tidbit. The country’s only newspaper (or printed periodical for that matter) headlined last week with a story that will put your sense of Marshallese Christianity into a better perspective. Apparently, there are 6 Muslims in the Marshall Islands and as far as the nitijela (government body) is concerned, that is 6 too many. Someone recently proposed a bill that would ban Islam here because of the “terrorist threat” it represents to the Marshall Islands. Then someone pointed out that their constitution, which is modeled after ours truly, provides freedom of religion. So, they decided to created a congressional committee to discuss getting rid of that clause in the constitution. Yikes.
I’m going to try to put less comma splices in this next one. Sorry.
On Tuesday Boomer and I coached the first meeting of the club soccer team. We will be meeting once a week until basketball season starts. Usually there is an actual team that gets to go to kwaj to play the military kids, but some form of communication failure occurred and they didn’t schedule us in. So, we are playing each other, and maybe the kids that go to the much smaller private catholic high school on gugeegue. The first meeting was hysterical. There is only one place on this atoll that isn’t inside the base that is suitable for soccer. The catholic high school has a field (no goals, no lines – just lots of open space with rocks and some weeds), and since I am friends with the principal there, I just asked him if we could use it. So, there were about 30 or so kids who were interested in playing. All of them were guys. They showed up in their school uniforms. Two kids brought shirts to wear. They all were wearing pants. No one had sneakers – they all were wearing flip flops or playing barefoot. The school had some used sneakers donated to it but I told them that they needed to bring their own socks to borrow them. There were about 3 kids that could dribble the ball and pass it in the direction they wanted it to go. We used backpacks as goals. We only had one soccer ball because there is only one on this entire atoll besides what is on the base. We are meeting again on Tuesday.
This week was kind of crazy. I had the kids make models of atoms out of modeling beeswax that was sent to me by my wonderful mother. I gave each lab group a Ziploc bag with blocks of wax and some toothpicks inside and a post-it note with an element symbol on it and told them to show me the protons, neutrons, and electrons. They all seemed excited, so I went back to my desk to take attendance. When I looked up, I noticed that all of the guys in the class had pulled out switchblades to cut up even chunks of beeswax. While the resourcefulness of this was admirable, it was a little disturbing. Why are they all carrying switchblades to my class? They all got As that day. Just kidding. Sort of.
Another strange thing happened to me on Friday. I had given out a test, and a girl raised her hand and I walked over. One of the questions on the test asked specifically about the “lab” where we modeled atoms – a trick I have been using to try to get them to come to all the classes. Anyways, I knew earlier that the girl had missed the day because she was signing adoption papers at court to give her 1 year old child to her parents (she’s 16) so that it (he) can live on the army base as a dependent of her parents – if you are Marshallese but you work on the army base, you can live there… sometimes. So, her absence was technically “excused.” Should I let her skip this question because she made some unfortunate life decisions and consequentially missed school? I decided I wouldn’t… and that’s my new policy… I’m not going out of my way for kids that miss class for any reason… it’s overcompensating, but there need to be consequences. Right now my bio regular is doing better than my bio honors class because honors is first period and I only get half a class every morning because they all sleep through the first bus. Too bad they are all going to fail first quarter. Maybe an F will help wake them up.
Some awful things have happened this week as well that have reminded me that I do not in fact live in a perfect island paradise with extra helpings of garbage, but an actual real city with real problems. The school has two special education students, one of whom cannot really speak. It came up in a teacher’s current events class that on Wednesday night, that student was raped by several men, which is why she has not been to school in the past couple of days. The students did not seem particularly disturbed by this, so Staci decided to start a young women’s club to talk about these issues and nominated boomer and me as faculty advisors to the new young men’s club. Yikes.
Also scandalous and almost as appalling, it was reported in another class that one of our students’ girlfriend (who is not a student) met an American visiting ebeye from the army base on Kwaj, had sex with him, and allowed him to videotape (or perhaps it was done without her knowledge), and he is now selling the tape to people on Ebeye, and several of the students have seen it. Yikes.
Just in case anyone here is reading this – I don’t know the validity of either of those incidents, they are just things that have been said by students at the school.
In other news, today a truck delivered solar panels and a motor scooter to the school for us. The motor scooter has been supplied to replace our pick up truck with recently and mysteriously lost its front windshield after spending the day with the school’s maintenance/construction/all-purpose workmen crew. It had already lost its rear windshield, and had no brakes, and with only 26000 miles on its 2004 body, it’s very sad to think that it will not sit and rot for eternity on gugeegue because it’s not worth the cost of replacing the broken parts.
One more troubling tidbit. The country’s only newspaper (or printed periodical for that matter) headlined last week with a story that will put your sense of Marshallese Christianity into a better perspective. Apparently, there are 6 Muslims in the Marshall Islands and as far as the nitijela (government body) is concerned, that is 6 too many. Someone recently proposed a bill that would ban Islam here because of the “terrorist threat” it represents to the Marshall Islands. Then someone pointed out that their constitution, which is modeled after ours truly, provides freedom of religion. So, they decided to created a congressional committee to discuss getting rid of that clause in the constitution. Yikes.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
9/14/07
So, I know this happened when I went to Japan too – my blog started out strong and then it tapered out towards the end… well, I will try my best to prevent that, but things are starting to become less shocking to me. It’s not that weird and exciting things aren’t happening, I am just getting used to the extraordinary. It doesn’t phase me when a 3 foot moray eel swims by me in open water, or when a shark comes by to check out my foot that is bloody because I scratched my mosquito bites too much, or when I get on a bus that should seat 100 but there are about 160 kids on board. Things just don’t phase me that much.
Last weekend was a very relaxing three day weekend – the Marshallese celebrate labor day too. I spent one day swimming and snorkeling at our beach, enjoying sharks and stingrays and moray eels. Another day I spent fishing on an island that is further north. We were invited by the principal of the other high school on the island (a private catholic school with much fewer students) to come out to an outer island, a short walk north of gugeegue on the reef. When we got there, we talked to “captain nemo,” the chief of that small island who lives there alone in levi’s and a tank top surviving on his chickens and pigs and breadfruit, and we asked him if it would be okay if we fished on his land. He said sure. No problem. So, we waded out on the reef, and threw out some lines with canned calamari on the end, and reeled in about 15 baby groupers (5 to 8 inches long), cooked them on a piece of scrap tin with a side of coconut, and pigged out. I caught 4 fish in 20 minutes. When the line would get stuck on the coral I would just put my mask on and go out and unhook it. Pretty cool.
Ken, the retired guy who lives here and does everything for the school and has family on the base, set up an arrangement with the base to have a few of the kids go play golf on the country’s only golf course (which is on the American base). He invited me to go, so I did. It was crazy. They have imported thousands of tons of soil to make this golf course. It is perfectly maintained. This all seems rather ridiculous when you compare it to the landscape a mile over on Ebeye. But, the kids loved it. I have never seen anyone more excited about golf – I think a lot of it was just being able to get off of Ebeye and Gugeegue. In any case, we practiced putting and chipping for an hour and a half and then got to eat at the snack bar, which is a very special privilege for people not working on the base. I ate a significant portion of the snack bar’s stock pizza. I miss cheese. Oh, I forgot, on the way there one of the two buses got a flat tire, so the whole group of kids got out and started walking while the other bus continued on…the causeway is 5 miles long…. This happens all the time.
Speaking of walking, the health club at the school met for the first time on Wednesday. Our first healthy activity? We walked from Gugeegue to Ebeye. 5 miles. I wasn’t going to go, but then 3 girl teachers went with the 20 or so co-ed students, and I didn’t want them to think that being healthy was just for girls. It was actually a lot of fun. On the way I checked out the abandoned greenhouse that I have been challenged to lead the renovations of – (your science classes should grow stuff!) the landowner has expressed interest in having it function again – it has been abandoned since the peace corps bailed on this country a decade ago, and it now nothing but an empty frame and some concrete tanks. I don’t really know what we would grow, or how, but I’m going to cruise amazon for some books on tropical gardening and greenhouse building… if the internet ever functions.
I’ve been meeting some pretty cool people visiting the Marshall Islands. People from the Government Accountability Office showed up out of no where to ask where all the money from the US government was going. I gave him a tour of my classroom, complete with 100s of useless textbooks that are too advanced for anyone in the school to read. I also ran into people from the Center for Disease Control, who were out visiting the hospital on Ebeye to check in on their HIV control program. It’s weird to run into white people you don’t know on this side of the ferry, because there are only about 10 or 12 of us.
So, I know this happened when I went to Japan too – my blog started out strong and then it tapered out towards the end… well, I will try my best to prevent that, but things are starting to become less shocking to me. It’s not that weird and exciting things aren’t happening, I am just getting used to the extraordinary. It doesn’t phase me when a 3 foot moray eel swims by me in open water, or when a shark comes by to check out my foot that is bloody because I scratched my mosquito bites too much, or when I get on a bus that should seat 100 but there are about 160 kids on board. Things just don’t phase me that much.
Last weekend was a very relaxing three day weekend – the Marshallese celebrate labor day too. I spent one day swimming and snorkeling at our beach, enjoying sharks and stingrays and moray eels. Another day I spent fishing on an island that is further north. We were invited by the principal of the other high school on the island (a private catholic school with much fewer students) to come out to an outer island, a short walk north of gugeegue on the reef. When we got there, we talked to “captain nemo,” the chief of that small island who lives there alone in levi’s and a tank top surviving on his chickens and pigs and breadfruit, and we asked him if it would be okay if we fished on his land. He said sure. No problem. So, we waded out on the reef, and threw out some lines with canned calamari on the end, and reeled in about 15 baby groupers (5 to 8 inches long), cooked them on a piece of scrap tin with a side of coconut, and pigged out. I caught 4 fish in 20 minutes. When the line would get stuck on the coral I would just put my mask on and go out and unhook it. Pretty cool.
Ken, the retired guy who lives here and does everything for the school and has family on the base, set up an arrangement with the base to have a few of the kids go play golf on the country’s only golf course (which is on the American base). He invited me to go, so I did. It was crazy. They have imported thousands of tons of soil to make this golf course. It is perfectly maintained. This all seems rather ridiculous when you compare it to the landscape a mile over on Ebeye. But, the kids loved it. I have never seen anyone more excited about golf – I think a lot of it was just being able to get off of Ebeye and Gugeegue. In any case, we practiced putting and chipping for an hour and a half and then got to eat at the snack bar, which is a very special privilege for people not working on the base. I ate a significant portion of the snack bar’s stock pizza. I miss cheese. Oh, I forgot, on the way there one of the two buses got a flat tire, so the whole group of kids got out and started walking while the other bus continued on…the causeway is 5 miles long…. This happens all the time.
Speaking of walking, the health club at the school met for the first time on Wednesday. Our first healthy activity? We walked from Gugeegue to Ebeye. 5 miles. I wasn’t going to go, but then 3 girl teachers went with the 20 or so co-ed students, and I didn’t want them to think that being healthy was just for girls. It was actually a lot of fun. On the way I checked out the abandoned greenhouse that I have been challenged to lead the renovations of – (your science classes should grow stuff!) the landowner has expressed interest in having it function again – it has been abandoned since the peace corps bailed on this country a decade ago, and it now nothing but an empty frame and some concrete tanks. I don’t really know what we would grow, or how, but I’m going to cruise amazon for some books on tropical gardening and greenhouse building… if the internet ever functions.
I’ve been meeting some pretty cool people visiting the Marshall Islands. People from the Government Accountability Office showed up out of no where to ask where all the money from the US government was going. I gave him a tour of my classroom, complete with 100s of useless textbooks that are too advanced for anyone in the school to read. I also ran into people from the Center for Disease Control, who were out visiting the hospital on Ebeye to check in on their HIV control program. It’s weird to run into white people you don’t know on this side of the ferry, because there are only about 10 or 12 of us.
Monday, September 3, 2007
9/4/07
Laura has a job. Staci is here – and she likes to make food. YAY. Except that much of what she makes is contingent on someone else doing the baking (someone last year loved to bake) – so I am the new baking trainee. Hm… we’ll see I guess.
Yesterday was the worst teaching experience so far. I set up a measurements lab, so that we could learn how to measure length, volume, time, mass, and temperature. We don’t really have the equipment to do temperature, so I just pretended with a blackboard thermometer. Anyways, 4 out of 5 classes went really smoothly. Then the 5th, the last period of the day, was awful. The kids would not listen to the instructions but then when the lab started they would ask questions. They would get up and walk around and sing and dance and stuff, after I had repeatedly yelled at them or politely asked them to stop. So, finally, I lost it. I asked them how old they were – “15”… ”16”… and I said really?! Because you are acting like 5th graders! (which does not sound as cliché when your first language isn’t English)… then I went on to say “some of you are out getting pregnant or impregnating people – if you are old enough to do that then you are old enough to shut up and follow directions!” That shut them up. And while it may have been abrupt, it’s true – I have 5 students on my roster that haven’t come yet and have cancelled their registrations because they got pregnant or found out they were pregnant between the time of registration and the time school started. This is not because they don’t have access to birth control or don’t know how to use it – condoms are free at the hospital and the school (we have a box in our house that kids will come and ask for) and they have had sex-ed since 7th grade. So I told them, if you’re old enough to make adult decisions, you’re old enough to act like an adult. Then I cancelled the measurement lesson and made them write a composition on why they were in school. I got some interesting responses. Most of them were “I’m sorry,” or weird clichés like “education is key for our children and future.” Some were like “so I can get job on Kwaj” (the American military base that is the reason for Ebeye’s massive influx of people) or “so I am ready for family.” Anyway, at the end of class, I told them not to come back tomorrow and to stay in Ebeye unless they changed their attitude and decided to follow the rules instead of making my life miserable. I explained why I am here, how I am not getting paid, and how I think their education is important but I can’t help them unless they help me. Today was a million times better. Three or four kids didn’t show up for class, but the class actually got to learn. And now the kids in that class are terrified of me.
A friend of mine recently emailed me some questions – and I thought they were good ones, so I am going to post the answers here. You guys should all do the same thing – if you want to know, chances are other people do too and I am just forgetting to state the obvious… so email me.
Do you still feel like you made the right decision? Yes, I do. I’m glad I am here. Part of me wishes I had gone somewhere that would allow me to use more of my econ degree (instead of teaching science) but yeah, I am still excited about being here.
Is it beautiful there? Yes and no. Ebeye is a ghetto – there are virtually no trees or vegetation, people defecate in the ocean and urinate on the streets, and it is more impoverished than any American city I have ever seen. Its “beaches” are covered in trash, and the ocean around it smells of sewerage. On the other hand, most of Gugeegue is absolutely awesome – there is still some trash lining the shore – in particular old machinery is just left wherever it last worked to rot away for eternity, including a huge ship that appears to have rammed into the old dock (before the causeway was built). The beach we sometimes go to is one of the most beautiful places in the world, but it’s owned by the chief, so we have to be very discrete when we go there.
Have you made any friends? Yes. Mostly just the other American teachers, but there is a family (the mom is Phillipina, the dad is from the Gilbert Islands, but the 16 children (!!! the origin of all of them is unclear) are Marshallese since they have lived here forever. They come over and hang out every night, and vary in age from a senior in high school to little 5 year olds. Last weekend we had a little welcome party and sang karaoke with them and danced and then the adults played cards, all at laura’s apartment next door.
What do you do in your spare time? In my spare time I like to go spear fishing (usually without the intent to spear anything) or just hang out at the beach, or read Harry Potter – I started when I got here and I am halfway through year 3. Also, I eat. Lots and lots of food. The heat has made my metabolism even (unbelievably) faster
Laura has a job. Staci is here – and she likes to make food. YAY. Except that much of what she makes is contingent on someone else doing the baking (someone last year loved to bake) – so I am the new baking trainee. Hm… we’ll see I guess.
Yesterday was the worst teaching experience so far. I set up a measurements lab, so that we could learn how to measure length, volume, time, mass, and temperature. We don’t really have the equipment to do temperature, so I just pretended with a blackboard thermometer. Anyways, 4 out of 5 classes went really smoothly. Then the 5th, the last period of the day, was awful. The kids would not listen to the instructions but then when the lab started they would ask questions. They would get up and walk around and sing and dance and stuff, after I had repeatedly yelled at them or politely asked them to stop. So, finally, I lost it. I asked them how old they were – “15”… ”16”… and I said really?! Because you are acting like 5th graders! (which does not sound as cliché when your first language isn’t English)… then I went on to say “some of you are out getting pregnant or impregnating people – if you are old enough to do that then you are old enough to shut up and follow directions!” That shut them up. And while it may have been abrupt, it’s true – I have 5 students on my roster that haven’t come yet and have cancelled their registrations because they got pregnant or found out they were pregnant between the time of registration and the time school started. This is not because they don’t have access to birth control or don’t know how to use it – condoms are free at the hospital and the school (we have a box in our house that kids will come and ask for) and they have had sex-ed since 7th grade. So I told them, if you’re old enough to make adult decisions, you’re old enough to act like an adult. Then I cancelled the measurement lesson and made them write a composition on why they were in school. I got some interesting responses. Most of them were “I’m sorry,” or weird clichés like “education is key for our children and future.” Some were like “so I can get job on Kwaj” (the American military base that is the reason for Ebeye’s massive influx of people) or “so I am ready for family.” Anyway, at the end of class, I told them not to come back tomorrow and to stay in Ebeye unless they changed their attitude and decided to follow the rules instead of making my life miserable. I explained why I am here, how I am not getting paid, and how I think their education is important but I can’t help them unless they help me. Today was a million times better. Three or four kids didn’t show up for class, but the class actually got to learn. And now the kids in that class are terrified of me.
A friend of mine recently emailed me some questions – and I thought they were good ones, so I am going to post the answers here. You guys should all do the same thing – if you want to know, chances are other people do too and I am just forgetting to state the obvious… so email me.
Do you still feel like you made the right decision? Yes, I do. I’m glad I am here. Part of me wishes I had gone somewhere that would allow me to use more of my econ degree (instead of teaching science) but yeah, I am still excited about being here.
Is it beautiful there? Yes and no. Ebeye is a ghetto – there are virtually no trees or vegetation, people defecate in the ocean and urinate on the streets, and it is more impoverished than any American city I have ever seen. Its “beaches” are covered in trash, and the ocean around it smells of sewerage. On the other hand, most of Gugeegue is absolutely awesome – there is still some trash lining the shore – in particular old machinery is just left wherever it last worked to rot away for eternity, including a huge ship that appears to have rammed into the old dock (before the causeway was built). The beach we sometimes go to is one of the most beautiful places in the world, but it’s owned by the chief, so we have to be very discrete when we go there.
Have you made any friends? Yes. Mostly just the other American teachers, but there is a family (the mom is Phillipina, the dad is from the Gilbert Islands, but the 16 children (!!! the origin of all of them is unclear) are Marshallese since they have lived here forever. They come over and hang out every night, and vary in age from a senior in high school to little 5 year olds. Last weekend we had a little welcome party and sang karaoke with them and danced and then the adults played cards, all at laura’s apartment next door.
What do you do in your spare time? In my spare time I like to go spear fishing (usually without the intent to spear anything) or just hang out at the beach, or read Harry Potter – I started when I got here and I am halfway through year 3. Also, I eat. Lots and lots of food. The heat has made my metabolism even (unbelievably) faster
9/2/07
It’s been over a week without any blogs. That is not because things aren’t happening. It’s because too many things are happening. And because there is never power. And when there is power, the internet never works. So… I do it when I can.
The day after I wrote the last blog, the second day of school, school was cancelled because the schedule was not working and because the vice principal decided he wasn’t going to work. The next day, Friday, was the first real, complete, day of school. I talked about rules to 5 silent classrooms.
Last week, however, was a different story. I started out -- wait, I just want to pause for a second to say that I am sitting outside the locked school right now trying to tap into its “wireless” and two dogs are drooling all over my laptop and a kitten just jumped into my lap and another one is sticking its entire face into my pocket. Ok, so I started out the school week talking about rules in the classroom, which they seemed to be okay with, then moved on to covering chapter 1 in both of the textbooks I had been given – chemistry for my chem/physics 11th graders, and biology for my 10th graders. This was not a well thought out plan. I have no curriculum, so I can cover anything I want, and the teacher last year just listed out all of the chapters she thought I should cover. Unfortunately, these kids are in no way equipped to read, comprehend, or even physically use American textbooks, or textbooks at all for that matter, so they are pretty much a waste of space. The academic level is about 5th or 6th grade, but the problem, as one of the veteran American teachers here put it to me, is that they were never taught elementary procedures – like how to wait patiently and hand in your worksheet one at a time at the end of the class instead of all throwing your worksheets at him at the end of the class as your trample anyone and everything running out the door as soon as the hammer hits the rusted oxygen tank (the bell). So, while I am trying to do a unit on scientific measurement, it might be more useful to just practice basic procedures. Lab groups were a disaster. I set up measuring stations for mass, volume, time, temperature, and length (even though I have no thermometer and they broke the scale on the first day), but they would shout “FINISHED MISTAA” every time they wanted to move onto the next station and then would just wander around the class distracting other people. So, I have already had to lay down the law a few times and given kids the option to leave my classroom if they wanted to continue talking, singing, dancing, or whatever it was that they were doing. The problem is they all have a language that they can speak to each other in that I don’t understand, so it makes monitoring the groups really difficult. Demonstrations rather than labs may be a prominent feature in my teaching.
In terms of housing and all that fun stuff – it has been chaos. Our principal is still not on the atoll, so Laura runs the school. The problem is, the ministry of education decided they didn’t want Laura to be the guidance counselor this year, and so they hired one who hasn’t arrived yet, but if he comes, Laura is quitting – she hasn’t gotten a paycheck for the last 3 months already. And if Laura quits, so does our principal. To make things more interesting, we were grocery shopping in Ebeye last week and ran into a white guy, and so we asked him what he was doing. He said he had just flown in, and was supposed to teach at the high school on guegeegue. Hm… so, this other guy, Tristan, who no one was told was coming (it wasn’t through worldteach) just kind of showed up, and is now sleeping on my couch. And oh, by the way, his wife is coming soon, and they were promised a place of their own. Staci, my real housemate, finally got here yesterday, so Boomer, Ashley, Alex, and Connor are all crammed into housing meant for 2 without a working stove. Also, my house is a sauna without air conditioning, and while they have promised to come fix it about 4 times now, no progress has been made. I would leave the doors open but the mosquitoes think I’m tasty.
To de-stress yesterday I went spearfishing with Connor – I didn’t catch any fish, but I wasn’t really trying (we already had a dinner thing to go to so there wasn’t really a reason to kill anything). Connor, however, did catch a fish, and so while he swam the 40 yards back to shore to drop it off (Marshallese people just tie them around their wastes with hanger wires), I looked up after diving down about 20 feet and was about 15 feet away from a 4 foot whitetip reef shark. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, and they aren’t dangerous unless you are bleeding or have a bleeding fish tied around your waste, but for that half a second where you don’t know what kind of shark it is, especially if you are alone, it’s petrifying.
It’s been over a week without any blogs. That is not because things aren’t happening. It’s because too many things are happening. And because there is never power. And when there is power, the internet never works. So… I do it when I can.
The day after I wrote the last blog, the second day of school, school was cancelled because the schedule was not working and because the vice principal decided he wasn’t going to work. The next day, Friday, was the first real, complete, day of school. I talked about rules to 5 silent classrooms.
Last week, however, was a different story. I started out -- wait, I just want to pause for a second to say that I am sitting outside the locked school right now trying to tap into its “wireless” and two dogs are drooling all over my laptop and a kitten just jumped into my lap and another one is sticking its entire face into my pocket. Ok, so I started out the school week talking about rules in the classroom, which they seemed to be okay with, then moved on to covering chapter 1 in both of the textbooks I had been given – chemistry for my chem/physics 11th graders, and biology for my 10th graders. This was not a well thought out plan. I have no curriculum, so I can cover anything I want, and the teacher last year just listed out all of the chapters she thought I should cover. Unfortunately, these kids are in no way equipped to read, comprehend, or even physically use American textbooks, or textbooks at all for that matter, so they are pretty much a waste of space. The academic level is about 5th or 6th grade, but the problem, as one of the veteran American teachers here put it to me, is that they were never taught elementary procedures – like how to wait patiently and hand in your worksheet one at a time at the end of the class instead of all throwing your worksheets at him at the end of the class as your trample anyone and everything running out the door as soon as the hammer hits the rusted oxygen tank (the bell). So, while I am trying to do a unit on scientific measurement, it might be more useful to just practice basic procedures. Lab groups were a disaster. I set up measuring stations for mass, volume, time, temperature, and length (even though I have no thermometer and they broke the scale on the first day), but they would shout “FINISHED MISTAA” every time they wanted to move onto the next station and then would just wander around the class distracting other people. So, I have already had to lay down the law a few times and given kids the option to leave my classroom if they wanted to continue talking, singing, dancing, or whatever it was that they were doing. The problem is they all have a language that they can speak to each other in that I don’t understand, so it makes monitoring the groups really difficult. Demonstrations rather than labs may be a prominent feature in my teaching.
In terms of housing and all that fun stuff – it has been chaos. Our principal is still not on the atoll, so Laura runs the school. The problem is, the ministry of education decided they didn’t want Laura to be the guidance counselor this year, and so they hired one who hasn’t arrived yet, but if he comes, Laura is quitting – she hasn’t gotten a paycheck for the last 3 months already. And if Laura quits, so does our principal. To make things more interesting, we were grocery shopping in Ebeye last week and ran into a white guy, and so we asked him what he was doing. He said he had just flown in, and was supposed to teach at the high school on guegeegue. Hm… so, this other guy, Tristan, who no one was told was coming (it wasn’t through worldteach) just kind of showed up, and is now sleeping on my couch. And oh, by the way, his wife is coming soon, and they were promised a place of their own. Staci, my real housemate, finally got here yesterday, so Boomer, Ashley, Alex, and Connor are all crammed into housing meant for 2 without a working stove. Also, my house is a sauna without air conditioning, and while they have promised to come fix it about 4 times now, no progress has been made. I would leave the doors open but the mosquitoes think I’m tasty.
To de-stress yesterday I went spearfishing with Connor – I didn’t catch any fish, but I wasn’t really trying (we already had a dinner thing to go to so there wasn’t really a reason to kill anything). Connor, however, did catch a fish, and so while he swam the 40 yards back to shore to drop it off (Marshallese people just tie them around their wastes with hanger wires), I looked up after diving down about 20 feet and was about 15 feet away from a 4 foot whitetip reef shark. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, and they aren’t dangerous unless you are bleeding or have a bleeding fish tied around your waste, but for that half a second where you don’t know what kind of shark it is, especially if you are alone, it’s petrifying.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
8/23/07
Here’s my address:
Kwajalein Atoll High School
PO Box 5129
Ebeye, MH 96970
I know it’s expensive, but anything you want to send would be great. Some suggestions for care packages:
- letters! Emails are great too though
- powdered drinks (like tang, but there’s better stuff too) because all we have is water really
- tea - this sounds strange, but we boil all of our water, so it’s really easy to just make tea whenever (I like just about anything that isn’t caffeinated, herbal or otherwise)
- dried fruit - (apples are $3 a pound, and they are rotten and gross)
- anything!!!! Keep in mind it takes about 2-4 weeks to get here though. Don’t send basic school supplies, it is usually obtainable here, but if you have cool resources for middle school science that would be awesome! We have a dvd and vhs projector! Also, any cool arts and crafts stuff would be great too… that is really limited.
- do not mail anything valuable
Yesterday was the first day of actual classes. We didn’t start until 1030 because the schedule wasn’t done until 830. One person, Laura, my boss, does the entire schedule, and apparently almost everything else around here. She was up until 5am the night before trying to make it work. When the students got here, they did nothing for an hour, then some of them got to pick an elective when Laura went around to each individual kid and asked them what they wanted to take. The bell is an old rusted oxygen tank that Laura hits with a hammer.
When she hit it at 1030, the chaos began. No one knew what room to go to, there were only about 3 copies of the just finished master schedule with students’ names listed, so they just wandered around the campus. Some of them came to my class that were supposed to be there, some that weren’t, some that were confused, and some that knew they were cutting another teacher’s class (“…but it’s the first day!”). Maybe 1/3 of my students made it into my class. I have 3 tracked 10th grade biology classes, and 2 tracked 11th grade chemistry/physics classes. The highest students are at maybe, MAYBE a 5th or 6th grade reading level. In my 10th grade “extra help” biology class, no one spoke (or wrote) English. I’m not really sure yet how I’m going to teach them about golgi bodies and the krebs cycle…
So, I didn’t end up doing much, just making nametags for their desks and then filling out a getting to know you questionnaire (what’s your favorite sport?, and so on). Then at the end of the day, their bus didn’t come, and the outside of my apartment became a playground. On Wednesday, during the placement testing, my $45 board shorts disappeared off the clothes line. All my stuff is now inside, since all of the kids hang out at my front door (under the awning), at my back door (to smoke in privacy), and everywhere else. They will even knock on my door and ask for water since there is no place on campus for them to get it. This is a problem that I will be bringing to the principal when he gets here – how can the only source of water for 300 students be the faculty’s private catchments (which become very very important in the dry season)? Alex and Connor don’t bring their nalgene bottles to Ebeye when they teach because everyone they see asks them for some, and it’s easier to just go thirsty than tell everyone no, because you definitely don’t want to be drinking after anyone here. Leprosy, tuberculosis, the flu, and many other ailments are all huge problems in the second most densely populated city in the world. Speaking of which, my finger is infected and I’m going to try to lance it myself and put alcohol and Neosporin on it rather than go to the hospital in Ebeye… I’m not going there unless I’m dying.
So, the scheduling was a disaster. And it ended up not working the way Laura wanted to, so Laura canceled school today (also because our vice principal, who is really a teacher – he teaches 3 periods of Micronesian History, wasn’t planning on showing up today anyway because his son was going on a trip or something). I have to admit I was relieved when she knocked on the door at 8am (she lives next door) to tell me this. Boomer, Ashley, and I spent the day at our secret spot on the island. You would think that a coral atoll in the middle of the pacific would have all kinds of sandy beaches everywhere, but it turns out that this is not the case. All of the ocean side is always lava rock and most of the lagoon side is as well. We did, however, find maybe the most beautiful beach on earth about a 10 minute walk away from campus and civilization. The beach is incredible, but the problem is that it actually belongs to the King of Ebeye, who has a house about 50 yards away. Thankfully, there is dense jungle separating our secluded beach from his house, so we haven’t been caught yet. I’m not sure what happens if we are. Hopefully he likes Americans.
Here’s my address:
Kwajalein Atoll High School
PO Box 5129
Ebeye, MH 96970
I know it’s expensive, but anything you want to send would be great. Some suggestions for care packages:
- letters! Emails are great too though
- powdered drinks (like tang, but there’s better stuff too) because all we have is water really
- tea - this sounds strange, but we boil all of our water, so it’s really easy to just make tea whenever (I like just about anything that isn’t caffeinated, herbal or otherwise)
- dried fruit - (apples are $3 a pound, and they are rotten and gross)
- anything!!!! Keep in mind it takes about 2-4 weeks to get here though. Don’t send basic school supplies, it is usually obtainable here, but if you have cool resources for middle school science that would be awesome! We have a dvd and vhs projector! Also, any cool arts and crafts stuff would be great too… that is really limited.
- do not mail anything valuable
Yesterday was the first day of actual classes. We didn’t start until 1030 because the schedule wasn’t done until 830. One person, Laura, my boss, does the entire schedule, and apparently almost everything else around here. She was up until 5am the night before trying to make it work. When the students got here, they did nothing for an hour, then some of them got to pick an elective when Laura went around to each individual kid and asked them what they wanted to take. The bell is an old rusted oxygen tank that Laura hits with a hammer.
When she hit it at 1030, the chaos began. No one knew what room to go to, there were only about 3 copies of the just finished master schedule with students’ names listed, so they just wandered around the campus. Some of them came to my class that were supposed to be there, some that weren’t, some that were confused, and some that knew they were cutting another teacher’s class (“…but it’s the first day!”). Maybe 1/3 of my students made it into my class. I have 3 tracked 10th grade biology classes, and 2 tracked 11th grade chemistry/physics classes. The highest students are at maybe, MAYBE a 5th or 6th grade reading level. In my 10th grade “extra help” biology class, no one spoke (or wrote) English. I’m not really sure yet how I’m going to teach them about golgi bodies and the krebs cycle…
So, I didn’t end up doing much, just making nametags for their desks and then filling out a getting to know you questionnaire (what’s your favorite sport?, and so on). Then at the end of the day, their bus didn’t come, and the outside of my apartment became a playground. On Wednesday, during the placement testing, my $45 board shorts disappeared off the clothes line. All my stuff is now inside, since all of the kids hang out at my front door (under the awning), at my back door (to smoke in privacy), and everywhere else. They will even knock on my door and ask for water since there is no place on campus for them to get it. This is a problem that I will be bringing to the principal when he gets here – how can the only source of water for 300 students be the faculty’s private catchments (which become very very important in the dry season)? Alex and Connor don’t bring their nalgene bottles to Ebeye when they teach because everyone they see asks them for some, and it’s easier to just go thirsty than tell everyone no, because you definitely don’t want to be drinking after anyone here. Leprosy, tuberculosis, the flu, and many other ailments are all huge problems in the second most densely populated city in the world. Speaking of which, my finger is infected and I’m going to try to lance it myself and put alcohol and Neosporin on it rather than go to the hospital in Ebeye… I’m not going there unless I’m dying.
So, the scheduling was a disaster. And it ended up not working the way Laura wanted to, so Laura canceled school today (also because our vice principal, who is really a teacher – he teaches 3 periods of Micronesian History, wasn’t planning on showing up today anyway because his son was going on a trip or something). I have to admit I was relieved when she knocked on the door at 8am (she lives next door) to tell me this. Boomer, Ashley, and I spent the day at our secret spot on the island. You would think that a coral atoll in the middle of the pacific would have all kinds of sandy beaches everywhere, but it turns out that this is not the case. All of the ocean side is always lava rock and most of the lagoon side is as well. We did, however, find maybe the most beautiful beach on earth about a 10 minute walk away from campus and civilization. The beach is incredible, but the problem is that it actually belongs to the King of Ebeye, who has a house about 50 yards away. Thankfully, there is dense jungle separating our secluded beach from his house, so we haven’t been caught yet. I’m not sure what happens if we are. Hopefully he likes Americans.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
FINALLY!
Guys, I finally managed to get something posted on this thing - I had to divide it into really small chunks for the internet connection to be able to handle. USE THE LINKS ON THE RIGHT TO START WITH THE FIRST POST!... only the "most recent" ones are posted on this page, even though they were all posted today. They should all have specific dates on the right. ENJOY THE NOVEL.
Thanks,
Matt
Thanks,
Matt
8/21/07 Part 3
The high school is only 4 years old, but it’s already pretty decrepit. I spent all day yesterday cleaning the layers of salt off my desks and chairs and text books in my classroom. Today I opened up a box full of physics books to find a nest of 23 cockroaches – I know there were 23 because I went back to my house (which is literally a 20 second walk from my classroom – I live on campus), got a bottle of Raid, and then ran around the classroom spraying them until each one was dead. Arg. I’m teaching 10th grade biology and 11th grade integrated physics and chemistry. Good thing I’m an economics major.
Today we had our first day of school, but all that happened was an assembly and then placement testing for new students. At the assembly, all of the teachers (about 12) sat on the stage while 300 students sat facing us. We each had to introduce ourselves. It was very strange not to be a student for the first time in my life. The principal is in Majuro on “personal business” (he’s much more into local politics than actually running the school) and won’t be back for at least 2 weeks, so the vice principal, who sometimes struggles with English, did the introductions. After each of the new American teachers had received thunderous applauses, they sang their school anthem very enthusiastically, and then the placement testing began. I was a proctor, and I can already tell that classroom management is going to be an issue for me. I think the biggest problem, however, is that the students (in particular the 9th graders) really don’t understand English. I graded about 40 English placement tests this afternoon and the most advanced student was comparable to an average American 2nd or 3rd grader, while most students had no idea what was going on. So while I will be teaching high school, it’s more like I’m teaching really mature elementary and middle schoolers.
We have already made some friends on the island. On the first night, we were invited to a farewell party for a family moving from Gugeegue to Dayton, Ohio. Why? We don’t know. It was, however, quite the feast. Today at lunch we were invited to the American couple’s house who live next store to boomer and Ashley, and across the lawn from me. The wife teaches and the husband is retired but helps fix things around the school. They have family on the base and like the weather here. They’re great. Then we got invited for desert by a family also involved with education here. The wife, who was a Jesuit volunteer several years ago and is American, is now involved in teacher training, and the husband, who is Marshallese, is the principal of the smaller Catholic private high school on the island. They fed us brownies and ice cream while their baby slept. I made Terry, the husband, promise he would take me and Connor out spear fishing sometime soon after our relatively unsuccessful efforts (although I did catch an edible fish) earlier today. He seemed willing to help. They’re great too. I hope I like the students as much as everyone else here.
The high school is only 4 years old, but it’s already pretty decrepit. I spent all day yesterday cleaning the layers of salt off my desks and chairs and text books in my classroom. Today I opened up a box full of physics books to find a nest of 23 cockroaches – I know there were 23 because I went back to my house (which is literally a 20 second walk from my classroom – I live on campus), got a bottle of Raid, and then ran around the classroom spraying them until each one was dead. Arg. I’m teaching 10th grade biology and 11th grade integrated physics and chemistry. Good thing I’m an economics major.
Today we had our first day of school, but all that happened was an assembly and then placement testing for new students. At the assembly, all of the teachers (about 12) sat on the stage while 300 students sat facing us. We each had to introduce ourselves. It was very strange not to be a student for the first time in my life. The principal is in Majuro on “personal business” (he’s much more into local politics than actually running the school) and won’t be back for at least 2 weeks, so the vice principal, who sometimes struggles with English, did the introductions. After each of the new American teachers had received thunderous applauses, they sang their school anthem very enthusiastically, and then the placement testing began. I was a proctor, and I can already tell that classroom management is going to be an issue for me. I think the biggest problem, however, is that the students (in particular the 9th graders) really don’t understand English. I graded about 40 English placement tests this afternoon and the most advanced student was comparable to an average American 2nd or 3rd grader, while most students had no idea what was going on. So while I will be teaching high school, it’s more like I’m teaching really mature elementary and middle schoolers.
We have already made some friends on the island. On the first night, we were invited to a farewell party for a family moving from Gugeegue to Dayton, Ohio. Why? We don’t know. It was, however, quite the feast. Today at lunch we were invited to the American couple’s house who live next store to boomer and Ashley, and across the lawn from me. The wife teaches and the husband is retired but helps fix things around the school. They have family on the base and like the weather here. They’re great. Then we got invited for desert by a family also involved with education here. The wife, who was a Jesuit volunteer several years ago and is American, is now involved in teacher training, and the husband, who is Marshallese, is the principal of the smaller Catholic private high school on the island. They fed us brownies and ice cream while their baby slept. I made Terry, the husband, promise he would take me and Connor out spear fishing sometime soon after our relatively unsuccessful efforts (although I did catch an edible fish) earlier today. He seemed willing to help. They’re great too. I hope I like the students as much as everyone else here.
8/21/07 Part 2
Anyway, the next day we got up at 7am to go to the airport. We stood in line for about an hour waiting to get our baggage checked because each bag is completely opened and searched because the country cannot afford an x-ray machine (or just chooses not to buy one, spending the money on 100 flag poles outside of the new conference center instead). After the bags were searched, we were told that there was no room on the plane for us. We booked these tickets on Continental months ago. Our field director pulled some WorldTeach strings and we were put at the head of the standby list and were luckily able board the plane, which took off much later than scheduled. When we arrived on the military base at Kwajalein, which is a high security missile testing site, our bags were searched again, this time by two separate dogs, one for drugs and the other for explosives. We were then escorted off the base, not because we were important but because we were a security risk to the US military, and into the ferry waiting area. The ferry is an old world war 2 landing craft (the kind that landed at Normandy) that has been fitted with some benches and transports Marshallese people back and forth from Ebeye, the 2nd most densely populated city in the world, and the home of the majority of the kids I will be teaching. We were met by Laura, the American head teacher at the high school, and my boss, at the ferry waiting area. When the ferry arrived, we started loading our luggage aboard it – we each had 2 checked bags and 2 carry-on bags, so it was a lot of stuff. Then Laura got a phone call indicating a special boat was coming out to pick us up. So, we got off the ferry, and while we were unpacking our luggage from this boat packed shoulder to shoulder with tired Marshallese people coming home from work, they formed a little assembly line to help us get our bags off. We felt like pretty big idiots. But, then when the “special boat” didn’t come after 2 more hours we felt like even bigger idiots. So we got on the next ferry. After a 25 minute ride, we arrived at Ebeye, slum of the Pacific. Imagine a shanty-town where people use metal scraps propped up against one another for shelter, sleep 15 to a room, and the streets are always FILLED with masses and masses of children. 15,000 people in .14 square miles. That is Ebeye. We drove through on the one road, then started the 5 mile (but half hour) trek to Gugeegue. Gugeegue is an island roughly the same size at Kwajalein, but only 300 people live there, and it is home to both my high school and myself. In the late 90s, someone decided to connect Gugeegue and Ebeye with a 5-mile causeway bridge made of garbage. This causeway is possibly the worst “road” I have ever seen, and there are foot-deep potholes every three or four feet.
My apartment/house type place is the nicest building I have been into since arriving in the Marshall Islands outside of the Outrigger. It has two bedrooms, a common with a couch and two chairs, a large kitchen table, a bathroom with a shower, and a full kitchen. Our water comes from the roof, which used to go through a UV filter into the catchment so it didn’t have to be boiled, but since the light broke and there is no Marshallese word for “maintenance,” we have to boil everything we drink, which really isn’t a big deal. What is annoying is that there is no water heater, so showers are always icy. When you look at the back door you can see the lagoon about 100 yards away and when you look out the front door you can almost see the ocean over some bushes about 120 yards away. It’s beautiful.
Unfortunately the housing situation is not so great for the other volunteers. I am sharing my apartment with Staci, a girl who volunteered last year, has a contract this year, but hasn’t come back from the states yet. Connor and Alex, who will teach at the middle school in Ebeye, have no housing at all. They wander back and forth between my apartment and Boomer and Ashley’s place (sleeping on floors and couches), which is pretty defunct – there’s not a working stove, so all of the cooking has been taking place in my apartment. Boomer and Ashley came together and are also teaching at the high school. Some efforts are being made to find Connor and Alex housing, but their principal has a hard time accepting that sometimes it requires action to remedy a situation.
Anyway, the next day we got up at 7am to go to the airport. We stood in line for about an hour waiting to get our baggage checked because each bag is completely opened and searched because the country cannot afford an x-ray machine (or just chooses not to buy one, spending the money on 100 flag poles outside of the new conference center instead). After the bags were searched, we were told that there was no room on the plane for us. We booked these tickets on Continental months ago. Our field director pulled some WorldTeach strings and we were put at the head of the standby list and were luckily able board the plane, which took off much later than scheduled. When we arrived on the military base at Kwajalein, which is a high security missile testing site, our bags were searched again, this time by two separate dogs, one for drugs and the other for explosives. We were then escorted off the base, not because we were important but because we were a security risk to the US military, and into the ferry waiting area. The ferry is an old world war 2 landing craft (the kind that landed at Normandy) that has been fitted with some benches and transports Marshallese people back and forth from Ebeye, the 2nd most densely populated city in the world, and the home of the majority of the kids I will be teaching. We were met by Laura, the American head teacher at the high school, and my boss, at the ferry waiting area. When the ferry arrived, we started loading our luggage aboard it – we each had 2 checked bags and 2 carry-on bags, so it was a lot of stuff. Then Laura got a phone call indicating a special boat was coming out to pick us up. So, we got off the ferry, and while we were unpacking our luggage from this boat packed shoulder to shoulder with tired Marshallese people coming home from work, they formed a little assembly line to help us get our bags off. We felt like pretty big idiots. But, then when the “special boat” didn’t come after 2 more hours we felt like even bigger idiots. So we got on the next ferry. After a 25 minute ride, we arrived at Ebeye, slum of the Pacific. Imagine a shanty-town where people use metal scraps propped up against one another for shelter, sleep 15 to a room, and the streets are always FILLED with masses and masses of children. 15,000 people in .14 square miles. That is Ebeye. We drove through on the one road, then started the 5 mile (but half hour) trek to Gugeegue. Gugeegue is an island roughly the same size at Kwajalein, but only 300 people live there, and it is home to both my high school and myself. In the late 90s, someone decided to connect Gugeegue and Ebeye with a 5-mile causeway bridge made of garbage. This causeway is possibly the worst “road” I have ever seen, and there are foot-deep potholes every three or four feet.
My apartment/house type place is the nicest building I have been into since arriving in the Marshall Islands outside of the Outrigger. It has two bedrooms, a common with a couch and two chairs, a large kitchen table, a bathroom with a shower, and a full kitchen. Our water comes from the roof, which used to go through a UV filter into the catchment so it didn’t have to be boiled, but since the light broke and there is no Marshallese word for “maintenance,” we have to boil everything we drink, which really isn’t a big deal. What is annoying is that there is no water heater, so showers are always icy. When you look at the back door you can see the lagoon about 100 yards away and when you look out the front door you can almost see the ocean over some bushes about 120 yards away. It’s beautiful.
Unfortunately the housing situation is not so great for the other volunteers. I am sharing my apartment with Staci, a girl who volunteered last year, has a contract this year, but hasn’t come back from the states yet. Connor and Alex, who will teach at the middle school in Ebeye, have no housing at all. They wander back and forth between my apartment and Boomer and Ashley’s place (sleeping on floors and couches), which is pretty defunct – there’s not a working stove, so all of the cooking has been taking place in my apartment. Boomer and Ashley came together and are also teaching at the high school. Some efforts are being made to find Connor and Alex housing, but their principal has a hard time accepting that sometimes it requires action to remedy a situation.
8/21/07 Part 1
So much has happened since my last blog entry. I am now in Gugeegue, but I am going to start back in Majuro.
They took us to an outer island within the Majuro Atoll to get some perspective on what life is like out there. Gugeegue is neither Majuro nor an outer island, but somewhere in between… but I’ll get to that. The name of the island was Jelter, and it was tiny, but amazing. We did cool stuff like husk coconuts and grate the meat, which we then sprinkled on balls of starch and enjoyed immensely. The snorkeling was awesome – Connor and I saw a black tip in about 20 feet of water. What’s interesting is that, even after that happened, I still signed up for the night spear fishing trip. I am absolutely terrified of swimming at night in the ocean – night scubadiving has ever fascinated me at all – but I decided to get over it. So, I got on a tiny little boat with 5 other volunteers and three Marshallese guys at about 9pm, and we went about 3 miles out into the lagoon, and then, armed with a flashlight while my buddy carried the spear (there wasn’t enough for everyone), we jumped overboard into the pitch black water. Honestly, I was terrified the entire time – you can only see what is in your flashlight beam, so I was constantly waving it around trying to see if I was being stalked by a tiger shark (reef sharks don’t even phase me anymore). The hardest part about fishing at night is spotting because the fish are all hiding but if you do find them they are very easy to catch because they are asleep. I was apparently a pretty good spotter though, or just lucky, because my buddy caught the biggest fish (about 10 inches) not caught by a Marshallese guy. I, coincidentally, speared my first fish ever today (it was only about 5 inches long, but that’s definitely worth catching by Marshallese standards), but I digress.
On Saturday, we all said our goodbyes at the orientation farewell dinner and then went to the outrigger hotel for some great karaoke. The outrigger is considered the nicest hotel in the islands, and it’s where all the Pacific Islander officials stay when they come in for conferences. A couple of weeks ago, when we were having dinner with our principals for the first time, we were introduced to the former president of the Marshall Islands, the current president was eating dinner under escort outside, and a few tables down was the former president of Senegal. It’s a high profile place. With that in mind, you can see why I was utterly shocked when, while sitting at the hotel’s bar waiting to sing Elton John’s Circle of Life, a cat-sized RAT climbed up my leg, onto my crotch (at which point I looked down at it’s fat furry face looking up at me), and proceeded to launch off of my chest in a flying leap over the bar as I threw my beer across the room. It was a strange experience, and I didn’t even get a free drink out of it.
So much has happened since my last blog entry. I am now in Gugeegue, but I am going to start back in Majuro.
They took us to an outer island within the Majuro Atoll to get some perspective on what life is like out there. Gugeegue is neither Majuro nor an outer island, but somewhere in between… but I’ll get to that. The name of the island was Jelter, and it was tiny, but amazing. We did cool stuff like husk coconuts and grate the meat, which we then sprinkled on balls of starch and enjoyed immensely. The snorkeling was awesome – Connor and I saw a black tip in about 20 feet of water. What’s interesting is that, even after that happened, I still signed up for the night spear fishing trip. I am absolutely terrified of swimming at night in the ocean – night scubadiving has ever fascinated me at all – but I decided to get over it. So, I got on a tiny little boat with 5 other volunteers and three Marshallese guys at about 9pm, and we went about 3 miles out into the lagoon, and then, armed with a flashlight while my buddy carried the spear (there wasn’t enough for everyone), we jumped overboard into the pitch black water. Honestly, I was terrified the entire time – you can only see what is in your flashlight beam, so I was constantly waving it around trying to see if I was being stalked by a tiger shark (reef sharks don’t even phase me anymore). The hardest part about fishing at night is spotting because the fish are all hiding but if you do find them they are very easy to catch because they are asleep. I was apparently a pretty good spotter though, or just lucky, because my buddy caught the biggest fish (about 10 inches) not caught by a Marshallese guy. I, coincidentally, speared my first fish ever today (it was only about 5 inches long, but that’s definitely worth catching by Marshallese standards), but I digress.
On Saturday, we all said our goodbyes at the orientation farewell dinner and then went to the outrigger hotel for some great karaoke. The outrigger is considered the nicest hotel in the islands, and it’s where all the Pacific Islander officials stay when they come in for conferences. A couple of weeks ago, when we were having dinner with our principals for the first time, we were introduced to the former president of the Marshall Islands, the current president was eating dinner under escort outside, and a few tables down was the former president of Senegal. It’s a high profile place. With that in mind, you can see why I was utterly shocked when, while sitting at the hotel’s bar waiting to sing Elton John’s Circle of Life, a cat-sized RAT climbed up my leg, onto my crotch (at which point I looked down at it’s fat furry face looking up at me), and proceeded to launch off of my chest in a flying leap over the bar as I threw my beer across the room. It was a strange experience, and I didn’t even get a free drink out of it.
8/12/07
The practicum is over. It went fine… we started to lose more and more kids each day. I taught an entire unit on coral. What is coral, how an atoll is formed by coral (on top of a sinking volcano), the importance of coral… anyways, I’m coral’ed out for a while.
We are all very ready to leave this living situation. Living out of a suitcase for a month is not fun. Most people only use half of their beds because the other half is covered in stuff, and all of our sheets have sand and dirt on them even though they’ve been washed recently. I promised I wouldn’t talk about roaches anymore, but I have to share this one… I woke up and went digging through my suitcase for some immodium (a very useful drug in this country), but when I grabbed the plastic container it was in a roach crawled around from the other side of the bag and onto my arm. I swatted it down and it fell into the suitcase. I zipped the suitcase shut, had breakfast, took a shower, and then unloaded every item in my suitcase until I found it hiding in the very bottom. I will never “get used to” cockroaches. Never.
We finally met our Ebeye principals! They are really funny. We went out to dinner with them at the same place we were supposed to originally – they claimed they were there the time before, but we all know that’s not true because if they had been they would have known the 5 white people were us. But they were cool. I asked mine how much it would cost to buy a dingy boat and he said, “why don’t we make a canoe?” Sounds good to me. What isn’t so good is that Connor and Alex, the two guys working at the elementary school on Ebeye (the feeder for my high school), have no housing yet. Each of the principals thought it was the others’ responsibility to get it. No volunteers have ever lived on Ebeye, which is a slum, so the elementary principal just assumed they would live on Gugeegue with us. Turns out there is no room for them. Until they find permanent housing they will be living with Boomer and Ashley, who have their own two bedroom house. I’ll be living in a two bedroom house with Staci, a girl who was a volunteer last year but hopefully will sign a contract this year. In reality, we have no idea how this will all work out – but that is the tentative plan.
Today we drove out to Laura, pretty much the most beautiful beach on the Majuro Atoll. It’s way outside of the city, and as far away as you can drive. It took 45 minutes in a HUGE flatbed truck (think a scaled down version of a semi, with 12 wheels) that I drove with 29 people in the back and all of their snorkeling equipment. Somehow, this morning, I was elected to drive the truck by the people organizing the trip (only 5 people can drive stick out of the 45 of us, apparently). It was not an enviable position. When we went to pick the car up, my shirt was literally soaked through with sweat by the time we got from the dealer to the diesel gas station. This was because of several reasons.
1. This was the largest thing I have ever driven – maybe 3 normal cars long, wider than an excursion.
2. I had no idea what to do if anything were to go wrong. I didn’t even have a Marshallese drivers license (which didn’t seem to be a problem for the dealer), let alone insurance.
3. Have you ever driven in a developing country? Holy shit.
So, when we added 29 people to the back it was even more stressful, but once I got comfortable it was fine. Laura was amazing. If I were living on Majuro I would find a way to get out there at least once a month.
The practicum is over. It went fine… we started to lose more and more kids each day. I taught an entire unit on coral. What is coral, how an atoll is formed by coral (on top of a sinking volcano), the importance of coral… anyways, I’m coral’ed out for a while.
We are all very ready to leave this living situation. Living out of a suitcase for a month is not fun. Most people only use half of their beds because the other half is covered in stuff, and all of our sheets have sand and dirt on them even though they’ve been washed recently. I promised I wouldn’t talk about roaches anymore, but I have to share this one… I woke up and went digging through my suitcase for some immodium (a very useful drug in this country), but when I grabbed the plastic container it was in a roach crawled around from the other side of the bag and onto my arm. I swatted it down and it fell into the suitcase. I zipped the suitcase shut, had breakfast, took a shower, and then unloaded every item in my suitcase until I found it hiding in the very bottom. I will never “get used to” cockroaches. Never.
We finally met our Ebeye principals! They are really funny. We went out to dinner with them at the same place we were supposed to originally – they claimed they were there the time before, but we all know that’s not true because if they had been they would have known the 5 white people were us. But they were cool. I asked mine how much it would cost to buy a dingy boat and he said, “why don’t we make a canoe?” Sounds good to me. What isn’t so good is that Connor and Alex, the two guys working at the elementary school on Ebeye (the feeder for my high school), have no housing yet. Each of the principals thought it was the others’ responsibility to get it. No volunteers have ever lived on Ebeye, which is a slum, so the elementary principal just assumed they would live on Gugeegue with us. Turns out there is no room for them. Until they find permanent housing they will be living with Boomer and Ashley, who have their own two bedroom house. I’ll be living in a two bedroom house with Staci, a girl who was a volunteer last year but hopefully will sign a contract this year. In reality, we have no idea how this will all work out – but that is the tentative plan.
Today we drove out to Laura, pretty much the most beautiful beach on the Majuro Atoll. It’s way outside of the city, and as far away as you can drive. It took 45 minutes in a HUGE flatbed truck (think a scaled down version of a semi, with 12 wheels) that I drove with 29 people in the back and all of their snorkeling equipment. Somehow, this morning, I was elected to drive the truck by the people organizing the trip (only 5 people can drive stick out of the 45 of us, apparently). It was not an enviable position. When we went to pick the car up, my shirt was literally soaked through with sweat by the time we got from the dealer to the diesel gas station. This was because of several reasons.
1. This was the largest thing I have ever driven – maybe 3 normal cars long, wider than an excursion.
2. I had no idea what to do if anything were to go wrong. I didn’t even have a Marshallese drivers license (which didn’t seem to be a problem for the dealer), let alone insurance.
3. Have you ever driven in a developing country? Holy shit.
So, when we added 29 people to the back it was even more stressful, but once I got comfortable it was fine. Laura was amazing. If I were living on Majuro I would find a way to get out there at least once a month.
8/8/07
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAITLIN!!! I didn’t have a chance to go to the NTA (national telecommunications authority) to email you today, but I definitely thought about how awesome it would be to be eating marinated steaks and blueberry’s up at lake george with you guys… the grass may be greener there, but the water is bluer here.
We are two days into our teaching practicum, or “Majuro Summer Camp,” where the principals at some of the schools literally drive up and down the one road and pick up children on the street for the worldteach volunteers to practice teaching on for 4 days. I am teaching a unit on coral to 11th and 12th graders. They are the smartest kids their age in the country, and while they are actually bright, getting them to participate and have confidence in themselves is impossible. We had 5 kids show up the first day, and 3 additional ones showed up today, so I guess we are doing a good job – two other teachers and I are teaching them for 3 hours a day.
This morning I woke up and the power was out and the water wasn’t working. You would think that this would have in some way affected my morning, but it didn’t – I just had cornflakes with slightly warmer soy milk than usual and didn’t toast my bagel. The water is pretty much out every other day, and you really don’t use power for that much except boiling water from the rain catchment. I am a pro at bucket flushing and washing dishes in tubs of rainwater.
I am healthy! There have been some issues with gastroenteritis and upper respiratory infections on the compound, but I have been doing really well so far.
The five of us going out to Kwajalein Atoll (3 on gugeegue at the high school, 2 on ebeye at the middle school) were supposed to have dinner at the Marshall Islands Resort (a mediocre hotel, but one of two on the island) with our principals tonight at 730. We got there at 7, and when they didn’t show up by 9 we had dinner without them. It was ominously foreshadowing of our future relationships. We had a good time though, and it was nice to eat some real food. I’m getting sick of tofu and chicken necks and gizzards and whatever weird body parts that are anything but wings, breasts, and drumsticks. I am going to buy a spear sling before I head to gugeegue so I can get fresh fish while I’m there… hopefully it’s not as hard as I think it will be.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAITLIN!!! I didn’t have a chance to go to the NTA (national telecommunications authority) to email you today, but I definitely thought about how awesome it would be to be eating marinated steaks and blueberry’s up at lake george with you guys… the grass may be greener there, but the water is bluer here.
We are two days into our teaching practicum, or “Majuro Summer Camp,” where the principals at some of the schools literally drive up and down the one road and pick up children on the street for the worldteach volunteers to practice teaching on for 4 days. I am teaching a unit on coral to 11th and 12th graders. They are the smartest kids their age in the country, and while they are actually bright, getting them to participate and have confidence in themselves is impossible. We had 5 kids show up the first day, and 3 additional ones showed up today, so I guess we are doing a good job – two other teachers and I are teaching them for 3 hours a day.
This morning I woke up and the power was out and the water wasn’t working. You would think that this would have in some way affected my morning, but it didn’t – I just had cornflakes with slightly warmer soy milk than usual and didn’t toast my bagel. The water is pretty much out every other day, and you really don’t use power for that much except boiling water from the rain catchment. I am a pro at bucket flushing and washing dishes in tubs of rainwater.
I am healthy! There have been some issues with gastroenteritis and upper respiratory infections on the compound, but I have been doing really well so far.
The five of us going out to Kwajalein Atoll (3 on gugeegue at the high school, 2 on ebeye at the middle school) were supposed to have dinner at the Marshall Islands Resort (a mediocre hotel, but one of two on the island) with our principals tonight at 730. We got there at 7, and when they didn’t show up by 9 we had dinner without them. It was ominously foreshadowing of our future relationships. We had a good time though, and it was nice to eat some real food. I’m getting sick of tofu and chicken necks and gizzards and whatever weird body parts that are anything but wings, breasts, and drumsticks. I am going to buy a spear sling before I head to gugeegue so I can get fresh fish while I’m there… hopefully it’s not as hard as I think it will be.
8/6/07
Orientation is halfway over. That’s exciting, because I’m really anxious to get out to Gugeegue.
The head teacher of Kwajalein Atoll High School flew out to help with orientation this week, so I finally got to meet someone that had actually been to Ebeye and Gugeegue. We were supposed to meet the principals of the schools too, but they never showed up – which isn’t a good sign. According to Laura, the head teacher, I am going to be “Ebeye’s Science Guy.” I will be the only high school level teacher of biology, chemistry, and physics for a population base of 14,000 people. How many people can say that? I’m really excited, but very happy that textbooks are readily available, because science and I have been on a break since I found out I wasn’t pre-med freshman year of college.
A funny story about Saturday night… we had mid-orientation dinner at Monica’s Chinese restaurant, the nicest restaurant on-island, and after some okay food and karaoke, I left by myself because I had to get up early the next morning. The cab I got into pulled over to pick some other couple up (that’s how the cabs work – you share them with whoever else the cabbie finds because you can only go two different directions), and shortly after they stopped at the Outrigger Hotel, got out, did something, and then got back in. Then we drove another mile and stopped at Shooters, the brothel on the island. The guy got out and went inside while the girl waited inside with me and the cabbie. After 10 minutes of waiting, I started to feel uncomfortable with my surroundings and offered the driver the 75 cents to get out. He declined to take my fare, and yelled at the women in Marshallese something I could not understand. She started poking me with her nails and saying “ima go geten ma man den pay” over and over again (neither she nor the man were Marshallese – I have no idea what they were, but they spoke very fast pigeon English) and then she ran out of the cab into the brothel. The cab driver shut her door and said “next time” and we drove away. I gave him 3 dollars instead of 2 when we got all the way back.
The reason I had to get up early was because of scuba diving the next day. A few of us somehow managed to get a Japanese dive company to take a boat out for us. My friend Matt and I wanted to do something more challenging than a beach dive, so we did a warm-up dive to about 40 feet, and then went to “the aquarium,” the largest channel in the atoll connecting the lagoon to the ocean, and went to 75 feet. They were both AMAZING dives. When I actually end up posting these entries hopefully I will include some pictures and videos (from my awesome digital camera with underwater case), but the highlights include huge schools of brightly colored fish, coral communities with literally thousands of sparkling damsel fish, a swimming octopus, two 3-banded clownfish that are endemic to (only found in) the Marshall Islands and their anemone home (NEMO!), 2 friendly white-tip reef sharks and a black-tip reef shark. Before the second dive, the Marshallese dive instructor said “there will be sharks.” I was a little freaked out by this, so I just asked “Should we be worried about them?” And he said no. So I wasn’t. And then halfway down the descent the two white tips started circling us. That was distressing, but once I had assured myself that we had been unharmed long enough for the sharks to have concluded that we were not food it was fine. It was actually really amazing. And (bonus) I got to practice my Japanese with the Japanese dive instructor.
Orientation is halfway over. That’s exciting, because I’m really anxious to get out to Gugeegue.
The head teacher of Kwajalein Atoll High School flew out to help with orientation this week, so I finally got to meet someone that had actually been to Ebeye and Gugeegue. We were supposed to meet the principals of the schools too, but they never showed up – which isn’t a good sign. According to Laura, the head teacher, I am going to be “Ebeye’s Science Guy.” I will be the only high school level teacher of biology, chemistry, and physics for a population base of 14,000 people. How many people can say that? I’m really excited, but very happy that textbooks are readily available, because science and I have been on a break since I found out I wasn’t pre-med freshman year of college.
A funny story about Saturday night… we had mid-orientation dinner at Monica’s Chinese restaurant, the nicest restaurant on-island, and after some okay food and karaoke, I left by myself because I had to get up early the next morning. The cab I got into pulled over to pick some other couple up (that’s how the cabs work – you share them with whoever else the cabbie finds because you can only go two different directions), and shortly after they stopped at the Outrigger Hotel, got out, did something, and then got back in. Then we drove another mile and stopped at Shooters, the brothel on the island. The guy got out and went inside while the girl waited inside with me and the cabbie. After 10 minutes of waiting, I started to feel uncomfortable with my surroundings and offered the driver the 75 cents to get out. He declined to take my fare, and yelled at the women in Marshallese something I could not understand. She started poking me with her nails and saying “ima go geten ma man den pay” over and over again (neither she nor the man were Marshallese – I have no idea what they were, but they spoke very fast pigeon English) and then she ran out of the cab into the brothel. The cab driver shut her door and said “next time” and we drove away. I gave him 3 dollars instead of 2 when we got all the way back.
The reason I had to get up early was because of scuba diving the next day. A few of us somehow managed to get a Japanese dive company to take a boat out for us. My friend Matt and I wanted to do something more challenging than a beach dive, so we did a warm-up dive to about 40 feet, and then went to “the aquarium,” the largest channel in the atoll connecting the lagoon to the ocean, and went to 75 feet. They were both AMAZING dives. When I actually end up posting these entries hopefully I will include some pictures and videos (from my awesome digital camera with underwater case), but the highlights include huge schools of brightly colored fish, coral communities with literally thousands of sparkling damsel fish, a swimming octopus, two 3-banded clownfish that are endemic to (only found in) the Marshall Islands and their anemone home (NEMO!), 2 friendly white-tip reef sharks and a black-tip reef shark. Before the second dive, the Marshallese dive instructor said “there will be sharks.” I was a little freaked out by this, so I just asked “Should we be worried about them?” And he said no. So I wasn’t. And then halfway down the descent the two white tips started circling us. That was distressing, but once I had assured myself that we had been unharmed long enough for the sharks to have concluded that we were not food it was fine. It was actually really amazing. And (bonus) I got to practice my Japanese with the Japanese dive instructor.
7/31/07
Today we were at the Outrigger hotel again doing teacher workshops and conferences. They taught us how to teach reading and writing in a few hours. Then a doctor came and told us about health risks we might face. He told us that most of us would get amoeba’s or travelers diarrhea while we were here. We would know if it was an amoeba by our bloody stools. Then he talked about scabies and lice, both of which we should also expect to welcome onto our persons. Then we were warned about tuberculosis, but don’t worry, it’s “not the kind that kills people … yet.” Then the prevalence of the common cold, strep throat, bronchitis, the flu, and if you have a rash, go to the hospital because it’s Dengue fever, “but not the really bad kind.” Then some people from the Marshallese Environmental Protection Authority talked to us. The first guy talked to us about the water quality, and told us that all the water we drink needs to be boiled because according to tests, more often then not the water is contaminated by fecal matter. Good.
Then another guy from the EPA came to talk about environmental education and the state of the environment on the RMI. Did you know that most climate change scientists are predicting the Marshall Islands will not even exist in 50-80 years? It would only take a sea level rise of about 4 feet. There are minimal recycling programs for cans and plans for plastic on Majuro, but when I asked about Ebeye (the island all of the kids I will be teaching will commute from), he laughed and said “good luck.” That’s about as frustrated as I have been since I got here (including last night when I threw a roach off my back at 3AM) because it doesn’t make sense that the government has this huge, beautiful, glass capital building, and that Taiwan is donating money for this prestigious Pacific Islands Conference Center, but one of the top five most densely populated cities on earth (it’s something like 14,000 people in .12 square miles) has no recycling program. I was actually really disturbed. Ebeye frequently seems to get passed over when it comes to resources, even though it is the only other urban center outside of Majuro. No one seems to know or care what the situation is there. This is the first year WorldTeach will have more than 3 volunteers on the atoll.
After the conference, we had dinner at a seedy restaurant and then I checked email at the National Telecommunications Authority, and then hitched the 4 or 5 miles back to our compound in the back of two different pick-up trucks (one stopped half way back, so I got off and hopped onto another one).
Today we were at the Outrigger hotel again doing teacher workshops and conferences. They taught us how to teach reading and writing in a few hours. Then a doctor came and told us about health risks we might face. He told us that most of us would get amoeba’s or travelers diarrhea while we were here. We would know if it was an amoeba by our bloody stools. Then he talked about scabies and lice, both of which we should also expect to welcome onto our persons. Then we were warned about tuberculosis, but don’t worry, it’s “not the kind that kills people … yet.” Then the prevalence of the common cold, strep throat, bronchitis, the flu, and if you have a rash, go to the hospital because it’s Dengue fever, “but not the really bad kind.” Then some people from the Marshallese Environmental Protection Authority talked to us. The first guy talked to us about the water quality, and told us that all the water we drink needs to be boiled because according to tests, more often then not the water is contaminated by fecal matter. Good.
Then another guy from the EPA came to talk about environmental education and the state of the environment on the RMI. Did you know that most climate change scientists are predicting the Marshall Islands will not even exist in 50-80 years? It would only take a sea level rise of about 4 feet. There are minimal recycling programs for cans and plans for plastic on Majuro, but when I asked about Ebeye (the island all of the kids I will be teaching will commute from), he laughed and said “good luck.” That’s about as frustrated as I have been since I got here (including last night when I threw a roach off my back at 3AM) because it doesn’t make sense that the government has this huge, beautiful, glass capital building, and that Taiwan is donating money for this prestigious Pacific Islands Conference Center, but one of the top five most densely populated cities on earth (it’s something like 14,000 people in .12 square miles) has no recycling program. I was actually really disturbed. Ebeye frequently seems to get passed over when it comes to resources, even though it is the only other urban center outside of Majuro. No one seems to know or care what the situation is there. This is the first year WorldTeach will have more than 3 volunteers on the atoll.
After the conference, we had dinner at a seedy restaurant and then I checked email at the National Telecommunications Authority, and then hitched the 4 or 5 miles back to our compound in the back of two different pick-up trucks (one stopped half way back, so I got off and hopped onto another one).
7/26/07
Yesterday morning I went to make breakfast, and I cracked three eggs open into a bowl, all of them yellow, and then the fourth turned the bowl a bloody orange with a little embryo. I didn’t end up eating any breakfast. In fact, I almost gave back dinner from the night before. The eggs, oddly enough, were from California.
Less than 24 hours after the water was turned on, it mysteriously went off again, so we’re back to bucket flushing and washing our dishes in giant tubs of rainwater collected from a rusty gutter off the tin roof.
We visited the Ambassador at the American Embassy yesterday. He seemed pretty unimpressed by his own posting. He introduced the staff, then fed us pizza. The security was very intense, although no one was sure why that was the case. The day before I had been walking, and pulled my camera out to take a picture of the Embassy building from the main road. An Australian girl advised me to put my camera away quickly, but it was too late – I was summoned to the guard at the gate, a Marshallese man with little English, and had to explain to him I had not actually taken a picture yet, which apparently is not allowed. I flipped back and forth from pictures of Davidson to pictures from down the street until he was convinced there was no image of Embassy.
They are trying to teach us how to be teachers. I’m not sure it’s working.
I went snorkeling yesterday during a break. Even though we’re on Majuro and the beaches are filthy, there is still some living reef and amazing marine life. You just have to ignore the dirty diapers hanging off the fan coral and the stray desks and tires strewn about.
Tonight I walked the couple miles to the Payless Grocery store with two guys who just graduated from Kenyon and will be working on Ebeye next year, maybe living with me in Gugeegue. We carried rocks with us because you have to throw them at dogs when they come at you. This morning a guy was running and was bit by a dog. Not good. Anyway, we got to the grocery store and I bought a Snapple and some Dreyers’ Expresso Chip ice cream. It’s a pretty well-stocked grocery store. On the way back, we hailed a cab ($.75 per person) and it stopped, but there were two people in it already. The driver told us to come in anyway. So Connor got in the front seat, and Alex (who has a good 25 pounds on me) sat on me in the back. The driver found this hilarious. So we all had a laugh – the three of us, the two rando’s next to me, and the driver. The guy next to me said, “crazy driver, crazy driver.” Then the driver said “make-money driver!” We had been hustled.
There is a fenced off Mormon church down the road that cost $1.2 million to build (I talked with the Kiwi in charge of construction at a restaurant last night) and a fenced off basketball court that no one ever plays on. The other churches, however, which are dilapidated, are always hoppin’ every night of the week. Oddly enough, the Mormon church is by far the nicest building on the island after the American and Japanese Embassies and the government building.
Today while we were doing a workshop outside in the yard of the kindergarten a Marshallese guy came in to talk to us – they are in and out all the time, especially little kids. This guy was different though – it was 4pm and he was wasted. He fell off of his chair, and then started touching a girl inappropriately on the leg (a Marshallese way of asking for sex). She got up to move and then our field director, who didn’t know he was there until I told him, asked him to leave. He yelled things and slowly stumbled out of our barbed-wire entrenched kindergarten, and the door was subsequently chained closed. It was our first experience with the oh-so-fun unemployment-alcoholism-teen pregnancy triad in the RMI.
Yesterday morning I went to make breakfast, and I cracked three eggs open into a bowl, all of them yellow, and then the fourth turned the bowl a bloody orange with a little embryo. I didn’t end up eating any breakfast. In fact, I almost gave back dinner from the night before. The eggs, oddly enough, were from California.
Less than 24 hours after the water was turned on, it mysteriously went off again, so we’re back to bucket flushing and washing our dishes in giant tubs of rainwater collected from a rusty gutter off the tin roof.
We visited the Ambassador at the American Embassy yesterday. He seemed pretty unimpressed by his own posting. He introduced the staff, then fed us pizza. The security was very intense, although no one was sure why that was the case. The day before I had been walking, and pulled my camera out to take a picture of the Embassy building from the main road. An Australian girl advised me to put my camera away quickly, but it was too late – I was summoned to the guard at the gate, a Marshallese man with little English, and had to explain to him I had not actually taken a picture yet, which apparently is not allowed. I flipped back and forth from pictures of Davidson to pictures from down the street until he was convinced there was no image of Embassy.
They are trying to teach us how to be teachers. I’m not sure it’s working.
I went snorkeling yesterday during a break. Even though we’re on Majuro and the beaches are filthy, there is still some living reef and amazing marine life. You just have to ignore the dirty diapers hanging off the fan coral and the stray desks and tires strewn about.
Tonight I walked the couple miles to the Payless Grocery store with two guys who just graduated from Kenyon and will be working on Ebeye next year, maybe living with me in Gugeegue. We carried rocks with us because you have to throw them at dogs when they come at you. This morning a guy was running and was bit by a dog. Not good. Anyway, we got to the grocery store and I bought a Snapple and some Dreyers’ Expresso Chip ice cream. It’s a pretty well-stocked grocery store. On the way back, we hailed a cab ($.75 per person) and it stopped, but there were two people in it already. The driver told us to come in anyway. So Connor got in the front seat, and Alex (who has a good 25 pounds on me) sat on me in the back. The driver found this hilarious. So we all had a laugh – the three of us, the two rando’s next to me, and the driver. The guy next to me said, “crazy driver, crazy driver.” Then the driver said “make-money driver!” We had been hustled.
There is a fenced off Mormon church down the road that cost $1.2 million to build (I talked with the Kiwi in charge of construction at a restaurant last night) and a fenced off basketball court that no one ever plays on. The other churches, however, which are dilapidated, are always hoppin’ every night of the week. Oddly enough, the Mormon church is by far the nicest building on the island after the American and Japanese Embassies and the government building.
Today while we were doing a workshop outside in the yard of the kindergarten a Marshallese guy came in to talk to us – they are in and out all the time, especially little kids. This guy was different though – it was 4pm and he was wasted. He fell off of his chair, and then started touching a girl inappropriately on the leg (a Marshallese way of asking for sex). She got up to move and then our field director, who didn’t know he was there until I told him, asked him to leave. He yelled things and slowly stumbled out of our barbed-wire entrenched kindergarten, and the door was subsequently chained closed. It was our first experience with the oh-so-fun unemployment-alcoholism-teen pregnancy triad in the RMI.
7/24/07
Hello from the Republic of the Marshall Islands! My year long adventure as a volunteer teacher with WorldTeach has finally begun. Hopefully you guys will be able to keep up with this blog as much as possible, but being able to post it may be problematic.
Right now, I’m sitting in a trailer with 25 2-inch mattresses and 50 suitcases. We are currently in the orientation and training section of our trip, and there are 43 other volunteers, mostly recent college graduates. We’re all staying outside of Majuro, the capital city of RMI, in 3 trailers that are used to teach kindergarten during the school year.
It’s hot, but the ocean is less than 50 yards of us on either side, so it’s easy to cool off, although the beaches are disgustingly trashy. The toilets were not connected to the water supply when we first got here, which made for some fun bucket flushing, but now they work, and if you can make friends with the spiders and roaches, it’s not such a terrible experience. Our shower water comes from the roof. It drains into a gutter which drains into a giant jug. Right now we are drinking bottled water, but as soon as our supply gets tested for amoeba’s and e.coli we’ll be bleaching and drinking it instead.
The food has all been catered from one of three or four restaurants on the island, and so far it has been a lot of carrots and tofu. I have a whey protein shake for breakfast everyday, hoping it will keep me from wasting away.
The people are all really great. We’re being trained by two field directors, former volunteer teachers. The training so far has been cultural sensitivity stuff and some teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) strategies.
On the first day, we were warned that during the adjustment period we might experience flu-like symptoms. That night, I woke up every hour shivering in bed – I had on my jeans, 4 t-shirts, and a jacket, and a sheet. Turns out it wasn’t the flu, the air conditioning was set on 50 degrees in our trailer and everyone was feeling the same. Last night I adjusted the thermostat… we still froze, but it turns out air conditioning provides a little bit of a deterrent (but not a lot) for roaches.
Last night I went into town with two guys that will be teaching at an elementary school near my high school to visit the only non-alcohol related entertainment on the island – a movie theater. The town is about 8 miles away, so for $2 each, we took a cab. We saw Transformers, which was unexpected and odd. The people are friendly, and no one seems to be utterly impoverished. We are the second largest foreign population on the island (second only to 51 Mormon missionaries (?!)) so everyone knows who we are already. Tonight we went a few miles down the road to the Payless Grocery Store to buy ice cream, and the shopkeeper let us in even though the store had closed.
Other than the roaches (one just appeared on a girl’s bed sleeping one person over from me), life is good.
Hello from the Republic of the Marshall Islands! My year long adventure as a volunteer teacher with WorldTeach has finally begun. Hopefully you guys will be able to keep up with this blog as much as possible, but being able to post it may be problematic.
Right now, I’m sitting in a trailer with 25 2-inch mattresses and 50 suitcases. We are currently in the orientation and training section of our trip, and there are 43 other volunteers, mostly recent college graduates. We’re all staying outside of Majuro, the capital city of RMI, in 3 trailers that are used to teach kindergarten during the school year.
It’s hot, but the ocean is less than 50 yards of us on either side, so it’s easy to cool off, although the beaches are disgustingly trashy. The toilets were not connected to the water supply when we first got here, which made for some fun bucket flushing, but now they work, and if you can make friends with the spiders and roaches, it’s not such a terrible experience. Our shower water comes from the roof. It drains into a gutter which drains into a giant jug. Right now we are drinking bottled water, but as soon as our supply gets tested for amoeba’s and e.coli we’ll be bleaching and drinking it instead.
The food has all been catered from one of three or four restaurants on the island, and so far it has been a lot of carrots and tofu. I have a whey protein shake for breakfast everyday, hoping it will keep me from wasting away.
The people are all really great. We’re being trained by two field directors, former volunteer teachers. The training so far has been cultural sensitivity stuff and some teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) strategies.
On the first day, we were warned that during the adjustment period we might experience flu-like symptoms. That night, I woke up every hour shivering in bed – I had on my jeans, 4 t-shirts, and a jacket, and a sheet. Turns out it wasn’t the flu, the air conditioning was set on 50 degrees in our trailer and everyone was feeling the same. Last night I adjusted the thermostat… we still froze, but it turns out air conditioning provides a little bit of a deterrent (but not a lot) for roaches.
Last night I went into town with two guys that will be teaching at an elementary school near my high school to visit the only non-alcohol related entertainment on the island – a movie theater. The town is about 8 miles away, so for $2 each, we took a cab. We saw Transformers, which was unexpected and odd. The people are friendly, and no one seems to be utterly impoverished. We are the second largest foreign population on the island (second only to 51 Mormon missionaries (?!)) so everyone knows who we are already. Tonight we went a few miles down the road to the Payless Grocery Store to buy ice cream, and the shopkeeper let us in even though the store had closed.
Other than the roaches (one just appeared on a girl’s bed sleeping one person over from me), life is good.
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