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.
Monday, September 24, 2007
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.
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