2/24/08
The sense of relief brought to me by looking out my back window to see two giant catchments full to brim with clear, beautiful, freshwater is hard to explain. I feel like I won something. Dry season isn’t technically over, but we got hit by a relentless storm that has put most of Gugeegue under water. I was explaining how weird it was to turn on the faucet and wonder if water would come out (the catchments were down to about 6 inches before the storm) to my dad – “yeah, but when you get back, you’ll be shopping at Ralph Lauren and wondering if you should swap out your kitchen counters for granite.” While I don’t plan on owning a kitchen any time soon, I am curious about how I will reintegrate into other parts of American life. I think it will be pretty hard to spend $50 on polo after living on $300 a month for a year.
I am a softball coach. We are playing in the intramural league on Kwaj. It’s fun, and when there aren’t enough kids I play too. There’s no place to practice on Ebeye or Gugeegue though (there isn’t enough space) so we just go to the games and do our best – sometimes we have about 5 minutes for warm up before the game, and on the boat over I make them review their positions and batting order.
Times on the base are stressful. The commander is “reducing the footprint” because of budget cuts, and the axe is falling on about 30% of jobs this summer, and people are starting to find out who’s getting the boot. While it’s stressful enough for the Kwajalites, it’s also going to have a huge impact on the Marshallese in Ebeye. Everyone household employs a Marshallese maid, and most departments getting cut are serviced by Marshallese employees. In the long run, it’s probably good for the RMI not to be dependent on this unreliable service economy, but the structural adjustment is going to be harsh, as if unemployment issues weren’t bad enough already.
In other news, I’m meeting with all of the seniors at KAHS individually to discuss their plans for next year. For better or for worse (and it’s certainly arguable), almost all of them have the option to slide in to classes at the College of the Marshall Islands (CMI) in Majuro next year. I say “slide” because it doesn’t require any prerequisites – they take a placement test which determines if they can take credit classes or remedial pre-credit courses. No one is denied admission. The college has nursing, education, business administration, computer, and “liberal arts” programs, but their accreditation was just reinstated after being revoked a couple of years ago, and the quality and efficacy of the school is questionable, especially given its role as a one-stop-shop for all higher education in the country. There are very few other viable options for these kids. One is the University of the South Pacific (USP), which has a Majuro satellite campus and is based in Fiji. I’m not too familiar with it yet. About 40 kids start there every year, while 600 start at CMI (only about 9% of which will receive their AA degree in 2 years). Another 20 or so kids head out to Palau Community College (PCC), in the Micronesian island nation of Palau. PCC is more vocationally oriented, and the standards of education are generally higher in Palau than any other Micronesian country. Because this is our first year with a graduating class, most schools aren’t aware we exist. PCC responded to my request to send out a recruiter by promising to mail out admissions and financial aid info, which is a start.
What about the states? Well, there are a few problems with that. The first is – they are not academically prepared. They haven’t taken the TOEFL, or the SATs, or the ACTs, and don’t have the resources (financially or even physically) to take them. If they were prepared for a 2-year community or junior college or vocational school, which wouldn’t require those tests, there are other problems. The money is the first one. They can use American federal financial aid (like Pell Grants), but anyone who has gone through the college admissions process lately knows that compared to the costs of education those grants are a joke, especially if you can’t even scrounge up $50 for an application fee. Scholarships are available from their own government, but like everything else here, they are unreliable, inefficient, and you have to tear through a mess of beauro-web just to get any information about them. One important piece of information about RMI scholarships, however, is that students who have performed well at CMI already are given preference. Finally, even if they have the money, the cultural transition is often insurmountable. Responsibility, accountability, and motivation are not words used to characterize much in schools here, and expecting an 18-year-old to become a student over night in the midst of new temptations like broadband internet, cable tv, cheap drugs and alcohol, and seven elevens is as ridiculous as thinking the student is likely to come back to the RMI if he or she succeeds in the states.
For now, it seems like the most responsible thing for me to do is direct them into any college and encourage them to have a plan, and ask them to talk to their parents about it. The only concrete objective of the meetings is to make sure they all have an email address.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
2/14/08
This last weekend was a 4-day weekend because of Liberation Day in Kwajalein Atoll, the day when the Americans came and killed all the Japanese occupying it during World War II. It was supposed to be a fun weekend. It did not go as expected.
The projector in my house broke. The lamp burnt out, and a replacement costs $500. The dvd-rom drive on my computer stopped recognizing discs. I now have no way to watch movies in my house. Very sad.
On Saturday morning, someone came to the door at 800am trying to use the minibus they gave Conor and Alex for the commute since they are now homeless and are sleeping on the furniture in our living rooms. It was the same guy who is a teacher at the elementary school and brings his budweisers with him to class and tried to fight the principal. I answered the door and told him to go away and then shut the door in his face.
On Sunday morning, my principal knocked on the door at 615am, wearing dress pants, a tank top, and a winter jacket, and wanted to know if he could borrow our projector. I told him it was broken but the other one was in Laura’s house. I guess he decided it would be better not to wake Laura, because he drove all the way back to Ebeye without a projector.
On Sunday, I cleaned my entire house. I did this because our WorldTeach assistant field director invited the Senator of Kwajalein, the Ambassador to the RMI from USA, and our whatever-of-education from Ebeye schools guy to my house for breakfast on Monday. The primary purpose was to discuss the future of the program with the Senator, since we haven’t been receiving much outreach from the community in terms of helping Conor and Alex do their jobs in Ebeye. Anyways, we were ready with coffee, tea, muffins, and sliced apples, and an immaculate house. No one showed. They completely blew us off. It was just as well – I have met all 3 of these people before, and no meeting involving any of them could ever be productive.
The rest of Monday was also disappointing because we were unable to get into Ebeye to see the festivities. Our school was involved in athletic events, and there were all kinds of races, tournaments, and an outrigger sailing competition that we missed because no one bothered to provide us with transportation even though we had all expressed interest.
One part of the festivities on Monday was a 7-mile run from the far end of Gugeegue to the far end of Ebeye along the causeway. I had been excited to run in it for months. Word on the street was that it would start at 3, but when I went out at 3 no one was on the causeway, so I went inside. Mr. Ken came over at 4 to say that he just saw about 30 people leaving on the run. I quickly changed clothes, put on my shoes, and grabbed my ipod after just having eaten a pb&j sandwich, and started sprinting down the causeway. I caught up with the last place person (who had already begun walking) after about 1 mile. I found out later that I started about 6 or 7 minutes after everyone else did. I finished the 7-mile race in 6th place in 50 minutes. It was fun, but I was a little disappointed because I’m certain I would have been in the top 3 if I had been able to start with everyone else. There was serious prize money involved – first place was around $100, and I received $15 for 6th. The race was mostly Marshallese men, but there were some Filipinos that ran and one enterprising American high schooler from Kwaj that came in second. I got to run parts of the race with a few students of mine who were brave enough to run, and tried to keep up in their bare feet. We offered them shoes but they are apparently more comfortable running without them. About 1/3 of the men ran without shoes. I almost broke my ankles 5 times with shoes – I wouldn’t have made it a quarter of a mile without them. About 2,000 people lined the streets of Ebeye to watch the race. They were very encouraging, which was great. My hope is that maybe some of them will now know my name, and call me Matt instead of just ripelle (American, or literally “person who wears clothes”) next time I’m in town.
This last weekend was a 4-day weekend because of Liberation Day in Kwajalein Atoll, the day when the Americans came and killed all the Japanese occupying it during World War II. It was supposed to be a fun weekend. It did not go as expected.
The projector in my house broke. The lamp burnt out, and a replacement costs $500. The dvd-rom drive on my computer stopped recognizing discs. I now have no way to watch movies in my house. Very sad.
On Saturday morning, someone came to the door at 800am trying to use the minibus they gave Conor and Alex for the commute since they are now homeless and are sleeping on the furniture in our living rooms. It was the same guy who is a teacher at the elementary school and brings his budweisers with him to class and tried to fight the principal. I answered the door and told him to go away and then shut the door in his face.
On Sunday morning, my principal knocked on the door at 615am, wearing dress pants, a tank top, and a winter jacket, and wanted to know if he could borrow our projector. I told him it was broken but the other one was in Laura’s house. I guess he decided it would be better not to wake Laura, because he drove all the way back to Ebeye without a projector.
On Sunday, I cleaned my entire house. I did this because our WorldTeach assistant field director invited the Senator of Kwajalein, the Ambassador to the RMI from USA, and our whatever-of-education from Ebeye schools guy to my house for breakfast on Monday. The primary purpose was to discuss the future of the program with the Senator, since we haven’t been receiving much outreach from the community in terms of helping Conor and Alex do their jobs in Ebeye. Anyways, we were ready with coffee, tea, muffins, and sliced apples, and an immaculate house. No one showed. They completely blew us off. It was just as well – I have met all 3 of these people before, and no meeting involving any of them could ever be productive.
The rest of Monday was also disappointing because we were unable to get into Ebeye to see the festivities. Our school was involved in athletic events, and there were all kinds of races, tournaments, and an outrigger sailing competition that we missed because no one bothered to provide us with transportation even though we had all expressed interest.
One part of the festivities on Monday was a 7-mile run from the far end of Gugeegue to the far end of Ebeye along the causeway. I had been excited to run in it for months. Word on the street was that it would start at 3, but when I went out at 3 no one was on the causeway, so I went inside. Mr. Ken came over at 4 to say that he just saw about 30 people leaving on the run. I quickly changed clothes, put on my shoes, and grabbed my ipod after just having eaten a pb&j sandwich, and started sprinting down the causeway. I caught up with the last place person (who had already begun walking) after about 1 mile. I found out later that I started about 6 or 7 minutes after everyone else did. I finished the 7-mile race in 6th place in 50 minutes. It was fun, but I was a little disappointed because I’m certain I would have been in the top 3 if I had been able to start with everyone else. There was serious prize money involved – first place was around $100, and I received $15 for 6th. The race was mostly Marshallese men, but there were some Filipinos that ran and one enterprising American high schooler from Kwaj that came in second. I got to run parts of the race with a few students of mine who were brave enough to run, and tried to keep up in their bare feet. We offered them shoes but they are apparently more comfortable running without them. About 1/3 of the men ran without shoes. I almost broke my ankles 5 times with shoes – I wouldn’t have made it a quarter of a mile without them. About 2,000 people lined the streets of Ebeye to watch the race. They were very encouraging, which was great. My hope is that maybe some of them will now know my name, and call me Matt instead of just ripelle (American, or literally “person who wears clothes”) next time I’m in town.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
1/28/08
Detention is working. Attendance is better. The best part about it is that the kids never know which experience they’re going to get – Staci teaches, Laura lets them do homework, Debbie makes them clean, Altred makes them write lines…. I make them sit there and do NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. With their eyes open and their heads up. It’s torturous. I just bring a book and occasionally glance up at them.
Alex and Boomer had their first basketball game playing in the community league on Friday night. The community basketball league is the most important thing that happens in Ebeye all year. Since Boomer and Alex live in here, they play for Gugeegue. All of Ebeye is divided up into rival neighborhoods that also have teams. The game was against Mon-ku-bok, a neighborhood that is usually the clear favorite every year. Ashley was the only woman at the game. There were hundreds, however, HUNDREDS, of little kids. And lots of men. It was the scrappiest game of basketball I have ever seen. Every time Alex rebounded, he was repeatedly slapped and jabbed and tomahawked without any calls. He described the court as “treacherous,” since it is uneven concrete and poorly lit in places, lined with little kids that usually are not paying any attention to what is going on. It was also extremely fast paced. They went for the fast break every time. Despite these challenges, Alex and Boomer led Gugeegue to do something never done before – they beat Mon-ku-bok. They may or may not have ignited a neighborhood gang war. Oh well. I said to a colleague during the game, “this is the hardest I have ever seen a Marshallese person work at anything,” which, sadly, is true (although their handicrafts are clearly very work-intensive). The colleague replied, “except getting drunk.” While cynical, it sometimes seems that basketball and getting drunk are the only talents the unemployed men on Ebeye have. Of course, there aren’t many other options for most of them.
Laura got ciguatera. Microsoft word is not yelling at me, so I hope that is how you spell it. She was poisoned by an eel she ate. Her fingers and toes became numb, and her tongue felt strange. She was admitted to the hospital in Ebeye and prescribed steroids. She seems better now, but I will not be trying eel any time soon.
One bus stopped working. The schedule is sustainable, but the bus driver whose bus still works sometimes refuses to make 6 trips a day (which is what the schedule requires), so, for example, on Friday kids were here until 6:30pm waiting for a bus that never came. They may have had to walk home.
I am making an effort to go to Pohnpei, one of the Federated States of Micronesia, for my spring break in March. The ticket is $500. It is a 1 and a half hour flight. Continental Airlines is clearly enjoying its Micronesian monopoly. Online, the ticket is $780 but I am told that it will be cheaper at the Continental counter on Kwaj. More news on that as it develops.
Detention is working. Attendance is better. The best part about it is that the kids never know which experience they’re going to get – Staci teaches, Laura lets them do homework, Debbie makes them clean, Altred makes them write lines…. I make them sit there and do NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. With their eyes open and their heads up. It’s torturous. I just bring a book and occasionally glance up at them.
Alex and Boomer had their first basketball game playing in the community league on Friday night. The community basketball league is the most important thing that happens in Ebeye all year. Since Boomer and Alex live in here, they play for Gugeegue. All of Ebeye is divided up into rival neighborhoods that also have teams. The game was against Mon-ku-bok, a neighborhood that is usually the clear favorite every year. Ashley was the only woman at the game. There were hundreds, however, HUNDREDS, of little kids. And lots of men. It was the scrappiest game of basketball I have ever seen. Every time Alex rebounded, he was repeatedly slapped and jabbed and tomahawked without any calls. He described the court as “treacherous,” since it is uneven concrete and poorly lit in places, lined with little kids that usually are not paying any attention to what is going on. It was also extremely fast paced. They went for the fast break every time. Despite these challenges, Alex and Boomer led Gugeegue to do something never done before – they beat Mon-ku-bok. They may or may not have ignited a neighborhood gang war. Oh well. I said to a colleague during the game, “this is the hardest I have ever seen a Marshallese person work at anything,” which, sadly, is true (although their handicrafts are clearly very work-intensive). The colleague replied, “except getting drunk.” While cynical, it sometimes seems that basketball and getting drunk are the only talents the unemployed men on Ebeye have. Of course, there aren’t many other options for most of them.
Laura got ciguatera. Microsoft word is not yelling at me, so I hope that is how you spell it. She was poisoned by an eel she ate. Her fingers and toes became numb, and her tongue felt strange. She was admitted to the hospital in Ebeye and prescribed steroids. She seems better now, but I will not be trying eel any time soon.
One bus stopped working. The schedule is sustainable, but the bus driver whose bus still works sometimes refuses to make 6 trips a day (which is what the schedule requires), so, for example, on Friday kids were here until 6:30pm waiting for a bus that never came. They may have had to walk home.
I am making an effort to go to Pohnpei, one of the Federated States of Micronesia, for my spring break in March. The ticket is $500. It is a 1 and a half hour flight. Continental Airlines is clearly enjoying its Micronesian monopoly. Online, the ticket is $780 but I am told that it will be cheaper at the Continental counter on Kwaj. More news on that as it develops.
1/17/08
When it rains in New York, or Los Angeles, or Hawaii (where some readers of this blog apparently live), it is generally thought of negatively. Rain is usually gloomy, cold, and sometimes depressing. Today it rained here in Gugeegue, and I was the opposite of depressed. It poured. It rained so much that a third of our students decided for themselves that school was cancelled (“Mr., we’re made of chocolate, we’ll melt”). Rain usually is not that important to me, but today it is. We are almost 1/3 of the way through with the dry season (from what I am told) and the two huge tanks of water in my backyard (think 8 foot diameter, 7 feet tall) that provide my drinking, showering, and flushing water are full. This is very good.
Unfortunately, this rainy day of truancy coincided with our new attempt to control absences – we are experimenting with a new detention system. For all of the students who missed 2 classes without an excuse (note) on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, there will be detention tomorrow afternoon with yours truly. As of tonight, I will have 99 detainees. That is literally a third of our school. Hopefully, it will get their attention, but I’m going to have to get some more people to help out or it’s going to be “fun after school party time with mr. matt.” That would not be good.
Our veteran married American teacher gave me a thermometer the other day. She left in my house, where it sat for two days. It was stuck on 90 degrees the whole time it was in there, so I brought it back and told her it was broken. She said, “Matt, it’s not broken, it really is 90 degrees in your house.” She put it in the freezer for five minutes, took it out, and it read 28 degrees. She was right. It’s so hot in my house that I thought the thermometer was broken. The funny thing is, I’m not really hot anymore. When it rains I wear a jacket and wish I’d brought PJs. Can I ever go back? (speaking of, if you do have any suggestions for future employment when I come back, I am all ears.)
Alex just asked me to guess how old this Marshallese guy we know is. I guessed, 60, but then I guessed 45 – the truth is, it’s impossible to tell. The life expectancy is in the low 60s, and they don’t really have any semblance of health-consciousness, so you really have no idea how old people are. Alex said, “Yeah, well they’re taking me down with them. I’m in the worst shape of my life.” Alex has no kitchen and lives in Ebeye, so he eats most of his meals at the fried chicken-parts-that-aren’t-breasts-but-might-be-wings-or-drumsticks-on-a-good-day vendor in the tiny little grocery store. We signed up for a one year here, but really it’s a five year commitment. What they don’t tell you is that you lose the other four years at the end… when you’re dead.
When it rains in New York, or Los Angeles, or Hawaii (where some readers of this blog apparently live), it is generally thought of negatively. Rain is usually gloomy, cold, and sometimes depressing. Today it rained here in Gugeegue, and I was the opposite of depressed. It poured. It rained so much that a third of our students decided for themselves that school was cancelled (“Mr., we’re made of chocolate, we’ll melt”). Rain usually is not that important to me, but today it is. We are almost 1/3 of the way through with the dry season (from what I am told) and the two huge tanks of water in my backyard (think 8 foot diameter, 7 feet tall) that provide my drinking, showering, and flushing water are full. This is very good.
Unfortunately, this rainy day of truancy coincided with our new attempt to control absences – we are experimenting with a new detention system. For all of the students who missed 2 classes without an excuse (note) on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, there will be detention tomorrow afternoon with yours truly. As of tonight, I will have 99 detainees. That is literally a third of our school. Hopefully, it will get their attention, but I’m going to have to get some more people to help out or it’s going to be “fun after school party time with mr. matt.” That would not be good.
Our veteran married American teacher gave me a thermometer the other day. She left in my house, where it sat for two days. It was stuck on 90 degrees the whole time it was in there, so I brought it back and told her it was broken. She said, “Matt, it’s not broken, it really is 90 degrees in your house.” She put it in the freezer for five minutes, took it out, and it read 28 degrees. She was right. It’s so hot in my house that I thought the thermometer was broken. The funny thing is, I’m not really hot anymore. When it rains I wear a jacket and wish I’d brought PJs. Can I ever go back? (speaking of, if you do have any suggestions for future employment when I come back, I am all ears.)
Alex just asked me to guess how old this Marshallese guy we know is. I guessed, 60, but then I guessed 45 – the truth is, it’s impossible to tell. The life expectancy is in the low 60s, and they don’t really have any semblance of health-consciousness, so you really have no idea how old people are. Alex said, “Yeah, well they’re taking me down with them. I’m in the worst shape of my life.” Alex has no kitchen and lives in Ebeye, so he eats most of his meals at the fried chicken-parts-that-aren’t-breasts-but-might-be-wings-or-drumsticks-on-a-good-day vendor in the tiny little grocery store. We signed up for a one year here, but really it’s a five year commitment. What they don’t tell you is that you lose the other four years at the end… when you’re dead.
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