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.