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.