Monday, December 31, 2007

Pictures of the Yacht Race

When I wrote about our yacht race, I didn't yet have any pictures available. So enjoy!


On Learn to Sail Day, everybody got a chance to steer the Amulet and learn how to winch the sail sheets and halyards.





The following week we raced. You can see us in front of a charging stampede of sail boats, having just rounded the first marker.


Early on, despite some intense winching, we were able to frolic with one of our neighbours. It was nice to listen to live fiddle music while we raced by this boat.

Some advantage was to be had by holding out the jib sail. The task was shared by Nancy and I. Somebody said something funny and I stuck my tongue out.

The eventual winner of the race, the catamaran to our right, was unbeatable with its professional crew and lighter frame.



Here you see me winching furiously with Ali tailing the line behind me. The faster we winch, the more quickly we can tack the sail and re-gain speed.




Here's our race crew that evening at the Marshall Islands Resort for the after-race party. From left to right: Ali, me, Valerie, Darren, Nancy and Chris (skipper).

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The Big Race

“Pull pull pull! Come on!!” came the almost angry yell from the wheel. In spite of borrowed gloves, my hands were raw and my arms exhausted. I heaved on the sheet line once more and wrapped it. Time was of the essence, we were losing wind power. I clamped on the handle and started cranking. Much slower than pulling by hand, the jib sail slowly unfurled and we began to gain speed.

The boat was tilted to the left so I was having trouble balancing and winching at the same time. I wedged my bare foot on a hard place to regain my balance and resumed winching as hard as I could.

After tacking our sails we had a moment to rest and strategize the next move. The race was going well. Only a catamaran with a professional crew was ahead. But in sailing, as in golf, there’s a handicap applied to you depending on your boat. So we’d need to beat certain of the boats trailing us by a significant margin (one by as much as 7 minutes) to hold 2nd place.

But by the time it was clear that no one else would catch us, I was handed the tiller. I now had rudimentary understanding about keeping the main sail most efficiently in the wind. It was sunny and breezy; perfect weather! I was incredibly focused. The boat needed constant course corrections to stay on target, but I still took moments to just look around and feel the sun.

The skipper eventually wanted the tiller back and we had to make two more tacks. We were exhausted but the finishing line was minutes away. Pulling hard, this time I furled the jib sail so that it could be shifted. When it was three-quarters furled, a crew mate began to furiously unfurl on the other side of the boat, so that it could get back into the wind. We managed to do it and then back again right at the end (and just in time to avoid hitting a Chinese fishing boat).

We ended up finishing 2nd. Hurray!

A rum drink was never quite so appreciated as after we moored the Amulet. It was a gruelling 2 hour long 11 mile course to one end of the lagoon and back. It was a fantastic day.

The Wacky Election List

This election (and its aftermath) gets wackier and wackier all the time. Here are some of my favourite moments:

1. On voting day, folks that voted had their finger dipped in a super-enduring black ink in order to prevent people from voting at more than one location. A good idea in principle, but the ink remained on people’s fingers in spite of washing for four more days.

2. Confusion at the Majuro Airport voting station led officials to require people to write their names on ballots, assuring a fair and anonymous vote.

3. Merely days after the vote, the AKA Party changed its name to UPP. (Presumably this would indicate a change in platform of some kind, as some senators switched parties in the process, but since there are no platforms, the purpose of the name change appears to be aesthetic.)

4. Mr. Tomeing, Speaker of the House, switched parties (to the opposition) and declared a One China policy (contradicting his own former government’s policy to recognize Taiwan). In so doing, he failed to remember to return the expensive solar panel equipment Taiwan donated in order to electrify his home atoll of Wotje.

5. The Constitution indicates that voting will be held on Monday. However, because voting booths started late and were so incompetently run, some people waited in line for up to 12 hours, forcing them to vote in the early hours of Tuesday. Some are advocating that these votes be discarded because they occurred in an illegal manner.


If I waited in line for 12 hours and then my vote didn’t count, I would have words with the person responsible for that.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Skipper at the Tiller

On Sunday morning a bedraggled bunch made their way into a meeting hall near the Shoreline Dock. The MIECO Yacht Club, of which Ali and I are members, was holding Learn to Sail Day, an opportunity for land-lubbers to learn how a sail boat ticks. The morning was like a class: handouts to study, chalkboard diagrams of the parts of a sail boat and even a test – can you tack a sail sheet?

One thing that is now clear is that there is no rope on a sail boat. What? There seem to be hundreds of ropes: to hoist and tack the sail, moor the boat, drop the anchor, etc. But no, there are no ropes on a sail boat. It’s called a rope when you buy it in the store, but the name magically changes to the likes of halyard or sheet… or line. Call it a rope and risk being laughed at, or worse, thrown overboard for your idiocy.

After lunch we left the classroom and got to actually sail boats. The sailboat owners, many of whom live on their boats, invited us on to take a ride. It was with great satisfaction that six of us volunteers climbed out of a dingy and onto the deck of The Amulet. We removed our flip flops – barefoot only! – and were given a little tour.

Our hosts were a really nice American couple that quit their engineering jobs in 1998 to sail around the world. They’ve been to 42 countries so far, including most of Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific islands. They’re both hands-on, so they can repair the engine themselves and are pretty close to self-sufficient.

As we got underway I helped raise the main sail and unfurl the jib sails (smaller ones at the front). It was hard work. Everything was manual. Tightening could be done with a crank (which, like everything, had a special name, but I forget). Otherwise it’s about muscle power. Speaking of the ‘crank’, we were informed of the 2-splash rule. There are two of them and they each cost $100. If the skipper hears one splash, because the crank was dropped, he better hear another splash – to signify the sailor retrieving it.

We sailed around half of the atoll and turned around to return to port. Each of us got to steer the tiller. It wasn’t my first time steering a boat by any means, but manning a boat powered by wind is different! A sandbar was approaching and our GPS said we had to sail at more than 121 degrees from the shoreline to avoid it. (Ok, so some technology is useful!) I altered course and successfully avoided crashing the boat.

After we moored we shared some drinks and continued to get to know each other. We ended the evening with plans for next weekend. This Sunday there’ll be a big yacht race. So on Saturday we’ll be practicing tacking and jibing manoeuvres to get ready.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Extracurricular in Particular

Outside of work and snorkelling, I’m involved in a bunch of activities. Every Monday and Wednesday I play soccer or go to an aerobics class. Every so often some of the guys get together for Man Night, at which drinking, belching and poker go hand in hand. But the following activities are things I could only do here in Majuro.

Tutoring at WAM

WAM is a fantastic NGO that takes troubled older youth off the street and puts them through a 6 month carpentry course in which they work together to build the traditional outrigger canoes. On Thursdays at 4pm some of the World Teach volunteers and I tutor them in English. It’s a great chance for me to get out of the Ministry of Education to actually educate.



Scuba Diving Lessons

I’m reading a manual right now, but I’ll soon wet my feet with a scuba tank on my back. I’m excited to get going on this because once I’m certified I’ll be able to dive anywhere in the world. And what could possibly beat a coral atoll to scuba dive?

The Majuro Writers Guild

We don’t smoke pipes or wear tweed jackets, but once a month some friends, Ali and I exchange writing and read to each other. It’s a fun chance to get an audience for what I’m writing and also get valuable criticism. Wine and cheese are mandatory.

The Yacht Club

Starting next Sunday, Ali and I will be learning to sail. I’m really excited. The Majuro Yacht Club consists of a bunch of sailboat owners and locals like us that team up to race the yachts once a month. I’ll write more about that later since we’re just about to start next weekend.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Covering an election from afar

On November 17th I flew to San Francisco to conduct “research” for my Masters Paper. As far as the U.S. government is concerned, I don’t belong in the Marshall Islands while I’m on a U.S. Student visa. So I had to set foot on mainland USA in order to keep my visa active.

I necessarily needed to be outside of the Marshall Islands at a crucial moment in history: the November 19th national election. This was too bad but I decided to make the best of it. I was going to interview a couple of people about the Marshallese election. Here are some sample questions I wanted to ask:

Who do you expect to become Prime Minister? (trick question to demonstrate ignorance, since the Marshall Islands has a President)

If you were an election observer, would you use a clipboard or a note pad?

Suffice to say, all I might get is an unscientific sampling of whether people prefer clipboards or note pads. In my busy schedule (I slept in a lot), I didn’t get around to the interviews.

To get an inside view of Decision 2007, see Senior Political Correspondant Alison Lemoine’s blog.


So now I’m back in the Marshalls and will not let my blog slip for 2 weeks again!

I’d like to leave you all with the youngest candidate to run for the senate:


Friday, November 16, 2007

22 on the swell

Ali and I joined Youth to Youth in Health on a day-long trip to the Arno Atoll. We took the XXXX (named after an Australian beer) across an hour of rough open ocean. It was against the current, so the boat rocked up and down and side to side pretty significantly. I'm proud to say I didn't throw up (neither did Ali!), but I came pretty damn close. By the time we arrived, my legs and arms got tingly, I felt dizzy and a definite urge to hurl.

We rested for a bit and after recovering we went to a nearby elementary school to put on some songs and teach the young'ins about sex. We separated the boys from girls. Then the boys got a condom demonstration (some were a little to young to understand what was going on, but exposure is good!). The girls were taught about the reproductive system. Ali will write more about that (http://alisonlemoine.wordpress.com).

Then we took a a bumpy ride in the back of a flat bed truck to another school. It took about an hour to get there and it rained heavily during the trip. It was undoubtedly (in addition to the boat ride) the most uncomfortably day of my life so far! But boy was it worth it. Ali and I got to sing with the kids at 2 schools on Arno and were amazed by the atoll's beauty.

Majuro, as I've mentioned, is a really over-populated slum. There's trash everywhere in the downtown area. Arno, on the other hand, must have about 500 people occupying the same area... maybe a bit smaller. The beaches are pristine! Unfortunately, we didn't have time to really swim. So Ali and I are planning to bring my mom there in January for a long weekend.

I'm off to San Francisco to cover the Marshallese election. Since no foreign correspondants seem to be coming here to find out how well the election goes, we're sending someone abroad to get a man on the street perspective. So I volunteered to go to San Francisco for just that reason.

Just kidding. I'm actually going to San Francisco to fulfill my student visa requirement. But I will write about the election in my next entry.

Cheers,
Steve

Friday, November 9, 2007

How many angels fit on a pinhead?

"In 2007, for the first time in history, the majority of
people will live in urban areas. Throughout most of
the developing world, this will result in larger slum
populations."

-Millennium Development Goals Report 2006


What do you picture when you think of a slum?

Have you ever been in one?

During the industrial era, London could apparently be smelled from miles out. It was the first city in the world to hit a million inhabitants, but did so well before it installed plumbing. Urine, feces, and the stink of human beings without water to wash polluted the air as surely as the coal factories.

I live next to a slum called Demon Town. Cement houses with corrugated tin roofing co-exist one next to the other. Between them are spaces occupied by the occasional pandanus tree or plastic chair. The houses are clearly in need of repair. The roofs are rusting and the cement walls chipped. The ones that are painted formerly bright colours fade in the hot sun and peel in the humid salty air. Most of these houses are off the grid and lack plumbing. So most people have to do their business out on the reef.

What strikes me more than this, however, is the severe congestion of people within these conditions. When I walk down the side street running through Demon Town at 5 P.M., hundreds upon hundreds of kids are milling about, doing what kids do. Older teenagers and adults sit around and bwebwenato, conversing about anything from the upcoming election to who’s sleeping with who.

The Marshall Islands may be a tropical Pacific nation, but it’s not paradise. I’m told that many of the outer islands are paradise. But almost 70% of the population lives on either Majuro or Ebeye. Where does that put the Marshall Islands on the urbanization scale?

Really high.

Ebeye in particular is home to 10,900 people on only 0.14 square miles of land. That’s a population density of 66,750 persons per square mile. This density level rivals any place on Earth. It’s important to realize that people live in 1 or at most 2 storey level buildings (with the majority in 1 storey buildings).

Therefore, go to your living room. Now imagine no furniture. Now imagine 12 people sleeping in this space. Medieval theologians debated how many angels could fit on the head of a pin. A more useful question would be: How many people can you cram together in a small room?

43% of the population is under 14. The Ministry of Education faces a huge challenge to get all these kids in school, not least because there’s so little land available for school expansion. I jokingly proposed in my last blog entry that the Marshall Islands could import garbage to cope with global warming. But the idea was actually discussed by the Nitijela (senate) – land reclamation is huge priority here.

I mentioned that when I walk through Demon Town at 5 P.M. there are more kids than I can count. But if I walk through at 10 A.M. there are still a few walking around. I know they’re not in school because they’re dirty and don’t have uniforms on.


It gets worse. With a limited number of spaces available at the high school, only the top ranked students get in. The rest are left with few job prospects. This leads to drinking, drug abuse and hopelessness.

My favourite sociologist, Émile Durkheim, coined the term anomie to describe the sense of loss and depression that people have when they lose their roots in an impersonal urban environment. It’s an ironic idea – that at the same time that you’re more surrounded by people than ever – you feel more alone. So it’s not altogether surprising that Durkheim wrote a book called
Suicide.

A 2003 study by UNICEF found that in the Marshall Islands: “Suicide is the leading cause of death among people aged 15-44 years of age, and until recently occurred almost exclusively among men”.


Had enough? I hope I haven’t depressed you too much before the weekend. Lest you think I’m in a funk, you should know that I thrive on this stuff. Nothing is more fulfilling than knowing that I get to work on people’s problems and contribute, even if just a little, towards improvement.

Not enough kids going to school?

Fine.

What can I do about it?

I’m a glass is half full kind of guy – an optimist.

What’s the point of being anything else?

Friday, November 2, 2007

The highest point in the country

Atoll nations consist of tiny parcels of land surrounded by millions of square miles of ocean, but that’s not what really scares me. What is scary is that atolls are quite flat by nature. The highest point in this country is a bridge (pictured below) which connects two parts of the Majuro island. I’ve jumped off higher places into water. It’s only about 20ft high, if that - and it’s a significant rise over the rest of the land. That’s to say that if the ocean were to rise by only a few feet, most of the land in the Marshall Islands would be under water.


Now why would that happen?

Well, if what Al Gore says is true (and you must watch his documentary,
An Inconvenient Truth), then this scenario is quite plausible. Large pieces of ice are melting at both poles.

Surely people have the power to reverse this trend of global warming, but people change their ways at the pace of snails. And too many corporations stand to pay a lot of money to update their factories to cleaner technologies. So the American, Canadian, Russian and Chinese governments resist implementing the Kyoto agreement, which frankly, is only a small first step in the endeavour to reverse warming.

Call me pessimist, but my bet is that the Marshallese people will be looking for new homes in the next 20 – 50 years.

It made me wonder whether the national government here has some kind of evacuation plan in the works.

It doesn’t.

20 years is an unfathomable time to a politician.

Luckily, only 50,000 people live in the Marshalls. And we won’t have to evacuate everyone right away. (So if you pictured hundreds of boats and helicopters in a convoy, you’ve watched too many movies.)

Here’s my prediction:

Over the next decades, the water will slowly rise. Land, which is already at a premium, will further increase in value (and so housing costs will rise). This will drive some people to leave the country to find places where they can drop less of their earnings into rent. So the population of people that can afford air fares will decrease.

But since the poorer people still aren’t using birth control, the proportion of people that can’t afford a plane ticket is increasing.

In addition, the Marshallese are woefully under-educated, so even those that do leave usually work at the bottom of the totem pole. In the U.S., the largest contingent of Marshallese people work at a Tyson Turkey processing plant. Others pump gas. Many are simply unemployed.

But for those that can’t afford to leave on their own, I propose 2 potential solutions:

Plan A: Recycle Offshore Drilling Platforms

Ironically enough, the very source of our global warming woes can be put to work: our dependency on fossil fuels. In a public relations project of epic proportions, the various oil giants can donate old offshore drilling platforms to the atolls. By 2020, history will be made by the first countries ever to live on completely artificial territory.

Plan B: Import Trash from America

Survival or economic good sense? The Marshall Islands can become the world’s most significant importer of trash. Most of Boston is a trash-heap-cum-city, so why not Majuro? A few hundred feet of garbage can be laid on top of the coral foundation. We can certainly count on Americans to produce enough trash to out-pace global warming! Not only trash importers would benefit from this economic boom. Tourism would get a boost as beautiful grass-coloured hills could form the back-drops for exotic golf courses and sight-seeing tours; nose-plugs included. Coke Tower (made of recycled cans and bottles) will be the tallest building in the Pacific region.

I will submit my draft proposals to the Ministry of Interior with hopes of getting a fat consulting fee to implement Plan A or B.


But seriously, my evacuation plan would focus on education. Getting people off a sinking ship is a logistical problem, yes, but even if we do get people off the islands, the next generation of Marshallese may end up a poor under-class living in the United States. We gotta get these kids some skills.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Phrases you won't see in a tourism brochure

Fly dependable Air Marshall Islands.
In-flight, we'll provide you with a handy map of underwater delights,
including planes less lucky than your own!


When you arrive, take a boat excursion to Anemanit island.
Moor at the unfinished jetty.



Lose $50 at the crab fights.

Catch your own breakfast.
Moray eel anyone?

Enjoy exotic fauna.
------
Note: No moray eels were eaten in the making of this tourist brochure.
P.S. My good buddy Jim (above) was completely non-plussed by the exotic fauna at Anemanit.









Sunday, October 21, 2007

China Syndrome

People are really good at simplifying; exceedingly good. It’s one reason we’ve managed to evolve as a species. It’s helpful to look at a problem and simplify it to find the quickest route from A to B.

People are never quite so simple with the way we treat each other, though. In any culture, people who are different tend to evoke complex feelings.

We’ve all heard about the traveling boisterous annoying American causing people to roll their eyes. Americans tend to leave a huge footprint when they travel because they’re often unaware of the local culture and expect places they visit to operate the way they’re used to.

The Americans and the Chinese may share something in common. A Chinese friend of mine named Perry said that the Chinese are disliked in a number of east Asian countries. China is expanding its influence and is therefore, like the Americans, leaving a big footprint where they go.

That seems to be the case in the Marshall Islands too. There’s a large Chinese population in Majuro, working mainly in retail as shop keepers and owners of supermarkets. Pretty soon the largest private employer in the country will be a Shanghai-run tuna loining plant. It might sound like a positive thing that 600 Marshallese people will soon find employment, but it’s not as simple as that. A lot of the shopkeepers are seen as predators that put less productive locally owned shops out of business. Moreover, a number of the Chinese people seem abrasive to the Marshallese sensibility.

It seems to people here that the Chinese don’t make any attempt to learn the language. Marshallese women are supposed to keep their shoulders and knees covered. It’s considered slutty to walk around in a mini-skirt. So when some Chinese women wear shorts or skirts they are looked down upon.

I myself saw some pretty abrasive behaviour by Chinese people. A guy in front of me at the check-out of the supermarket was rude to the Marshallese cashier. Another example was a Chinese lady who sat in a taxi with Ali and me a few days ago. She spoke so loudly on her cell phone that it sort of hurt the ears. I could clearly see that the taxi driver was annoyed. He glanced at me in consternation, wordlessly saying, “f***ing Chinese, eh?” Thirty seconds into the lady’s conversation, he turned up the volume of the radio. Usually a taxi driver turns down the volume when a patron answers her phone.

The Marshallese reaction is a racist one. The Chinese are seen as an unwelcome addition to the country. I’ve seen taxi drivers give random Chinese pedestrians the finger. Sometimes a taxi won’t even stop and pick up a Chinese person.

A few friends and I were sipping beers at the Flame Tree the Friday that a Pacific Countries that Recognize Taiwan conference was being held. There are seven countries in the Pacific that, in exchange for publicly supporting Taiwan’s bid for independence from China, receive financial aid. In fact, the spanking new conference center hosting the big to-do was a $5 million donation from the government in Taipei.

As I put down my bottle, a Marshallese acquaintance of my friends said, “Don’t mind these chinkos,” referring to all the Taiwanese in town.

I should point out that the Japanese visitors don’t get quite the same treatment. That might be because they mostly consist of young people doing the Japanese equivalent of Peace Corps. Like the young visiting Americans, they learn some of the language, dress appropriately, and teach math as volunteers. It shows the power of forgiveness, and maybe how a new generation puts to rest the feelings of the last. The Japanese were pretty terrible to the Marshallese as colonialists. From 1918 till 1945 the Japanese ruled with an iron fist. The Marshallese were quite thankful when the Americans took over.

The Americans and Australians own a lot of businesses too, but they get a free pass. It’s hypocritical, but one American jerk doesn’t ruin it for the rest. 60% of the government budget, which consists of 40% of the entire GDP, consists of aid from the US government. The Marshallese certainly don’t want that to go away. But a rude Chinese person is generalized as just another a**hole Chinese.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Wet in Ejit

The Bikinians displaced by the American nuke tests in the 1950s and 60s were relocated to a several places in the Marshall Islands. The island of Ejit is one of them. Two volunteer teachers that Ali and I are friends with both live in Ejit and teach at the elementary school. This past Sunday, some of us walked from Majuro to Ejit, 3 islands away. It’s not that on the holy day we were able to work miracles, though, and walk on water. During low-tide we were able to walk ankle deep across the reef.

Our friends were skipping out on going to church to host us. Ejit’s village has a few hundred inhabitants living in a maze of houses built before urban planning made its way to the RMI. But the village was like a ghost town when we arrived because everyone was in church. One of our friends felt guilty; not going to church leads to gossip among the locals about your morals. In the “big city” that is Majuro, there are enough churches that you can easily get away with not going and no one notices. Or perhaps people care less. But Ejit resembles the outer island communities where going to church is not an option.

So with guilty pleasure we took the long route around the church so as to be less conspicuous. The idea was to go swimming without throwing it in people’s faces.




Before hitting the reef we walked across the Ejit baseball diamond, sporting its very own scoreboard (next to someone’s house).



Then, just as our reef shoes hit the hardened and bumpy coral, the patter of drops began to fall. One of us suggested that we head back, but we were going swimming after all. Our goal was to wade to an island further along the atoll from Majuro.

Before long, the patter turned to a steady drum beat in our eyes. Rather than walk further we decided to just swim then and there, so we found an area between two islands deep enough and got in. By that point we were getting cold and the ocean water felt sublime by contrast.



After 20 minutes or so we decided to make our way back. But none of us really wanted to walk in the rain; the memory of being cold was too fresh. So we tried to swim through the lagoon to Ejit. Making little progress, we finally gave up and walked most of the way. When we got back to our friends’ house, still as soaked as when we were swimming, we decided to pack our bags in white trash bags and walk home.

It was surprisingly fun being wet in Ejit.

Arno: A Tropical Comedy

It was supposed to be a training, not entertaining.

UNESCO was in town to kick off a project to train teachers and MOE staff. In addition to a few meetings to iron out details and set dates, the UN staff was to conduct site visits at elementary schools in Arno, whose teachers would be trained.

You fiends have proven to me that corruption is politics by other means.

Instead, the Saturday visit was scrapped by unrelated events. A political dispute between the mayor of Arno and the Ministry of Education led to cancellation.

You beat your chest and threatened arrest.
Voice buttered by gloat, you forced us to moor our boat.


Indeed, the Arno mayor called the MOE to let us know that a visit was unacceptable and should we set foot on his soil, he would have us arrested by local police. How can this be true? Was not the purpose of the visit to help our children get a better education?

Why must we stoop to this denigration?
Can we not have an enlightened conversation?


It was not to be, and so now, embarrassed, the MOE must consider other locations for the UNESCO project. I don’t claim to understand why this happened. But rather than despair I feign a laugh that doesn’t reach my eyes. This is not fodder for a Shakespearean comedy of errors. It’s more like a comical misfortune that makes you laugh with guilt.

The silver lining is that there’s a November election and maybe this ass will get kicked out of office.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Day in the life

“Woke up; got out of bed; brushed a comb across my head.”
-The Beatles

I’m today writing in response to several requests for an account of a ‘day in my life’.

Shortly after hitting the snooze button once or twice, Ali and I turn on our short-wave capable radio to the BBC’s world news. Living in the middle of the Pacific, I don’t doubt I’m as up to date on the world as anyone back home. Down with military dictatorship in Burma!

Sometimes the toilet doesn’t flush in the morning. Unlike our faucets and shower, it isn’t fed by the cistern tank outside our house. Majuro toilets are fed by a centralized system using salt water. But they turn it off periodically. So after a cup of crappy instant coffee, a bucket flush may be in order. One thing I definitely miss is quality coffee; but Ali and I agreed to put up with it for 7 more months, since we still can get a decent cup at some of the nicer spots in Majuro.

The taxi ride to work takes about 20 minutes. The first half is particularly slow. There’s a lot of traffic. Majuro may only have about 25,000 people, but it also only has 1 road. The fare is a flat $0.75.

The Ministry of Education is on the lagoon side, but only a few offices have the potential for a good view because the building is shaped like a U. I say potential because even the offices with a direct view on the lagoon have air conditioning units that take up much of the window.

My work day is something like a solitary one, though that’s been changing slowly as I get integrated. Every month I’ve gotten to know more people on friendly and professional terms. But both the Marshallese and I are shy, so it’s a slow process.

I’m working on 3-5 projects at any given time. This is necessary because I’m highly dependent on others for information. But other people are often unavailable (or not at work). So when I get stalled on one project I gingerly shift to the next one. It’s something of a juggling act that I actually enjoy, since I have a low attention span for things work-related. I dislike focusing on a single task for an entire day; I’ve become great at multi-tasking.

Right now I’m working on the following:

Auditing the transcripts of 41 teachers doing in-service training at the College of the Marshall Islands.

-Writing a grant proposal for a conference of the 84 school principals in January.

-Thinking hard on justifying 3 flights to outer islands. I’m not being paid for this 10 month internship (other than housing), but my contract does include airfares and stipends to the 3 other atolls with high schools (Jaluit, Wotje and Kwajelein). All I need to do is figure out why the Ministry would actually send me. I have 3 ideas so far, 2 of which have good potential.

-Starting up my Masters Degree project, which will be a cost analysis comparing 3 ways the Ministry can go about printing its Marshallese language materials. Click on the “comments” tab at the end of this entry for a more detailed summary.

After work, I play soccer twice a week, read a lot, watch movies, listen to the radio and have conversations with interesting people, similar stuff to back home, but ocean-side… always ocean-side.

Cover Up!

The Marshallese term for ‘white people’ is not straightforward. In Ghana, ‘white’ means ‘obruni’, and that’s what Ghanaians call caucasians.

The Marshallese refer to white folks as ripalles (prounced: ri-BELL-ies). And no, ripalle doesn’t mean ‘white’ in Marshallese.

The original German colonial masters didn’t interfere too much with local customs. They were mostly interested in taking the coconut meat (copra), which is even today a major export. Following World War I the Japanese took over, opened some schools and made the Marshallese women cover their breasts. Since WWII, the American missionaries haven’t dissuaded the practice of dressing “modestly”. So to get back to why the Marshallese term for ‘white people’ isn’t straightforward, it turns out that ripalle means ‘people that cover up’.

Ironically, it’s now the Marshallese that cover up. We should call them ripalles instead. Marshallese women are supposed to keep their shoulders and knees covered at all times. It’s considered very slutty to walk around in a mini-skirt.

Tradition is starting to crack, however. As the wealthier Marshallese kids go to high school in the U.S., some girls come back wearing jeans. Older Marshallese are a little scandalized, but young people are hard to boss around, particularly with regards to fashion. I had an interesting conversation with a wise Marshallese man at the Ministry of Education. He pointed out how odd it is that originally the whites convinced the Pacific islanders to cover themselves more “modestly”, but today it’s westerners that wear things like bikinis and short skirts.




Editorial cartoon by Bill Bates. Originally posted in the Fiji Sun.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Manit Day

This past Friday marked the celebration of Manit (Culture) Day. From late morning till the end of the afternoon, Marshallese kids got to enjoy song, dance and storytelling. I recorded a few videos but unfortunately can't post them yet (they're too huge!). But when I go to San Francisco in November I'll have a fast enough connection to hopefully share the most EPIC tug of war battle in history. It lasted more than a minute and luckily my digital camera managed to capture the sounds! Wow! So stay tuned for Epic Tug of War by the end of November.



Traditional weaving was on showcase in the form of a couple of huts built to give a little shade to some of the kids hanging out at Manit Day.



This next photo is of a hermit crab in a re-telling of the Marshallese story of the "Hermit Crab and the Needle Fish". It was funny because several large ladies spent about 5 minutes trying to get all these kids into position for the telling of the story. It's about a race between a hermit crab and a needlefish. But the hermit crab is sneeky and gets all his buddies to line up along the route of the race. So every time the needlefish, who's obviously a lot faster, calls out to the hermit crab, "Where are you?" - the hermit crab directly ahead of the needlefish answers. So it seems that the hermit crab is always one step ahead and wins the race. Reminds me a lot of our own story about the Tortoise and the Hare... only there's less of a moral to the story (unless I missed something).

And of course, no event in the Marshall Islands is complete without BBQ chicken!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Monday, September 24, 2007

Ali's here!

Not quite a week in the RMI & the lovely Ali is perusing a magazine on the island of Enecko. Ali arrived and is adapting to life. We took a couple of days this weekend to enjoy the fruits of her first week here by boating over to a nearly uninhabited island for some relaxation. Ali actually quickly got to work with the Marshall Islands Council of NGOs (MICNGOs) - an umbrella organization for the various NGOs here. Ali is the 1st paid Director of the organization, so there's a lot of organizing for her to do, in addition to setting the direction that MICNGOs will take over the next year. But first she has to learn how to understand the European Union grant that made her position possible - so she can get paid!
It's interesting that I'm the one that's always wanted to manage a not-for-profit organization and Ali's always been interested in education. Our roles have reversed! Or maybe we've come closer together and can take on jobs inter-changeably. You can be sure that we'll be enthousiastically giving each other advice and support.
In the next day I'll add a link to her blog - which promises to be amazing. Not only are her photographic abilities really impressive, but she's also a witty writer.

Lest ye be judged

An alarming conversation was held by the Nitijela in the week before last. The Nitijela is the Marshallese legislative body, like a parliament or senate. Elected senators make the laws. But they decided to have a conversation about religion.

Trying to define what religion is can be really tricky. There are so many different views on spirituality. If we try to capture “religion” in a few sentences, something is bound to get left out. Therefore, defining religion is arguably a slippery slope that can lead to the erosion of liberty. We certainly need rules in society, but the name by which we call our deity seems to be subjective to me.

The conversation in the Nitijela about religion was especially alarming because of its tone. Religious leaders from the almost universally Christian nation were invited to speak to the Nitijela. Comments quoted in the Marshall Islands Journal accused Islam in particular of being a dangerous religion that should be banned from the country. Senators actually in some cases agreed, such that the session was about bashing Islam rather than defining religion.

I wrote the following letter to the editor, which was published in the September 20th edition. My tone is more measured in the letter because I’m still figuring out how wise it is to criticize my elders. In Canada, the Prime Minister can be pied in the face and we mostly have a good laugh because he deserved it (true story). But not every country is like that.


Letter to the Editor of the Marshall Islands Journal

I am writing in response to the articles I read in the September 14th issue of the Journal. When I initially learned that the Nitijela was going to discuss the question, “What is religion?” I admired our leaders’ foresight, because I thought they were trying to anticipate possible problems with terrorists in the future. Every country in the world has had to cope with feelings of insecurity since September the 11th, 2001. If there are more people of a different faith entering your region, it is important to be aware of the implications to your society. But hearing our elders generalize about a “specific religion” (see Nitijela attacks Islam) that is a “threat to the Marshall Islands” (see Religious leaders debate hot topic), I was greatly disturbed. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. Like most Christians, they are peaceful and educated people. We must not allow ourselves to generalize an entire civilization based on the actions of the violent ones, just as we shouldn’t judge one person by another.

September 16, 2007
Steven Courchesne

Friday, September 14, 2007

Under the sea

Let's play a game.
Where's fishdo?



I don't yet know what these two species are, but the two on the bottom I find particularly beautiful. There's several species of yellow and black fish (including the moorish idol I posted earlier) that I love to watch.



The following is not computer animated. This is live coral. Talk about vibrant!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

My funny cab ride story

Getting around Majuro means taking shared taxis. This is a foreign concept in North America because the destinations of any two people might be a dozen kilometres in opposite directions. But Majuro basically has 1 road with a few that briefly branch off. The difference between passengers has to do with how far each needs to go in a particular direction.

On my way into town I stuck my finger out to signal the next cab that I needed a ride. He pulled over and let me in. There were already 3 people riding this one, so the 2 in the back seat had to scrunch to the left to let me in. An exchange of greetings followed and we were on our way.

A few minutes later I felt a nudge against my back, like something had just pushed against the back seat. My first thought was, “Strange.” And then it happened again. My next thought was, “Something alive is riding in the trunk.” I glanced to my left to see if anyone else had noticed. Nope, or like me, they were playing dumb.

It didn’t take more than another minute to hear a low-squeal, almost a grunt, but definitely a squeal. I then remembered that this taxi had probably started at the end of the island (I live pretty close to one end) where there’s a pig farm.

But I was afraid to strike up a conversation about it, just in case it was actually somebody’s grandfather. “So,” I’d casually start, “Who’s having a feast tonight?” Abashed, the girl next to me might reply, “Jab jab. Grandfather and I only had the fare for one person.” I pictured one of my grandfathers in the darkness of the trunk; a darkly comical thought.

Then I imagined that I had uncovered an operation by the Majuro Mafia. Unlike the Italian mafia, their business is smuggling fish; a slippery game indeed. Maybe the guy in the trunk didn’t make his tuna quota and was now shark bait.

A few more nudges against my back and I could hear it moving around. More squeals. Yup, someone was having a feast tonight. I almost burst out laughing because there was a pig walking around in the trunk of my cab. But I contained myself. I didn’t want to seem strange. So I acted like nothing at all was amiss. Every squeak and bump against the back seat was perfectly normal.

The absurdity of everyone in the car ignoring the sounds and movements also almost made me laugh, but I’m a disciplined anthropologist.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

It's gettin' hot in here

But we can’t take off all our clothes. So it’s no surprise that the Marshallese have bought into the idea of air conditioning in a very serious way. Practically every car I’ve ridden in and nearly every office has air-con. Fine.

But!

A lot of people don’t have a clear conception of how much juice these things drink. So it’s not uncommon for people to leave a door to the outside wide open while the air conditioning units in 10 offices are running. This is particularly the case where I work, at the Ministry of Education. About half the people shut the door and the other half just can’t be bothered. In the first two weeks I would get pretty upset. People ask: If the Marshall Islands invests the greatest amount of money into education in the entire Pacific island region, why do students perform so poorly? Well, maybe a lot of that money is going to Marshalls Electric Company.

I know it’s not people’s aim to waste the education system’s money. The head of such and such department doesn’t say to herself, “Those children have too many books!” and then plots to boost the electricity bill in order to cut the textbook budget.

The Marshallese are very considerate and polite with other people in general. Moreover, children are really at the center of the society. It’s become such a common sight for me to see older kids with the youngest ones. Tiny children are always being held. And I don’t know why, but Marshallese children don’t seem to cry.

I was told that if I have a problem with the air conditioning cooling the entire Pacific rim, I should relate the problem to people. That’s what gets the attention of Marshallese people; makes sense. When you get caught up in the budgetary and bureaucratic abyss of a government ministry, it’s no wonder that nobody really thinks about the electricity bill. I’m willing to bet there isn’t a single person at the Ministry that knows how much electricity costs month to month. Or, maybe the information isn’t disaggregated by building. So the Ministry simply has an electric bill that includes all the schools too.

I’m going to try an experiment. I’m gonna see if a sign that says something like: “Please keep the door closed so that more MOE $ goes to our children”, makes any difference. Habit is also really hard to break, so it may take a while.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

It dawned on me

It dawned on me recently that Marshallese folks love to laugh. It may be genetic, because it seems a smile reactively comes to face in the space of good humour. At first I thought my favourite laugh is a girl’s giggle.

Then I had a thought while at work. Sitting one day at my desk in the Ministry, tucked away in the corner of a room called ‘Teacher Quality Office’, I stared at the Consumer Price Index for the Marshall Islands. The thought was, “Can this moment get any more boring?”

Suddenly the air in the room was sucked out the door (like when in a movie somebody shoots a hole in a flying plane). Not a moment later, the heartiest bellow of a laugh boomed out of a big lady out in the hallway. It was the healthiest laugh I ever heard. Must have taken all the air in the building to achieve that laugh.

But that wasn’t when it dawned on me that Marshallese folks love to laugh. Living for short periods of time in foreign countries is a challenge because I don’t understand what most people are saying. The conversations I’m not part of are in Marshallese, so when somebody laughs, hoots, giggles or even bellows a booming cacophony, I don’t understand why. That alone is reason enough to learn Marshallese!

That’s why it had to dawn on me slowly that it may be genetic that Marshallese people love to laugh. To learn, I had to hear it many times. And I’m glad to say I have.


Proof,




meant to be sung,




as the best laughs are.



Monday, August 27, 2007

12:35 am

The light penetrates through my drapes. The rumble of a machine vibrates in my room. I toss. In nothing but boxer shorts, I lie facing away from the window. Normally at this time I’d be asleep on a Tuesday evening. But the rumble of the machine has replaced the soothing sound of waves breaking outside my window.

I don’t feel angry. At first I’d considered going outside and indicating to the workers that people live next to this construction site. I have trouble not getting sarcastic when I’m annoyed. I once met the foreman and he’d mentioned that anytime the work became a nuisance that I should let the workers know.

The consideration is replaced by resignation. I turn over. I can’t see the construction site from my position on the bed, but the spot lights illuminating the site create the effect of a giant flashlight right on my window.

I’m resigned because I remember that they’re constructing a school building. I live on the Marshall Islands High School campus in a compound meant for expat volunteer teachers. The machine is buffing a new coat of cement laid down on the floor of the 2 classroom unit. School is supposed to start in a week, but they haven’t even started building the frame for the roof and walls. Besides, these workers are paid the minimum wage in the Marshall Islands, which is only $2/hour. They wouldn’t be here at this time if they didn’t need to be.

The next day I asked someone if they’d get overtime for working so late and got a funny look. These workers are even lucky enough to be paid $2 an hour. I’ve heard that a tuna processing plant is going into operation with a dispensation to pay its workers $1.50 per hour. That might be a lot in your average developing country, but inflation is so high in the Marshall Islands and the country is so geographically remote, that prices are higher here than in Boston or Montreal. Living on that much with a family, you’d eat little more than canned tuna and rice.

The Tragedy of Dornier and Dash

Disclaimer: For worriers out there, this preface is to assure that being situated in Majuro, the following does not affect me at all.
………………………

It many countries this is the kind of situation one might call a ‘national emergency’. The entire fleet of domestic air planes are grounded. Air Marshall Islands, what hath happened to you? It’s not the airports. International flights are incoming and outgoing on schedule. But it is not possible to get a plane to 22 of the 24 inhabited atolls. That puts a third of the population of the country reachable only by boat. That means that if there is a medical emergency beyond the scope of a clinic, people can’t be emergency evacuated to a better staffed and equipped hospital.

This is the Tragedy of Dornier and Dash. Yes, they are the ones not doing their job. But before we blame them, we can point out that they fly in salty winds and don’t get the best of maintenance work done to them. They are the two airplanes operated by Air Marshall Islands, the nationally owned and exclusive domestic carrier. The government’s looking into renting a plane and finding the parts they need (the Dash-8 needs a new engine).

Travelling exclusively by boat is highly inefficient. And so now, when school is supposed to have started already, most of the school principals and the majority of teachers are stuck on Majuro. Boats are operating, but they are few and move slowly.

Bikini atoll, the site of nuclear testing, is currently a profitable tourist attraction for shipwreck diving. However, a group of wealthy tourists are stuck there. Although radiation levels won’t affect them by being there, they can’t eat anything that grows there, or they will get radiation poisoning. Hopefully they brought enough food with them to last until either a plane is repaired or a ship on its way arrives.

It’s the Tragedy of Dornier and Dash-8. As I mentioned above, it doesn’t affect me because international flights are unaffected by this problem.

**Breaking Rumours!***

As I write this, I just heard that the Dash-8 has acquired an engine. It may take 1-2 weeks to repair, but the fleet may be back in the air this month.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Kava and Karaoke

When I used to think of old wise people sitting in a circle discussing something of great or little importance to the community, I typically imagined an Amerindian tent filled with wrinkled chiefs, passing around a pipe. The combination of the heat inside the tent, the smoky atmosphere, and the sharing of the pipe, creates calmness conducive to discussion. Throughout the Pacific Islands, from Fiji to Kiribati, drinking kava is what old men do. Kava is a powdery derivative of a root. When soaked in water it creates a dirty brown coloured drink that essentially tastes like mud. Excited to try it? What attracts a newcomer is that, like a mild narcotic, kava creates a calming sensation, and when strong enough, can make your whole mouth go numb. (Dentists take note!)

Out drinking kava with some friends at a karaoke bar, also really popular in the Marshall Islands, I started wondering whether kava also reduces inhibitions (like alcohol), because I actually started considering getting up there and singing “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurhythmics; maybe next time. (Ear plug salesmen take note!)

Speaking of music, Marshallese people like to dance as well as sing karaoke. There are a few night clubs in Majuro. 3am at “The Pub”, I found myself turning to a buddy of mine, a Harvard law student interning at the Majuro Court House this summer.

“What’s with the terrible transitions between songs? Is there only one CD player and the DJ has to pull the CD out before he inserts the next one?!”

I asked, you see, because between every single song there’d be a 5 – 12 second pause. People clear off the dance floor and it goes dark. Another friend, an elementary school teacher, was the one that replied. He’s a ripalle (white person) that grew up here in the Marshall Islands.

He said, “That’s just the way we like it here.”

After another swig of Waikato, it dawned on me (in vino veritas). The pause between songs creates this tension. If people like the next song, they enjoy jumping onto the dance floor to boogy-down. Imagine that moment when you’re sitting at a table and a song comes on that you love to dance to. You might grab a partner and practically leap onto the dance floor. The Marshallese style reproduces that feeling between every song!

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Under the sea

Enjoy these underwater pictures by Mr. Steve Courchesne, underwater explorer. I've managed to snorkel 4-5 times so far and get a couple of good shots. Click on the images to see a larger version. For this first picture, the light was perfect!


Coral I spotted on the ocean side of Majuro. I was snorkeling in these craters created by an evil construction company. (Pacific International Inc.) PII digs up the coral so that they can crush it and use the sand to make cement. But just away from one of the craters, this coral was untouched.


Jeremy is spear-fishing. The metal pole is sharp at one end and has an indentation at the other. An elastic band is fitted into the indentation and pulled taut. Like a bow and arrow, when you let go of the elastic, the spear launches at the target. If it misses, you'll here a high-pitched "tick" sound as it strikes rock. The Marshallese are awesome at spear-fishing.


I followed this "Moorish Idol" for about 15 minutes off Anemanet, an island part of the Majuro atoll. In the picture, the fish is munching on a little coral.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

A DIALOGUE WITH moi

Me: I really admire the Marshallese sense of community. Throughout most of history, most of the atolls had one or maybe two hundred people living together. The closest community might be weeks away by canoe. It was a time when people truly depended on each other. Everybody is your neighbour; everyone’s family. I appreciate the strong sense of togetherness that people have here.

Moi: Isn’t that part of the problem today? Can you imagine a company or government running itself if everyone in it is part of the same family? I won’t fire anybody because I won’t put my cousin out on the street. But then that means there’s a lack of incentives to work hard. And there’s certainly no punishment for incompetence.

Me: But would you rather live in a world where old people die in their apartments, only to be discovered because the stench offends the neighbours? Or perhaps we want the Marshall Islands to experience shootings in schools?!

Moi: What’s your point?

Me: My point is that a strong sense of community is a good thing, as annoying as it can sometimes be. In our part of the world, that gets lost and we see more crime, drug abuse, murder and suicide.

Moi: We may suffer from a lot of problems, but at least things work! In the Ministry of Education or other government ministries, some people sit on their hands or don’t even come into work every day. Teacher absence is a huge problem. If the system doesn’t work today, then the next generation’s gonna suffer from the same problems. Kids are missing school. When they get to high school they’ll be woefully unprepared.

Me: These are serious challenges that the Marshallese have to tackle. But does that mean we have to start canning everyone? Think about what that might do to the fabric of a society that is so intimately linked. You don’t have to see your former boss at the supermarket, at the bank, at the hardware store or at the few eateries in Majuro, not to mention at your cousin’s barbecue. Don’t imagine that we’re in a small town where everyone knows your name. Imagine that this small town is the only town.

Moi: Maybe you should get in a time machine and go to Russia, circa 1919, and see how things operate over the next 70 years.

Me: Don’t be sarcastic.

I agree that communism didn’t work in great part because people weren’t motivated to work hard. But incentives don’t only come in the form of the stick. An equally important measure is to encourage solid work through praise and financial incentives. A good tap on the back can itself work wonders. But if you add in structured bonuses for the best performers, then I guarantee we’ll raise the bar.

Moi: I’m not completely convinced. Dead weight is dead weight. Call me cynical, but sometimes the only way to gain air is to dump the ballast. Your solution won’t get rid of the coasters that benefit from a guaranteed job.

Me: My idea isn’t perfect. Certainly a carrot and a stick would work better. But we need to be realistic about the situation. We simply can’t take our western corporate mentality to the tiny Pacific islands. The personal nature of things is just too important here. It’s easy for us in North America to erase a bad job from our resume or move to a new city. On the other hand, starting fresh in the Marshall Islands is almost impossible. That’s why the society has developed numerous mechanisms to avoid conflict… or at least keep it at a bearable minimum. We may not like everybody, but we have to live with them.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

ATOMIC Bikini (part I)

(Underwater Baker Test, Bikini, 1946)

Most lovers of women would today agree that the bikini is a fantastic invention. But it wasn’t always that way. When Frenchman Louis Reard first created the scanty two-piece bathing suit in 1946, no French models would wear it on the runway. It was a prudish period in both Europe and North America. In deciding what to name it, Reard knew that he needed something big. He needed to overcome the scandal by associating the new bathing suit with something grand. There happened to be a story making headlines at the same time about a place called Bikini…


Operation Crossroads

Thousands of miles away, in the lagoon of a remote atoll, half of the entire world supply of film was being used to record the first two of sixty-seven nuclear tests. A war of words was raging between the U.S. Army and Navy. WW2 had just ended and the Army was claiming that the Navy was now redundant. Why spend billions of dollars on a huge fleet of ships when a few Army bombers could deliver a payload to make any world leader quake in his boots? The admiral in charge of the navy, afraid that his boats would be stuffed with mothballs, set out to prove that nuclear detonations would have a more limited effect against ships at sea and therefore the U.S. needed its ships to fight other navies.

So it was that Operation Crossroads was born, a project to study the effects of nuclear explosions on land and underwater. The site chosen was as remote and sparsely populated at it gets, the Bikini and Enewetak atolls of the Marshall Islands.

Over the course of 12 years, 67 nukes were detonated.

For the Good of Mankind

167 people lived on Bikini atoll in 1946, so the military needed to convince them to relocate, temporarily, so that the military could conduct scientific tests “for the good of mankind and to end all world wars”. It was done with cunning, since the meeting between Commodore Wyatt and the Bikinians was held on Sunday afternoon, shortly after Church. The Commodore perversely appealed to their morality. It worked. King Juda of Bikini and his people agreed to be relocated, temporarily, so that the Americans could conduct their tests. Shortly thereafter, the people of Enewetak also agreed to be relocated.

Bravo

March 1, 1954, a hydrogen bomb code-named Bravo, was detonated on the surface of the reef in the northwestern corner of Bikini Atoll. It was the 12th test conducted in the Marshall Islands. Bravo exploded with 1,000 times the force of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

However, the winds were moving eastward, placing Rongelap atoll, about 125 miles away, within the fallout zone.

“The Rongelapese, not understanding what was happening, watched as two suns rose that morning, observed with amazement as the radioactive dust soon formed a layer on their island two inches deep, turning the drinking water a brackish yellow. Children played in the fallout; their mothers watched in horror as night came and they began to show the physical signs of exposure. The people experienced severe vomiting and diarrhea, their hair began to fall out, the island fell into a state of terrified panic. The people had received no explanations or warnings whatsoever from the United States government.”
-Jack Niedenthal, “For the Good of Mankind”

The demon of Rongerik

Back to the people of Bikini: Relocated to Rongerik atoll, the Bikinians faced extreme hardships, particularly starvation. It was said that a demon had died there and its body had been dumped into the ocean. Indeed, even though the same species of fish inhabit Rongerik as Bikini, they are largely poisonous due to what they eat. The people of Bikini attributed the poison to the demon’s decomposition, which had polluted the waters of the atoll. Coconuts were less plentiful because Rongerik is much smaller than Bikini, challenging the Bikinians to sustain themselves.


In Part II, a few blog entries in the future, I will relate the second relocation to Killi island and the trials that modern-day Bikinians face as refugees in their own country.


Links:

www.bikiniatoll.com

http://www.atomicforum.org/

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Chillin' Marshallese Style

A girl achieves serious arc while her sisters look on below. I'm at Laura Beach, located at the wide edge of Majuro island. At the end of the longest road in Micronesia, which is 30 miles long and traverses the entirety of Majuro island, is the best place to swim on island. I've been to Laura a couple of times now on the weekend. It's an hour drive from the downtown area and I'm told, more closely resembles the outer islands. It's more leafy and the houses more spread out.

In the background of the picture you can see a couple of the other islands in the atoll. The water is therefore part of the lagooon, a coral crater sheltered by a ring of islands, including mine. On the ocean side the water is usually a lot rougher. It also goes on forever. The lagoon's calm waters and islands a short distance away serve to anchor Majuro in a way that I find calming. It makes being on a tiny island a little less intimidating.


The second picture was taken from the shore of Enecko, one of these other islands part of the Majuro atoll. Out with some friends, American and Marshallese, we anchored the boat and emptied a cooler of Budweiser. A few hours later, some friends our boat's owner arrived straight from fishing. Sashimi, raw fish, is a delicacy here. No need to cook the fish, we simply sliced a few open and munched on the insides. Enno. (Mmm... tasty.)