Marshall Islands, where's that?

The land of soon

thebriteside — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 23:57:00 +0000

“Is it too late to learn the dance?”
She paused to consider this and then in her gentle Pacific lilt offered that it would take a lot of practice, beginning now. It was with relief that I was placed in the back of the line per my height. As the peppy synthesized keyboard began it’s tropical polka the alcohol wore off with an unwelcome quickness. One glance from my roommate, also of Midwest stock, confirmed that this was likely the worst idea I’ve ever had. As we struggled to keep up, we remained the spectacle we felt.
I’d unwittingly signed up for three dances, a march and three songs in kajin majel. Ten days was not enough time for me to differentiate the intricacies involved in those manufactured beats, let alone the formations.
The night before Christmas was spent rehearsing and I found myself packing a bag as if I were never coming back to Guegeegue. The next morning our transport was said to arrive at eight. By 11:30 we were filing onto the mercurial bus. The concept of time here is just that—a suggestion and never a certainty. I asked the lady in the adjacent apartment if she knew any details about what was going on.
Her cryptic response: soon.
Men from the village spent the earliest parts of Christmas clearing the road of coral from high tide in the event of the bus’s refusal to navigate this terrain. No one bothers to translate the pastor’s manic pep talk as the bus negotiates the causeway so when we arrive on Ebeye everybody disperses and predictably nobody tells us any details of the day’s schedule.
An available patch of shade at the post office seems the most ideal place to wait. Anyone can wax poetic on the pros and cons of Marshallese time—and they will, but few bother to expand on the art of waiting. There was no need to bother with where everyone was going or where we were supposed to be or the when and where that these dances would take place. Waiting was enough effort in itself.
Brittany’s eyes closed even though she was sitting on a ledge. Mine threatened to do the same before a distinctly ripelle voice jarred me from my meditative state.
“Are you guys teachers? Dartmouth? Worldteach?”
I looked over to confirm it was the Mormons coming to wish us Merry Christmas. It wasn’t. These ripelles weren’t wearing the requisite amount of black and white clothing and looked far happier.
White people on Ebeye fall into very few distinctions. There are the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists; some teachers, some missionaries. These are the people who can penetrate even the most remote places and save even the most geographically challenged souls. Then there’s the handful of other expats, a formidable bunch whose reasons for being here are arguably less pure; they either own businesses or have committed the ultimate act of cultural aptitude—intentional or otherwise—and procreated with the ri-majel. At the bottom of the hierarchy are the “Ebeye Rangers”—men from the base who allegedly trawl for available woman to entertain them.
These two people providing unwitting shade for my eyes didn’t fall into any of these categories which could only mean one thing: these were Yachties. We’d heard tales of these random foreigners making the Marshalls their rest stop during the height of yacht season and rescuing volunteers like us. Now these two were explaining how they’d met three from our group on the outer islands which seemed promising. The boat we’d seen earlier was theirs, an impressive sailboat that was as out of place in the lagoon as an American missile base.
A crowd of children began to migrate, attracted by a fascination with white people and a lack of anything to do. They were dressed in their Christmas best but lacked shoes and had drippy noses. Their eyes penetrated our conversation with the vacant stare that seems to say, “you’re not interesting, but you’re slightly more interesting than playing with rocks.”
The new ripelles chatted happily about their time here while we occasionally lamented the already long and unproductive day. The children decided not to leave and sat practically on top of us despite the porch sized bank of PO boxes all around. They didn’t smile or try to talk to us or even ask us for money. They just stared.
I contemplated begging these strangers to take me far away on their nice boat. In return for their kindness I could clean for them, cook them meals, dance for their entertainment. Instead I displayed the front of my palm and assured them we’d see them later when our group came to dance at the Catholic church. I never saw them again.
* * *
In the first church kids are unceremoniously kicked out of their seats so we can have them. The result is that they’re sitting at our feet crowding our knees and legs. One is so bold as to lay her arm on Brittany’s calf. Ebeye is where personal space goes to die.
The throwing begins shortly after, first quarters and then all sorts of things. One coin rolls over to me and I seize the moment to triumphantly grab it before a boy appears to pry it out of my hands.
“Jab!” I hiss and he backs off.
Then another comes and he misses the opportunity by a millisecond. He begins pummeling the luckier boy until backup arrives to try to take them both out. This escalates for maybe a minute as others jump on the pile of bodies just because they can. Now Brittany’s feet and lower legs are covered with the writing mass of children. I get it all on camera.
I just have to breathe. Ignore the ululating from the speakers, the cries of Jay-rue-see-lem amidst words that sound like a parody of gibberish.
Four hours later and we still haven’t danced. I’ve eaten two heaping plates of fried meat, white rice and a hotdog sans bun. I have to pee but I know there is no bathroom around. I ignore it. After twenty minutes I start scanning the perimeter of the church to consider my options.
I can’t just find a wall because there are children everywhere and my Christmas dress is sewn too tight to accommodate me bending at all. I approach a lady from church with my conundrum. She seems worried about my options. We walk into the labyrinth that is residential life on Ebeye. We enter a plywood door behind a gate where narrow corrugated tin corridors between water catchments unravel over golf ball size pieces of coral. As I follow her stray cats eye me with skepticism and we reach a place so narrow I don’t think she’ll fit, but she does. We arrive at a typical storefront, a house with a small window adjacent to the shelves that hold no more than 30 items.
A dialogue transpires and the lady eventually beckons me into her house. I take off my shoes and follow into the quasi-outdoor living room where three men are laying on the floor. It’s obvious she has hastily tried to clean it in the seconds before I walked around the front. I hover over the toilet seat—a position my quads have come to understand as my bare feet lose traction in the bleach water. I brace myself as a cockroach crawls out from beneath a bucket of placid water, pauses and exits under the door.
* * *
The room is hot, all cinderblock with no windows and weak fluorescent lighting which casts a shadow on the listless faces providing hundreds of dark eyes to observe us. Or are they sunspots? I notice my sweat within a minute and worry that something is wrong with me. I feel like a towel that needs to be rung out. Around me the other women have already sweated clear through their dresses. I pretend to sing gospel songs by mouthing ‘watermelon’ over and over like I was taught to do in fifth grade. When I move my forearm from my side there is an l-shaped mark. Our group doesn’t fit so I’m forced to complete my dance in a way that means I’m not really extending my arms at all. I make mistakes, most unnoticeable. When I leave the building people fan me. I smile. They point to a kitchen where I can go get a place of rice, chicken and hotdog. I abide.
Six hours later and I’ve lost track of almost everyone. I’ve been sitting outside for a while, believing our next performance was imminent when the ridiculous reggae inspired beats start. This music sounds about as traditional as when the high school played Afroman’s Because I got high dubbed in chipmunk voices. My little sister of sorts starts mock dancing to the music. I start dancing too before I realize how ridiculous we look. My only choice at this point is to embrace the crazy or risk becoming a casualty to it. People flock over, as they often do, to see the white person doing something. I start noticing my students are among them but am too tired to care.
Hours later I’ve lost these people as well. My head is swaying as I sit alone on a random church pew in a dim room. Then I notice a room I’d overlooked. It looks as if Jonestown had crossed a St. Patty’s day parade. All I can make out in the light from the hall are S and I-shaped bodies draped in Kelly green calico. There are small bodies, big bodies and awake bodies. I happily join.
In my attempt to thwart a roach from coming near me I decide to cover my head with the blanket I’d brought but all my thoughts travel to the possibility of the roach launching a stealth invasion under the fold by my chin, a surefire strategy to gain direct access to my mouth. I go over several scenarios like this before feeling the indifference of sleep. I stretch my legs and revel in this comfort until something tickles the back of my knee. A diamond scurries out from the crease. The attack had already begun.
Now I’m up. I find Brittany leaning against a Marshallese woman and looking forlorn.
“I’m not even mad anymore. I’ve gone past that point. I just feel bad for people here. How are they happy with this?”
And that was the problem. They were content with the chaos. As outsiders we were doubly aware of our own inabilities to tolerate inefficiency as well as their ability to downright embrace it.
At around 3 am we’re shuffling around onstage performing to a crowd that looks dazed and exhausted. When it’s time to throw candy the children barely have enough energy to run toward it. I watch as tootsie roll after tootsie roll goes unclaimed and candy hits people in the face who don’t bother to move.
There is talk of another church. Another church might call us to perform. The streets are practically empty except for women and their pandanus fans and men with their prop sticks. I find the woman in charge and ask her if she knows when the bus will come but I already know the answer. Brittany and I walk in the direction of the bus without anyone following. We don’t talk. There is nothing to say. Christmas is over as far as I can tell. We survived.

A very Marshall Christmas

thebriteside — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 03:34:16 +0000

Christmas time in the Marshall Islands really highlighted a lot of paradoxes about what it’s like to live here; the place some call a third world country while others call it paradise.

To name a few:
-Going on the nearly broken school bus to ride around Ebeye and throw candy to kids. Simple enough. Naturally though, they had to add speakers and impressive technology to the equation. (See this old post )

They literally created a plain plywood sign, painted it white and to scale with the bus and connected two giant speakers, a laptop and a projector to the top of it. I sat on top with students throwing candy down to the masses.

-This brings me to my second paradox. Throwing candy at children who don’t have water in their homes. Ebeye’s water supply has been on the fritz for months and most homes don’t have individual rainwater catchments. Not to mention the diabetes rates in this country leave little to be desired of buying high fructose sludge to give out but who am I kidding, I was a kid once, right? I brought a box of apples the vice-principal inexplicably brought to our Christmas party to throw but the students on the bus ate every last one without asking before the bus was in Ebeye.

-I wish the picture of the lady walking were clearer. It’s a Marshallese woman walking with her friend wearing traditional Marshallese-wear from the waist down and a t-shirt that reads “I’m that dude.” I see things like this all the time but rarely have the audacity to photograph them. Once in the bank I saw a shriveled raisin of a man wearing a button down from Snoop Dogg’s clothing line that read “Do it doggy style” with a picture of it’s namesake smoking a joint.

-During church on Christmas Sunday it’s Marshallese style to throw quarters and candy at the crowd, especially children. A group of children right at Brittany’s feet had an all out brawl over a single quarter and started tearing the one kid apart who had it. How very Christian. Did the parents run over to intervene and stop it? Ha. Hahahahaha. Hahahahahahahahahah. You get the point.

-I tried to decorate my classroom for the holidays with things Laura sent me. I worked tireless one day as my students were reading a story to redo my bulletin board and hang snowflakes around the room. One student decided he wanted to cut off his rattail and instead cut his finger open. I don’t know if it was a genuine accident, I think he didn’t want to be in class or wanted attention. Whatever the case, he tried to hide it by using his sweat washcloth to catch the blood which was quickly forming a puddle on my floor. I asked him what was wrong. He shook his head and looked down.

Are you bleeding?!

Soon it was revealed that he cut his finger really deep. As I was dealing with that fiasco and wondering why he’d kept cutting when he realized his finger wasn’t his hair it occurred to me that I was so fixated on this delusional idea that my students would appreciate some Christmas cheer that I lost track of the fact that some of them shouldn’t even be allowed near scissors. THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.

-Guns. Guns are everywhere. Especially the Christian kids whose answer to the possibility of everything scandalous is “I’m a Christian.” It’s really disturbing but also harmless. Even the police in the RMI don’t have guns. They just aren’t here. The idea of a Marshallese person needing to use a gun on somebody is laughable. It’s all those American movies they love to watch that create this desire for guns. And once again, water. Priorities people. Water is higher on Maslow’s pyramid then plastic guns and candy. Fact.

-A beautiful sunset viewed over a heaping pile of smoking trash. I don’t know a more cost effective way to get rid of the trash on Ebeye but the first few times I saw the giant trash piles at “Dumptown” burning, I nearly cried. I’ve never even been that person. Sarah has in fact. She was always the litter police. There’s got to be a better way.

Throwing rocks at roosters

thebriteside — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:39:06 +0000

It’s 7:11 am on a Monday. I don’t have to teach until 1:55 because it’s a ‘one bus day’ which I know because a bus has been sitting tireless in the front propped up with pieces of wood all weekend. Why am I awake? Roosters. Recently—w hat I’m convinced is the same evil rooster—insists on setting up shop outside my window 24-7. During the rest of the day it’s fine, even whimsical. It almost reminds me of living in Bend except then I had a determined dog with a thyroid problem to do my bidding. As far as I’m concerned the needs of the animal kingdom can wait—at least until I’ve gotten my 6-8.
So I just did the most reasonable thing I could think of to hit snooze on this feathered alarm. I went outside to throw rocks at the gaggle of roosters and other non-native fowl that were grazing on what appeared to be a patch of rocks. Now the silence is deafening but it’s almost like the reverb is playing out in my head to complement the screams from the other non-native species adjacent to us that just woke up: our neighbor’s four year old.
This is the person I am now and I’m not even worried. I’m not above throwing rocks at birds much smaller than me. I’m not a hero. I suppose I’ll be worried when I contemplate throwing rocks at human targets although I think it would make me decidedly more Marshallese. Throwing rocks at things is the solution to nearly anything. Three months ago I might have thought these sounds were quaint and now I want them to stop. Perhaps the final test of my cultural assimilation in this regard will be when I cease to notice them at all. Animal rights here just look so different from home. And at least I’m not at the point where I’m drowning buckets of kittens out of boredom (don’t ask.)
It’s less cock-a-doodle-doo and more eh-eh-screhjregjjakrhejkharkjeh-reeeehhhh, like the damn thing has laryngitis. And as I write these words it has returned to torment me, my own personal raven. Nevermore.
Side note: After a second journey outside I now have a picture of the offender who tried to jump into a tree when he saw me coming to air my grievances and document his face. This briefly worried me but when he saw his friends leaving he fled as well. Liz 1 Roosters: 1
Maybe I should name him Remie II? And speaking of Remie…I haven’t seen her in a few weeks. A new bunch of puppies has been born under a rusted out car but I have yet to see them because they haven’t been utterly abandoned by their mother yet.
I am going to attempt to go back to my happy place now.