Day Two

January 1, 2010

Day 2:

 

Today was our first full day here in Majuro. We had an interesting sleeping situation last night. I slept on the longer couch in the living room. Ben slept on the shorter one. Eric slept on the floor on a pad between the two couches and Derek slept behind Ben’s couch on another pad. The girls all slept in one of the bedrooms; two on the bedroom and two on the floor and Peter and Professor Garrod slept in another bed in the second bedroom. I didn’t have any luck finding sheets, apparently the Marshallese don’t put sheets on their beds. I’m not even sure if they have beds to put sheets on actually. So I slept without any covers last night. I put some long pants on to sleep in and a t-shirt. The air conditioning read 18 degrees Celsius which proved to be much too cold for one layer of cotton. I woke up with my arms tucked in the sleeves of my shirt huddled against my torso.

            Last night here was New Year’s Eve. We were advised not to go to the island block party for fear of our women being aggressively pursued or being hit by drunk drivers. Peter, a Dartmouth ’09 teaching on the island of Jaluit, informed us that the Marshalls, per capita, has the highest rate of hit and run in the world. Being that we had traveled all day and were all a bit jet-lagged, after Eric made a delicious brescieta (sp?) and pasta with a tomato based sauce, we found ourselves asleep by ten o’clock.

            We woke up this morning feeling well rested, I did anyway. We started the day with bowls of cereal and then decided that we would go for walks all day. We started out by walking back towards the airport. Everyone minus Professor Garrod went for this walk. We walked about an hour towards the airport before we decided to turn around. We were hoping to make it to the U.S. Embassy but didn’t make it that far. We stopped at a few roadside stores on the way back. Auntie’s Store was the first place on the island that I saw Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. I bought some! We came back to the apartment and ate some leftover pasta and salad for lunch. Derek and Peter then headed out while the rest of us watched two episodes of Family Guy on Eric’s computer before all falling asleep.

            When we woke up we started walking the other direction, towards Majuro. By the way, Majuro is the name of the city, the island and the atoll. We walked down to the Marshall Island resort where Edie, Allie, Anna, Eric and I ordered drinks and two fruit cups. We actually ran into Peter, Derek and Robin there. We enjoyed the free internet access, albeit inconsistent, and stayed for about an hour and a half or so. When we came back to the apartment Professor Garrod and I enjoyed a Miller Lite while Eric chugged half a bottle of Andre. Anna and Edie were preparing some eggs benedict and toast for dinner. We all ate dinner on the porch together and had a great conversation. We talked about everything from new Dartmouth policies and the politics under President Kim, to men at Welsley, to Carol Gilligan and abortion, to Obama and then Garrod and Derek had a dialogue on the history of American politics. Next, Derek and I did a mini workout on the Perfect Pushup device that Ben brought. I did a ten minute core workout, stretched and came inside to write this entry and read up on Hamlet.

 

Ok so now you all know what happened. Today I was able to explore the island a bit more. This truly is a beautiful place. It’s really sad that this place is going to be completely under water in fifty years. As we walked along the main road today, several children stopped their games to wave and speak to us. There must be something special in the Marshallese gene pool because EVERY child under age 8 is absolutely adorable. If Angelina were ever to come here she’d leave with about 30,000 kids. The kids are a joy though. I even got approached by two drunk guys on my walk to the resort. They didn’t believe that I was from Ohio. I found out that their names were Scotty and Ben. They were starting to get annoying so after Scotty apologized for saying, “Fuck you, man” I chose to catch back up with the rest of the group.

            It still hasn’t hit me that this is my home for the next ten weeks. I’m trying to look at this place as more than a vacation spot or a terribly under-privileged developing nation. I can’t even say that I’m really here yet. It’s like I’m still visiting. I still walk the streets with my camera in hand and timidly cross the street. I’ve only seen two other people that look black. One could have easily been Indian. I can feel the people looking at me when I walk down the street. Being that I’m 6’2” and black with dreads, I’m definitely an attention-grabber here. Only the ribeles, non-Marshallese, are any taller than 5’10”. The only other person I’ve seen with dreads is Anna, the Dartmouth volunteer Program Field Director. In fact, the most common hairstyle here is the rat tail, almost all of the men have one or are growing one. Hopefully after a day or two in the classroom I feel more at home. We’ll see. Well I’m going to watch the rest of this episode of Family Guy and pass out. Tomorrow’s plans? Read Hamlet and try to find Malcolm Freberg. More updates to come. Hopefully I’ll be able to watch the Sugar Bowl tomorrow, I figure by the time this gets posted the game will be over. GO CATS!!! Love you and miss you precious!! Two days down, 72 to go!