Majuro: February 2010

Friday, February 26, 2010

Day 57

February 25

Day 57:

Happy Birthday Daddy Curt! Today is my grandfather’s 61st birthday (East Coast Time, anyway) so if you know him and you see him, let him know!!
As for my day, I woke up early to get to school in time to print everything out before the power went out. I knew what I wanted the kids to do but actually making up the worksheet was much harder than I anticipated. Luckily, I threw something together in time, printed it and got it copied about five minutes before the power went out. After that, in an attempt to conserve my computer battery, I read some Obama until it was time for class. Obama plug: Anyone who hasn’t read Dreams From my Father by Barack Obama needs to read it. It’s a great book about the inner struggle of being apart of two worlds; thus being apart of neither. It humanizes him on a level that I never would have expected. He doesn’t write extensively about politics, not so far anyway. He mentions it and explains its significance in his life but it’s more a look inside himself and how the absence, and brief presence, of his father has impacted his life. It’s really good.
So anyway, class went well. The kids acted fine and I’m pretty sure all the classes got a half day because the indoor plumbing wasn’t working. I went from school to the resort to use the net, workout and get some food. I had the chicken wings with sweet chili sauce, fried rice, cole slaw and fries. I got to Skype chat with Gramma briefly and she got to pass on my birthday wishes to Daddy Curt, that was nice. After that happened, my battery was at 13 minutes so I sat in the resort and read some more before my food came. Then I paid, went to workout after a minor roadblock from Manuma the security guard at the resort. Then I came back to the trailer. Now when the power is out, that includes the A/C obviously. But our trailer is positioned that it runs parallel to the “beach” and the water front during high tide is maybe ten feet from our trailer. So when the power goes out, there’s one spot in the living room that I LOVE to sit in with the window open because the ocean side breeze is just perfect. Every time it’s happened I’ve sat in that seat and usually fallen asleep. So I did that again today. When I got back Eric asked me if I wanted to go to the beach. To be honest, I just did my hair on Sunday and it had been looking REAL rough before then. I’m usually not a diva like that to skip out on the fun but I knew there was a basketball game coming up soon and between swimming again and playing in a game, it would look like I’d done nothing at all. He promised his kids he’d take them so he rented the golf cart again and he and Robyn went to the beach by the airport. Apparently ten of his kids showed up. I’m glad I didn’t go. I wasn’t in the mood for anymore kids for the day. Not that anything happened but our whole existence on this island is around kids and yes, I love them, but sometimes I need to be around people of a different age range…that speaks the same language as me.
Edie came and woke me to ask me if I wanted to watch play rehearsal. She then apologized profusely for waking me because I seemed to be enjoying my nap. I didn’t go then, and by the time I went it was over, but I did go to play rehearsal in time to hear Niten playing the Ukulele and all the leads singing along with him. I sat out there reading while Edie and Anna graded some of their work. It was cooler outside than in their trailer. I figured I’d read until the power came back on. Well I got tired of being out there and listening to Nitten try to teach Ben the soprano part of a Marshallese song so I went back to the trailer. That was when I saw Eric returning with the golf cart. He asked if I wanted to ride with and since I had nothing else to do until the power came back, I joined. We road the Rita loop and got some donuts, then road the Uliga back road before returning the golf cart. On the way back, we saw this guy, one of three crazy men on the island, get bitten by a dog. Although I have no tie to this man I feel very bad about this situation. This man was walking down the street with the same stuff he always has, two poles and a satchel over his shoulder. His name is Wilfred and we’ve been warned by the locals that he’s crazy, legitimately. It sounds like schizophrenia. There were several men seated outside of one of the hole-in-the-wall shops, probably about 20. The dog didn’t bother any of them. I feel even worse because I watched the whole thing happening and saw it coming. There were four of us and we were walking on the same side of the street as Wilfred. The dog trotted up behind him pretty calmly with its eyes fixed on his leg. He slowly opened his mouth and I remember my heart stopping for a second. Then the dog leapt and bit him on the back of the knee, latching his jaws into his skin to the point where Wilfred jerked his leg and the dogs body pulled with it. Wilfred then turned around, grabbed his leg and chucked one of his poles at the dog and screamed some Marshallese obscenities at the dog. Needless to say, we crossed the street and picked up some stones on the way. When we got back the power was on so I began to make dinner. I browned some ground beef and shrimp and put some Mexican flavor with it.
After eating, I sent some emails, watched an episode of Entourage and went to sleep.

Day 56

February 24, 2010

Day 56:

Happy Birthday to Courtland Love! It’s the 24^th here but it’s the 23^rd at home, so happy Bday Courtney! From Majuro to Hampton, VA showing love.

Now, to my day. Again, nothing too interesting. There’s another scheduled power outage for tomorrow and Robyn and I have to cook starting tomorrow so we went to Payless to get the food we needed. We made sure not to get perishables unless we absolutely needed them for today or tomorrow because we would be powerless for eight hours. So Robyn and I went to Payless, spent over $200. I must add only about $85 of it was for dinner, the rest were requests per everyone. Eric wasn’t too happy about that. When I got back we had a small argument about people eating full meals instead of snacking all day because the snacks are what is costing the most money. When asked for my opinion, I merely said, “I don’t hardly ever eat snacks. Nor do I eat veggies unless they’re with dinner. But everyone put money into the same pot and as much as I know that I won’t be eating over half of what we buy, everyone has the right to have bought what they want.” The argument persisted for a little while after that and then we came in and ate the pasta that Professor Garrod prepared; the same exact pasta he’s made three times now!

After that I did some lesson planning for the kids, and decided I would introduce the Present perfect tense tomorrow. After that, I watched some Entourage with Eric and Ally and then passed out.

day 55

February 23, 2010

Day 55:

Let me start by saying that Bruce, the kid who I promised the class a pizza party if he got a 100%, Bruce gotta 94%. Scared the crap out of me. It’s so disappointing that he’s such a good student but he just doesn’t come to class half the time. I’ll see him two or three times a week yet he still pulls these 94s out of nowhere.

Today wasn’t filled with anything too exciting. I watched some Entourage, some family guy and read some more of Dreams From my Father. I haven’t been writing as much lately, as you can tell from the length of my blog posts and for some reason I’ve gotten into reading. Maybe because this book is really good. I don’t know.

My lesson plan, which I prepared for yesterday, is actually running me well into tomorrow so I don’t have any lesson planning to do tonight. I apologize for the lack of details but surely those of you who care, understand that I could only keep up my streak of roughly 2000 characters per day for so long. Until next time, from Majuro, bar lo yok.

day 55

February 23, 2010

Day 55:

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Day 54

February 22, 2010

Day 54:

Today was another bland day. Nothing too big happened. I started a new lesson plan on tenses. Today we did present tense and past tense. I got through past tense in my third period class and almost finished all of it up in my fourth period class. Bruce (Wayne) showed up today and I told him that he has to take his Punctuation Quiz tomorrow. He agreed to the deal that if he got a 100% on the quiz, I’d buy the whole class pizza.

After class I came back to the trailer and worked on the standardized test that I have to write for the 7^th grade students. I then passed out for something like three hours. Dinner was less awkward. Garrod tried to small talk me before dinner about basketball. I diffused it pretty quickly. After that I watched some Entourage with Ally and Eric, started the Prestige with Edie and then passed out.

Day 53

February 21, 2010

Day 53:

Today was a pretty bland day. Nothing too big happened at all. I woke up early and headed to the resort for my Skype date with Gramma. Daddy Curt was in the hospital for some reason and wanted to Skype with me from there. I had a feeling the network reception in the hospital would be bad. It ended up not working. But Gramma and I talked when she got back to the house.
After that I got a great workout in at the gym. Got a nice lower body workout in on the elliptical and knocked out some upper body training also. These two Chinese dudes were in there when I got there watching NBA TV. I knew Vanderbilt and Kentucky were playing but I figured I’d let them finish up their game. When that game was finished I asked if they could switch to ESPN. That was when they told me, “It’s just college basketball.” And then they let me know that there was another NBA game after that one. I said that it was okay. It was then that I realized that the game between the Lakers and the Celtics occurred three weeks ago, the day after they announced the All Star team. Then these dudes just sit on all of the workout equipment and watch the game. They did some fake lunges, some half curls and some make shift leg presses and watched this game that was two weeks old. I didn’t say anything but when Eric finally joined me I told him. So Eric asked the guys if they knew the game was old. They then said, “Well we haven’t seen it.” So Eric and I proceeded to talk shit about how we could be watching a live time game involving the #2 team in the country but instead we were watching a two week old NBA game. I even told them that the Lakers won but they wanted to watch.
So after that I came back to the trailer, took a nap, did some light school work. It was weird at dinner. It was the first dinner since Garrod decided to trip out on me. I didn’t say anything to him and he didn’t say anything to me. After that I watched some Entourage and passed out.

Day 52

February 20, 2010

Day 52

Today we finally executed our plan to rent a golf cart and ride out to Laura. Eric and I went to breakfast at Dar and then picked up the golf cart. It seated six comfortably and we ended up having six people go: myself, Eric, Edie, Ally, Robyn and Anna. Derek had work to do. Peter was still sick. Ben was afraid we were going to crash and Garrod never goes with us. The ride was nice. It took us about an hour and a half to get there. We pushed about 25 mph the whole way there. How many people do you know that have taken a golf cart 35 miles? None! Well one now. I

It was great thought. We went to Heather, Sarah and Eric’s house, the Dartmouth graduate students out on Laura, and played some pong. It was nice to get back on a table even though it wasn’t quite the same as playing in Hanover. After playing three games of that, I sat the first, won the second and lost the third to Eric and Sarah. Heather was my partner; we picked them from a hat.

After that we headed out to Laura Beach. Laura is the very end of the Majuro Island for those who don’t know. So whereas most of the country has lagoon side and ocean side, Laura blends the two and it’s really pretty. It’s one of the few real beaches on the island. So we went to the beach and had a good time hanging out there for about two hours. Somehow, Heather lost the orange float that she had brought. It wasn’t even hers but I guess she just assumed that it would float back, even thought it was being carried farther and farther out. It’s probably somewhere near Fiji now. LOL.

We drove back. Whereas Eric and I drove there, Eric brought us all the way back by himself. I was pretty tired so I let him go although I did think Anna was driving back. Either way, we got back. I took a shower and Eric, Ally and I eventually dropped Ben off for the Gospel choir concert. We got the tank on E and were supposed to return it the way we found it so we decided to drive around, so we decided to drive on every road in Majuro. We did it and eventually got to the tip of Rita which is the other end of the island. So today we golf carted from one end of Majuro Island to the other and drove all of the one actual road that there is in the island.

After cruising around for a little through Uliga and Delap, Eric, Ally and I decided to get dinner at Tide Table and then watch the high school talent show. I ordered the beer battered fish sandwich. It was pretty good, I was pleased with it. By the time we finished, the concert was nowhere near starting. It was supposed to start at 7 and it was not 8:30 and they hadn’t started yet. Typical Marshallese time. So after that we drove some more around town and picked up Amy, a World Teach teacher waiting on a taxi. She then led us up to the tip of Rita again where we picked up another World Teach teacher that is located on Arno. Before they made a golf cart tour of Rita again, I asked to be let out at the high school so that I could go rest, I had a slight migraine coming on.

I had tried to send the family an email at Tide Table but the network was down. When I was walking home I noticed that the library light was on. When I entered I saw Professor Garrod there sending emails. I spoke and proceeded to send the two messages that I needed to send: one to Elani and one to the family. I won’t get into the details of what was said next, but Professor Garrod essentially told me that he made a mistake accepting me on this trip and that I’m not competent to be in this program. There were other things said, but I’ll just leave it by saying, I professionally let him know EXACTLY how I felt. I hadn’t been that mad in a VERY long time. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been that mad before. Again, I won’t get into the logistics of that but he knows how I feel, I know how he feels. And we’re not exactly on speaking terms right now. After all that went down, I came back to the trailer and did pushups until Eric and Ally got back. I told them about what happened, we discussed it and then watched two or three episodes of Entourage. Ally then left, Eric and I watched the “Ear sex” episode of Family Guy and then passed out.

Friday, February 19, 2010

day 51: a situation of life and death

February 19, 2010

I had just finished writing up the test that my kids would take later on in the day. I figured I would spend the next hour or so catching up on my blogging. Yesterday wasn’t a terribly fun-filled day, but Wednesday, with all the fish and weather problems, was definitely worthy of a good mention. I was seated in the chair nearest th door to the Majuro Middle School teachers’ lounge. I had just finished writing about my fish escapade and had moved on to detailing Professor Garrod’s visit and criticism of my class. Bobby, the trouble making, smart talking, charming kid in my fourth period class showed his face for the first time since January 20^th today. He and his mother came in for a meeting with the counselors and Principal Lenja. I had referred him to the office last time I saw him and he had finally returned to get the referral signed by myself, himself and his mother. Bobby had recently finished practicing his signature when three people burst into the door startling me and leaving my hands frozen in perfect, Mavis Beacon-home position on the keyboard. I looked over the edge of my laptop screen to see a teacher, Ben’s teacher, Rosita, escorting another man, I don’t know his name and one of her students. The man was carrying the student and the student didn’t look very good at all. They set him down in a chair which was directly in my line of sight. I figured I would let the teacher’s handle their business and I wouldn’t be nosey so I returned to blogging. I started to notice the little boy, his name was Rodian (or something like that), struggling to hold his head up. He was nodding like an old man does at church during a sermon. I couldn’t help but look up from my screen. It was then that I noticed that this boy also couldn’t keep his eyes open. But it was different. His eyelids were quite droopy but he was clearly out of it. It was like he was asleep with his eyes open. Every once in a while his eyes would roll back into his head. Just then one of the Marshallese teachers asked me, “Do you know First Aid?”

Having passed Basic-Aid-Training in fourth grade, I valiantly answered, “I know some. What’s wrong with him?” It was clear to me that the rescue breathing techniques that I knew were far too miniscule for this task. This kid was in need of some serious medical attention. I looked around the room for a towel that I could wet and put on the back of his neck. It was then that I realized that I was, in fact, the most capable person in the room of caring for this boy. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on me with the anticipation of words of wisdom to come from my mouth. I didn’t have them. I noticed the panic in their eyes and immediately knew that I would have to be the one to maintain poise in the situation. Fairly uncertain of what I was doing I went through the basics, “You,” I said while pointing to one of the teachers, “can you get me a clean towel. He needs something cold around his neck.”

I walked over to the sink to test out the temperature of the tap water. The tap wasn’t on. There was a gallon bottle of Pacific Spring Water next to the sink. It wasn’t terribly cold but it was cool enough to do the job. I turned to look at the boy. By now, the man that carried him in, was still seated next to him on a bench. The boy, however, was almost completely doubled over. His head was near his thighs and when his head bobbed he knocked his forehead on his knees a couple times.

“You need to keep his head up,” I barked, “he can’t afford to have all of this blood rushing to his head right now.”

I put my palm on his forehead to check if he had a fever. He didn’t. Next I gently propped his head up so that I could see his eyes. They were closed but almost in a state of REM (Rapid eye movement) sleep. His eye lids opened occasionally but it was clear that there was some brain activity going on underneath. As I lifted his head up, his neck gave way and before I knew it I had the whole weight of this kids head in my hands.

About that time one of the teachers came back with a towel. I wet the towel with the spring water and placed it on the boys neck. A couple different teachers were asking him questions about in Marshallese, he didn’t seem to be responding to any of them. No words, no eyebrow raise, nothing. When I put the wet towel on his neck his eyes opened up a little more and seemed to be somewhat more alert – although alert is certainly not a fair word for this kid’s condition.

Seeing that he was at least responding to the wet towel, I considered laying him on the ground. I weighed the pros and the cons and decided that it was best if I kept him sitting with his head up. By this time, I’m seeing myself in an out of body experience. I looked down at myself and asked, “How did I end up in this situation? Why is everyone actually listening to me? And this must be what it’s like to watch yourself play a doctor on TV.” All jokes aside though, I was scared shitless.

The counselor called the boys home but no one answered. Then one of the teachers volunteered her car to drive the boy home. I wondered why he wasn’t being driven to the hospital but it wasn’t really my call. I assumed it was protocol. So myself and the teacher that carried him in, then carried him out of the office and into a car. Meanwhile, classes were changing and so all of the children with classrooms near the office were watching us and chatting about what was going on. Again, being that I don’t speak Marshallese, I had no idea what they were saying, but I’m sure it wasn’t any different than what anyone in any other country would have said.

So when we opened the door of the car was opened, the passenger seat was reclined to about a 35 degree angle. Good call whoever that was. So I set him down into the car and then as the other man propped his legs into the vehicle, I opened the door behind him and situated his head on the head rest.

“Would you mind riding with Selina to his house?” One of the teachers asked me.

I couldn’t say no. It was now 10:00 a.m. and I was due to start teaching at 10:25 and my kids had a test but, I couldn’t just leave this kid with a clearly distraught Majuro Middle School secretary, “Sure, I’ll go.”

When I got into the car I could get a much better look at the boy. I sat behind the driver and he was reclined so his head was at a visible level for me from the back seat. He was a fair-skinned boy as is, probably had some American or Australian blood in him. He had nicely groomed short hair with a very crisp hairline. His perfectly blocked side burns extended to about halfway down his ear. His fair complexion was clearly not natural today, though, because the hue had an opaque, almost dead tint to it. His lips were white as if he had eaten a funnel cake from Kings Island without using his hands. I kept my hand around his neck applying pressure and trying to keep the coolness of the towel against his skin. I slid my hand around his neck to check his pulse and it was painstakingly low. I didn’t count the time but it was something like one beat every 1.5-2 seconds so may have been as low as 30 beats per minute.

I began to worry. I didn’t let Selina see it but I was quite frightened. I had to make sure the boy stayed alive. The day had turned from any day in the teachers’ lounge blogging before class, to a life and death situation that I was somehow volunteered for. In an attempt to keep the boy alive I tried talking to him, “Rodian, can you hear me? We’re going to take you home okay? You’re going to be fine, just stay awake with me until you get home okay?” He made an attempt to respond and I sensed a slight eyebrow raise. I was encouraged. I leaned back while keeping my hand on his neck. I could no longer feel his pulse because my hand slid backwards on to the nape of his neck. I decided to try tickling him under his arm to see if his reflexes were still in tact. They were. He didn’t move much but he did move his arm. He was still alive. I searched the shallow annals of my mind searching for what could be this kids problem. Out of nowhere, I was reminded of my journalism project last fall for my Creative Non Fiction.

Last fall, I followed around Foley Schmidt, the kicker of the Dartmouth Football team for a night. Foley has a very rare form of Diabetes where he has to wake up every hour of the night to check his sugar because when he sleeps his body goes into hypoglycemia and if it goes too low during his slumber he could never wake up. During the writing of that story, I witnessed Foley go into diabetic shock during a running routine for the football team. Similarly, Foley’s face was pale and his lips lost pigmentation as his eyelids fluttered and his mind teetered in and out of consciousness.

“We need to stop and get him some juice,” I yelled at Selina.

She pulled over to one of the Marshallese owned corner shops, “You think he needs some water?”

“I think he’s diabetic. He needs some sugar,” I responded confidently.

I wasn’t confident though. It was the only solution I could come to and I hoped that my limited medical knowledge was enough to save this kids life.

I tried pouring the Gatorade on his lips so that maybe he could lick them and get a taste and get some glucose back into his blood stream. The first pour some dripped down the side of his face leaving a red spot on his grey polo. Shortly thereafter, he raised his right hand, the first movement he had made other than being transported from the office to the car, and took the bottle from me. He sipped the Gatorade slowly for about five seconds before handing the bottle back to me. When I grabbed it back his hand fell back into his lap. Roughly 30 seconds later his lips began to look pinker.

“He’s getting some color back,” Selina said.

“Yeah, he is,” I agreed as I handed him the bottle again.

By the time we got to his house, Rodian had finished ¾ the bottle of Gatorade and color and life was returning to his face. I had an arm around him as he exited the car and walked up the stairs. His grandmother answered our yells of “Hello?” “Yokwe?” but by the time she came, Rodian was already halfway up the stairs. He held onto the rail and walked up, for the most part, by himself. I was there for support but he had regained strength. I set him down on the couch next to his brother who was watching a kids TV show in English where they were singing “Anything you can do I can do better” while rowing in a stationary, Kindergarten row boat.

When I set him down he began shivering rather violently. I said that he needed to be covered up and kept warm. The A/C in the house was on as was a fan which didn’t help the situation. Before they got a blanket out Selina motioned for us to leave and informed me that Rodian was being taken to the hospital.

“You did very well back there,” she told me as we were exiting the driveway.

I didn’t respond.

“My whole body still shaking,” she later said.

I didn’t talk very much on the way back. I was still in shock and worried shitless that Rodian would be okay. His family said that he had no history of diabetes. I’m no doctor but I think they need to update their medical records because he clearly has something. I’m still anxious when thinking about the whole thing. I just hope he lives. It would kill me to know that he suffered an injury or something based on the way the situation was handled. I know I’m not qualified nor expected to know how to handle such situations, but me being the person I am, I know that I couldn’t handle knowing that there was something else I could have done.

I will post more about Rodian when I hear further word. Until then, pray for him please. Until next time, from Majuro, bar lo eok!

Thursday, February 18, 2010

day 49

February 17, 2010

Day 49:

Today was yet another interesting day. Today was the day that John and I had set aside as the day that we would cook the fish that Russell gave us a week or so ago. Last night after the game we set the fish in the fridge so that it could start to thaw out. I checked it this morning before class and it was still frozen. When I came back to the trailer after class for lunch I noticed that the fish was starting to thaw but the smell of the fish was also spreading throughout the kitchen. My grilled cheese had a fishy taste to it. So I set the fish in the sink so that if we had to deal with the smell at least the food wasn’t what smelled bad.

So John and I started cleaning the fish around 4:45. We decided that we would grill most of it, especially the Ruby Snapper we had and then fry the rest. So we had to barbecue grills and we had planned for me to just put a skillet on top of one of the barbecue pits so that I could fry it. Did I mention the power was out? That is an important fact because our cooking plans involved zero electricity so it worked great that it just so happened to be a powerless afternoon on the day when we were barbecuing.

One great thing about this island being about a half mile wide at most points is that there is always an ocean breeze, or lagoon breeze; a water induced breeze of some sort. The bad part about being on an island this narrow, is that there’s always a breeze. Starting a fire over charcoal was impossible. We couldn’t find a place that was hidden enough from the wind. If it was hidden by a building or something from the ocean wind, then it was a perfect target for the lagoon wind. So we spent about an hour and a half trying to get the charcoal to catch fire and keep fire. Then, of course, the clouds came rolling in. The rain clouds came in and we were certainly not getting over those winds. So we eventually moved the grills into the World Teach dorms breezeway which was fairly free of breeze. We finally got the fire going, the rest of the fish cleaned and the skillet going in there. Right about the time the sun went down, the power came back on which was great because I could then fry the fish on the skillet on a stove.

The fish turned out great. I was pretty skeptical about cooking the fish the way that we were cooking it. I had never cooked a whole fish before but everyone on the island does it that way and if they eat it then I’ll eat it, at least one. We had some grouper out on Bikrin with Senator DeBrum that one time that was a fish that we ate whole. The snapper that we had tonight was eaten the same way, except we gutted the fish before we cooked it tonight. Senator Debrum didn’t. So we roasted the fish whole, over an open fire. It was a fairly scale-less fish so we didn’t have to scale it, but the eyes, fins, tail everything still in tact. I got a great picture of it though, just to prove that we ate FISH. Real fish. The fish that I fried turned out really good too. I didn’t even bread it, nor did I filet it. I took the fish, gutted them and threw them in some vegetable oil; eyes, fins, tail, gills and all. There were a couple that we had cut the head off of when we were cleaning so I got to fry those as well. When I was done, I could pull the meat right off the bone. I had seen in movies so many times and even cartoons, fish skeletons; just the head, tail and ribs in between. The way I pulled the meat off of my fish, I just held the tail and the meat basically fell off the bone, so I was left with the skeleton that I had seen so many times on TV. I never gave too much thought to it, but I never thought the skeleton of a fish actually looked like that. I guess if I had any biological or anatomical intuition I would have picked that up but I just never thought of it. It was pretty cool. I got a good picture of that too.

After the fish was done and we had eaten, I did some work in the library started a new mash-up and went to bed.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Day 48

February 16, 2010

Day 48:

Today was an interesting day. In class I had the kids finish up their letters which turned out to be pretty good. Everyone turned one in so everyone got 100% for it. I’m salty because I just realized that Uncle Chris is leaving for Israel any day now and so all of the kids who wrote to him won’t get a response until much later. I’m thinking I’ll just send them to Gramma’s house anyway and just send the letters back when I actually get back to the states and then we can send a picture of us all together. After class I walked to the post office to send off some post cards and check on prices for sending the letters. It’s going to be pretty cheap actually.

So check this out. The high school got a half day today for their Valentine’s Day dance. Mind you, today is a Tuesday. Not only is it a Tuesday but it’s not Valentine’s Day , it’s the 16^th. And not only was this a dance, but it’s against the church and school rules for the kids to actually dance apparently so the school essentially paid a DJ to come and blast music out front of the school so that they could leave three hours early. I find this absolutely hilarious! It’s a Tuesday and its not even Valentine’s Day! This place is a mess.

So I knew basketball wasn’t happening because the kids were out at noon. So I went to the trailer and studied some Marshallese until the power went out. I decided to go to play rehearsal in the library where I was sure they would have power. No power there either. This whole part of the island was out. So after play rehearsal I came back to the trailer to just chill out before my game. John told me the night before that we had a game at 7. So it was about five when Eric got back and he brought along with him Nitten, Claudius in the play, one of the twelfth graders. Nitten is a phenomenal ukulele player, he led the jam session outside Tide Table last Friday. So Nitten came in and Eric and I recorded him playing on our computers. He played about three songs but before he finished playing I left to go shoot around before the game. I went with John and all of the hoops were being used at MIHS. There was, however, one court that was vacant. Fully equipped with a backboard. No basket. We said, whatever. We can visualize. So we did a warm up, getting the motion of the shot down and everything on a court with no rim. I assure you though, if there had been a rim, we would have been putting in buckets! After about a half hour of that I came back to the trailer and took a bare-chested nap in the steaming hot trailer while the ocean side breeze cooled me down. John woke me up about 45 minutes later saying it was time to go.

So at the game, it was THE WORST officiating I’ve ever seen. And we won by 15. So I’m not complaining because we lost. I’m complaining because the referees have never seen a rule book. They don’t understand the idea of possession. One guy called me out of bounds because I was standing out of bounds. Mind you, I did not even have the ball. He told me that it was a violation to be standing out of bounds. It’s a good thing they don’t understand English too well, because I was talking so much shit to these referees. We actually figured out that one of the refs was the brother of one of the guys on the other team. We saw them leaving together and there was a different ref for the next game. One of the refs called a technical for Unsportsmanlike Conduct on John because he went up for a lay up and the guy guarding him got kicked in the balls. They called a technical on another guy, Castigan, because he threw the ball off of a guy on the other team as he was falling out of bounds so that we’d get the ball back. They called over and back because a loose ball rolled across the half court line even though the other team had the ball and we were about to steal it back. There were about 12 calls that made me think I was Oscar Robertson playing for Crispus Attucks in Indiana in the 50s against the boys from Milan. They just clearly did not want the Americans to win. We still won though. It was really really bad though.

When I finally got back from basketball it was nearly 11 o’clock. I fixed myself a grilled cheese and some scrambled eggs for dinner and after talking to Ben for about an hour about 1990s NBA teams, and eventually about how Michael Phelps and Tiger Woods were just as dominant in their sports as Roger Federer and Michael Jordan, I fell asleep around 1:00 a.m.

Day 47

February 15, 2010

Day 47:

It’s amazing how slow the weeks go and how quickly do the weekends. This weekend was fun though, I definitely could have used a long weekend this week. In class, I just had the kids work on their letters to my family. Some of the letters are great. Terri even wrote a letter to my mom. Not much happened in class. My third period class had perfect attendance yet again but my fourth period class did not. After class I didn’t do anything I don’t think. I went to the trailer, worked on my story a little bit and fell asleep in the “living room”.

After that I went to basketball practice which was yet again cancelled because there were other teams using the court. Both were volleyball teams this time. I’ve resigned to the fact that I’ll never hold a practice with this team which actually doesn’t upset me at all because I wouldn’t know what to do with them anyway. I decided to sit in on play rehearsal once basketball was cancelled so I did that until about 5:30. After that I wrote some more of my story and ate dinner. Ally and Edie had burger night. I had to show them how to cook burgers because both of them are vegetarians and weren’t sure about some things. But we had burgers and fries which was a great, and much needed, American twist to a meal in Majuro.

After that, I wrote, yet again (I did a lot of work on my story today) before going to bed. Oh yeah, and the power went out tonight and we had to call Cassiano to come check it out. Sorry I don’t have much juice to write about. As of late so much of my writing has gone towards my story that blogging has kind of fallen victim. I promise to catch up later.

Monday, February 15, 2010

day 46

Day 46:

We went out to Enemanit today with Kurt and his gang of interesting characters. I’d love to get into the many characters on this boat with us but I simply don’t have the time. Enemanit was gorgeous though. It’s actually the island just south of Bikrin so the water and most of the landscape was the same except Enemanit is public whereas Bikrin is privately owned. Ally, Ben, Eric, Derek, Edie, Robyn, Anna and myself all came out. It was a great time. I actually liked it more than Bikrin. Sure it was a little more commercialized but there was a hanging slide that was anchored about 50 yards off the shore and also a high dive which made for a great time. A much better fall than our jump from Mt. Majuro when we were staying at Scott’s place. It was a very relaxing day though. I just laid out on the platform that held the slide and diving board for a while. I snorkeled a bit. Ate a little. Took some pictures, it was just a relaxing day. The engine on the boat died while we were on Enemanit so we had to get towed back to Majuro. The trip out took us about 20 minutes the trip back was right around an hour. It was a good time though, they were all drunk by then so it was fun but it was also time for us to get the hell outta there. After that I actually headed to the resort, yet again, to take a warm shower and wash my hair. I also wanted to get on Twitter. The high school network has blocked Twitter so I can’t access it with my free internet. So I went to the resort to do some grading, get on Twitter, see if Elani got the flowers I sent her and just relax and enjoy some alone time. I was there until right before ten. When I got back to the trailer right around ten o’clock I started “The Prestige” with Christian Bale, Scarlett Johannsen an appearance from Jennifer Garner among others. I’d seen it before, Caleb put me on to it. And I love it. It’s one of the best written movies I’ve seen. So I got about 6 minutes into that before passing out.

Day 45

February 13, 2010

Day 45:

Today I woke up and ate breakfast at Dar before Skyping with Gramma at the school. The school recently got free Wi-Fi so I’m able to communicate from the library just about whenever I want now which is quite convenient. After that I went to Tide Table to see the Rookie Challenge of the NBA All Star weekend. Tyreke Evans went ham in that game. Props.

After that Eric and I came back to the trailer where we just chilled out until time to go out to Dar for Peter’s birthday dinner. So we went to Dar for dinner and Eric tried to call Kurt to confirm that we were coming when he realized that he didn’t save his number correctly. So we couldn’t find anyone who had his number until we remembered that the owner of Dar is the ambassador to Israel and is one of the guys who came out to Bikrin with us when Senator DeBrum invited us out. So Eric and I went to Charlie Domnick’s house and talked with him a little. He wasn’t feeling too well, he said his stomach was bothering him. So he made a few calls and when we came back after dinner, he had contacted Kurt and confirmed that we were coming.

We were supposed to go bowling after that, but they were fixing the computers at the bowling alley so we had to call that off. So instead we came back to the trailer and eventually started taking Jello shots and eating some of Peter’s cake. John and Lee came over from next door and helped out with the festivities. Once that died down, John convinced Ally and I to go to MIR with them for another drink. We drug Edie along with us. At MIR there was like 6 people. And there was karaoke on the screen. I knew my Mom would’ve loved this place. She’s a regular on the Cincinnati karaoke circuit. So we had a drink there and eventually Ally, Edie and I sang Jingle Bell rock on the karaoke. Not sure why we sang that. Mostly because it had been silent quite a while and we couldn’t agree on a song. So after that we came back to the trailer and watched Lion King before passing out.

Day 44

February 12, 2010

Day 44:

Today was a very unexpectedly eventful day. I woke up and made up the quiz for my kids. It was a straight forward quiz. The extra credit was hard but the standard stuff was easy. I took questions from each of their worksheets and compiled selected questions into one page and that was the quiz. These kids just can’t follow directions. I had to repeat the directions about five times and that’s on top of the fact that they were written on the board and written on the quiz itself. I started grading third period’s quizzes during third period and got pretty frustrated with their scores. I made sure my directions were even clearer with fourth period. I guess I should have written be quiet on theirs because they just couldn’t shut up. I ended up threatening two points off for the next person I heard talking I ende dup taking off 2 points of about half of the class. I then came back to the trailer and fixed some lunch before napping and heading to basketball practice. Yet again, as expected, practice was cancelled for one reason or another. I don’t know what the reason was this time, I frankly don’t even care anymore. So after that I went to play rehearsal and watched most of Act 3. After play rehearsal we had a cast party outside Tide Table. So we headed over there and ate. Of course Ben brought his Ukulele with him which we were all opposed to initially but it ended up working out. The food was pizza but I ended up not getting any nor did Eric. We decided we would eat at Tide Table after the party.

Well when the Ukulele got brought out, Nitten, Polonious in the play, got a hold of it and was just playing random tunes. Before the night was over, Nitten was playing Ukulele, Eric and I were “drumming” on the table and everyone else was harmonizing to the song. It’s amazing how musically inclined this culture is. Nitten would start a song that only like three people knew so those three would sing the melody and everyone else, like 12 other Marshallese people, would pick up on the melody and harmonize with it after only hearing it for like 20 seconds. It was amazing. We ended up singing about 20 songs along the shore outside Tide Table. Nitten, Paul, Darryl and some other kid also had a quartet and they sang two Marshallese songs in perfect four part harmony before it was all over. It was simply amazing. I loved it so much just because it was such a relaxed setting and we were all having a good time.

After that Eric and I headed to Tide Table to get some food. I ordered some chicken wings and fries. We were pretty hungry. Sarah, a Dartmouth ’09 teaching on Laura, was there and spoke and talked to us for a while. After waiting for our food for about 45 minutes Laura asked us, “How long have you guys been waiting.” We answered about 45 minutes. So then the guy at the bar next to Sarah turned around and said, “45 Minutes? Really. Hold on.” So this guy gets up and walks over towards the kitchen and starts talking. Eric went over to talk to him, meanwhile Sarah was telling me about how much of a big shot this guy is. So about four minutes later our food was out and before we finished talking with this guy, Kurt, he invited us on his boat Sunday to go out to Enamanit one of the outer islands.

So after we made the deal with Kurt to go to his island, we saw someone we recognized walking around Tide Table. Eric identified him as Clenny. For those of you who don’t remember, Clenny was the main musical attraction for the Defender condom launch earlier on in the stay. During warmup for the condom launch, Clenny was playing one of his songs, and Eric and I decided to play our drums along with him. So he came over and after some small talk said that we should all jam sometime. We said we wanted a CD to take back to the states so we could get him a record deal or get him on MTV or something. So Eric and Clenny exchanged numbers and we are waiting for the jam session text from the “Island sensation musical artist” Clenny.

So when we finally got back to the trailer we told everyone about our networking escapades and then I watched Love and Basketball before going to bed.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Day 43

February 11, 2010

Day 43:

Cassiano came first thing in the morning to fix the power. The lights were out, the A/C was out and the stove and oven were out also. Somehow the outlets in the kitchen and living room still worked. I waited around for Cassiano and he eventually fixed the problem. Just after he left I wanted to take a shower before going to class but I couldn’t because the water wasn’t working. I had the shower running and then all of a sudden it just stopped. They were, at the exact time I wanted to take a shower, fixing the water problem. Class went really well. I had the kids draft up letters to send to my family back at home. I wrote Janice, Curtis, Rachel, Karen, Cameron, Elani and Chris on the board. I had the kids volunteer who they wanted to write to. Everyone raised their hand for Elani and some requested CeeJay. So I added CeeJay to the list. Still only about six kids volunteered so I just assigned them to family members and they all began drafting their letters. That went well. Of course I had to tell Bobby to stay on track but everything else went well.

Also, yesterday I wrote the names of the kids who had missing work on the board for both classes. When I got to class today, Terri handed me missing work from every student that was there that day. I was stunned. Most of these kids don’t turn in work ever let alone put in extra work to get it in late. But they all did. Bolta was the only person that didn’t and he wasn’t in class even though I saw him during one of my walks yesterday and told him he better be in my class with his story done.

Fourth bell was great. Bobby still wasn’t there. He hasn’t been there in over a week. Supposedly he got suspended. Honestly, I don’t see how kicking him out of school and letting him run the streets of Majuro is going to help him at all. He’s in 7^th grade. He reminds me of so many kids that I went to Jr. High and High school with that got in trouble and were abandoned by the school system. Most of those kids ended up becoming drug addicts, drug dealers, criminals at a very young age. I could have been one of them but luckily I had someone in my ass every time I messed up. I don’t think Bobby has that and I would love to be that person, but if he’s not allowed to come to school then there’s nothing I can do about it.

Anyway, fourth bell was great today. They didn’t bother each other. They didn’t talk mess to each other. They wanted to write good letters and all of my students, boys and girls too, focused and diligently started the assignment.

After class I went to Tide Table for lunch and to type some emails for Garrod. After waiting for my club sandwich for an hour and a half, I went to write emails for Garrod. I don’t know why the service here is so slow. Like, they don’t even care if they’re slow. I guess it’s because their customers don’t get irate about it. Maybe next time I’ll just go straight hood and get real reckless and see if the following times I get my food more quickly.

Typing for Garrod was a doozy. I don’t even want to talk about it honestly, let’s just say there’s a clear generation gap there and I won’t be typing emails for him anymore. After that I walked back to the trailer and took about a 20 minute nap before going to basketball practice. When I got to the breezeway at the high school, I saw all of the basketball players sitting there with Tony. When I looked to the gym area I saw that the volleyball girls were there. We had been kicked out. Tony asked if it was okay to cancel practice until tomorrow. I asked if there was a schedule for the gym or anything and he said they decided today to make one. So now we have to coordinate gym usage for two volleyball teams and two basketball teams. I can’t say I didn’t see this eventually coming. But whatever, I need to be more chill about it. Everyone else is.

So, I went back to the trailer and proceeded to go to the Laundromat to do laundry and drop off a surprise for some people on the island. I got a ride from Angela, the World Teach Assistant Field Coordinator, to Good Earth. I walked back, and when I got to the shop with the Who Dat shirts, I’m not sure if I told you already, but I went back and bought one on Tuesday. When I was there I saw this really cute little boy who was the grandson of the store owner wearing a Reggie Bush jersey. Her son in law works for the Saints and so when I got to the store I told her that I work for Reggie Bush. For the skeptics, through ProCamps I am technically employed by Reggie Bush so that statement is not a fabrication. So today I took the Reggie Bush autographed camp cards that I have and gave it to the little man. I don’ think he has any idea what it is or who it is but maybe one day he’ll appreciate it.

I walked back to the trailer and finally found somewhere with pencils on the island. So I bought four mechanical pencils with lead before making it back home. Twice on the walk back two little boys stopped me and started beat boxing. They must have been at the Assumption Talent Show Disaster. LOL. I thought it was absolutely hilarious. The roughly 40 minute walk was pretty hot so I just wanted to chill out when I got back to the trailer. Eric then came up with the bright idea to go meet up with the gospel choir and go get donuts with them like they do after rehearsal everyday. So we walked out to the place in Rita where they get donuts everyday. It was a nice walk. I like Rita. The people are always nice, the children ALWAYS speak. Some of them were at the Rita Faith concert we had where Eric and I started our new handshake with the island: hit the rock, and pound the bows(elbows). It’s sweeping the island.

So on my walk back I saw Russell and the rest of our basketball team playing at the high school. I walked over and talked with him for a while. He was pretty drunk though. Which is why I sort of feel bad about this next part. He said that he had been fishing all day and on the boat he and his friends got to drinking. That’s fine and all. But after we left the high school, he invited John and I to his house. When we left we had, collectively, about 18-20 lbs of fish. He just gave us SO much fish. One fish was about two feet long and he says it runs for $150 in Japan. He gave it to us for free. The other bag was about 12-15 fish each about 9” a piece. And then he gave us some clam-like snack food. His reasoning, “You’re family.”

Despite the hardships of this island and the fact that they don’t have much, they treat us well. And of all the people I’ve met on this island they’ve treated me well. Russell especially. It’s people like him that exemplify happiness and the upkeep of humanity. I could see India.Arie writing a song about someone like him-similar to the guy in “There’s Hope”, I suggest you all check that out.

When I got back with the fish Anna was cooking. About three minutes later the power went out again on the campus. The power was out for about two hours and I just sat there in the living room while Cassiano and his men figured out the problem. It was about 8 when the power went out and it came back on around 10:30 I guess, so 2.5 hours. When it came back on I FINALLY was able to take the shower that I had been waiting on. It was amazing. Cold water and all, it was just so hot in the trailer without A/C. The Oceanside breeze was great but it also brought with it a light mist which wasn’t a desired side effect.

After my shower, I played some Bubble Spinner, a new game that Eric has me addicted to, made myself a midnight grilled cheese, brewed some tea, and went to bed.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Day 42

February 10, 2010

Day 42:

When I got to class today, Terri and the social studies teacher were seated in the class alone with Jamu and Jim. About six students were gathered outside the class looking in during their recess. Turns out Jim and Jamu got into a fight during the last class and had to be sent to the principals office. The teachers were scolding them pretty hard when I got there. It was in Marshallese though so I didn’t understand most of it. Terri then told me about what happened.

It was really hard to get the class back in line, mentally, for learning. This was usually my better class and coming off of recess they usually have tons of energy. But today they were all pretty quiet minus about three kids who I relied on to answer most of my questions. They eventually livened up and finished their work. I had them write a letter to someone at home about what they did in school today. Most of them wrote about learning grammar, a couple talked about the fight, but they ALL started their letters something like this “First, I would like to thank our heavenly Father for such a beautiful day. Ok,…” It caught me off guard the first time I saw it but then I saw it repeated over and over and over again. I wonder what the dynamic between parents and children is here now where they feel compelled to Thank God to begin a letter to their parents. I’m not knocking it at all, I’m just curious to see that interaction at home.

Fourth period was dead as usual. It’s like pulling teeth getting some of them to talk or even copy what I’m writing. It’s amazing how eager they are to copy each other and how apprehensive they are to copying me. And I’m the one with ALL the right answers in class. No they’d prefer to copy the kid who shows up twice a week because he finished first. I don’t get it.

After class I came back to the trailer and made a grilled cheese before sitting in on Edie’s English class. She’s expressed frustration about what to do with the kids and so her and I talked over a few options for assignments or lessons. She’s been pretty open to my ideas so I decided I’d sit in on her class. That was interesting. The dynamic was very interesting there because there were 4 boys and about 20 guys. Edie was really good with them though. Her teacher personality is really good. After that I wrote some more of my story and then headed to try to see if basketball was on.

Finally, we had a basketball practice. In fact, I am the JV coach and varsity assistant. These kids are pathetic athletes. I’m starting to regret the decision to help out because, honestly, I care for the game of basketball far too much to just sit on the bench and sub kids in. But these kids know NOTHING about basketball. They don’t know what a screen is. They don’t know how to jump when they shoot. They don’t know that their left hand exists. They don’t know how to cut someone off on defense. They don’t know how to catch. They don’t know how to actually look at someone when you pass to them. They don’t know how to dribble. They don’t know how to do anything. And I can just see this whole situation stressing me out WAY too much. I tried to teach them pick and roll today and that was a struggle. After that Tony wanted to scrimmage and I’m thinking most of my practice from here on out will be scrimmaging because teaching basics is a lost cause.

After that, I came back and started cooking. Garrod bought some $35 shrimp last time he cooked but had no idea how to 1) thaw out the shrimp, 2) de-shell the shrimp, 3) prepare the shrimp, or 4) cook the shrimp. So why he bought the most expensive shrimp in Majuro I don’t know. So I turned on Bad Boys 2 and began de-shelling the shrimp. I started thawing it before practice. So for dinner tonight I just sautéed the shrimp in butter and olive oil (I’m tired of soy sauce shrimp). I also made some mashed potatoes from the leftover baked potatoes from Monday, glazed some carrots which I had been craving and cooked a piece of sirloin that had been sitting around for a while. It was pretty good. I enjoyed a hearty meal. I think I’ll eat at the resort tomorrow though, its just bigger portions. Cooking for 10 is so hard because you cook a lot of food and before you know it it’s gone.

I was in bed getting ready to go to sleep when the power went out. It went out for about an hour and turns out that this whole side of the island was out of power. Since most of the houses don’t have power anyway, the majority of the people didn’t know it other than the absence of street lights. Taxi’s lit up the street pretty well anyway. So here on campus, nothing worked. Eric and I walked back to the library where Ben, Derek, Robyn and Peter were. They were just camping out chillin waitin for the lights to come back on. We convinced them to come back to the trailer with us and right before we left the power came back on.

Back at the trailer the power was on but the A/C wasn’t and neither was the oven or stove. So Eric, Derek and I took our mattresses to the girls’ trailer where we slept in their living room in A/C. We’re going to call Cassiano in the morning to see if he can come fix the problem, whatever it is.

Day 41

February 9, 2010

Day 41:

In class today I continued with the punctuations. They all understood it pretty well so the class ran fairly smoothly. Nothing big happened in class today. Nothing big happened at all today actually. After class I came back to the trailer and took a nap before attempting to go to basketball practice. That never happened, Tony had just posted the teams and so the guys weren’t prepared with shoes nor shorts to play in. Go figure! So I came back to the trailer and wrote some more of my story until it was time to eat.

For dinner tonight I cooked meatloaf, with fried potatoes and sautéed onions and peppers, and I scrambled eggs with onions for the vegetarians. It was a success Ben requested me to make the meatloaf again when my rotation to cook comes up again. I can probably make that happen. After dinner I did some lesson planning, played some games, watched some Friends and passed out.

Also today I accepted the fact that my cell phone is now lost. I had been carrying it for clock purposes and occasional music use during long walks, and it must have fallen out of my pocket in a taxi. I can’t think of anywhere else it could be. The good thing about this, is that I took out the SIM card as soon as I got to Majuro, so I won’t have to get a new number or anything like that. I just need to buy a phone. The bad news, when my cell phone would be working, when I get to Hawaii, I won’t have one. Maybe I’ll find a T-Mobile store in Honolulu and buy a phone, but we shall see.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Day 37-40

February 5-8, 2010

Day 37 - 40

I owe you all an apology for not being on my game lately. I’ve gotten wrapped up in this story and random things about the island that has distracted me from blogging daily. So it’s now Monday night here on the island and I’ve got to fill you in on the many things that have happened from last Friday night up until now. I’m sure I’ll forget some things and choose to omit others but I promise to hit on the big points.

Friday:

The kids finished up their stories and most of them turned them in. A few of them didn’t and we talked and I semi-scolded them. The high school was out at noon because of parent teacher conferences. So play rehearsal started at 1:00. Basketball had been pushed back to Monday now for some reason. Tony just seems like he doesn’t want to practice; which is the vibe I got before I even met Tony. I was under the impression that the school just announced when they had a game and a group of guys just showed up and played. I’m okay with that honestly, it would take a lot of stress off me as a coach. Anyway, I went back to the trailer and worked on my story some more. I think I may have even taken a nap. When I woke up it was just about time to go to MIR for dinner. I got the Mexican buffet again and definitely got my money’s worth this time. Eric missed school and hadn’t been feeling great so after we both finished, we left and came back to the trailer. We played a few games of Bananagrams at our trailer before we all retired to the bed. I wrote a few more pages in my story and passed out for the night.

Saturday:

I did my typical Saturday thing, yet again. Went to MIR for breakfast, workout, shower and internet. Skype wasn’t working very well so my calls with Elani and the fam got dropped after about a minute. That was pretty disappointing. I got to chat with them for a while though, so I guess some communication is better than none at all. After catching up on all my Tweets, unsuccessfully uploading pictures and checking in with everyone back at home, I started walking back to the trailer.

Since being here, my walking conditioning has greatly increased. I used to taxi everywhere but after my many taxi escapades, not always having quarters and wanting to see the island, I’ve started walking much more. So I made the roughly 2.5 mile walk back to the trailer. On the way, outside Majuro’s Best BBQ, I saw a tent that was selling “Who Dat” shirts for the New Orleans Saints. It said something like Super Bowl XLIV Marshall Islands on it. I really wanted one but didn’t have the cash to buy it then. I vowed to come back and find it. Ally was walking with me and we had a great talk about America’s involvement in the Marshalls and whether or not its warranted, effective, necessary or wanted. It was a very good conversation. I’m glad we had it. The topic ended up arising later on in the weekend as well.

Edie got invited to go on a boat ride out to Arno so she was gone all day. She got back right as we were leaving for the gospel Choir concert. We passed her right outside RRE. We left the trailer walking to Assumption Catholic Church at 6:50 with the belief that we’d be late for the 7:00 start time. We clearly forgot where we were. We got to the church and Samifua wasn’t even there yet. We ended up not going on stage until 9:00 and we were slated to be first. They bumped us back because not enough of us showed up on time. Eric still wasn’t feeling well.

When Samifua did arrive, he told us that the pianist had recently informed him that he couldn’t perform. Something came up in his family. So it was about 8:15 when we found out we had no pianist and Samifua didn’t even get the percussion stuff for Eric and I because of it. Totally understandable. So Eric caught a taxi and went back to sleep in the trailer. I stuck around and figured I’d just sing since I knew most of the songs anyway.

So we decided that we’d just do our acapella songs: a Fijian song, and the MIHS alma mater. I knew neither. So I knew enough of the words, at least the vowel sounds, to BS my way through that song. I had to implore the ever popular technique of motuhing “Watermelon cantaloupe” on parts that I didn’t know. With the Fijian song though, I had no chance. I didn’t know the melody. Had never heard the song. I was screwed. So I learned enough of those words to make do. Luckily, Valeria, one of the other teachers in the choir, a Fijian lady, wrote the lyrics for me. For us. Anna didn’t know the words either. So we agreed we’d stand next to each other and take turns looking down at this cheat sheet. So I stood with this paper trying to hide it in my palm and we alternated times looking down at it which was painstakingly obvious. Mostly because Anna, at 5’10” is a legit head and a half above the rest of the altos. After about two peeps she resorted to watermelon cantaloupe. She even threw in the “Rancho Cucamanga” that I suggested. I eventually figured out the vowel sounds well enough to fake like I knew what I was doing. Next, though, was the highlight of the night.

We had gone over our set list in the back and Samifua alluded to the fact that we may try to sing Soon and Very Soon acapella which we had never done before. Usually we have the accompaniment of drums, bongos and a keyboard. So I tell him, I really think we need some percussion for that song. A few people agreed with me. I don’t know where this thought came from nor how it entered my head but I then asked him, “can just beatbox it?” He said yes. So now I’m stuck in this beat boxing predicament. So I decide I’m just gonna go out and have fun with it. Yeah, so we sing the first two songs. And so we’re on stage and there’s only one mic and that song has three soloists and I sort of need a mic for myself to do this beat box thing. So I ask if there are any other mics. Turns out the announcer off to our left towards the back of stage has one. Except the cord isn’t very long. So I have to walk over to the announcer booth and stand there the duration of the song while beat boxing the rhythm to “Soon and Very Soon”. I must have been way to excited at first but I started off with a sick hip-hop high hat with a rim shot snare. And about halfway through the first chorus, I was EXHAUSTED. I had zero air left in my lungs so I’m sure the audience could hear me inhaling like I was drowning repeatedly throughout the song and clearly slowing down the tempo of the song. It was rough. I had fun though and all the kids laughed with me/at me as we exited back stage. So we walked back to the trailer and told Eric about it. He DIED. I then watched the video that Robyn or Ally shot from the audience. It was pretty bad because the audience didn’t really react to us at all, and so they talked the whole time and also the acoustics of the stage arena, it was a parking garage, weren’t really conducive for us so the sound died before it even got to like the 6^th row. All you could hear was the solo and me beat boxing like an idiot. It was fun though. I’d rather do that in Majuro than in Hanover or Cincinnati.

So I’m back in the trailer, it’s midnight and I’m writing and John comes over from his trailer. Turns out its his birthday. So I go over to say Happy Birthday and after they shoved several jello shots down my throat I ended up going out with them to the two bars here on the island. I made it back to the trailer at 4 a.m., in just enough time to get a solid 6 hours of sleep before waking up to drive out to Laura.

Sunday:

I woke up feeling pretty rested actually and went to breakfast at Dar with Eric, Ben and Heather, a Dartmouth grad. We met Ally and Peter there. We then headed back to the trailer to catch a ride from Anna Z. to Laura. Laura is the northern most tip of the Majuro island and the prettiest beach on the island. 15 total people packed into Anna’s truck. Ten of us in the bed of her pickup and five people in the cab. I won’t get into details but I almost died three times on the way there and once on the way back. And it’s not because we were squished ten deep in the back. Anna just can’t drive. I saw her texting a few times when I looked through the window. Apparently she was dancing as well. I literally almost fell off three times on the way there. One time she swerved at about 40 mph to miss a fallen palm leaf. Another time she didn’t see a speed bump and slammed on breaks, burning rubber, from about 40 mph. I actually got pretty mad about the whole thing. There were only 13 of us on the way back so we had a little more room but it was still a rough ride. I’ll never ride with her again.

After we got back from Laura we had to walk up to Rita Faith Assembly of God for another Gospel choir concert. Anna, Eric, Ben and I walked up together. It’s only about 15 minutes away from our trailer and about 7 of those minutes are spent just getting off the campus of the high school. When we got there at about 7:10, there were only three other gospel choir members there. Samifua told us that he expected us to go on about eight. So we sat through the whole church service which was eerily similar to a southern Baptist service minus the Marshallese. It was a very energetic preacher though, and even though I have no idea what he was saying, I took a liking to him. Before the sermon they identified us and made the four of us stand up and be recognized by the church. Then the whole church screamed “Yokwe” as they threw their hands at us. It was kind of scary. We were not expecting that at all, and through the broken English we all got the sense that he was talking about us but hoped that it wasn’t true.

So the preacher preached and then said a prayer and then dismissed the church. So we all sat there looking at each other like, you’ve gotta be kidding me. This guy just forgot we’re here. So Samifua walked up to meet him and remind him that we were performing at the end of the service. So he announced us and surprisingly most of the people came back into the sanctuary and took their seats.

We didn’t have the bongos but we did have our drum set. We went acapella for the first two songs and then I played for “We Exalt Thee” and then we ended with “Caribbean Medley” which Eric played and I sang. Samifua got carried away with this one. It was so stereotypical of a gospel choir director but he just kept vamping the song. About eight times. And then he finally signaled the end; the drums and the keyboard dropped out. And then he signals for us to stand there, and after about ten seconds of applause we came back in and sang about 3 or 4 more verses. It was very energetic though; the crowd felt it and there was one guy in a sound room above the balcony that was ROCKING OUT! I’m pretty sure he didn’t realize we were watching him but he was definitely enjoying himself. There’s a Christian rock song where the chorus goes “I wanna sing like nobody’s listening, I wanna dance like no one’s around…” This guy was certainly doing that. It was heartwarming. I found out today that our concert was broadcast on the radio and apparently that guy was the radio guy.

After the concert finally ended we took pictures with the pastor, mingled with the kids and walked back. I was pretty spent from the day so I reserved all of my lesson planning for this morning and passed out.

Monday:

Class went well for the most part. A lot of people in fourth period weren’t there. Third period was great as always. I introduced our new two week lesson plan – punctuation. Today we started with end marks so we only did periods, question marks and exclamation points. They grasped it pretty quickly. Fourth period actually finished the worksheet faster than third period did, probably because there were less people and they all just cheated off each other, so I let them out early. The other reason why I let them out early was because by the time I passed out the worksheet, the Super Bowl had already kicked off. So I had to get off campus ASAP to see the game. Well, the resort had a huge screen brought in to watch the game and an all you can eat sandwich and Mexican buffet. It was pretty good, not quite worth the money though we decided. I met Eric there and Robyn joined later. After the game, Congratulations Saints by the way, Robyn and I walked to Payless to buy the food that we’d be cooking. It’s our turn again. I ran into some people with those Who Dat Marshall Islands shirts on and so I asked one of the ladies where they got them from. Turns out they had them made themselves because her brother-in-law works for the Saints. So they were buying wine and headed to celebrate.

I had to finish cooking to be back to school for our first basketball practice at 3:30. Of course when I get there, Tony’s not there and he roster still isn’t posted. So I went back to the trailer to wait until time to cook. I cooked steak, baked potatoes and wanted to do some glazed carrots but the carrots that we bought, fresh from the Payless freezer with an expiration date of 06/10, yeah, those carrots had mold/freezer burn all over them. So we couldn’t do that which completely complicated our vegetarian option. So I had to throw together a salad which I didn’t particularly like but I felt bad. It was just lettuce, onions, broccoli and apples. I don’t know how it turned out and judging by the fact that I got no feedback on it, I don’t think it was very good. I did announce that the vegetarian option was in fact my plan B because Plan A was ruined.

After dinner I went to the library to catch up on some emails and then came back to the trailer to write this. I joined Edie in the girls’ trailer since everyone else was in the library and she and I hadn’t seen each other since Friday because of our schedules. We ended up watching three episodes of Friends and then I came back to the room to pass out.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Day 36

February 4, 2010

Day 36:

Terri wasn’t there again today. I think I forgot to mention on Monday, but she wasn’t there on Monday either. The classes were pretty good today though. A lot of them finished up their stories, at least in my third period class they did. I even got Bobby to finish up a page. In fourth period, lesser progress was made but progress was made. I got three people to finish up their stories and turn them in. One was Bilisa whom I met for the first time this Monday. She wrote a story, got it approved, drew pictures and all in four days. I even saw her helping out some of the other girls in class. She’s nice to have around. I notified two of them that they’re going to get F’s because they won’t have finished the project by Friday. Kalani and Jota, these two girls just will not do work. Kalani finally finished up a story yesterday but waited until the end of the class to show it to me so I couldn’t look over it. I told her to bring it back to me and she never did. Jota, she just gives me the cutest, innocent smile when I ask for her work but never brings it. Then I go and stand by her desk to see if I can just look at her work from there and she puts her head in her arms and lays on the desk so I can’t see anything. And she WILL NOT move. She’ll sit like that all class. So I told them they were going to get an F and they don’t seem to be fazed by it which is sad. I’ve expressed this before but these kids aren’t motivated by grades at all. I was hoping that having some fun in class by drawing and coloring would motivate them to do more work but I’ve come to the conclusion that they’ve never colored in class before. They didn’t jump at the opportunity nearly as much as I expected them to. I guess that’s my fault for having expectations.

Between third and fourth period I cornered Tony in his car and asked him what the deal was with basketball. He said that he had the teams made up but hadn’t posted them yet and that he wanted to start by Monday. He also said the first game is February 17. So now we’re pushing back the practice start date to Monday and the first game is two weeks away. Whatever.

I went to Tide Table for lunch because I had missed a meal somewhere and it finally caught up to me. I needed a hearty, juicy burger to fill me up again. After I got back from Tide Table I worked on the computer and then went to play rehearsal. I left play rehearsal early on to go finish up something I was doing on the computer, when I came back they were just coming back together. The actors are certainly getting better at making the part theirs. They’ve now seen three movies of Shakespeare and have seen their roles in three different lights and it’s nice to see them put their own spin to the part.

After that I went to basketball practice for the team I play on – not the one I coach. Six or seven guys showed up and we went over some plays. Well one play. I’ve said before that the only defense they play on the island is 2-3. So I drew up a simple 2-3 zone offense which is basically 3 around 2, with someone always at the high and low block. It was a very simple play, and its more like an offense than it is a set play even though it became that. These guys just don’t know basketball. X’s and O’s don’t exist to them. I had to show one guy what a screen was because he’d never seen it before. These guys are in their 20s and I’m positive that the first team I ever played on, the Sycamore Wolfpack, had better basketball sense. John and I, after a while, decided to forget it and just play. So we challenged some young guys that were playing on another court so that we could practice our new offense. It’s so interesting to see how as a culture, Marshallese don’t retain information very long. I’ll show an example of something ten times in class and then show them the same example on paper and four people in the class will get it wrong. We ran over this play about 20 times, with and without defenders, and when we got into the game situation, they threw it out the door as if we hadn’t just spent 30 minutes on this one play. John and I tried to get them in the right positions while we were scrimmaging but the other team was quite determined to play us hard. We weren’t looking to score at all really. We ended up losing to those guys, a bunch of scrubs, and not making any huge gains in our offense. John and I decided that one of us would have to play the post and the other would have to play the wing. If only one of us is in at a time though, we’re screwed.

After that I came back to the trailer where Peter was cooking. He made a pasta with cottage cheese, broccoli and a Slovakian soup. I just ate the pasta which was VERY good. After that I helped Robyn with a crossword that she had found in the newspaper. Professor Garrod ended up helping us as well and we still never completed it.

After that I came into my room where Eric was watching a movie. Eric came home sick from school today and hasn’t looked very good. He says he thinks he’s dehydrated and his head feels very heavy. Well, I came into the room and began working on the computer and somewhere got the motivation to write a story. So I began a story last night about a boy named Jay who is a high school basketball phenom and his motivations to be the greatest of his generation. There are many undertones to the actually story itself which I will explain once the story is done. I guess I’ll post some excerpts on here periodically.

After plotting out the first half of the story, and writing the first three pages, I killed another roach, Raided my room again, and fell asleep.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Day 35

February 3, 2010

Day 35:

My day started with me waking up early to get some work done, fixing myself a nice breakfast and semi-lounging around the trailer until time to teach. Once I got to school, I put my stuff in the room and was looking through my Marshallese Language book when Barren, a kid in my fourth period class approached me. He was one of the boys I sent to the office yesterday for showing up 30 minutes late. They didn’t let him try out for the basketball team because he skipped my class, per Shoniber, the middle school coach. He said he wanted to go to practice today so I said, go up and ask him if you can. He then told me he was scared of this guy which is completely warranted. This guy is a straight asshole to these kids, most of the teachers and even the principals. He was the one going off on everybody in the teacher’s lounge a couple weeks ago when the school wouldn’t kick out a kid who missed 20 days. The guy doesn’t really scare me but I could see how he scares everyone else. Also, I have nothing against the guy personally. He has yet to disrespect me in anyway so I have no reason to disrespect him. Now, I wouldn’t ask him to go get a beer either. I just have yet for him to give me a reason not to treat him fairly. Well anyway, Barren asked if he could come to practice. And Shoniber, as usual, was a douche to him. They spoke in Marshallese the whole time and so I had no clue what he was saying. Eventually Shoniber told him to show up after school. My presence certainly had some weight in his decision because he was not budging at all. My philosophy about the whole situation, though, is that if you tell this kid he can’t play ball then that gives him one less reason to want to come to school. Let this kid try out and maybe he’ll come to class more regularly for the simple fact that he can play ball. So that went fairly well.

In class, third period was a little wound up today. I just overcome the apparent ADD that has invaded my class. I honestly believe a third of my students have ADD/ADHD and my fourth period is even more. There was a period when I watched Bobby, 3^rd period Bobby, and actually saw the Attention deficit. I told him to sit down and draw. He sat down but didn’t have any paper or a pencil. So I actually saw him look at his stuff and realize that he was missing something but he couldn’t figure it out. So then I called his name and asked what he was doing. Side note: between third period Bobby and Fourth period Bobby I say Bobby at least 60 times a day; I’m gonna count tomorrow. So I remind Bobby what he needs, he gets that “Oh Yeah” face and then comes back to the desk to get some colored pencils and a piece of blue paper. Then he sits down and completely has no idea what he’s going to do. So he drops his pencil on the ground, reaches to pick it up and then I lost him – he saw someone behind him and started listening to their conversation. I thought it was funny at the time but it’s really not, this kid cannot concentrate on anything and the school only has Special Ed programs for people with physical impairments.

Fourth bell was amazing today. I don’t know what it was about them but they didn’t talk trash to each other. They didn’t hit each other. They were little angels. Everyone did some sort of work, except Jota and she never does ANYTHING. Even Kalani showed me her story that I had been asking for for three days. Now she has two days to draw pictures for it.

After class Terri and I talked about how we were gonna get through to two of the slower students: Jefferson and Henchi. Jefferson is by far the slowest student I have. He doesn’t understand English, he hardly understands Marshallese and he never communicates so I don’t know if he’s smart or not. Terri works one on one with him a lot and she was just so defeated today by him. She showed me an exercise she did with him and she just didn’t know what else to do with him. We eventually decided that we needed to start back with phonics because he’s just that far behind.

After that I went back to the teacher’s lounge at the high school and did stuff online until about 2:30. Around then I went to the trailer changed and got ready for practice. I went to the courts a little early and wrote out a practice schedule. I waited there close to an hour while watching the middle school kids practice when I decided to go back and check around the school for Tony. Turns out Tony hadn’t even posted teams yet. So I went to play rehearsal and there I found out from the character Horatio, Paul, that Tony had left school about a half hour before school was over. So I stuck around play practice and went upstairs with Edie to work with the Ophelias and Laertes. It was nice to get to see them on a smaller scale outside of being in front of the whole group. I mostly worked on some more Marshallese while I was there but I chimed in and watched every once in a while.

After that we all went back to the trailer where I continued in the Marshallese book until Eric finished cooking. He had prepared a chicken parmesan, a zucchini ( I think) stir fry and some macaroni noodles that he had prepared with some sort of seasoning- I didn’t recognize it. It was a good meal though. After eating we all dispersed. I went over to the girls trailer to go over some Marshallese with Edie and Anna. They had just been asking their students about how to say certain things. I’d been studying the book, so we had a lot to offer each other. They gave me pronunciations and I gave them reasons why certain words are used and some vocabulary. It was quite productive. I now know seven different tenses in Marshallese and four different types of pronouns. The next step for me is to get some natives to say these words for me so I can hear how it sounds from the natives. I can conjugate present, past and future now, though, which is nice.

Lastly, I’m beginning to get annoyed. Today as I was leaving the library to go to a different room with Edie, the Ophelias and Laertes, I noticed on the tack board right outside the library where teachers post announcements, I noticed that my name was written four different times on or around the tack board. Apparently, when I talk about this it sounds like I’m bragging about it and I’d like to make it public that this is nothing to brag about. It’s annoying. Genuinely. Apparently, I can’t talk to anyone here about it without seeming like a douche either, so this is officially the last time I will mention anything about the high school girls in relation to me. I genuinely don’t want these girls to know that I live on campus though. I’m not sure if I mentioned it or not, but the first day we moved in, I went into the trailer to get something before going somewhere, and when I came out, like 5 minutes later, there were 7 girls standing outside the trailer looking at me and giggling when I came out. That’s just not cool with me. If you wanna speak to me, then by all means speak, I’m a nice person I’ll talk to you. Maybe even in Marshallese now. But the little shenanigans they pull are annoying. Anyway, I’m done rapping. Until next time, from Majuro, bar lo kom!! (the right way to say it. I read it in a book)

Majuro

Friday, February 26, 2010

Day 57

Day 56

day 55

day 55

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Day 54

Day 53

Day 52

Friday, February 19, 2010

day 51: a situation of life and death

Thursday, February 18, 2010

day 49

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Day 48

Day 47

Monday, February 15, 2010

day 46

Day 45

Day 44

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Day 43

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Day 42

Day 41

Monday, February 8, 2010

Day 37-40

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Day 36

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Day 35

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