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 6th 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.
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