day 69

March 9, 2010

 

Day 69:

 

 

Boy oh boy was today a stressful, annoying day. The day started with me waking up almost an hour later than I usually do. My internal clock is usually much more reliable but this morning I was just exhausted. I didn’t have anything terribly important to do, though, so it wasn’t too big of a deal. I went to puzzlemaker.com and made a crossword and word search puzzle for my diligent kids. I figured they’d enjoy that and have a fun academic experience.

            While my diligent kkids were completing their puzzles, the majority of the class was still working on their review packets. I spent the whole day at my desk looking over the kids’ review packets and pointing out their individual mistakes. It’s amazing how many times one can hear the same thing and not process it. There were, at all times, at least three people at my desk and almost every time, they all had the same mistakes. This happens for two reasons. The first reason is, none of them can come up on their own so they copy the work from each other and then turn in the same packet at the same time. Hence the reason they all have the same incorrect answers. The second reason is, although they turn them in at the same time I can only look at one of them at a time. So while I’m explaining the mistake to the first kid, the second kid just isn’t paying attention. I don’t want to embarrass the kid just because he turned in his packet first but its almost better for me to use his incorrect example for everyone that’s standing at my desk. Occasionally, some people, mostly girls will hear my comments to one student and return to their desk to fix that same mistake. That’s encouraging. But far more commonly, the kids just don’t pick up on these things.

            Also, it’s amazing how terrible these kids’ retention is. Before, it was clear to me that the kids can’t retain information from one day to the next. As the term has gone on, I’m realizing that they often can’t retain information from one page to the next. The bottom of page one is “The Forms of Be”, the top of page two is “An application of the Forms of Be”. These kids literally don’t understand that they can look at page one and get ALL the answers to page 2. Like they just don’t understand how lessons work together; how one tense builds off of the other; how the adjective lesson built off of the noun lesson. It’s astonishing. It goes to show the impact of nature vs. nurture.

            So many people argue that things like intelligence and personality is innate and encrypted in our genetic code. I used to be pretty unsure and impartial to either. I have a firm opinion now though. It’s clear to me that if these kids aren’t pushed and challenged cognitively by a certain age then they simply can’t think critically. And what I’m doing is nowhere near critical thinking. I wonder what they do here for their kids so that they develop. I also wonder how long it took this culture to learn to fish. I mean that’s very much a trial and error activity and it’s the backbone of this economy and recreation in the Marshall Islands. They merely don’t retain information. I wonder how often they try to catch a tuna with a nightcrawler and realize it won’t work. Every day? I mean by the transitive property, every time they go out to fish they start with the same ineffective bait as they did before regardless of how successful the minnow or blue gill may have been.

            So that was pretty frustrating. I had to spend ten minutes with Barren, in my fourth period, explaining that no matter what the sentence says if the subject is “I” the be verb  is “am. If the subject is “he/she/it” the be verb is “is”. And if the subject is “you/they/we” the be verb is “are”. Then he seemed to get it. He went back to his seat, and when he came back to show me his new work, he had the same mistakes he had just reorganized the words. I was just so frustrated.

            Anyway, after class I went down towards town to check on our T-shirt orders for the play. Garrod has put me in charge of T-shirts so I had to go see how they were coming. Turns out, despite the check I handed the check in today, that they could print them by 4 which means they would have been ready for opening. They only printed half which actually works out better for us. I had lunch at Tide Table, watched William and Mary and Old Dominion on ESPN, hadn’t seen a college hoop game in a couple weeks, and then went back to the trailer for a nap.

            I knew it was going to be a long day but I didn’t know nearly quite how long. When I woke up I went back to get the shirts and two more bulbs for the set. Derek joined me. When we got back, Garrod had called a meeting with us all in which he pretty much thanked us for all that we were doing. The first show of appreciation that I’ve seen from him on this trip honestly. Usually he’s running around yelling at actors or barking at one of us but he clearly stated that he was appreciative of our work today. Edie and Anna were doing stuff for the play during the meeting but when he asked if anyone had comments, I made it a point to suggest that he pull Edie and Anna aside and tell them the same thing that he told us because I’m sure they could use hearing that considering their stress levels lately.

            So we opened tonight. Of course, things could never go smoothly ever, let alone on opening night. The play was scheduled to start at 7:00 p.m. On Marshallese time that means like 8:30. Well at about 6:30 the power went out in the library which is where we were doing make-up. Luckily the power at the building from which the set was getting its power was still on. The power going out, of course, meant that the A/C was out and so we were in the library which is hot as is, with about 40 people and no lights. I left. Just after the A/C came back on in the library, it started raining. So of course no one was going to come to the play now. WE ended up having about 60 people show up.  The audience has chairs set for about 250, so it looked super empty. Samifua was back from the one year anniversary of his mother’s death in Seattle, so the gospel choir showed up and sang before the play, during intermission and at the end. They stayed and kept Eric and I company for most of the night.

            The play went well though. I think it’s far too long for any audience, let alone the Marshallese. We finished at about 11:10 and we started at about 7:15. So we’re talking about a four hour production. That’s pushing the line even on broadway, I don’t care if it is Shakespeare. Anyway, it was good to get the first night out of the way. After the play though, I made a realization. I don’t think it was anything terribly new for me but it was clear and the first time I verbalized it but, I don’t care about this play nearly enough to be here in the rain at 11:15 at night. When I realized that I went back to the trailer. I couldn’t sleep though. My mind was racing for about 40 minutes after laying down to sleep. I contemplated getting up and writing the final for the kids. Part of that came from the fact that I had just realized that I’ll be getting back from the play at this same time every night through Saturday and I have to grade 60 final exams before Friday. I’m not too excited about that. Hopefully Garrod won’t get too mad when I remind him that “teaching is our first priority and that nothing should get in the way of that.” But I very well may leave the play early on Thursday, or maybe not even come, so that I can grade these exams before class Friday.

            My last week here is supposed to be enjoyable. It’s not going to be enjoyable at all. Not until Saturday at about 11:30 when I can leave the set and ne’er return (Captain Barbosa voice from Pirate of the Caribbean). The Dartmouth folk contemplated setting the stage aflame after Saturday’s show. That was a joke even though, many of us wouldn’t mind seeing the end of Hamlet go up in smoke. I’m done with what I have to say but I’d like to end by describing a scene from last night’s dress rehearsal as told to me once by Professor Garrod and later, in a much better more suspenseful fashion, by Derek.

            The dress rehearsal was over, the bus was taking the kids back to their homes and all but five people were straggling behind. Those four people were Derek, Robyn, Jonathan, Professor Garrod and Scott Stege, husband of the Secretary of Education. They were giving the area a final look before heading back to the trailers when Derek noticed a pile of clothes in the middle of what would be the audience. Assuming it was someone’s left behind costume he went over to pick it up. When he got there he realized that it was not just a pile of clothes but that there was a boy wearing the clothes. Jonathan and Derek went over to attend to this. Jonathan poked the boy to get him to wake up. No reaction. Then he picked the boy’s arm up and when it fell limply back to the ground, Derek knew that something was wrong. He turned the boy over to find that his mouth was covered with foam and he was unresponsive. Derek checked for the pulse and, the way he told it to me was, “maybe I didn’t wait long enough, but I didn’t feel a pulse.” So then his life guarding background kicks in. He begins to give the kid CPR trying to resuscitate him. Meanwhile Jonathan is saying, “He doesn’t look too good.” Of course Derek then, either thinks or actually says, “No shit Sherlock!” Also, at this time, Robyn’s freaking out and screaming for help. So Garrod and Scott run over to attend to the boy and don’t really offer much more than moral support.

            “So I’m giving this kid CPR and if I’da given him three more thrusts I think I would have broken his ribs,” Derek told me. Finally the boy’s eyes shoot open like a zombie in a horror film. So then Derek pours water on this kids face and he eventually comes to. After debating between calling the ambulance or the police, they decided to hand him off to the night watchmen here at the school and let him handle it. As they were walking away, they noticed an empty bottle of vodka about 15 ft away from the boy under a tree.

            There’s a classic example of Marshallese culture. There’s no such thing as moderate or social drinking here. Either you’re sober or your pass out, black out, pulse-less drunk. Every Saturday and Sunday morning it’s so fun to just walk through Majuro and see the men sleeping on street benches or wobbling down the middle of the road. A lot of times they’re driving taxis or filling gas tanks. That’s part of why it doesn’t surprise me anymore that teachers come to school drunk. I think I mentioned it before but there’s one guy at the Middle School who I’m pretty sure is drunk at school two or three days a week. Everyone smells it but no one says anything to him or does anything about it. They’d rather poke fun at him or tell jokes about him to the principal. Yes TO the principal who then rebuts with a joke of his own. Warrar!!

            Okay, that’s really enough for today. Until next time, from Majuro, bar lo yok!