i am the bloozeman.

The Bloozeman Concludes. And Introduces!

2008-09-26T07:46:00.000-07:00

Yokwe aolep, and welcome to the weblog I kept during my year abroad in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

From July 2007 to June 2008 I lived, taught, and learned on a very small island in the equatorial Pacific, in a region called Micronesia. I was there as a volunteer with WorldTeach, a nonprofit NGO based at the Center for International Development at Harvard University that offers year-long and summer volunteer programs all over the world. They are truly a fantastic organization that I would recommend to anyone with an interest in volunteering and travel.

If you are just now happening upon this website and are curious as to what my experience entailed, I urge you to at least begin from the first post (July 2007) and then jump around should you feel inclined. If you happened upon this page and are not curious, please type [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere] into your browser’s address bar and spend a few minutes there. It will blow your mind.

The year that this blog details was one of the most incredible years of my life. I’d never felt such a range of emotion, at such intensity, ever before. Some of my best writing, music, and photography was inspired by and created in the Marshall Islands. And the paradox that humbles me to this day: I learned an absolutely immeasurable amount more about the World by living on an island of three square miles in the middle of the biggest ocean, wearing flip flops to work(!), than I ever did living in the richest country with high-speed internet and multi-thousand dollar higher education courses and curricula.

Inside you will find stories of yachting and spearfishing, school picnics gone awry, facts and figures, pictures and photographs, sociological mini-dissertations, tales of visitors (I had three!), the perils and perks of teaching, a video, and thoughts and ruminations on a peculiarly strange life in the equatorial Pacific, and, really, a whole lot more.

My contact information is in the side bar to the right should you desire to get a hold of me. I’ll be floating around Michigan for a while. At most, the contiguous U.S. And if you’re planning on traveling to the South Pacific sometime, let me know first. I know a few good places to go.

Love,
Ben

8 Weeks Later...

2008-07-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

Apparently I haven’t posted in two months. Why? I don’t have too much to say I guess. This is problematic in one major way: I haven’t officially concluded this weblog, and I want to. It is nearly every day that I consider this Marshall Islands travel diary and think, “you know, I ought to wrap that up already.” And then I don’t. Until NOW.

If I had to choose one word to sum up the last eight weeks of my life in Michigan, it would be “BUSY.” Great food… that didn’t take much getting used to. Cleanliness… who can complain about that? Having family and friends around (well, what friends there are even left in Michigan, that is) feels truly great. The hardest thing getting used to again is how I have structured life here in such a way that even if ample time is scheduled to “relax,” there is always something I could be doing. Going from a place where nine hours a day was spent lounging because there simply wasn’t much else to do, to coming back to a place where my to-do list can never be fully checked off, is quite an adjustment. I’m still adjusting to it. Where are these errands even coming from? Why are they on my list of things to do? What’s all this stuff in my pockets… car keys, wallet, cell phone, pens, loose change, receipts, banana, palm pilot, business cards. Why do I need all that??

Actually, I am well aware of why I need all that. Okay, fine, maybe I don’t need it, per se, but realistically, if I want to live here and make money and stay connected, I do need it. And I actually enjoy carrying it all around with me. I like America. I’m a fan. I enjoy its luxuries, its pace, its activism, its opportunities, its involvement. I enjoy Michigan too. A lot.

Since I have left the RMI, they have declared a state of economic emergency over rising fuel and food prices. The already-malnourished people are eating less and less as a result of rice price inflation, and the power company is struggling to keep the lights on. The new WorldTeach volunteers are in their first week on island, though standing a dozen fewer this year due to budget cuts.

It’s a bit strange to think that I spent the last year there, on that little island in that little country in that big ocean. And it’s stranger to have Google providing me with their news updates instead of reading their weekly paper every Thursday.

So what’ll I do now? Well, I start by shoving all that crap back in my pockets. Then I’ll try to put on a few pounds. And then I’ll progress with my life. I’ll take hot showers, wear a suit and tie, eat fine cheeses, go to community-organized events (that start on time!), get back in the loop, and, most importantly right now, find a way to earn some decent income while, in doing so, advancing the world a little.

But I’ll still keep that orange, nylon, velcro tri-fold wallet in my back pocket, just as a reminder to “lighten up a bit” when things get too serious around here.

The Bloozeman Re-Enters America

2008-05-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

I am writing this from a small metal table in front of a Starbucks in the Honolulu airport. There's a big green umbrella over me. I feel… fine. Like I’ve been away on some kind of long trip that suddenly feels a lot shorter than it actually was. Was that a year? Hm. Weird. But this coffee tastes absolutely phenomenal.

Boarding the plane in Majuro was fun. It was nighttime—8:00pm—and I walked right out on the runway, nearly underneath the airplane, and up that big staircase on wheels that connects to the side of the fuselage. Airplanes are very big things. Very big. Also I have been awake now for 27 hours.

After we took off I was delighted to learn that a meal would be served on this flight. I was even more delighted as I was eating this meal, because it tasted so very good (I am being very serious). And then, I couldn’t even finish it. It was just way too much food. So this is how it’s going to be, I thought. I can picture it already… “Yes I’d like three pieces of sushi please.” “Three rolls? Okay.” “No, just three individual pieces. That will be fine for me, thank you.”

Four and a half hours later we landed in Honolulu. The water… from the drinking fountains… it’s… potable? Fountains, of fresh water, free of giardia and e. coli and parasitic worms, flowing like crystal wine at the simple compression of a button! I felt like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, going from dancing in a loincloth on the beach exclaiming “I! I have created fire! Fiah!” to examining the click-on-click-off flame of a butane lighter with profound bewilderment in his hotel room in starched shirt and slacks after he was rescued. I approached with a certain caution and wonder. It was magnificent.

Then I walked upstairs and realized the sun was rising over, what are those, mountains? Is that… elevation? Is that an Audi? Excuse me, Miss, your legs are showing an incredibly obscene amount of skin. Is that even legal? I must avert my eyes now. Where’s the confession booth in this place?

This internet connection is insanely fast.

The pilot said the temperature was going to be nice and warm and mild, 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Very nice, I thought, should make for a smooth transition. Holy crap! I’m zipped up in a Patagonia over here! I can (almost) see my breath. Don’t they have those big heat grills in the ceiling anywhere in this airport? I’d like one of those. And wow, so many people know English here. Are you looking at me funny because a) I am speaking ridiculously slow and over enunciated, b) I just attempted to converse in Marshallese with you, or c) because I presently resemble the Encino Man?

I am sitting in a building that probably covers more area than the entire island I spent the last year on. There are Americans here, and people from other countries, lots of people, wearing all kinds of different clothing (or lack thereof) and piercings and hats and shades, ordering orange mocha frappucinos and stuff, with extra whipped cream and chocolate shavings and rose petals and fairy dust and magic beans or whatever you can get on them these days. I feel like I’m in some bizarro movie. I just saw a tiny old woman wearing a large sombrero, shouting something in a language I’ve never heard as she ran across my field of vision like a cartoon character. The large, rather formidable-looking dude next to me with the huge dreadlocks ordered something with a cherry on it and then promptly fell asleep in his chair. Some American girl is talking in an unnecessarily loud voice about things I would be surprised if she herself actually cared about. A little Asian boy next to me just packed down about six muffins and now may or may not be entering some kind of excessive-sugar/carb-induced shock.

And Ben sits at his computer and observes, takes notes, epiphanizes, stares into space, and thinks about where these particular coffee beans came from, how much oil was used throughout the process of growing, harvesting, transporting, and brewing these little brown seeds that bring pleasure to so many people.

So many people all around right now. It’s absolutely amazing.

Today, I leave.

2008-05-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I have officially completed my assignment in the Marshall Islands. The school year is over. My term is up. My students’ grades have been submitted, my classroom walls relieved of everything educational. The parties and picnics have come and gone, the last load of laundry laundered, my international phone card used up. Okay enough of the sentimental stuff.

I attended an “end-of-service” breakfast a few days ago with my field director and assistant field director, Tam and Jeremy. We talked about things that have happened since I got here last July. I signed some papers, submitted some forms, got my $1,500 deposit back (awesome), and now as a free man I go forth.

Here is a favorite question posed to me as of late: “How do you feel?”

I will tell you: I feel pretty great. I feel ready for something new. I feel accomplished. I feel older. I feel like “I seen a thing er two.” I feel like I could not have done anything more worthwhile and educational and challenging and fulfilling during the past year that would come anywhere even close to this. I also feel anxious and nervous and a bit unprepared to return to Michigan. And most of everything else I am feeling I cannot properly articulate. I probably never will be able to. I’m okay with that.

Above all, I really just can’t wait to come home to Marisa and my family. ...And good food. And friends. And Michigan weather, however erratic it may be. ... And my couch.

So once again, thank you for following along. I received some very nice feedback from this blog and it was a lot of fun for me to keep it up.

Komolol tata and barlokom! (Thank you all very much and see you soon)

Signing off from the Marshall Islands,

Ben

Picnic Pictures

2008-05-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

The Dynamite Pits.

The picnic wasn’t entirely filled with mayhem. Some students actually behaved sensibly. And early on I was actually smiling. But, in looking at this picture, I have to wonder… where are my legs?

Jumping into the dynamite pits. Rocky in the sky.

Donald in the sky.

Rocky on land.

Lunch. Mmmmmmm!

Manty

Geryann

Another Day In Paradise

2008-05-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

One week ago the school year ended. For whatever reason this was very anticlimactic. The last day of school felt like any other day of the year, with the exception that all the students were signing each other’s uniforms and being just a bit more destructive than I would have preferred. The climax, little did I know, would occur after the weekend passed…

The following Monday we took a class picnic together with the class next to ours. Just past the airport, which is about 8 miles away, there are a few picnic areas, and this was my students’ location of choice. We even got to take our “new school bus.” (The middle school recently acquired a bus. I am not quite sure how this happened. I do know, however, that the RMI National Band (perhaps a topic worthy of its own post) had a bus—a grey airport-shuttle-like bus— and they now do not. I also know that our new bus looks remarkable similar, if not identical, to the bus they used to have. And, just to prevent any confusion, there is an 8½ x 11 sheet of paper displaying the text “School Bus” taped to the inside windshield.)

For the following, a geological explanation may be necessary. If I have not clarified this properly in previous posts, allow me to delve into more detail. Along the lagoon side of the atoll there are innumerable living coral reefs, all below water of course, and, despite the pollution, one can pretty much swim wherever. Along the ocean side, bordering the entire atoll, is what is called a “reef flat.” This is literally a flat shelf of grey/brown/white calcified coral that extends out 100 to 300 yards or so. At high tide you would never knew it is there, for the water comes right up to the shoreline. At low tide, however, the water recedes all the way back to the end of the shelf, exposing the reef flat.

In this particular stretch of the atoll where we had our picnic, along the reef flats are massive interconnected pits left over from dynamiting the area years ago in the effort to make sand. The kids aptly call them the “dynamite pits,” and, as they are literally in the middle of the reef flat, it is essentially an enormous saltwater swimming pool, self maintaining because the tide replenishes it with new water continually. It is a very cool place.

The picnic was called for 8:00am but we didn’t leave the school until 9:30am (because why would we start on time?). We picked up all the children from their houses as we drove down the road to the airport, and then spent all day swimming and cooking food. Despite my opposition, yet in accordance with Marshallese “custom,” the kids brought a 20-gallon tub filled with raw chicken meat and hot dogs, marinating in chicken blood and chicken juice, to grill on a coconut husk fire for lunch. I brought tons of apples and oranges and carrots, which, to my absolute delight, were entirely consumed with gusto.

The day was wild. Kids were jumping off 25-foot trees into the dynamite pits, volleyballs continually bounced into the street where they were punted a football field’s length away by the bumpers of speeding cars, and a teacher driving a pickup truck, who for whatever reason kept leaving and returning, routinely drove away with an excess of 20 kids in the bed, some of them either falling out the back or being pulled up the side of the truck by their classmates like a scene out of the movie Cliffhanger. I was in a near perpetual state of astonishment and severe stress throughout the majority of the day. 60 school children on summer vacation running unrestrained, plus their friends who had met them there who I didn’t know and didn’t approve beforehand, and I was commanding maybe 5% control. My only consolation was my continual reminder that, Ben, this is the way life is here. This is what they’ve been doing their whole lives. It’s different than America and it’s downright dangerous, but this is just life for them. But c'mon, enough is enough already. I refuse to believe I've been conditioned to the point of thinking this is actually OK.

The bus finally came back for us and I thought thank you GOD! However, unbeknownst to me until I discovered a trifle too late, kids had been eating the raw hot dogs from the bin of chicken blood and raw chicken legs because they were still hungry. As the bus drove away, I watched, utterly stupefied and speechless, as the kids who had been doing this vomited out the windows of the bus.

Then I waited for the next three hours—with ten students who were deemed “too wet to get back on the bus” by the bus driver—because our principal neglected follow through and make sure we’d all returned. When it became apparent that no one was coming back for us we hitched a ride back to town on a flatbed filled with hundreds of coconut husks.

Wow.

...One week from today...

Index: Month 10 (Final)

2008-05-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

Days lived on a low-lying coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean: 315

Books read during this time: 29

Songs written during this time: 15

Length of time, in days, it takes for brand new guitar strings to exhibit rust in this environment: 3

Length of time this usually takes at home: months

Days spent teaching 7th grade Science and English: 178

Percentage of days spent in the classroom to total days lived on island: 56.5

Number of windows in my classroom: 7

Percentage of windows sustaining damage, whether from environmental forces or adolescent forces: 100

Total students throughout my three classes, out of my initial 67, that no longer attend MMS due to a multitude of reasons: 14

Time displayed since August on the rusted clock in my classroom: 3:14:57

Hours of TV (estimate) that I have watched since July 2007: 6

Number of hours my students and I were stranded at the opposite end of the island after our end-of-school picnic because the principal forgot to pick us up: 3

Days remaining of my stay in the Marshall Islands before I board a Continental Micronesia flight to “Amedika” next week: 8

And on a more serious note…

Percentage of Majuro Atoll’s land to be lost in the event of an 18-inch rise in sea level: 80

Inches that sea levels are predicted to rise by the year 2100 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: 18

Number of islands already lost to rising sea levels in Kiribati, a coral atoll nation directly southeast of the Marshalls: 2

Amount, in US dollars, it would cost to construct a seawall on one (1) atoll in the Marshall Islands to preserve the land in the event of an increase in sea level: 100,000,000

Number of atolls that comprise the Marshall Islands’ two island chains: 29

Gross domestic product of the Marshall Islands, in US dollars: 115,000,000

National Debt of the Marshall Islands, in US dollars: 100,000,000

Percentage of Marshallese who report not having enough food to eat: 33

Percentage of RMI schoolchildren who are malnourished: 50

Child mortality, per 1,000: 45

Ranking of “severe malnutrition” as a cause of childhood deaths in the Marshall Islands: 1

Percentage by which if every American reduced their meat consumption, every hungry and starving human being on the entire planet could be fed with the resulting grain surplus: 10

Percentage of RMI population under the age of 15: 38

Percentage over the age of 65: 2

Confirmed number of cases of HIV in the RMI: 13

Percentage of teenage girls who became pregnant in the RMI last year: 17 to 18

Price of gasoline per gallon in Majuro, in dollars: 5.70

Minimum wage, per hour, in dollars: 2

Amount of dumpsters on island in usable condition, out of 70 total, prompting the Majuro Atoll Waste Company (MAWC) to declare a state of emergency: 11

Dollars MAWC has in its account to get them through September: 1,500

Dollars required to fix this “state of emergency": 1,500,000

The following are select results of a survey I conducted with 55 of my students:

Percentage who live in houses without running water: 31

Average number of people per student’s house: 11

Percentage who live in houses with 10 or more people: 60

Percentage who do not have a phone line in their house: 33

Percentage who walk to school: 29

Percentage who take a bus or public van to school: 33

Percentage who take a taxi to school: 24

Percentage who are driven to school: 14

Number of students who drink at least one can of soda per day: 4 in 5

Number who drink two or more cans of soda per day: 1 in 2

Number who drink three or more cans of soda per day: 1 in 4

Percentage who feel the Marshall Islands are “getting better”: 29

Percentage who feel the Marshall Islands are “getting worse”: 44

Percentage who feel the Marshall Islands are “staying the same”: 9

Percentage who did not answer the “condition of the RMI question”: 18

That's a lot of numbers.

Quote Of The Week:

2008-05-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

"The penis is the machine gun of man's body."

-Mark A.
7th Grade, Majuro Middle School
During our unit on Sex Ed

35 Weeks Down, 1 To Go.

2008-05-09T22:43:00.000-07:00

The school year is finally winding down. This is actually somewhat surprising to me. Normally I tend to think of myself as psychologically prepared for many of the “planned” events of my life. In this particular case I have concluded there is one major factor that contributes to this astonishment:

The weather.

Twenty-two years of my life, give or take, were spent in southeast and central Michigan. There were familiar crisp, autumn smells when school began, familiar snowy/slushy sights during mid-winter break, and familiar bird and insect calls every spring when it seemed like the world was waking up again. The onset of each season induced feelings of nostalgia and offered a certain sense of relief in change.

However, at the dawn of my 23rd year, it was 85 degrees and humid. Not entirely unusual, considering that my birthday has consistently landed in August every year. But little did my body know that as it was preparing for the cold, the weather had no such plans, for come Thanksgiving it was still 85 degrees and humid. It was 85 degrees and humid over Christmas, and then again for Valentine’s Day (curiously observed here), and again for Easter and Passover too. And now, with the school year coming to a close, it is still 85 degrees and humid. Sure, it rained a bit during the wet season—roughly October to February—but the palm fronds never turned colors, nor did they fall off their trees, students wore flip flops every day of the year, only one consistency of precipitation fell from the sky and I drank what seemed like gallons of it daily to prevent my out-of-place Eastern European body from succumbing to dehydration, and each holiday came and went with no more seasonal verification than that of a postcard featuring a tropical sunset (viewed while lesson planning inside a sauna).

The foundation required for my ability to sort and file experiences based on seasonal change has been swept out from beneath me. The result? One inconceivably long and warped heat wave, during which nothing seems to happen while the calendar s-l-o-w-l-y creeps along, yet somehow weekends come and go and my work miraculously gets completed.

Am I excited for the school year to be over? My first inclination is to say Yes. This assignment has required more energy from me than anything I’ve ever committed to in my entire life. I’m ready for the school year to be done. But, when the school year is over, I’ll need to say goodbye to some 60 children who, in the span of the past 9 months, have become truly extraordinary friends of mine. I’ve spent more time with these kids than I have with anyone else since I left home last July. These beautiful little people who have forced me to endure days and weeks of endless suffering in their presence, who have made me laugh harder than any other volunteer roommates have, who have brought me up to and past the far reaches of my patience threshold and somehow back again, and who have matured from little elementary rascals into eighth graders before my eyes (most of them at least), are directly to thank for the overwhelming positiveness of this year abroad.

And when I say goodbye to them, soon after I will board a form of transportation they will only read about in books if someone teaches them about it and watch in the sky four times a week, and fly home to a life of limitless opportunity and educational resources and non-abusive family members and teachers in, ironically, the very country held unequivocally responsible for decimating their culture, displacing their populations, using them as human guinea pigs to test the effects of radiation poisoning, exploiting what few resources they have, and largely preventing any decent notion of “progress” in their land. Talk about bittersweet.

I really struggle to find the words to explain just how much each of these children have burrowed themselves into my heart. And I imagine I won’t understand the full extent of it for some time to come.

Roadside Refuse: A Cultural Exposé

2008-05-05T21:08:00.000-07:00

I think it’s safe to say that over the course of the past ten months I’ve done a respectable amount of ambling about through the street(s) of Majuro. Last July, aside from the sheer quantity of unaccompanied children running rampant, the other thing that caught my eye on (and off) the road was the sheer amount of trash. I am aware that I have written about this in previous posts, and I am also aware that you may be thinking, “Ben, we get it, there’s a lot of trash.” But—and maybe it’s the sociology degree in me—I began to look more closely at this trash and naturally draw parallels from what kind of waste I see here on the street to what I see on the street back home in Michigan.

Today, as I was reading the 26 November 2007 issue of Time Magazine (by the way, has anything happened since then? We’re a bit behind on things over here), it stated that for one of the articles, their nine photographers snapped 13,963 pictures. Only 10 of those actually ended up being used for the piece. I will tell you that I took 6 pictures for this piece, and all 6 were chosen for the final cut. Part of the reason I took so few is because I am limited by the one-gigabyte memory card in my camera, but mostly it’s because I’m not utterly insane.

As the field of urban-waste-photography is a relatively new foray for me, and as this weblog is typically family friendly, I chose not to include pictures of “borderline specimens.” This would be the term encompassing certain ubiquitous, as well as uncommonly/infrequently viewed, items most people would avert their eyes from; soiled diapers being the former and carcasses of animals that Americans like to call “pets” being the latter.

So without further ado:

Lunch Plates

These are the perpetrators I named in the April 8 commentary. Imagine this: At the Middle School alone, 500 trays are delivered every day. That’s 2,500/week. 10,000/month. 80,000+ throughout the school year. Less than half of this number make it into a trash bin, and there are over a dozen schools on the island. Also, although there are no “fast food” restaurants in the Western sense in Majuro, there are indeed a number of fast food stands throughout Majuro. They are simply food vendors working from behind a wood counter, and they serve rice and fried chicken for $2-$3 in, you guessed it, plastic trays. These things are literally everywhere. Two weeks ago 20 students and I did a trash pickup outside MMS and picked up 31 forty-gallon bags of trash in a half hour, most of it empty lunch plates, and still there were more, some even flying in the wind.

Pop Tops

Before I reached the age where I began to study where my food comes from and what exactly it is made of, I drank a decent amount of pop. Mostly I drank from aluminum cans, and when I was finished I’d play a game with whoever I was with at the time to see who could flick the tab off first. I’d usually win, but that’s beside the point. Soda runs like water here. Babies drink it, toddlers drink it, children drink it, adults drink it. I am sure even the cockroaches drink it, which is how I presume they evolved a set of wings and became hideous flying mutants (or was that the nuclear testing?). However, when the children are finished, they don’t engage in my old pastime. What they do is lock their upper and lower incisors around the lip of the can like a human can-opener and chew the freakin’ thing clean off. Not kidding. These pop tops are everywhere. For the record, I’m currently campaigning for NO SODA in the middle school next year. Judging by how my students flip out on this stuff like maniacs and then crash and burn, they may just as well be selling them dime bags of coke instead of cans.

Ramen Spice Packs

When I think of “finger foods” I generally envision crackers or granola bars or maybe even baby carrots. However, the finger foods of Majuro consist of Kool-Aid powder and Ichiban ramen spice packets. On any given day, at any given time, more or less any given student can be seen dipping their pre-licked finger(s) into a small open bag of one of these two selections. The Kool-Aid stains their hands, lips, and teeth red for the entire day, and I shudder to think of the consequences of ingesting several tablespoons of pure artificial sweetener on a daily basis. The other favorite, ramen "soup base," is equally puzzling to me. For those of you who have never prepared ramen before, it runs about 25¢ and generally comes in a plastic bag with four things: a brick of noodles, a packet of congealed oils, a packet of dehydrated green onions, and a packet of MSG powder. The latter of which is the preferred choice amongst schoolchildren. Many students love to mix Kool-Aid and the ramen spices together, or to sprinkle the Kool-Aid powder on garlic flavored Indonesian corn puffs the school sells that go by the ceaselessly humorous name of Boy Bawang.

Betelnut Spit

Many people in the Marshall Islands chew a stimulant called betelnut, which is prepared from palm tree nuts and a type of Asian vine. It is mixed with crushed limestone or lime juice and cigarette tobacco and rolled in a betel leaf and then tucked into the gums like chewing-tobacco. Betelnut turns saliva dark red and, just as with chewing-tobacco, is not very pleasant to swallow. Taxi drivers have a particular fondness for the betelnut, and it is far from uncommon to be in a taxi while the driver leans his torso out the side--while driving, mind you--and lets loose with a huge gob of crimson slobber. Betelnut stains on the road have become such a nuisance that there are awareness efforts underway to curb this problem, typically citing tourism deterrence as the consequence. (note: though my foot can indeed be observed on the road quite often, depending on the source it is not technically considered "refuse," and is merely pictured to indicate scale)

Popsicle Tubes

If children’s favorite “foods” aren’t soda or Kool-Aid or ramen, then they are popsicles. Hands down. Every 100 yards or so flanking the road there are window shops reminiscent of the ice cream stands along Woodward Avenue. Though they do sell ice cream (often appetizingly kept in the same freezer as unwrapped frozen meats and various chicken parts), through a small window you can also purchase soda, coffee, doughnuts, chips, cookies (homemade or packaged), batteries, diapers, tampons, peanut butter, jelly, spam, numerous cleaning agents, and popsicles. Popsicles have got to be every stand’s number one seller, as the utter profuseness of their appearance in the road is quite telling of their popularity.

Batteries

Lastly are batteries. Batteries everywhere. In the ocean, in the lagoon, in the coral reefs, on the road. Triple A's, Double A's, C cells, D cells. There are efforts underway, thanks to new management at the landfill, to raise the awareness in the community that, indeed, batteries need to be disposed of properly, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done on this front.

I've been working with the Marshall Islands Conservation Society to raise trash awareness and have been teaching my students about sustainability and responsibility since the beginning of the year, but more often than not it goes in one ear and out the other. It's incredibly frustrating when you spend two hours with your students picking up trash along the road and the shore, and then after you finish, they buy a Snickers bar and throw the wrapper into the ocean. What are you doing?? It truly amazes me that I can put in so much effort and see such few results, but few results are better than no results and until we can shuttle our trash to the moon entirely under sustainable energy sources, I'll continue doing my small part.

Index: Month 9

2008-04-16T17:47:00.000-07:00

Rebelle (white person) weddings attended/participated in: 1

Number of songs played by myself, the one-man-wedding-band, for this occasion: 2

Weeks remaining of my program: 5

Indescribably cute piglets borne of the tremendously large and hideous-looking sow that lives down the street: 5

Days of fresh water remaining in the Majuro reservoir due to near-drought conditions: 10

Boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch purchased upon seeing they had been reduced from $7.50 to $1.75 after exceeding their date of expiration: 6

Of the aforementioned quantity, percentage sold to envious roommates (at no profit, just because I’m a really nice guy): 66.6666666

Average quantity of implements of potential destruction and/or (accidental) bodily harm confiscated on a daily basis by big bad Mr. Ben, including but not limited to: wooden sticks, metal broom handles, plastic tubes, aluminum molding, artificial billy clubs, and the occasional cap gun pistol: 3

Field trips taken by our class, Room 114, during the month of April: 2

---

A word on the field trips:

The first field trip was to the College of the Marshall Islands, down the street from the middle school, for their annual open house. What seemed like every classroom of every elementary school, as well as the five classes that Robbye and I took, of course all showed up at the same time. However, as it is nearly engraved in Marshallese culture for no one to have any idea of what’s going on at an organized event, the children were not surprisingly calm and cool in waiting upwards of 45 minutes for instructions on what to do. Alas, CMI student-tour-guides came to save the day and took us all around the campus, educating our young and malleable minds to the wonders of coral preservation and face painting and why college is good. My students were supremely well behaved to the point of perfection. I wanted to stand on a chair and say, “Excuse me, fine Open House Goers, you may have already noticed, but I would just like to draw your attention to my most wonderful students, who totally are kicking ass! Yes, these are my students, aren’t they supremely well behaved? Thank you for your time, you may resume your lives now.” I went with my better judgment and kept that proclamation to myself.

The second field trip was even more exciting (to me at least). Trash and sustainability has been a constant theme I’ve incorporated into my classroom since September, but after finishing up a formal unit on waste management it was time to take a trip to the Majuro Garbage Dump. My kids were pumped and so was I. We’d been keeping “trash logs” that recorded how much trash we generated and where we disposed of it (trash can, dumpster, ocean, lagoon) and so were able to estimate how much waste we accumulated on a daily basis as a classroom, as a school, as a population on Majuro, etc. and where it all was going. We did several “trash pickups” as a class, one time gathering 32 forty-gallon bags of trash in a half hour, just on the grounds of Majuro Middle School alone. We were finally going to see where it was all sorted through, and we were not let down. The Dump recently contracted a Canadian by the name of Roger who has completely transformed the waste management process on Majuro. While it is still a monumental problem, awareness is slowly heightening and the Dump is surprisingly tidy.

Roger has partitioned the property, designating different materials to different areas for the purposes of recycling. My students were eager to help in any possible way. Roger showed us all around and my students listened intently. I felt like a proud dad of 25 accomplished children.

Long and Uncut: An Update of Many Words

2008-04-08T20:59:00.000-07:00

As a Word document this post is over four pages long. However, if you have been following my blog up until now, I encourage you to read this when you have a few minutes to spare. It was, not surprisingly, very cathartic for me to put this all into words and I think you will benefit from this account as well. That is, if you want to.

I have a brotha from anotha motha in Honduras right now. He isn’t Honduran; he’s not even my brother, actually. He’s my cousin, and he’s on a Peace Corps assignment teaching Hondurans how to live sustainably. He’s been gone for nearly two years now, and throughout the past year that I’ve been away we’ve had many a Gmail Chat on the absurdities and frustrations of life in the developing world and as an educator in these parts. He writes mass emails, I keep a weblog, and we both take influence from each other that help us better clarify to our “home audience” our respective experiences. We get caught up in the day-to-day, which naturally has become “normal” to us, and so the stories we send home have a tendency to become more and more detached without a more solid understanding of what it is our current lives are actually like. Taking influence from his last email, the purpose of this post is to literally detail what I do on a daily basis so that you have a better understanding of what my life is really all about here.

Gracias, mi hombre bueno. The guacamole’s on me when we return.

It helps if you read this all in one breath, but if you can’t, just do it in two. Here we go.

Monday through Friday I am a 7th grade teacher for seven to eight hours a day. I arise around 7:00am and, just as in my cousin’s case (must be an equator thing) the sun is almost always shining. Often I wish it could be cloudy once in a while, but then again watching the sunrise over the ocean first thing in the morning isn’t too bad a way to start your day, nevermind that I see it through a barbed wire fence and the sweet smell of decomposing poop on the reef often lingers in the salty air due to the lack of a complete sewer system.

When I walk out of my bedroom into the main room of the dorm where the kitchen is, most of the seven other volunteers I live with are awake. The kitchen is infested with cockroaches, termites, and two rats that, despite our extermination attempts, get bigger every time we see them. Every morning I eat a bowl of oatmeal or some form of name-brand breakfast cereal I bought off the expired shelf at the grocery store for two dollars. From the first day of school last September up until last week I made coffee every morning. Now I can’t stand it and I’ve progressed (or regressed?) to a mug of chocolate milk.

Around 8:00 I make the six-minute walk to school with Robbye (another WorldTeach volunteer who also teaches 7th grade at Majuro Middle School). It’s usually very hot by this point and, despite having largely adjusted to the climate, I have small sweat spots on my shirt by the time I walk into the classroom. I cross a large field (one of three on the island) to get to the middle school and most students are already here by this time, either playing volleyball in a big circle or playing an adapted version of tag, where everybody is “it” and it never, ever, ever gets old. Ever. While crossing the field I pass by groups of students, each one of them exclaiming only “Mista Ben!” Each student will not stop calling my name until I individually acknowledge their call. By the time the bell rings—activated by a lightswitch in the office if someone remembers to flip it—my students are thoroughly juiced up and in no condition to begin learning anything.

On Monday and Friday mornings the middle school holds an “assembly.” All of the students line up by class in front of the school while the principal talks through a megaphone using a language only half the students understand (that would be English). A different class each assembly leads the rest of the school in singing the national anthem and the flag is raised and then the principal recites a prayer to God, which is against the Ministry of Education’s rules.

Beginning at 8:30, I teach three separate 50-minute science classes with a 15-minute break between the second and third. 4th period I have off and lunch follows, so I have a one-hour and 45-minute break in the middle of the day, which is absolutely lovely. I walk home and eat with a few other volunteers who also come home from their schools for lunch, and then usually read or play guitar or take a siesta for the remainder of the time.

In the afternoon I teach two English classes back to back to the same class I teach science to first period. The school provides a subsidized lunch program for the students, which works out to about 17 cents per lunch “plate.” The plates are actually rickety plastic takeout containers that, despite the efforts of Robbye and myself, end up in the hundreds, if not thousands, littering the school campus and the already heavily polluted shoreline. The food served in the plates is either some form of boiled fish or fried chicken and a cut up hot dog on a bed of white rice with ketchup. By the time class starts, half of my students are tripped out on carb overloads and the other half is too drowsy from the inadequate food to do much of anything except say “Mr. Ben we are so lazy!” Most of them haven’t even had breakfast to begin with. There is no water. And we still have 90 minutes of school left. This is a long class. For some inexplicable reason, however, since my mom came to visit they have been doing the strangest thing. When I walk back into the classroom after lunch (all the students eat lunch unsupervised in all the classrooms) they have cleaned up the entire room and are sitting silently in their desks with their heads down waiting for me. Five minutes later, however, it is chaos.

The school is situated 20 yards from and parallel to the shoreline. The nice part is that from my classroom I have an unobstructed view of the ocean looking East, and the plants do a great job of hiding the garbage and dilapidated construction equipment rotting away in the ocean. The downside is that the ambient noise of the waves makes it extremely difficult to have a quiet class, especially when the windows are merely four-foot by four-foot squares in the brick wall with security screening bolted onto them and the incessant wind, which I have come to loathe from the hollows of my soul, blows every paper off every desk in the classroom. If I shut the windows it instantly becomes 150 degrees and starts to smell terribly, as the children typically can only afford one or two school uniforms that they are required to wear every day, and I presume they don’t get washed until the weekend. Monday the class smells nice. By Fridays it smells… not nice. I have begun hot-gluing my posters to the wall because nothing else sticks but still some are falling down. There are two overhead fans that don’t work and four overhead lights, two of which are broken and one of which flickers, so we keep the lights off and the windows open unless it’s raining really hard.

On any given day there are one or two teachers who decide not to teach and the students of those classes—as well as the handful of students who cut other classes—will be screaming and running all over the campus. There are also elementary school students from down the street who fall into one of the two above categories and they too will be running wild through the middle school hallway and peeking/yelling into the classrooms. No one does anything about it. If I even make a motion towards the door or window they run away, and then come back. Teachers smoke cigarettes in the bathrooms, outside the office, and in their classrooms and the special education teacher plays computer games while his three mentally challenged students crawl around on the floor and sit in front of shelves of worthless donated books (for a middle school in the RMI, at least) from the U.S. with titles like “Native American Quilts,” and “Culinary Secrets of the Ancient Mayans,” and “Camp Counseling in the 1950s.” Other teachers wear ratty Budweiser Nation t-shirts and jeans and the principal, who is MIA half the time, tells me, while I am dressed in a nice collared shirt tucked in to clean shorts that I need to start wearing pants.

The school owns four relatively new computers and a laser printer that reside in the teacher’s lounge and a dozen Pentium I computers in an air-conditioned room that nobody uses. Despite the message taped to each monitor in the lounge proclaiming “Strictly No Playing Of Computer Games During School Hours,” I usually have to ask a teacher playing a game if I can use the computer to print something out, which is awkward but I don’t care anymore. There are two televisions with built-in DVD and VHS players on rolling carts and half a dozen boom boxes for us to use. We don’t have a first aid kit (would anyone at home like to donate one?) The only band-aides we have came from me. We also have a “Duplo” machine that malfunctions every single time it’s used. When this happens, the vice principal, Atte, opens all the compartments and goes to town on it, completely covering his hands in black ink but invariably fixing the problem. Atte, by the way, should not only be principal of the school, but should be the president of the country. He is the most competent man I’ve met since being here. He also looks like a Mafioso capable of inflicting serious pain.

When the bell rings at 2:40 my students walk home, some forgetting their backpacks in class, or the assignment they just did, or, perplexingly, their pants, and the good ones stick around and help me straighten up the room. Some days I bring my guitar or my ukulele and play music with a couple students who teach me native Marshallese songs, which is awesome. Usually there are a few kids I walk home with, which I love doing.

By the time I get home I am almost always thoroughly exhausted. I rinse off in my shower that pumps uncomfortably cold water from a 2,000 gallon rainwater catchment beside our house, pull the shades (darkness, finally) which is just a big dark blue table cloth draped over a wooden stick nailed to the wall, and listen to my iPod or simply lay in my bed for about an hour. At this point in the day it is too hot to do much at all.

A couple times a week I either make the 20-minute walk or take a $0.75 taxi ride to the Tide Table restaurant to use their Wi-Fi. The Tide Table is the nicest restaurant/bar in town. It’s part of the Robert Reimers Enterprises (we just call it the RRE) and is attached to the nicest hotel in the country, which can be likened to a Holiday Inn. The government-owned National Telecommunications Authority is the sole provider of Internet connectivity as well as mobile and landline communications. They get a lot of flak (but not nearly enough) for their rates and how they are largely preventing the “advancement of the Marshall Islands.” For example, a business or a school wanting to install a high-speed Internet connection would be charged $5,000 per month. As a direct result, nearly every school lacks an Internet connection when it is both logistically and economically feasible to connect them if not for a corrupted government.

I buy Internet cards—$5 for 50 minutes—with scratch-off time codes. They are incredibly frustrating; part of the reason being that it’s a really slow connection and I’ve been spoiled living in America, the other because the connection is often lost with the remaining time irretrievable. But it’s nice because I can bring my laptop and not have to use a public computer. I save all my emails to my computer to respond to when I’m offline and then open a bunch of websites and news articles to read later on as well when it isn’t costing me.

If I lie around for an hour and go to the restaurant for an hour I’m still home before dinnertime, which means I have another five to six hours before I go to sleep. And without television and the Internet, this is a really long time. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure how I spend it. It’s kind of a blur. I may lie in bed, again, and listen to more music. If the horizon isn’t obstructed by massive clouds I like to watch the sunset over the lagoon. I may write a blog post or type responses to emails I’ve saved on my computer. Some nights we’ll get a card game going. Some nights I’ll read a book or play guitar or work on my fingerpicking or do stretches and whatnot in my room. And some nights I’ll do all of that. Look through old pictures on my computer, old documents from high school and college, old songs I’ve written, old emails. Take a spoon and crush individual biting ants crawling on my desk. Light my oil lamp and stare at the flame and think for a while. Open to a random page in the 2008 World Almanac. Think of activities for my students to do in class. Grade assignments. Sharpen my machete. Walk my dirty clothes to the laundromat down the street and make funny faces at the children to whom white skin is still an extreme novelty. Read Wikipedia articles I’ve saved by the dozens on my computer from earlier in the day at the restaurant. This night I’m writing a four-page-long blog update.

On Friday nights I play music for three hours at the Tide Table restaurant from 7:30 to 10:30. They heard I play music and asked me two months ago if I’d like to perform weekly for their customers. Serendipitously, this happened one week after I quit the rock band. They own a PA system and they set everything up for me every week. All I do is show up and play whatever I want—originals, covers, instrumentals. It’s a fantastic gig and I look forward to it every week. It’s pretty easy to entertain drunken people anyway. Expat or yachtie or Marshallese. Mr. Bojangles again? Alright man you got it.

Saturdays and Sundays I sleep in until about 7:30am. I can’t help it; I’m on some sort of fixed cycle. Our favorite breakfast place is named DAR. We don’t know what that means. I’m not sure anyone who works there does either. But it’s there, and they serve good ol’ American breakfast—eggs, bacon, pancakes, coffee, etc. I know, I’m a horrible person. But at least I don’t order what Dan orders. The DAR Loco Moco—a jumbo-sized bowl of white rice topped with a hamburger patty, two sunny side up eggs, and gravy. I gag just thinking about it.

To get to DAR we walk through a slum that we live next to called Demon Town. Walking through Demon Town is always fun, especially at certain hours of the day. Like Saturday mornings and especially any weekday around dinner time, when everyone is out, literally hundreds of children are playing in the street, and they all know our names. Demon Town is jam packed on both sides of the street with plywood tin-roofed houses and is partially connected to the power grid. Many residents of Demon Town cook by fire every night.

Weekends are taken up by random events and adventures. Last weekend we had an enormous bonfire in our back yard. Other weekends we’ll walk to another island to go swimming or set up the hammocks and lounge around.

So that’s my life in four pages, though to feel like I’ve told you everything I’d need about 40 because I already know I’ve left plenty out. I leave to come home in seven weeks and I’m really looking forward to it, and for as off the wall as this place is, of course I am going to miss it. But man, I am truly exhausted. Sure, I have fun with my students, but they can seriously be out of control much of the time. At least relative to classrooms back home that I remember. The only classroom discipline they’ve ever been taught is to comply or get smacked in the face, and because I’ll obviously never hit them and they know that, they have little regard for American teachers and it just wears me down. They’ve never been taught common courtesy, manners, empathy, classroom behavior, expectations… and while I know I’ve made considerable headway in all of these departments, it has come at the cost of finding myself wholly, thoroughly drained. They steal money that they themselves have raised as a class for new sports equipment, they steal from my desk drawers, they draw on the walls, on posters, they break things, slam doors, tear things, spit on things, blatantly disregard rules and authority no matter the consequence. And outside of my room, there are no consequences. None. So what do they care? Send a kid to the office and the principal will walk them back five minutes later and say, “she says she’ll be good.” Even the volunteers who taught in the States before teaching here have found it to be the most challenging job they’ve ever been faced with.

Half of my class are angels and I love them. The other half make it nearly impossible to teach and I only love them sometimes. Some days are truly fantastic—my students are behaving, joking with me, doing things that make me proud, acting their age, and we have a lot of fun, and I go home feeling energized and happy. Some days I bring my guitar to class and play music, either making an assignment out of it or just for while they read. Some days we listen to Bob Marley (they know all the words to all the songs on Legend) and do fill-in-the-blank exercises with the lyrics I’ve typed up for them. We do group activities, low ropes course stuff, play games, have art project days, physical education days, movie days. I love these kids more than I could probably admit to myself, but right now I believe I have just enough patience to last me these remaining seven weeks.

And the sad irony is that in seven weeks I’ll be lying on my amazingly comfortable couch at home in Michigan, wondering why I was in such a hurry to leave this island.

Correction: THREE times

2008-03-31T16:36:00.000-07:00

Seems I have some local readership…

Does this mean they are offering me the position of editor?

Um...

2008-03-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

Didn’t I tell you? Next to world-renowned scuba dive sites, the Marshall Islands are steadily becoming recognized for their extensive opportunities in the “off-roading” genre of tourism. Conventional wisdom had it that only topographically diverse landscapes were worthy of off-roading adventures, but those times are looong gone brother.

The altitudinal mundane is now the new rage.

Find a landmass so thin only one road is feasible, so small the airport tarmac is an artificial island, so densely populated people sleep ten to a house out of necessity, and so flat the only indication of distance is the actual curvature of the earth itself, and that, my friends, is as them young folks say, “where it’s at.” Also, make sure gas is well over $5.00/gallon, you know, just to show the impoverished people who inhabit the place that “money ain’t no thang.”

You can book your next ego boost with “Coral Atolls And Hummer Army Vehicles Were Made For Each Other, LLC.”

Index: Month 8

2008-03-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

Number of students in my classroom, during my lunch break, who thought that flooding the entire floor with untold gallons of water was the best method to use to clean it: 24

Number of students in that class, total: 24

Hours it took for the classroom to dry (as the lack of a sufficient means with which to deal with this situation did not become apparent to two dozen twelve- and thirteen-year-olds until after the deed was done): 48+

Number of instances my name has appeared in the weekly national press during the month of March: 2

“Outer” atolls visited (Arno): 1

Length, in feet, of Paul Allen’s superyacht Octopus, which cruised into the lagoon earlier this month: 416

Average length, in feet, of sailing yachts currently maintaining residence in the lagoon: 25

Length, in feet, of the sailing yacht that The Octopus carries on board: 63

Factor by which The Octopus’ monetary value exceeds that of the Gross Domestic Product of the Republic of the Marshall Islands: 2

Months since my last haircut: 12

Rock'n'roll bands seceded from, due to personal “artistic differences”: 1

Number of children shot in Majuro (from a BB gun) in the first-ever shooting, of any kind, in the RMI: 4

Respective ages of the wounded children, one girl and three boys, all of whom required surgery to remove the pellets from their bodies: 4, 3, 8, 14

Number of hours elapsed from the alleged time of shooting until the children received medical attention: 4

Degree of public outcry this seemingly monumental event elicited from Majuro’s population: 0

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A word on the March 3 shooting:

I actually feel I have little to say about it. Despite being truly astounded, it really has not affected much around here. It happened in the yard of one of my students, who lives several houses down from me, which, on both accounts, is a bit unnerving. Yet despite how post-Columbine America has truly influenced me, I find myself needing to go against my tendency to say, this is the end of this peaceful little country’s innocence… I believe it was no more than an isolated case. What we think of as “real guns” are nonexistent here (and illegal), and despite its problems and hardships, it honestly is the most peaceful little country I’ve ever known.

We talked about the incident in class, going around and sharing our feelings (something I have come to find they had never done before in school), and we talked about similar happenings in America (which frightened them to a level where I was almost sorry I brought it up), and that was that. Aside from a short update on the court case each week in the newspaper, you’d never know anything ever happened. I suppose it’s quite strange, but then again I find myself thinking that a lot here.

---

A word on my second appearance in the Marshall Islands Journal (for the first, see 3/10/08 post):

There are a total of eight (8) errors in the article, but hey, who’s counting? Appearing on page 10 of the Journal, the most obvious mistake I found was the fact that Dan Caccavano’s partner with whom he won the water balloon contest was not Darren Nakata. The reason I know that (aside from merely being there) is because his partner was me.

The other typos I’ll refrain from delving into. As I have quite a bit of time on my hands out here, every Thursday when the paper comes out I can guarantee a good chunk of time spent on simply finding the faults in all the articles. It’s fun, but it’s an annoying kind of fun, considering the article in review is not at all an anomaly.

(By the way, if you click on a picture it will enlarge)

Don't Try This [From] Home...

2008-03-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

Unless you want to.

Zack, does this answer your question?!

I think this should win some kind of international postal correspondence award or something. Next experiment... a banana with a stamp on it.

Lazy Day Scenes From A Lazy Day Place

2008-03-13T17:49:00.000-07:00

Approaching my 8th month in the ‘Islands, I find myself increasingly comfortable with where I am. I’m comfortable with my living situation and the other volunteers, I’m comfortable in the classroom and around my students, I’m comfortable in the lackadaisical lifestyle I’ve adopted, and I’m comfortable with the culture and the people and the day-to-day scenes of Life in Majuro.

It took me seven months to feel adjusted, to get to a place where I could say, “this is normal life for me.” I often wonder to myself why it took so long? How could it possibly take me 28 weeks—over half a year—to truly be okay and comfortable and content here, to be in a state I define as a sort of psychological homeostasis? What prevented this from happening earlier on? If I had adjusted more quickly, I’d have saved myself a considerable amount of anguish—though I am aware that this assertion is a moot point and is quite silly to truly analyze.

On the flipside of this thought, the ‘other’ perspective that I’ve only recently become cognizant of, is that it took me only seven months to adjust to a culture and location so backwards from where I grew up as to sometimes evoke the feeling of having gone to another planet. The first 23 years of my life were spent in an affluent suburb in southeast Michigan, halfway between the equator and the North Pole, and in the span of just 7 months I was largely able to swap it out for a foreign, minuscule, impoverished tropical island. The only similarities I can think of between Majuro and Bloomfield Hills are that a) human beings live in both places and b) they both eat some sort of food on a daily basis. How could this place lose its novelty on me so fast?

When I arrived in July, I found that everything was a bit too overwhelming to take notice of any one thing in particular, however big or small. Moments that held me in the present and validated my location on Earth were, for whatever reason, far and few between. Maybe I had other things on my mind, maybe I wasn’t looking, maybe there really was simply too much to process. And now having lived here for nearly eight months, the reverse has slowly transpired, yet the outcome is the same. I know my neighborhood like the back of my hand, and everything is routine and “normal,” yet my awareness of the "whoa, look where I am” factor is often fleeting. But when my awareness is heightened, whether for one second or 20 minutes, it’s just as powerful as I remember it being when I first stepped on island.

The remedy I have found for this problem lies in my camera. However, despite my immoderate shutter-finger, I generally feel that my camera removes me from the “moment.” The irony of this being that I take pictures of moments I want to remember, only to wind up with pictures of moments I excused myself from.

So I turned to another pastime of mine—I epiphanized. I epiphanized that I could use my camera to bring me more into the moment by finding scenes that brought me further out of the current numb-to-cultural-differences mindset I’ve developed.

I’ve been referring to this latest effort as “Lazy Day Scenes from a Lazy Day Place,” though some images stray from that theme. Some are cliché, some are deliberate and thought out, some of the scenes materialized literally seconds before the shot, but all of them I am very satisfied with and all brought me more in touch with Majuro.

Here’s what I’ve come up with.

Thank you.

This Week In The RMI:

2008-03-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

(and others I have been hiding)

The Yachtsman.

Gearin' up with Katie, Tim, and Dan. That's our house in the background.

Seriously people, don't do it.

Ben Nye the Science Guy.

I'm surprised I didn't get sucked into some technological vortex or something when this happened. Or maybe I did... ?

Where toys are sparse, children make their own. Like miniature sail boats crafted from Pepsi cans.

Trash Pickup Day:

"Moyra that ain't trash, sister. That's a coconut."

"That's trash! Now put it down before bad things happen."

"Mr. Ben can we throw this away?"

Field Day at Majuro Middle School:

I don't remember "pandanus thatch basket weaving" from my BCS field days. Guys? Do you?

(We were the Red team)

"Mr. Ben are you serious?"

"Very much."

"Meeser Ben are you dalk du me?"

The day Paul Allen's 416ft, $200M private yacht, the Octopus, floated into town, replete with two helicopters, a submarine, a basketball court, a swimming pool, a 63-foot sailing yacht (hidden inside), and other cool stuff:

Ben + Tarzan = Barzan?

More things I’ve learned so far…

2008-02-28T15:54:00.000-08:00

That really awesome stainless steel army knives—Leatherman Waves, say— tend to rust when exposed to salty oceanic weather conditions for prolonged periods of time, negating the key word “multi” from “multitool,” and becoming something of a small misfortune to its owner.

That CSN—and on certain occasions Y—are one of the greatest musical groups ever to grace the ears of human beings with their talents. The ears of other animals I cannot vouch for, yet I will err on the side of caution— and infer that they agree with me.

That the world’s oil reserves will run out in 30 years if present-day consumption levels continue. And that fascinates and scares me at the same time.

That my students are twelve years old, and when I expect college-lecture-hall behavior from them they are pretty good at reminding me that they have, in fact, only been alive since 1995—though they have some pretty creative ways of re-awakening me to this detail.

That it is physically possible to watch three seasons of The Office, including all extras and deleted scenes, in a consecutive 48 hours time.

That when I come home from school and see chalk marks from my hands all over the front of my pants, I feel cool in a weird way.

That friends-by-default can fulfill all of my inherent needs and standards for a certain level and quality of comradeship, a concession that contradicts a statement in my previous list of "Things I've learned so far" in October.

That I can proclaim with almost 100% confidence that I, Ben Chutz, know more about The Beatles than anyone else in the entire country in which I am currently residing. Either that or I have yet to meet the leading Beatles scholar of the Marshall Islands.

That I can be nostalgic for a place I haven’t yet left.

That consistency, a trait that has been at times inconsistent throughout my life but is now gaining consistence, works wonders in the classroom. One could say that I am more consistently consistent in the areas where I was only semi-consistently inconsistent at the beginning of the year. And that makes for consistent progress, baby.

That it is somehow possible to destroy a one-liter aluminum Sigg water bottle by placing it in the freezer only half full of water. The irony of this being that one of the main reasons I purchased this specific bottle was because it was 100% recyclable, and it ends up breaking in a country where I can’t even recycle it.

Patience.

That when my attitude in the classroom changes from negative to positive, their attitudes follow very closely behind.

That I am in full control of my palatable hot spice tolerance—something I have known for some time but until now have not understood the extent to which this was possible. I have intentionally been escalating this threshold since July (because why not?). Unfortunately, I now have to apply copious amounts of both crushed red pepper and a bright red Thai substance by the name of “Tuong Ot Sriracha HOT Chili Sauce” to anything I want to taste more exciting than oatmeal.

That I believe I have become an effective 7th grade teacher, and that I feel confident in stating this both privately and publicly while still acknowledging that I have a lot to learn.

Euchre.

That sometimes the natural beauty of a place becomes apparent only when it’s compared to someplace else.

That sometimes the above statement is undoubtedly false.

That I am not chasing my dream, I am living it. And for the rest of my life I will be able to tell myself, that at some point, I did that!

Index: Month 7

2008-02-20T19:51:00.000-08:00

Biological mothers (of mine) that have visited within the past month: 1

Pounds of weight restored to my body during this time: >1, <7

Days of actual, scheduled “school” we have during next week’s Education Week, in lieu of non-academic games and activities. 1.5

Length, in feet, of the Marshall Islands Surf Club’s newly acquired board, which I have been using lately to indulge in some backyard surf sessions after school gets out: 6.5

Number of members in said club, including myself (incidentally this also happens to be the number of months since its inception): 3

Percentage of total members affiliated with WorldTeach: 100

Cruise liners that have stopped through Majuro on their way around the world: 1

Comically clueless old white people this brought to the streets of Majuro for one day: ≈300

Percentage increase, for the day, in Anglo population of the entire Republic of the Marshall Islands as result of aforementioned event: 100

Students of mine who have still not yet returned from Christmas break, for various unspecified reasons: 6

Percentage of Majuro Middle School students in daily attendance over the course of the last two weeks, as result of a front-page-headlined RMI pink-eye pandemic: <50

WorldTeach Majuro volunteers who have succumbed (twice!) to said infection during this time: 1 (not me)

---

A word about the ship: Weird. Uncomfortable. But nevertheless, very cool.

The last time a big cruise ship came through the Marshalls was five years ago. At least that’s what the locals tell me (no one really seems to know). What I personally found fascinating was that the children had absolutely no idea what it was. I mean, think about it: All you see in the lagoon, which occupies 180 degrees of your field of vision at any given time for your entire life, are tiny single-masted sail boats bobbing on their moorings, derelict junkers that are somehow still afloat, a few large Taiwanese fishing boats, some dinghies zipping around here and there and the occasional barge that delivers your beloved canned meats and Coca-Cola and Indonesian prawn-flavored rice chips, and then all of a sudden an enormous white monstrosity appears from the horizon bearing 300 rich white folk who come to the shore in giant pill-capsules and buy up every knickknack on the island. What the?!

The non-children of the island, however, reacted in a slightly different manner, having seen on television (namely MTV-Asia and CNN) the spectacles and wonderment that the developed world creates and indulges in. Yet still, it is one thing to see something on TV. It is something profoundly different to emerge from your corrugated-tin-roofed plywood home one morning, only to be greeted with the grand epitome of ostentation and everything that you will never have—floating in your front yard.

My Mom Flew 14,500 Miles To Bring Me Her Famous Home-Made Chocolate Chip Banana Bread!

2008-02-14T21:59:00.000-08:00

As many of you are likely aware of by now, my mom came to visit!

Part of the delight in having visitors here is watching their plane emerge from the clouds and land right in front of you, being that only one flight comes in per day and the only thing separating you from the runway is 30 feet and a chain-link fence. And if you have never watched your mother descend from the clouds of a South Pacific sky just to see you, well… don’t worry… before last week I hadn’t either.

As my mom was only here for five whole days, we used every minute wisely. I took the morning off of work the day she arrived, and that afternoon we both went back to school and “Miss Debbie” was introduced. My kids nearly worshipped my mom, having cleaned literally every square inch of the room that morning, greeting her with super-enthusiastic excitement, and singing her a traditional “Welcome To Majuro, We Love You” island song while putting flowers in her hair. The last part was one of those cliché life-moments for me, where my eyes watered and I thought, Oh my god… whatever is happening right now is fully materializing into whatever idealized picture-perfect tropical island daydream I envisioned before leaving home. This is incredible.

In the classroom, Miss Debbie taught all my students how to brush their teeth and other aspects of oral hygiene, and each student got a plastic dentist bag with toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss that my mom brought with her. They. Loved. My. Mom!

What else did we do? We stayed in a luxurious lagoon-side bungalow at the nicest hotel in the country (a perk! of living in a developing nation with no tourism industry. But c’mon, how often do you get to say that?). We went on an excursion to a remote island and walked through the ‘jungle,’ went out for pizza with some other volunteer friends, did some grocery shopping (yeah!), had fun with my students, jamboed between islands, and took many, many pictures.

It felt really good to show my mom where I am living and how I am living, and even though her visit made “home” feel a lot closer than it actually is, I am very grateful we could make it work. Especially after outfitting her with a red floral muumuu! Mom, you were made for the tropics!

‘Say Cheese’ my little island children!

“Like dis?”

I spy a dead seal. (Actually, it’s a log, and it did not look like that until I saw it on the computer screen.)

Despite “the muumuu” being possibly the most unflattering garment in fashion history, my mom makes it shine!

You know you’ve been in the Marshall Islands for a while when your mom needs to tell you that a Wall O’ Spam at the grocery store is not typical back home.

Our place of residence (and hot showers and big beds and cable TV).

I was delighted this week to receive a long, beautifully written email from my mom regarding her experience here, and it is with her permission that I present to you the abridged version:

I want to thank you for being such a wonderful host to me this past week and for allowing me to experience a trip that will forever be a highlight in my life.

What stuck out the most were the people and their lifestyle. I have never met more friendly and accepting people in my life. To be an outright minority, yet feel no fear wherever I was, was unbelievable. Even in West Bloomfield parking lots we have to keep our eyes open and be aware of our surroundings.

From strangers always acknowledging us one way or another to the kids showering me with their handmade gifts—isn't it something that we have so much in the U.S. yet hold on to it while these people have so little and give so freely?

I think it is unbelievable that while the people in the Marshall Islands are so poor, there are no homeless. The fact that they take care of their own is something we in the U.S. sure could learn from.

I loved, loved, loved being in your classroom! You are a wonderful teacher and those kids are very lucky to have you. Thinking about the kids makes me smile. I can't believe I miss them like I do and this is after only 5 days.

Eneko was so beautiful. I loved taking the boat ride out and seeing all the other islands, the lagoon, the ships... Walking the reef to get to Ejit was amazing and so cool! Now I truly understand about the low tide and how it really is ok that you walk...in the Pacific Ocean...to get to another island :) …There are so many contrasts between the Marshalls and here that I almost get a headache thinking about it.

Being able to be with you was such a special gift. I loved meeting the people you are friends/volunteers with, seeing where you live, teach, breathe, play, shop, walk…

Just know that this trip was perfect from start to finish…

Fate or Destiny? A Personal Disquisition of the Bug Variety.

2008-02-06T11:18:00.000-08:00

Let it be known: I’m going to Bug Hell.

I used to think Bug Hell may not exist, but when I was once both young and naïve I also scoffed at the notion of Bug Karma, which I know now to be a veritable force not to be taken lightly. If Bug Karma exists I am fairly certain Bug Hell should exist as well. Allow me to elaborate.

Bug Karma, a term coined by my brother (and therefore valid for scholarly discourse), is quite similar, in fact, to regular karma. The only difference of course is that it involves insects; or more specifically, humanity’s relationship with the insect world.

Say, for example, you come across a spider in your living room. Being the angelic do-gooder you are, you spare said spider’s life (and dignity, by not smearing its guts on the wall) by gently easing the critter into a cup and kindly emancipating it via the front door. Congratulations! You have just been endowed with Good Bug Karma. What goes around comes around, and now something good will probably happen to you. Maybe a butterfly will land on your hand and make you smile or something.

Now let us imagine, simply for the sake of the argument, that you have opened a drawer, that just happens to be in a schoolroom in the Marshall Islands (let us label said location Room 114), to find approximately one hundred thousand ants commencing some sort of mass exodus into the classroom the moment you inadvertently disturbed them. You panic. Kind of. Mostly you find this absolutely amazing, having never before witnessed an ant horde of such a degree as to make the floor itself appear to undulate oh so subtly. When you come to your senses you get your hands on a can of Mortein Ant Spray and, with just the slightest compression of your index finger on the nozzle, initiate (a trite sardonically, too, I might add… maybe throw a little slo-mo into the mix and insert a drawn-out sub-octave bellow) the single most awe-inspiring mass-extermination of any quantity of visible life form of your entire existence on planet Earth. This is an example of what I imagine Bug Lords must frown upon. You may want to watch your back (or the top of your head, or… well, anywhere really), because Bad Bug Karma has likely been bestowed upon you with untold power.

Now, Bug Hell, a term which I may or may not have coined myself (and therefore not necessarily legit for scholarly conversation), is a place where human beings, who throughout their own lives have extinguished terrific numbers of bug lives, go when they die. This is a place where people, who have accumulated such a prodigious backlog of Bad Bug Karma that the scale simply cannot be balanced in one lifetime, are sent. This is where I fear I am destined.

So how do the Bug Lords “balance the scales” if you have Bad Bug Karma to reconcile with them? This is how: they send more bugs your way. It’s a test, an opportunity to redeem your sorry soul in Bug World. Last week I awoke at 3am to my legs stinging. There were many fire ants in my bed. I hastily put an end to their measly lives—and subsequently botched my redemption. Two nights ago as I was sitting at my desk in my bedroom, more ants started inexplicably coming up from behind and crawling all over the surface. Another opportunity to redeem my soul! I took a pen cap (the first thing I could find) and smooshed each pitiful individual ant to absolute oblivion. Failed at that test too. Miserably. Every so often my classroom is graced with an ant invasion of varying magnitudes, and I swiftly carry out an insect holocaust of an immensity unfathomable to the ant mind (or the southeast Michigan middle class mind as well, for that matter). I dread to hear those three words: “Mr. Ben! Loooooook…” Me: “Oh, NOOOO!”

“But you’re Jewish,” you say. “Jews don’t believe in Hell.” This is true. I have indeed raised an interesting point, as most ideologies that believe in karma, to my knowledge, tend to lean more towards a belief in reincarnation than the afterlife. Perhaps this is so. Perhaps there is no Bug Hell after all, and instead the Bug Lords prefer reincarnation as their holy alternative to eternal redemption and damnation. If this is the case, I have a terrible, nagging feeling that in the reincarnation process, the judges will vote unanimously to devolve me into… yes… an ant.

I just hope I don’t end up in the Marshall Islands.

Before Coming To The Marshall Islands, I Had Never…

2008-01-24T20:00:00.000-08:00

-witnessed the obnoxiously noisy sexual habits of pigs.
-taken a bucket shower.
-drank kava.
-seen meteors leave trails across the night sky.
-had a coral reef in my backyard.
-heard, spoken, or read Marshallese.
-swam in a lagoon.
-been away from home for so long.
-seen two dogs having sex.
-seen three dogs having sex.
-seen four dogs having sex. Simultaneously, with each other.
-crewed on a yacht during a race.
-worn flip flops as my primary footwear for more than three months in a row.
-lived amidst abject poverty.
-eaten Spam. (I don’t want to talk about it)
-stepped foot on a coral atoll.
-walked from one island to another.
-crossed the International Date Line.
-seen a barefoot child grab onto the trunk of a moving car and skid 30 yards down hot asphalt on the soles of his feet.
-eaten the flesh of the very pig I had seen slaughtered.
-missed America.
-drank coffee daily.
-seen dogs get run over by cars on a somewhat regular basis.
-been 23 years old.
-made a “Before Coming To The Marshall Islands, I Had Never…” list.
-been a 7th grade teacher.
-sat by helplessly as nearly everything I owned either rusted or molded over.
-thought it would be a good idea to remove my swimsuit in the ocean. (It’s not, by the way, for it is rather difficult to put back on while treading water and battling an outgoing tide at the same time. Lesson learned.)
-felt like I was aging five years in the span of one.
-been able to read books as fast as I can right now.
-sweat so profusely while engaging in the most idle of tasks. Good example: sitting around.
-seen children use their teeth to bite the rim off a Coke can.
-slept so damn poorly.
-been a minority by skin color.
-been able to put my hair in a pony tail.
-listened to the BBC World News on a shortwave radio for lack of any other medium by which to receive daily news updates.
-been offered shark fin soup.
-husked a coconut.
-spearfished.
-considered the sound of an airplane a novelty.
-urinated on someone’s leg or foot (to quell the stings of various oceanic creatures).
-shared a kitchen with cockroaches and rats.
-raised my eyebrows to signify a “yes” response.
-paid $5 for a plate of fresh, top quality octopus.
-had stinging fire ants and centipedes in my bed. (no good)
-known how to use every single function possible on my digital camera because I read the entire manual from cover to cover, twice.
-crafted my own palm-frond plate to eat from.
-been professionally and psychologically challenged to such a magnitude.
-gotten tired of the tropics and longed for snow.

And finally, before coming to the Marshall Islands (or becoming aware of the program, I should say), I honestly don’t think I even knew where they were!

Ruminations on The Half-Way Point

2008-01-21T13:41:00.000-08:00

Let me say something:

I do not live in a tropical paradise.

Have I been giving that impression? Sometimes yes, I think. Like many others who live or have lived in challenging environments, I tend romanticize my experience.

I live in a tropical poverty.

I began the following writing with the intention of it lasting only a few short lines, sort of a brief mid-year check-in and update. Somehow, though, it became two pages. After I wrote it I was hesitant about posting it to my blog because a) I’m kind of putting myself out there and also b) it’s a bit long and leaning towards the verbose. However, it is the most I’ve bared yet on this blog regarding what’s been going on in my head since my arrival here, so if that sounds like something you’d be interested in reading, well, here it is.

Six months away means that I am just past the halfway point. Incidentally, this halfway point happens to be the popular time when volunteers choose to ET (early terminate) their service-abroad programs if they are going to ET at all—WorldTeach, Peace Corps, etc. As of this writing, no one in my program has thrown in the towel. I would love for this to remain the case, but if history is any indicator not all 44 people in this program will see through to its completion.

Before my acceptance to the WorldTeach Marshall Islands program I had been well into the Peace Corps application process. I had done a fantastic amount of research into both current and past Peace Corps volunteers’ experiences as well as the experiences of others who had, or were undergoing, similar exploits around the world. There are a significant number of volunteers who ET from the Peace Corps every year. How could anyone bring him or herself to ET? I thought. Their blogs seem positive enough… why doesn’t anyone blog about the negative aspects and dark stretches? Are they not having anything of a hard time out there? Have I only been stumbling upon those blogs whose writers are having an exceptionally positive experience? How could you live with yourself knowing you early terminated from what was likely “the ultimate dream” that you’d been after for who knows how long? Why doesn’t anyone talk about this?

After spending six months out here I will say that no individual who has never participated in such an endeavor can attempt to question one’s motives for terminating their program early. There’s some kind of switch that goes off in your brain when you’re a long way from home amidst an unfamiliar culture with unfamiliar people speaking an unfamiliar language in an unfamiliar landscape, with what may seem like an impossibly challenging assignment to tackle, an often-daunting amount of time ahead of you and few people, if any at all, to fall back on or to catch you in your darkest hours (or days or weeks or…). That switch is wired to a part of your being you likely may never have visited before in your life, meaning that while you are dealing with and sorting through everything mentioned above, you now have this entirely new dimension of your Self to explore and question and figure out and dwell upon and, as to be expected, this affects your thought processes and judgment and interactions and creative intellect and your capacities for anger and sadness and joy and frustration and humor and whatever else is governed by the balance of chemicals in your body. And I’m not even on malaria medication, which is recommended to volunteers in many parts of the developing world and is prone to altering users’ waking- and dreaming-lives.

I tend not to expound, on my blog, on the negative parts of my experience. Do I have dark moments? Of course. Some of the hardest, darkest times I’ve ever felt subjected to have been right here on this stinkin’ little island. I may write about them off-line. And I often do. But it’s not fun to post it. My blog is great fun for me to keep occupied with and simultaneously a terrific way for me to stay positive. And perhaps for that very reason I was unable to ascertain much in the way of personal turmoil amongst those travelers and volunteers who maintain contact with the outside world throughout their time abroad.

So to anyone who does ET, from any of these programs, I respect your determination and idealism and courage it took to get out there in the first place and make as much headway as you did, and equally, the courage, really, that it takes to make the final call to ET.

No matter the decision to stay or leave, something is learned that could not have been had the dream not been sought in the first place. Whether the goods and bads are expounded upon equally is trivial. And to all my friends who are pursuing their dreams, whether in Los Angeles or New York or Chicago or Michigan, or Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, much of what I just wrote may apply to you guys as well.

Listen to me, talking like I’ve been away for years, some self-proclaimed cyber-guru spouting out words of wisdom over the Internet about Life In Your 20’s. The truth of the matter is, for as much fun as I do have here, it is also extremely hard and I do feel like I’ve learned quite a bit in just these six months away so far. If I were to early terminate, here would be my reasons: a sense of overwhelming isolation; the immense unrelenting stress of being in charge of 67 schoolchildren who have never been taught classroom behavior and who speak a different language; a perceived failure of ‘adjusting’ to my current life situation within the amount of time I expected; intestinal parasites and very rarely feeling physically 100%; homesickness; the children’s blissful ignorance contrasted against the despondency of their parents, who know better, and the wearing effect this has on me, the outsider, who really is living inside; and basically, just the adding up of frustrations with the “small” things, namely a monumental lack of competence pervading all sectors of society, lack of proper sanitation and personal hygiene, and iterations of any combination of all that stuff.

If I early terminate now (which I am not planning, nor wanting, to do), sure I’ll still be learning—that happens anywhere—but I’d be replacing South Pacific sunsets and 67 island children who think I’m the Second Coming with frostbite and Orchard Lake traffic.

And that deal strikes me as a little less than satisfactory.

Are Your Ears Up?

2008-01-19T16:09:00.000-08:00

In the Spring of 2007 I finished the recording of an album entitled, “Philosophizing, Epiphanizing, and Eating.” Shortly after, I found out that 94.7 WCSX, a local classic rock radio station that slows it down on their weekend “Over Easy” program, was accepting submissions by local artists. So I submitted.

Then, last week I was informed that, after Googling “Ben Chutz,” you can find me featured on the 94.7 Over Easy podcast! What?! I had no idea. They never told me. And to answer a likely follow-up question, no, I'm sorry... no nude celebrity photos show up under that Google search (yet). For that you will have to get your hands on the much prized (and praised?) 2007 Team Alex Calendar.

Click here to check out the podcast.

And if you're interested in hearing more of my music you can always check out www.benchutz.com. Okay, enough links.

Thanks!

Index: Month 6

2008-01-17T18:09:00.000-08:00

Visitors I’ve hosted in the past month: 2

Number of geckos that have interrupted my morning lesson by proceeding to crawl to the middle of the classroom and die (only to be instantaneously feasted upon by hoards of ants, to the utmost entertainment of my students): 1

Yacht races participated in, to date: 2

Percentage of days I walk into my classroom to find fresh rodent poop on the floor, shelves, and inside the cabinets: 100

Times the Majuro Middle School school-wide talent show has been postponed by our principal: 4

Planned (or unplanned) power outages, per week and lasting anywhere from 8 to 36 hours, sustained by our end of the island due to the combination of the Marshalls Energy Company’s debt and the breaking down of one of their generators: 1

Half days we have at MMS, per week, due to this continual problem: 1

Months this has lasted so far: 3

Minimum number of 7th grade yoga sessions I lead weekly now that I have implemented physical education into my instruction repertoire: 3

Average percent parent turnout for first- and second-quarter parent/teacher “conferences” so far: ≤50

Welcome Aolep!

2008-01-08T21:33:00.000-08:00

December came and went, but not without providing me with the first tangible evidence that the outside world is actually carrying on in my absence: Visitors! (Aolep means "Everyone"). Both Marisa and Zack came, and I cannot begin to describe what an energy and morale boost each gave to me in visiting.

For the first week of my “winter” break, Marisa and I traipsed about the atoll, spending day after lazy day in seaside hammocks on outer islands or thatch-roofed bungalows with hot(!) showers or having picnics with my students or eating the best American food Majuro has to offer. To say I was happy would be an outrageous understatement. I mean, c’mon, you’re spending a year on an island at the edge of the earth and your girlfriend travels solo for 50+ hours to come visit you… if that isn’t amazing then there’s a blizzard on Majuro’s weather forecast for tomorrow and I’m writing a check to MSU’s alumni association.

The day before Marisa left, Continental Micronesia deposited my brother safely down on Majuro’s tarmac for another week of Marshallese fun. We were scheduled to spend a night with other volunteers on another island but the plans fell apart when the supplies ship that was to accompany us sank in the lagoon. Instead, we rented a small flatbed truck and spent the day in beautiful Laura at the opposite end of Majuro. A frantic snorkeling escapade, beach volleyball, palm tree scrambles and a great sunset made it all worth it. New Years in Majuro was unlike any other I’ve experienced (I don’t know too many places where children fling burning sparklers 30 feet in the air into masses of people). And the rest of the week was spent, more or less, playing cards. And if that’s not a great way to spend time with your brother in the Marshall Islands, then SUVs are practical city cars and I can grow a full beard.

What a truly rock solid, kick butt vacation. Seriously now, if you can think of a more exciting break, then...

Index: Month 5

2007-12-18T19:30:00.000-08:00

Complete months of school taught so far: 4

Different varieties of palm trees I’ve learned exist throughout the world: 1,500

Number of my students’ parents who have died of diabetes since September: 5

Rank of said disease on the (growing) list of health problems in the RMI: 1

Price, in dollars, of one gallon of gasoline in Majuro: 5.06

Percent change in price of gasoline per gallon since my arrival in July: +25

Pounds off my July body weight I’ve somehow managed to lose: 14

Number of times I’ve considered making money off of this by writing a book entitled “The Third World Diet.” 1

Minutes ago this concept occurred to me: 3

Likelihood, as expressed on a scale of 0 to 10 with 0 denoting ‘never’, of my actually carrying through with this idea: 0

----

I am currently halfway through my program. I would like at this time to dispel what I think may be a common misconception about my food situation. I am not starving. Ok.

Life is good and I can’t complain. Christmas vacation begins tomorrow after our class holiday party. I think I’m going to use my break wisely this year and spend two weeks on a tropical island.

Wasn’t that funny?

Actually, it will surely be some of the most exciting time spent here, as my (undeniably brilliant and witty, not to mention beautiful) girlfriend Marisa will be visiting, and afterwards my younger (but undeniably older-looking, not to mention hairier) brother Zack is coming. Therefore I will be taking a break from all things email and blog related. Indeed, I will most likely be checking out of all communications with the outside world during this glorious time.* That being said, Happy New Year! And remember— don’t do anything I wouldn’t do twice.

* Please note that during this time packages containing dark chocolate, coffee, good books, Leo’s catering, and colored chalk will still be accepted.

Ahoy! Uh, wait… what do I do again?

2007-12-10T23:34:00.000-08:00

Seldom do I find myself responsible for the control of any form of transportation larger than an automobile. That’s about as big and powerful as I’ll go—on land. On water it doesn’t get any better. Put me behind the wheel of even a small motorboat on Walnut Lake and I am pitifully inept. If I am to be in charge on the water with any form of confidence whatsoever, give me a canoe and an oar.

So it is something of a wonder to me the position I found myself in last Sunday afternoon, scooting across the aquatic blue-green expanse that is the Majuro lagoon at the helm of a 39-foot yacht named Skylark II. On the outside you would have thought I was born to sail the South Seas. On the inside I was whimpering softly to myself, praying to the Marshallese god of the mighty Pacific that what the owners said about this boat, about how it was impossible to capsize, wasn’t just a self-righteous claim they liked to throw around.

One of the perks of being a volunteer in Majuro is our eligibility to join the Mieco Beach Yacht Club. For $15 (and various other hidden costs we have resentfully come to be informed of) one can “crew” during the Sunday lagoon-races on any of the half-dozen or so yachts of which the club is comprised. The yachts are owned by foreigners—typically Britons and Americans—who in their odysseys around the world have for the time being anchored down in Majuro’s lagoon. Evidently, these pit stops can routinely exceed five years. Then again, if one is circumnavigating the globe exclusively under the power of air molecules then I presume one mustn’t be in too much of a hurry to begin with.

Back to the experience at hand, last Sunday was “Learn to Sail Day.” In a thatch longhut we sat throughout the morning, swatting mosquitoes and familiarizing ourselves with sailing mumbo jumbo and hoping the rain would let up in time for the exciting stuff that was to take place that afternoon. The rain did let up, shooed out by the 28-knot winds that would whip us around for the remainder of the day (and cause me considerable amounts of distress). 34 knots, for the record, is considered gale force.

I learned a fair amount of sailing vernacular that morning and then proceeded to forget every word upon boarding the Skylark II that afternoon. The owners (or yachties, as they are routinely called) gave us a comprehensive tour of their beautiful vessel, which is literally their home (for the next ten years, mind you), and a run-through of their very impressive GPS navigation system, which I thought was most remarkable. I was quietly undergoing a radical epiphany. “This…” I confidently declared inward, “this is the life for me.” And then we started moving.

“Oh god.”

So maybe I wasn’t born with sea legs. That’s okay. I’m quite content in minding my own in a canoe on a small lake in Michigan. Or a pond. That would be fine too. But unless you want me to thoroughly evaluate the equilibrium of your 14-ton monohull, it’s probably best to assign me a task more along the lines of “just stay outta the way, will ya?”

---

In addition to the excitement of Learn to Sail Day, every Jewish man, woman, and child in the country (that would be 4 of us) hosted a “Hanukkah Happy Hour” for current and past volunteers. Latkes were fried, dreidles were spun, and Ben, drawing on the evocative storytelling abilities of his father, imparted upon gentiles and Jews alike the age old Story of the Maccabees.

B&W

2007-12-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

Because sometimes less is more.

"Rise and Shine"

"5"

"Protection?"

"Focus"

"Globalization"

"RMI Streetz"

"RMI Streetz, take 2"

"Shanty"

"Serenity"

"Yokwe, dude"

"Coconut Chews"

"Contemplation"

"Reality"

"Bright Side"

And a little purple never hurt anyone.

Thank you.

Thumb’s Up for The Man!

2007-12-07T16:43:00.000-08:00

In case the RMI national elections failed to make headlines in the highly reputable news providers of the US of A, I will take the liberty of supplying you with an—albeit brief and mildly(?) satirical— overview of the past several weeks’ political standings and goings-on. Also, as I happen to lack quite a bit in the way of political savvy, if you truly are interested in these issues I urge you to consult an actual Pacific news source (i.e. not me).

National elections, which occur every four years, took place on 19 November 2007. The public elects the senators, elected senators elect the president. Simple, right? Well, not quite. To begin with, most democratic countries, problems aside, can be assigned for the most part certain descriptives to their geographic integrity: whole, contiguous, single, connected, proximal, within-reach, etc. Not here. The Marshall Islands are a nation of 29 coral atolls and five isolated islands. This equals well over one thousand land masses. Granted, many of them are uninhabited. And “mass” might be overstating things. But regardless, that still leaves quite a few islands that are in fact presently being lived upon. And getting ballots out to these populations is not as simple as using a highly complex federal highway grid. It’s not even as simple as flying them, for the airline system is still under the weather (ha, get it?). And, as we have learned, it’s not even as simple as shipping them via watercraft (see 11/17 post). Even though it would seem that if elections reoccur every 48 months that that would provide sufficient planning opportunity, it seems to me that preparations began right around the one-month-till-takeoff mark.

“Election FIASCO,” “Outer Islands Run Out Of Absentee Ballots,” “Chaos At The Booths,” “The Long Wait To Vote,” “It’s The Worst Election Ever,” “Rain Adds To Voting Confusion As Ballots Blow Off The Tables,” “We’re All Gonna Die!” I confess, the last headline I made up. The others, however, can all be found in the edition of The Marshall Islands Journal immediately following the election.

The Campaign Trail:
Nepotism. n. the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs.

Obscure. adj. not discovered or known about; uncertain.

Our first vocabulary word can be applied to the Marshallese government. Aside from being corrupt in the financial department ($750M has the tendency to compromise morals even in the South Pacific) the political structure of the country is ruled largely by the iroij, or paramount landowners. This is achieved primarily by the residents of the land owned by an iroij— the alab (family heads) and the dri jerbal (workers)— being pressured to vote for whomever the iroij supports for office. As is evident, the public has not much voice in the final outcome.

Our second vocabulary word can be used to describe what each candidate for office stands for. Who the hell knows? Not me, for one. I should tell you here that I am known (quite often, I reluctantly admit) to respond to the Marshallese inquiry of just how much of the Majel language I command with the simple word jidik: a little. Sometimes I even bring the index finger and thumb of my right hand very close together in front of me and squint my eyes whilst making this claim. I digress. The fact remains that although candidates verbally broadcast their opinions to crowds in the street (no more than a week before the elections, at best) it doesn’t much matter. The pecking orders are set in place and that’s that. Apparently democratic systems get a trifle confused when instilled in a hierarchical land-ownership-based society. And maybe one or two other societies around the world I think.

Casting the ol’ Ballot:
Voting stations were set up along Majuro’s main drag at 30 locations, each staying open the necessary amount of hours past the nationally designated voting cut-off time respective to how far behind schedule each tent happened to be erected that day. In not a few stations this spilled over into the wee hours of the a.m. 21, in fact. (How this was responsible for my students’ two-day truancy is something that never was explained to me). To ensure that no citizen votes twice, after the casting of the ballot the voter’s right index finger was submerged in black ink. Also, a dead guy, evidently running for the position of senator on Utrik Atoll, garnered 69 votes. The Marshall Islands Journal: “The guy’s brother swears he died in 2005 in Ebon [Atoll], but election officials refused to take him off the list unless a death certificate was provided.” I guess that failed to happen. Sometimes though, I swear that a dead guy could do more good than a living guy in office here. Stateside, too, while we’re on the topic of progress.

Counting the Numbers:
Says the 30 November 2007 edition of The Marshall Islands Journal, “The Aelon Kein Ad (AKA) party has clearly beaten the United Democratic Party at the polls.” However, the front-page headline of the 7 December 2007 edition of TMIJ reads, “UPP and UDP claim victory.” What is the UPP? I’ll tell you. The AKA party, after declaring victory last week, announced the formation of a new party, the United People’s Party. Also published in the latest Journal are the winning statements of both the United People’s Party and the United Democratic Party, with the publication’s disclaimer that not even preliminary results have been issued by the Electoral Administration. How can this be? Because the chicken is tied to the backpack, as my esteemed PCV cousin/comrade Daniel Brooks in Honduras would say, or rather, it is because it is and there’s no sense in trying to make sense of it. Also you should know that the political parties lack platforms. They aren’t parties in the good ol’ righteous American sense. They’re more-so parties in the classroom sense: “Vote for me and I’ll make it summer vacation year ‘round!!”

Positives?:
Well yes. One. That I’ve found at least. Unlike the good ol’ righteous US of A, registered Marshallese voters waited in line upwards of 12 hours to vote. Can you imagine any American doing that? Not even the ones who ate too many burgers. However, it is not hard for me to infer that it is precisely this level of patience or willingness that allows for and propagates the late starts and the incompetence and lack of preparation. It’s a vicious cycle folks.

It’s very interesting to experience the national election of a country other than the one in which I’ve been raised. It’s also interesting to see democracy at its infancy, even if it isn’t necessarily the best method of governance for that particular society. It’s amusing to read the articles written on the subject by the self-proclaimed worst newspaper in the world. And lastly, holding degrees in Sociology and Philosophy (don’t ask me to show verification of the latter), my utmost interest lies in observing how a country and culture rooted in upwards of two thousand years of living practices perfectly tailored to remote-island self-sustenance is affected by the introduction and implementation of a Western-devised practice of rule. What a case study!

Jurelang for Majuro... yo.

First, it rained.

2007-12-04T00:45:00.000-08:00

Then it rained more. Then it didn’t stop raining for four weeks. Four weeks. Then I became depressed. Or something like it. On and off, actually. More on though than off. And somewhere in between Thanksgiving happened, Eneko happened, and turning my students into field geologists happened. I read six books. I lost my wallet. I ate an octopus. And in the end November turned into December, the sun came out, and I got happy again. But I never found my wallet.

I wasn’t down in the dumps for the whole month. Just for a lot of it. Currently, I am content and stable. Key word: currently. Here are some pictures I accumulated throughout the past couple weeks, taken when I found reason to smile. Or just when I found reason to take a picture.

Thanksgiving Day football game on the "field" in front of the middle school.

Ali and I singing “King of the Road” as part of a three-number lineup that also included “Cecilia” and “I’ll Fly Away,” for 30 people at an enormous Thanksgiving potluck hosted at the dorm. I also ate a lot that night. A lot.

The “beach” on the lagoon across the street from the dorm, on the sun’s first appearance in a month.

Eneko—an island an hour from Majuro proper (still part of the atoll)— where 14 of us volunteers (and others) spent the weekend in a lagoon-front shanty, contemplating what is the best way to do absolutely nothing.

Eneko sunset.

Eneko spider.

On the reef between Eneko and another island.

My 7th grade geologists making scientific observations on the reef behind our classroom.

The latest development at the middle school: The Anti-Littering Task Force. Conceived of by our principal, this absolutely ridiculous system involves students taking the names down of other fellow students who are allegedly “littering,” and submitting them to the higher orders of the MMS faculty, who then print up a list of the accused students’ names and their respective offenses (“throw paper,” “play money,” “throw wrapper”) and post it outside the office for public ridicule from the entire student body.

Oh yeah, and Happy Hanukkah!

1 Crazy Rikaki and 67 Crazier Rijikuuls

2007-11-19T19:59:00.000-08:00

Teaching is great. It’s also sometimes a royal pain in the butt. Mostly though it’s a genuinely fulfilling experience.

That being said however, I believe that one year in this profession should be enough for me. But what a year it is proving to be! In the past three months great things have happened in my classroom. Children are learning things (yes, really, I am teaching them stuff!), voicing their opinions, confiding in me, confessing to me exactly where I rank on their list of friends (“best ever for ever and forever”), and discovering how expectations differ between elementary school and middle school. And, in turn, I am discovering just how much of a student I myself have become in their presence. My students are themselves fantastic teachers.

Teaching is hard. I’m being challenged in ways that have never before been presented to me in my entire lifetime. And, as life would require, I just figure it out as I go along. Thankfully though, my students are there to remind me that some things—no, many things— are worth having a good laugh at.

Let’s take, for example, their affinity for and truly impressive execution of “the snot rocket.” For the ‘more experienced’ generation of my readers, namely of my parents’ decade of birth and beyond, I will provide a detailed description as to remind you of what you most likely carried out yourself on the playground as a child and may have all but put behind you, but at the very least surely had a friend who was quite fond of this method. It simply involves plugging one nostril with any desired finger and proceeding to discharge the contents of one’s nasal cavity through the other nostril with great force, ideally whilst in the out-of-doors. Then you do the other nostril. Marshallese children are masters of this technique, and it is sure a sight to see as quite often they will demonstrate their prowess from the height of the school’s second story balcony. I should clarify that their preference for this tactic is not necessarily for show or clout amongst their peers as much as it is for the lack of tissue paper on island. But regardless, until coming here, I’ve never seen a booger catch so much air, and as long as I am nowhere near its trajectory I have to admit that it is rather entertaining.

Speaking of nasal cavities, this brings us to point-of-interest #2. My students have brought to light a revolutionary technique that, if word gets out, could alter the mentality of nose-picking children around the globe. I call it… the “Double Fingered Approach.” The DFA involves the insertion of both the index and middle fingers into both nostrils simultaneously, thereby effectively cutting in half the time typically required for the de-boogering process using simply (and rather boringly and unimaginatively, if I may add) the “Single Fingered Approach” (SFA). What makes it difficult for me is when I am trying to teach a lesson to my class—or worse yet, trying to enforce discipline and/or voice my dissatisfaction with their behavior— and one kid is in the back with both fingers shoved up their nose while listening to me with great concentration. The humor is inescapable.

Let’s move on to hair. Most of my kids have lice. Lice removal shampoos are expensive, straight up. Fortunately, there’s an alternative. And it’s free. All you have to do is pick the lice out by hand. Obviously, one can’t administer this to their own self, so there will be pairs of students picking lice out of each other’s hair, before class, during class, after class. It almost makes me want to get lice so I can have someone pick it out for me. No wait I changed my mind.

And finally, there are things I catch myself saying in our classroom that would raise an eyebrow (or both) of anyone walking by, but for our class it’s just another ol’ day of the week. It occurred to me several weeks ago that maybe I ought to keep a list of these questions/utterances/ exclamations. So, here it is. Each of these I, Mr. Ben, have said verbatim in room 114.

“Heltina, please put your clothes back on.”

“Mark, why are your pants in the drawer?”

“Mark, why are your pants in the bathroom?

“Mark, why are your pants in your desk?”

“Mark, where are your pants?”

“Mark, you are wearing two pairs of pants. You know we are in the Marshall Islands, right? Like 7 degrees north of the equator?”

“Let’s go Robert, out of the bathroom. You’re late. Why are you so wet? And why is your backpack so wet? And what is dripping on me? What’s going on in here!?”

“Marlynn, I’ve asked you this before. Don’t take your shirt off in the room and then ask everyone to turn around. You do this all the time. Go somewhere else.”

“Alright… who brought the geckos in the classroom?”

“Alright… who brought the puppy in the classroom?”

“Alright… who brought the big huge crab in the classroom?”

“Alright… who brought the praying mantises in the classroom?”

“Please don’t touch me there.”

“Maylina if you throw that lice in my hair you will be extremely sorry you did that. I know where you live. I know where all of you live! Hahahaha!”

“Girls, enough with the lotion. Number one, you don’t need that much, and number two, it goes on your skin.”

And my personal favorite:

“Junior, where did your hair go? You only had 15 minutes of recess. Who did that??? And… you know there’s still a little bit left, right?”

Index: Month 4

2007-11-19T19:56:00.000-08:00

Commercial fast food establishments in the Marshall Islands: 0

Instances witnessed of fully-grown members of the canine and hog families being struck by a moving automobile, either by taxi in which the author was riding, or otherwise: 4

Number of students I’ve lost, to date, as result of injury, car accident, prolonged sickness, pregnancy, familial obligation, outer island relocation, or any combination of the previously listed: 6

Times I’ve felt like I struck gold or won the Big Game lottery throughout the past four months, which not coincidentally correlates precisely with the number of amazing packages I’ve received from supremely generous family and friends: 6

Percentage change in my state of psychological wellbeing since taking the advice of both my wonderful mother and brilliant girlfriend to resume physical activity beyond the movement of “merely walking around”: +110

Ambulances owned by “The Hospital” in Majuro: 2

Percentage of said quantity not in working order: 50

Despite above statistic, number of times I’ve heard sirens: 1

Monetary sums of the Grand Prize, First Prize, and Second Prize, respectively, to be awarded to three Majuro Middle School students who sell the most tickets to the annual Variety Show: $1,000, $500, $300

Number of books and supplies this money could buy for MMS’s severely under-stocked classrooms were it put to use in a less astoundingly asinine manner: ??????????

Taxis, Boats, the Dirt Luge, ‘A’MI, and Other Absurdities of Public Transport that Require a Long Title and an Even Longer Entry

2007-11-17T15:21:00.000-08:00

I was once asked by a friend from home, “How do people get around over there?” A very legitimate inquiry, as the country does happen to consist of 29 coral atolls and five independent islands totaling but 70 square miles of land, yet spread over 700,000 square miles of ocean. My response was, “With great difficulty.”

Of course, not every mode of transportation is difficult, but few are without, as this blog title suggests, their respective absurdities.

Driving and Taxi Culture:
I can just imagine the ‘big guys in charge’ many decades ago sitting on palm fronds in a thatch hut discussing the enticing prospect of development. Why develop? Because development will bring money, and money solves problems. Obviously. Big Guy in Charge #1 says, “How can we make this pristine tropical island a better place?” And then Big Guy in Charge #2 replies with something to the effect of, “I know. Let’s raze coconut trees by the thousands and lay down thirty miles of asphalt so we can drive cars and trucks from one end to the other.” Big Guy in Charge #1: “You’re brilliant.” More likely, the Big Guys in Charge were royally duped into believing that capitalism is the sure path to complete enlightenment, and you surely can’t have that unless you’ve got a road to, you know, do business stuff on. And so the story goes, they paved over paradise, put up a few parking lots, and imported thousands of cars and trucks to drive around and then dump in the ocean when expired. And then someone started a taxi service.

I’ve mentioned taxis in previous posts. Allow me to delve into more detail. These are not your typical NYC taxicabs. These are not your typical Metro airport cabs. The only things typical of a taxi in the Marshall Islands are a) the odometer must display no less than three hundred thousand kilometers, b) there must never be, under any circumstance, more than one gallon of gas in the tank, and c) it must be capable of emitting some kind of mysterious lure that attracts dogs, pigs, and hoards of small children directly into its oncoming path. In addition, as there happen to be only two directions in which to travel—this way or that way—many people may occupy the same cab at once, often leading to the unfortunate discovery that, not only have you found yourself sandwiched and rendered immobile between two rather large-ish women in the back seat, but the thought of bathing has evidently not occurred to anyone since the turn of the current calendar year and, alas, the taxi has now run out of gas.

Small Boats and Expensive Boats:
If I plan accordingly I can walk to neighboring Ejit at low tide. If I don’t (as was the case last week) I am limited to a) swimming or b) “hitching” a boat. I chose the latter. Nine (9) people, including the author and a pregnant mother cradling a baby, puttered through to Ejit at 0.08 knots on a homemade rowboat the length and width of my cot and to which a rudimentary propeller had been affixed, while one kind soul (bless his heart) routinely bailed water out the rear with a modified plastic milk jug. My thoughts were, if I recall correctly, “Oh God… Oh God…” And then I survived.

To get to other atolls entirely, the RMI owns a small fleet of sea faring vessels that are dispatched at random times and dates and adhere to no formal schedule. With any thought whatsoever we can see that this modus operandi is prone to causing multitudes of problems, but hey, what’s life without a little suspense? Unfortunately, the fun failed to be recognized when, earlier this week, the government found themselves in a fairly expensive and not-quite-comically (but sort of) wholly-preventable quandary. You see, as government office elections are to be held on November 19th, scores of ballots were to be sent to outer atolls on two special vessels that were chartered for the purpose of the ballot shipment, to the sum of $50,000US. However, a “small” miscommunication took place and the ships left port… you guessed it… without the ballots.

Air Travel, or lack thereof:
Air Marshall Islands planes are down yet again. Broken engines. How do engines break so often, one might ask? The last time an engine broke was due to “pigs and children on the runway” as the plane was landing, forcing a panicked full-throttle touchdown/takeoff shenanigan (I am sure that’s the term for it in aviation school), as reported by the Marshall Islands Journal. Regrettably, this time the chief mechanic has… resigned. So what happens if a WorldTeach Volunteer needs emergency care? Well my friends, that is one of the benefits us overseas volunteers receive thanks to the USA’s preference for military outposts on every inch of the world. The US Army base on Kwajelein will come to our assistance. Shamefully, their goodwill evidently extends only to other Americans, which is why a 4th grade girl from an outer island died several days ago as a result of internal bleeding after breaking her hip. She was on a boat destined for Majuro that simply could not move fast enough.

The Dirt Luge:
Children raised without toys dream up many an ingenious method with which to entertain themselves. Many children’s activities I am fortunate enough to witness often elicit a thought in my head reminiscent of what my Dad used to remark to me upon his own noticing of some plan I had “most geniusly” devised, always fraught with the potential (of which I was of course unaware) to go extremely awry. In fact, I carry those old words with me to this day, quietly reminding me time to time from the recesses of my mind that maybe what I am about to do I ought to think twice about. Those words, as coined by the man Jeff Chutz himself, are “Nothing good can come of this, Ben.” The most paramount example of this I have observed since arriving here is what I call, “The Dirt Luge.”

“The Dirt Luge” consists of one very large pile of trash covered with a thin layer of sediment (quite similar, in fact, to the practice to which Michigan’s skiing industry owes its success), the rusty remain of an automobile hood from perhaps 1982, and at least 80 children (give or take). The way it works is that after the car hood is dragged to the summit, 25 or so kids pile on top of one another and proceed to surf the corroded sheet of metal to the base, losing a few on the way and taking the legs out from underneath maybe another dozen kids who failed to understand the implications of not responding to a “heads up! call” and finally coming to rest in front (or as result) of a large, deteriorated piece of heavy machinery that hasn’t been in commission since probably 1960, on top of which 30 more children are jumping and climbing and generally just being vilderchiar children with zero limitations. And also, because Marshallese children have the distinct quality of possessing a greater pain tolerance than American children by, say, a factor of several thousand, even the most perceivably injured of children will be laughing up a storm as if he or she had just taken a trip around the moon and seen Barney in passing, and will inevitably be right back at the top in mere seconds, hungry for more reckless carnage. It is truly a sight to see.

Absurdities are commonplace. Competence and normalcy are two words that demand a slight tweaking in definition, but nevertheless are slowly (I repeat, slowly) working their way into my geographically-contextual lexicon. And as for me, well, I sip my coconuts, philosophize, and do my best to take this all in stride and feebly make some sense of it all.

I traveled to a tiny island to hone my movie production skills.

2007-11-08T19:15:00.000-08:00

As this time of year is characterized by frequent heavy downpours that last anywhere from five minutes to three hours, occasionally knocking out power to half the island and without fail routinely flooding large swaths of land, I was compelled to capture moving video of one said tempest last night. In fact, I believe my exact thought was, “Say, I feel awfully compelled to capture this on moving video.”

So I did.

It took me all of about six minutes to come up with the idea (a flash of pure insight, I swear), record, edit, and finalize, so naturally it will be up for awards.

More Notes from the Far Side of the World.

2007-11-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

It’s a rare moment that I find myself somewhere beyond earshot of crashing waves. Even when the tide is out and, due to the sheer size of the reef shelf the ocean is breaking several hundred yards away (as opposed to, say, 10 yards at high tide), the steady roar, however distant, is ever present. When I am not paying attention (or perhaps when I am paying too close attention?) I imagine, ironically, the sound of traffic. Not in a depressing, loathsome sort of way, but in an intriguing, reflective way, that compels me to sort of smile at this rather beguiling paradox.

Which leads me to this thought: After a year of living in such close proximity to the ocean, when I return home will the sounds of the city remind me of the steady crash of the waves?

Perhaps this interesting contradiction of conditioned psychological schemas wouldn’t be at the forefront of my consciousness if I were instead lazily lounging on a pristine tropical island in the middle of nowhere for but a week or two, with just the right amount of time to effectively shut my mind off. But as my life would have it I am instead spending 47 weeks teaching a foreign language on a tropical island, indeed in the middle of nowhere (actually 2,000 miles from anywhere you can actually see on a map) but far from pristine, effectually paved over in excess, culturally tarnished by Western and Asian commercialization, and generally shat on by the United States and their irreverent demeanor towards the livelihoods of a peaceful people whose homes they H-bombed to smithereens and radioactive dust.

It’s kind of hard to turn down the volume of my mind in these circumstances. Maybe it’s time I change the subject.

There are a number of aspects of personal life here that I am adjusting to quite favorably:

1. The absence of a cell phone in my pocket. Though from time to time my mind forgets this simple fact and makes my pocket vibrate, until I realize that “No Ben, you don’t have a cell phone, and you haven’t had one for the past 16 weeks. Relax bro, no one’s calling you.”

2. The absence of lightning-speed 24/7 web access. At home I check Gmail approximately 400 times a day. In the Marshall Islands I check it four times a month for $6 a pop on a sluggish wireless connection frequently truncated by rolling power outages, after walking twenty miles uphill both ways naked. Actually it’s a twenty-minute walk, on which I (usually) wear clothing, and there are no hills to speak of. But when I began writing that first part I felt like my dad colorfully relating to me the extremes of walking to school during the apparently perpetual sub-zero winter that was the 1950s, and I decided to just go with it.

3. The absence of a bank account. Actually I do have a bank account. It’s called the Bank of Ben’s Desk Drawer. It’s quite a pitiful sum and, unfortunately, the only interest it receives is from three different varieties of—and I believe I am using proper Linnaean terminology here—“stupid f-ing ants.”

4. The absence of deadlines. This was a hard adjustment to make considering my devotion to my trusty palm pilot at home, which by now is probably so conditioned by my use that it very well may be making exorbitant plans all on its own. But, alas, I have found a healthy medium between the Ben philosophy of “Do Stuff,” and the Marshallese philosophy of, “Do Stuff… Eventually.”

5. The absence of food. This I have adjusted to surprisingly well for being a self-described “food man.” When there is, quite literally, over $1,000 of food to choose from at home at any given moment, either from the refrigerator or the pantry (or the shelf or the cabinets or the garage or the fridge in the garage or the garden or…) eating tends to be a big thing, with big options: quantity, quality, combinations, new recipes, old recipes, spices, accents, shavings, sprinklings, dustings what have you. Well, I have not. With $40 of food on but one lonesome shelf, with one trip to the market per week, consuming food simplifies to the point of roughly “What do I want to eat this week?” And then I eat the same meals, in half-sized quantities, with the same three spices, for the duration of the week. I can subsist on very little and still remain largely in digestive comfort. It’s quite humbling.

6. The absence of daylight savings time. This has not remotely affected my life in any way whatsoever.

7. The absence of a personal automobile. I do love driving. After all, I am an American. But it’s nice to constantly be reminded that I have some healthy walkin’ legs. And it’s also nice to not be spending $50 on a tank of gas every time I turn around.

Though it’s not 100% apparent what exactly it is I am learning from each of these “absences,” I am aware that I am indeed gaining much— and I’ve only listed the absences I’ve found myself adjusting to favorably.

It’s been very easy for me to come from the most affluent county in the American Midwest to a tropical third-world island cursed by the hideously wretched side of industrialization and take note of everything I “lack.” I suppose it’s only natural. But more and more I am discovering, as I become more comfortable and rooted here, the boundless wealth of what I do have, all around me, every day, and my capacity to simply do without the daily regularities of the developed world.

That being said, I could really go for some Einstein’s right about now. No kidding.

You want to see who?

2007-10-28T21:57:00.000-07:00

I have been inundated with requests (read: 2) for pictures that include myself, of all people (weird... I know). Your wish is my command. You only get two more though so choose wisely.

At the Outrigger hotel with Hemant, looking somewhat creepy, and Katie, looking otherwise normal.

With Youmina, my Orientation language instructor, at a dinner we "hosted" last night for her and her sister.

Me in the Marshall Islands.

Tim, Diane, Cassy, and Joe, again at the Outrigger, this time for a birthday party.

At a Manit (Culture) Day celebration with three of my students.

Jammin' out at the first ever Majuro Bloozefest!

In other news, the Marshalls Energy Company (MEC) is in debt and has just enough left to provide power to the nation until November 20th. November 20th is election day here in Majuro, and the MEC, word on the (only) street, is hoping that whoever is elected into office will “solve the problem."

I hope so too. Because if not, I believe that would leave me... marooned.

Index: Month 3

2007-10-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

Number of times I've been able to sit back with a smile and say, "Boy, I've finished all my work.": 0

Price, in dollars, of beautiful conch shells the size of my head sold at local handicraft huts: 5

Number of times per day (approximately) I stare out at the blue-green-turquoise expanse of the lagoon and think, "Wow... am I really here?": 32

Lush, green, uninhabited islands I walk past on the reef at low tide to get to Ejit, the small (pop. 250) island on which other volunteer friends of mine live and teach: 2

Gallons of gasoline (no more, no less) taxi drivers fill up their gas tanks with at a time: 1

Gallons of gasoline on which taxi drivers routinely drive their cars: <1

Average number of taxis I see on any given day being pushed by hand into a gas station: >1

Number of rock'n'roll bands in the Marshall Islands that are more popular than the one in which I am a member: 0

Number of rock'n'roll bands in the Marshall Islands, period, including the one in which I am a member: 1

Times I've arrived to my classroom in the morning to find it flooded as a result of the previous night's rainstorms having blown my windows open (and recently, breaking them entirely): I don't want to talk about it

Somewhere, a pig squealed.

2007-10-18T17:40:00.000-07:00

And also a dog barked. And also, well… I forgot.

“I forgot.” That seems to be the prevailing psychological theme of my time here, running on the constant backburner of my brain’s daily activity. Maybe it’s the stifling heat and 800% humidity. Maybe it’s the placid surrealism of the seemingly infinite Pacific oceanscape as viewed from the 7th latitude, day in and day out. Maybe it’s my nutrient-deficient diet. Or maybe it’s… um… shoot. I forgot what I was going to say again.

I forget here. Things I think about that I want to remember later, things I remember that I want to think about later, and, you know, other things of the like. So I try to write things down. Only I tend to forget things, like my pen. Just the same with proper diction and conjugation; for example my tendency, as of late, to use the word “confusement.” In case you haven’t heard, I’m supposed to be teaching English.

And to compound matters, I’m all too frequently overcome with the recently developed and most unfortunate quality of pure indolence. A simple lack of inertia. Some might call it sloth.

I have a personal philosophy, of sorts. It’s called, “Do stuff.” I subscribe to it quite religiously in my life. However, in the Marshall Islands, subscriptions of all sorts seem to be far and few between. Unfortunately, this includes my philosophy— more often than I’d prefer. Not to mention the majority of my students never having paged through a magazine.

I’ve found that I am not the only one suffering from frequent memory lapses and a near-perpetual state of lethargy. Wouldn’t you know, the majority of Majuro’s population is afflicted as well. Life in the islands moves slowly—to say the least. And along with the speed (or lack thereof), comes a subtle form of apathy. I’m not sure which precedes which. The philosophy here more or less appears to be “Do Stuff… Eventually.” If it doesn’t happen today, it’ll happen tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then the next day. If not the next day then maybe some day after that. And if it doesn’t ever get done, well, that’s okay too.

Island time. So it goes.

On what would seem to be an unrelated note, I have never seen so many dog testicles in all my life. If there is a dog, there are testicles. Unless, obviously, it is not a male (though the residual effects of radiation fallout in the 1950s remain, in large part, a mystery). A U.S. Navy ship on a humanitarian mission supposedly neutered and spayed a large number of dogs a while back, but the effects of which I have yet to bear any witness to whatsoever. Which led to, whilst meandering down the solitary road in Majuro one sunny afternoon, the sighting of a creature the likes of which I had no previously held notions of which to aid in the identification process. I looked again— closer this time. Then I wondered to myself, “What is that weird looking, fat cow-dog looking thing, with thingies dangling all underneath it?” Using my Powers of Observation (Dad— thank you for cultivating this fine skill within me from such a young age… they are proving to be very useful here), I deduced that, while it did bear a slight resemblance to a small cow, the only other four-legged mammals of comparable size here are pigs. And this certainly was no pig. It was, in fact, just a very pregnant dog. Silly me. *see disclaimer below

I bought a ukulele. Finally! As a musician, I have very high standards to which I hold my instruments. And so naturally, as any passionate musician can likely attest to at some point in their lives, I purchased the best quality instrument I could not quite afford on my meager finances. Lucky for me, this equaled top-of-the-line-product at EZ PriceMart, and after foregoing several meals I dropped the 15 bucks and walked out of the store a (hungry) new man, ukulele-in-cardboard-box-serving-as-case in tow. It even came with a quality Made in China sticker right inside the sound hole, as there are no fabled old-wise-man-in-thatch-hut-who-crafts-ukuleles-by-hand types here. It reads as follows:

“This is meticously hand carved by finest craftman from woods carefully selected from around the world, and is superbly constructed and feature excellent tome and appearance. The necks are handcontoured to assure sense of playing for the ukulele players.”

I’m not quite sure what “sense of playing” means, because I intend, as do most people I’m sure who buy these instruments, to “actually” play this thing.

The Bloozeman has already figured out twelve bar blues. On the 4-string ukulele. Takin’ the ‘Islands downtown to that Texas sound. Island style, of course.

Disclaimer:
Please refrain from reverse-anthropomorphizing my tactless description of expectant canine mothers to assume I regard pregnant human beings in a similar fashion.

Things I've learned so far...

2007-10-04T21:34:00.000-07:00

That I really am in the middle of nowhere.

That 15-month-expired Spaghettio’s taste exactly the same as those eaten well within their date of expiration.

That Newton’s Third Law can be philosophized into a metaphor and amalgamated with the field of Sociology. For example, as the levels of technological development and so-called ‘quality of life’ rise, the notions of ‘community’ and ‘sharing’ seem to head equally in the opposing direction.

The great (current) paradox of my life— the one thing that most motivated my desire to apply for and accept this position overseas has become the single greatest thing I’ve come to miss the most.

That my body holds the potential to smell really, really bad.

That it’s never too late to start being strict in the classroom. When our orientation instructors said, “don’t go too easy on ‘em at first—they’ll take advantage of you,” my arrogance asked my self, “how much could these people, with tons of experience, possibly know about my classroom?” Well, a little more than you think, it turns out.

That daily idyllic sunsets can elicit no greater feelings of serenity than can the West Bloomfield skyline if I’m not careful.

That ending the school day by letting no student out of the classroom if they are not wearing a smile is a truly fantastic way to end the day, and often makes for a really fun game!

That plastic optical frames disfigure in the relentless equatorial heat and humidity.

That probiotic supergreens powder, mixed with an Emergen-C packet in a glass of water on an empty stomach first thing in the morning will crush any headcold in no longer than 48 hours—guaranteed.

That on any given day, I can be as difficult and disciplinary as I know how to be, and evoke many a protesting groan at a challenging assignment, but as soon as that bell rings at 2:40pm I find myself, without fail, right back at the top of my students’ Coolest People Of All Time lists.

That expensive rain jackets don’t keep your legs dry one bit.

That I can travel halfway around the world and still find one person who annoys me.

That since being here, on a moment-to-moment, minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, and month-to-month basis, the chemicals in my brain responsible for the control of euphoria and depression seem to be as unpredictable and erratic as any given ocean wave in the throes of a South Pacific typhoon. And that sucks.

That friends-by-default can fulfill many, but not all, of my inherent needs and standards for a certain level and quality of comradeship.

That I may very well go an entire year without ever lacing up to my feet a pair of closed-toe shoes.

That colored chalk is awesome! And that the fact that I just said that with such enthusiasm could be taken as a testament to my typical attitude in the classroom.

That when the distance from your classroom to the ocean can be measured with a handful of yardsticks (which I don’t have, by the way) and your windows are nothing more than a couple aluminum slats, salty ocean spray will inevitably cover every square inch of the walls, rendering useless every form of consumer adhesive known to, and/or created by, man. This is cause for much frustration, as you might imagine.

That my love for another person, despite physical distance, can mature and grow throughout dimensions of my being previously unknown to me, to extents I never thought possible.

That I am the Bloozeman.

The latest…

2007-09-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

My class!

A Japanese bunker- the lone WWII relic on Majuro. I had to walk through some back yards and ask some residents where I could find it.

Most people bury their loved ones right in their yards. It's common practice. This is one of the only cemeteries I've found. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad to face these great blue waters for an eternity, eh?

A long-shutter photo I snapped at one of our favorite hangouts- the "Flame Tree."

A long-shutter photo of the backyard in front of a past-favorite beach.

Roasted!

Don't worry Zack... the Marshall Islands are ready for you should you desire to trim up that beard in December.

Pinana.

Ubiquitous.

Welcome, Rainy/Windy Season

2007-09-26T21:50:00.000-07:00

“Mr. Ben can I put my bag?”

I hear this maybe 100 times a day. Although it sounds a bit more like, Meester Ben, kee-ann I poot my bee-ag? Be sure to roll that “r” nice and good off the end of “Mister.”

They know the rule. Unless you a) have work to finish, b) want extra help, or c) want to read books from the “Lending Library,” you are not allowed in the classroom before the morning bell rings. Maybe they just like to hear me say, “No.” Or maybe they just like to take advantage of the fact that no window in the school has any sort of barrier to the outside world but for a few horizontal metal shutters—half of which are missing.

I used to let them drop their bags off. For about a week. Then I stopped. Mainly due to their tendency to play the favorite game amongst Marshallese school children—it’s called “Run Around And Kick Stuff And Make As Much Noise As Freakin’ Possible And Throw Stuff Everywhere.” They love it. If there were an Olympic sport for this game, I have complete confidence that Marshallese schoolchildren would take golds across the board.

I guess that’s what happens when there are limited physical outlets for them. Basketball is pretty big in Majuro… there’s one nice court in the center of “town,” otherwise there are plenty of broken down cement courts in back yards. The balls though are hard to come by. Volleyball is a favorite amongst children, however I have yet to see one volleyball net—they just play in a big circle. And every morning before school there are about 80 kids out front playing a baseball-like game with a stick, a tennis ball, and one base. But there is no Phys Ed.

There aren’t any creative outlets for them either. No art class, no music, no drama. Just seven periods of boring ol’ bookwork (unless they’re in Mr. B’s class of course).

In every other class they copy down notes from the board and memorize ridiculously long words and abstract concepts they don’t even come close to understanding. But their exams don’t require their command of a subject whatsoever; all that’s required is simply their regurgitation of the material in the same form they learned it. They’ve become expert copy-ers and memorizers. They’ve been groomed to completely turn off their imaginations.

If I can pull it off, this year for these kids will be the most enlightening/challenging/rewarding year of their lives. My Science class has become part Art, and soon to be part P.E. My English Reading/Writing class has become part Music and part Drama. I’m seeing so much beauty literally pouring out of each child, every single day, in the form of journals, pictures, projects; megatons of creative power that they’ve never had the opportunity to unleash and cultivate throughout all their schooling thus far.

For as much grief as they give me (that I’m sure all teachers get at one point or another), I can now understand the joy of this job. The feelings that come when just one student finally understands, once and for all, the difference between a common and a proper noun. Or when I think, “Damn… I just did a great job explaining this assignment,” and then everyone does it correctly and there aren’t eight hands raised the instant I’m done talking—“Mr. Ben I don’t understand.”

Oh, and you can always come to ‘our’ classroom before the morning bell rings if you “just wanna talk.” :)

Index: Month 2

2007-09-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

Times feet have been unsuspectingly swarmed by stinging red ants: 3

Full days of school taught so far: 24

Real-deal pig roasts attended on an uninhabited island off mainland Majuro: 1

Hours of Internet indulged in throughout past four weeks: 3.5

PTA meetings held so far during First Quarter: 1

Hours it lasted: 2.5

Length of time, in minutes, it could have lasted, if conducted efficiently, given the topics they chose to cover: 15

UFOs sighted over the lagoon by yours truly (I’m serious!): 2

Dollars left of my stipend for the rest of September: 13

Loaves of bread from the corner store this could afford me: 13

It’s been slightly over a month since Orientation ended and exactly two months since I left home. My effectiveness as a teacher is improving exponentially as I continue to figure out the trade, and my hair is getting longer as I continue to not cut it. There are still a handful of WorldTeach volunteers who are stranded on Majuro because of the plane situation, but their numbers are slowly dropping as they opt for the less-desirable "travel by small, cramped, smelly boat" route; a journey through the open Pacific that could last for up to 15 days.

----------

And now for some news updates from the past month, as contributed by flavor-of-the-day freelance journa-blogger Ben Chutz:

-The voicemail system of the cellphone service operated and monopolized by the National Telecommunications Authority of the Marshall Islands is maxed out, effectively preventing every single person with a cell phone from leaving someone else a message.

-Three sets of 500-year-old human bones were uncovered at the opposite end of Majuro. No one knows anything more about it. Except probably for the scientists who dug them up.

-The Marshall Islands has curiously managed to evade the “Top 100 List of Fattest Countries in the World,” compiled by the World Health Organization. Nauru, an island nation south of the Marshalls, topped the list. The Federated States of Micronesia, due west, ranked #2. Overall, Pacific islands make up 8 of the top 10 fattest countries. So where do we rank here? 105. As quoted by The Marshall Islands Journal, “We’re glad that the WHO is recognizing that we’re relatively healthy in this part of the Pacific... radiation, corned beef, white rice and all.”

-I went spearfishing a couple weeks ago for the first time ever. I used a Hawaiian sling—a 4-foot trident spear propelled by a surgical-tube strap—to spear a fish on the reef that I later pan fried and consumed. The fish was... wait for it... wait for it... 3 inches long. But maybe by the time my visitors come in December I can catch ‘em a Marlin! Honestly, I didn’t really enjoy it. I felt a bit guilty about taking its life with my own hands. I probably won’t spearfish again, though I’ll continue to buy fish at the store that were killed by someone else and subsequently question my ethics.

-The part in my hair on my head has mysteriously and spontaneously switched sides for the first time ever in my life. I don’t know what to do.

That’s about it from this end of the World. If you send me hot donuts and cider I’ll be your best friend.

I’m a 7th Grade Teacher!

2007-09-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

It’s official. I am a 7th grade teacher. And wrapping up my third week in the classroom, I feel SO good about it. I’ve built a great classroom environment, I have great students, and, so far, I feel very effective. Despite the limited resources I have to work with (for example, for 25 students I only have twelve science books from 1988 with no teacher’s edition), I am faring quite well. Here’s a rundown of my daily schedule:

8:15-8:30 Homeroom
8:30-9:20 Science 1
9:20-10:10 Science 2
10:10-10:25 Recess
10:25-11:15 Planning period
11:15-12:05 Science 3
12:05-1:00 Lunch
1:00-1:50 Reading
1:50-2:40 Writing

You may have noticed that the schedule does not provide for passing time between classes. That’s because there isn’t any. As a result, the class periods are, at best, 40 minutes in length. Sometimes the bell rings for 3 seconds, sometimes it rings for a full 15. It remains a mystery.

Of course, none of this has been explained to me. In fact, nothing at all has been explained to me. Two days before the first day of school I was given a key to my classroom from the vice principal and was asked, “OK?” Okay? Really? You aren’t going to, you know, maybe tell me one single thing about this school? Like what the hell I am supposed to do with a classroom of broken windows and ant colonies throughout every drawer and 12 text books and one working overhead light and no curriculum to speak of? Or what the schedule is or who my students are or what exactly I'll be teaching or what is remotely expected of me?

Well, in a way, I am glad it worked out like this. I have since been given a general Reading/Writing curriculum (way too advanced) and a general Science curriculum (way too advanced). The middle school clearly does not know much of anything about their students’ levels. Therefore, I am taking the liberty of creating my own curriculum. And a fantastic curriculum it will be.

All venting aside, I am so overjoyed with how this year is panning out for me. My students are wonderful, better than I could have asked for. The science nerd within me has transformed me into a far better science teacher than I could ever have imagined. But my previously perceived confidence in my command of the English language has been dealt a serious blow- who knew Chapter 1 of a third grade language arts book could be so hard? For a college educated 23-year-old?? When did I forget all this stuff?? What’s going on??

Enjoy these pictures. Well, you don't have to. But here they are:

Ants and mold-destroyed books (I was later told that those drawers had not been opened by the teacher who taught in my room for the past 4 years). There is no dirt in that drawer. All ants.

The four lone boys in my homeroom class of 25. They are 4 of the brightest kids in my class. Left to right; Mark, Mandy, Loir, Minor.

Oh and also, I was recruited as the lead guitarist for the one and only rock’n’roll band in Majuro! I played my first show with them last weekend. It was my second time playing with the band. It was so awesome. I wailed a screaming five minute solo off All Along the Watchtower to close out our set. And then I smashed my guitar through the bass drum and lit it all on fire! Just kidding. Anyway, here’s some pictures from that.

Yakwe en jota from Mr. B.

Airplane Crisis

2007-08-23T16:59:00.000-07:00

Over the course of the past couple of weeks a rather grave scenario has unraveled in this country.

Of the two airplanes the RMI owns and operates under Air Marshall Islands for inter-island travel/business/mail/etc., zero are functioning. The 30-seater has had a broken engine since August 4. The 16-seater has two broken engines, both of which terminated mid-flight with 14 people aboard last weekend. One engine was able to be restarted, allowing for a safe, albeit precarious landing. All three engine repairs require skills beyond that of what the mechanics here have to offer and therefore need to be sent out-of-country.

So, what does this mean for WorldTeach? It means the other 30+ volunteers who are placed outside Majuro Atoll are stranded on Majuro. What does that entail regarding their teaching positions and the possibility of missing school? Not much, considering that many outer island teachers and students, as well as most outer island principals spend their summers in Majuro, and thus are stuck here as well.

What does this mean for the rest of the country? 30% of the population relies on Air Marshall Islands, and during the summer months most of that percentage has used AMI to leave their homes for an extended period of time. Such is the case now. Roughly 1/3 of the population is currently displaced.

To make matters worse, there is no date by which the planes are expected to be in working order. The country is bankrupt and simply lacks the money to repair them. From what I have been told by Tam, our field director, the government will somehow jostle some funds around and “make it work.”

The Marshall Islands are in it deep. Outer island schools may not start until October, but no one really knows because that’s just the way it is around here. Not much is known about stuff. Earliest estimates are at four weeks. Others are bleaker.

WorldTeach’s stance, for the time being, is to “wait it out,” and find something productive for the remaining three-dozen jobless volunteers to do with their time.
Luckily there’s an election coming up, and from what I am picking up, there is need for a complete overhaul of the government, fully ousting the current administration in favor of one that has it “a little more together.”

I’m just happy that my school has started, all the teachers are there, and my students are really, truly, a great group of kids.... more on this story, ahead.

Reporting live (kinda) from Micronesia, this is Ben Chutz

Life Stats

2007-08-23T16:46:00.000-07:00

After five weeks in the Developing World I’d like to check in and offer an update on my vitals, as well as my general condition and quality of life.

Accommodations:

I have my own living space. A luxury anywhere, but especially here, where people generally live, on average, eight to a house the size of a dorm room. I also have my own bathroom and shower. I think something is wrong with the toilet though. If I had to guess I’d say the U-pipe beneath doesn’t properly fill with water to create an adequate plug, necessary to keep unwanted septic fumes from entering my bathroom. At least that’s what it smells like... But compared to the stories of my roommates and their bathrooms, it’s hard to complain.

The dorm:

The shower is OK. Although it’s cold, MAJ-airport-runway runoff (filtered through a rudimentary treatment process of course) and I hyperventilate mildly upon subjecting myself to its stream, it is still very nice to get away from the ol’ bucket’n’cup method. Wait, actually... it’s not. Now that I think about it, that way was way better. The water was warm rainwater, I used far less of it to clean myself, and being outdoors under the stars was much more relaxing. The joys discovered in socioeconomic regression, I suppose.

I have two lizards that welcome themselves into my room, typically towards the evening. One is about four inches in length, the other about 1.5. Lizards here are harmless. And they feed on whatever critters may be sharing my living space with me, though I don’t see much of anything crawling around (hopefully thanks to Lester--that’s what I named the bigger one). And c’mon, how cool is it to have lizards in your room??

Body:

I weighed in today at 139 lbs--an even 10 lbs less than my July 19th weigh-in at home. I don’t really know where the weight is going or where it’s being taken from, but it’s probably just muscle mass and it’s probably something to do with me not eating as much. And walking everywhere.

Physically, I feel OK. The past few days have been plagued with round-the-clock stomach cramps and a constant throbbing headache. Today is better. Emotionally/Psychologically, I seem to be all over the map. Something about my inherent desire to appreciate all the physical beauty these islands have to offer while simultaneously being emotionally overrun by its poverty creates a huge internal dichotomy that I can’t quite overcome. There’s also some unidentifiable beauty to the poverty in itself, though I don’t yet know how or why I feel that way.

I receive $300/month from the Ministry of Education. Between food and supplies for my classroom, it goes extremely quickly. From the school I was supplied with a tiny box of chalk and some pens and a highlighter. I also have access to construction paper. Everything else is on my own expense. Diet-wise, I subsist on Bob’s Red Mill 7-Grain Hot Breakfast (39 servings for $3.20--can’t beat that!), oatmeal, pasta, some local-made multi-grain bread, peanut butter, jelly, All-Bran, pears, mini-bananas, soymilk (the norm here, as fresh milk is too expensive to import and, as far as I can tell, there are no cows here), and day-caught tuna. And to compensate for what my diet lacks (which is a lot), I brought from home a tub of ‘Garden of Life’ PerfectFood Super Green Formula (like 3 years worth of vegetables in one scoop or something) and ‘365’ Vanilla Whey Protein Powder (all my aminos), as well as a couple of boxes of Cranberry Emergen-C packets. A special thanks to Kacz and Milly for their knowledgeable input.

My diet:

So that's where I'm at.

And one last thing: Happy Birthday MOM!!!

The End of an Era… or… just the end of Orientation

2007-08-16T17:43:00.001-07:00

Today marked the end of Orientation. I’ve been here one month. I now live in the WorldTeach dorm in a region named Rita, at the opposite end of Majuro. Temporarily. Maybe. I was supposed to live next door to the dorm in a two-bedroom house with another volunteer, Tim. The dorm sleeps 9, and there are 10 of us. However, the toilet exploded yesterday and the house is unfit for human occupancy.

Until yesterday, I was supposed to begin teaching this Monday. The 20th. Yesterday, the Ministry Of Education officially announced that they haven’t decided upon an official starting date. So… I don’t know when I’ll start.

Three days ago Robbye (the other WorldTeach volunteer teaching at Majuro Middle School) and I attended the first of our MMS Teacher Orientations. Out of the 60 teachers that teach at MMS, 25 showed up, including the two of us. We arrived at 8am—on time. Four teachers and the principal were there. The other 19 slowly trickled in and by 10:30am all 25 were present. Some questions asked to the principal were, “if school starts at 8:15, but some of my students don’t show up until 8:30… does that mean I can show up at 8:30?”, and “Can I be a substitute teacher this year?” We also did a team math activity that required the multiplication of two 2-digit numbers, but the group was unable to finish because half of the teachers either a) didn’t want to participate, or b) can’t multiply. Last year the MOE, for the first time ever, required that all teachers take a ‘teacher aptitude test.’ No one passed.

On the upside, my birthday last week was awesome. 50 people baked me a cake and sang Happy Birthday to Ben. I also got a card from my sister ON the 10th—nice timing, Eve!—and I found my old flash drive that’s been lost for a year in a pocket of a pair of pants that I haven’t worn in a year. Wahoo!

Two nights later a bunch of us woke up at 3:00am to watch the Perseids meteor shower. What a show! When the night sky looks more like a Carl Sagan spread than actual reality, and it’s difficult to find constellations because there are too many stars, meteors take on a whole different effect. Instead of brief specks dulled by the orange glow of the city, the meteor shower shot shooting stars a quarter of the way across the sky, leaving momentary trails of glowing dust in their wake and calling attention to the dense, clumps of endless stars (often mistaken for weather clouds) that make up the visible Milky Way here.

The past two days were spent on a paradisical island at the end of the Majuro Atoll by the name of Jelter. (View from Jelter shoreline seen above). The whole WorldTeach gang (and Dartmouth gang (there’s a Dartmouth program that runs here too that consists of 8 volunteers)) spent the night out there as a final hurrah before we don’t see each other for the next five months. At high tide, the island stands alone. At low tide I walked a hundred meters to the next island over and marveled at its beauty. I also marveled at the amount of trash and how it even got there. And then I became slightly disappointed. But, overall, the Jelter trip was really friggin’ awesome. We learned how to husk coconuts and weave baskets out of palm fronds. I sat in a tent and talked Marshallese culture and World economics with a Canadian guy who is spending the next five years here with his family to work on conservation efforts. We hiked over a different coral pass and checked out a rusted out ship that had run aground several decades ago. We played guitar and ukulele and sang in front of a bonfire on the beach. And I read The Alchemist in my hammock overlooking the ocean. Dan let me borrow The Alchemist. I’d never read it. He said that it is one of his all time favorites, and that it is a book that “makes you feel good about life.”

He was right.

Index: Month 1 – Orientation

2007-08-16T17:36:00.000-07:00

Hours spent in teaching/language workshops: 120

Average number of PB&J’s consumed (by me) per day: 3

Percentage of meals served with white rice as the main staple: 100

Price, in dollars, for one pound of fresh sashimi grade yellowfin tuna in Majuro: 1

Price, in dollars, for eggs, toast, and hashbrowns in town: 1.30

Chords learned on ukulele: 19

Ukuleles I own: 0

Price of one gallon of gas on Majuro, in American dollars: 4.59

Price of one gallon of gas when I arrived on the island last month: 4.21

Estimated number of new wrinkles in my brain: 1,000

So far my time here on the islands has been incredible. I’ve become friends, or friendly, with 44 other volunteers, I can speak a bit of Marshallese, and I’ve had the opportunity to familiarize myself with a foreign, developing nation that has called on me to give them a hand. I can’t wait to start school, to set up my classroom, and, most importantly, to meet and know my students and enrich their minds and intellects and imaginations, and for them to enrich mine. I’m really going to miss the friends I’ve made during Orientation, who I won’t see until they fly back in at the end of December from their outer island placements, and then again at the beginning of June when the school year ends. My life is about to change drastically from the way it’s been for the past month of Orientation. I’m ready.

Bring it.

The Bowling Alley Serves Sashimi

2007-08-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

Orientation continues. My Marshallese is getting better… sort of. Whatever decided to invade my gastrointestinal system and steal joy from my life has kindly left me and has since laid claim to a number of unfortunate others in my group.

Exciting things have been happening. Saturday night the whole group of volunteers went to “Majuro Bowl,” where I proceeded to bowl a 151 and consequently become the top scoring bowler of the entire evening. Hahahaha! Ha. That’s funny. Anyway, I won a shirt. It’s about 3 sizes too large, as are most articles of clothing bought for me by anyone other than… myself (not that I receive a lot of clothing or anything).

Here’s a picture of bowling night. Left to right; Tim, Greg, Kristen, Darren, Dan, Kristin.

Sunday, all 44 of us, plus about a dozen other “rebelles” (white people) affiliated in some way with WorldTeach hopped on board a tiny, square-bottomed motorboat to spend the day on a tiny, beautiful, strip of an island at the end of Majuro Atoll by the name of Enemonit. It’s an hour boat ride across the (massive) lagoon, but at low tide you can walk there over the dead reefs that span between the islands. We all brought our snorkeling gear to check out the sunken WWII plane about 100 yards off the beach, and many people drank a lot and then got really sunburned and then regretted drinking. I spent the majority of the day suspended in a hammock in the shade, reading and eating tiny bananas the size of my thumb native to the Pacific Islands (and not getting burned). It sounds too good to be true, but actually, it wasn’t at all! It was a quality day.

All the volunteers on the boat.

Enemonit, taken lagoon side. You can see the ocean through the trees.

And here I am in my hammock.

The past few days have been spent in an air-conditioned(!) conference room, listening to presentations on water quality on the outer islands, environmentalism (or rather, what little of it exists here), nuclear testing on Bikini, socioeconomic conditions of the RMI as compared with other Pacific nations (it is the worst here of anywhere in the Pacific), how to stay healthy here, and more and more teaching workshops. More to come on these topics in future posts.

To quickly answer some questions asked of me since I’ve been here, the weather has been a steady upper 80s daytime/lower 80s nighttime, I take bucket showers using less than 2 gallons of water, our toilets work sometimes (when they don’t, we have to dump rain water in the bowl, “Yokwe” means ‘Hello,’ ‘Goodbye,’ and ‘Love’ in Marshallese and is translated literally as “You are a rainbow,” and as for me, I am doing really, really well.

Photo Selections, week 1

2007-07-26T20:54:00.000-07:00

Until I find a faster connection on which to update my SmugMug photo gallery, these will have to suffice.

Approximately 6 minutes prior to landing on Majuro Atoll.

Our "classroom." Also, where we eat, sleep, play, lounge, and generally live.

Our living space.

Paradise?

Depends where you look...

Orientation

2007-07-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

Today is going to be our 5th day of orientation. We’re all living at Rairok Head Start, a kindergarten school/playground consisting of 8 trailers; one is a kitchen, one is a designated main “room,” three are 15-person sleeping trailers, one has a random family living in it, one has the landlord living in it, and one is empty, locked, and forgotten about. Rairok is a region in Majuro. The other volunteers are really great. It's very refreshing to be involved with such a large group of like-minded people.

Living here is much like summer camp, except that we learn during the day, camp food would be considered gourmet here, we’re all in our twenties, and we live in a developing nation… a sharp contrast from northern Michigan. And also I can see, hear, and smell the ocean from wherever I happen to be.

Basically we are being given a crash course in Education, Marshallese language training, history and culture of the Marshall Islands, and (very) rudimentary living, all within the span of four weeks. It’s somewhat like being in school again, only the classes are fun, relevant(!), and we’re on an island in the middle of the Pacific.

We have a supply of bread, eggs, peanut butter, jam, ramen, butter, and jello mix on the premises. Breakfast is on our own. I’ve been making eggs and toast with jam in the mornings. Lunch and dinner is catered in, but this ain’t no Leo’s catering. Yesterday for lunch and dinner we had white rice, spaghetti with mystery meat (it may have been some sort of sliced hot dog deal), spaghetti with tomato sauce and mystery vegetables, a mysterious noodle dish, a mysterious sort of cake thing, and some sort of salad.

Here’s an example of our daily schedule (which, I should add, is quite different every day):

9:00-10:00 Classroom Management
10:00-10:30 Free
10:30-11:30 (more) Volunteer Responsibilities/Expectations
11:30-12:30 Marshallese Language Lesson
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-3:00 Student Learning Styles
3:00-3:30 Free
3:30-4:30 Conducting a Needs Assessment
4:30-5:00 Water Safety
6:00 Dinner/Free

Our days are packed, hot with the occasional downpour, enlightening, and fun. After dinner sometimes we go snorkeling in the lagoon or play Frisbee. Or both. Last night we went into town after both of those activities happened. The sun rises and sets at 6:30 am/pm, and I am awakened each morning by a rooster of an unknown location.

This is my life for the next month. Maybe I’ll go into town and pick up a ukulele soon. I’ll have to choose between the $6 model or the $15 model.

Ben

Packing List

2007-07-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

I've posted my packing list below.

Feel free to respond, to tell me I packed too much stuff, or not enough, impart wisdom, suggestions, advice, ideas, thoughts, doubts, etc.

One backpack, one duffel, one guitar. That should last me.

Footwear
-1 pair Asics running shoe
-1 pair Keen H/2 sandal
-2 pair flip flops
-1 pair brown Sanuk canvas “dress shoe.”
-5 pair socks

Clothing
-9 pair synthetic boxer brief; 2 pair cotton boxers
-3 pair slacks (for school); 2 pair blue jeans
-3 pair casual shorts; 2 pair mesh shorts; 1 pair Prana synthetic short
-Shirts: 6 cotton short sleeve; 2 cotton long sleeve; 5 synthetic; 2 sleeveless; 5 polos (for school); 1 short sleeve button-down
-1 half-zip Patagonia pullover
-1 swimsuit

Miscellaneous Clothing
-2 bandanas
-2 brimmed hats (one cotton, one quick-dry)
-1 rain jacket (Mountain Hardware)
-1 pair sweatpants
-1 belt (non-leather of course)

Electronic Stuff
-12" Apple iBook
-30gig iPod
-Canon SD600 digital camera; mini tripod
-2 one-gig SD cards
-2gig flash drive
-Shortwave/AM/FM radio
-Apple iSight webcam
-Adapters

Toiletries
-toothbrush; toothpaste (one in use, two extra—only J/A/S/O/N); floss
-deodorant (3)
-razor, many replacement blades
-nail clippers
-lip balm
-Pepto Bismol
-Gold Bond powder
-Dr. Bronners All Purpose Castile Soap
-Neutrogena T/Gel Shampoo

Musical Instruments
-One (1) Taylor Big Baby acoustic guitar; ten (10) sets extra strings; handful’o’pics
-Five (5) Lee Oskar diatonic harmonicas keys C, G, D, F, and A; one (1) harmonica neck holder
-One (1) Beatles chord book
-One (1) Ukulele chord sheet

Other
-frisbee
-snorkeling gear (mask, fins, snorkel)
-2 pairs prescription eyeglasses
-1 pair prescription sunglasses
-LED headlamp
-alarm clock
-water resistant sport watch
-Leatherman Wave
-1.0L Sigg
-Nalgene
-linen shoulder bag
-mini drybag
-mini first aid kit
-whistle
-croakies
-deck of cards
-Byer Parachute "Traveller Hammock"
-4 carabiners
-30 feet of 8mm rope
-velcro tri-fold wallet
-2 blank lined journals, 2 pocket notebooks (Moleskine)
-1 Marshallese-English dictionary
-1 small photo album
-1 roll duct tape

And What To Carry It With?
-7100 cubic inch R.E.I. rolling duffel
-2650 cubic inch Kelty Redwing backpack
-Eagle Creek dob kit
-Various sized Ziploc bags
-my hands

And banana bread. Lots of banana bread. My mom's. With chocolate chips. Yeah yeah.

Send me MAIL, do it.... do it.

2007-07-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

I picked up the only Marshallese-English dictionary in print yesterday, titled...... "Marshallese-English Dictionary." It is 589 pages of pure translation to and from a language more foreign to me than... well I guess any other language I've ever heard, or dreamt of. One useful phrase might be, "Ewi jikin tutu iar eo?" meaning, "Where is the beach?" To which anyone on the island might reply, "Kaburoro,"-- "Open your eyes." Another useful phrase that I may or may not be using often (or hearing often?) is "Jab jibwe io," meaning "Don't touch me there."

I have six days until I leave. I'm going to wash some more windows, buy some more stuff, and maybe play some frisbee. I may see you. I may not. I may cut my hair. I probably won't.

Although I anticipate having internet access in the Marshall Islands, I will still very much appreciate snail mail. If you would like to send me a letter, not only will I be very grateful, but I promise to respond. If you'd like to send me books, teaching resources, sunscreen, gummy worms, or iPods, MAKE SURE you fill out a customs form at the Post Office, or I will be receiving it 6 months after you mail it. Here is my address:

WorldTeach
Ben Chutz
c/o Tamara Greenstone
PO Box 627
Majuro, Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands

It will take approximately 2 weeks to reach me. However, if you'd like to deliver by hand it will only take 19 hours and $2,000.

Surf's Up!

2007-07-05T15:07:00.000-07:00

I leave in two weeks for the Marshall Islands! I will be living in Majuro, the capitol city, on Majuro Atoll, and teaching at Majuro Middle School for the upcoming school year. The organization I am working with is WorldTeach, a student-run, non-profit NGO affiliated with the Center for International Development at Harvard. I will primarily be teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classes, though I hope to be achieving that through the teaching of other subjects.

44 volunteers from around the country (and a few from outside the U.S.) will be joining me. Some will be placed in Majuro with me, others in Ebeye (the other population center, located on Kwajalein Atoll), and others will be 'outsourced' to the "outer islands."

I will post a list of what I will be packing soon. Also, if you don't already own a pair, buy some synthetic boxers. Now. They will improve your life and everything you do, drastically.

Yokwe,
Ben