Life Goes On

10.20.2009 Tuesday

After a tasty lunch of amazing fresh-baked bread and tuna salad, comforted by a few days’ breathing room in my lesson plans and nearly finished with the grading for the first quarter (I may never give extra credit work again…what a headache), I am feeling pretty good…basking in a job relatively well done, I suppose. As I walked across the field that serves as the center of campus on the way to my classroom for my second daily round of classes, I was reflecting on the attractions of this lifestyle.

Taxes here hover around 10%, nobody is really required to work that hard, and the weather is (so far) a smooth 80 degrees. In the hot afternoon sun, everyone stays in the shade except the weird masochistic white guys who go running after school. By 5 p.m., the evening has begun, and there is always a game of softball or volleyball going on at the field near the dorms. The older women, though no longer the pictures of girlish athleticism they once were, are actually surprisingly good at softball. Great defensive plays come out of nowhere.

The only required uniform for women is a colorful guam dress, essentially a mumu, and shoes are very much optional. It’s pretty fun to watch these ladies slide into third base or catch a base-runner in a pickle and force the out. I have a feeling that my mom, a former softball player herself, will take a number of photos when she visits, and there is a better than even chance you will see a painting of it on her website in a few months. Hell, I’ll even tell you the title: “A League of Their Own.”

The main concerns here are getting enough to eat, avoiding disease, and not running out of water. Food is expensive, so fresh fish are the main supplement to flour-based foods and rice. Teachers, for a change, are probably the best-paid people on the island (except for me and Peter, of course), mostly because they actually have an 8-4 job, which no one else really has. Medical treatment, while basic, is also basically free…Peter paid 50 cents for his one doctor’s visit, and the medicine was on the house. As for water, it’s going to be an El Nino year, which means there is less of it. They are predicting about 15% less than normal, but of course we have no idea what normal is.

Being on the second floor, I can see the ocean or lagoon from either side of my classroom… how many times in my life will I be able to say that about my office? Not ever, I’ll wager. So, with all these benefits of island life, am I going to give up on civilization and set up shop here? Not likely, and there are two main reasons. One is that there really isn’t much mental stimulation of any kind. Peter is literally the only person my age with whom I can have a conversation about things that interest me. Even if I spoke Marshallese fluently, I can’t imagine a dialogue going much further beyond fishing and the weather… there’s just not much else happening. We’re kind of amazed that the WorldTeach volunteers are able to go solo for so long.

The second and primary reason, of course, is that almost everyone in my life is back in the States somewhere… scattered, yes, but not separated by 4000 miles of the Pacific Ocean. If my whole extended family was within an hour’s boat ride, and my childhood friends still lived next door (as is the case with many of my students), I could see the appeal. But then again, never having experienced anything close to that, I can hardly imagine what it would be like. Anyway, my point is, if you’re reading this blog, I probably miss you. Send me a letter! I like having the paper in my hands, and in some ways it’s easier to respond to snail mail.

Morgan Cawdrey
C/O DVTP
P.O. Box 673
Majuro, MH 96960


10.22.2009 Thursday

Something that can get me down from time to time is hearing about my students’ future goals…ugh, I’ve read and graded “future goals” so many times in the last two weeks that I’ll never see it the same again. I recently did a biography project, starting with interviewing classmates about their pasts and culminating with a mini-poster. I don’t know how serious the students are about their futures (I know I wasn’t in high school…wait, I’m not even NOW), but so many of them express ambitions to be doctors, pilots and other prestigious professions, it is depressing to realize that only a very few, upon graduating from Jaluit High School, will have the necessary educational foundation to pursue something like that.

It seems to me that in many developing countries, you do not always have to have a strong command of English to proceed to higher education, because many other people outside the country speak the native language. The problem here, though, is that nobody speaks Marshallese outside of the RMI. If they want to get out of here, which they basically have to do if they don’t want to break coconuts for the rest of their life, they have to speak English pretty good. I meant “well.” Puts a lot of pressure on me! But I’m not too worried about it…if I had to worry about these kids being ready for an American university, I’d give up right now.

HOWEVER, I don’t want to end on a downer note. So, here’s an excerpt from a biography of a short kid in the junior class…not sure if it was intended to be funny, but I laughed:

“Jael John was born in January 2, 1992. He was very cute, when he was born. When he grew up he was very short and people loved him because he was cute. Jael knew that it was time to make new friends.”

Nothing much

Well, this one won't be as long. I have been hoping to post pictures along with the posts, but no dice so far. I have also set up an account on Picasa.com, with a few pix, but I haven't figured out to link this blog to it yet. I'm surprised; for the last few years, the Googlenet (gmail, google calendar, OMG who's excited for Google Voice???) has anticipated my every need and desire, creating conveniences I didn't even know I needed. This is the first time it has let me down.

The most eventful thing that happened lately was starting our shift at the cafeteria a couple weeks ago...Peter and I have "volunteered" to be the adult monitors/helpers at dinnertime on Fridays, at the cafeteria where all the students eat. Two Fridays ago, the dinner special was room-temperature Spam and a heaping portion of white rice. What could be better? I'll tell you what; all that, PLUS a sizable dollop of ketchup administered by yours truly. Yep, I was CKO, chief of ketchup operations, and it's a more complicated job than you might at first think. How much ketchup is appropriate for a hefty slice of Spam and about two pounds of rice? You tell me. And do I give more for boys and bigger people? How much does difference does ketchup make to one's calorie intake? Is there enough for 350+ kids at my current rate of dispensation? Should the condiment grace the expanse of white rice like a bloody wound, or would a well-behaved dollop be more aesthetic?

These questions and more ran through my brain as I stood at the end of the line and sized each individual up for their respective ketchup consumption. I certainly knew what I would want (symmetrical dollop, 2 inches in diameter, directly in between Spam and rice for optimum distribution, of course. But I'm not picky), but I couldn't read their minds.

Pshell, meanwhile, was on guard duty, making sure kids didn't walk out the exit still holding cups or silverware. No small job, to be sure, but it didn't have the far-reaching consequences and manual labor (literally...my hand was sore for two days) of mine. Anyway, at the end of the meal service, after about 45 minutes of looking at and smelling this food, we were quite ready to dig in to our double portions; apparently teachers need more processed pork product than growing teenagers. With all the practice, I raised the squeezing of ketchup to an art form for my own plate.

Apart from that, we're working hard and there's no foreseeable end in sight to that part. We are finishing the quarter this week (Oct. 16), but it's pretty much business as usual, trying to laugh a lot and keep things fun. Well, mostly they laugh at things I do, both intentionally and unintentionally...it turns out that when I am trying hard to explain something, I have tics of which I was never before aware. And then there are the times that my voice rises in pitch uncontrollably, like a puberty-stricken young boy. They enjoy that as well.

So, I hope my effort to make the minutiae of our daily life more interesting was successful, because there ain't much else to tell. My best to everyone, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but it's late and there's grading, not to mention eating, to do. But no ketchup...no ketchup.