11.25.2009 The Audacity of Flies
Why are flies in developing countries so much more impudent than their first world relatives? The blue-bottles here often amuse themselves by flying directly into my face or ears, instead of giving me the wide berth that they do in the States. I don’t really want to make an effort to kill them, but they’re forcing my hand here. The American flies certainly don’t ask for it like that. Have we so completely cowed them with sticky traps and electric zappers? There’s no question that our fly-killing technology is light years ahead of the Marshall Islands, and I say, more power to us; instilling the fear of Man into the little bastards makes me proud to be an American.
One day a couple months ago we were cooking spaghetti and either it was a peak in the hatching cycle, or something in the sauce attracted them, but there were at least 10-15 fatties buzzing around the stove at any one point. With my standard reaction to adversity, I started jumping around in the kitchen, swinging frantically at every fat black plague-carrier droning heavily by. The fatigued plastic of our fly-swatter gave out within the first hour of use, in the middle of a particularly epic slaughter session, so I have since adjusted and refined my technique. Short, controlled swats from the wrist are the ticket, using the flexibility of the plastic to whip the end back and forth for those tough midair attacks. Peter, somehow, does not share my revulsion/enthusiasm (it’s complicated), so he wisely stepped aside until I was spent.
When it got dark things slowed down, and the remains of at least 30 flies were scattered around the kitchen (seriously). No more than a couple were in the pasta sauce (kidding). The ants, our resident cleanup crew, were already dragging the evidence away. Who needs a Roomba when you have a constant stream of ants through the kitchen? They are infinitely preferable to the roaches, which are tropical-sized at a good two inches long, leave mouse-sized droppings everywhere and have permeated some of our cabinets with their stench. They don’t go down without a fight, either. Ants, on the other hand, are clean, odorless and eat only the food we don’t want anymore.
11.27.2009 Krack
At first I thought a lot of the students, boys and girls alike, were wearing a garish red lipstick. Then I saw their mouths were bright red as well, and worried that they were bleeding from the gums. A popular vice here is chewing betel nut, an addictive stimulant that enters the bloodstream through your raw gums as you dip abrasive powdered coral. I’m still trying to figure out the appeal. But anyway, that wasn’t it either, because the red was more of a red 40-candy red than a bleeding-gums red.
So what comes in crystal form, is terrible for teeth, and is addictive and cheap? If you answered “meth,” that’s only half the answer. The other half is Krack, with a capital “K”: I’m talking about Kool-Aid. Cherry flavor, specifically. Marshallese kids love it to death, almost literally, if you consider the high incidence of diabetes. Rarely do they dilute it by adding water. Instead, they cut out the middleman and lick the tart sugar directly from their palms, and when someone opens a new packet, they crowd around like a group of junkies trying to get the first hit. Then they flit away with all the telltale signs: mouth and fingers stained red, erratic movements and dilated pupils (okay, maybe I’m imagining that), a spike now and a crash later. It would be funny if it wasn’t such a problem. The kids, especially the boys, appear generally skinnier and healthier than American high school students, but the adults are almost uniformly overweight, probably because serious exercise is rare after high school.
11.27.2009 You want to do WHAT?
We were warned at the beginning that Marshallese students are exceptionally shy, and although there has been some loosening up in class, most are still painfully timid when they ask for a hall pass to go to the bathroom, especially the girls. They stand several feet from the desk and mouth words at me with a significant look on their face, like it’s a secret between the two of us. It’s annoying when I have to ask them to repeat their requests and strain to hear, but it’s not a big deal.
However, I am a stickler for “please” and “thank you,” and whether it’s a cultural thing or something else, the kids don’t use those words nearly enough. I try to reinforce the use of these valuable words. When someone now comes up to request a hall pass and breathes a single word at me, almost as a demand, I make them repeat it until I can hear. Then the following exchange occurs:
Mr. C: “Okay, but what’s the magic word?”
Student: *barely audible whisper* “Bathroom.”
Mr. C: “Um…okay, you want to go to the bathroom WHAT? Say ‘Please!’”
Student: *whisper* “Hall pass for bathroom.”
Mr. C: “Yeah…but, hall pass WHAT?”
At this point, the student, usually female, is giggling helplessly from embarrassment and retreats to his or her seat. Problem solved.
11.28.2009
I think I’ve reached the root of my problem with teaching English here: it’s supposed to be a composition class, as far as I understand, but for most of my students, I don’t feel like their English or critical thinking skills are advanced enough to do a typical high school English composition class. Plus, there’s a separate English Reading class taught by a different teacher, and it’s hard to teach composition if you can’t really assign a lot of reading. As a result, I’m teaching an English language class instead, which is appropriate for many but not all. My Chinese courses at Dartmouth involved short essay-writing, but they also assumed we knew how to write coherently in at least one language. I guess I’m trying to teach within the framework of what I’m used to, when I should be combining the two classes into some sort of English super-course.
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