Green Christmas

12.8.09
You know how in my last post I said nothing much had really happened? I am an idiot. One particularly blog-worthy event did happen, and somehow I forgot about it until I read Pshell’s excellent post about it. On Friday Dec. 4th, which is a public holiday in the RMI called Gospel Day, I got a chance to tag along with the JHS Environmental Health Club on a field trip to Pinglap, an island across the lagoon which is partly owned by our school registrar, who accompanied us as a boat pilot and guide. For a much better and more detailed description of most of the trip, see Peter’s post “A Great Adventure” at petershellito.blogspot.com. However, at one point in the woods our paths diverged, and it made all the difference in what tasty local food we got to sample.

We had struck inland as a group to see some wetlands, but we reached some lands that were a bit too wet to navigate, and while Peter’s half of the expedition pushed on to the right side, I lagged behind with Jabuwe, who grew up on this island and who I trusted more as a guide than the other guy with us. We veered to the left. One might say I took the low road and Peter took the high road, but in the Marshall Islands, the distinction is a matter of inches.

NOTE: Think of this like one of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books from middle school. You come to a fork in the road. If you choose to go with Peter, turn to page (petershellito.blogspot.com). If you choose to go with Morgan, just keep on truckin’.

We bush-wacked inland for a while longer, as I stumbled along in my flip-flops. I hadn’t counted on Indiana Jones-level jungle navigation, and my footwear was woefully inadequate for the coconut-carpeted ground. Ever tried to walk on top of half-decayed coconuts with muddy, slippery flip-flops? I don’t recommend it. However, all the Marshallese seemed to be doing alright in their flimsy sandals, so I sucked it up. As students with machetes cleared the way up in front of the column, I marveled at the tropical flora and fauna. There were some really incredible spider webs strung between two trees along the trail, which made me glad I wasn’t walking up front.

After an hour or so of forging trail, we began to see blue sky through the trees, which meant we were near the ocean, and we were all glad to get out of the stifling jungle, even though we hadn’t found the wetlands. Upon reaching the shore, however, we found that we had come back out about 200 yards south of our initial starting point, having made a neat horseshoe-shaped trail through the forest. Damn. We were supposed to have come out on the other side of the island. I then realized that although our guide did grow up on Pinglap, he’s also over 60 years old and it’s been a long time since he actually lived there.

Our principal, who had stayed with my group, was tired out after our trek, so he headed back along the beach with the girls to start getting lunch ready. The man likes his vittles and I can certainly appreciate that. I decided to stick around with the fellas, though I was not at all sure what we were going to do. Something about a shipwreck, and fishing? Sure, I was game. We started walking down the beach. Well, the “shipwreck” turned out to be a strangely isolated six-foot anchor on the beach, supposedly from a Japanese warship, and the only success from fishing was one three-foot black-tipped shark, dazed from a machete blow to the head. The kids discarded it on the beach, and in true bleeding-heart white-guy style, I grabbed it by the tail and brought it back out into the shallows, and tried to get it moving out. It was moving slowly when I left, so I think it might have been okay. I figured somebody should try to protect the sea life from the Environmental Health Club.

We were now on ocean-side, opposite of the lagoon-side spot where we had landed and set up camp. Jabuwe decided we should cut across the island through the jungle, and as we started struggling through the foliage again, I noticed big breadfruit trees, which have amazing hollows inside of them. One of the trees could have comfortably fit two adults in its trunk. Every time we encountered one of these trees my guides would start a small, smoky fire of dry palm fronds inside the trunk, and I discovered that they were trying to catch a coconut crab, a local delicacy. I was thrilled, but the first efforts were fruitless. Finally they found a breadfruit tree that seemed to have a lot of scrabbled earth around the roots, and definitely looked like something was living inside the cavity below. Using a lit palm-frond torch, they again began trying to smoke out whatever was living within. After 10 minutes of fiery prodding, a few huge armored legs started to emerge, followed by the rest of a monster, grey-blue crab. I stood well back as one of the students expertly flipped the big guy over and picked him up, with his hands supporting the carapace, safe from the powerful claws. A little later, I got to hold the big guy, who easily weighed in at 15-20 pounds, and was extremely docile once on his back.

Awesome. It was one of the highlights of the last four months.

Successful hunter-gatherers all, we kept moving through the jungle, but soon reached an impassable tangle of fallen trees. Jabuwe decided we should head back to the beach, and almost immediately after, my right foot flip-flop gave its last protest to my sliding everywhere in the mud, and the straps snapped. Now I was in the middle of the jungle with one bare foot.

I limped my way back out to the beach, carefully choosing my path, and we traveled along the beach for a while until we found a path that Jabuwe had created a while ago. It seems cliché to me to comment on the amazing speed of the jungle in reclaiming everything done by humans, but I’ll do it anyway. Peter and I often wonder why the Marshallese spend so much time raking gravel or picking up fallen leaves by hand, but it has become obvious that it’s part of a daily battle to stop the jungle from encroaching on their living spaces.

12.14.2009 Monday
I’m sitting in my classroom, having given up trying to review for the final exam with my 11C class. It’s seventh period, I’m losing my voice from talking all day, and it just started pouring rain. The big drops beating on the tin roof above make teaching nearly impossible, so I asked them to do some practice in the workbook. Little unexpected reprieves like this can be nice.

Meanwhile, outside my window, which looks out to onto a basketball court, a few low buildings, and the ocean about 100 yards away, eight utterly naked little boys are running around in the downpour, using small sheets of plywood to glide across the huge, shallow puddle that is the basketball court during a rainstorm. That looks really fun. If I’m not mistaken, there is a similar sport on West Coast beaches called skimboarding.


That's all for now, heading to Majuro in a day or two to see my parents! Hope everyone is looking forward to the holidays as much as I am...I get to spend them with my family, a good friend, and perhaps a well-traveled turkey, so I really can't complain.