1.13.2010
I never had very much luck with high school girls; not in high school, not in college (not that I tried, of course), and certainly not now. Wait, that didn’t sound quite right. Before you accuse me of gross misconduct, let me assure you that my current problems are nothing extra-curricular, if you know what I mean. For my employer’s sake, I’ll be perfectly blunt (Hi Anna!): I AM STRUGGLING TO TEACH MY SENIOR FEMALE STUDENTS.
It’s nothing new, really; they’ve been a bit of a hassle from day one. Hell, they’ve been hassling me since my own freshman year of high school. But while my female classmates in secondary school could have benefitted from talking significantly less, the problem is predictably the opposite here. I try to start a little oral practice on the boys’ side of the classroom (they self-separate), and it moves along well enough until the green shirts of the uniforms start to give out to yellow blouses, the black hole of energy the girls create on their side of the room. This isn’t true for all of my classes, but the lower levels really struggle with this. I’m trying to make it fun, but they don’t make it easy.
1.17.2010
Well, America, we asked for chocolate and snacks, and you totally came through. We feel wealthy with high-calorie treats, and we thank you from the bottom of our stomachs. We think we’re pretty set now for food, so please don’t send any more, because we would hate to waste anything. However, if you feel irresistibly compelled to use the USPS one more time before it goes under, any kind of preserved meat, your basic salami or summer sausage, would be welcome in our pantry. They add a little spice to our weekend pasta. Thanks America!
1.19.2010
I asked my students to try to inject a little excitement in their writing by including more details, but instead, the girls just flipped over the lower-case “i” in their stories to an exclamation point. !. Which, of course, would be f!ne, !f !t didn’t drive me COMPLETELY NUTS. MaYbE ! sHoUlD sHoW tHeM hOw To WrItE lIkE tH!S. It certainly gets the blood pumping.
I think one of the toughest parts of teaching for me is explaining directions for activities. I think I’m fairly proficient in it by this point, and yet, no matter how clear, deliberate and methodical I try to be, there are inevitably at least a couple of students who do precisely the opposite of what I intended. The most frustrating cases are with the kids who understand English fairly well, and clearly have just not listened to a word I was saying, instead staring vacantly at a spot above my head somewhere as if I were explaining nuclear physics. No, kids, for the fourth time, I’m just showing you how to fold a piece of paper into thirds.
What’s that? You LOST the paper I gave you four minutes ago? And Marcus, this is folded into sixteenths, not thirds. Awesome. I mean, I just spent 15 minutes of my life repeatedly demonstrating how to do this, but no worries. Please excuse me while I throw a desk through the window.
I know it might be boring, but if it’s such simple stuff, why do they always screw it up? I'm not really this impatient, don't worry, but it does build up from time to time.
1.30.2010
Last week we attended our principal’s birthday. It was an event mostly without distinction – the standard singing approach, most of the staff and a couple of students leading a charge into the principal’s apartment with a ukulele, singing traditional Marshallese birthday songs and clapping along. Peter and I had heard about this only a few minutes earlier, and since our apartment is about seven strides from the principal’s, we tagged along at the end of the singing procession. Actually, to be totally honest, Peter had just removed two trays of beautiful whole-wheat biscuits from the oven, and when I suggested it was time we join the celebration, he was rather firm: “Morgan, hell no. I’m having a [expletive] biscuit while they’re hot.” He was right, they looked amazing, so I went over to the party and represented 4-B while he enjoyed the fruits (grains?) of his labors. [Dr. and Mrs. Shellito, don’t worry about your son, he only curses at me when something gets between him and fresh bread]
The only incident of note was at the party. As about 15 people gathered in the principal’s living room, still singing, the birthday boy came out and sat down in the traditional seat of honor, all smiles. When the singing finally stopped, he said, “Wow, I am so surprised!” He repeatedly insisted upon this. Two minutes later, his wife came out of the kitchen bearing a platter with about 80 Fudgee Bars, a locally popular Little Debbie-esque snack from the Philippines. We estimated that they ended up dispensing at least 120 of these little cakes, each of which contains 40% of your daily recommended saturated fat. Judging by the numbers he had on hand, either he wasn’t actually surprised, or he keeps an enormous stockpile of Fudgee Bars, just in case he suddenly gets the urge to eat 4800% of his saturated fat allowance.
1.30.2010
This past week, Jaluit High School has been doing some surveys of its students as part of its School Improvement Plan. They asked the kids what needs to change in the “comments” section. I chose the best responses, and they ranged from funny, to a little scary, to kind of sad/inspiring (grammar and spelling are verbatim):
“Yes, I think this school should let us some time for bwebwenato [chatting/hanging out] with our girl or boyfriends. That is all.”
“I don’t like the rule. This school is like a prison to me. From now on civil war is started. ‘Watch your ass!’”
“School food should be big enough”
“I really want the Ministy to keep track of the way each teacher works at school, whether they are doing their jobs the way they should. If not then immediately dismiss them from teaching. I say this because I see a lot of this issue going on today at JHS. There are many “fake” teachers here and I hate to go to their classes. They should be fired!”
“I don’t want to be treat like a little baby who had just been born a moment ago, teachers had to work nicely and fairly.”
“More foods to make stomach strorng brains also.”
“I need you to help to improve me, no me only, but other students. If you need me I’m ready.”
Friday, January 29, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Leaning Into the Wind
1.4.2010 Monday
It appears that a number of my students have gained a few pounds over the past two weeks. I guess it’s comforting to know that that particular Christmas tradition holds true wherever it’s celebrated. I wonder if Jesus thought his birthday would still be celebrated 2000 years later by hundreds of millions of the faithful getting bloated and waddling to church. All in all, I can think of much worse legacies to leave.
1.8.2010 Friday
Well, they told us this was the windy season, and they weren’t lying! After almost daily rainstorms during the second half of December, the skies dried up and the wind came and hasn’t let up. It’s a lot cooler on average, but there are a few below-neutral side effects as well. The first run I went on with Peter upon our return seemed easier than I had anticipated initially; we hadn’t done much besides eating and having the occasional beer for two weeks, but the first half seemed fine, heading south down toward the airport.
We hit the end of the runway and turned around, and suddenly, instead of the pleasant prevailing breeze from the north to which I have grown accustomed, I felt like I was standing behind a jet preparing to take off. Every stride I took, it seemed I was losing a step before I hit the ground again. Peter, essentially a fitter, more aerodynamic version of me, turned his baseball cap backwards and jaunted off into the sunset as I gasped and wheezed in the headwind. Killin’ me.
Additionally: the cross-breeze in my room, normally a blessing during the hot months, takes on new malevolent fury in this windy season, making classroom decorations nearly impossible to maintain. Every thing that can catch wind does, and I come in every morning and my room looks like it has been trashed. I’ve given up the battle as lost, so for now, the beautiful posters of my mom’s paintings are coming down, until nature’s wrath is spent. The class contract has ended up on the floor, as well, and shockingly, my students are acting…well, exactly the same.
1.14.2010 Thursday
Last night, laying on my bed with my eyes open, thinking about my students and classes, I realized I unconsciously assign each of my units, and each of my classes, a metaphor. Whether it’s definite and indefinite articles, count and non-count nouns, or peer editing, each takes the form of a three-mast sailing ship in my head. Additionally, it may not be this clear, but the group of kids determines the quality of ship; my best class appears as a sturdy and maneuverable frigate, able to take anything I throw at them and change directions easily, while my slowest group can hardly get from point A to point B, a flimsy, lumbering Man O’ War Made in China.
Each unit is like a voyage across the ocean, and now that I think of it, I guess that makes me Poseidon. So I, God of the Oceans, throw a unit at them (keep a weather eye, kids; here be the place that the metaphor totally breaks down), and do my best to guide them to the end. Or perhaps I’m the captain, trying to get a little freaking work out of a mutinous crew. I wonder if keelhauling would be looked down upon in this seafaring nation of theirs.
At the end of the unit, the ship is usually limping into harbor with tattered sails, although occasionally there is a triumphant entrance at full sail. If the subject was tough and the class was 11C (my slowest), upon taking the unit test the ship might sink with all hands in the harbor…the best attitude to take in this situation is to forget about the failures of the past and look into raising a new crew. Onward and upward!
It appears that a number of my students have gained a few pounds over the past two weeks. I guess it’s comforting to know that that particular Christmas tradition holds true wherever it’s celebrated. I wonder if Jesus thought his birthday would still be celebrated 2000 years later by hundreds of millions of the faithful getting bloated and waddling to church. All in all, I can think of much worse legacies to leave.
1.8.2010 Friday
Well, they told us this was the windy season, and they weren’t lying! After almost daily rainstorms during the second half of December, the skies dried up and the wind came and hasn’t let up. It’s a lot cooler on average, but there are a few below-neutral side effects as well. The first run I went on with Peter upon our return seemed easier than I had anticipated initially; we hadn’t done much besides eating and having the occasional beer for two weeks, but the first half seemed fine, heading south down toward the airport.
We hit the end of the runway and turned around, and suddenly, instead of the pleasant prevailing breeze from the north to which I have grown accustomed, I felt like I was standing behind a jet preparing to take off. Every stride I took, it seemed I was losing a step before I hit the ground again. Peter, essentially a fitter, more aerodynamic version of me, turned his baseball cap backwards and jaunted off into the sunset as I gasped and wheezed in the headwind. Killin’ me.
Additionally: the cross-breeze in my room, normally a blessing during the hot months, takes on new malevolent fury in this windy season, making classroom decorations nearly impossible to maintain. Every thing that can catch wind does, and I come in every morning and my room looks like it has been trashed. I’ve given up the battle as lost, so for now, the beautiful posters of my mom’s paintings are coming down, until nature’s wrath is spent. The class contract has ended up on the floor, as well, and shockingly, my students are acting…well, exactly the same.
1.14.2010 Thursday
Last night, laying on my bed with my eyes open, thinking about my students and classes, I realized I unconsciously assign each of my units, and each of my classes, a metaphor. Whether it’s definite and indefinite articles, count and non-count nouns, or peer editing, each takes the form of a three-mast sailing ship in my head. Additionally, it may not be this clear, but the group of kids determines the quality of ship; my best class appears as a sturdy and maneuverable frigate, able to take anything I throw at them and change directions easily, while my slowest group can hardly get from point A to point B, a flimsy, lumbering Man O’ War Made in China.
Each unit is like a voyage across the ocean, and now that I think of it, I guess that makes me Poseidon. So I, God of the Oceans, throw a unit at them (keep a weather eye, kids; here be the place that the metaphor totally breaks down), and do my best to guide them to the end. Or perhaps I’m the captain, trying to get a little freaking work out of a mutinous crew. I wonder if keelhauling would be looked down upon in this seafaring nation of theirs.
At the end of the unit, the ship is usually limping into harbor with tattered sails, although occasionally there is a triumphant entrance at full sail. If the subject was tough and the class was 11C (my slowest), upon taking the unit test the ship might sink with all hands in the harbor…the best attitude to take in this situation is to forget about the failures of the past and look into raising a new crew. Onward and upward!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Happy holidays!
12.3.09 Thursday
If you will permit me another gripe, I have a serious issue with hairballs in my classroom. More than anything else, more than three-inch spiders, trails of ants, salt grime, balls of dough squashed on the floor or spilled Kool-Aid, it’s those creepy hair balls that really get all up in my grill. If you think cats are the culprits, you wouldn’t be wrong that it’s the result of grooming, but I think most of the cats get eaten here, so it’s not them. This hair is decidedly long, black and greasy, right off the combs of my students, and for some reason, it makes me retch every time I see a pile of it in the corner. It’s long because I think it’s mostly from the girls, it’s black because that’s the only hair color here, and it’s greasy because the slick, shiny gloss on most of the kids’ heads is achieved with large quantities of hair oil, haphazardly applied. GRIM! Didn’t hair oil die out at the same time as the word “swell”?
I don’t remember any point in my high school experience when I saw human hair piling up in a classroom, and I have my students clean the room twice a week. It’s awful to sweep up, too, because it naturally sticks to the bristles of the broom. Admittedly, this is not a real problem, but not much happened in the last couple weeks, and I wanted to write about something.
12.7.09 Monday
The Mormon missionaries here kindly distributed a large number of Bic ballpoint pens (the ONLY ballpoint pen, as far as Peter is concerned) to the school and community. Good writing utensils are always welcome around here, so I appreciated the gesture. Written on the stem is “Grand Resort, Tunica, MS,” evidently from some resort in Missouri. Upon closer inspection, though, I found the writing looks like this:
Grand
Resort
Tunica, MS
I noticed that a word between “Grand” and “Resort” had been carefully scratched out with a knife – “Casino.” Some diligent LDS member, possibly the guys here, had spent who knows how long erasing this word that was so incongruous to their message. That’s all well and good, but now I have an image of finding some pious Mormon in our bathroom, huddled over my deodorant, making sure that the manufacturing company is only “Procter & ______.” With a lack of outside stimulation, these are the things I think about. I need a magazine or something.
12.10.09 Thursday
While trying to refresh my students on proper nouns, I taught them the word “unique.” I didn’t realize, however, how important it was to teach them the correct pronunciation right off the bat. Now I have a whole class of kids saying “eunuch,” and I REALLY don’t want to explain the difference between the words.
12.12.2009 Saturday
Aside from the pet peeves, things are going well, just trying and failing to keep myself motivated to teach with finals a few days away. I’m done reviewing, for the most part, and I still have Monday and Tuesday classes, so I’ll have to figure out something to do with the kids for a couple days until exams. Rookie mistake.
Finals start on the 16th and finish on the 18th, then we’re (hopefully) off to Majuro. My parents are flying in on Thursday, which seems ridiculously soon. Getting a boat out of Jaluit is still not looking great, but they say that during the Christmas season, there are a lot of boats. We just haven’t seen any of them yet.
Depending on the boat schedules, it’s possible that I won’t post again until after Christmas, so if that’s the case, I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year! Appreciate the snow for me, and I wish I could be there to celebrate with you!
11.30.09 Monday
Some sage words from our principal at our weekly school assembly:
(Addressing the students) “Some of the boys are still wearing earrings. Boys, if you want to wear earrings, I’ll give you a dress to wear as well. Girls wear earrings. Some men wear earrings, but those are men who don’t know what to do with themselves.”
If you will permit me another gripe, I have a serious issue with hairballs in my classroom. More than anything else, more than three-inch spiders, trails of ants, salt grime, balls of dough squashed on the floor or spilled Kool-Aid, it’s those creepy hair balls that really get all up in my grill. If you think cats are the culprits, you wouldn’t be wrong that it’s the result of grooming, but I think most of the cats get eaten here, so it’s not them. This hair is decidedly long, black and greasy, right off the combs of my students, and for some reason, it makes me retch every time I see a pile of it in the corner. It’s long because I think it’s mostly from the girls, it’s black because that’s the only hair color here, and it’s greasy because the slick, shiny gloss on most of the kids’ heads is achieved with large quantities of hair oil, haphazardly applied. GRIM! Didn’t hair oil die out at the same time as the word “swell”?
I don’t remember any point in my high school experience when I saw human hair piling up in a classroom, and I have my students clean the room twice a week. It’s awful to sweep up, too, because it naturally sticks to the bristles of the broom. Admittedly, this is not a real problem, but not much happened in the last couple weeks, and I wanted to write about something.
12.7.09 Monday
The Mormon missionaries here kindly distributed a large number of Bic ballpoint pens (the ONLY ballpoint pen, as far as Peter is concerned) to the school and community. Good writing utensils are always welcome around here, so I appreciated the gesture. Written on the stem is “Grand Resort, Tunica, MS,” evidently from some resort in Missouri. Upon closer inspection, though, I found the writing looks like this:
Grand
Resort
Tunica, MS
I noticed that a word between “Grand” and “Resort” had been carefully scratched out with a knife – “Casino.” Some diligent LDS member, possibly the guys here, had spent who knows how long erasing this word that was so incongruous to their message. That’s all well and good, but now I have an image of finding some pious Mormon in our bathroom, huddled over my deodorant, making sure that the manufacturing company is only “Procter & ______.” With a lack of outside stimulation, these are the things I think about. I need a magazine or something.
12.10.09 Thursday
While trying to refresh my students on proper nouns, I taught them the word “unique.” I didn’t realize, however, how important it was to teach them the correct pronunciation right off the bat. Now I have a whole class of kids saying “eunuch,” and I REALLY don’t want to explain the difference between the words.
12.12.2009 Saturday
Aside from the pet peeves, things are going well, just trying and failing to keep myself motivated to teach with finals a few days away. I’m done reviewing, for the most part, and I still have Monday and Tuesday classes, so I’ll have to figure out something to do with the kids for a couple days until exams. Rookie mistake.
Finals start on the 16th and finish on the 18th, then we’re (hopefully) off to Majuro. My parents are flying in on Thursday, which seems ridiculously soon. Getting a boat out of Jaluit is still not looking great, but they say that during the Christmas season, there are a lot of boats. We just haven’t seen any of them yet.
Depending on the boat schedules, it’s possible that I won’t post again until after Christmas, so if that’s the case, I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year! Appreciate the snow for me, and I wish I could be there to celebrate with you!
11.30.09 Monday
Some sage words from our principal at our weekly school assembly:
(Addressing the students) “Some of the boys are still wearing earrings. Boys, if you want to wear earrings, I’ll give you a dress to wear as well. Girls wear earrings. Some men wear earrings, but those are men who don’t know what to do with themselves.”
Friday, November 27, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving!
For Peter Shellito’s impressions of the experience (my roommate/colleague/friend here…aka “Pshell”), please check out . Double your pleasure!
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.
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.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Freezing in 70 degrees
11.7.09 Saturday
I had a pretty funny moment while running with Pshell today. Peter has been a really excellent motivator to get in shape…his high fitness level was a little disheartening at first, but I’ve gotten to the point where I can keep up with him for most of the route. We really only have one place to go running here, which is south, to the end of the airport runway and back. In some places, any deviation of more than ten feet either way from that course would have us waist-deep in the ocean or lagoon. On Tuesdays and Fridays, we have to watch out for the plane landing on our heads, so we keep an eye on the sky (“White People on Strange Running Ritual Slain by Plane,” the local paper might say). Some days we’re too busy to work out, but I manage to run 3-4 times a week, which is pretty good for me. But I digress.
As we were running out of Jabor heading toward the runway, we passed a few little boys playing near the town dump, which is just a cleared space next to the road just outside Jabor. They had found some empty cardboard 12-packs of Coca-Cola, and one of them had put a box on each leg and arm, and he was small enough that they covered his entire extremities. Man, I wish I had had a camera. He looked like a kickass Transformer, if the Transformers had run into financial difficulties and found it necessary to take on a corporate sponsor. Then he started running with us, and was able to keep up for a little way, despite his encumbrances. He really made my day, not only because he looked sharp in his fresh Coke kicks, but also reminded me of how much fun it is to be a little boy.
11.10.09 Tuesday
I would say I spend a majority of my time and energy in class figuring out what the students already know, and what they don’t. If they don’t know something I expected them to know, I scramble to come up with an explanation that they will understand, which works less frequently than I would like. If they already know something I planned to explain, it means I wasted my fairly limited time planning a good way to teach it. It was suggested that I give pre-unit tests to establish what they know, but committing to another level of test-writing and grading is daunting, and the range of academic ability within each class might make the pre-testing useless anyway.
Sometimes I envy Peter a little for teaching physics and chemistry, because he can pretty much count on the fact that none of them will have previously learned any of it, so he knows he has to start at the beginning…at other times, however, it’s nice to find out that the students have an English base on which to build.
11.11.09
I just had the most amazing coconut. Considering that we are surrounded by coconut trees, every day risking a fatal nut to the noggin, we get surprisingly few, primarily because the Marshallese are far more able and wily gatherers. When we get them, they are so delicious that I am very close to giving extra credit in my class for every coconut delivered to my door. Today, after a short run and workout, I broke the seal of one that I had been keeping in the fridge, and I am here to tell you that there is NOTHING like fresh, chilled coconut milk after working out.
11.13.09 Friday
Friday is the day that the students do a general cleanup of the campus after school. They divide by grades, and as a “class advisor” to the juniors, I help supervise them during the 20-30 minute cleanup (I “advise” them to pick stuff up, and that’s about it). Apparently, though, the Marshallese seem to find the browning leaves that drop from the trees extremely aesthetically displeasing, because they’re all the students pick up, at the encouragement of my co-advisor. Well, this would be all well and good, if the students didn’t completely ignore the Styrofoam, metal and plastic that is scattered among the detritus. The artificial refuse, which is so offensive to my Western sensibilities, just doesn’t seem to bother them as much. Consequently, I end up spending most my time picking up the wrappers and cans, while the students squat and pick up the things that would disintegrate in a couple weeks, moving them to a bonfire. I have to admit, the team effort makes things a lot tidier.
Last week, a representative of the Ministry of Education visited the school to see how things were going, and apparently he said that JHS is one of the cleanest campuses he’s seen. Upon hearing this, though, I wondered whether we actually have the least trash or if we are just the most bereft of vegetable matter.
One of the WorldTeach girls came by today, almost always a welcome change of routine. However, I realized today how little I like talking shop. I remember a reading from a class at Dartmouth that described a teacher’s lounge as a nest of tired people, hunched over coffee and making dry, ironic comments about their students, and I also remember how repugnant that sounded to me. I try to limit the negative things I say about people around me, and that should certainly include my students. I certainly break my own rule, usually when I am frustrated, and Peter and I regularly vent to each other, but no more than is necessary for our sanity.
However, I’m getting slightly off-topic…I was trying to say that when we have WorldTeach visitors, inevitably we talk about our respective experiences. No surprise there, but I think about school and talk about it with Pshell so much that when I’m talking to another person, it’s really the last thing I want to deal with. I think my ideal teacher’s lounge would prohibit talking about students or school in any way. It might be that this school is a bigger part of our life than is the case with other teachers, though…we simply don’t have much else going on, so it’s all we think about. Maybe the case would be different in Majuro, where we might have a life outside of school.
I had a pretty funny moment while running with Pshell today. Peter has been a really excellent motivator to get in shape…his high fitness level was a little disheartening at first, but I’ve gotten to the point where I can keep up with him for most of the route. We really only have one place to go running here, which is south, to the end of the airport runway and back. In some places, any deviation of more than ten feet either way from that course would have us waist-deep in the ocean or lagoon. On Tuesdays and Fridays, we have to watch out for the plane landing on our heads, so we keep an eye on the sky (“White People on Strange Running Ritual Slain by Plane,” the local paper might say). Some days we’re too busy to work out, but I manage to run 3-4 times a week, which is pretty good for me. But I digress.
As we were running out of Jabor heading toward the runway, we passed a few little boys playing near the town dump, which is just a cleared space next to the road just outside Jabor. They had found some empty cardboard 12-packs of Coca-Cola, and one of them had put a box on each leg and arm, and he was small enough that they covered his entire extremities. Man, I wish I had had a camera. He looked like a kickass Transformer, if the Transformers had run into financial difficulties and found it necessary to take on a corporate sponsor. Then he started running with us, and was able to keep up for a little way, despite his encumbrances. He really made my day, not only because he looked sharp in his fresh Coke kicks, but also reminded me of how much fun it is to be a little boy.
11.10.09 Tuesday
I would say I spend a majority of my time and energy in class figuring out what the students already know, and what they don’t. If they don’t know something I expected them to know, I scramble to come up with an explanation that they will understand, which works less frequently than I would like. If they already know something I planned to explain, it means I wasted my fairly limited time planning a good way to teach it. It was suggested that I give pre-unit tests to establish what they know, but committing to another level of test-writing and grading is daunting, and the range of academic ability within each class might make the pre-testing useless anyway.
Sometimes I envy Peter a little for teaching physics and chemistry, because he can pretty much count on the fact that none of them will have previously learned any of it, so he knows he has to start at the beginning…at other times, however, it’s nice to find out that the students have an English base on which to build.
11.11.09
I just had the most amazing coconut. Considering that we are surrounded by coconut trees, every day risking a fatal nut to the noggin, we get surprisingly few, primarily because the Marshallese are far more able and wily gatherers. When we get them, they are so delicious that I am very close to giving extra credit in my class for every coconut delivered to my door. Today, after a short run and workout, I broke the seal of one that I had been keeping in the fridge, and I am here to tell you that there is NOTHING like fresh, chilled coconut milk after working out.
11.13.09 Friday
Friday is the day that the students do a general cleanup of the campus after school. They divide by grades, and as a “class advisor” to the juniors, I help supervise them during the 20-30 minute cleanup (I “advise” them to pick stuff up, and that’s about it). Apparently, though, the Marshallese seem to find the browning leaves that drop from the trees extremely aesthetically displeasing, because they’re all the students pick up, at the encouragement of my co-advisor. Well, this would be all well and good, if the students didn’t completely ignore the Styrofoam, metal and plastic that is scattered among the detritus. The artificial refuse, which is so offensive to my Western sensibilities, just doesn’t seem to bother them as much. Consequently, I end up spending most my time picking up the wrappers and cans, while the students squat and pick up the things that would disintegrate in a couple weeks, moving them to a bonfire. I have to admit, the team effort makes things a lot tidier.
Last week, a representative of the Ministry of Education visited the school to see how things were going, and apparently he said that JHS is one of the cleanest campuses he’s seen. Upon hearing this, though, I wondered whether we actually have the least trash or if we are just the most bereft of vegetable matter.
One of the WorldTeach girls came by today, almost always a welcome change of routine. However, I realized today how little I like talking shop. I remember a reading from a class at Dartmouth that described a teacher’s lounge as a nest of tired people, hunched over coffee and making dry, ironic comments about their students, and I also remember how repugnant that sounded to me. I try to limit the negative things I say about people around me, and that should certainly include my students. I certainly break my own rule, usually when I am frustrated, and Peter and I regularly vent to each other, but no more than is necessary for our sanity.
However, I’m getting slightly off-topic…I was trying to say that when we have WorldTeach visitors, inevitably we talk about our respective experiences. No surprise there, but I think about school and talk about it with Pshell so much that when I’m talking to another person, it’s really the last thing I want to deal with. I think my ideal teacher’s lounge would prohibit talking about students or school in any way. It might be that this school is a bigger part of our life than is the case with other teachers, though…we simply don’t have much else going on, so it’s all we think about. Maybe the case would be different in Majuro, where we might have a life outside of school.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Partytime
Hi everyone!
It was a busy week, and a very successful week food-wise (oh no, here I go again...). On Wednesday night, we were just sitting down to our weekly bowl of fresh chili. Yes, Wednesday night is chili night, and if that ain't marital bliss, I don't know what is.
So anyway, so we were sitting down to hot chili, and a kid shows up with about a 10-pound loin of fresh, bleeding yellow fin tuna. This called for a rearrangement of dinner plans, to say the least. Fortuitously, we already had some hot sushi rice cooked, so we finished our chili and dug into sashimi with a will. Fresh tuna doesn't need a thing but a little rice, soy sauce and a touch of wasabi. We ate until we couldn't move, and then we ate a little more. About half of the loin still remains, so we're going to sear it up tonight, I think.
Continuing the food streak, the next day we received an invitation, along with all the teachers, to a party thrown by the newly elected Speaker of the Nitijela, the Marshallese governing body. They elect senators from each island or atoll, and then the senators elect a president and a speaker. At least that's my understanding. They recently had a vote of no-confidence for the former president and speaker and relieved them of their positions, so they just elected these new guys, and the new speaker is the senator from Jaluit. But, to get back to how this affected us and our taste buds, he had a Marshallese party on Thursday night. Since alcohol is illegal here, parties are mostly about eating a lot, some singing and some dancing.
We arrived about an hour and a half after the advised start time (6 pm), and ended up waiting another solid hour and a half until it was time to start. Marshallese time, everyone says. Well, it's hard to be philosophical about time when you've postponed your normal 6:30 pm dinner time to 9 pm. I observed to Pshell that eating is one of those few pleasurable things for which the anticipation of it is NOT as good as the actual event. But hey, volunteers can't be choosers.
When it finally got started, we were ravenous, and there was a pretty impressive spread, including 10-15 dishes involving breadfruit and coconut, a whole roast pig (a revelation of fatty goodness), some fish dishes, and fresh, glorious, tiny bananas. As guests of honor (read: white people), we were seated at the head table with the host, the other American teacher, the two Mormon missionaries, and the Catholic priest. Motley crew. The benefit of being a guest of honor is that you get to go through the line first, of which we took full advantage. But once we were through, a never-ending line formed, stretching off into the warm darkness. Saying that nearly everyone on the island (except for the high school students, so maybe 500-600 people) came through that line would not be a gross exaggeration.
Towards the end, they set up a keyboard and mic and showed off some of the Marshallese skill for music. I don't like their music very much, but I do admire how everyone seems to be very musical. One of the older women came to our table and was trying to get one of us to dance, and I didn't want her to go away disappointed so I danced with her for a minute or two. After that, things wrapped up, everyone lined up to say thank you and shake the hand of the host in the traditional way, and we left shortly after.
That's about the extent of happenings in the last couple weeks...our Field Director is coming for a visit in a week or two, which we look forward to as a change of pace. Also, we have a short week the week after next, and we're REALLY looking forward to that. Thanks for reading!
It was a busy week, and a very successful week food-wise (oh no, here I go again...). On Wednesday night, we were just sitting down to our weekly bowl of fresh chili. Yes, Wednesday night is chili night, and if that ain't marital bliss, I don't know what is.
So anyway, so we were sitting down to hot chili, and a kid shows up with about a 10-pound loin of fresh, bleeding yellow fin tuna. This called for a rearrangement of dinner plans, to say the least. Fortuitously, we already had some hot sushi rice cooked, so we finished our chili and dug into sashimi with a will. Fresh tuna doesn't need a thing but a little rice, soy sauce and a touch of wasabi. We ate until we couldn't move, and then we ate a little more. About half of the loin still remains, so we're going to sear it up tonight, I think.
Continuing the food streak, the next day we received an invitation, along with all the teachers, to a party thrown by the newly elected Speaker of the Nitijela, the Marshallese governing body. They elect senators from each island or atoll, and then the senators elect a president and a speaker. At least that's my understanding. They recently had a vote of no-confidence for the former president and speaker and relieved them of their positions, so they just elected these new guys, and the new speaker is the senator from Jaluit. But, to get back to how this affected us and our taste buds, he had a Marshallese party on Thursday night. Since alcohol is illegal here, parties are mostly about eating a lot, some singing and some dancing.
We arrived about an hour and a half after the advised start time (6 pm), and ended up waiting another solid hour and a half until it was time to start. Marshallese time, everyone says. Well, it's hard to be philosophical about time when you've postponed your normal 6:30 pm dinner time to 9 pm. I observed to Pshell that eating is one of those few pleasurable things for which the anticipation of it is NOT as good as the actual event. But hey, volunteers can't be choosers.
When it finally got started, we were ravenous, and there was a pretty impressive spread, including 10-15 dishes involving breadfruit and coconut, a whole roast pig (a revelation of fatty goodness), some fish dishes, and fresh, glorious, tiny bananas. As guests of honor (read: white people), we were seated at the head table with the host, the other American teacher, the two Mormon missionaries, and the Catholic priest. Motley crew. The benefit of being a guest of honor is that you get to go through the line first, of which we took full advantage. But once we were through, a never-ending line formed, stretching off into the warm darkness. Saying that nearly everyone on the island (except for the high school students, so maybe 500-600 people) came through that line would not be a gross exaggeration.
Towards the end, they set up a keyboard and mic and showed off some of the Marshallese skill for music. I don't like their music very much, but I do admire how everyone seems to be very musical. One of the older women came to our table and was trying to get one of us to dance, and I didn't want her to go away disappointed so I danced with her for a minute or two. After that, things wrapped up, everyone lined up to say thank you and shake the hand of the host in the traditional way, and we left shortly after.
That's about the extent of happenings in the last couple weeks...our Field Director is coming for a visit in a week or two, which we look forward to as a change of pace. Also, we have a short week the week after next, and we're REALLY looking forward to that. Thanks for reading!
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