Cute kids, phone and internet woes- from 10/7

We just got internet back at the house so here's a slightly out of date blog entry. I'll post again relatively soon.

Ants rule the world here in the Marshall Islands. All food in our house fits into two categories- Food ants don’t want/can’t get to and food ants want. The first category can be stored in our cupboards. The second category needs to go in the fridge or freezer. Before the Marshall Islands I didn’t know you could store flour in the fridge and it wouldn’t coagulate. We’re constantly on guard but it’s a losing battle. The ants can get into almost anything. Air tight, zip locked bags? Not ant proof. Tupperware? Only if it’s perfectly airtight and you eat the food quickly.

The ants also seem to think that electric and phone wiring is delicious. After enough time they eat through the lines and they need to be replaced. That’s why we have a very loud buzzing noise whenever we try to have a conversation on the phone and why Annie and I can’t log on to the internet. The ‘line guys’ are supposed to call us eventually to set up an appointment to fix the lines, but I have no idea when that will happen. I’m hoping they call this week, but I’m sure that scheduling a time will be a headache with the interference and ‘island time’.

During week five or six a new girl named Rosana came into my 1^st grade class. She is from an outer island and she speaks almost zero English. This would be a challenge in and of itself but she’s also terrified of me. Five minutes into the first day of class she burst into tears because of the amount of English I was using and because she was afraid. I didn’t know the reason why she was crying at the time so I brought her to Meljodik and Rosana never came back. At the end of class, Meljodik motioned me over and told me that Rosana was scared and we’d try again tomorrow. The next day, she lasted ten minutes and the same thing happened. This time I sent her to Hevlen, the 1^st grade teacher. After staying with Hevlen we decided to have Rosana’s mom come in to help her calm down in class. It works but she still thinks I’m ‘rinana’ or a bad man. When she comes with the kids to knock on our door Rosana refuses to speak or come inside with the other kids. She came late to my class every day and the few times I answered the door she would try to run away when she saw my face. Her mom had to speak sternly to her to get her to come inside the classroom.

This is a new experience for me. I’ve never had anyone remain terrified of me for this much time. Sometimes my deep voice scares little kids (mostly girls) but they get over it quickly. The language barrier here and the fact that Rosana is stuck in a danger learning zone almost every time she sees me must be the reason she’s still scared.

These two slightly negative points have been counterbalanced by two major highlights this week. The first one happened when one of my favorite kids in 2^nd grade was absent for two days. If he had missed three days of school I would have gone to his house to check on him but that night he knocked on our door. After I said hi, Tommy looked up at me and said “Paul, can I copy the binal?” I was confused but after a bit of guessing I figured out that he thought I had given the class a copy of the upcoming final for the end of the quarter (Yes, I have to give a final exam to all of my classes. Including my 1^st and 2^nd graders). I told him not to worry about the final because I didn’t give one out yet. He looked confused so I told him that I needed him to get a good night’s sleep so he would be able to come to school tomorrow. Tommy nodded his head and with a final goodnight he went back home. (He lives next door.) It was so damn cute and it definitely made me feel great.

The other highlight happened when Joki (6^th grade) asked me if I wanted to go fishing with him last Saturday. I said yes but I wasn’t able to buy a fishing rod (the only one EZ Price had was 100 bucks) and they were out of fishing line and hooks. On Saturday Joki let me borrow all of the equipment I needed and we went out on his dad’s boat with Ken (6^th grade). Joki had asked his dad if he could use the family boat to go fishing so we went out to a good spot about 200 yards into the lagoon. We used a combination of flour, sea water and canned tuna in oil as bait. Usually this gets the kids something but we weren’t able to catch anything this time. After 15 minutes the boys got bored and we headed back in. When we hit land Joki asked me if I wanted to swim, jambo and eat yu in Kejeji’s island. I said yes, dropped off my stuff at home and followed them. When we arrived there were a ton of kids swimming and almost all of them decided to join us. We went for a trek through the island and I almost felt like I was on an outer island. Everything was beautiful and it felt like I was in the jungle. We went for a jambo through the island and stopped at the two tree houses the kids built. One of the nearby trees was converted into a makeshift coconut husker and the boys husked mature sprouted coconuts so that we could eat the yu inside. After a coconut sprouts the milk and flesh inside become spongy and relatively sweet. I helped them with the particularly tough ones (yes, all the Dartmouth volunteers can husk coconuts) and brought back two for Annie and Charlie. The Marshallese use the yu in one of their desert dishes called ice likur. The yu is cut up and mixed with water, sugar, condensed milk and then frozen. It was one of the first “traditional” dishes I had in the Marshall Islands. Joki promised me that we’d go out again this Saturday. I hope we catch fish next time.