Mandy, Cats, and Church

This week Thursday marked the first full month that I have been in Majuro and I feel like I am really getting into the swing of things (read: I have only been sick once, I can cook food for myself even with limited supplies, my fear of dogs has gone down immensely, and no one -- including any of my students -- has died). My classroom has a rhythm to it, I made it through the month under budget (barely), and I am a making a name for myself in Rita--the end of Majuro that I live and teach in. I could tell this today as I walked around on a jambo (which pretty much just means an aimless walk) and I ran into a couple of my students. I even stopped to play volleyball for a while with them! That being said, I was fairly disappointed in the majority of my students who did not do well on the quiz I handed out on Friday on the material we have been covering for the last two weeks. I plan on giving them a pep talk of sorts to start out the new week to get them back on track and trying new strategies in the classroom to get all of the students engaged.

The big news this week is that The Bungalow (as we are now calling the dorm we live in) has some new residents. Mandy is one of the many World Teach Volunteers who was staying with us waiting to get to her island. She became the last WT volunteer left at the beginning of the week but was told soon after that there is a conflict on the island she was supposed to go to between the landowner of the school and the principal so she won't be going anymore. Now she is staying with us permanently and will be teaching at Majuro Middle School with me. She is a great asset to the house--a wonderful cook, a playing card guru, and a graduate from a teaching/social work college where she focused in special education.

The other, even more exciting residents that we got this week are two kittens! Mandy saw some kids literally throwing these few week old kittens across the sidewalk in front of our house. After the WT Field Director, who happened to be around at the time, yelled at them in Marshallese, the kittens ran away, later to be found by our garbage can. We did not see their mother but left them there for the day. That evening we talked about the kittens so much that we got worried about their wellbeing and went out to look for them. We found out one them in our yard, hiding in the underbrush. We took her in and named her Coconut. She is very small and has gray fur with black stripes and a hint of orange. She looked pretty sickly and terrified. We looked up things to feed abandoned cats but realized that we did not have any of them since we were in the RMI. So, in a panic, we called Anna, the DVTP Field Director and resident cat lady (she has saved many abandoned cats herself in a country where dogs rule the streets), who advised us to feed her tuna and rice mixed with water. She seemed to like it. We made a home for her out of flat rate UPS boxes and sheets that had been left behind by previously volunteers. Coconut has had a weird paw twitch and was very thin but since being with us she seems to have gotten healthier. We hope she will be okay, since there is no vet on the island. The next day, while I was away, the girls decided to find one of the other kittens. The second one they found we named Papaya. She is a little bigger and looks like her sister but lacks the orange in her fur. She is also much more active. I have never had real pet (my sister and I had red eared slider turtles when we were younger but we couldn't play with them since their natural defense was to be covered in slime that carried salmonella poison--their names were Kiwi and Mango...so I guess I am making my way through the entire fruit section). The cats have been here together for two days and the seem to have taken to our new home. They also seem to have taken to me because I spend hours petting them. I have never liked dogs but always wanted cats. I guess in the RMI all kinds of dreams can come true.

Today I went to church in the RMI for the first time. Justin and Alex have a church on Ejit that is United Church of Christ, and while my family and I have never been big on denominations, we current go to UCC church in Chicago, so I figured it would be fun to compare (I don't know if I have explained about Ejit and now you can walk from the end of Rita across the ocean at low tide to the island...I truly enjoyed "walking across water" to get to church today, haha). I found immense comfort in the fact that Protestant churches everywhere around the world seem to be the same. There are always irreverent children, fancy hats/head gear, and loud singing. The kids in the church were highly entertained by the dogs that ran in and out of the service and the other ribelles (foreigners) and I. The men and women sat on opposite sides of the church so I was able to admire the variety of woven flowers and hair decorations that the women wore with their highly colorful muumuus. The singing was the most amazing part to me. The entire service, except for a welcome from the pastor to the ribelles, was in Marshallese, including the songs. The songs, however, were old traditional Church of Christ hymns. My family used to go to one of these churches since my mom's mom is a member of the Church of Christ denomination so I recognized many of the hymns. As I wrote in my previous post, the Marshallese are impressive singers. One person can create an incredible amount of volume. While most of the singers have a nasal tone, the Marshallese appear to have this innate skill with harmony. Every song broke into perfect harmony and filled the sizeable church. Afterwards, Alex, Justin, and I went to the post service brunch where we were served chicken and lobster soup made by the congregation and made to sit at the head table with the other church dignitaries. We were all asked to introduce ourselves and the sense of welcome I felt was overwhelming. The church experience was yet another extension of the Marshallese kindness that I have grown to know and love so well.

A few more observations about the RMI:

13 .Everyone knows everyone. If you want to find someone, you can literally drive down the street and look for them or ask if people in an area where that person usually is hanging out and you will learn their whereabouts pretty quickly. Anne, one of the WT Field Directors needed to find Mandy's principal to figure out what was going on on the island she was supposed to go to and told us that she was just going to drive down the street and track him down. Impressive.

14. We have been told to be careful about what we say about others by many people because of something called "coconut wireless" which is how information spreads on the island. Everyone finds out about everything soon after it happens by word of mouth.

15. Kids are kids everywhere! Before coming we were told that we would never really have discipline problems in the classroom but that we would instead have problems with passivity. I have had the opposite problem. My kids have really enjoyed the team game concept I came up with and have been participating in class (or at least a good handful of them have) but there has been a lot of talking/coming in late/hitting. I guess middle school kids are the same everywhere, rebellious, disinterested in learning, and starting their interest in the opposite sex. Sigh...it's does wonders for my classroom management.

Now, off to grade papers before class tomorrow...

Bar Lo Kom,

Andrew

First Week of School, Deep Sea Fishing, and Feeding a Whole Village (Seriously)

This past week has been pretty crazy--full of fun new adventures and revolutionary experiences. School started this past monday and it was mayhem! My schedule had been changed around 5 times before it finally settled on Wednesday, so I went into the beginning of the week not really knowing what was going on. On Monday, the school had orientation. The day was organized by the principal--a wonderful man named Len Lenja who is very passionate about the success of his students--so none of the teachers really knew what was going on. The day started with all of the students coming in uniform, gathering in the gym (which in actuality is a concrete structure with open sides), and listening to Principal Lenja and other administrators talk about old rules new things happening at the school this year. All of the talking was done in Marshallese (and went on for about two or so hours) so I did not know what was going on, but I was sure to raise my hand when I heard my name so that the students could know who I was. They gave me a round of applause and that was my first welcome to Majuro Middle School. Unbeknownst to me I was given a homeroom that day and we were expected to establish homeroom etiquette and rules over another two hour period. Since I didn't expect to have a homeroom and was told not to prepare anything for the first day, I was at a complete loss when I had 30 Marshallese students staring at me. I managed to find a list of rules from last year posted on the wall and fumbled through the rules (since the students were not interested in helping me create them...or talking at all) and then attempted to play a game with them, which they also were not interested in. We were informed during our orientation with the DVTP that Marshallese youth are extremely shy and are reluctant to participate in class in general and I was seeing this first hand. Eventually I was relieved of my classroom and the orientation was cut short so that the teachers could retool the schedule.

The next day was more of the same. I had a different set of students, more courses to teach than I had originally (including Pacific Island Social Studies, which I knew NOTHING about), and even less of an idea of what was going on through the course of the day. Thankfully the other teachers were very helpful and commiserated with me since they were not sure what was going on throughout the course of the day either. Tuesday was also a half day so that the teachers could finally solidify the schedule. Finally Wednesday, with a solid schedule of two sections of reading and two sections of writing and grammar (so two classes to whom I taught two courses each) I was finally able to get into the swing of things. I started my grammar and writing curriculum on the parts of speech and my reading class on parts of a story arc. I also initiated a classroom management technique that came to me through Harry Potter. I split my classes into four teams -- red, green, blue, and yellow -- and told them that they would get points for various things like participation, having someone on the team get the highest score on a test of quiz, or having the whole class have perfect homework and.or perfect attendance for the week. The prize at the end of the month for the team with the most points would be a movie party complete with candy and popcorn. The prize for the team with the most points at the end of the quarter would be a pizza party. This definitely inspired my students to become involved in class. Many of them have a good grasp on basic English language and I find myself only having to explain longer words like participation, pediatrician, and enunciation. I have also taught my students to quiet down when they hear me clap out a rhythm. They copy the rhythms and turn their attention towards me. They do it so well and are so musically inclined that for fun I added in knee slaps, snaps, and stomps to make the rhythms more complicated. They LOVE it. I also have started using songs to teach them parts of speech. I would put lyrics to a Disney song or something like "Waving Flag" by K'naan and have them compete to identify the correct number of nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. The week ended with my students asking me to sing for them (I sang the American National Anthem and A Whole New World from Aladdin), me playing volleyball with the students and teaching them hacky-sac during recess, and showing them the wonders of Photo Booth on my Macbook.

The teachers at my school are wonderful and have been very helpful and welcoming to me. We talk a lot about the differences in our cultures and try to teach each other our languages. The other volunteer teacher at the school is from Japan and is named Ryo. He teaches math and we frequently bond over my affinity for all things Japanese and our confusion about the Marshallese language and culture. The school itself is very nice as well. The classrooms are not air conditioned (the teachers' lounge is and I think everytime I walk into it I say, "It feels like a dream" -- who knew you could build up such a sweat teaching?) but because the school is right on the ocean there is always a wonderful breeze. For lunch, government certified venders bring food cooked at their homes to the school campus for the students. For a dollar you get deliciously roasted chicken, rice, and a slice of a hot dog. Phenomenal eating. This next week I plan on continuing with my lessons but also focusing on teaching the kids organization. Many of the students have no idea how to take notes in orderly fashion; basic things like putting the date or a heading or writing in the name notebook for the same class. I hope this will help them for the rest of their academic lives.

My first week of teaching was a lot the deep sea fishing experience I had this weekend. It started out rough and choppy (like the ocean once we got out of the lagoon of the atoll), students started getting interested (like the first impressive catches we had), there was a bit of a lull in the middle of the week (then there was about and hour and a half to two hours where nothing was biting), and then more success at the end (where we had a few more catches). I had never been deep sea fishing before (in fact I had only been fishing twice before that I can remember -- once when I was very young with my cousin Nuffy and the other time at this camp I worked at for the past few summers in a pond in one of the park districts in Chicago = not the same experience) and the experience was all thanks to Justin's parents, Steve and Angela Curtis, who came to visit Justin this past week. They chartered the XXXX boat, which is one of the nicest boats in Majuro available for charter and we went out trolling around Arno, the atoll that is closest to Majuro. The process of trolling includes letting out a number of lines and then driving the boat around until the fish jump onto the lure which looks as if it is moving. Leaving the lagoon was a bit rough since I had just eaten and I could really feel the waves moving the food in my stomach, but once we got around Arno, the water became smooth. Within about 40 minutes of leaving Majuro we got a bite. About 800 yards of line dumped out (I learned all of these terms on the trip) and it took Justin about 20 minutes to reel in the fish. It was a 400 lb. blue marlin. Absolutely insane. The fish was gorgeous and our Marshallese captain and crew were extremely impressed. The next catch was mine. I caught a 25 lb. Wahoo, which is silver in color. Mr. Curtis then caught a 25 lb. barracuda. Finally, after a bit of a lull, Alex Huestis caught a 35 lb. Wahoo. It was a wild trip and while we were trolling we were able to see multiple dolphins jumping out of the water.

What was even more rewarding was what happened afterwards. We brought all of the fish back afterwards and after taking numerous pictures and hearing many "oohs" and "ahhs" about the impressive American fisherman that Justin was, the owners of a restaurant right next to the dock took Alex and my fish and used it to create a special for the dinner menu. The wahoo was cooked perfectly and was one of the most delicious fish I had ever eaten. Before the meal though Alex, Justin, and I took the fish to Ejit, the island that Justin and Alex teach on, and passed out all of the marlin to the people there. At first the residents were confused when we pulled up with a huge fish and offered it to them, but word spread quickly on the small island and soon children were running up with anything they could find to carry the ~8 lb slabs of fish meat, including bowls, garbage bags, and their hands! Everyone was extremely grateful to Justin for his generosity. At one point, one of the men helping Justin cut the fish said "You could sell this for a lot of money. Are you sure you want to give it away?" and Justin said, "Of course I do." While I did not catch or cut the fish I felt proud to help and be a part of feeding the entire 300 person community with enough food that they would not have to worry for the next few days. Justin's mother reminded us that these were the experiences that we would not forget and that this should show us how a little gesture can be invaluable to someone else. It was one of the more amazing things I have been a part of and I am happy to say that I was there to see it.

Anyway, I should be off to bed. After an amazing weekend and a wonderful Sunday snorkeling on Enamanit (where I saw some of the most beautiful fish I have ever seen in coral that was eight or so feet from the shore) I am exhausted. My first full week of teaching ahead of me!

But before I go, a few more to add to the list of surprises that the RMI offers everyday:

#10 Geckos CLUCK! Yes, you read correctly. The entire time that the DVTP group was in a trailer together during orientation we would hear these noises that we assumed were rats. I later found out that the noise was actually geckos. I can't really describe the noise so I suggest you find an audio clip somewhere...but I can promise you that it is nothing like you thought they would sound. That being said, the only noise I have ever thought a gecko made had to go with car insurance...

#11 The kids here are amazing at volleyball. While I do not have much experience playing volleyball with elementary students in America, these little kids are strong and accurate when it comes to hitting the ball. I played with some of my students during lunch on Friday and their slams were knocking me back off my feet!

#12 Rat tails (the hairstyle) are totally in. Many of the young guys here have them and rock them liberally. This continues to surprise and confuse me everyday.

Bar Lo Kom,

Andrew

(And be sure to check out my Picasa account that I just created. Click on the pictures in the scrolling thumbnails or follow the link here - http://picasaweb.google.com/117345389807646883401/Orientation?feat=directlink - It takes a while to upload pictures so I have just added pictures from the first part of orientation, but you can some shots of Enamanit and the other volunteers. I will add more pictures and comments so that you know what things are in the next few days.)

End of one thing and the start of another

Well, orientation has finally come to an end. The other Dartmouth volunteers left for their outer islands on friday and I was surprised how sad I was to seem them go. I only knew three of the volunteers before coming on the program, and they were only acquaintances at Dartmouth. The other volunteers were mostly strangers to me, but after two weeks of close quarters living and experiencing a new culture for the first time together a bond had been made. I think another thing that made me sad to see the volunteers go was the fact that I am the only volunteer assigned to Majuro while all of the other volunteers are in pairs (except for one, who is by himself in Laura). It was not until the volunteers left that I felt like this adventure had officially begun. Their departure made me realize how long a year actually is and how lonely it could potentially be. That being said, I think that all of these feels are even more of an impetus to be involved in my school and in activities in Majuro.

This past week of orientation we did three really cool things. Last sunday we went to Laura which is on the opposite end of the Majuro Atoll from Majuro, the capital (it is directly on the other end of the atoll from me since I live in Rita, which is on the opposite end of the atoll) (NOTE: from now on when I say Majuro I am talking about the city; if I mean the entire atoll, also called Majuro, I will specify that). Laura is kinda like the suburbs of Majuro. The houses are more spread out and it is more scenic. There is less trash because there are less people and industry (boats and shipping carts are all over the lagoon side of Majuro). The drive from Majuro to Laura is around an hour. The volunteers and I crammed into the back of Anna's pickup truck and enjoyed the sunny ride. We stopped along the way to buy coconuts and boiled clams from children along the road. When we got to Laura, the beach (which costs a dollar per person) was beautiful. The water was shallow everywhere so swimming and snorkeling was very easy. I had just purchased some snorkeling gear and it was the perfect place to try it out. While Justin, our resident expert on all things water related, said that because the water was shallow their was less to look at, I enjoyed the coral and fish that I saw. We ended up swimming 250-300 meters from the shore. We also ran into some World Teach volunteers at the beach because their place of residence was close to Laura. It was a wonderful afternoon.

On tuesday we went to a place called WAM which was a youth program led by Alson Kelen, the mayor the of Bikinians (the Bikinians were displaced "for the good of mankind" in 1946 by the US government so that we could do atomic bomb testing after WWII; since their island is poisoned with radiation they have not returned and live on two other islands--Kili and Ejit). The program teaches young people traditional Marshallese canoe carpentry and navigation skills. They could supposedly build a canoe (which looked like small sail boats) in around a week. Back in times when traditional sail canoes were used Marshallese boys would be chosen from a young age to learn navigation skills. Their final test was to lay down in the boat blindfolded and navigate the canoe based on the wind and the push and pull of the water. The Marshallese had the ocean currents around the islands/atolls down to a science before precision instruments were created. No wonder the Marshallese were regarded as the best sailers in the Pacific! After an explanation of the program from the major we got into the canoe in pairs of two and had two youth from the program take us out into the lagoon. The Marshallese boats were different from other boats because of the moveable mast. The top of the mast/sail was attached to the opposite side of the boat but the mast itself could be pivoted different ways and even switched from one side of the boat to the other depending on what direction the sailor wanted to go. I was impressed with how fast the boats went. Afterwards, our presence had drawn the attention of around 30 young Marshallese children who insisted on using us to play chicken in the water. The kids REALLY went after each other and we played with them for a good hour or two. My neck still hurts from all the exertion! The kids were awesome though, doing backflips off of floating platforms and asking us to throw them around in the water. They did not want us to leave when it was time for us to go. They even sang "Beautiful Girl" by Sean Kingston for us as a group. A few of them rapped some verses from Tupac songs. I also met one of my future students who's name was Martine. He was extremely good at doing backflips. Hanging out with all of the kids definitely got me excited to start teaching.

Orientation ended with one of my favorite things that have done here so far. We met a woman named Nica Wase who Anna referred to as a renaissance woman (she has stared in movies, lead initiatives to beautify Majuro, worked with woman empowerment groups, and was an expert at making handicrafts). She taught us to weave coconut palms to make plates. She then showed us how to take one leaf and fold it into a rose. I tried over and over again with her guidance and got pretty good at it by the end. Still, it was pretty hard. Nica said that she would eventually show me how to weave these flowers that the Marshallese make out of dried and dyed coconut leaves. I want to learn how to do this more than anything while I am here.

That night we had dinner at this amazing Chinese food restaurant called Won Hai Shen (I have always been a fan of Chinese food but this was really outstanding because the people who owned the restaurant were actually from China!). Anna ordered way too much food for us (two plates of every dish...we actually ended up having twice as much as we needed) but we enjoyed our last meal together-particularly the people on the outer islands who wouldn't have access to these types of meals for the next few months.

Now that orientation is over, the focal point of my sojourn in the RMI begins tomorrow--teaching! School starts tomorrow, AHHHH! I am very nervous about it but I think that I am as prepared as I will be. I will be teaching four sections of 7th grade grammar and writing. I was a little disappointed to find out that I am not teaching literature but I hope to incorporate it into my curriculum anyway. How can you learn grammar and writing without reading, huh? I have spent this past weekend cleaning and setting up my room (I cannot tell you how many ants I have killed in the last few days ) and while it wasn't what I expected, I am excited with what I have done with the place.

I will be sure to update you on how my first few days of class go. Hopefully my lesson plans and ideas for classroom management work! Wish me luck.

I leave you with a shout out to my sister, who had her 26th birthday recently and a few more items to add to the "Things that surprise me in the RMI" list:

#7 The water is ALWAYS warm in the ocean or the lagoon, and I mean WARM. I guess thats why they call the tropics paradise?

#8 Everyone here can sing and does so liberally. We had a teacher induction ceremony during our first week of orientation and the Marshallese teachers all sang the RMI national anthem in perfect three part harmony. There were also guy parts and girl parts. It was as if they had all gotten together before and practiced it! It was very beautiful. I have caught my taxi drivers singing and heard many kids sing and they are all in tune. Most people can play the ukelele also.

#9 The weather here is CRAZY. It will be balmy one minute, hot for a couple hours, and then rain torrentially for a few minutes and go back to being super hot right afterwards. These bursts of rain happen a couple times a day but are very short. Its amazing how the entire country seems to stop for those few minutes as everyone attempts to get out of the rain and then starts right back up again after it is over.

Bar lo kom (and please feel free to comment/ask questions!),

Andrew

Lets try that again...

You all will have to forgive me. Outside of blogging for the Dartmouth Undergraduate Admissions Office, I have little experience doing these things. I realized after writing my first post that you readers would probably be much more interested in details than overviews. I will do my best to do this from now on as time permits.

As I said, the other DVTP volunteers and I have been in the midst of orientation since we arrived. We have been living in a trailer on the Marshall Islands High School (MIHS) campus in Rita, the lower most portion of the Majuro Atoll (and probably the poorest/most overcrowded). Despite the tight quarters and variety of personalities we have been getting along pretty well, laughing through our follies in this new country that we are all experiencing for the first time together. By the end of this coming week we will all be at our different sites. I will be at the Majuro Middle School, which is on the MIHS campus. I will actually be living one trailer over in the newly refurbished dorms that I will be sharing with three World Teach Volunteers (all of whom will be teaching at different places in Majuro). Two of the other Dartmouth volunteers will be close to me. At low tide you can walk across some of the dead reef at the end of Rita, across two very small islands (one of which is called Demon Island...there is a large belief in demons here, in conjunction with the large belief in Christianity, somehow) to another small island called Ejit. Alex Huestis and Justin Curtis will be staying there and teaching at an elementary school. On the other end of the Majuro atoll, a three dollar hour long bus ride away, Dan Hopkins will be teaching at Laura High School. The other volunteers will be on outer islands -- Wotje, Kili, and Jaluit. I will definitely miss the Dartmouth volunteers who are leaving, but I am looking forward to moving into my own space and getting my own routine.

#5 on the list of surprising things about Majuro is that you can take a taxi for 50 cents pretty much anywhere on the atoll. You just hold up the number of fingers of people that you have in your party that want to take a taxi and if the taxi has room it pulls over. Everyone shares the ride and people are constantly getting in and out of the cars. It can be a bit scary depending on the time of day or who gets in the cab but most people are extremely friendly.

#6 The city has an initiative where some of the students got together and painted public service announcements about HIV/Aids and posted them around the city. Unprotected sex is common in the Marshall Islands and Majuro in particular and people become sexually active with multiple partners at a young age. The postings depict various illustrations of how to say no or avoid Aids, my favorite being a knight with a shield that has "Defender" on it (a type of condom) that is blocking bullets that say "gonorrhea," "syphilis," and "HIV." Pretty clever.

I also forgot to mention in my last post the two coolest things that we have done so far during orientation. During the first sunday we spent here I actually saw paradise. There are two families that own the most profitable businesses in Majuro -- Reamers and the Kramers. The Kramers happen to own an island a short boat ride away from Majuro. We were fortunate enough to be able to hop on a boat and go out for a sunday picnic on Enamanet. The boat ride was amazing. Myself and a number of other volunteers sat on the front of the boat and were able to see a bunch of huge fisher boats and decrepit boats in the lagoon in the atoll. When we finally arrived at the island the most striking feature was the crystal clear blue water. The next thing we noticed were the floating diving board and water slide docks that had been made in the middle of the ocean. Our boat driver stopped before we reached the island, about 100 meters out, and said to look down in the water. There, fully submerged about 20 feet down was the front of a WWII fighter plane. One hundred meters away from the plane in the ocean was a recently submerged fisher boat. The island itself was paradise. Very small but full of palm trees and wild animals--dogs and pigs to be exact. When we got to our manmade bungalow, we attempted to go in the one room to change and opened the door to see the largest pig any of us had ever seen sitting on the bed planks. Other pigs and their piglets were running around the island being chased by dogs. Many Marshallese children--relatives part of the extended family of the Kramers--were playing in the water with ocean kayaks and jet skis (seriously, I saw an 8 year old driving the jet ski...terrifying, but totally normal here). We had a barbecue on the beach and Anna, our field director (FD), handed us some lobsters to crack open on the water. She told us her favorite thing was to sit on the beach, throw the shells in the ocean, and watch the fish gather around the remnants. This didn't happen (the fish didn't gather, I mean) but I was extremely pleased to find out because of geographic locations and dietary preferences only two of the other volunteers actually ate lobster. I was happy to have a lobster tail and another half to myself. The day was wonderful full of kayaking, snorkeling, backflips, and exploring the oceanside reef (where a baby reef shark swam past our feet).

The other awesome thing we did was go to the US Embassy. This was less eventful but still cool. They have one of 3 tennis courts on Majuro and I was sure to ask if I could come and play sometime. The ambassador was not there (we actually met her at a community fair this past saturday where she came up to me very nonchalantly and dropped in conversation that she was the ambassador after I had made a fool of myself) but it was very nice to see that the US Embassy knew of our presence on the island and was proud of our work. We were given pizza there (and promptly told that it was provided by our tax dollars, which made me feel totally enabled to eat as much as I wanted).


The only other thing of note is that our FD downloads all of the HBO True Blood episodes every week! This was a great relief to me since besides my family and friends, True Blood was the one thing from America that I knew I would miss the most. Sad, I know.

That is all for now.

Pictures to come soon!

Bar Lo Kom,

Andrew

Yokwe Aolep! (Hello everyone!)

Hey all and welcome to my blog. This will be the first of what I hope are many entries about my time teaching and adventuring in the Marshall Islands over the next year. For those of you that don't know what I am doing, I am on the Dartmouth Volunteer Teaching Program for graduates of Dartmouth College. I am one of 9 other volunteers who is teaching in the RMI (Republic of the Marshall Islands). Around August 11, I will start teaching 7th and 8th grade English at Majuro Middle School in the RMI capital, Majuro, on the Majuro Atoll. The other volunteers will be in other places on the Majuro Atoll or outer islands which are anywhere from a boat ride to a plane ride away from me.

My journey started on July 27 from the O'Hare airport where I had a terrible run-in with Continental Airlines (I suggest never flying them as their bag charges are tremendous). I made it to Hawaii that night and stayed in a hotel in Honolulu. I was able to meet up with two other volunteers--Kristin Dewey and Jenna Cunningham--soon after arriving and we skirted off to a nearby beak in Waikiki. We bodysurfed for what must have been and hour and a half. It was a great introduction to the island life (albeit very very different from the RMI). I had my "last American meal" that night at Chili's (anti-climatic, I know) with three other volunteers--Dave Armstrong, Alex Huestis, and Alex Rivadeneira. I insisted on having a bacon cheeseburger because I did not know if I would be able to have them in the RMI.

We left our hotel at 4:30am the next morning to catch our 7am flight. At the airport we met up with 2 other volunteers (2 more would be coming later). We had a riveting talk with an older couple who were the pastor and first lady of a Baptist Church in South Carolina (they insisted on giving me one of the "Do you know where you will go when you die" pamphlets even though I was wearing a cross...) who wished us well before we got on our plane to the RMI. The RMI is located across the International Dateline so we arrived in Majuro on the 29th (I slept most of the plane ride, but was able to watch "How to Train Your Dragon," which was a very good movie).

Anna Zelinski, Dartmouth class of 2006 and field director for the DVTP program, met us at the airport (which was the smallest airport I had even been in--seriously, the bags were basically hand delivered to us from the plane), put Marshallese handicrafts around our necks, and carted us off towards Marshall Islands High School (MIHS) where we would spend the next 2.5 weeks of orientation in a trailer on campus. The ride down the one street in Majuro was interesting to say the least. First, and most surprising, was that there was one main road, with very few side roads. You could see both the lagoon side of the atoll and the ocean side of the island at almost every point. Majuro is not clean or well kept either. Since there is little space, there is trash everywhere. This is not to say that there are not nice parts of the island, but most parts are pretty dirty and dilapidated. The atoll very much reminded me of other places I had been before--parts of the American South and Central America.

We spent the first few days getting used to island life. We opened bank accounts, got numbers at the hospital (yes, you have to register and get a number before they see you...this is to say that if you didn't do this before you were injured you would have to wait to get a number before you could see a doctor), and toured the city. Majuro does not have much, but does have restaurants and stores that offer most things that anyone could need. I was surprised to find that you could still get vitamin water and 5-hour energy drinks in a place where you had to buy purified water ($2 for 5 gallons, not too shabby!). Orientation has mostly been filled with workshops about teaching with the other volunteer teaching program that is on the island--World Teach. The past few days we have been in the midst of something called Practicum, which is when we prepare three days of lesson plans and teach actual Marshallese children while being observed by the program directors of both DVTP and World Teach (WT). My three day lesson unit was on the parts of speech and it went much better than I expected. Marshallese students as a whole are very passive and are afraid to make mistakes so they are reluctant to participate. Luckily I am fairly outgoing so I was able to make grammar fun for the students. Still, I have a lot to learn about time management in the classroom.

I will have more details when I get more free time (orientation keeps us fairly busy), but until then here are some of the more surprising things about life in the RMI:

1) There are wild roaming dogs EVERYWHERE. They are pretty docile because they used to people but I am terrified of dogs so I have not gotten used to this yet.

2) Marshallese people are extremely community oriented and friendly. While I did not assume that they wouldn't be, I am still humbled by their notion of family, which includes extended family, friends, and even teachers. The words in Marshallese for "want" and "like" are the same and the Marshallese are very quick to give you anything that you say you "want" or "like."

3) Young children (I am talking like 5 or 6 even) play in the street with almost anything until 10 or 11 at night. I guess this goes along with the idea that the community is close and everyone has to watch out for each other, but I still find this extremely strange.

4) Island time is a real thing. Things do not happen on time and usually go longer than expected. This is perfect for me since I am someone who is not very timely myself.

These are all I can think of for now. I am late for dinner and will write more about the culture, the people, my students, and the differences between here and America in future postings. Feel free to email me with any questions!

Bar lo kom (Bye everyone,)

Andrew