Giving Thanks and Finding a New Direction

Sorry for being incommunicado for the last two weeks blog readers! Too many people have gotten access to the free internet provided through the Ministry of Education on the high school campus where I live and so the Media Center felt it necessary to shut down the system for a little while and reset everything. In addition to that, I have been at a bit of a loss for words over the last few weeks (which will come as a huge surprise to those of you who know me well). With December fast approaching, the passing of my first Thanksgiving without my family, and a bit of volunteer drama, tensions and emotions have been running high. There have also been some very fun moments in the last two weeks and great moments of clarity. I will try to share all of these with you.

Things in the classroom have been difficult to say the least. The volunteers were warned by various sources that the students would start to check out and that the whole attitude of Majuro would change come December. The Marshallese take Christmas very seriously and preparations at the many churches began weeks ago. From the dorm, we can hear the music from the practices for the Christmas parties and pageants blasting from over half an American city block away. So much for the piece and quiet of paradise, eh? Consequently, since students are involved in these projects, they are testy, tired, and unfocused with the holiday break on the horizon. It has made discipline in the classroom into a nightmare. In the last week, I feel like my relationship with my students has taken many steps back. They are doing things that I thought I had gotten out of their system; they are breaking rules that I have had established since the very beginning of class. These are easy to follow rules like "no talking when others are talking," "don't throw things across the class," "don't eat in class," and "stay in your seat." While breaking rules like these is part of the fun of being a student, the students do it so blatantly, it is almost offensive. It is like they don't care to show respect anymore. I have gotten tired of trying to enforce these rules kindly, so many more students have been sent to the office and there has been a lot more discipline. However, I am losing steam fast. My students are still getting their lessons and doing their work, but it is not enjoyable to stand in front of the class if all I am doing is doling out discipline. I think that the break will be good for all parties and I do not think that some kind of peace, order, and regularity will be restored to the classroom until the break happens.

It is strange to feel this way now because the week before I came to some profound conclusions about teaching and what this experience has done for me while talking to Bill and Mandy. Teaching has had a lot of parts to it that I did not expect. It has many outlets for all different types of interests and passions. In the classroom I have been able to incorporate my love for grammar, arts and crafts, music, and writing (because we don't have resources, I write a lot of our stories), for example. Outside of curriculum, I am able to influence the kids in their habits and discipline (such as taking notes or not hitting girls (a big one here!)). I really want to invest in the flexibility that the occupation has and start being more than just a teacher focused on curriculum. There are so many more important things that intelligent, motivated people can do when they (we) come to places like the Marshall Islands. I have watched as one of my housemates, Hannah, has created a mentoring program for graduating seniors to help them get into college. I have also witnessed Mandy start a girls' club, a sign language club, and initiate tutoring for her and my lowest students. While I recognize that both Mandy and Hannah have more experience in the education world than I do, they make me feel as if I should be doing more, inside the realm of school activities and outside. I think what has been the hardest for me to come to understand is that its okay to put effort behind something or be passionate about something even if it will only last a little bit or make a difference for a short amount of time. I know that any ideas I push, such as Saturday clean up club or trying to make the brushing of one's teeth a "cool" activity and getting dentistry offices to donate supplies, will most likely not last after I leave the island. Still, I have realized that a large part of teaching is about hope too--teaching hope and having hope. I can only hope that in the few months I have left I do make a difference and that some child--at least one--takes something from what I have do and will try to create and use it in the future. That is all you really can do as a teacher, I think. I have always been afraid of impermanence--I am scared of change and endings to things--but it is a fact of life. In fact, its one of the most beautiful and exciting things about life. I guess its time to embrace it. It is hard to feel this way and the way I spoke of in the previous paragraph at the same time. I once again think that the break will be good for me to organize my ideas and start thinking of ways to apply them. I plan on starting my a capella group at MMS in the third quarter (I have already written up a spoofed version of "California Gurls" by Katy Perry called "Marshall Islanders"). I also hope to formalize our already existing cleaning initiative and organize some kind of donation system for school supplies and dental products as I mentioned before. All of these things are really important here, and I believe that they are all things I can help change, if only for a little while.

Stepping off my soapbox now, Thanksgiving in Majuro was a difference experience for me. Mandy and I decided to take Friday off, our reasoning being that it was the day of the actual holiday in America (we are a day ahead here) and because we both needed a break because we were feeling a bit homesick. Friday was also the day that we planned on having our big Thanksgiving dinner. It was strange to celebrate Thanksgiving on a day that was not Thanksgiving, but not as strange as I thought it would be. While we recognized celebrating an American holiday and taking the day off in another country as kind of a cop out, it was really nice to be able to help Bill cook the meal, which is something that we both do with our families on Thanksgiving. Bill did in fact cook the whole meal (with the exception of some deserts that people brought and my mac-and-cheese, which I insisted on making, since that is always my job during holiday dinners) and it was delicious. We had appetizers of hot sausage, cheddar and pepperjack cheese with crackers, a pepper and olive tray, papaya and cucumbers from one of the volunteer's family's gardens, and deviled eggs (made by my request by Bill since it is my family's staple appetizer at our family events). For dinner, the menu included a huge turkey (wonderfully provided by the Dartmouth and World Teach programs), ham, mac-and-cheese a la Andrew, creamed spinach, green bean casserole, candied yams, garlic mashed potatoes, sausage stuffing, and vegetarian stuffing. Desert included numerous pies, including a homemade apple pie by the World Teach assistant site director Angela Saunders, and homemade ice cream made by Ray, one of the CMI teachers who comes to Thursday night potluck at Yvonne's house. The guest list included all of the current World Teach and Dartmouth volunteers and directors, past and present, on the Majuro atoll, my host father, Kurt Phino, and the core of the Thursday night crew, which included Yvonne, her husband and daughter, and Ray and Laura. We even had two WT volunteers come in from the neighboring atoll to dine with us--Erica and Brooke. In all, the event was a success. The food was tasty (though, no offense to Bill, my dad can throw down in the kitchen pretty hard as well) and I was able to stave off homesickness by bringing together my Majuro family. It was nice to have everyone in one place and I am extremely thankful for them. I was able to talk to my family at the end of our Thanksgiving dinner at home in Chicago earlier in the day and it was great to hear everyone's voice!

That evening was followed by even more revelry at an event called the Tidal Wrave. Created by Michael Honeth, a ripelle who works at the Majuro EPA, the event was intended to be Majuro's first private island rave. Michael rented two boats and an island known as Three Bag Island (so named because it is said that the island is so small that one could only procure three bags of copra, or coconut product, from all of the trees there) and invited a group of ripelles (which I have recently learned is the CORRECT spelling of the word for foreigners/Americans) to come and rave it up! While I was exhausted from all of the excitement from the day before, Alex Huestis and Eric Hahn woke me up and carted me off to the island. I slept away most of the day in a hammock (the longest I have ever slept in a hammock--it was excellent) and that night we played cards and danced the evening away. I even got to play with fire twirlers! That was a short lived experience, however, since I was terrified. We had to wait a while for a boat to come get us the next day, but we left, physically exhausted from all of the beachside dancing we did the night before.

As a final and more somber note, as of last Friday, one of the World Teach volunteers has gone missing in transit from one atoll to the next on a small boat. The boat never reached its destination. The coast guard here has been searching frantically and planes have been called in from Hawaii as of a few days ago. There has been nothing found so far. I have decided to not name the volunteer's name out of respect for the family, the program, and all those involved in the search, but please keep this volunteer in your prayers and best thoughts. We are all hoping for good news.

Until next time (which will be this coming Sunday, I PROMISE!)

Bar lo kom,

Andrew

Rolling Blackouts and Rolling Dismissals

Rolling Blackouts and Rolling Dismissals

This past week has been fairly intense. Majuro has been going through a number of power problems and this week the power was out more than ever before. The power was out from the beginning of the school day until the late afternoon on Wednesday. On Thursday the power also went out right after school and did not come back on until Friday evening. This put a large damper on our regular Thursday night potluck dinners at Yvonne Magee's house. I had been looking forward to our proclaimed "Italian night" but the power outage made it difficult to cook. After waiting around hoping that the power would come back on, we decided to go to the house of one of the newest additions to the potluck family, a Fijian woman named Mere who works and lives at the Co-Op school, one of Majuro's private schools. The Co-Op facilities are on the same power grid as the hospital, which, for obvious reasons, never goes out. So, luckily, we were able to cook there and bring the food back to Yvonne's house were we ate by candle light to some jazz music. It was very bohemian.

The power did not return until late Friday night, so World Teach and the Dartmouth Volunteer Teaching Program very kindly offered to pay for the Majuro volunteers to stay at the Marshall Islands Resort for the evening so that we could charge our phones and computers and take showers. It was a real treat! We had large beds and hot showers and it felt, for the first time, like we were on vacation in the RMI. We ended up watching "Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves" (a terrible movie, really) and spending the night hanging out in the MIR restaurant and bar. That night I learned to play the card game Yuker so I know have around 12 card games under my belt from being in the RMI. I was not really a fan. I have, however made huge fans of the card game "Mao" out of the potluck dinner crew.

While the power came back on Friday evening, there was a planned power outage on Saturday to fix the problems with the generators. We stayed as long as we could in the room at MIR and then I headed to Tide Table where I waited for the power to return at 5 pm. After I passed out and did not wake up until 8 am today. I had a relatively productive day sitting in Tide Table all day and enjoying the company of the ribelles who came in and out of the restaurant while I worked.

School has been overwhelming this past week. At least 10 kids were kicked out of the school at the end of the first quarter for absences or "insubordination," but none of these students were Mandy's or mine. In the last few weeks, the pressure has hit a few of our students. At one point, six of Mandy's students faced expulsion and three of mine did for attendance or behavior. While we are required to abide by the rules established by Majuro Middle School and the Ministry of Education, it can be difficult at times knowing that extenuating circumstances always affect a situation. Many of the students have home problems or other needs that have forced their absences or explain their behavior. Mandy and I would like to see these students be helped instead of dismissed. It is discouraging to work with students for all these months and then see them summarily dismissed for mistakes that the system does little to prevent. The school has, for example, a no-tolerance policy for students caught drinking on the school grounds. While this makes sense, to expel the student for this bad act only gives them more time to do the act in the first place since they are not in school during the day any longer. However, the resources for this type of help are not available and there is something to be said to sticking to policy. In the end, I still am not sure if one of my three students will be kicked out and Mandy has gotten two of her potential six back. We are a bit discouraged but are hoping that by encouraging our current students and the friends of those on probation, we can retain our student body. Still, it is only the middle of the second quarter. Come December, attendance is supposed to drop dramatically as students and their families focus on Christmas activities at church and in the community. This does not bode well for keeping kids above the 20 absences limit to remain in school. It is amazing how concerned we have become for our students over such a short amount of time. As a means to help encourage positive choices and behavior Mandy is hoping to start a girls' club and I am hoping to start an acapella group to keep the kids around school and seeing it as a place for positive character growth in addition to academic growth. We both hope to tutor some of our lowest level students soon also.

The most exciting, though sad, thing to happen this week was that there was a huge fire in the "downtown" area of Majuro. The source is still unknown and the damage was pretty terrible. The firefighters equipment failed during the blaze and the only thing that stopped the fire was the fact that it started raining. Anna Zelinsky, the DVTP field director, said that in her 4 years here she has never seen nor heard of anything like this happening here. The photo above is a shot of the smoke from the fire from the other side of the lagoon.

In lighter news, Mandy's family sent a box full of fake snow and a small electronic Christmas tree to the Bungalow this week! We were very happy to see it as all of us are getting homesick as the holiday season approaches fast. Time is really flying. Also, my twists are going well and I am getting a ton of positive feedback from everyone on island--ribelle and Marshallese! We will see how things progress.

This week we also had Steve and Sarah Leard in from the outer island of Ailinglaplap because Sarah was not feeling well. Always nice to have visitors and share teaching and island experiences. We wish them the best as they return to their outer island this week!

Until next time,

Bar Lo Kom,

Andrew

Mönä Emman (Eat well!)

This week, I wanted to take a step back from talking about the Marshallese and teaching to discuss something that is near and dear to my heart--food. I knew that if one thing would make me homesick (or literally sick) it would be food here in the RMI. Luckily, on Majuro, supplies are not that bad. While prices are exorbitant on certain things (Doritos are like $6.50 and a pint of ice cream is like $7.00) and fairly high on others (avocados are $5.00 a pound, making that guacamole that you see pictured above a ~$25.00 endeavor with the other ingredients), you can get most things that any cook would need to be happy. There is a farm managed by a group of Taiwanese individuals that makes a lot of fresh produce, and while most other things are shipped over, vegetables, though expensive are available. Payless, one of the more favorably supplied local grocery stores, runs out of these things fairly quickly and shipments come in about every other week. After a few days, the vegetable racks, which were once a veritable palette of reds, greens, yellows, and purples (read: eggplant) turn a distinct greenish brown and orange (read: they always have cabbage and carrots). Even fruit is in good supply. I have fallen in love with granny smith apples, which I believe to be one of the most versatile ingredients in any meal (I have eaten them in salads, sandwiches, and with pork, for example). There is also frequently different types of melon, though I have yet to see strawberries. As far as meat is concerned, the quality is decent. Once again, the meat is coming from across the ocean by plane or boat and goes through a variety of temperatures before getting here. That being said, I have yet to get sick and cannot truly taste the difference between an organic slice of pork and one from a pig killed on island (this past week I had my first taste of a pig that was roasted over a spit--the process takes around 12 hours!)

Outside of the grocery store, I have really taken a liking to coconut. Breadfruit, a starchy fruit similar to a banana but even more firm in texture, is also delicious and is cooked in a variety of ways here. My favorite way is as thinly sliced, fried chips. Pandanas are another fruit that are indigenous to here and a big part of the Marshallese diet. It is starchy as well and slightly sweet.

As I mentioned before, Bill was a chef before coming to the RMI, so we are constantly spoiled. This past week he made barbecued ham and smothered pork chops. He also frequently cooks a whole chicken or pork roast. The other Bungalow residents are also great cooks. Joanna, originally from China, cooks amazing asian food. She dabbles mostly in noodles and vegetables but everything she makes is spicy and delicious. She has even become an expert in making a Japanese gummy desert! Hannah, our resident vegetarian, does wonders with very little. She is good at baking vegan breads and deserts and loves to make what she calls "pig food" which is an amalgamation of any type of noodles, beans, and vegetables that she can get her hands on. Outside of the home, Mandy and I go to the potluck dinner at Yvonne Magee's house. We have started to theme our nights to make it easier for everyone to figure out something to bring. Last week was Indian and we we had a feast of curry potatoes, curry chicken, homemade naan, homemade chutney, and rice pudding. The week before that was Mexican and the week before that was Japanese. This week is Italian. Mandy and I plan on bringing homemade garlic bread (with whole slices of tomato and melted cheese) and Mandy's delicious Alfredo sauce. We were told to expect lasagna, spaghetti, tiramisu, and a bacon/chili pasta sauce. Yum.

Mandy and I shop together since we are the meat eaters (Bill buys by himself). We almost always get fresh tuna filets (I know one thing I am definitely going to miss when I come back to the states is the never ending supply of fresh tuna--I crave it every couple days), pork chops, ground beef or steaks, and ground pork. We also always buy potatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, apples, pasta, and sandwich supplies. This food, with supplements from our other housemates can usually last us around a week and a half. I do the majority of the cooking and Mandy does the cleaning. I do not think it has to be this way all the time, but it is the rhythm we have fallen into, and I really enjoy cooking (and do not enjoy cleaning), so that is how we operate each day. Below are some of the meals that I make in rotation each week. I did not include any measurements, because I am not that kind of cook here, but maybe you can find something to add to your kitchen routine? Please feel free to send recipes! I am always looking to try something new.

The Rayner's Homemade Pizza - Soft tortilla shells, tomato paste/sauce with added seasonings (I have also been adding defrosted frozen spinach to the sauce), veggies of your choice, meat of your choice (we have been using ground pork and pepperoni), shredded cheese of your choice (the key is to add oregano and basil to the sauce and on top of the pizza)

Burgers a la Bungalow with Homemade Fries - Ground beef mixed with fresh chopped garlic and onions, cooked in the skillet; sliced potatoes seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, and onion salt and roasted in the oven.

Pork Chops with Granny Smith Apples and Roasted Potatoes (the title says it all)

Breaded Tuna with Pepper-jack Cheese/Granny Smith Apple Salad and Rosemary Potatoes with Onions. (pictured above; we had this for dinner tonight!)

Guacamole (for special occasions) - avocados, fresh garlic, chili sauce or jalapenos (depending on availability), tomatoes, onions, two limes. (pictured above)

In other, totally unrelated news, I got twists this week! The beginning of my island dreadlocks. We shall see how it goes. Pictures to come after they ferment themselves into my head!

Bon appetit and Bar lo kom,

Andrew

Stormy Weather

I am sorry for the delay of this post. The (free) internet on campus has been down since this past Thursday when the Majuro Atoll had a planned power outage (for more details, continue reading below). This past week was pretty tumultuous, but after writing this and having started a new week, I feel much better about those things that went wrong. This past week started off like most others. Like I have said in past blog entries, I think that I am getting into the swing of things here and finding a rhythm to the way of life. School went as it has been going. I started this week telling my students that they had a second chance on everything. I had previously caught some of them cheating (my response was to dramatically rip their papers up in front of the class and give a lesson on the definition of the word "unacceptable"), some of them had skipped class, many of them had come in late, and even more of them had chosen not to turn in homework or to study for my quizzes. I was disappointed but I acquiesced to the idea that maybe these slip-ups had been the result of my failure to clearly outline my expectations. I did just that at the beginning of the week and hoped that many of my students would take advantage of my generosity. I also gave them the chance to come into my classroom during lunch or after school and get extra points on their quizzes from the previous week which most of them did very poorly on. I did not expect to see many or any of the students for the retake but after school at least 20 showed up. I thought that maybe my talking-to had worked and that things would go more smoothly in the classroom. Little did I know what was coming the week ahead of me.

One highlight of this week was talking to the deaf student at MMS in sign language. Mandy, the World Teach volunteer that I spoke about last week who specialized in teaching special education classes in college, told me a week or so ago that if I wanted to make the deaf student happy, I should sign to him "What is your first name?" She thought that even some recognition from one of the new ribelle teachers would make him happy. I learned the ASL alphabet in elementary school (to give you some kind of indication of how nerdy we were back then, we used to sign notes to each other across the class instead of passing them; it was a short lived fad) and so I felt relatively prepared to read his response since it would be spelled out. I was in the office during one of my prep periods and the student walked in. I was excited to use the sign I had learned so I tried it and he beamed at me and commenced to spell his name. Unfortunately, my alphabet was a little rusty and so I mixed up "m" and "n" and was thoroughly confused about what his name was, especially since I have no expertise in Marshallese names. There is a white board in the office, so I went up it and spelled out what I thought was "Amdy." He shook his head no and spelled out "Andy." I felt so dumb. However, I signed my name and spelled it on the board too and then drew and arrow from his name to him and my name to me. He smiled again. I then erased the "rew" from my name, replaced it with a "y" to indicate that his name, Andy, was a form of my name. Then I pointed from him to me to try to indicate that we were the same. He clapped and was very happy. It made me feel really good to communicate with someone who I do not think gets to communicate with anyone besides his interpreter at school.

Thursday there was a planned power outage for the whole island. There has only been one of these since I have been here but it was for half of the island. The outages take place so that mechanics can fix the generators that power the entire atoll. Many schools took this as an opportunity to have a half day, since the outage is scheduled from 9-5 and the buildings get hot and the bathrooms don't work. My school did not do this. Unfortunately, Marshall Islands High School (MIHS), who shares a field with us, did decide to have a half day in addition to a celebration/party for their new freshman, new teachers, and transfer students. The music started before lunch and I knew that all was lost as far as trying to keep the focus of my students. Many of the students wandered into the MIHS celebration and did not return at all for classes after lunch, and those who did were over 20 mins late. The MMS teachers were not much help at bringing the kids back to school, especially when they were saying we should have a half day too despite the fact that principal said no.

To make matters worse, a large number of my students did not have their homework again, AND I caught one of them cheating--one of the people who I had given the second chance to for cheating the first time. All of this together made me extremely upset and frustrated. I struggled to understand how I would ever get any progress with my students when they were so easily distracted and unwilling to even try. I ended up being fairly bitter and doing a poor job of hiding my disappointment. In my second section, when I found out one of my "bad" students did not have his homework again and that his response to why he did not have it was a simple shrug I flipped out. I kept removing his feet from the chair in front of him as I tried to get a reason from him as to why he did not have his homework and he kept putting them back up AND not giving me a reason for not having his homework. He was the first student I sent to the office.

I went to the office after school very frustrated (school ended up concluding a period early because of all of the distractions). I attempted to express my frustrations the other teachers and I learned that I was not alone in my treatment from the students. Many of the Marshallese teachers expressed the need for more discipline and punishment. They suggested that I crack down harder on my students. They said that in the end, they will still like you and will respect you more so for doing it. This is my plan for this week.

The Bungalow received its final member on Thursday. Bill, a World Teach volunteer from last year, came to complete our family for the year. An older gentleman, Bill had been traveling around the country before coming to Majuro. He did not have to be at orientation because he did the program last year. He entered with a bang, buying us lunch at Tide Table. The following day, he helped us turn our house into a home, moving around furniture and motivating us to clean to the point were I said, "Wow, this is scary. i am starting to see this as a place I might live for the next year." Everyone agreed. Bill brought a number of supplies to help cover surfaces and complete our kitchen and he says that he has spices (including Lawry's seasoned salt, thank God!) and other nifty things on the way here. He has experience as a chef so I am excited to learn cooking techniques and eat the meals he prepares (not that we haven't been doing a good job, but still)! Bill is also teaching on the MIHS campus kiddy-corner to MMS at a school called the National Vocation and Technical Institute (NVTI). This school is basically for students who do not score high enough to get into MIHS. It helps get an equivalency diploma.

Later Friday night, I was invited to dinner at the home of Yvonne and her husband Craig. Yvonne is an older woman who is here teaching at the College of the Marshall Islands (CMI). More importantly, she is from one of the suburbs of Chicago! I was ecstatic to meet her a few weeks ago because of our connection and she has treated me like her own child since our first meeting. She is the only carnivore in a family of herbivores so she was happy to have me over to have a reason to cook some meat. We sat around her family's apartment and talked about like in the Marshall Islands and teaching with her family and two other CMI teachers who also stated the importance of discipline in the classroom in order to reach the Marshallese students. I found this very encouraging. I was also able to talk Yvonne and Craig's daughter, Amethyst, who is a high school senior and is looking at colleges. I am very much so pushing her to apply to Dartmouth and was giving her application and college advice from my years of experience as an intern in the Admissions Office at Dartmouth.

Later that night, Yvonne and I headed to the Marshall Islands Resort (MIR) for a drink after dinner (Craig and the other guests were not interested in coming). On the porch, we met some friends of Yvonne's and talked for a few hours. One of these friends was a Marshallese man who goes by the name Junior. I told him of my frustrations in the classroom this past week and he told me of the importance of parents and how many parents here are not involved or not aware of their children's academic life. He is very involved in his children's schooling. He says that he takes out a white board every night and has them write out what they need to do and that he does he best to help them learn what they need to learn. He encouraged me to get the parents involved and that he said he would come to my class to offer some Marshallese motivation. I was very encouraged by this. However, when I went inside, I had a conversation of a different and less encouraging sort.

The conversation started like most of my conversations with Marshallese people. I explained to him that I was a volunteer teacher at MMS and that I was here for the year through the DVTP. I expressed to him some of my frustrations from the week and his only response was to tell me that the Marshallese people were stupid. I was taken aback by this response and insisted that I did not agree. I told him that while my students may not be doing all that well in my class, there were a few who were doing outstanding work. Even though there were those that weren't doing as well, I could still tell that they were smart. Their only problem was a lack of effort and motivation. They were too distracted by other things and did not see their education as a priority. The gentleman's response was to ask me if I was being asked questions in Marshallese would I be able to respond. I said, "Of course not," and that that was exactly my point. My students lack of success in my class was not indicative of their intelligence. It only spoke to their inability to read, write, and comprehend English. Still, I argued, I knew that my students could do the work if they tried, they just chose not to try. I asked him what he thought I should do. He said again that the Marshallese were stupid and that I should ask President Obama for more money for the country. This bothered me deeply because I knew that handouts from America, warranted or not, were not the solution to this problem. I said this to him and he responded that I was like all of the other volunteers and ribelles that came to the island. That I thought I was better than the Marshallese and that I knew what was best for them. He said that I was here for a vacation. I tried to disavow these accusations but the man stayed firm. After my experiences in my classroom this week and knowing all of the work I had put into teaching, this comment made me furious. I stormed away from the man and out of the bar. It was my first encounter with someone who did not seem to want volunteers to be here. I left mad because I knew I was not on vacation, that I had worked hard, and that I had even more hard work ahead of me. I think I was even more mad because I kept thinking to myself, "How do I help a people that do not want to be helped?"

I was so distraught from the conversation that I got in touch with Anna, the DVTP field director, who lived close by to MIR. I told her about the interaction that I had just had and asked her my question -- "How do I help a people that do not want to be helped?" She replied that this was a typical response from many Marshallese people and that they had a point. The Marshallese did fine on their own for hundreds of years before intervention from foreign countries. What were were doing here? Why did they need our help? She encouraged me to find answers to these questions myself. As far as motivating youth who did not put the effort forth to reap the benefits of volunteer teachers she said, "You have to inspire. You have to be consistent and show the students that you care. In time, they will come to care too." These words, though simple, resonated strongly with me. I left Anna's house that evening with renewed energy and hope that I could make a difference once again.

In lighter news, this weekend was the All Micronesian Fishing Tournament sponsored by the RMI's own Billfish Fishing Club. Justin, one of the volunteers, was lucky enough to be asked to be on a team for Kwajalein, the atoll where the American military base is located. On Saturday, his team (a man short) was able to bring in a marlin weighing just under 300 pounds. They had also hooked two other marlin's but were not able to reel them in. The one fish was enough to put them in fourth place for the day. The next day he was not so lucky. Due to boat malfunctions and poor fishing location choices, his team was only able to real in a skipjack and a wahoo (two DELICIOUS tuna). His team ended up getting fourth place in the end. The other volunteers and I were very proud of him. He faired extremely well against "all" of Micronesia!

Finally, this Sunday around Majuro (in the Christian churches at least) was known as White Sunday. This basically meant that the church youths wore their finest white regalia and led service. I went to the UCC church on Ejit with Alex (Justin was fishing at the time) and watched at the adorable kids sang (or shouted to be more precise) "We Shall Overcome" and "Praise Ye the Lord" while waving dollar bill flags. Alex was very proud of her students. I was personally moved to hear kids from across the world singing "We Shall Overcome," a song that speaks directly to the Civil Rights Movement in America. After this week, I can only hope that the Marshallese youth do feel as if they can overcome their adversities some day.

As always, I will end with some more observations about the RMI that have surprised me.

16) The word for black person in Marshallese is "rikilmej" ((roll the r) ri - kull - e - mezz). It means "black (as in the color) people." I think it is so much more fun to say and more colorful than the English equivalent, or any other term that black people have been called around the world for that matter (read: les noirs in French, which literally means "the blacks".

17) The ocean and lagoon are beautiful. I always knew there was a world under all the water but it is full of life! I have been snorkeling only a few times but I think it might be my new favorite thing on earth. Imagine being in an aquarium with as many different types of fish of all shapes, sizes, and colors that you can imagine AND huge building sized towers of coral and you will be close to seeing what I have seen.

18) Some of the kids here have hilarious names, which, while having strange meanings, do sound very nice as names. Mandy has a student named Nimrod and I have a student named Agency and one named Cloreen. Think about it.

Until next time,

Bar Lo Kom,

Andrew