Ron Tanner, chair of the Writing Department at Loyola College-Maryland, won a grant from the National Parks Service to help Marshallese college students preserve the oral culture of the Marshall Islands. He’s spending the 2008 spring semester (5 months) on Majuro to direct this pilot program, called the Marshall Islands Story Project. To get the full story of his personal experiences, be sure to check the archives to your left.

We slept little our first night on Arno. Recovered from my sea-sickness, I stayed up talking to Newton. It was a blustery night, the sands blue with moonlight, the stars bright, the sparse clouds aglow and gliding fast On Majuro, Newton and I had not yet gotten the opportunity to trade our life stories. We had a lot to catch up on. He was still drinking coffee at two AM. He’d just let off the spear-fishermen at the dock. You can hunt flying fish only when it’s fully dark—between the moon’s setting and the sun’s rising The fishermen would be swimming in totally dark, deep water on oceanside. That takes nerve.

The cheeping of chicks woke me at dawn. One of the camp-hands had gathered the chicks into a plastic milk crate because the hen had gone wild in the bush. Everyone was hoping she’d return. That pretty much says it all for Arno. The students ate ramen and egg for breakfast. I had fruit. Then we piled into the pick-up and drove—very slowly—down the rutted muddy road to the end of Arno-Arno. The air was smoky with burning coconut and trash. Children were walking to school. Newton stopped often to shout good morning. You say “Yukwe waj” if you’re unsure how many are within listening range. Pronounced “yuck-way watch,” it means, roughly, “greetings to you, however many of you may be listening.”

These islands are so small, you have to be really careful about everybody’s feelings. It’sclose living in the extreme. Everybody knows everybody’s business; everybody owes everybody something. Doesn’t matter how lowly your neighbor may be; one day you will need his or her help and support. So mind your manners, watch yourself, and show care for any- and everybody.

On either side of the road I saw grave-sized pits every ten yards or so. Newton explained that these were dug by those who were caught drinking in public. Drinking in public is prohibited on the outer islands. If caught, you are fined a hundred bucks and have to dig three pits by the side of the road. Locals fill the pits with garbage, then cover them over. The extra dirt is used to fill in the holes in the rutted road.

When the road dead-ended, we took a jungle trail to the reef. But we found that the tide was too high—we’d have to get up earlier tomorrow for our trek to the giant’s footprint. Newton wanted to show the students the rest of the island, which meant driving the rutted road about 25 miles south. I wasn’t aware yet how much planning had gone into Newton’s arrangements. The big Chinese pick-up we were driving, for instance, was the best ride on the island—and the only one big enough for our ten students and two guides. It belonged to the Arno town council and was rented out daily, sometimes by the ride. Later I would realize that we’d been remarkably lucky to have the truck waiting for us when we got off the boat. Lucky too that the truck was available to us first thing on this morning.

Arno is very narrow—in most places no wider than 50-70 feet. Its single road is mud or sand, very rough, and bordered closely by jungle, much of it swampy. Pigs, like chickens, roam freely. In the swamps they are wild. Newton grew up on the south end of the island, where the population is sparse. Slow as we were driving, the ride gave our students in the back a very bumpy time. I felt for them. They were sitting in the hot sun too.

We stopped for a lunch cook-out at the old grass airfield, which had fallen into disrepair because the former government prevented Air Marshall Islands from flying to Arno due to the president’s dislike of the Arno senators. (I’ve heard lots of stories of such abuse by the former government.) When the students started gathering flat coral stones from the beach, I thought they were collecting these to take back to Newton’s camp. I soon discovered that Newton had sent them gathering stones for the cook-fires he was tending. As soon as the coconut husks and driftwood had burned to coals, Newton laid the stones over these. Then he laid our marinated chicken and turkey on the stones for a very picturesque cookout. This was improvised—Newton had forgotten to bring the grill.

Nobody does cook-outs as easily and adeptly as the Marshallese. They’ve got it down. Just be sure to bring the rice you cooked over the campfire the night before. I didn’t think I was hungry but, by the time I was done, I’d gone through four pieces of chicken and a bowl of rice. Sako wove a basket to hold the grilled meat. I’ve seen both men and women make these baskets quickly from palm fronds. The students broke open some immature coconuts for drinking. Then someone from the town council found us, informing Newton that the Arno mayor was asking for use of the truck to transport building supplies from the southern dock to a nearby village.

Newton asked me if he could oblige this request. It meant the students and I would be stranded for a while, maybe a long while. I told Newton we’d be fine. He dropped us off at another beach. This was the fourth beach of the day, every one of them just as beautiful as the one before. I was wasting so much camera space on beach pictures, I vowed to take no more. My students were clowning around, taking silly photos of each other. Don’t forget, as part of our web-design course, everyone was equipped with a digital camera with a one-gig memory card.

We ended up waiting two and a half hours for Newton. But I had a chance to hang out with my students. They were incredibly gracious about the wait. They didn’t like it, but the Marshallese are used to waiting—island life demands it–and they do so with remarkable patience. My students sang songs, tossed rocks at trees, took photos, napped, chatted, kicked a ball around, then joked with me. They asked where I was from. I demonstrated my Southern accent, which they found wondrous. Then someone pointed out the plastic bottle hanging from the tree we were sitting under.

It was bottled scripture, tied to a branch. An old custom. Before Christianity, one would have filled a coconut with potion and dangled it from the branch of a tree to ward off evil spirits—especially demons at the places they were reputed to come ashore. Now one puts pages of the Bible in a bottle and hang that. My students said the people on Arno both believe in potions and still practice magic. Some spells could get you to fall in love with somebody you didn’t like. “It could happen to you!” they warned.

The good thing about being a ripalle, one student told me, is that demons are afraid of white people. I said I was happy to hear this, since it meant I could protect them all. This made everyone laugh. The bad thing, someone else added, is that sharks are especially fond of white people. More laughter.

When Newton picked us up, he was most apologetic. I assured him it was no big deal. It was a request that none of us could have refused. I asked if we had time still to visit our first story-teller. He said, yes. So we raced against the setting sun, my poor students bucked and bumped in the back.

We found our story-teller asleep on his back in his gravel yard. (Everybody has a gravel yard.) . I thought it a good sign that he was waiting for us. And I was happy we had beat the sunset. The students piled out, we gathered at the back of his hut, in the orange light of the setting sun. I set up my camera and audio recorder; Newton explained the consent form. Then we were good to go. Abram, the story-teller, is actually an accomplished hut-maker. He’s the guy who made the huts at Newton’s camp. He began talking in an animated nasal tone. Students started taking photos. I was watching my video.

Then Abram stopped talking. I looked up. Newton stared at me solemnly. “That’s it,” he said. Abram hadn’t spoken for more than five minutes. But I knew better than to protest. I thanked our host. The students presented him with his gifts—coffee, sugar, tinned fish, and a bag of rice—then we climbed back into our truck. Newton got behind the wheel, and growled, “I’m gonna kill that guy.” As we rumbled away, I reminded him that it’s the story-teller’s prerogative to talk for five minutes or five hours. “He was nervous,” Newton admitted. “All those cameras. He couldn’t remember what he had to say, so he just stopped talking.”

So there it was: our first day was a bust. But we’d done what were supposed to. We can’t make people talk. Newton began to suspect that Abram had been bullshitting about all the stories he knew—he’d seen a chance to get some goodies and he went for it. Oh, well. Abram was one of only five elders over sixty years old on Arno. In the days to follow, we’d get chance to talk with the rest, Newton assured me.

We were nearly to camp when the girls started screaming and the boys hollering in the back Newton slammed on the brakes. One of the girls jumped into the road. Everyone else was standing and laughing. I hopped out to investigate. They explained that a lizard had dropped into the truck bed. One of the boys caught it finally. We took a photo, then let it go.

When we returned to camp, we found our cooler filled with flying fish, parrot fish, surgeon fish, red snapper, and lobster. I had the snapper and lobster—with lime. Nobody bothers cleaning the fish, by the way. You throw it on the grill, then eat around the guts.
A few students preferred their fish raw.

We had a couple of American visitors from a tourist group up the road. The man happened to be an airline pilot. He and his girlfriend had come over the morning we had crossed. He admitted that he could hardly keep his stomach, the sea was so rough. I thanked him for sharing this. It made me feel less a wimp—because, when we crossed, the sea was even rougher. What’s more, this guy was a pilot. Don’t they have steel stomachs? I dreaded the return and tried not to dwell on it, though it was hard not to dwell on the thought of rough seas when the ocean was right there, every time I turned my head.

The next morning we were up at dawn. It was my turn to make breakfast: pancakes for 17. I whipped up a big bowl of batter, then began cooking in a large skillet over the kerosene burner. After I started serving, Newton sidled up to me and said the camp-hands were “shocked” to see a man making pancakes.

Spatula in hand, I turned to him in surprise: “Shocked?”
“Shocked,” he confirmed. “It’s a woman’s role. The students understand but the locals, it’s difficult for them to grasp.”

“Oh, great,” I said. “They’ll never look at me in the same way.”

He laughed. “It’s okay,” he said. “You’re a ripalle.”

The spectacle of a man making pancakes didn’t prevent the camp-hands from eating them. They were pretty good pancakes, I don’t mind saying.

Hiram, one of our guides, told us it was time to go. Newton drove our pickup back to the end of Arno-Arno. When we broke through the jungle trail, we found the tide far out, great expanses of sand and reef exposed, the sun flashing from the shallows. The wind was strong. We could see small islands shoulder to shoulder along the reef rim. It was hard to say how many there were or how far apart each was from the other. Our nearest island was just a city block away.

Hiram is a quiet, bearded bushy-haired guy in his forties. He set out barefoot across the reef. Newton and the students were in zoris (flip-flops). I wore jogging shoes. None of us could keep up with Hiram. There was no way to avoid wading through shin-deep water. Hiram appeared to be crossing to the next island. I was under the impression he didn’t know where he was going. He entered the jungle, then a bit later appeared a hundred yards down the beach.

We pursued. The beaches, good Lord, they don’t get more beautiful than these—untouched, fringed by jungle, lapped by blue lagoons. It’s such a cliché to describe, all I can say is fill in the blank with whatever tropical paradisical fantasy you please and you’ll get the picture. At this point we could see that Hiram had pulled from the jungle a bunch of pandanus, which he set carefully in the sand, then he kept walking.

When we got to it, we saw that he had propped the pandanus upright in the sand like an offering. Newton confirmed that it was indeed an offering—to the spirit of the giant we were about to visit. Hiram continued well ahead of us. Two islands later, we rounded a bend and found him examining a raised portion of the exposed reef. We had come to the right spot, he said, but the shifting sand had covered the footprint. “We should’ve brought a shovel,” Newton said. He hadn’t seen the footprint in twenty years.

Sure, it would have been nice to see the footprint, I agreed, but the more important thing was that we were in this spiritual place. I’m not sure the students appreciated this fact. Hiram said we had to get back because the tide would be coming in fast. We had walked a couple of miles. We took photos, then I followed Newton back the oceanside way while the students returned on the lagoon side. The tide was indeed coming back fast. I was up to my knees in water. When we got to the pass between the next two islands, Newton reconnoitered to make sure all the students were accounted for. I saw a number of baby moray eels—supple grey ribbons–but couldn’t get any to stay still for a photo. Two islands later, our group came together. Hiram had retrieved another pandanus bunch. It was time for lunch.

Back at camp, I offered to make Newton the rest of the pancakes, but he shook his head no, indicating that the camp-hands were sitting nearby. He didn’t want to upset them. We had to take half our student group to the dock because they were wanted back on Majuro for Easter and family obligations. Then we’d have to turn in our big truck. “How are we going to visit the two story tellers we have lined up today?” I asked. “We’ll get another truck,” Newton assured me. “But it may not have any brakes.”

Next: Story-Teller Secrets.

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Ron Tanner, chair of the Writing Department at Loyola College-Maryland, won a grant from the National Parks Service to help Marshallese college students preserve the oral culture of the Marshall Islands. He’s spending the 2008 spring semester (5 months) on Majuro to direct this pilot program, called the Marshall Islands Story Project. To get the full story of his personal experiences, be sure to check the archives to your left.

I’m writing this by the light of a kerosene lantern in a pandanus-leaf hut. The noise you hear is the relentless wind, the ocean on two sides, and, closer, the boys in their hut. There’s intermittent laughter and somebody’s singing to a ukulele. Newton’s camp is on an expanse of white sand no wider than fifty feet, the wind-whipped lagoon on one side, the becalmed (leeward) ocean on the other. This is our first night in and everybody is wired. The minute we made landfall, one of the students took out a ukulele and started singing. Apparently every one of them knows how to play that instrument. It’s been nonstop uke-playing, which I find comforting. Right now James, who does more singing than talking, is running through the Marshallese rendition of the Eagles’ “Take it to the Limit,” which a popular Marshallese singer has just released.

Majuro’s a distant glow on the horizon, just 17 miles across the open ocean, but much farther in many other ways. There’s no electricity here, unless you have a solar panel or a generator. No phones. No running water. Newton’s camp is comprised of three pandanus-leaf huts. The girls get one, the boys and Newton (who wants to keep an eye on them) another, and I get the royal suite—a tidy, 7 x 8’ hut with a nine-foot peaked roof, two windows at ground level, and a door. This is authentic construction (pandanus wood, pandanus leaf, and twine) made by the old man down the road. It’s impressive work, the roof water-tight, the walls sturdy, and the proportions accommodating. It’s open at both roof-peaks and around the roof line to encourage circulation. The floor is white coral gravel. My bed is a pandanus-leaf mat laid over that. Actually, Newton brought a box-spring mattress for me. When I saw him load it onto the boat, I withheld comment until it showed up in my hut. I thanked him for his thoughtfulness but told him I’d be fine with the traditional bed, which is surprisingly comfortable, I can attest already after an hour’s nap.

I napped not because I was weary from travel but because I was sick. The boat ride over nearly killed me. We chartered a 36’ fishing boat called the Four-X, after a popular Australian beer. The boat belongs to one of our student’s husband. Apparently, it’s the most popular boat because it’s one of the most powerful. When the students learned of our trip, they asked which boat we were taking. I didn’t know we’d have a choice. As it turned out, because this is spring break, the regular ferry (a smaller boat) was already sold out. It can get very crowded, especially with the many boxes and belongings people ferry to Arno—cases of frozen meat, boxes of canned goods, a wheelchair, etc.

It’s been especially windy this month. The Marshalls sit in the trade winds, which make for good sailing and cooler temperatures but some rough waters. Last week, it got so rough the regular ferry couldn’t make the crossing to Arno. Earlier that week, after Newton made the crossing, he said it was like being a wet sock in a washing machine’s spin cycle. If Newton says it’s bad, you know it’s really bad. I was hoping we’d luck out. This morning, it rained. Rain calms the seas. Had we left in the early morning, as planned, this might have helped. But we didn’t get away until 1:30 this afternoon, for a host of typical delays—foremost of which was the broken bank machine.

We didn’t get our cash advance from CMI (for another host of typical delays: key people with key signatures were not in key places at key times), so I had to front the money for the trip. I didn’t know that Majuro has only one bank machine. Fortunately, the bank fixed it late this morning. Then we had to do some more shopping—Newton knows all the places to get stuff cheap. Then we rounded up the students. As we were loading the boat, I took a seat up front, on the nose. I wanted as much air as possible and thought I’d enjoy the spray. But then one of the deck hands said, through a translator, “I wouldn’t recommend it. You will get wet.” I thought about it for a while, then relented, returning to the back of the boat. I expected to take photos on the crossing and begin my podcast of the trip for Loyola radio and thought I’d have more freedom on the nose of the boat. But, then, I didn’t want to get my equipment wet.

Once we left the lagoon, sluicing through the channel under the Majuro bridge, the feel of the sea changed dramatically. The Four-X heaved into huge swells, then slammed into the troughs. Mind you, it didn’t look that rough. I mean, there were no frothy whitecaps cresting over the bow. But it was a hell of a ride. At first, it was amusement-park fun—up and down, water spraying, waves surging past the bow in foaming geysers. The water was kicking up so high, it cascaded over the roof, drenching my feet. I was standing just beyond the awning. Students offered me a seat in its shade. But I politely declined. I knew I was in trouble and needed to stand. Gripping one of the rails and trying to focus on the horizon, I hung on. The boat nosed hard into the chop, slamming again and again.

Did I mention that I get motion sickness fairly easily? It runs in the family. At 10, on my own at a local amusement park, I tried the octopus (the many armed up-and-down whirligig) and was stunned and thoroughly disappointed by my body’s rebellion. Afterwards, I spent 20 minutes prone on a park bench, my head pulsing and reeling. I vowed I’d never again subject myself to such punishment. Since then, I’ve been cautious. For the most part, I’m fine on a plane and can outlast most bumpy rides. But occasionally I succumb to the cold sweat-inducing, hollowed-out stomach-wrenching, bile-raising torture of a bad trip. When this happens, I try to think pleasant thoughts. As the Four-X rose and fell, spray raining, the waves swelling high like the heaving chest of a watery beast, I looked to the horizon and thought of Jill and how happy I’ll be to hold her and what a lucky person I am because my life is good and how fortunate I am to be taking this trip as Newton’s guest.

I fought it, in other words. But there’s only so much you can fight. I remember seeing a flying fish hurl itself 30 feet across a trough. Then I submitted to the illness. It came fast. It held me under. Then it let me go. I gasped for air. Then it pulled me under again. I received momentary relief. How long till landfall? Just show me land and I’ll have hope.

The Marshallese people are exceptionally discreet. If anyone saw me retching over the side, no one let on. All eyes were forward, on a destination that had yet to show itself. I was gratified to see that some of the students had their heads lying across their folded arms and one student was lying on his back. My misery really wanted company. But nobody looked distressed. I felt like I was being pummeled. As the boat pounded on, I was losing my grip on the grab-bar, my legs were trembling, and, worst of all, the sun on my back was excruciating. I couldn’t decide whether or not the ear-reaming rap music was helping or hurting. The Four-X is a party boat, apparently, and has a killer sound system (water-proof, of course). The recorded music was LOUD. On the one hand, it was a distraction; on the other, it was torment.

To my left, Newton was smoking a cigarette and gazing thoughtfully over the back at the scalloped seascape. He could have been idling on somebody’s patio. Oh, how I envied him. More than an hour later, when we sighted Arno, I thought I was good to go but, alas, one more surge overwhelmed me and this time it wrung me hard.

As soon as the captain snugged the boat to Arno’s concrete dock (thank goodness we didn’t have to navigate a pass), I leapt off, right behind Newton. Then I stumbled to the nearest shade tree and collapsed on my back. Newton was excited to be home. He was shouting greetings and orders all at once. Above me a white bird was making odd bird noises from its perch. I closed my eyes. It was as though I were drunk with the bed spins. I alternately pitied and loathed my body. Newton called to me. When I opened my eyes, two piglets were snouting a greeting near my face. Newton handed me a husked coconut. “Just poke a key in the top and drink,” he instructed. I didn’t have the strength.

The students had off-loaded everything. They were sitting a respectful distance from me. Someone had taken out a ukulele and several were singing. Yes, Arno felt very different already. The piglets seemed to agree. I shooed them away from the cartons of eggs someone had deposited next to me.

Here’s my radio report right after our Arno landing:
Ron’s first report from Arno.

Later, as I was lying in my hut, Newton stopped in to say that he could make dinner. We had agreed that I would do it the first night. He was willing to throw something together. It was a tempting offer but I couldn’t accept it. I didn’t want to start the trip with the ripalle sequestered in his hut and everyone wondering if he’d be all right. Plus, Newton looked distracted—he had errands to run, people to see, a lot to set up. I told him I’d make dinner. I didn’t admit my fear that I might not be standing when I was done.

Newton installed me at a weathered table beside one of the huts. It was raining off and on. He had a one-burner kerosene stove for me and a well-used cutting board. Still reeling, I started chopping cabbage, onions, garlic, carrots, and celery for stir-fry. Newton drove off in a big Chinese pickup, which we’re renting from the Arno town council. Apparently, it’s the biggest, most reliable truck on the island. He took most of the students with him. Those who remained in camp left me alone, probably because it looked like I needed it.

The stink of the kerosene stove chased me away again and again. If I could keep the world from spinning, I thought I might be all right, despite the smell. The flies are numerous here and some, I’ve learned, bite. But I was getting the job done, dumping the fried veggies into a big plastic tub—that’s how you cook out here, everything goes into a plastic tub to keep the flies off. Suddenly, I was sick again. I had to run to the rocky shore nearby and let it go. I’d eaten some fruit after our arrival, to get my strength back. But now, apparently, I was sick from being sick.

Once I was done, I felt better and more determined than ever to finish making dinner. Newton and the rest returned shortly. He had hired several camp-hands to do make fires and other chores, including cooking our daily pots of rice. These guys can make the best rice on an open fire. We had this with dinner. Thankfully, I had an appetite. Most everybody had seconds and suddenly more strangers were in camp, including Abram, the old hut-maker from down the road. He’s one of the story tellers we’ll be talking with tomorrow. A little man, with a squinting, good-humored expression, he walked nearly two miles on crutches to get here. He and the camp-hands ate after we did. I noticed that Abram took half of his home in a plastic bag.

Finally, I took a nap. Then, feeling better, I went outside. The ice-white gibbous moon is high overhead in the open dome of sky, where a few fast-moving cotton-balls speed by. On the horizon hunker the mountainous cumulonimbus that the equatorial Pacific manufactures daily. Out here they rise up like meringue K-2’s every morning, then retreat to the horizon every night. The moon makes the landscape blue. I can’t stay in my hut because I don’t want to miss any of this—the humpback moon amid the stunning stars, the palm fronds clattering in the wind, the wave-wash soothing in the near distance. A night like this will make you believe in God.

Back in my hut, I am getting acquainted with the habitat that impinges on my sleeping. There are big, bold cockroaches. I wouldn’t mind their off-road adventures over my body if only they wouldn’t wake me up. What I mind is their tentacled, leggy greeting on my hand or arm or neck just as I’m drifting off. I’ve had to roust them out of my bags. Rule number one: keep all bags zipped tight. There are also ants but these seem to be infrequent and so far only one has offered a bite. There are also lizards all over the place. Skinks and geckos. The geckos eat the roaches. I welcome any and all.

I just visited the boys to ask about the crickets—yes, that’s what I’m hearing, they have confirmed. The boys are lying on their mats and chatting as one or more sing. They take turns passing around the ukulele. Here’s a sample of James singing:

James’s late night serenade.

The girls are chatting and laughing in their hut. After a long absence, Newton returns, telling me he has seen all five of our story tellers. That’s the protocol: you have to visit first. Now he’s about to fetch two spear fishermen who will hunt for flying fish after the moon sets, at about two a.m. “We will have lots of fresh fish tomorrow,” he promises. I tell him I didn’t know you could eat flying fish. “Oh, it’s good eating,” he assures me. So he’s off to get the fishermen. It looks like he won’t be getting much sleep tonight. None of us will, apparently.

NOTE: I will continue the Arno story in another 3-4 installments over the next two weeks, so check in every few days if you’d like to keep up with it.

P.S. Thanks to my colleagues and students who sent the care package. I greatly appreciate the goodies and good wishes.

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Ron Tanner, chair of the Writing Department at Loyola College-Maryland, won a grant from the National Parks Service to help Marshallese college students preserve the oral culture of the Marshall Islands. He’s spending the 2008 spring semester (5 months) on Majuro to direct this pilot program, called the Marshall Islands Story Project. To get the full story of his personal experiences, be sure to check the archives to your left.

I was nearly killed by a coconut last week This may sound melodramatic, but consider: a mature coconut palm stands 30+ feet high. A ripened coconut weighs at least 5 pounds. Physics majors help me out. The force of a free-falling 5-pound object from the height of 30 feet = you get the idea. I was pedaling my bike to the grocery store. The coconut—like a meteor—smacked the center tube of my bicycle frame, about eighteen inches from my head. I wasn’t wearing my helmet because it’s too damn hot for helmets. A helmet would have saved my life. Okay, maybe I wouldn’t have been killed. Knocked out, certainly. Then either I would have wheeled into oncoming traffic or simply dropped to the asphalt.

Oddly, this happened the day my grant check came through. Wouldn’t that have been ironic, to be killed by a coconut the day I’m rescued from bankruptcy? When the Ministry of Finance produced the funds at last, it took me a day to catch my breath. Privately, I was weepy with relief. For starters, I owed my college about $9,000. and, unsurprisingly, it wanted its money. When my stalwart dean allowed me to advance the cash from my department’s funds so that I could buy the Project equipment (after my own credit card was maxed out), he had no idea that he’d have to wait two months for reimbursement (thanks, Jim). Three weeks ago, the Loyola finance office froze my department’s budget and all eyes were turned on me, waiting for that check. It was awkward, to say the least.

It’s not over. There are two more grant checks to come. Unfortunately, so many expenses were front-loaded in order to start the Project, this first check will be spent in two weeks. But I can’t worry about that now. I’m worrying about other things. In fact, after the check came through, I could hardly sleep for two days, too aware of my deadline and all we have to do. Next week is spring break. Newton and I are taking the students to Arno. It’s a neighboring atoll. Though close by, in many respects it’s far away. Most of my students have never been to an “outer” island like Arno. But some have been to Hawaii and the U.S. mainland. It’s similar to New Yorkers never having visited the Statue of Liberty.

Newton laughed when I told him about the killer coconut. “In all my years, I’ve never heard of anyone hit on the head by a falling coconut!” he said. “You would have been the first!” It must have been my bad luck playing itself out, he said.

At mid-week, Majuro radio announced that the grant was official. My name was mentioned and I think there was a statement from the RMI’s Minister of the Interior, but I don’t know the details. Significantly (perhaps), the next day I was able to assist with an interview of the senator of Bikini atoll, the grandson of a king. When I first arrived, I was told I wouldn’t get this opportunity. It’s been my good fortune to partner the Project with CMI’s Nuclear Institute so that the Project can archive stories of nuclear testing survivors. The director of that organization, Mary Silk, is well respected in the community and an excellent interviewer. Earlier in the week, we interviewed a renown survivor from Rongelap. Even though I don’t understand what I’m hearing, I find the sessions fascinating.

The process of interviewing underscores how thoroughly this project belongs to the Marshallese. The people I’m working with—like Mary and Newton—have the access to and rapport with members of the community. All I do is help with technology and some technicalities, such as consent forms. I’m a facilitator. The cultural liaisons are doing the hard work.

This week is mid-term and students are stressed, scrambling to get their work done. Suddenly, they are working very hard. For weeks we’ve been playing catch-up, students coming late to class or not coming at all, work handed in late every time. It’s hard to teach when the work’s not there. That said, everybody handed in his or her portfolio on time yesterday. And all the work has been accounted for, finally. So here’s to a new start. This week the students are doing a translation of a story they’ve gathered (on tape recorder) over the weekend. The exercise will prepare them for the harder chores ahead–after we’ve returned from Arno with a boatload of stories.

Although I now have money in my pocket, I’m still eating most of my meals in my room. This is a low budget operation, after all. But Saturday—when I still didn’t know my fiscal fate–I lost control and spent my last four dollars on grilled chicken from a take-out. Every day I’d pedal past the grill, the cooks working in a tiny hut with chicken-wire windows. The smoky aroma of that grilling marinated meat turned my head every time. Having eaten only a handful of fruit Saturday, I could stand it no longer. I braked hard in the middle of the road, my tires skidding. Then, stopping traffic, I turned around. I got three chicken pieces, a mound of rice, and some kim-chi’d cabbage for $3.50. Amazing. I felt guilty, greedy, and grateful all at once.

The chicken was savory, sweetly marinated, and very tender. This is free range chicken, mind you. All chicken on Majuro is free range. Just look around. They’re everywhere, pecking at your feet, darting across the road. At all hours of the day, almost anywhere you go, you can see or hear a rooster crowing nearby.

Tidbits

A couple of weeks ago, an American scolded me for not having read the local paper. I didn’t have the nerve to tell him I couldn’t spare the 75 cents.

Another American looked at me in surprise when I admitted I didn’t know where the new International Conference Center is. How would I know? Nobody’s taken me aside to show me what’s what, much less tutored me in the intricacies of daily interaction. (Newton’s working off-island half the week.) Some may think that because I was here in May I know all there is to know about Majuro and the Marshallese. As I keep telling everyone: I know nothing.

Example: I came in to CMI on a Saturday to answer my email. The internet’s not as excruciatingly slow on the weekend (it takes 2-3 hours to post this blog). Halfway through an online phone call, the power went dead. That’s not unusual. It goes out at least once a week. So I went looking for power. But I ran into the president, who told me this was an all-day scheduled black-out—announced earlier in the week. I didn’t know.

For some reason, the scheduled blackouts seldom affect my part of the island, where the Resort is.

Unfortunately, I have stateside business to conduct on a weekly basis. The day the power went out, I raced over to the National Telecommunications Authority, which has internet stations you can rent for 10¢ a minute. They were pulling in signals at a blistering 400 megabytes per second. At CMI I’m lucky if I get 10 mbps (in the States you get 800 or more). But the NTA system won’t allow laptops to plug into its system, and I needed the software on my laptop to make my phone call. So I packed up, then raced to the Resort. When I say “race,” I mean pedal my bike. Which means lots of sweating. Finally, I got jacked in to the internet at the Resort, but it took ten minutes because I was down to 10 mbps again. It’d been an hour since I was cut off. later and I was now sitting in the noisy lobby. My call went through at last. I said, “Hello?” The person on the other end said, “Hello, Ron!” Then the line went dead.

I could deal with the slow connectivity; it’s the dropped connections that are driving me mad.

I still haven’t gotten pink eye, but I expect to any day now.

I wash my hands so often, they’re peeling.

Since my killer coconut incident, I’m anxious every time I pedal past a coconut tree.

The most formidable animal on land here is the coconut crab. It can get as big as a basketball and has claws so strong, it can snap a wooden broomstick in two. Nocturnal, it lives in burrows amid the fallen coconut and uses its impressive claws to cut into the husk so it can feed on the nut.

My generator-powered bike light works only if I plug in the front light or the back but not both. I’ve opted for the back. But it makes night pedaling hazardous. Pedestrians often walk in the road.

Ever since my arrival, I’ve been ravenous for sweets. My nutritionist brother would not approve. I’m pretty sure my craving stems from a need for comfort.

Things I haven’t been able to find: hydrogen peroxide and a micro-screwdriver for eyeglass screws (I’ve been using the mouth of a nail clipper.).

I’ve lost my hat. I think I know where I lost it but I don’t know how. I brought a back-up but it’s too small, I’ve discovered. It sits high on my head and peaks oddly. As a result, it looks like those khaki canvas caps that Japanese soldiers wore in World War II.

More than once, as I’ve spoken with someone in his or her office, I’ve seen a small a creature with a long tail dart behind a file cabinet or book case. It’s so fast, I see it only out of the corner of my eye, usually as the tail disappears. This isn’t a mouse, I’ve decided, it’s a gecko.

As with student work in the States, student email attachments here come with lots of viruses. None of the Project’s laptops have virus protection because it’s too expensive and we don’t go online. But the students are loading in their documents from their thumb-drives. I fear it’s just a matter of time before all of the Project laptops crash.

Speaking of viruses: I don’t know why I haven’t gotten sick since my arrival nearly two months ago. (Right now a cold’s going around.) It may be because I’m in emergency mode. I recall the first year we began to rehab our old house: I didn’t get sick because I couldn’t afford to.

Speaking of the house, I’ve learned that my article in This Old House magazine went online and made both CNN’s “Living” page and AOL’s “At Home” page. For a few heady days we were THE number-one home-decoration story on the internet, but then “Maria Carey’s Magnificent Manhattan Triplex” and “At Home with the Barefoot Contessa” knocked us down to number three. But THEN AOL posted us on their main page and we jumped from 100,000 to 300,000 in just two days—knocking out the Barefoot Contessa as well as “Senator and Mrs.John McCain’s Phoenix family home.”

Here’s the link:
From Animal House to Our House

This Old House online has a “comments” box for every page. Reading these has been a blast and quite heartening. Apparently our story really hits a chord because it’s about a couple struggling to make a home against great odds—and trying to undo the terrible damage done by a fraternity. Get this: some of the frat boys who lived in the house—and helped wreck it ten years ago—have made comments. The frat angle has really gotten readers stirred up. Many see fraternities as the epitome of our culture’s demise. In the article, I don’t say one bad word against the frat boys. I only report that they trashed the house, which is irrefutable, given the photos.

I’ve been thinking of doing a blog entry on Majuro dogs but so far I haven’t been able to get close to any of them. The moment I point my camera, they run away.

There’s a community of feral cats camped outside the resort. They’re not as skittish as the dogs. One tom makes his home in the tree outside my window. Despite my closed window and the hum of my air-conditioner, I hear him and his cohorts complain and cavort every night.

Something else I hear every night is the church just down the street. I went to one of their services. They are happening! Here’s a sample:
church song

My mom wrote this to me: “do not get hooked on those [betel] nuts.”

Yesterday I broke down and bought a box of Cheerios. It cost $8.24.

For the dry season, it’s really been wet. When the downpour comes, it drums at the roof like a swarm of locusts. In the morning, there are pond-sized puddles in the street.

Despite my sometimes desperate craving for sweets, I haven’t been able to bring myself to eat the five “chocolate brownie” Cliff bars in my bureau drawer. They’re that bad. They came in a variety pack I brought with me. Still, I keep them around just in case.

Here’s what I love to hear from the students in my web-design class: “What’s the code for that again?” They’re learning HTML so that they don’t get too dependent on the automatic code-generator in Dreamweaver. The great thing is, they don’t know they’re doing it the hard way so they’re not afraid of coding. Their mid-term project is a personal web-page—these are coming along so well we’re going to showcase them at the college’s Foundation Day.

The Marshallese language is rich with trilling “r’s,” which are more pronounced than anything you’ve heard in Spanish. Instead of cursing, some Marshallese (my students especially) will let that sound roll from their tongue in two rapid exhalations.

Since arriving here two months ago, I’ve worn short pants only once.

I haven’t heard the National Band rehearsing for two weeks. Usually they’re making a pleasant noise across the street. A recent report in the Marshall Islands Journal tells me that the new government has decided not to fund the band. Read into that what you will. Doesn’t every nation need a band?

My beard is getting orange highlights from daily exposure to sun.

One variety of ant here is nearly as small as a pin-head. It’s ubiquitous indoors but so tiny it’s of no consequence–unless you leave a smear of peanut butter on the counter. Often, when I’m talking to a Majuro resident, he or she will absently press a finger to the table top, obliterating one or more of these ants. It’s as casual a gesture as a yawn.

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March 1 in the Marshall Islands is a national holiday. It used to be called Nuclear Victims’ Day, then Nuclear Survivors’ Day, and now Remembrance Day. The change reflects the nation’s determination to do more than voice lament and complaint for all they have suffered as the result of the U.S. government’s nuclear testing. But no one who knows the full story of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands could blame the Marshallese for complaint or lament. Most Americans of a certain age have heard of the Bikini nuclear bomb test. But few Americans know, much less understand, the extent of nuclear testing that took place in this island nation between 1946 and 1958. During that time the U.S. Navy exploded a total of 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands. All of these were above-ground or ground-level tests. They created a stunning amount of fallout.

When the Navy introduced the Marshallese to the U.S. government’s intention to use the Marshall Islands as a nuclear testing grounds, the U.S. commander (filmed for PR purposes) asserted that the Marshallese were making sacrifices “for the benefit of mankind.” What did the Marshallese know of nuclear bombs? What did most people in the world know of this weapon? The Marshallese wanted to be good sports. The Americans seemed to know what they were doing. Certainly they put on a good show—they had big boats; their leaders who wore impressive white uniforms with gleaming gold buttons; and apparently they had wealth beyond measure.

The first evacuees (from Bikini) were assured that they would soon return home. It seemed the tests would be only a temporary inconvenience. Even so, asking the Marshallese to move was asking a lot. To Americans, land is mostly a commodity to buy and sell. We are famous for moving our homes more frequently than any other people in the world. The Marshallese, by contrast, have been bound to their fragile atolls for millennia, each clan, each family, associated with particular islands and particular parcels on those islands. The land is so sacred that “to plant” and “to bury” (kallib) are the same word—the graves of Marshallese ancestors nourish the crops of their descendants.

What happened once the tests began, in 1946, is a long and sordid story. The U.S. government moved Marshallese around willy nilly, without asking permission of the landowners whose islands they used. The refugees were encamped here, then there, sometimes on islands or atolls that were not large enough to feed them. The psychological effects of these upheavals have yet to be gauged fully, for there are four populations of four atolls—Enewetok, Rongelap, Utrik, and Bikini–who have never been able to return to home.

The physical effects of testing are still playing out. Some charge that the U.S. government used the Marshallese as guinea pigs because it made no effort to warn, much less evacuate, people who were in the path of the fallout. The most notorious incident occurred in 1954. Despite weather reports that warned of a shift in the wind, which would jeopardize several populated atolls, the U.S. Joint Task Force went ahead with its March 1 hydrogen bomb test—a blast whose yield was 1,000 times greater than Hiroshima’s. In fact, this would be the U.S.’s most powerful test ever.

Unlike Hiroshima’s blast, which was well above the city, the Bravo blast was in-ground. It created a 20-mile-high upheaval of coral, water, animal, and plantlife, which then drifted in a huge cloud of raining fallout. It may have been anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 times the fallout of Hiroshima.

The fallout drifted east over hundreds of square miles of populated islands. Inhabitants of the nearest islands—in the Rongelap atoll—experienced a snow of ash that, at first, was a wondrous sight. They’d heard of snow. But it quickly turned nightmarish, for the ash caused radiation burns. They would call this “the day of two suns.” No one had told them this was coming. They had no idea that everything they were drinking and eating was now contaminated. One inhabitant of nearby Likiep, who was eight at the time, recalls how a couple of days after the blast, he awoke to find the floor of his hut covered with dead geckos that had fallen from the thatch overhead where they had been exposed first to the fallout. Canaries in a coal mine.

Two days after the blast, the Navy decided it should evacuate those who got caught down-wind because American servicemen at a weather station at nearby Rongerik sent a panicked report of fallout. The Navy moved some islanders, but not all. Apparently the commander in charge felt besieged by the growing number of refugees. He didn’t finish the job, leaving nearly 400 Marshallese on Aliuk. There was some attempt at follow-up. The U.S. sent doctors out to treat the victims. They assured the Marshallese that the worst was over. People would heal. The land would recover. Everything would return to normal. But then, a couple years later, it became frighteningly clear that things would not return to normal. Children exposed at an early age to the fallout were not growing. But the doctors were stymied. In 1963 they discovered, finally, that the victims’ thyroids were malfunctioning, depressing the pituitary gland, which regulates growth.

This was the beginning of decades of radiation-related ailments. And still the nuclear bombing persisted through 1958—despite the Marshallese pleas that it stop. Not until the 1970s did the Marshallese begin to seek compensation in the courts. Significantly, this was the decade the nation sued for independence, which came finally in 1986. As part of the Compact that guaranteed the nation’s sovereignty, the U.S. agreed to award the Marshallese $150 million in compensation for damages associated with nuclear testing. Interest from this fund was earmarked for disbursement to the victims and their families, but the funds were quickly eroded by the 1987 stock market crash and other factors. What is more, studies showed that the damage was far greater than the initial estimates, enumerated both in physical damage and in damages generated by the 1) loss of land use, 2) the cost of rehabilitating contaminated land, and 3) consequential damages resulting from such loss, repatriation, and rehabilitation.

The Bikinians would accept a settlement of $360 million to reclaim Bikini atoll. But estimates for total reclamation reach as high as a billion. That’s a lot of money. But the Bikinians didn’t do the damage. And billion-plus is about what the U.S. government is spending every week in Iraq. Reportedly 40% of the original Marshallese population that suffered the effects of radiation have died without receiving any compensation. They continue to sue through an organization called the Nuclear Claims Tribunal.

As many have observed, the U.S. testing of nuclear bombs was the product of profound arrogance, ignorance, and wishful thinking. The U.S. government hardly treated its own servicemen and women any better than the Marshallese. Untold numbers of these people subjected themselves to exposure as their commanders told them there was nothing to fear. Just 10 hours after the first Bikini tests, for instance, Navy men were boarding the irradiated target ships in the Bikini lagoon and swimming in water that, only hours before, had been a seething cauldron of radiation. Years later these men would die of leukemia, thyroid cancer, and odd diseases that no doctor could fathom.

No single population on earth has had more exposure to and experience with the tragic effects of nuclear bombs than the Marshallese, a fact hinted at in the preamble to their constitution: “This society has survived, and has withstood the test of time, the impact of other cultures, the devastation of war, and the high price paid for the purposes of international peace and security .” (Emphasis added.) As a result, the Japanese have a great affinity for this nation. The Marshallese themselves have become international advocates of peace. Which brings us to Rembrance Day. On this day, they remember those who have suffered and those who continue to suffer, but they assert, too, that this is a proud nation that has much to celebrate and much to contribute to the world. One of those contributions is the story of this country’s remarkable survival.

At this year’s Remembrance Day memorial service, I was able to hear the U.S. Ambassador speak. He expressed “regret” and “concern” for all that has transpired as a result of the U.S. nuclear testing. He asserted that the friendship between the U.S. and the RMI remains unwavering and that the U.S. is giving a lot of money to help the Marshallese. A flier distributed by the quiet protestors outside the meeting hall disagreed with this assessment: “Justice for Survivors, equal to the Cost of the One (1) Week Iraq War,” the flier announced. In Marshallese: “Kajimwe na Suvivor ro, jona wot eo im Amedka ej jolok Nan Iraq ilo juon week.”

A number of other officials spoke at the ceremony, most of them in Marshallese. One Marshallese senator, who spoke in English, did not soft-peddle his views. At the time of the testing, he said, the Marshall Islands was “an occupied nation.” The move of testing from Nevada to the Marshall Islands made clear that “our land, our people, our nation were not seen as important as the people and property of the U.S. mainland.” Trusteeship in 1947, he observed, “was simply a legal mechanism to continue the testing that had already begun the year earlier.” As “trustees,” the Marshallese had no legal rights in the U.S. courts. Despite the eventual independence of the Marshall Islands, he concluded, “we are still seeking recognition of our rights in U.S. courts fifty-four years later.”

Some of the survivors spoke too. I hope to see a transcript of these soon. In fact, I hope to sit in on some interviews of survivors. The most touching part of the ceremony was the moment a group of survivors stood and sang a song I will post for you here. It will break your heart. survivors’ song

For more go to
http://www.rmiembassyus.org/NuclearIssues.htm
http://www.nuclearclaimstribunal.com

http://www.enenkio.org/adobe/historynucleartesting.pdf
http://www.eh.doe.gov/health/mashrall/marsh/journal

Final note:

If you visit the U.S. NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. (805 Kidder Breese S.E.), you can see the Navy’s collection of paintings and illustrations by Navy personnel who witnessed the first tests in 1946. It’s a bizarre assemblage of images, some striking, some lovely–all of them unsettling.

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