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September 18, 2005 – 9:34 PM – Imperialism and Pandora’s Box

At times, the effects of imperialism and social incursion can be quite humorous. For example, since I’ve been here I’ve met/played ukulele with/and went spear fishing with a young boy named Richard, but who prefers to be called “MC Bling-Bling.” Bling-Bling (for short) claims that he is the youngest Marshallese rapper, has a collection of over a dozen do-rags, and recently traded a marmar (think shell necklace) for a volunteer’s And 1 headband. Also, at my school’s welcome back party which was held this past Friday, the entertainment was this student who transformed himself into a one man Micronesian hip-hop machine with the help of a microphone and one of five amplifiers in the country. Between him and his friends who jumped in, I counted three pairs of shirts worn over one shoulder, five backwards baseball caps, two sideways ones, and four pairs of boxers that I could see because the accompanying pairs of pants were worn too low. When the hip-hop machine and crew were taking a break, the students were entertained and danced to a collection of songs which included “Holla Back Girl” and “Get Your Freak On.”

And at other times, the effects of imperialism and social incursion can simply be frightening. As far as nutrition and diet goes, almost everything that Marshallese people consume, practically regardless of where they are, is not native. That is, nothing they eat can be grown or produced in the country. Everything has to be shipped from abroad which, of course, increases prices dramatically. For example, the staple of the Marshall Islands diet is rice. That’s right, rice. Now regardless of what you know about agriculture, it doesn’t take too much imagination to recognize that a hot, humid, tropical climate and land masses that are usually no wider than 300 yds are not ideally suited to support rice paddies. But, thanks to mid 20^th century Japanese colonialism, rice is now what the Marshallese eat, regardless of how taxing it may be to actually acquire it.

To better illustrate this perplexing situation, allow me to share a story an outer island volunteer told me about his host family. This volunteer’s host father produces and sells copra (dried coconut meat). Every week or two he picks, husks, cracks, grates, and dries about 150 lbs of copra. He brings this copra to the local merchant and receives $13 for his 150 lbs of copra. He then visits the merchant’s on-island store and spends $8 of his newly earned $13 on a 20 lbs bag of rice. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

And it’s not just rice that the Marshall Islands have embraced. Thanks to the United States, numerous canned foods, boxed foods (both of these are now wreaking havoc on the Marshallese environment), dairy, etc., have all become somewhat pricey but regular additions to the Marshallese diet. You name it. If the Marshallese eat it, chances are it’s not local (there are, of course, some exceptions such as fish and chicken which are both locally produced and eaten very frequently).

In addition to being expensive (a box of cereal costs $7), these foods are not particularly nutritious. It’s bad enough that the Marshallese are essentially converting to the American diet, but they tend to consume the worst parts of the American diet (stuff that comes in cans and boxes usually isn’t very healthy – think spam, packaged candies, basically anything with enough sugar or salt to preserve it). Subsequently, the Marshallese are now suffering from high blood pressure and a rapidly growing percentage of the population is contracting diabetes (something like 3x as high as the U.S. rate). When the Navy ship came here last week its doctors proclaimed that the Marshallese need to seriously consider changing what they eat. Well gee, thanks doc. I bet you think the Marshallese should seriously consider the adverse health effects of nuclear weapons testing too.

Now on to me. Nothing too exciting happening here. I’m sort of picking up the ukulele and have joined the school band which consists of about 15 ukuleles and a guitar. I’ve also started a debate program at the high school. About 20 people signed up but only 5 showed up. Here’s to hoping that I see more faces this week or there’s going to be some pretty lonely debates. Ahh! But here’s something I do want to share. Every once in awhile the layers of western clothing, music, and food vanish and I see get a glimpse of just how “untainted” this place has been for most of its history. During government class on Friday, we took a break and I played some “politically inspired” music for my students. One of my seniors asked, “Mr. Li, what does racist mean?”

I told her.

Looking back, I feel as if I gave her small pox.

September 25, 2005 – 2:49 PM – Island Life, Life as a Teacher on an Island

I’ll start with work this time. We were doing Athenian democracy in class and I gave the kids a copy of Pericles’s funeral oration to read in order to help them understand how proud Athens was of its democracy. It was tough reading, really really tough reading, like American college level reading. They were frustrated at first but once I told them that this was college level stuff they dug in their heels and hacked their way through it in groups and with dictionaries. Who says people don’t like being challenged any more. Also, as part of our study of Athenian democracy, I pulled an old and venerated trick out of my bag and dressed up as Pericles. I delivered a speech to my students, touting the virtues of Athenian democracy and afterwards they interrogated me, accusing me of lying because I espouse the principles of equality while simultaneously prohibiting women from voting and owning slaves. It went over superbly. Thank you, Mr. Francis.

In English, I gave my students an extra credit assignment to complete after they finished their quiz, mainly to keep the ones who finish quickly busy while others were still working. I showed them a cover of the U.S. News and World Report issue with me on the cover and asked them to write a story about why I am on the cover. It was narcissistic yes, but also fun. I received some really amusing responses about bribing photographers and robbing banks. But one paper from a 14 year old girl really warmed my heart. Here’s an excerpt of what she said:

“Mr. Li has his picture on the magazine to tell us that he cares for school and he wants to have a good future. I wish that was me. I am going to continue going to school and won’t give up. I will try to reach my goal no matter what will come into my mind and bother. A kind of student like this is a real student. They go to school every time and they don’t cut or do something bad. Mr. Li tried his best and now his teaching at the Marshall Islands. He is teaching the students there to reach their goal just like he did.”

Sometimes I have no choice but to love my job.

I’m starting to settle into a routine. Efficiency can be hard to achieve here so I’ve been desperately trying to devise some sort of schedule that allows me to do what needs to be done and still gives me time to have some fun. Some of my highlights include most Monday and Tuesday evenings during which I pack a bunch of papers to grade and take a 50 cent cab ride (all cab rides are 50 cents) to the Flame Tree where I watch Sunday and Monday night football while eating a $3 burger amidst a pile of essays about democracy and the present progressive tense. Also of note is Thursday night when, along with some other volunteers, I record a radio show which is aired Friday night on the government’s radio station (one of three in the country).

Saturdays are usually reserved for some sort of leisure activity provided that I was efficient enough during the week to complete all my errands. This Saturday was my first SCUBA dive as a certified diver. Three other volunteers and I struck a deal with the dive master such that, for only $5, we would rent enough equipment for a full hour long dive provided that we fill two bags with cans from the bottom of the lagoon. Not a bad deal at all. We went by ourselves, no dive master this time. It was pretty rocking, just us and a few cans at the bottom of the ocean. We saw the usual assortment of fish along with a couple of eels that popped their heads out of the reef.

And one final story to share. The head of the science department at my school is a woman named Asena from Fiji. We have the same planning period and were both in the lounge. She started telling me about her first and so far only visit to the United States. She was in Seattle. A few of the highlights include:

“Oh but when I first went through a tunnel, oh boy. I thought I was going to die. It was so dark and there was SO MUCH NOISE. I thought, ‘Asena, what are you doing here? Why did you leave your island and your taro?’”

“I went into the mountains and if you go high enough you start seeing some snow on the ground. Richard, it was the first time in my life I had seen snow. I was so excited. But then I touched the snow and said, ‘OK, that’s enough snow for me.’”

I have new pictures to upload but myphotoalbum.com just happens to be underdoing maintenance right now. I'll upload them when I'm next at the internet cafe. I just realized that I will soon come to another first. If my calculations are correct, the U of C begins school in three days… and for the first time in four years, I’m not going to be a part of it. For those of you that still are, enjoy your, for most of you, last year there. Regardless of how you feel about that place or just college in general, you’ll never have this year again, and it has the potential to be really good. Take care.