I actually have news

I’m moving. In what might be the first real bit of news I have about myself, I’m... well, moving. Currently I live in a little quaint single unit house with a fenced in yard. It’s completely adequate. I definitely enjoy living here and can’t complain a single bit about it. Nevertheless, I am paying my own power bills here, and that became the trump card. My new place is a second floor apartment which pays for my power. I can’t exactly pass that up. An average power bill is about $75 a month and can easily be more if I use it as much as I want to. It’s also new and bigger so that’s nice. Moreover, it’s owned by my host family and I get a nice view of the sunset over the lagoon from my second floor deck. Decision made. I’ll move next week.

The school held its Halloween Party this past Friday. I was at school from about 7 AM to 2 AM organizing the damn thing. It was fun except, like everything here, became invaded by denizens of little children. That’s a rather interesting little tidbit I’ve never blogged about before. I have no idea what it’s like in other developing countries, but in the Marshall Islands, and I’d imagine other parts of the Pacific, the definition of supervision is simply different than what you and I are accustomed to. If you’ve read Coming of Age in Samoa, you’ll know that children here “learn” and “develop” due to much different forces than what “taught” and “developed” us as children (just ignore the part of the book that tries to paint a picture of complete utopia). Traditionally children were not hawked over by their parents because the appropriate development necessitated a certain amount of freedom and peer (other children) supervision. This worked well until globalization changed the circumstances under which everyone, including children, live. Now, a western definition of supervision is more required if a parent wants his/her child to succeed according to increasingly western definitions of success. A child must stay in school for a long time, avoid western temptations, etc. This requires a lot more “active oversight” from parents than they were certainly used to growing up as children. Thus, the result is that a lot of children are still raised according to traditional definitions of supervision and encounter problems due to the existence of non-traditional forces and circumstances, i.e. drugs, alcohol, lack of participation in school, etc. The hundreds of unsupervised elementary-aged children at the Halloween Party will become victims of teenage alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, and general juvenile delinquency in 5-8 years.

I’ve decided that my goal this year is 20 students attending college off-island. The fist year I was here, as a volunteer teacher, there were two. Last year, my first as a college counselor, there were nine. I think twenty is possible with enough work and luck. A sub-goal is a Gates Millenium Scholar. We received these applications earlier this week and I’ve been pondering how likely it would be to get one of them. The stars would have to align in a certain way, but I think it’s within reach. It’d be nice to have it as an “alternative” to going to Taiwan since the current next best option isn’t even close. This is also an open invitation to anyone who might be able to help me. The Gates Millenium Scholarship application is somewhat inapplicable to students here. I’d like to get the ear of someone within the organization who can help me, i.e. I want to write some sort of primer explaining living and educational circumstances here so the appropriate people can read it before reading my students’ applications. For example, it asks for volunteer and community service experience, both of which simply don’t exist in the same sense that they do in the United States. I need to let them know about this. If you can help, let me know.

I attended the kemem (first birthday) of my host nephew this Wednesday. A kemem is a really big deal here and this one didn’t disappoint. There were a ton of people and my host family stayed up all night accommodating guests. My oldest host sister leaves on Monday for Hawaii where she will deliver her baby. She’ll be there for a month before returning with the baby. Her plan is to stay here until next summer when she will return to school.

1st quarter ends this Tuesday. I have three quarters left in the Marshall Islands.