March 16th
This is from an email answering some questions from my neighbor back home who teaches Social Studies...
Its going to be strange coming home after a year or so out here. So many people, fast moving cars, all that concrete, winter, people with problems....
Majuro is just one of the Marshalese Islands about a half hour flight on United 154 from Kwajalein. Kwaj is its own banana shaped island, the southern part of an atoll surrounding the largest lagoon in the world. Ebeye is just north of Kwaj. Its possible to walk to Ebeye (about a mile) at low tide, but the reef would be a little treacherous, also there are two smaller islands (Little Busterd, and Big Busterd) that separate Ebeye from Kwaj. I actually was on Little Busterd today. Its illegal, without permission from the Republic of the Marshal Islands to land on any other Marshalese Island out here with a boat, but apparently the people I went with had permission. Little Busterd, which I thought was uninhabited, is only about 5 acres big. It turns out there is one guy living on it. He has some bits and pieced of tin and plywood for a home the size your log cabin. He also has a dog, two small pigs and a few chickens. He's happy when you bring him sugar or coffee.
Ebeye on the other hand is the most densely populated island in the world I've read and have been told. We can take a ferry over there, but I haven't yet. It's 90 acres and has around 15,000 people on it, most of them children. The ferry brings them over to Kwaj where many of them work. One of our mechanics is married to a Marshalese woman whom he said he went over there one Saturday night, got drunk, and woke up married. He said he lived there for two years, taking the ferry back and forth. He said there is no running water over there and that a 5 gallon bucket becomes your best friend. The bucket is to carry water over from Kwaj on the ferry. All the Marshalese workers we have over here take showers here before getting on the ferry to go home. They are all generally very nice and very helpful to a fault. Any Marshalese that makes it to the States can get a free college education at any university they qualify for. I'm assuming its because we screwed them over so bad in the 50's or 60's and we basically took 11 of their islands. I also hear the Japanese were incredibly brutal to them before we took the islands and did nuclear testing on some of them. The King and Queen of the RMI (republic of the marshal islands) and the land owners here also screw the Marshalese too. I've heard we lease this Island (just Kwaj is what I've heard ) for 79 million a year. That money goes to the King and Queen and they give some to the land owners. Their people live in squalor on Ebeye, and get nothing to make civil improvements. In fact the King and Queen don't even live out here, they live in Hawaii. I've been told they come to Ebeye sometimes and the Queen throws quarters to the kids and they love her for it. I know some of the Marshalese want to assassinate their king, but it would do no good cause the landowners or princes or the next in line would just keep up the corruption.
I would imagine the unemployment rate is higher than 35%, but I don't know. I don't know what they do for money over there. I know they are poor, but they also don't have all the crap in their lives that we seem to think we need....cars, cell phones, televisions, etc.. I haven't heard that they export less than they import, but it makes sense. I mean they just don't have the means to produce much of anything. We went sailing today and I got about as close to Ebeye as I have yet, and their are some big buildings over there, but I don't really know what goes on. I'm not sure where they get their water from because there are a few restaurants over there so they must have running water. Kwaj uses the runways as a catchment system for what they call lense wells. The fresh water sits on top of the salt water in the limestone centers of the island. Maybe its coral centers of the island. When it rains here it can really rain, like so hard you can't see ten feet in front of you. We got 6 inches last Tuesday. Its raining as I right this, it usually rains at night during the windy season. I rode my bike around the island on Tuesday just to see the giant lakes of water from the rain, and there weren't any, apparently there is good drainage here. Ebeye, I'm told, doesn't have good drainage. Another mechanic told me to wait a few days and the Marshalese will start coming over sick, because of the sewage
I don't know about their legal system, except that if you land a boat on Ebeye they arrest you, strip you naked and put you in jail. Quenton, the mechanic that married the Marshalese woman said he knew someone that spent four years in a prison on Majuro....naked eating fishheads and rice.
Sorry I don't know the answers just yet to all your questions, I'll talk to some of the Marshalese next week. They are good guys.
I am having a great time out here. I am the lab manager for San Juan Construction. I have the work history and the certifications that qualified me. The construction project I'm not supposed to talk about but you can google it and get plenty of information. The money is great and tax free if I stay out here 330 days and don't come back for more than 30. The living conditions aren't the greatest, but they definitely could be worse. The people out here (mostly Americans) are a little off, but mostly really nice. I met a guy in the pool while doing laps a month ago who loves to sail, but often can't find anyone to go. He's a great teacher, and he knows his stuff. I tried to go surfing late this morning but the waves were too big and the reef didn't have enough cover on it to make me feel comfy, so I left and called Jim and we went sailing. While getting back to the dock, Kristen and her boyfriend Joe were getting ready to leave to go kite boarding (a new sport for them) on Little Busterd in their zodiac and asked me to go. So I got off the sailboat and hopped in their zodiac and went kiteboarding with them. I learned to kite a long time ago, and they knew it and wanted someone there to give them some confidence and help. The pictures above are from a previous weekend snorkeling trip with two other surfing friends. One guy likes to spear fish while snorkeling and he shot the tuna, then we caught the Ono on the way back with a line Tim had put in off the back of the boat. He rented the boat from the small boat marina here.
I am the luckiest guy I know.
The pics for fun in order are 1- the concrete weights we made in the lab, 2- the friends that invited me out snorkeling and spear fishing and he shot a tuna and caught an ono. 3- Tim and his catch 4 and 5 - I actually had it in my head to swim down and grab a sharks tail that was messing around under a rock. He was only about 24" long, but its still probably good I ran out of air first and had to come up
March 21, 2015 ? I think.
We played Frisbee tonight. I set up in a field that was too small and one of the Stophers (name changed to protect their identity) came over and prodded me into checking with the guy who runs the recreational stuff to see if our normal field was actually taken over by a softball game. It wasn't. However, Mike, Josh, Derek and one more were over there when I started setting up the field. They were there to practice cause they new there wasn't a game...so I moved our field perpendicular to the normal setup which left the coconut tree that tried to hit me in the face with a coconut near the east endzone...and still in our field of play. Ah what the hell, we can work around one tree easy enough. Our sideline was within easy range of right field for their practice, but as far as I could shift it south without involving more coconut trees in the game. Someone nailed it on the softball field about a half hour into our Frisbee game. They yelled, I had been keeping an eye out for them and saw the ball coming to our crowd and went running thinking it was going to nail Katherine Stopher, the 20 year old pseudo mother of the 3 other Stophers playing. I jumped up as it came down and realized it wasn't going to hit her at the same time I realized I missed it with my bare hand. It worked out. They changed the way they were batting for a while and then another came. My eye never really left them, because everyone likes to nail a softball, so when it came I did the same thing again except I yelled at our players as I ran towards the ball and they scattered. It worked out again. Life has a great way of working out on this island.
I wonder sometimes if I'm so happy here because I have no money worries, because the money is so good, or because all the rest of it. I mean sunshine, lots of sunshine makes serotonin....makes you happy. I have so much fun stuff to do here...with so many good people...is that it? There is no stress at work..is that it? I'll take some new pics soon...
