14 of us loaded with backpacks full of around 20lbs of candy, loaded the ferry to Ebeye at 4:45pm. Amber wanted to redo last years "reverse Halloween". Last year it might have been 7 of us. We all slightly dressed up in costumes or had some sort of face paint on. She named it "Reverse Halloween" because instead of the kids coming to us, in short, we came to them. It's explained somewhere in this blog from last year that the "command" here on Kwaj.....read ...the powers that be.....only allow so many Marshallese kids/families to come to Kwaj on this day to join the kids here going house to government owned house to collect candy.
Jobe, and Amber decided that was bullshit because it is mainly the more "privileged" kids on Ebeye that get to come to Kwaj and collect a child's dream: tons of candy. The Landowners usually pull rank. So they suggested we load up and go there and fulfill the American "holiday" tradition on the children of Ebeye.
There is a key part of the beauty out here that many Americans working here will never see. It's warm, the skies are gorgeous, the sunsets spectacular, the water is insanely gorgeous, and the under water is the second most beautiful thing out here. The first and most beautiful thing out here is the Marshallese people. I would guess 80% of the "rebelle" here will never realize that. That percentage is probably higher, but I'm trying to be positive.
We definitely, could all take lessons from them. I've seen them being yelled at by some (insert all the negative words) American guy, new to the island or sometimes not so new. They listen with eyes locked on the guy, then the guy walks away and they turn and smile and laugh. It's amazingly awesome. I've worked with them in places that can only be described as ovens in the sun with hordes of flies. They work at their own pace despite my stupidity. As I worked steadily, taking no breaks to set useless "examples", they lay down in the shade and sigh, then say something in Marshallese to the others and crack up laughing. They "waste" more energy laughing then they would have if they just stayed working. They disappear, as I follow my role of (read stupid rebelle) supervisor and continue to pick stuff up or work in any way in the 90 degree sun, 80% humidity, with no wind, surrounded by trees on a sparsely inhabited island, covered with 50 flies. The flies don't bite but they love my sweat, and don't seem to care if its filtered thru the long sleeve shirt or pants or buff that I wear.
After a bit, I walk toward the lagoon, where the wind is coming from, and find 3 or 4 of them lying in the shade on the beach or in trees with a beautiful cooling breeze that eluded me just 50 feet away.
So this is mainly about a ten or so day period where we were sent to an island 13 miles away to do some "cleaning up" of the stuff the Americans had put on the island.
We would board an LCM (landing craft mechanized)(a floating steel bathtub that had a drop down door in the front where we loaded equipment and such), in the morning. Then throw out the "handlines" as we left the harbor, and chill for 50 minutes. It was a great ride. The work was miserable, in fact as miserable as I've had since being here. I volunteered to work the weekend. I didn't have to work, but looking at the situation, where a guy from Ohio would get to head out on a boat with these great fun Marshallese guys to a slightly inhabited island in the middle of the south pacific.........
So the first day of the weekend, Sunday, it was raining when we got on the boat. I'm not sure why we got on the boat with such heavy rain and wind, but it was up to the supervisor of the heavy equipment. James Chum Gum should be Marshallese, he's been in the Marshalls long enough. He's Gilbertese, a string of atolls maybe 400 miles south of Kwaj. He's been around long enough that the Marshallese all respect and love him. He has a white old man ponytail, dark island skin, and the features of these island people. His speech is sort of hard to understand, but he's funny and incredibly smart.
So we do the handline dragging behind the boat in the rain for 50 or so minutes all the way to our destination. After arriving, as the captain lowers the LCM ramp onto the concrete ramp on the island in the rain, I walk down off the stern platform that is covered from the rain to grab the box of "meals" the cafeteria boxed up for us for lunch that was sitting on the deck of the lcm. Venturing out into the heavy rain was something the Marshallese don't normally do. After returning with their lunches in the box, there was no one there. All my guys left the boat. Strange, they hate the rain, but they did have rain coats mostly. So as I sat there under the tarp draped over the stern of the LSM, waiting for them to return, Tenaka, the captain, said something to me. I don't recall what i thought he said, but I nodded in agreement.
The LCM pulls away with my guys onshore, where I knew they wouldn't work, and in the pouring rain we went "bottom fishing". I wrote "we" but it was Tenaka and his first mate throwing out baited hooks about 300 yards offshore of the island in heavy rain and high winds. We drifted fast, they caught maybe six grouper and a few other fish that weren't in my kwaj fish vocabulary.
The powers that be nearly cancelled the ferry from Ebeye that day, something they have done on one day since my arrival on Kwaj 3 years ago, due to the heavy west winds. So our LCM captain Tenaka almost cancelled the day too. The waters were rough, south pass was rough. The captain of the largest boat on Kwaj said he wouldn't want to be on our boat going thru south pass. It wasn't that bad.
I'll try and add some pictures ...
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