The Chugach "roll call" starts at 7:30 am Tuesday thru Saturday. Nearly 90 guys, 6 or 7 of them Americans sit around an open air sheltered workshop waiting for Claude to call their name. Claude is Marshallese. It starts out with "Billy" who is an American. There are 3 or 4 of them (Billy's), one Phillipino, one American, and two Marshallese. My name gets called after Claude switches to the second sheet, I'm the first on the second sheet. He calls my name, but always answers for me, unless I don't wear my neon orange high vis shirt. If I wear any other shirt, it seems, I have to say "ho".
The roll call doesn't really exemplify the name thing. If one were to sit around and listen to Claude call the names, it doesn't do it justice. You just can't hear him well enough, or maybe its just me...
Jurajar....tall thinner young guy with hair trimmed to about a half inch, except his tail mostly at the top of the back of his head. I hear he's an exceptional basketball player, and very strong
Yoda....yes Yoda. very early twenties, one inch long hair that sort of juts out in the front at the bangs, at bit tall for the Marshallese around 5'8"
Tiny.....older, around 48, doesn't drink or smoke, and has an obsession with fishing, mainly casting a net. His last name is Bobo. Yes Tiny Bobo. He's by far the most impressively humorous one I've worked with. He is cleanly awesomely funny. He calls my knife a cereal box knife because that's how you get one of those knives on Ebeye.....
Wagner. ...last name Ned. He has a great great weezy laugh and has no problem letting it go. The stupidest things get all of them laughing, but he opts in regardless ...stupid...really stupid...funny...it doesn't matter...this guy loves to laugh
Billabong....younger kid....he calls me "fart man" after I had the fart machine going for a while. 2-01-18 correction - his name is Billy Pound, it just sounds like Billabong when Claude calls his name. Great kid, leads all the singing at company parties.
Junior...Ebeye is full of them. 3 of them are in our roll call.
Batlock Batlock....so the last name is shared by many, as many last names are on Ebeye. It just goes against our norms for the most part to have two last names.
Bugbwich Batlock....I wonder if I'm spelling it right. Every time I say it, they say it back to me exactly the way I thought I said it "Boogevitch"...but apparently not. It's an old Marshallese name they tell me. Great forklift operator and funny guy
Swingly....shorter guy around 5'2" and kind of wiry. His family lives on Carlos, one of the outer islands that the US is renting and has some equipment. I'm not sure if that's his first name or last...either way I don't know the one I'm missing.
Kakaro....22 years old maybe. Very intelligent kid, and a great operator of equipment. He works for San Juan....He has a really great personality too.. Last name is Kaitonga. His father John, also a great guy, is from the Gilbert Islands.
Chum Gum....that's James' last name as best as I can spell it. He's older and smart as hell. He's probably more ornery than smart, but it's a tight competition....The first thing he says to me when I walk into his ....area....is "what da f*** you want?" with that accent. While that sounds kind of harsh, its meant totally to be funny....most days I answer him using the same language of trying to work the f bomb in as much as possible for every sentence. This can continue for 5 minutes, while everyone around him dies laughing. It may not be that funny, but Marshallese laugh easier than we do.
Bruce Lee.....this guys sticks around the shop tirelessly cleaning and sweeping. 2-1-18 Correction his name is Anthony, which is boring.
Tibich....45 years old missing many teeth, great guy.
Matson....not sure who he is, but I imagine he is named after the shipping container company. I like to think the Marshallese mothers walk around while trying to think of a name, and just see things sometimes and say "that would be a nice name for a boy, Matson" while looking at a shipping container.
In the U.S. kids would be tirelessly tormented having some of these names. Maybe because I was never around for these names and these guys while in school, they don't do that. They don't pick on each other at all.
I mean, at the softball games, when a Marshallese guy whiffs it with the bat, they all laugh, but the guy who did the whiffing is laughing just as hard. The joke is not on him, its a moment that is just funny, just like it should be.
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