Restoration of normality

Written 3/16/10

I’ve come to learn that I should never worry too much about anything here. At the beginning of the month, we were facing a number of things that posed potential big problems. March 1 was the day it all seemed to come together against us. The high tide that day reached levels not seen since the early nineties and washed away part of the road to the airport and strew debris across the landing strip. It hadn’t rained since early January, and the students busied themselves digging wells to reach the brackish water underground. The island ran out of fuel, and the diesel generator only had enough on hand for another few days of power. The boat that was to bring more fuel was stuck in Majuro having a hole in its hull mended. And then just this past Saturday, the one functioning plane that Air Marshall Islands owns broke down indefinitely.

Fortunately, I have been here long enough to know that these things will right themselves with time, and that worrying doesn’t change anything. As I write this, things have indeed worked out, and even faster than I would have guessed. Here’s all that’s happened since then:
The tide fell, and while parts of the road are now a bit lower than they used to be (my feet get wet if I go running at high tide), it’s still drivable and the air strip has gotten cleared off. It rained more in the first week in March than it had all of January and February combined. A boat that had been sitting at our dock loaned the energy company enough fuel to keep power going for 12 hours each day until more fuel finally arrived just yesterday (Monday). Unfortunately (and I’m not sure why), this intermittent power made us lose our internet connection for that two weeks. My guess is that whoever on Majuro is in charge of re-setting our connection got tired of hitting that button every day. The airplane, which broke down last Friday, was miraculously fixed fast enough for them to make their regularly scheduled flight today (Tuesday). Who would have guessed.

So now I have internet, power, water, and plane service once again. Things are looking pretty good. On top of all that, one of the volunteers at Laura HS sent us a bunch of movies earlier in the month, including Almost Famous, Ratatouille, The Motorcycle Diaries, and Transformers. Of course, Transformers without a good sound system and large screen leaves a bit to be desired, but Almost Famous is always good. Always.

Classes have been going well. I successfully introduced my chemistry students to the scientific method, although only in its most basic form. Still, I think they enjoy doing simple experiments like burning things, dissolving things, and testing to see what portion of the class can throw a wad of paper into the cardboard box that serves as my trash can. The third quarter ended last Friday, and only a couple of my students ended up with an F, which I was happy about. Interestingly, the highest grade among my two chemistry classes came from the non-honors group. His name is Henry Henry and he had a 98.8%. I love that kid.

This weekend was an epic eating adventure. We went to a Marshallese party put on by one of the churches for the school on Friday. Remember, in Marshallese, “party” means “eat as much as possible,” so I stuffed myself. Then on Saturday night, one of our neighbors who had recently taken a trip to Majuro invited us to share some of the steak he had brought back with him. We provided the pasta to go with it as well as the oreos to eat afterwards. Later that same night, our downstairs neighbor had a party of his own to which we were not invited, but he nevertheless brought us both a plate full of food at about 9pm. Unfortunately, it’s impolite to refuse food, and since the power was still intermittent at that point, our only choice was to down it all on the spot (tough life, I know). It’s Tuesday night now, and I still have yet to feel any real hunger in the days since Saturday night.

In other news, Morgan is just about to finish The Karamazov Brothers (a highly suspect translation), and I have been glued to The Cider House Rules, which has more semicolons in it than all the literature I’ve ever read before now put together. It rained sideways earlier today, requiring an impromptu mopping of the house. The windows don’t seal very well.

Thanks for reading this somewhat long-winded update. I’m off to listen to listen to Come on Feel the Illinoise and try to finish my book.