March 31, 2009

Some days I just can’t even really imagine how I am going to leave this place. To think that I will never see these people again…that the sound of the ocean as its breeze wont lull me to sleep every night…that I wont practically live my life outside and cooking all my meals literally survivor style. I just don’t think I will be able to function in a real world again. I actually legitimately scared. Jill…you’re going to have a LOT of work to do sweetheart. You are going to need to prepare yourself and make exceptions to my odd new mannerisms…as will everyone else I suppose. Haha It amazes me at times the degree to which I have changed…never for a second could I have predicted it. Looking at me now – through the eyes of myself eight months ago I would think it was a dream. Good or bad I don’t know – but certainly anything but reality. I cook all food from the fires I make myself from the copra I collect from the jungle, husk, chop with a machete, and carve out with a carving knife. I use my hands to mix everything and eat everything. I clean and gut raw fish and bite their parts with my mouth. I have taken a rather large hiatus from exercising. I think lying on the cement ground with a book as a pillow is a comfortable way to enjoy an afternoon nap. I think oversized, outrageously colored and designed dresses are fashionable. I think 2 hours is a very reasonable time to wait for people to arrive for a meeting or a ride to arrive. I rarely wear shoes to go outside. And I fluently speak a language that my little brother describes as “they sound like aliens.” Those are only a few of the changes…but they are all genuinely things I will miss when I do return stateside.

Luckily…I have 93 more days to take pleasure in the peculiarly enjoyable routines that frame my current life.

Life the past couple of days has been steady. I have also taken on the role of community nurse though and have been assuming that position for a few days. Rachel, the volunteer in Ine had the misfortune of getting some sort of virus and has been quite ill for several days now. Friday after school I went to Jebo with Atlynn and her family and stayed helping them move in until Sunday morning. That was a lot of fun and was quite relazing. Atlynn, Jumina and I cooked, played volleyball and helped set up the new church. Saturday night I cooked a pan of banana bread for Rachel, in anticipation of her birthday and was planning to walk to Ine Sunday after church. When I arrived in Ine to see the birthday girl however, I was greeted with a not so happy looking Rachel lying on the ground next to her designated puke bucket. After spending the night with her and seeing no improvement we decided it would be a good idea if she came back to Lukoj with me and went to the doctor in Arno to get some fluids in her – seeing how there was nothing staying in her body. That said, Monday was spent in the Arno ‘building that has a few medical resources,’ (it would be unfair to call it a doctors offices because there is nothing about it that is remotely clean, comfortable or sterile.) and two bags of fluid were put back into her body.

Today is Tuesday and things, although they are not great, are going in a somewhat positive direction. Spirits seem to rising and more and more seems to be staying in the correct place; so, we can’t complain about improvement. Other than the addition of nurse role to my lovely little life things have been steady. I adopted a no homework policy with my 6^th and 7^th graders and I think my blood pressure has probably fallen a few points. Although I feel bad not giving them homework, it is a seemingly pointless thing to do. It drives me crazy, it drives them crazy and it probably drives their parents crazy listening to me complain to them about it. So – I just erased that big headache. I have after school hours for English club where those who want to study and learn more are welcome to come in, and it is just a lot more satisfying to teach those who are genuinely interested to expanding their English knowledge and vocabulary.

Ok, that is all for now. Going to go cook up some delicious dinner…aka…canned vegetables, rice and tune with oil. Yummmmm.

March 23, 2009

Unintended blog break. My apologies. However, due to the fact that I do an average of 15 to 20 written pages a day, between making worksheets, writing lesson plans and writing letters, I decided that I was not going to hand write blog entries while I mailed my broken computer home to get fixes. I vaguely remember Phil questioning my decision to bring my computer, per the large note in capital black letter that said DON’T BRING YOUR COMPUTER IF YOUR ON AN OUTER ISLAND, but I brought it anyways…and it broke. I am guessing humidity, salt and ants took their toll on it and it just decided to give out. It was a boring month and a half with out it though, I will tell you that much. I thought I did a lot of reading before…nope. To give you an example in the past week along I have read The Red Tent, Water for Elephants, Truth and Beauty, and I am about half way through A Year of Living Biblically. The first and the last are the only ones I am really enjoying – but it’s a good thing the computer came back because next on my list is A People’s History of the United States. Anyone who knows me, knows that is NOT something I would pick up on the bookstore shelf and my list of reading material must be getting pretty low. Much relieved I have another source of entertainment now.

Well, it looks like there is a bit of catching up to do with life in Lukoj. Lucky for you not much has happened and you wont have to read a mini novel, like some previous make-up posts. We just finished quarter three and today marks the start of the 100 day countdown until my departure. The English language has yet to come up with a word that expresses the amount of excitement I retain for that day; July 6th. Indescribable. It goes without saying that leaving will be among the harder things I will have had to do in my life – to leave a place that has had such a profound impact on my life – however I will look both ahead and behind with a smile on my face; pound of what I have done and excited for where I am going. Ok enough about leaving I still have 2 months of teaching before we can really get talking about it.

Schooling in Lukoj is still progressing, however only in the sense that the days pass and we continue to go through the motions. No real improvements have taken place and infusing care for education into the community and students is proving to be a near impossible job. Is it me? Or is it just this place? I think its probably both. I have been really struggling with my oldest kids because they just don’t seem to care…AT ALL. They don’t do their homework, they don’t study, no form of behavior discipline seems to alter them and they are simply not interested. I tried making my lessons ‘out of the box’ and interesting but there is such a lack of responsibility and discipline that it is near impossible. There was a simple rule – no playing volleyball and baseball during the week on finals, and I think all but one kid broke that rule. And thought it was funny when they failed, or near failed their finals. Movie and I conducted a special meeting with the parents of class 6 and 7 and it was quite clear where they got their attention spans and motivation. Even discussing the fact that none of these kids are anywhere NEAR ready to go to high school, and they wont be if they continue behaving like this, the parents were all late, talking amongst themselves and really didn’t care one iota what jibberish was coming out of my mouth and filling the air around them. It was simply noises I think. We asked them to show a faint interest in their children’s education and encourage them to study at the least…but sadly I don’t think anyone really took much into real thought. So it goes though I guess.

The other classes have been going well and the weeks seem to fly by. Our garden is fully grown at this point and stealing is a regular problem. All of the people who wouldn’t help when I asked now feel it is their liberty to come and take all of the children’s, and my and JunJun’s hard work whenever they please – well at night when people can’t see them. It is very rare that we get to eat much from the garden and that is a bit of a frustration. Bit might be an understatement. No, it is. A big one. We just started our second round of seedlings though, and before we put them in the ground we are going to build a large fence with a netting around it – and then put a locking door in the entrance so people can’t enter without the key. Hopefully that may solve some problems. The amount of truth that can be found here is quite disheartening and unfortunate at times; however, to a coin there are always two sides and the amount of love and caring is at times overwhelming and creates the median. For every stolen cucumber or petty fib there is always a caring word or generous showing to put a smile back on my face. You learn to take the good with the not so good I suppose, and be thankful that you can end every day with something to smile about.

Here are some random happening that most likely would have made my blog – but since the time has passed aren’t really worth the full re-count.
- I did a face plant running…twice…and looked like a 5 year old that fell of a bike learning to ride for about a week. I fell once, got scraped up bad and then two days after tried to attempt a more successful run – however, face planted and reopened the gash in my hand a considerable amount. Needless to say I didn’t quite attempt running for a few more days.

- I cut myself making copra pretty bad and though I might need stitches – but butterfly band-aids did the trick and I am good to go. (Bad week for cuts! But…I’m a pro at cleaning them now.)

- Liza came out for a visit with her cousin from America and we had a nice fun weekend/holiday week in Arno. Taught them so fun ‘Marshallese’ type things and was harassed for the extent to which I have turned into a Marshallese person.

- Danielle also came for a weekend visit and we too had lots of fun. We did a whole lot of…well…nothing… and it was great. After the weeks you can have here, simply relaxing with someone that speaks English and doing nothing can be great.

- My Kindergarten class is still the best thing in the world and ceases to crack me up. Every day is a new pose when I walk in the door and they sing like the worst/best and funniest American Idol try out you can imagine, starting every class. I can face plant, be short two teachers and have all my cucumbers/tomatoes stolen in the same day and they will still make me smile. For our assembly they are all dressing up as ducks and singing 5 little ducks…it’s going to be phenomenal!

- Keith…you win the care package contest…with not only ingredients to make eggless cookie dough…but ACTUAL (3 month old/in the mail) cookie dough straight from Pillsbury. Hahaha disgustingly fantastic.

Ok – that’s all for now – pretty non-detailed summary – yet it still managed to be long. I have to work on the whole concise writing thing…not very good at it now.

Hope all is well in the states and I look forward to talking to people soon on my trip into Majuro over Spring Break. Take care.

xoxo
Taylor