It’s 7:30am.  I’m awake.  I didn’t need the alarm today.  I didn’t need the alarm yesterday.  I haven’t needed the alarm in a long time.  It’s easy to get up at 7:30am when you sleep for ten hours every night.  Instant oatmeal for breakfast – yeah, that sounds good.  And instant coffee – always a coffee.  Soon it will be time for school.  I hope the students listen today.

I hear people outside talking about me.  I don’t understand everything they’re saying – in fact, I understand very little of what they’re saying…but I know it’s about me.  Seems like they’re always talking about me.  It was novel at first.  And understandable.  I was the new émigré, and an interesting topic for discussion no doubt.  But after eight months?  Come on, enough is enough – let me just be another face in the community.  I don’t want to stand out anymore. 

Time for school.  I have finally found the semblance of an effective teaching plan and routine.  However, I am the student of trial and error experiences more than I am the teacher of concrete and flowing ideas and concepts.  Despite people’s reactions, I am nothing special – I just come to do my inexperienced best at teaching English to elementary school children.  Ultimately, I will not single-handedly save the children’s futures and raze the plagues of inadequate education.  I may take a step in that direction, but it’s a long term goal that needs commitment from the community, other teachers, and the Ministry of Education.

My one-minute commute to school commences amidst the aromas of cooking pancakes and rice, mixed with the smoky smell of burning coconut husks.  People are coming and going down the only dirt road, preparing for what may result in a day of copra making and general chores.  But no matter what work may be done today, the ambiance will be dominated by the central theme of outer island life here in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI):  food.  Mõňā (mung-i) is easily the most discussed topic (even more so than me!) and – literally – the life blood of the community.

I finally reach the school – the only area not among the sanctuary of coconut trees.  There is even a makeshift baseball field, albeit a small one.  I turn the key to open the rusty lock on my classroom door, and the eager children (most of whom are not even in my class the first period) rush through the open door like water breeching a levee.  I open the windows, write the date on the board, ring the bell, and thus begins another day.

I am not sure exactly why I decided to come to the RMI.  Perhaps Sartre was right:  we are never really sure why we make the decisions we do, but only create a post-decision narrative, or story.  In either case, I was unsatisfied with my job in Canada, I wanted to live abroad for a while, I wanted to be in a warm climate, I didn’t want to (rather, couldn’t) spend a lot of money while abroad, and I wanted to visit somewhere esoteric.  But the RMI is one of dozens of such places, so why here?  Perhaps it was a chance click of the mouse – a click that led me to the World Teach website and opened my eyes to the RMI program.  Alas, a perfect opportunity.  I applied.  I was accepted.  I had a plan - albeit a haphazard one – for the next year.

What to expect?  Coconut trees, pristine beaches, brilliant turquoise and blue waters, amazing weather all year long – your typical archetypical tropical climate.  And I have not been disappointed.  There is a factor – the most significant factor – that I neglected to include:  the culture.  I’ve been immersed in other cultures before, I thought, so this transition won’t be difficult at all.  So I didn’t give it a second thought.  However, my experiences in Western Europe are a far cry from a long-term cultural immersion on an outer island with no electricity or running water.  Even the orientation during my first month in the RMI didn’t prepare me for such a different experience.  Orientation provided me with some basic language and teaching instruction, as well as some cultural tidbits.  If the year keeps up like this, I thought, this is going to be every bit of the cakewalk I imagined it would be.  But cakewalk it was not. 

During my first week of orientation a former volunteer described life in the RMI as being similar to “being on heroin – incredible highs and really bad lows”.  A good analogy (not to the experience of being on heroin, but of living in the RMI!).  During my correspondence with other volunteers one friend wrote me saying she was “on a rollercoaster of emotions”.  Another good metaphor.  My initial reaction to seeing where I would be living for nearly a year:  incredible low.  Playing volleyball and basketball with people in the community:  incredible high.  Frustration with my teaching abilities and my students’ behaviour:  incredible low.  Learning how to husk coconuts and cook local foods:  incredible high.  And so on.

The most difficult aspect of living here has not been the language, the teaching, the culture, the food, or the lack of technology.  Undoubtedly it has been my lack of family, friends (from back home), and a social life – things I now quite clearly realize I took for granted.  No electricity, no plumbing, language difficulties – one adapts.  No family, no friends – that’s a lot more difficult.  On the other hand, I have made friends here, with other volunteers and with Marshallese people.  I will do my best to keep in touch with these people down the road.

Throughout my year here I have been receiving letters from people back home and from other volunteers.  These letters form two distinct streams of conversation.  The other volunteers already know and can usually relate to the things I’m experiencing, whereas people from home have no idea – and I’m not sure I can adequately describe life here to them.  Maybe my communications have been saying things I did not intend them to say, since I frequently receive questions and remarks like, “Are you happy there?”, “Are you sure this was a good idea?”, and “Just three more months to get through!”.  The latter remark sounds as though this were a prison sentence that is to be endured and not enjoyed.  In response to these types of inquires, I usually write that this is an experience I wouldn’t trade for anything.  It doesn’t matter whether I enjoyed it or not because it has opened my eyes to so many things – things that are beyond and more important than personal comfort.  Things like traditional lifestyles, life without modern conveniences, the problems faced by developing countries, the challenge of teaching, the cultural-political relationships between the RMI and the US and the RMI and Asia, and so much more.  It is all a learning experience – one I was not expecting, but one for which I am grateful.

Before arriving in the RMI, and even at the beginning of my time here, I remember thinking, “A year…what’s a year?  That’s nothing.”  How quickly the notion of ‘a year’ took on an entirely new significance.  A year of eating rice, pancakes, donuts, and canned meat; a year of these impossible students; a year of isolation.  This isn’t a year I’m dealing with, but an eternity.  At least, those were my thoughts at the beginning of my time on outer island of Arno – certainly the most difficulty in the adjustment phase.  Soon afterwards I stopped counting the days and started making the best of my experience.  Too often I’ve been guilty of a “the grass is greener…” mentality, by constantly thinking about there I’ll go and what I’ll be doing in the future – that thinking is one of the things that drove me here is the first place.  Is the world passing me by while I am stuck in time on this remote atoll?  (Indeed it feels like time has stopped here – neither the people nor the weather give any impression of change).  As I receive mail from home about all the changes taking place, I can’t help but wonder.  Yet, it is nice to escape the bombardment of news and information that invades the lives of North Americans.  It is nice to be in a place that feels so disparate from any other place on earth.  It is nice to not worry about what a friend of mine refers to as “the world” – meaning anywhere outside of the RMI, and also implying that the RMI is not part of the world.  

Before coming to the RMI I was told by a former volunteer that “you can put as much or as little into the experience as you want.”  This has rung true on every level, including teaching, the host family arrangement, cultural inclusion, and relationships with other volunteers and Marshallese people.  As the cliché goes, you get out of it what you put into it.  The year begins as a tabula rasa; the questions are, How are you going to create your experience?  Will it be minimal effort teaching?, or will you put more that expected into it by doing extracurricular activities and community involvement?  I’d like to think that my time in the RMI has been richly coloured by my integration and involvement in a unique and wonderful culture in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  It has been, in a word, unforgettable.

Kommol Tata, by Katherine Du Vent

Katherine is the mother of WorldTeach Marshall Islands volunteer Anna Du Vent.

My daughter the adventurer, my daughter the teacher, my daughter the volunteer…what has all of this meant in a mother’s view of the growth and development of her daughter?  When she left for the Marshall Islands last July, I knew I was saying good-bye to one person and would one day say hello to a new individual.  The change began in late September when her letters dwelt less on the difficult of adjusting and more on the wonder of the people in her life.  She was beginning to see the beauty of being accepted as a member of a community.  She was going beyond the pleasure and security of interacting with the children of her community and spending time with the parents of these children.  She was not only learning a new language but also a new way of communicating emotion.  This is culture…a way of feeling and expressing feelings.

She wrote of the needs, both physical and emotional, of her students and how their parents were reaching out to deal with these needs.  Yes, in some ways Marshallese parents did things differently from American parents, but she saw the practicality of such simple things as letting a crying child, who is in no immediate danger, just deal with the situation themselves.  She also wrote of the apparent lack of involvement in school related activities the parents displayed.  Yet she understood how some of these activities might seem foreign to these parents and how English, for all its usefulness, is a double-edged sword that will benefit the children and take them away from their parents the life into which they were born.  When I asked her what she enjoyed the most, she said she could not answer such a question because it was the little things, the almost indescribable moments that occur throughout the day.  Yes, she admitted to feeling foreign to the culture, and not having other with which to discuss her feelings was at times frustrating, but the indiscernible reality of being accepted was what made her yearn to return to her island after a week on Majuro at Christmas.

In late January, I decided to venture out to see for myself what all the hype was about.  After my plane landed on the grass runway, I was greeted by about fifty children, my daughter’s host mother, the mayor, the chief of police, and many others I would come to know over my two week stay.  Draped in beautiful flowers, I began the short walk through the jungle and into my daughter’s world.  The village was like a state park campground, although the tents and trailers were replaced by what we would describe as plywood and concrete makeshift homes.  But then it began, that feeling of total acceptance, “Takwa” to all we passed.  A few words here and there, to and from my daughter, invitations to take a coconut or at least take a pandanus bulb to suck the juices and relieve our thirst.

Upon arrival at the home of my daughter, we assured our hosts that I wanted no special meals and was there to visit and help out if I was needed.  I learned this meant an adequate diet of rice, breadfruit, coconut, bearo (in many forms), tea, and fish.  I never went hungry, although many on the island were already down to one or two meals a day.  Quietly all were awaiting the supply ship with dietary supplements of rice, flour, and sugar.  I found it easy to join the family, either in the cook house or just outside at the picnic table.  Broken English, hand motions, facial expressions, and my very broken Marshallese “enno, emman” helped to make all feel at ease.

My days were spent as an observer.  I watched my daughter interact with the children, the adults, and her host family.  I watched the relaxed way they all had with each other, the smiles, the joking, the moments of serious concern, and I was happy as a parents to see my child make it as an adult, as an observer, and as a teacher in her community.

As for myself, I filled my days helping at the school with a remedial English class of year five students, visiting the reverend’s home every two or three days, walking about the village, and visiting with the craft guild.  As a quilter and sewer, crafts are my passion and here was an organized group of women ranging in age from their late teens to late fifties, all working to preserve traditions and help their families economically.  While their pre-school age children played about them, the women worked to produce a wide range of weavings, which were mostly sold in the capital.  Women anywhere love to show what they are doing and appreciate interest.  These women taught me and in exchange, I taught some macramé and log cabin quilting on the hand crank sewing machine of my daughter’s host mother.

However, the best was yet to come.  My fifty-sixth birthday was to take place while on Ujae.  My birthday began somewhat quietly with an oversized card bearing the signatures of so many.  After school, there were shell presentations by at least 56 students.  I weighed these later, thinking of shipping charges; there were twenty pounds of beauty.  But wait, the night was young.  The craft women planned a surprise dinner and entertainment.  The fishermen found me a coconut crab and the banquet began.  Ah, but now an emergency call….the reverend, who had recently broken his foot, the adult English class, and others I had come to know were gathered at Jericho’s and wanted to sing a few songs in my honor and give a few gifts.  That night was magic; we were one family.  When all had settled, I turned to my daughter and said, “How they love you is shown in how they are treating me.”  Her gift to me, I explained, was in letting me see all of this, letting me know that my daughter was valued by those with whom she had chosen to spend part of her life.

Now, so parents of current and future volunteers don’t get the wrong impression that life as a volunteer or visitor is all fun and games….the weather is hot, the cement schools echo, there are cockroaches, baths are by bucket, and the toilet facilities are not like home.  But any discomfort can almost magically vanish with moments that you swear are unworldly.  One day, after an energetic group of students demonstrated beat dancing and singing in their concrete library, I returned home at four, tired and with the beginnings of a headache.  As I walked down the path, I thought if I were home all I would want is a cup of coffee and a chance to sit quietly with my feet up.  Rounding the corner and walking up the steps of the home I shared with my hosts and daughter, I stopped and smiled.  There in the sparse common room, which held only a simple couch, small table, and one chair, stood a steaming mug of coffee.  Alfred, my host, appeared from behind me, smile on his aging face, and said, “Coffee.”  I turned and said from the bottom of my heart, “Kommol tata.”  Yes, as my daughter had said, you can’t describe it; it is the moments, the smiles, the understanding before you do, the laughter when playing cards with someone who does not know your language, or the shared look two adults from totally different worlds give when the two of your observe a child behaving as children do.  I shall never forget my visit.  Yes, my child has changed and I like what I saw, but also I changed and for both changes, I thank the people of the Marshall Islands.  Kommol tata.

I feel that what I am learning the most is how to be alone with myself, with my thoughts, with my experiences. I live on Mejit Island, a single island with no other islands anywhere near it. On outer islands, we only receive mail about once a month and speak with other native English speakers only once a week over the radio. Unlike at home, when analyzing or thinking I have no one to bounce my thoughts, ideas or solutions off of except of course letters but the time it takes to send the letter and receive a reply does not allow quick feedback. Learning how to be within myself, make choices and come up with solutions on my own is definitely one of the more positive lessons I am learning during this experience. I speak of both Marshall Islands related thinking such as teaching ideas and cultural adjustment as well as the thoughts that arise regarding my life before the RMI and after.

The experience of being so isolated and so unto yourself on an island so distant from anything familiar is of course both positive and negative. There are moments when I feel very much alone even though I am quickly learning the language and making fast friends among my new neighbors and family on Mejit. No matter how much we want to become part of the new culture we are now a part of, we can not deny where we come from, what we are used to and what comforts we are used to having at our fingertips. I think it is important to remember this while on this experience. It's okay to feel upset at times, it's okay to miss those at home and to feel that this is much more difficult than anticipated. There are lessons to be learned in those moments, lessons on how to cope with those feelings and bring oneself out of it and I think in the long run, those lessons are life lessons that can be used whether one chooses to be in this type of situation again or goes back to the comforts of home. I am thankful for the opportunity to learn these things and feel that among the many, many things I will take from my year here, this is one of the most positive and important ones.

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I brought the chip from Laura’s camera home with me, and downloaded about 800 photos, and then mailed it back, and after receiving your wonderful email, I too joined Google Picasa (what a great idea hey!) and uploaded a whole lot of photos for her so that she could view them, and let her friends all know they were there too. I also put some family stuff up for her, so that she could stay connected to us all. Her Dad was absolutely thrilled to finally see some shots of her after almost six months of no communication.

I met her host parents' children and had lunch with them one day, and that was hilarious as I spoke no Marshallese and they spoke no English. Thank God Laura has become so fluent!

We shopped for more basic necesseties like a new pillow, a mat to sit on in the classroom for telling stories, sheets, a cooking pot, lots of instant coffee and tinned beans and tuna and soy sauce. Hopefully that will ensure she does not go hungry again like last semester.

On my second-to-last day we hired a car, drove with Laura to the island called Laura, delivered mail along the way, and generally took our time and visited one of the schools there. We never made it out to the island of Eneko as the weather was just too stormy and windy so in fact I only dipped my toes in the ocean one day out of seven.

I also sat in on the two-way radio check at the office with the Field Director, and it made everything so much more real, to hear the kids each checking in and going through their weekly experiences and sharing how they were feeling. It's a very crucial part of their weekly life, I would say. I had to laugh as there is one other Australian girl there, and no one can understand her accent very well, so they kept asking Laura to translate. We could understand her perfectly!

Leaving was hard, and Laura’s host parents who just happened to also be stranded on the mainland after they came in for a funeral came to see me off at the airport, and gave me the most amazing cowrie shell necklace, similar to the one in Ray’s photo, but not as long. I was absolutely certain Customs would take it off me, so I wore it all the way home, and sailed through back here in Australia without a hitch. But they did quarantine all my woven wall hangings and baskets, claiming they had to be fumigated, so I’m still waiting for them!

I posted some beautiful woven bird mobiles back for Francis (the other Australian girl) to her mother in Melbourne, and they made it through without a hitch so thank goodness for that!

The flight back to Guam was pretty amazing and boy did I ever learn my lesson about taking the island hopper instead of the direct flight the following day! It was a marathon day, and included ten takeoffs and touchdowns with FULL security checks at each island, despite the fact that we had endured the same process at every previous stop. By Guam I was heartily sick and tired of the body searches and Homeland Security let me tell you. They take their jobs VERY seriously, but I guess as it’s the only plane for the day that arrives and they feel they have to justify their existence! It took me three full days to get back to my little hometown of Bellingen.

What a trip...I’m so glad I decided to make the effort, and it was wonderful to meet you, albeit a short aquaintance. That Chinese feast we shared was something to remember and I still owe you a meal.