July 5, 2008

English Language Ends!!!
Not the language itself, of course. Only the classes I was teaching in English as a second language. We wrapped it up a week ago, in fact, but I had such a backlog of other work that I've had no time to write to my friends until now. The general feeling among those of us who taught was that we'd had a positive effect, and generally made better than fair progress for such a short time exposure. Most of us ended up using pretty similar techniques and lessons, some shared as we compared notes and others just arrived at independently. In any case, the student/teachers were all very appreciative, and in the Marshallese way, embarrassed us with gifts and flattery. My class requested that I bring Karen with me for the last day, so they could meet her. As transparent as that should have been, I was entirely unprepared for the party they threw for us at lunch time. They brought in some food, and shared it around, so we were sitting in the classroom when they gathered up by the door, produced a ukelele, and broke into a beautiful harmonic island song. It progressed from there to each class member coming up and presenting one of us with a piece of island handicraft. We were loaded up with necklaces, carvings, earrings and a wut (woven flower and shell headdress) for Karen, and a model canoe for me (to insure that we could return in spirit to the island). Then they started to dance, pulled us out of our chairs, and took turns dancing with us. They made little speeches of appreciation. They made me sing a song for them. They made us want to cry. They don't have a lot of disposable income, so the gifts were of special value.
Following that, we felt that we instructors would have taught the course for free, if we didn't need to work to eat. None the less, we'd been promised $1900 for the month, and we'd all budgeted for that. The program administrator invited all the instructors to a local restaurant for a "debrief", to hand in lesson plans and discuss ways to improve this program in particular and the education system in general. As we wrapped up the discussion, the administrator excused herself to go to another meeting and left a secretary to distribute pay. It turned out to be packets of cash. $1600 each. Hmmm. Some of our number were instantly suspicious of the disappearance of the administrator. Questions were raised with the secretary. She promised to raise the issue with the Minister of Education when he returned from an off island trip. Today we went to the second scheduled appointment at which we were told we'd be paid out. The secretary had gone to a picnic. Hmmm. Can't pin this on the govt running out of funds (which it is) because this program was funded by an NGO, and ran under budget because we all were VERY careful (read; stingy) with materials. The NGO reps are in town now. The ministry surely doesn't want us to raise a stink, so I remain optimistic that it's just typical sloth and chaos that's running true to form. We left a thinly veiled threat taped to the secretary's door. We shall see.
Anyway, the end of classes coincided with the arrival of boxes of parts I needed to help replace most of the rigging on Ursa Minor, so Brian and I have spent many a productive hour on his boat, and it is now near completion. Evenings I've been going out to the industrial end of the atoll, where Warick and Amanda have managed to have a crane lift their yacht, Wiikirri, out of the water. They put her on the reef for a half a day up in Rongelap atoll, and limped back here with the bilge pumps working hard while they sailed slowly and carefully to keep the damaged rudder from tearing the bottom out of the hull. They never even told us on the radio that they had damage, so we weren't even prepped to go help them if they were going down. I think that may be carrying independence a bit too far. But with the yacht blocked up in the PII parking lot, we've been able to seal up and reinforce all the damaged areas, and within a few days she should be ready to float again. We're all relieved that it came out this well.
Matt and Judy, and their grandson Tyler didn't fare as well when they put the yacht Elsewhere on the reef at the south pass to Aur atoll 2 weeks ago. A fast outgoing current pushed them onto a coral outcrop, which damaged the steering on the first strike. With no control, she washed up onto the main reef. Fortunately a large motor vessel (belonging to a multi millionaire Russian media mogul) was in the lagoon, and hearing their mayday call, sent a big dinghy to take them off. Unfortunately, Elsewhere was so high and dry on the coral, with a falling tide and breaking surf, that they could never pull her free, and she soon broke and flooded. Judy and Matt salvaged their inflatable dinghy, two bags of clothes, and the laptop. All else was lost, and today a big tide washed the hull over the reef where it sank in hundreds of feet of water. They transferred to an inter island freight ship, and returned to Majuro via Wotje Atoll. They all retained relatively good spirits, considering, and Tyler learned a good bit about remote atoll living in the few days at Wotje. They are now staying on one of the boats here in the mooring field, and Karen and I plan to take them to Enemmanett on Wednesday for a final snorkel trip before they fly back to California on Saturday. A sad ending for Elsewhere, but at least they have a house, and were partly insured for the boat. These two reef incidents are just more evidence to us that a multihull is the way to go for a cruising boat in these climates. Our boat was far easier to get off the reef than a deep keeled monohull, and even if it had been holed, would never have sunk. It's also less likely to get stranded, because it floats in a lot less water, too. We're still confident that we chose fairly well in what we built.
And speaking of multihulls, the next job on my agenda is a series of repairs to a 45 foot catamaran. It's an ex-charter fleet vessel, owned by a German man and his Taiwanese wife, who are taking an extended break from running their English language school in Taipei. The years and some hard miles are showing on their vessel, so I'll spend a few weeks re-sealing hatches and re-mounting hardware. At the same time I'll be taking several hours a day to work on the list to have Sequester ready for a 300 mile run North to Ailuk Atoll in September. That is where the traditional Pacific proa canoes are still used for virtually all transport and fishing inside the lagoon, and where many of us hope to find the skills and knowlege needed to reintroduce these fast, simple and economical vessels to the other atolls. With fuel rising to near $10 a gallon in those outer islands, nobody gathering copra (dried coconut meat) for a living will be running an outboard motor much any more. Meanwhile, I keep watching the dozen or so enormous fish transport ships that rotate through the Majuro Lagoon, taking the catch from the seiners and longliners here back to Japan, China, and the USA. I'm wondering how much longer they can keep following procedures they adopted to take advantage of the cheap fossil fuel of the last 60 years. They are built such that they must have electricity available all the time. At times they need a great deal of it to run their fish packing equipment, so the generators are huge. A huge diesel generator will soon fail if it's run for hours each night with low load, making the engine run too cool. So when loading ends for the night they turn on deck lights so powerful and numerous that the lagoon is lit up for a mile or so. When does it pay to install a second, small generator so they don't have to burn 200 gallons of fuel a night running lights? Or will it require legislation to force them to do what's best for them in the long run rather than staying with the short view? An interesting little piece of the fuel/carbon issue. So, there remain plenty of bright spots in the daily grind of making a living here in one of the junkyards of the Pacific. There's even a move on now to clean up a lot of the dead ships and cars, since scrap iron is pretty valuable now. It's interesting watching this little economy trying to adapt to the seismic shift in the world of commerce being driven by the double edged energy crisis. They can't do it without outside help. Let's see just how important this place is to which of the big nations! More soon from the edge of the known world. Ted