October 25, 2008

A week in Wotje
Karen and I have been taking it pretty easy since we arrived here. We've spent quite a lot of time reading, a bit swimming, and some on what the locals call "jahmbo". Jahmbo is taking a trip or a walk, a ride in a car or a boat, just to have a look around, with no specific purpose. Wotje is big enough, and has enough history that it will take several days of casual walking to see what the place is about.
I had mentioned that one student was concerned about our swimming because he belives there are dangerous sharks in the logoon. We asked, and the mayor assured us the sharks were only small, indicating about the size of his forearm. I finally did see one a couple days ago, as we drifted over a big coral plateau. It was probably a little over a meter long,, weighed about half what I do, and showed no inclination to hang around when we arrived. John Thurston described a similar situation in Kiribati, saying, "Sharks here are food for people. It makes them shy." So we're enjoying the clear water and abundant fish. Also found a sunken boat, probably another war relic, rusting away on the bottom near where we're anchored.
I say "another" war relic because the island is littered with what the Japanese left when the Americans took Wotje from them in WW2. The first things to catch my eye as we wandered into town was the enormous expanse of cement. This must have been a sizeable airfield and naval facility. Looking among the coconut and pandanus trees, we started to see many reinforced concrete structures. The beaches are lined with pillboxes, gun emplacements, and the remains of a small gauge railway that ran the length of the lagoon side of the island. Enormous, rusted storage tanks still stand where they once held fuel and water for the shipping and the technicians and soldiers based here. And then we started to see the airplane engines. There are dozens of big radial engines, with propellors still attached, scattered around the island. Some of the props have the sweeping, twisted shape that could only have happened when the plane was flown into the ground. There are ammunition rounds of every size lying around, and the walls of the bunkers are pocked and holed, evidence of the fierce aerial strafing American pilots delivered in 1944 to take control of this stepping stone to Japan. Here is another place where many, many people had their lives shortened and destroyed by the greed, arrogance and stupidity that led to war. Recent history indicates little progress with the aggression issue since then by the human race as a group. I conclude that the exploding population continues to increase competition for the available resources, and the beat goes on. Until we master birth control, the fighting will continue. If we DO control population density.....maybe the fighting will continue anyway.
We've visited several times now with the mayor of Wotje. Lakjon was born here 57 years ago, but his mother came from Ailuk, so we have common aquaintances and interests there. He is still interested in the Marshallese sailing outriggers, and is encouraging Wotje men to get into them for fun and profit. They recently ran out of fuel for the outboard motors here, and fishing stopped for 2 weeks, until a ship arrived. The diet change may have made an impression. The last ship to arrive brought two outriggers from Ailuk, to a couple of the Ailuk studehnts at the high school. And the mayor sent us over to visit a local man who is nearing completion of an 18 foot tibnol. He had built a couple of them when he was younger, and is now thinking it would be wise to have one again. Wotje is in more ways than one a step between Ailuk and Majuro. They have electricity and cell phones, and sometimes they have an internet connection to the high school. When the Air Marshall Islands planes work, they fly here once a week, but you can't count on that. When the copra ships work, they come in each month, but last year it was half that often. The people of Wotje are learning that trusting the government and the market to deliver food and consumer goods may well leave them starving. We think they're starting to move back toward self reliance.
We had a couple of informative visits with Foster, the principal of the high school. He spent 5 years in California, and came back to the Marshalls with a certification as a welder. After a few years building storage tanks, he had an industrial accident, which left him less able to climb and work on the scaffolding, so he went to the College of the Marshall Islands for some education courses, and returned to Wotje to teach. The Ministry of Education treated him badly enough that he decided to quit, but went to Majuro to clarify to his immediate superior that his treatment was unacceptable. Meaning that after being insulted and blown off by the man in question, he went to the MOE and dragged the man out of his chair, assuring him that when they got out the door he would break his face. Cooler heads intervened, and the next day Foster was amazed to be asked to take over as principal of the North Islands. He's done a remarkable job, with poor support and limited resources. He never seems to lose his temper any more. He keeps trying to head off bad decisions by the MOE, with very limited success there, but his staff and students seem to offer him nearly unanimous respect and support. Looking at the buildings and resources the MOE has contracted for, one is reminded strongly of the book Catch 22. It borders on insanity. Easy to see why so few Marshallese kids go to college, and why so few of those return to their own communities to work.
Yesterday we met Stacy, who is here to teach elementary students English. She's a London girl, one of a few non-Americans supported by the Worldteach program. Two months into her contract she seems to have adapted quite well to the challenge of this utterly different existence. She admits that her posting is made easier than one of the smaller atoll positions because there are two Dartmouth volunteers teaching at the high school, so on Friday evenings she can speak English with them and be entirely understood. Thinking back to my time supervising workers in Puerto Rico, speaking only Spanish, I remember how exhausting that was. We think a lot of Stacy, and all the overseas volunteer teachers out here. Barring a miraculous translation of thousands of school texts into Marshallese, these teachers are the only hope these island have of developing a domestic force of technical workers and academics. We continue to see education as the key to any hope for a long term future. On the whole, a good week in Wotje. Irish Melody is wrapping up their Ailuk stay, and expects to arrive here on Wednesday. We plan to overlap our stay with theirs by a day, so on Thursday (4 days from now) we'll probably head back to Majuro. We have vast numbers of photos and videos, all installed in shows by Karen, so we'll get some DVDs away in the mail soon. Hopefully some of them can be posted on the web for general viewing. We are certainly not in Kansas! Ted