September 23, 2008

Ailuk Capitalism
I've been listening to the news on the HF radio, as the world economic system staggers under the imbalance of vast wealth inequities. For years the powers in the economic sector have told us that only unrestricted opportunity to accumulate material wealth will motivate people to be productive, that government regulation is the enemy of improvement. I never determined whether these experts were deluded, or brazen liars, but I was convinced they weren't right. So, we pretty much opted out of the world economic race, and now we're here, at a remote atoll community on our home made boat, built from cheap plywood, surplus and discarded materials, and our sweat. I've been studying the local economy. It's interesting.
The potential for economic advancement is a bit limited when the most available job is harvesting copra. Copra is dried coconut meat, valued mainly for its oil content. Coconut oil has been rising in value as biofuels become market commodities, and as growing population absorbs more of everything food related. The price to the gatherers is up to about $20 per ton now. It takes a while to open, dry and clean a ton of coconut meat. That process takes place on the many, tiny uninhabited motus along the atoll reef, and the copra is brought back to the village for storage using plywood outrigger canoes driven by sails made from cheap plastic tarps. That keeps the overhead under control, and incidentally provides a proud identity for the villagers of Ailuk. They are among the last people in the Pacific using the native design outriggers for daily working transport, and they are masters at building and sailing them.
Evidently when the Japanese controlled these atolls, in the 1930s and 40s they destroyed the native outrigger canoes, so they could control traffic among the islands. When the American military gained control of the Marshalls, they provided power boats and fuel to get the economy moving. Ailuk had the good fortune to be far enough away from the central bases of Majuro and Kwajelein that they weren't provided with the bounty of military surplus. They had to make a shift to modern materials for their boats, since the big logs traditionally used were all gone after the war. But they retained the skills and knowlege to shape and sail the vessels. And parallel to the way many American teenaged boys identify themselves with their cars, Ailuk men identify themselves with how well they build and sail their "tibnol". A tibnol will take someone fishing, or hunting for food on the outer islands, or can carry the copra that will provide whatever cash income can be made. Besides that, it's just plain fun to tear along the lagoon with the trade wind in the sail and the spray rising in a rooster tail from the stern. watching the reef and islands spool past at 20 miles an hour.
So, these islanders have a life very different from those with a regular supply of manufactured goods. The income from copra won't really feed a family on imported foods, so they have retained their hunter/gatherer/agricultural subsistence economy. Copra money goes for plywood and paint, glue and rope. A recent change has been creeping in, though. Electronics have become cheap enough that even copra gatherers can put together enough to buy a CD player, or a DVD player. And once people are fed and warm, they crave entertainment. We find generators, solar panels, batteries, and a wide array of music and video equipment in every little atoll and village. And now choices must be made. 5 tons of copra will get a DVD player, or enough tarp and string to make a new sail. Since the crabclaw sails they use are incredibly tolerant of holes and stretch, they are pushing them until they are rags and tatters, and spending the cash on entertainment. It has been proposed that we are encouraging this poor choice when we bring them new tarps and help them stitch up new sails, but we figure we owe them something for providing the hospitality of their villages and the experience of their spectacular sailing. We think maybe the market has undervalued their work.
Last year the yachts Watea, Holokai, Irish Melody, Nomad, and Ke Ama visited here, and Jan and Trevor turned Watea into a sail loft, stitching up several new sails from tarps and old sails we had sent from Majuro. The sails made from a canary yellow tarp were so distinctive, and provided so much value for the $45 price, that Karen and I brought two tarps with us when we came up. The tarps we could get are red, and the first was made into a sail yesterday. It went to Paulme River, one of the best builders in the village, and he and his friends spent virtually the whole night hand stitching the edges to the two spars of the crabclaw rig. Not long after dawn we saw his tibnol being set up on the beach. In the subsequent sea trials around the lagoon, Paulme outsailed every other vessel, until he went back to the beach and loaded the whole family. They boarded with a couple of drums and a ukelele, and whatever they wanted to keep dry, they hung up in the rigging. It was quite a sight.....and sound, when they came up the lagoon, singing and yelling. The addition of an extra half ton of people meant that they could no longer outrun the other village boats, but that didn't dampen their spirits much. We're getting a lot of entertainment value out of our money and the 4 hours of machine sewing Karen did yesterday to make the basic shape for them.
Aside from the show, we're getting fed pretty well for doing these little jobs. Yesterday we got fish, chicken, two kinds of breadfruit, rice, and a dozen ni (young drinking coconuts) delivered to Sequester. These folks aren't looking for handouts. The cruisers we talk to all agree, it's difficult to outgive polynesian islanders. When it comes to trading for electronics, many of them can't really conceive of the cash value of CD and DVD players, and ask us to trade one for a few lobsters. Then again. maybe we aren't valuing just right either. A lobster dinner at a restaurant can sure cost as much as a low end CD player. In any case, if we don't do the trade there are no hard feelings, and they continue to make sure we feel welcome. The only real frustration here is that we speak only a few words of Marshallese, and most of the villagers have a similar grasp of English, so there's a lot of sign language and not much philosophical depth in most of our conversations. The school teachers and a couple of the village elders with good English do their best to make up for this, and so far we're pretty pleased to be here. Ted