September 28, 2008

Atoll Camping
I said not long ago that once people are warm and fed, they seek entertainment. That applies to me as much as anyone, and I would add that one of the great differences among people is what entertains them. A good story, well told, will capture almost anyone's attention. Add the sound effects and visuals of theater or film, and even a lesser story will draw a crowd. But among those of us who grew up surrounded by the high tech entertainment of continuous music and theater at the touch of a switch, there are quite a few who have become jaded with "being entertained". There's an element of human nature that requires involvement, participation, to feel satisfied. Some fill that need with their community, or their jobs, or families. For others, I think that need to take part is a driving force that propels us to take to the sea and travel to the least familiar places on the planet. Being a tourist, flying in for a look around, doesn't entertain us enough. We take the house with us, so we can stay longer, and participate in the places. That was what really made the picnic at Tempo's island fun; we were a part of it, not just observers.
We were part of the excuse Tempo found for moving the family up the atoll to set up house for a couple of days. He was looking for a reason, and we provided it. We made it a bit easier by transporting a lot of the gear (cooking pots, potable water, and a couple of tarps) and people, and spiced that up by giving them a chance to experience a little sailing on the relatively high tech yachts of the modern world. But it was also a chance for the villagers to demonstrate their abilities in providing all their needs from a tiny coral island and a little piece of the sea. They respond to us because we want to not just watch them do things, but get our hands in it. I learned how to make pieces of fairly strong string by simply stripping the outer covering from a palm frond. Cooking is getting easier as we find out how much you don't really have to prepare things before you drop them on a pile of smoldering coconut husks. Fingers actually work quite well for eating most foods, and for liquids, they can be poured from a half coconut shell, or sucked through a straw made from the hollow stem of a local weed. The simple expedient of laying palm fronds on the sand and coral rubble makes it much more comfortable to sit or lay down, and keeps you from being covered with a layer of sand when you get up. Karen started to learn decorative weaving a few months ago, but here she's learned to make plates, mats and utility baskets in a few minutes from palm fronds. When I taught the course in English for Marshallese teachers, one of the books we found at the Ministry of Education was "Micronesia; a guide through the centuries". It's a history of the region compiled by scholars from the Pacific islands, and is a real eye opener about the effect of blending Euro-American culture with that of the Polynesians and Melanesians. As we put together the camp site on Friday, I recalled that the first contacts between the two worlds were made by whalers and traders looking for a supply and repair stop on the long passage from the American coast to the Far East. For a long time, the premier trade item the islanders wanted was metal implements. It turned out to be a huge price they paid for steel, as the contact followed the pattern of European intercourse with America; the indiginous people died in droves of the diseases that had evolved among the herdsmen and farmers of Eurasia. But watching the modern Marshallese work, its plain why they wanted metal knives. A big, razor sharp knife seems like an extension of the arm of almost any islander we've visited in the Pacific. Cutting and trimming palm fronds, nuts, pandanus, breadfruit, fish.....all of these are a hundred times easier with a machete than they would have been with a stone knife. Fishing got a lot easier with the advent of barbed steel hooks and long, thin string. Hunting of octopus and lobster is a lot easier with a metal tipped pole spear than with a fire hardened stick. Since the dive mask and fins became available, the hunting grounds have opened up by a factor of ten. And the introduction of battery powered light, both room lighting and flashlights, has extended the usable day. Now that the survivors of the first cultural contact have all acquired immunity to our common diseases, and subsistence is easier than it was 300 years ago, the population is expanding too fast. Even on these remote atolls the pressure on the environment is starting to show. Which explains why there is such a high emigration rate from the Marshalls overall, and from the outer atolls in particular. During the dry season especially, it becomes apparent that not all of them can stay, and birth control hasn't gained much popularity here. We found that there's a large concentration of Marshallese near Fort Smith, Arkansas. The other day I visited the school principal, and among other things he showed me his SSB radio. A couple of nights a week he talks to the group in Arkansas on 8.145 KHz. It makes it a lot easier to move 6000 miles away if a fairly inexpensive radio means you can still talk to home. How they chose Arkansas, as far from the ocean as you can get, must be an interesting little story. I'll have to ask about that. There's always more to learn. Ted