Island Family

I miss these guys.

I hope they are all ok.

If they answered their phone i would know.... (clears throat)...
I really liked the way Greg could make you laugh without trying, Marcos could sing and play the guitar real well, Tim could relax and go with the flow, Colleen saw fun in everything and smiled all the time, Ellen could simultaneously be strong and vulnerable, and Lincoln could have long, drawn out but really good conversations about philosophy, religion, or innane nothingness... I'd liek to have one of those now... with a side of fries.

Match o matic

William and his mom. She's the cousin of Lusi who teaches at Assumption and that is why we were invited.

The matching outfits are bloody fantastic and the food was orgasmarifically good. It was made in an earth oven, as in cooked in a hole, buried underground. DELISH!

I want to help do it someday.

I also am pretending my first bday was this good, since no one remembers it, especially me, i figure, why not just make a memory?

I wish my first b-day was this fun...

The man on the right is a Senator and the man on the left is a brilliant old Fijian man with an amazing accent that teaches at CMI (College of the Marshall Islands) which is right next door to Assumption Parish and my house and where I am taking Marshallese class Mon, Wed, and Fri from 5-6.

This was at a first birthday party for william. Yes first. In that wooden bowl like contraption is kava. An island narcotic beverage that numbs your body pleasantly then gets you smashed. At least that's what its supposed to do. I drank the damn stuff until I was blue in the face and I didn't feel jack. Luke (The Elementary School Vice-Principal) said it was really weak. Its made from a root and water. The Fijian word for it is Iangona. I remember it 'cuz it sounds like Nalgona, which is big assed girl in spanish.

The Project

This is the high school. Its a work in progress... so its called the project...

it is bata rich's project.

oh that means fr. rich.

everyone calls him bata.

the faculty room is mildly air conditioned.... that is nice.

The Elementary School

Nough said.

The sisters live on the second floor where the balcony is. They are amazing and a great help. They leave at the end of the year forever. I know not what i will do.

Emily's classroom is on the first floor... to the right of the cross.

Haamile Picnic Khelyau!!

Doesn't it look like we're having fun.

I've been to the island of Enemonit twice... once with Em and Greg, adn once with just greg..

both times some of my students were there..

its like a 20 minute boat ride away.
First time we met this guy Kirt at a restaurant Emily Capurso's family took us to. He invited us the next day. thats when this picture was.

I didn't take my camera the second time. But it was greg's loaded host family. His host sister was going to comm. college in Oregon so it was time to say goodbye with a picnic.

Fun Time's at Assumption High

There was a big goodbye for Fr. Tom, the old preist here a while back, who came through again for a visit.

Jaqueline does Kirubas (spelled wrong) dancing, and they had him do it while they played on that matt thing.

It was pretty sweetawsome.

She's a good dancer too.

Ok enough cute already

PUPPIES!!!!!

Love

PUPPIES!!!!!

6 of them. brand new. need I say more?

so amazing makes me wanna cuddle.

I have hit the peak of my outward emotional expression.

Someone hit me.

One Time Babysitter

Thanks to greg's friend... whcih i already forgot the name of because i am an insensitive bastard.. or maybe because i am hitting alzeimers age...

we had a great time in hawai'i! thanks greg's friend!

she was awsome, she took me and greg to great fast food phillipino food.

I wish we could've seen Waikiki and stuff but oh well. Next time Greg's friend... next time.

If we were all like kids...

Most of these kids live in the neighborhood right next to ours called Small Island. They speak little to no English, and many of them do not go to school at all. Though som are on scholarship at Assumption and others go to public school (which is almost like not going to school anyway).

They come over every day, rain or shine to color, to play, to run around. Some of the peopel in the house are tired from teachign all day, especially the Elementary school teachers. But I look forward after spending a day with adolescents to coming home to these raucous and chaotic kids. They are on of the few things here that make me smile everyday.

I am glad they are around.

Flags and ideas

Sometimes I think of life as a bartering system. You pick and choose what you want, but nothing is free... you trade one set of experiences for the loss of a different set.

I have traded grad school, or a job in LA or NY, or being a bum at my parent's house... and many other sets of possibilities for this. I have lost some things, but I have gained others. So I have something others don't and others have what I do not. Such is life.

I wonder if what you can see in the sky every single night is the reason the RMI flag is blue, white and orange?

God of Small Things

My house may get to me most of the time. But the next series of pictures will be reasons I can't complain.

I can't say that I am anything but slightly uncomfortable and mildly inconvenienced.

I am also lucky to be abl to experience the beauty of this place.

I'm in the middle of the pacific for goodness sakes... on an island made of coral... which is alive! Crazy talk. Crazy crazy talk.

The Bat-cave

This is my room. Messy, I know.
Its a bit of a swamp... a cave really.
Chris didn't seem to mind the fact that it floods when it rains... So I have to live with the fact that it floods when it rains.
Thank you Chris.

It's being worked on. Its mostly fixed now... hence the stuff on the floor.

But the first 2 days, I was in moist mosquito paradise...

mmm delish!

Guy's side

On the "Guy's Side" we get the kitchen.

Good because we have a kitchen... and all the food, and everyone hangs out on our side...

See how Greg dilligently cooks and the girls work hard.

We are such busy little bees.

Girls Side 2

On the other side of the room are Emily Kraus' room on the left and Jaqueline's room on the right.

Other Emily lives outside... in the extra bedroom, arguably the "penthouse" since its nice and new, but its locked out from bathrooms and kitchen.

All good.

Girls Side

This is the "girls side." Its everyones but they sleep there.

when we are feeling debaucherous we put a laptop on that little table and we watch a movie.

renting a movie is $2.50.

last night we watched V for Vendetta... a movie i love for the cinematography and the Vivian o r Valerie or whatever the lesbian in the movie's name is story.... generally mediochre movie but good points.

Home

This is our wee litte shack house.

Its on of the oldest buildings on the island and you can tell.

It isn't much but its home. Its not comfortable or nice, or particularly clean (but apparently it is way way way cleaner than last year), but its home.

Its growing on me.
Slowly.

1-800-JVFRIEND

Chris Keeney.

He was in Majuro for the last 2 years and returned after his stint with JVI to be at our orientation. I think he's in NY now... though he doubtfully has a job yet... but he will.

I have replaced him in his leaky and stinky room. And as World Religions teacher for the senior class... BUT I am teaching freshman science, which he never taught.

If you wonder what Chris is like. This is a good picture. Good guy... kinda odd... all around great person to have around. Look him up. Be his friend.

Dork

There's me being stupid and Adam whose in Ecuador for a year with Rostro de Cristo. Great guy, good bridge player.

Yes, we spent much much time playing bridge during orientation.

Ian Pollock would be proud.

Our first night

Our first night they took us to one side of the island... far from wher we live. called Laura... after an american actress. the other side is called Rita... after Rita Heyworth. we drank coconut milk out of the coconut and broke them in half and ate the insides. The sunset was beautiful and it was the perfect setting for the first spirituality night.

The beauty of this place exists in a permanent dichotemy with its ugliness. I guess that is everywhere... but its extreme here sometimes. Reminds me of India and Nepal... but everything does sometimes.

Our little Fam

After we got off the plane the 3 folk we live with who have been here for a year and will leave after a year met us. I hope we get newbies next year so me and emily can play with them too!

There are many issues surrounding the continuation of Majuro as a JVI site though, the Jesuits might leave, but who knows? NO ONE! not yet anyway. Nothing might change or everything might. Its all in the air. Kinda fun and kinda painful.

From left to right: Emily 1, Me, Jaqueline, Greg, and Emily 2. We are not the most creative group and have not been able to come up with another, less semi-insulting, semi-dull way of seperating the 2 emilys that both work in teh elementary school.

The Whole Fam

Here's the whole group for JVI 2006. Plus staff and chris who came back from Majuro, RMI (guess where that is?) and Tim who... oh wait i think he got cut out or took it... but he came back from Punta Gorda, Belize. I'll put a picture of him up later.

I thought I would switch the pictures up a lot. Keep everyone on their toes, thinking, active... its mroe itneresting that way.

Last one for now

I'll do orientation later, I want to go home, but here is me and Emily at the welcome sign. That little pink building is the airport!

Welcome to the next 2 years!

Maryland Beauty

The awful view from my room. Many people said they had never seen the Potomac look so beautiful. The land was amazing. It was a great place to have orientation. Emmaan tata!! (Really Great!)
I also went swimming in it once in my underwear, which i hear may be only a small step less disgusting than swimming in the hudson around manhattan. i feel like the radioactive superpower opportunities just keep coming on this adventure.

Big-O Quarters

I quite enjoyed my little roon at the Loyola Retreat House. It was cozy, and welcoming, though i tore the sheets off the mattress in my sleep a lot and I woke up on the mattress a lot. it was very irritating. there was a toilet behind the door, that was cool. and the shower was down the hall for all the guys. Greg W. initiated Shower Time where we'd shower and. it was fun while ti lasted. Oh air conditioner and obsecene comfort, how I miss thee.

DC

DC was a blast. though it was a lot of walking the a billion and one degree weather with mildly irritated parents and not too much in mind as goals to actually do. back a block and a half from where the washington monument is in the picture is the post office (ben franklin) with the amazing black lady who helped me get my passport, expensively, but in time. since i lost it 2 weeks before i had to fly out.

Preshow

Me and mom and the other family fun in Atlantic City before heading to Washington DC. I am very glad I got to see them.

Iokwe

So. Majuro.
Generally emmaan (good). I wouldn't go so far to say emmaan tata (the best!) but also not Enana (not good) Its well kinda dirty, kinda gross, kinda hot, kinda shabby, kinda poor, kinda small, kinda everything. It will not be comfortable ever, it will never be sweet, or clean, or all too nice. It will never be easy.
I will always be beautiful, fun, full of kids, and drawing, and play fighting, full of laughs and smiles, and a warm community, it will always be wet and sticky, and things will be rust and moldy. It will always be shy yet embracing.

I am obssessive about learning Marshellese.. ntoa big surprise. I am scared of starting to teach next week. But I think it will be ok. We had our first faculty meeting for the high school and we traded classes like baseball cards. it was a bit wierd. I got Senior theology, which i am excited about because tis world religions and i get to do stuff for graduation at the end of the year. and i traded junior religion, which was like semi boring vocational/sacramental stuff for freshman spectrum.
its ok i also didn't know what it was. its general science, ill just do my best to stay a page ahead.

Jaqueline, Emily, and Greg are great. they will be fun to live with. All interesting adn quirky in their own ways.

Ok I'm tired of typing. I'll write to you all by snail mail soon.
I'll also try and do pictures.

Hawai'i in a nutshell

So, I'll write about Big-O (the orientation 2 weeks) when I am settled into Majuro and can put some pictures up and stuff. For now, I will drop a note baout our little Hawaiian layover. One night a few hours, philipino food, mall shopping, bus riding, exhaustion forced passing out, snoring, elbowing, fruit eating, moshi moshi, and an all around good time. to summerize. I am very excited right now, sitting in the airport, waiting for the island hopper. It feels very reminiscent of the aiport internet hours and hours I spent in kolkata aiport. I miss the nepali crowd a dozen times over... and everyone else of course. Its just at this moment i remember andy and his wierd sleeping, molly long and mosquitos, arielle and exploring, tenders being tender, mark and sarah's sillyness, john's lovable bizarre and contemplative nature, michelle and her chilled out ways, nisha and her unspoken adventures and wild comments from left field, suzanna and her hugs, christina and her bad luck, emily and her nose piercing, and all the other people and things that came with the 12 hours in kolkata.
Here its airconditioned, comfortable, and only 2 hours. its not a birght little orange store but a wierd kiosk booth. my desitination is not the identity searching, post violence traumaed himalayan foothills but the isolation of a quater mile wide, 30 mile long island exploited and mutilated by american nuclear testing and crass selfishness.
This time I am accompanied by Ellen's caring nature, Emily's smiles, Lincoln's adventureousness, Greg's hilariousness, Tim's helping hand, Colleen's young and vibrant spirit, and Marcos' funny neck pillow, deep hesitations and hopes, responsibilities, and fears, and a deep sadness to have left the folk i quickly grew to care about before i really got to know any of them. I walk with them in spirit as they do with me.
I am blessed to have been touched, for however long or short, by such amazing people in my life, for however long or short a time.
I do not dwell in my memories and miss the present, i am eternally thankful i have the memories i do, to enjoy at my leisure and treasure forever.
Until next time, this is mike, in the islands, signing off.