On the health thing...

I recently watched Michael Moore's Sicko...
and so I've been thinking a lot about the health care system in the US, and outside of it, about propaganda, and about right and wrong, and about the whole general pool of things related to and about movie making, documentaries, journalism, and mostly though, our health.
I have finally determined that even though I don't always agree with the way that michael moore conducts his business, mainly because I'm not particualrly a fan of Hammurabi and so the eye for an eye system of combating angry white men with an angry white man ont he other side of the fence seems counterproductive (though usually hilarious), and even though I don't think the movie portrays all sides fairly because there are instances when the insurance companies do something good, I refuse to believe that they're the incarnation of greed, nor are the universal health care systems of other countries perfect by any means...
it all comes down to some simple truths, that may be painful, but they're true:

First: The health care system in the US is based on profit, which is, well... lets face it... EXTREMELY STUPID.... the main concern of the agencies in charge of making health care available to everyone should be MAKING HEALTH CARE AVAILABLE... not profit... that is just plain logic.
Secondly: Becuase of this primary focus on profit, many many people get screwed out of needed health care and coverage... health care is already easily available to those who can help pay for it, the whole point of insurance is to make it available to those who can't.. but when health insurance is only available ot the wealthy or the healthy, well... then who the EFF are they covering?
Third: I don't have health insurance in the US... and I never have... and I probably never will.
Why? Because I have dual citizenship with a "third world country" where we are "starving for development" and where I can go and get all the medical attention I need, for very little money, and excellent care. where i can go to docotrs that are primarily concerned with my health and not with the money that they will get out of it. where every time i go to the eye doctor, because its so infrequent, as i have to travel halfway around the world, he give me total care on the house. where when you get sick at home and you call the health services, you have immediate medical house call at any time of day or night.
When I was in college I was mildly ill, very mildly... but the student health services had no idea what was wrong with me and what was causing the mild stomach pain I had...
So the Dean said I had to go to the hospital. I refused adamantly, saying I had no health insurance and would not go. He said the College would cover the costs... my health came first (hint hint ... maybe the attitude health insurance companies should adopt?). So I went, they stuck me with an IV, which to this Day I don't know why... I wasn't in need of nutrition, I was eating fine. They made me wait for a long itme, they left me alone for hours in a bed, they took some blood and left me alone for many more hours (and the problem with universalized health care is the waiting time and the lack of personal attention???)... and then they said there was nothing wrong with me, I should take some aspring, take a nap and I'd feel better... thank you, have a nice day.
then they kicked me out, and I had to drowsily call the college to pick me up... that was no concern of theirs. And I was a paying csutomer... well, my college was.
the bill? Close to $4,000. I took up precious time, space, and resources in teh 10 minutes I was attended to in those 8 hours, and they cost $4,000.....
I didn't pay it, my college did, but still... EFFING RIDICULOUS.
And now, in the Marshall Islands, while I may not be as confident of my medical care here as I owuld be in South America, where there are amazingly qualified, US trained doctors...
Any person in this country can get anything from a checkup to serious surgry for FIVE american dollars, any foreigner can get the same for SEVENTEEN american dollars, and medicine is somewhere between free and affordable. So its pretty damn close to universal health care.
BUT, the most shocking thing about it is that WE'RE paying for it!
Instead of having a system in the US that would benefit everyone by using our tax dollars to create a socialized health care system, we are using our tax dollars to fund the RMI health care system. Not that I think that the money to the RMI should stop (although most times I do since its being radically misused) but the reality is that our tax dollars are paying for other peopels health and letting us die...
and that simply makes no sense.

The reality is simple:
having certain institiutions that are socialized does not totally remove the option of privitized businesses, and it is not the same as totall socialism.
We already have socialised establishements in the US: where we get our books, transportation, mail, and EDUCATION! ar ethey with probelms, of course, will a socialized health care ystem have problems like long waits and other issues? YES!, but will people be left homeless because of medical debt, without treatment, without care, or without required medicines because they are not rich hoity toitys.... no.

Let's face it.
Life is temporary, and I would rahter go out in the end having lived a full healthy life, than swimming in a pool of profit off the lives of other people that is not going to go with me whether its to an afterlife or to nothingness.

I love America.
I think its sad that as long as things continue how they are, when it comes to my health, I will always leave America and get treated like a human being somewhere else.

Come on America, step it up.

Where in the World?

I failed to put up all the pictures I promised... mainly because I put them up on facebook.
And that took like 2 hours. I think I might later, if I get motivated. I'll start with an update though, since I havn't done that in a while. Politics, religion, and the Pacific, will wait for a bit.

I'm still in Majuro. I'll be in Majuro for another 4 months. That should seem like a very short amount of time, especially after looking back and realizing that I have been floating about the Pacific on this ridiculously small and neglected piece of humanity for 18 months and 3 days.
Yet, right now it feels infinately long. I guess you've infered at this point that I am probably nto doing so hot. That would be true.
If I am to be truly honest, I barely feel like waking up in the morning every single day. By barely, I mean I don't. Its an odd feeling to open your eyes in teh morning and to be disappointed. That sounds odd maybe. It's not suicidal, I'm not disappointed or disillusioned by waking up at all... just by waking up here, again, and again, and again.

I think the worst part of this rather deep mote of depression is that I can objectively see everything that I love and care about int his place. I think it might be exactly that that is making it worse. Now, before you go on to think that this is some sentimental and overdramatic early reaction to my having to leave, let me clarify.
I think I've hit reality and sobered up, I've gotten over the euphoria of island beauty and people I'm in love with, I've gotten over the hump of cultural discomfort and extremem negativity over issues that don't really matter, and now I should be in the comfortable place of acceptance and enjoyment of my last few weeks. But I can't be there.
I can't be there because I have to be a teacher to students that are too close to my age and that I sympathize with a lot more than with the administration of the school I work for. While I may be totally comfortable with having to yell at them fo things they should nto be doing, I feel stupid and useless being the agent of petty meaningless rules and archaic conservative usless systems I don't believe in. I feel pressured each day to succumb to this authority, without ever questioning because I am here to serve, but feeling unable and unwilling to do so.
I believe that respecting authority is important, but that should never mean that it should not be questioned, challenged, and sometimes, overturned.
I hate my days because I have to pretedn like I care to be part of the system, when I would choose to dismantle many parts of it overnight if I could.
I hate going to work every single day and pretending to be someone I'm not, I hate not being able to really get to know Marshallese people or have tem know me becasue every day in and outside of school I can never be myself. I hate having to pretend I'm the Catholic I maybe would like to be, but am not yet. I hate having to pretend I'm the person they want me to be or at least I'm told I'm wanted to be, but I'm not.
This is especially hard when adult women will nto speak to me seriously or for a long time because men and women are not friends, they are only intimate or not involved, when adult men are too busy or simply uninterested in another foreigner to deal with, leaving, the only available people left to share genuine thoughts and meaningful conversations with the very kids you have to yell at for things you don't even understand or care about or think are ridiculous and unfair.

I'm an adult, I understand rules, I understand why they exist and why they should be followed. It isn't like I don't understnad those things. But, rules feel oppressive if they aren't convincingly necessary, or if you on a more deep and core level stand against them.

I want to be here for 4 more months because I have many people that I love, though few I really know as well as I could or should because that chance is not available to me being part of JVI and being part of Assumption. I want to be here because I lvoe drinking coconuts, I love talking to my kids, I love running around with Small Island children when I'm not too tired, I love walking on coral, I love Bata's homily's, I love Marshallese singing, I love the half performed dances, I love the Good Night's in the middle of the afternoon, I love the lack of chalk, I love Pablo and Florence, and Sr. Monika, and all teh otehr sisters, I love bubsi the dog, I love going for walks to payless, I love power outages, I love sashimi for free, I love the sunsets, I love peopel who are into things liek Wutmi and YTYIH, I love the youth group when they're doing well, I love the awkward parish events, I love not knowing what to do on saturday nights, I love majuro, I even love the headaches and the toothaches and the waiting and the frustration and the loneliness and the joyfulness and the ukelele and the rice and BBQ chicken all day.

I love it.
But I cannot enjoy it because I cannot be me, and I'm pretty sick of that.

I do strongly believe that Christ and many of the other world's faiths have called us to die to self. But, I believe that that is fighting out own selfishness, dedicating our time to others, and sacrificing of ourselves for the greater good.
But not giving up our person for meaningless and petty things, not being unable to enjoy or be true to ourselves.

I love a lot of things about Marshallese culture, but it is the general attitude of submission at all times, the suffocating fear and the powerlessness that is promoted by the culture that stops people from standing against things that are endangering or destroying their world, the blind and unquestioning bow to authority that is not deserved that depresses me. And me having to be yet another example of not questioning or actively fighting what is unfair or unnecessary, me trying to promote and be an example of that powerlessness sends me hurtling down into a darkness that makes me count the days until I can leave, when all I want to do is enjoy being here, which depresses me even more.

So tommorow, I will force myself out of bed again, and be an example I loathe, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I will find a way to enjoy what I love.