The Principal of a Small Private School on an Island

We are living on a small island with no theater, bowling alley, skating rink, mall or public parks. There are those who complain about being bored, but that has yet to be the case for me. When I was first thinking about working as a principal of a small school with but a handful of teachers I thought, how hard can it be? Let’s just say everyday keeps me on my toes and there is never a dull moment!

Last week our seniors worked the concessions for the opening of the new movie, The Sound of Crickets at Night. Yes, I said we don’t have a theater. But we do have a large meeting room at the hotel that can be set up with a projector and screen. Our board president has been making local films for the last few years (the last two have been award winning at several international film festivals) and his new one has just released. So the seniors are taking advantage of the opportunity to fundraise and are selling microwave popcorn and hotdogs at 22 showings over two weekends. So that occupied most of last weekend.

As to my week, I am teaching Algebra 2 and a College Seminar class. I am also my own secretary, counselor, and custodian. Of course there are staff and parent needs to continually. This week I also gave placement tests to two new students and welcomed them to the fold. I am also responsible to write multiple grants so we can keep afloat financially and also improve our school. I was relieved to finish a mid-term report and send it off yesterday for one of my grants

There is both PTA the Board of Directors to write monthly reports to and their meetings to attend. This last Thursday we had a general PTA meeting planned. All parents and staff are expected to participate. We were all ready to go when we heard one of our beloved board members had just passed away. Our power was out and the internet down so we couldn’t really connect with parents to let them know the meeting was cancelled. It was a tough evening, sharing the news and trying to figure out how we’ll move forward without such a vital voice in our community. It turns out that folks here care in ways that are similar to home; we take up a collection and bring food to the family. One difference is that the children often attend school the next day. Robert, the little 2^nd grader wore his father’s flip-flops to class. Evidently this is how the family gives the children a place to be so the adults can tend to the business of grieving and planning a funeral. In the midst of this, school still goes on.

There are folks who constantly call or drop in with invitations for the principal. Sometimes they give me an hour’s notice, sometimes a week or two. There is an expectation that I attend and I try to comply as much as I can. So far this school year I have been invited to opening and closing ceremonies for community college/Taiwanese exchanges, a hearing deficit workshop,  a 3-day diabetes seminar and a high school college fair for the University. The USP Day was how yesterday began.

All of my high school students met and sat outdoors on USP’s beautiful campus grounds. The ceremony started 45 minutes late because the RMI President was invited and they cannot start the ceremony until he either comes or sends his regrets. Once we knew he couldn’t attend, we heard speakers and watched cultural dances. The students were then given tours of the campus, saw the facilities and looked at displays the college students had produced. Meanwhile, the high school teachers and principals were gifted with plates of sandwiches and desserts.

Shortly after returning to the Co-op campus I had visitors. These two women came by to introduce themselves and ask our participation in an upcoming Bob Festival (bob is the Marshallese word for pandanus, a tree that grows on the islands. The islanders eat the fruit and use the leaves for thatched roofs, woven mats, handicrafts and more). They want us to sell raffle tickets and build a Bob Float. The student body officers are excited to participate so we are in. Before we finished our conversation, I had another visitor.

We are getting ready to celebrate Manit (Marshallese culture) in a couple of weeks. My next visitor was looking for my students to help lead some traditional games at the island-wide fest. He announced a meeting for us to attend at 5:30 that (yesterday) evening. I asked the students but they gave me the impression they weren’t going to be able to come, even though I volunteered to pay for their food. Meanwhile, I had students in the library earning community service hours.

Several of you have been very kind to donate books to our high school library. Some of you have even garage sale and/or bargain book sale shopped. We have some lovely reading choices now, thanks to folks like the Chutes, Smiths, Riefs, Jaquishs and Williams! We were able to shelve some of the books but quickly ran out of space. This summer one of my priorities was to have new shelves in the library, just for the high school students. Our maintenance man just finished building two new sets of shelves and the students spent their Friday afternoon happily sorting, alphabetizing and beginning to shelve the books. It was wonderful! They told me they might not have enough shelf space and I told them not to worry, that we can figure out!

Oh, how I underestimated the group of students I volunteered to feed! Five of them showed up for the dinner meeting and were happy to order at my expense (I was thinking 2)! I think the committee didn’t quite know what to think of us all showing up at their planning meeting but the students made me proud. By 7:00 the meeting was wrapped up and we had some idea of how we would fit in to the program.

Now it’s the weekend. Willard is off fishing and the internet is down. I am writing my long overdue blog, doing some school work, walking the dog on the beach, and enjoying some new art supplies. I may get a snorkel in and hopefully there will be fresh fish for dinner!

Our love to you,

Becky and the Cabana Boy

High school students organizing the new high school section with their newly donated books.

My beautiful high school students at the University of the South Pacific for a presentation

Cabana Boy update 9/8/12

I must beg the pardon of those who read our blog for not keeping it up to date but it seems that since returning from our vacation I’ve found one thing after another to occupy my time.

With school resuming the first week of August, Becky has been immersed in running the high school. She has had a need for an algebra teacher for one period a day (first period) and although she had a couple of candidates, neither of them worked out. So, for right now the Cabana Boy is teaching algebra one every morning to 15 students, mostly 9^th graders with a few from the other grades. I’m so not a morning person. One morning I got up, put the water on for coffee, put the beans in the grinder, washed out the French press and when the water boiled I poured it in to the press. Oops, no coffee, still in the grinder. No problem, pour coffee from the grinder into the press. Oops, forgot to grind the beans. Throw out the mess and start over. This teaching stuff puts a crimp in my Cabana Boy duties but I soldier on and Becky is trying to find a permanent math teacher.

I’m still working on my guitar practice and at times it even sounds like something you could recognize as music. Amazon continues to be my friend and is the source for most of our reading, music, and movies.

Fishing has been poor the last few times I’ve been out. The boat I fish with won the yearly President’s Cup and last weekend we represented the Marshall Islands in the “All Micronesia” tournament. We did terrible and after two full days we were lucky to have a Wahoo to take home for dinner. If fact, we had to barrow a small skipjack tuna for the team picture. Very embarrassing.

We still get out to snorkel our reef and, during the past month, we have been to two of the other islands on this atoll and done some snorkeling there.

We continue to enjoy the people here in Majuro. Our house has become a regular stopping place for the neighborhood children. We try to keep fruit on hand for them and it is fun to talk with them about island life.

 Mischief loves the beach and water. When we take her out she doesn’t want to come back in and we usually have to leave her and sit on the porch until she figures we won’t be coming back out and then she will reluctantly return.

Can't keep Mischief out of the water

I’m still busy with my Cabana Boy duties, but it’s a great retirement job. Life’s tough when you’re a Cabana Boy.

Great Sunsets

Becky reading while the Cabana Boy slaves

Becky on the deck after being served by the Cabana boy

Willard

Pohnpei

We decided - actually I begged and Willard acquiesced - that we would spend a couple of days in Pohnpei after Palau since it was on the way home. We have heard both good and bad about Pohnpei so I didn’t have huge expectations.

But first, it was back on the Island Hopper. It was brutal in a new way. We had to board the plane in Palau at 2 AM which meant there was no sleep that night. I was wearing a skirt since I had visited the Ministry of Education that morning and found out the hard way that they frisk you if you are in a skirt. When we got to Guam we saw Cheryl and Phil off onto their flight - they had to make a mad dash and almost missed their connection - and then we went to chill for two plus hours waiting for our next plane. We were up, then down in Chuuck, then up and down again in Pohnpei somewhere around 2 PM. By this time we were exhausted and I was questioning my sanity for wanting to make the extra stop.  In addition to being tired, we had not made any reservations - we were flying by the seat of our pants. The only thing I’d done is to research hotels online and I thought I had a reasonable place to try.

After we collected our luggage, we started to stagger outside. Willard approached a young man who said he’d be glad to take us to the hotel; it was on his way to his place of business. We hopped in his rig and off we went. He dropped us off and Willard handed him $5.  The Rainbow Cliff had room and it was exactly what the Internet said - somewhat outdated but clean, fine, friendly help, and good food. It didn’t seem like a $100/night room but we were too tired to argue. After unpacking our things we went down for an iced tea and Willard began looking at the map/brochure and asked what I wanted to do. Nap. By this time I was beyond tired - that was that for the day.

The next day, however, we were able to get on what we thought was a day of snorkeling. A cab driver took us down the road to a spiffier hotel, The Village, where we met five Japanese JICA folks, an Australian woman, and a young man from America who is doing firefighting in Kwajalein. When one of the Japanese began to explain JICA (these folks do a two year volunteer stint akin to our  Peace Corps), I explained that I had just said good-bye to my JICA Japanese teacher and was getting ready to welcome a new one. It turns out they all knew the new teacher; she was in their training classes! Our guide was a Pohnpei man named Ward.

 Our first stop was to go to Manta Road, a channel of water between islands that has manta rays. The whole time we were in Palau, Phil, Cheryl, and Willard, mentioned repeatedly that it would be very cool to see a manta ray. I was indifferent really. I have seen large eagle rays off of our reef and so a ray wasn’t on top of my list. But, immediately, when we pop into the water, everyone is excited - there is a ray! But it is really deep and I only see it for a couple of seconds so I decide not to concern myself and move over to the reef and enjoy the coral and the fish. After a half hour everyone climbs back in the boat so I figure that is that.  It turns out we needed to hang out for a while, while the tide changed and while we did Ward showed me where there is a school of fish. He showed me how the water bubbles or looks like it is boiling and that’s how you know the fish are there. Then he goes on to say that the manta rays like to circle these fish and the next thing we know, he has jumped in. We follow and, true to his word, there is the ray! This creature was over 8 feet wide and swam right to us, within a yard, before turning off.  It was too fast to follow but we found that if we stayed with the school of fish, sure enough, it would come back around. Before we were done there were two, doing all sorts of acrobatics right in front of us. I almost got an affidavit signed by all of our witnesses because I don’t think Phil or Cheryl will ever believe us! The manta rays are amazing and now I understand why the others were keen to see them.

From there we went to a small little island to eat a nice lunch and we snorkeled off its shore. We then went to a waterfall. We hiked for five minutes to a fall that was about 200 feet. It was beautiful and I think it is the first time I have swam under a fall! Ward then took us to the Nan Madol Ruins. This looks to be a village that is made from huge basalt stones. The walls are 15 feet or better and the stones are up to 6 tons. These ruins date around 500 A.D. and no one knows the real story of why they are there or HOW they got there. Archaeologists say there are several tombs that were for royalty and a place of worship but mostly the 150 acres of 93 man-made islets of ruins are all a mystery.

We finished the day feeling like we’d made new friends and had an incredible tour. We called for a taxi driver and a man named Keeper (not lying) came and got us. He took us to a local saceu (the Pohnpei version of kava) stop and we passed the coconut cup of brew. He agreed to come for us again this morning and take us around the island for $50. Since it cost $65 to rent a car, we felt we had a deal!

Keeper was right on time and took us around the island. Almost all of it is very rural and the jungle is beautiful. The main road that goes around is paved and in good shape. There are no roads that go across - it’s uninhabited hill and jungle. Once you have headed out of town you better have eaten, peed, and have gas in your car because there are no facilities. We saw the national capitol building, the state capitol building, several schools and a pepper farm.

We liked Pohnpei a lot and would come back, even to live! The people are friendly and the island is cleaner than Majuro. The locals live poor but they have all they need; Keeper says they do not know starvation. They are able to grow bananas, coconuts, mango, papaya, breadfruit, taro and more. And of course they fish.

Tomorrow we are back on the Island Hopper and back to Majuro. It has been a good vacation!

Love to you, Becky and C.B.

Pohnpei

I didn't take this picture but this is exactly like the rays we saw

Keeper and Willard

In my new skirt from Pohnpei!

Vacation in Palau

We are on vacation! My sister and brother-in-law, Cheryl and Phil, joined us in Guam where we got on the plane for Palau. While this destination was highly recommended to us by islanders and tourists alike, I really didn’t have much in the way of expectations except a clean hotel, decent food, and great snorkeling.

We arrived at the nicest airport I’ve been to in the South Pacific (except Guam which doesn’t really count). It’s clean, attractive and efficient. We were picked up by a man from our hotel and brought to the Waterfront Villa. It is not posh, but rather funky. For $80/night we have our own furnished apartment that is nicer than our house in Majuro. It is run by Seventh Day Adventists so there is absolutely no help from sundown on Friday to 6 PM on Saturday, but they forewarn you and beyond this little inconvenience, the help is warm, friendly, and eager to please. There is a restaurant that serves a decent breakfast and a pool.

Two of my favorite Palauans so far are the two ladies we met at the Budget Rent-a-Car. They were happy to chat with Cheryl and I about their customs, including the money beads the Palauan women receive from parents and husbands that is worth more to them than actual money. They told us that their country was originally Belau but people said the name so fast that others misunderstood the B for a P and so it because Palau. They recommended restaurants and things to see and do. They were wonderful!

My other favorite person is Swing. On Sunday, we helped ourselves to the posh resort, eating lunch and snorkeling off of their beach. I asked the bartender what he would do if he was a visitor here with just a couple of days. He said, “I’d call Swing and have him take me out on his boat. He is Palauan and he knows all of the good spots.” We got a phone number and thought we’d give him a call later on. Later that evening we were at a restaurant, chatting it up with the waitress. She wanted to know what we were up to and we told her we wanted to snorkel. She told us that she knows Swing and that yes, we need to go with him. In fact, she said she would call him on the spot and she did!

So yesterday we go with Swing. He is funny and friendly and he does know all of the good spots. We started out a little crabby because we found out there is a $100 permit we needed to purchase in addition to the boat ride but we buy our permits and board. From there we pick up another couple who are from Germany and off we go. The snorkeling was amazing and just kept getting better. He took us to four different spots in addition to Jellyfish Lake.

This is a lake that is 60% saltwater and 40% rainwater. Somehow the jellyfish made their way through crevices from the sea into this lake and over time lost their stinging tentacles through evolution since there are no predators to threaten them in the lake. Willard and I hiked up some very uneven and quite vertical steps for several minutes until I thought I would die (there are no steps in Majuro to keep me in shape) and then down into the lake. You just put on your mask and fins and hop in and swim with a gazillion jellyfish that range in size from a marble to larger than a softball. There are a couple of species of fish as well but you don’t notice them - you just see that you are surrounded by these gentle moving peach colored sea creatures, everywhere! We were also surrounded by two hundred Taiwanese. It turns out that these folks can come to Palau for $500 on a chartered trip and they come in droves. What cracked me up is that we kept crossing paths with them in the lake and the ocean and every time they were out in the water just chatting it up with one another. Very few were actually looking at anything beneath the surface! It made me even happier we had chosen to go with Swing!

As I said, the snorkeling here is amazing. We have seen more varieties of coral than I have ever seen and there are fish galore! There is absolutely no litter on the sea floor which makes me happy to have paid the permit fee. I think my new favorite creature is the giant clam! We find the shells on our beach in Majuro but I have not seen one live until now. They can weigh up to 400 pounds and can be 3 feet high. What is amazing is that most of the ones we have seen have these brilliant, electric colorings - almost psychedelic - and each one is very different than the next. Some are blue, others green or pink or ….. Anyway, at the end of our last snorkel, Swing told the six of us to grab the tow rope and he drug us through the water. It made me feel like a kid and it was a fun way to end the day. We all had to admit we were very tired; Swing had given us our money’s worth!

We are loving our time with Cheryl and Phil and happily eating our way through Palau. We have eaten in several places and feel we struck gold every time. They even have a brewery here that makes a very nice amber! We’ve also toured the aquarium and museum and found them to be nicely done. Today we are driving the islands so we’ll see what kind of mischief we can make on this new adventure!

Being with Cheryl and Phil makes me realize how much we miss all of you. Please let us know how you are doing – throw us a line once in a while! Take care, we send our love,

Becky and the Cabana Boy

Having an amazing snorkel day in Palau!

Swing driving the boat

 /s

The Rock Islands

A picture of a giant clam - no I didn't take the picture but this is what they look like

The jellyfish - I didn't take this picture either

This is a cave the Japanese blasted out and used to hold fuel

 

Names for a Grandbaby and more Mischief

There will be no surprise to any of you that I am excited to be a grandmother (bubu) in a few months! I wonder if this new being will be a he or a she and what gifts God will bestow. Will this person be musical, artistic, funny, smart, serious, athletic, or…..? And what name will the parents give this child? Here are some ideas from where we sit.

We have a father here with three children: two girls and a boy. His name is James. His kids? Jamie, Jamie, and James but the boy is called Scipio. We have a student named Peter Halber but some of his records say Royden and he goes by Spanky (he is 16 years old). A lot of our children have a formal name and a name they go by. Carly Ann goes by Nala, Julie Ann goes by Lulani, and Denisa goes by Elle. I don’t see the connection and when I ask, they don’t see the need for one. Several girls here are called Beauty and we have a Kyeoeo (pronounced key-yo-yo which is the name of a local flower). There are students with several names. One of our graduates has the first name Chrytle Hazle Lee, middle name Tigno and then her last name. When they put part of her first name as a middle name on her visa they had to start all over. Two of our favorites are Dylexia (girl) and Osmosis (boy).  There is also the new student we got yesterday.

One of my favorite parents is a young mom named Leona. She has a teenage daughter who attends Co-op, Momo, and she also has a baby. I have chatted with Leona off and on all year and thought these were her kids. Oh no, she has two more that she puts at another school (this is actually fairly common here) and then she shows up yesterday with a young daughter who has been raised by paternal grandparents on an outer island. “What is her name?” I ask. “Ready.” “Ready?” “Yes, like are you Ready to go?,” she replies. O.K., Ready it is!

And then there is Journal. Journal is a nice, distinguished man who is probably in his forties. He is the father of another one of our grads, Annietha. One of our bolder teachers asked him if Journal was a common name here in the Marshall Islands and how his name came to be. He told us his father was in Kwajalein as a young man and saw a fat notebook on a shelf at work that was called “Journal.”

I thought I was entertained in the states with a girls named Liberty - middle name Bell, and Twinkle but these folks take naming to whole new levels! So to Marcia and Will, have fun figuring it all out, just name your kids something they can live with!

Some of you have asked about our “child.” Mischief is doing just fine. She loves living with a Cabana Boy and, other than the fact that she is possessed by some kind of sand bug that likes to bite her, she is completely acclimated to life here. Her newest game is fetching her ball in the lagoon. This morning I took her walking on the beach during a low tide. I throw the ball while I walk, she runs and gets it and we continue for a half mile or so. Sugar Pie and Buckwheat, the two strays that have adopted us, follow along loyally but care nothing about this silly game we are playing. Then all of a sudden Mischief changes course. She has turned to the water and isn’t to be dissuaded. So we play fetch in the water for a half hour. Below are the pictures of what happened when I thought she was too tired to play anymore and I was ready to come in!

I hope all of you are well and getting a little summer in your 63 degree Northwest! Love to you all, Becky

I've come in and she's just standing out there - "But I'm not done yet. I don't wanna come in!"

Then before she came in she had to roll around in the coral sand - yes she is still a black dog!

Overdue Update

Well Guam has changed. When I was there 35 years ago it was not nearly as developed as it is now. The small villages that I remember are still there at the far end of the island but area around my base has been turned into housing developments and the village of Tumon is now hotel row. It seems that everywhere you go there someone has figured out a way to create a tourist draw. After reflecting on the change I totally understand the change. Guam’s two major sources of income are the US military and Japanese tourists and both groups are happy to spend their money on activities and entertainment. Oh well things change.

Now Majuro reminds me of Guam of 35 years ago, limited income, small villages, not a lot of night life, but plenty of quiet.  Since we returned from Guam we have been busy. I have been helping out a couple days a week at the school substituting as the craziness of the end of the year takes hold. Mostly though I’ve been keeping the house and entertaining the dog. We have just about reached the end of the dry season which is a relief. We have been watching our water usage very carefully but haven’t run dry yet. With the dry season came the trade winds which blow from the east consistently at about 20 knots. It feels a little breezy at times but it also cools the house and keeps the mosquitoes down.

Because of the trade winds the water in the lagoon has been pretty choppy but it doesn’t stop us from getting out and snorkeling. We are lucky to live in a place that has beautiful reef and fish to match. Yesterday we were snorkeling off our reef and we saw a huge Eagle Ray just swimming by us, just cruising by us and up the reef. We have seen small rays on top of the reef when the tide is up but this is the first one we’ve seen in the open lagoon. Very cool.

Shopping in Majuro is interesting. Most of the technology is at least a year old and almost twice as expensive. We shop but generally don’t buy.  For most of our media (books, movies, x-box games) we order from Amazon who will ship direct. For other items from Amazon we send them to our friends John and Sue Rief who then forward them to us.  Music we get from I-Tunes via the internet but at 5 minutes a song it takes a while to download our purchases.  

Well it’s time to practice my guitar, after six months sometimes it actually sounds like something. House to clean, dog to walk, and books to read, life’s tough when you’re a cabana boy!

On Guam

Talofofo Falls, Guam

Our friend Sue asked about Guam so here goes!

First there was the accreditation piece. I got really lucky to have a team and team leader that worked like a finely tuned machine and they’re all really fun! All five were Hawaiians that knew each other and have worked with each other before but they embraced me as one of them. We accredited a middle school that has great things happening so it all worked out well. Whew, I was pretty nervous going into the whole thing!

Willard came on Tuesday evening and he has his own version of the Island Hopper. The visibility was low over Kosrae, so after they descended like they were going to land, all of a sudden they were ascending again! Anyway he met my team and ate with us and then hung out for a day while we finished our work.

Yesterday was a play day for the two of us. We decided to drive the perimeter of the island and see what is on Guam. Willard was a little sad and disappointed that Guam has developed so much: roads, hotels, and population. Honestly it is like a little Hawaii and the Japanese come here and vacation as such. When we got down south we drove inland to one of the sights you are supposed to see while you are here, Talofofo Falls. When Willard was here 35 years ago, he and his buddies used to drive up then walk in and enjoy the whole thing for free. They’d jump in and ride down the falls and swim in the water. When we arrived we drove up to a parking lot and a $20.00/each entry fee. I was a little aghast but Willard paid it. We went in and saw a couple of carnival rides and the entry to the falls. When we entered we were led to a monorail car that took us to the falls. After enjoying the scenery and the lunch we brought, we came back up and saw two deer in a cage like you’d see in an old school zoo and that for $2 each we could take a train ride to Yokoi’s cave.

Yokoi was a Japanese soldier from WWII who was discovered in 1972 by some village farmers. He and two other Japanese soldiers built a cave and lived in it for over 20 years after the war, coming out only at night to trap shrimp in the river and gather coconuts and bananas in the surrounding jungle. The other two men died eight years before Yokoi was found. One of the men who discovered Yokoi wouldn’t allow him to be killed and eventually he was able to return to Japan. He came back to Guam more than once and it appears he was treated like a local hero. We decide to see his cave and pay our money. A young local man takes just the two of us on this crazy train that runs by what looks like a lawn mower motor and shows us the cave. Willard makes a comment about how he thought the cave was up against the hills and the young man then confesses that this is a mock-up - not the real cave. He then goes on to tell us that it was his grandfather who was one of the men who discovered Yokoi and gave us his version of the story. We were starting to feel like we were getting our money’s worth whether it was all true - or not! He then returned us to the starting point.

On our way out we noticed a Ghost House. We decided to go in since it was included in the cost and it turns out that it was a fairly elaborate haunted house - out in the middle of nowhere and in late April! I have to admit it got me good a couple of times! We exit and have some laughs about how random it all is and then Willard notices a sign directing us to “Loveland,” and of course we have to check this out too. 

As we enter, there is a sign saying that you may only enter if you are over 19 years old. This seems strange because it is right next to the carnival rides we saw in the beginning. I need to mention there is also a Buddha where you can pay your respects near the entrance. When we go in we realize we are walking a quarter mile trail that is one life size statue after another. Some are replicas of famous statues like the Venus de Milo, but others are quite erotic (understatement). It was really something - again, out in the middle of what used to be an out of the way place for a swim and picnic by a waterfall!

We left in the heat of the afternoon, as evidenced by the family of pigs who took refuge under one of the cars in the parking lot for shade! I don’t think I need to mention that we are still having an adventure!

Today we had fun snorkeling and shopping. We have a couple of more days to play and then it’s back on the Island Hopper for us. We hope you are all well and having fun!

Take care, Love, Becky 

On the train to see Yokoi's Cave

This is the entrance to the "cave" - it is a hole in the ground lined with bamboo

This is a diagram of the underground cave

Here are guide is telling us how his grandfather wanted to  kill Yokoi

Here you can pay your respects! It turns out a Korean rents the attraction from the governor of Guam so he has these shrines in several places throughout the site. 

I felt I needed a picture to validate my story - you can't make this stuff up!

The pigs are free to wander - or to find shade under your vehicle!