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Saturday, April 21, 2012

His names 'Mental'? You can't be serious...

Mentil (left) and Ijikar the WAM Trainers
Jessica,  was waiting for us at the airport and took us round to the pick up truck...oh my god they have a pick up truck how cool-please tell me at some point I can ride in the back! and introduced me to one of the WAM trainers who had given up part of his Saturday to pick us up. I shook his hand and tried to get a grasp on his name, after the third attempt of trying Jessica told me: Mental. What? Surely not? Mental? To this day I'm convinced you don't actually pronounce his name like that. It's spelt Mentil, and JJ Jay (my favourite of all the Marshallese names I heard) one of the WAM trainees laughed at me once and declared 'his name's not Mental' and made the international sign for a bit crazy, 'it's Men-dil its a bird!' I apologised to Mentil but he claimed I was saying it right all along...so that's what I called him. He always smiled at me though, the kind of smile you would give to a child who was trying their best but was still making a mess of everything.

They drove us to the Marshall Islands Resort, a hotel we were staying at until Jessica left and gave us her apartment, and I was super excited just to take off the hoodie. She offered to drive us round Maj to show us the sights but my mind was only on getting my jumper off and getting a shower. We explored the 'resort' for about an hour, grabbed some food and promptly fell asleep. Damn jet lag.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Welcome to Majuro-do you have your visa? Er no...

Landing at Majuro airport is literally like landing in the sea. The strip of land which houses the airport is super thin and looking out the window we got our first glimpse of what would be our home for at least the next 12 months. We'd obviously googled it before leaving but looking out of the window was a mixture of crapping my pants and extreme excitement. Kinda like being on a roller coaster but without the ability for it all to be over in the next 2 minutes if you can just close your eyes and hang on a little longer. We'd filled in our customs declarations on the plane with Jay as a 'dependant adult' a title which led him to imagine he was some kind of play-thing for a rich mistress rather than the partner of a charity worker!

About 2 minutes before we landed I got a horrible sinking feeling - the kind where you know you have done something really stupid (again) and now have to pay the price for it... no it wasn't moving away silly...it was flying into Majuro with a vest-top on! We'd been warned that you have to cover your shoulders and knees at all times, and my only option was to stick my hoodie on and get off the plane to 30degrees heat and sweat, sweat, sweat. Well it did look kinda cold and rainy out of the window...it was definitely a bit drizzly but the heat and humidity were intense.

The baggage was taken off the plane by hand and practically given to you. No conveyor belts or x-ray machines in this airport! We made our way through customs really easily as there was no way the Marshallese guy was going to go through each and every item we had with us but then got to the desk. Do you have your visas? the guy asked. Urm no I replied, apparently there's someone at the other side who has them... I don't think he believed us. We were holding up the queue. The young Americans looked fidgety. They wanted to get on. Who were these people with strange accents delaying their adventure? I don't really think he knew what to do with us so made a couple of phone calls while my heart was in my mouth thinking surely we can't get turned away? Not now... Phew it was okay he was sending us through. Then some woman jumped out in front of me with a camera... 'You World Teach or WAM?' 'er WAM' I replied 'oh Jess is through there...you want your photo taken?' No I most certainly do not!

So off we went to find Jess, a woman we'd never met before who held our lives in her hands.

Who are these Americans and why are they so bloody happy!?

So let me just fill you in on the journey so far... we leave our house at around 11am on Wednesday morning for a 6 hour drive down to London Heathrow, from which we fly to Newark which takes bloody ages but I'm asleep for most of it (missed duty-free on the plane but thats okay we can get an adapter on the next one...of course we didn't so we couldn't plug anything in when we got there). US Customs ask me FOUR times where I'm going and why... I'm going to work in Majuro in the Marshall Islands...4 times. Either he didn't know where that was, or was perplexed as to why, who knows. I was geared up for a time in a customs cell though. Luckily it didn't happen.

So we get offloaded at Newark which means we are stuck in the airport for 12 hours as we can't check our luggage back in so we fill in a lot of time by ensuring all our bags are exactly within weight restrictions fuelled by Dunkin Donuts coffee - by gosh when I said put sugar in it I didn't mean that much. I broke the scales at Newark (walk away slowly so no-one notices!), and also stupidly repacked our toiletry bag into hand-luggage at which point everything basically got taken off us. I guess I could've shampooed some random on the flight - I am prone to a spot of hairdressing! I don't remember too much about Newark apart from the sky train thingy and travelling on that a lot. Oh and being practically unable to get around with the bike boxes cos for some reason Americans think its a good idea to build lifts directly behind massive pillars. And no-one smiled. Wired on about 4 massive cups of coffee and sleep deprived I smiled at around 400 passengers at 6-7am and got a handful back...(to be honest I do the same thing on the Tube in London cos it's funny watching people desperately avoid eye contact!)

The difference when we got to Hawaii though was amazing - I struck up a conversation with a woman at the airport and she was so warm and friendly. Really lovely - that's my impression of Pacific Islanders generally, and the contrast from Newark was immense. Hanging about outside the airport  before our morning flight I catch wind of a conversation. The bloke has a cockney accent. I think no! surely not... the first person I meet in the RMI can't be a Cockney...please I'm travelling to the other side of the world. Yep. Captain Ken. Not a superhero Captain but a fishing boat captain. I was slightly disappointed...

Then we spied all the Americans waiting to board the plane. There were loads of them. All young. All fresh-faced, wide-eyed and so bloody enthusiastic. And they all looked clean. Well in contrast to us who were on our 4th day of travelling, and we, in true Brit fashion, were grumpy! Luckily we weren't sat next to any of them; but then again a couple of them became my best friends on island a couple of weeks later but I wasn't to know that at the time. All I knew was I needed a shower and a new pair of knickers drastically...

(they were all World Teach volunteers if you were wondering:
http://www.worldteach.org/site/c.buLRIbNOIbJ2G/b.6150615/k.55F4/Marshall_Islands_Year.htm)

Thursday, April 19, 2012

'Now where did I put my knickers..?'

Knickers, or pants if you are American, are as we all know essential to most womens wardrobes. My knicker fiasco started in Hawaii and wasn't solved to my satisfaction until April 2011...a whole NINE MONTHS after arriving on island. I'm an idiot, and should probably start from the beginning...
We were in a rush to leave... I'm notoriously last minute with everything and was still packing my underwear drawers into black bin-liners to chuck in the attic half an hour before leaving for the airport. Half an hour?? What?? Yep that stupid. I nearly didn't pack any... yeah I'm aware some women roll that way but I like my pants...and have boat loads of them. So why did I pack 3 pairs? WHY?? 3 pairs for a YEAR. Somehow I think I got it into my head that I was going on holiday, not moving away. Yes I also know that I pack more knickers then as well. I can't explain it.
So obviously there were none in my hand luggage and when we stopped at Hawaii we decided to be decadent and get a hotel for the night after 3 days travelling, I thought ooooooooo I can have a shower!! No. I'm sorry but I'm one of those people who can't have a shower then get back into stinky clothes - I'd rather just be full on stinky. So arriving at our hotel in Waikiki at 8pm (and having to leave at 6am) I spent a good 2 hours wandering into surf shops asking bemused shop assistants if they sold knickers. Of course I also had to explain what knickers were...and didn't get anywhere. Ohhhhh for a M&S. Couldn't get any on-island either so I spent a good proportion of my time in Majuro washing knickers. When my mam asked what I wanted for Christmas it was an obvious choice...and how I loved them when they arrived. They were the shape they were supposed to be; they didn't smell like mould like everything else I owned; they fit properly...Granted it was April (it takes 3 months+ to get packages from the UK) by the time they arrived but I loved them....I will NEVER, EVER take Marks & Spencers for granted again.
So a wise word...if you're thinking of packing up and moving to the other side of the world ensure you take (at least) 14 pairs of knick-naks with you - but you already knew that didn't you?!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Pack your bags we're leaving in 6 weeks

Yep that's right. 6 weeks to sort out 13 years worth of crap in our house. And get it rented out. And get all the things we needed for our visa - HIV test, police clearance, TB clearance, doctors note to say we were fit. And the plane tickets. And the money to buy the plane tickets. And the visa from their end, cos I sure as hell wasn't booking no plane tickets to the tune of £3600 for the two of us without it. Oh and travel insurance in case one of us died (can we just say you might surf for less than 14 days so it's cheaper?), or some narna lost our luggage along the way... 'Shots? Do we need shots? How much is that going to cost? Oh there's no malaria over there so I'm sure we'll be fine...' 


I had one major emotional breakdown during this time - it lasted for about 3 hours when I got an email saying they needed everything for the visa in the space of a week. This was because getting the visa cleared at their end could take up to 4 weeks... 4 weeks? Crap we only had 6 and the breakdown began when I realised we needed police clearance and TB tests to show we were clear. Thank goodness for FB, and the solutions people came up with. I know from experience that CRB (criminal record bureau) checks in the UK can take up to 3 months to arrive and we didn't have that kind of time. Sarah, bless her, came to my rescue with the information you can get one from ACRO (http://www.acro.police.uk/police_certificates.aspx) if you need a visa for Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa or the USA. Yeah yeah I know we aren't going to any of them, but it's a US Protectorate right - it'll be fine! It was, thankfully no-one ever questioned it. The second issue was the TB screening - you may think you could get it done at your doctors or local travel clinic. You can't. Because TB isn't that common over here you have to be referred to the hospital for a chest x-ray by your GP. Chest x-ray? Hospital? Does this mean I'm going to have to go to Bupa or some shit and pay loads of money? I haven't got loads of money and we haven't got enough time!! I cried. Well until my mam rang me and reminded my I had a BCG shot when I was 13...Ohhhhh was that was that was for? Who knew a BCG shot for for TB? Certainly not me - I just give my arm to medical professionals and they put something in there - seriously it could be anything. So I got a doctors note saying I was vaccinated. Phew - the adventure was back on!

So the weeks flew by, and we ate lots of Papa Johns pizza and drank copious amounts of Kopperberg  cider and saw loads of our friends. I figured we weren't going to be able to get either of them there and as it was going to be hot and humid the extra weight would surely just fall off. Er no it wouldn't!

And so 6 weeks after being offered the job and having said goodbye to all our friends and family we packed 2 surfboards, 2 bikes and our lives into 2 suitcases and off we went on a 4 day journey to a land that only a few months previously we have never heard of to start a job 2 days after arrival...
Crapping my little (but now slightly tighter) pants.


Tuesday, April 10, 2012

A British Bloke, a Bomb and Spongebob Squarepants.

The Marshall Islands are named after Captain John Marshall, some British bloke who rocked up in his boat in 1788 and proceeded to name the islands after himself. Apparently the Spanish had already laid claims to the islands in the 1500s (not entirely sure if anyone actually asked the Marshallese if this was okay but I doubt it) which was then sold on to the Germans in 1884. I love the hush hush stories of cannibalism around this time (to be fair who wouldn't want to defend their atolls); though I think the official line is that the explorers (or 'conquerors' if you prefer) were met with open arms and lashings of breadfruit. German surnames are common in the Marshall Islands - Muller being one - and there's a definite similar sound in the language.

During the First World War Japan grabbed the German territories in the Pacific, then the Americans grabbed them from the Japanese in the Second World War. The RMI gained independence in 1979 and in 1986 it entered into a Compact of Free Association with the USA which in theory means that Marshallese people have the right to live and work in the US but as the airfare to Hawaii is so expensive ($1200 when I was there) and the average wage is $2 per hour most of them never get there; the ones who do end up working in chicken factories in Arkansas for some reason...anyway...

After WW2 the nuclear arms race began with the USA and USSR vying to build the biggest and most destructive bombs. Each needed somewhere to test these bombs and between 1946 and 1958 the US dropped 67 nuclear weapons on the Marshall Islands including the biggest they conducted: Bravo on Bikini Atoll.  The fallout from these bombs resulted in the death of many islanders, the contamination of not only Bikini Atoll but many of the surrounding atolls and birth defects. Bikinians have never been able to return to live there as it is still classified as unsafe to live all these years later. More info on Bikini can be found on here: http://www.bikiniatoll.com/

So yeah Bikini is actually a place. My boss was Mayor while I was there. Apparently the Bikini, you know the swimwear, is actually named after it as the original designer wanted a particularly 'scandalous' name for a scandalous piece of clothing. Ironically you can't wear a bikini in Bikini - cover your knees girls - they're sexy!

So that leads me finally to Spongebob Squarepants.

He lives in Bikini Bottom so while I was there I decided it was fitting to get a Spongebob Squarepants checkbook (spelt the American way as us Brits are far to sensible to allow this) . They bounced quite a lot but that's unsurprising when you only use your cartoon cheque book to buy beer!

What? Where? How on earth did you find a job there?

It's been 9 months since I returned to England from the Marshall Islands and I miss it terribly. When talking to people about my experience I am often asked how I ended up on a coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific. The internet is my reply. Before I discovered the job I had no idea where the Marshall Islands were; in my defence I had heard of Micronesia which is the closest country to it but the Marshall Islands, well no not really...
The Republic of the Marshall Islands is almost directly in the middle if you draw a straight line from the north-eastern tip of Australia and Hawaii. The vast blue of the Pacific you see on globes...well it's a dot in the middle of there, well actually it's lots of dots in the middle of there as the country is 772,000 square miles but the majority of this is water although there are over 1000 islands, and 29 atolls of which 24 are inhabited. Don't bother looking for it in those world maps you get in diaries as it's not there; the world it seems begins at Hawaii and ends at Fiji. Living there it did feel like the rest of the world didn't exist but we'll come onto that later.
So how did I get a job on an island I'd never heard of? Well, silly, I found it on www.pacificislandjobs.com of course, then found out where it was!