Chapter 3 - Matt’s first day of work
Yokwe. The first of the month is here and time for your next chapter of my novel “Roi-Namur”
Ron flies up every work day to perform his work on Roi. He showed me around the 4 radar buildings. The largest of the radar antennas was Altair and stands on its own. Further down the road are the three other buildings. There is another that stands alone called MMW. The last two, Tradex and Alcor are connected. Tradex is the oldest of the four antennas and its building houses the main office area for the managers and engineers who work on the island. It is connected via an exposed hall way to Alcor where my new office was located. The office was fairly large and housed a green metal desk that must have been built in the 50s and a workbench with test equipment and parts used by previous workers. There was also a bookcase housing a number of books dealing with radar and some parts catalogs. Ron showed me around the various buildings and introduced me to the workers there. Down the hall from my office worked an extremely energetic engineer named Jimmy Hires. He was thin with matching thin black hair that he fashioned into a comb over. He was quite friendly and always willing to help but never seemed to have an abundance of time to perform such service. He was always chasing after some problem or calibrating the radar. His dedication and professionalism were hard to match. Ron took me over to the office of one of the radar technicians named Gary Christman. He hailed from the same mid-west city as I did so we could discuss some shared experiences. Ron told me later that Gary’s father had been a submarine captain in World War II and by a strange coincicdence had visited the Marshall Islands back then. Gary was about 6 foot 2 and weighed well over 200 lbs but was a friendly sort. Gary invited me to go diving and explained what I would need to do to get my certification to dive there. I already had an SSI advanced open water certification but the Army required the folks there to jump through a few hoops to make sure they would be safe. He agreed to take me on a verification dive after work the next day and then I should be able to dive the following weekend.
The rest of the morning was spent like all engineers working on government contracts spend their first day, reading manuals and other dry documents to get a feel for what one is working on. About 10 o’clock that morning a sweet middle aged native woman named Tina dropped by my office to empty my trash. Tina was about 5 foot tall and had an undefined shape under her moo-moo. I thought she must be in her late 50s but learned later she was only 41. She was a very sweet lady and we eventually became good friends.
“Hi” she said as she emptied my trash.“You new here?”“Yes I just got in this past weekend. I guess my timing was poor considering the trajedy that happened.”“Yes we all so sad about dat. Lucy always help the Marshallese when she can. My sister use to clean her trailer.”“Oh well perhaps I should introduce myself, my name is Mathew.”“Yokwe Matt. Yokwe in Marshallese means hello and love. It like Aloha in Hawaiian.”“Yes I usually like to be called Mathew.”“My name is Dina” (it was later I learned her name was spelled Tina but they all pronounced it Dina).“Dina, do you know someone who can help me learn Marshallese?”
“I help you and so do my friend Darlen.”“That would be great, I have always felt that when you live in another country you should learn the language. Are there any books on it?”
“I don’t know. But I come every day to your office and teach you new words. Today your first word is Yokwe. Ilishu I teach you another.”
And so I learned my first two Marshallese words, Yokwe and Ilishu which means tomorrow. At lunch time I rode my bike back to the other side of the island to dine at the cafeteria. Earlier in the day I had been issued my meal card and showed it to the friendly Marshallese worker at the entrance. The cafeteria there was like any other cafeteria. I sat down at a table with Reggie and some of the other workers. It was a somber group as everyone was still in shock from Lucy’s tragedy. Reggie was the first to break the silence.“Matty, I got something on my mind do you have some time later?”
“I think I have nothing but time.”“OK after dinner come by the room and we talk story some.”“Cool.”Fred turned to us from the next table.“What you got to talk about that you can’t talk about here?”
“What I got to talk about ain’t none of your business Fred if it was I be talking to you.”“Well you just watch what sort of adle brained gossip you spread around and poison the mind of Matt here.”
“I no be poisoning anybodies mind and if I was it no be your business.”Not being use to these sorts of exchanges I made my apologies and excused myself to return to work. After I walked outside and was unchaining my bike Dave walked over to me and said:“Don’t mind Fred he just doesn’t have much in the way of social graces. There aren’t too many folks on this island or probably anywhere else that can get along with him. I think that is why he lives here is he can’t cope with normal society.”“That’s alright I just felt it was time to get back to work anyway. Hey, catch you later and thanks for the words.”
“No problem.”
So I hopped on my bike and headed back to work. I find the ride to and from work to be some of my favorite part of the day. Leaving the living area you have to fight a head wind that only gets stronger as you approach the northern tip of the island. Near the tip there are no trees and you must stand to push the pedals. But as soon as you round the end of the airport’s runway you tack in the other direction and you suddenly are almost literally flying with the wind down the road. There are several old bombed out buildings that had belonged to the Japanese during World War II before the Americans liberated the island that you must pass. The wind assist lasts only until you reach the airport terminal at the other end of the island and have to make another turn. This will take you onto the road that runs along the beach. You only stay on this road a short distance until you must make another turn past Altair and pass down a beautiful tree lined road that has the jungle approaching it on either side. Once again the wind is in your face but not quite as strong as near the northern end. To me it often seemed like the wind constantly changed directions to blow in my face no matter where I was headed but in fact it was usually quite constant though in the summer it would calm down some.
Once I reached my office building I found that I could stop my bike simply by turning it into the wind not unlike a sailboat. So arriving back I chained my bike and walked back to my office to resume reading my documents. Later in the afternoon an IT person dropped by with a promise to have my computer connected sometime in the next week. The rest of my work day passed without incident.
That night after dinner I dropped by Reggie’s room like we’d planned. He lived in one of the B buildings rooms that were the equivalent of a studio apartment. There was a living room with sliding doors separating it from the bedroom. The kitchen was limited to a refrigerator and a small microwave but that was enough considering we had a dining hall for most of our meals. But a kitchen came in handy for those days where you worked late past the dining hall hours or when you just couldn’t face socializing with the other residents. Reggie answered my knock and let me in his room. After offering me a Red Stripe we settled down to talk story.
“Tings starting to settle down bit by bit on dis island but tings no be right”.
“What do yo mean Reggie?”
“I just be tinking dat da army be covering up what happened to poor Lucy”.
“Have they said what she died from?”
“Dey say it be a heart attack but why she be on dat part of de island? And why dey no be telling I and I nuttin? Did you notice one other ting? Dem space trackers are de only ones no be coming to her memorial or showing any emotion and it be dem space trackers de only ones on Namur at dat time so dey be maybe de last folks to see poor Lucy.”
“They were on Namur because that is where they work Reggie. I haven’t noticed they show any emotion for anything so it does not surprise me that they did not show any emotion for this either. I don’t think they knew Lucy and I don’t think they really know anyone here they just keep to themselves and work at night and all.”
“Well, dey give me de creeps Matty. Tomorrow morning at breakfast I want you and I to talk to Duane. He be one of dem but he not be one of dem if you know what I mean.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“I just mean dat Duane is a space tracker but he not be so stand offish. He’ll talk to a body”.
“OK Reggie I’ll do it but I don’t think anything will come of it.”
“Well it won’t hurt none. Now check out this CD I got its from Lucky Dube and it really has a groove.”
4 Responses to “Chapter 3 - Matt’s first day of work”
 Comment by David Juenemann April 12th, 2010 at 9:18 pm |
And then … Updates seem to be irregular. |
 Comment by glennstu April 14th, 2010 at 4:06 pm |
You can look forward to an update once a month on the first of the month. Thanks for reading. It was not unknown for the natives to eat turtles. But you would have no need to fear. |
 Comment by David Conn August 19th, 2010 at 11:13 am |
When I left Roi in 1990 they were just completing A building and B building was underway. When A opened my crappy old fart roommate |
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Comment by glennstu August 19th, 2010 at 1:28 pm |
This is a novel and the character Art is no relation to anyone living or dead. I don’t think Garrett worked there when I did either. I don’t recall the name. Thanks for your comments I always enjoy hearing other guys experiences especially from earlier years. If you do write something about your experiences and would like to be a guest poster you could send me your article. |