Airok Vacation - Day One
Most of this was written sitting in a hammock on beautiful Airok (pronounced eye-rick). I copied it later onto my computer. Prior to leaving Belenty inspected my suitcase and told me I was taking too much water and should replace my water bottles with rice. She explained that they had a large garbage can where they collected water in and I would not need the water bottles. I took out one of the packages of rice and added more water bottles.
Day 1 – The trip here
Air Marshall Islands is the only airline that services Ailinglaplap. When I made the reservations they would not accept a credit card but wanted cash or a personal check. They also had to call down to Majuro to find out if there was room and would let me know the next day if I could go….
When I got to the terminal I understood why. They didn’t have a single computer and wrote the ticket out by hand on an old desk. You check in outside and they weigh your suitcases on an old mechanical scale. Everything about the check-in process was terribly disorganized so consequently the plane was about one half hour late taking off. Our aircraft was a DH9, which featured twin turboprops and an overhead wing.
The flight there only took about a half hour. Ailinglaplap soon appeared as a ribbon of islands surrounding a large lagoon. Prior to my trip I had read that the Marshall Islands only have 3 paved runways. Roi-Namur has one, as does Kwajalein, and Majuro, the capital, also has a paved runway. For the non-engineers reading that adds up to 3. So I suspected that Airok would have a grass or dirt runway which would be a first for me. My suspicions regarding the runway were confirmed when I felt the plane touch down. It was more like a slam-down with quite a bit of jolts and bolts but the plane held together and we eventually came to a halt.
Stepping out I looked back over the runway and noted it was composed of tall grass. These islands are all built up from coral so the foundation was quite hard. There was only a small cinder block terminal building, maybe only a few hundred square feet. People were waiting for the passengers in the shade of a stand of cocoanut trees. Belenty’s sister and another relative were waiting for us. They just unload the suitcases onto the grass next to the plane where the passengers scramble to pick them up. I should mention here that I was the only person who actually had a suitcase. The other passengers had boxes or an ice chest so there was no question of me needing to check my ticket stubs to assure I had the correct bags. We left my two suitcases with her sister Weeja as her uncle was coming with a truck to carry them to their house. Later I was required to give her Uncle $5 for delivering my suitcases. About the same as a skycap in the states I guess. We set off on foot down a dirt road. I would guess it was about a mile walk.
We made several stops on the way to greet family. Another sister had a very nice house with an electric generator, TV and VCR. We passed a picturesque church on the way. Almost everyone here is related to Belenty in some way so I’m having a hard time keeping track of who’s who. Having names that sound strange to English/American ears did not help matters. I have a hard time remembering them. It doesn’t help that Belenty has more relatives than Carter has pills. One thing I like is there seems to be a lot more ladies here than men but I have to behave myself as Belenty would not appreciate my interest. Roi-Namur is almost all men.
All the people here are friendly to me and are treating me like a king. I guess I’m something of a novelty. The only other haole on this island is a beautiful blond young lady who is a volunteer here with World Teach but everyone I talk to here believes she is a peace corp. worker.
Since there are not many TVs, video games and the standard forms of entertainment that we are use to the people find other means of entertainment. One diversion is picking lice out of other people’s hair. This is most popular among the ladies and girls who almost all have very long black hair. I’ve always marveled at how many times a Marshallese lady will reconfigure her hair. One minute she’ll wear it long then the next she will coil it into a bun, and then a few minutes later a friend might braid it for her. At other times they sit around and talk story. I brought my ukulele and quite a few people have enjoyed playing it. It’s kind of like taking a basketball to Indiana. Everyone here plays it much better than I do so I’m almost embarrassed to play it now.
Figure 1, Island girls removing Lice from each other’s hair
I have seen a few pick-ups here but the principle mode of transportation is either bike or foot. Water transportation is a different story. Many people still use canoes here including Belenty’s dad. Her brother told me he would take me out in it the next day if there were enough wind.
The family lived in a two-room house that is constructed of plywood. A brother seemed to stay in one room and I’m guessing most of the rest of the family slept on the floor of the other room. I was never there at night to see. The house was devoid of furniture save for a school style chair with desktop mounted to it. This would sometimes be taken outside in good weather. Outside of the house there was an old metal chair and a hammock that became my friend. To one side of the yard was a “cooking house” that was pretty much just 4 posts and a thatched roof. While I was there they got a load of rocks delivered with the intent I understand of completing it. The roof was corrugated metal. As promised there was a gutter that ran from it into a series of 3 cisterns. One of which did somewhat resemble a plastic garbage can but could only have been used as a cistern from its size. This was where we got our water for bathing, shaving, and flushing the toilet. Behind the cisterns was an outhouse that was divided in half. One half, of course, housed the toilet. It was a flush toilet but you had to take a bucket of water in to pour in to flush it. When they left a plywood cover on it the outhouse did not smell too bad. Still, I tried my hardest to limit my visits. I waited for 2 or 3 days the first time before I mustered up the courage to use it. It wasn’t quite as bad as expected. My biggest problem was there was no seat and they did not have any toilet paper but I brought my own and then bought additional rolls as needed. They were needed because I used them as a seat cover on top of the commode. The other room was the “shower” but it was just a slab of concrete. You took a bucket in with you and used a scoop to hose yourself off. The whole thing was quite primitive. I was glad I was a man so that I could usually just pick out a convenient tree out of site.
Figure 2 Belenty’s Mother in front of cisterns in their yard
Chickens, pigs, cats, and dogs roamed the yard. The pigs were the only ones that never saw fit to go into the house. One of the sows I saw while there had given birth to a litter recently. I was surprised at how cute the piglets were. They reminded me of little bunnies with short ears and a squared off snout. I found the chickens to be a continual nuisance, as I will describe later.
They also had an interesting piece of furniture. It was a stool with sort of a knife mounted between where your legs would go. They would use this to scrape the meat out of a cocoanut.
Upon my arrival I was given the one metal chair. Later it became generally accepted that the hammock was my domain. If someone was sitting there and I walked up they would always vacate it for me even if I protested. Later in the week they set up a picnic table that I could sometimes get away with sitting at with the excuse that I wanted to write or eat on it. Sitting down I surveyed my new location. There were two young ladies scraping a fish in preparation for eating it. I was introduced to her parents and various sisters and other relatives. Belenty is related to just about everyone in town. It is terribly hard to keep track of relations here. They call cousins sisters or brothers depending on gender. This is often because they all live in the same house. Since the families are large it is common to have an Aunt who is younger than you are. I am good friends with a lady on Ebeye who is 23 years old. She once introduced me to her Granddaughter who was older than she is. I’d met her daughter who is 3 so was quite puzzled by this until someone explained to me that she could have been a Great Aunt and then would be counted as a Grandmother by their reckoning. I began to get a little bit afraid when they would hold up a baby and tell me it was my daughter or son. Belenty had a sister named Yonus who always referred to herself as my sister and so I would always greet her as sister. I could handle calling your cousins brother and sister but then they would throw me for a loop by introducing me to someone who they told me was their cousin. My best guess is that they had to be second cousins before they were called a cousin. Later I learned that the children of two sisters or two brothers would themselves be counted on as brother and sister but if they were the children of a brother and sister then they would be cousins. Belenty has more relatives than Carter has pills. My two favorites of her relatives were her two younger sisters. Her youngest sister Weeja got stuck doing most of the work for the family and became something of a personal slave to me. If ever something needed done or if I needed water for a bath they would tell Weeja to do it. I felt sorry for her, as she seemed to me to be a Marshallese Cinderella. She was very sweet and never complained. I’ve been told that is part of their culture. As the youngest child in my family I felt a certain sympathy and kinship to her. Yonus was good humored and was always smiling and making jokes with me. Later in the week, Belenty claimed that Yonus told her “she wanted me too much.” After that, Belenty seemed to be upset with Yonus and extremely jealous. I was not particularly attracted to Yonus other than to enjoy her good-natured company so I had a hard time taking it serious.
To my delight, I was given a house to myself. Her aunt vacated it for me. It was small, about 10 feet by 7 feet and had a thatched roof. It was on stilts so the chickens stayed out of it. In addition it was located close to the lagoon and I had 4 hatches I could open to get a good breeze. Her brother carried a mattress down to the house so I could have something to sleep on. The rest of the family would sleep on the hard floor.
One Response to “Airok Vacation - Day One”
 Comment by Rich August 3rd, 2007 at 10:37 am |
As crazy as it sounds, this actually sounds pretty fun to me. Of course, I suppose that I say that knowing that if I were in the situation it wold only be temporary. The scenes must have been spectacular though!!! |