The Circus

Filed at 12:41 pm under Diving and Cultural by glennstu

This article was originally written in February of 2002.

The Circus, Headcount and Holidays

                Last weekend was the final days of the Circus of the Pacific’s stay on Ebeye, another island on the atoll located close to Kwajalein.  That is where most of the Marshall Islanders live.  Just as Portland is known as the City of Roses and St. Louis is known as the Gateway to the West, Ebeye is known as the Ghetto of the Pacific.  There are about 10,000 people living on an island smaller than Roi-Namur.  The circus was quite enjoyable.  What I remember most is the Amazing Miss Ann from the Republic of

Vietnam.  …She was part of a troupe of 4 acrobats from that nation.  What made her outstanding aside from her physical beauty was that she could juggle with her feet.  Other acts included the first and foremost magician in Samoa (I forget his name), a circus midget, and a woman from

Tahiti who allowed these other dudes to throw knifes in her direction (without hitting her).  All of the members doubled as other acts.  The ringleader could have been a ringleader in any circus anywhere.  He was bald and muscular, with perfect diction and a constant smile.  He always knew when to wink at the right time to appear charming and appeared to have been successful with some Kwaj. ladies who requested he appeared in an act in a native Samoan costume to reveal his tattoos.

                Speaking of Ebeye, I have to interrupt this description to tell you a great story I just heard at supper that has to do with Ebeye and Roi-Namur.  There is a guy here who I will call Bill to protect his identity.  Well, ol’ Ted has been here since ’62, I won’t say he is old but I’m not entirely sure he means 1962 or 1862.  Anyways, he said that when he was here in the 60s he was doing some volunteer work with a Boy Scout troop on Ebeye.  He got to know an elderly Marshallese who had been on Ebeye before the war.  The man told him that one time, 5 years before the war, a twin engine airplane landed off Ebeye and the Japs had him take his boat off to the airplane which had landed on the water about 200 yards from shore (I wouldn’t normally refer to our good friends the Modern Japanese as Japs as that might not be politically correct but it is ok when referring to our former enemies during the war as Japs just as it is ok to refer to the Germans at that time as krauts or Nazis).  He brought to shore an American man and woman.  The Japs told him not to talk to them because they were spies.  Ted, I mean Bill, didn’t think much about it until later when he talked to a guy here on Roi-Namur who was the island manager here.  When Frank heard the story he told Ted that answers a few questions that he had.  He took Ted to meet another Marshallese guy who told him that for a while before the war the Japanese had an American woman with short brown hair behind bars in a building here close to where the fire station is now.   Plus the man had found a leather map case with the initials A. E. on it.   Bill tried to make inquiries with the Army at the time but was told that if he wanted to continue employment here he better not ask any more questions.   That is why I am referring to Ted as Bill so that he won’t get in trouble.  Ted has all kinds of great stories and is writing a book of anecdotes.  

                Sunday I was invited to go diving with Dan and Matt.  It proved to be as good of a dive as I can ever remember.   I counted at least 9 sharks.  OK, one was a 7-foot nurse shark, which of course is quite harmless.  Another was only about 3 feet long.  The others were honest to goodness sharks, the kind you picture in your nightmares.  I would say they were about the same size as I am.  I have to admit it was kind of freaky at first but after a while I got use to them.  I just didn’t like to have them behind me where I could not see them.  They stayed pretty far away from us for the most part.  I saw 2 moray eels in small caves along the wall.  Shortly after spotting the first one I looked up and saw the massive shape of an eagle ray.  It was quite a thing of beauty as it flapped its long wings.  I was in about 80 feet of water and it was above me in about 30 feet so I could not swim over to it.  I would guess its wing span was about 8 feet or more but it was a ways from me.  The visibility was excellent.  Later, I saw a large turtle swim by.  I was astounded by how fast it could swim.  Aside from the larger fish I just mentioned, I saw a zillion trillion billion other fish of varying sizes.  At one point I saw a large school of blue fish (I don’t know their names) swim by.  A school does not seem adequate to describe it.  As far as schools go, this was the Ohio State University of fish schools.  It was mammoth.  It put me in mind of films I’ve seen of massive herds of bison covering the plains of

America.  These fish were about 6 to 12 inches long and swam in such a thick pattern that it would have been impossible to shoot a spear through the school without hitting 100 of them.  You would be crazy to shoot a spear though because the only time sharks have been known to attack anyone here is when they had speared a fish and were trying to bring it up.  The sharks, which normally have no interest in harming man, were actually attacking the fish on the spear and not the humans.   Dan and Matt invited me to join them on a regular basis every weekend.  Which reminds me of a funny story about them.  Last week I dove with them along with Tom who is married.  Tom’s wife was suppose to accompany us but became sick before hand and did not come.  Well, the whole trip we (3 single guys) were giving Tom a hard time (taking the mickey on him for British readers) because Jocelyn the Hawaiian had wanted to come with us but we didn’t have room for her because of Tom’s wife.  The comments were something like “the most attractive single woman on the whole island wanted to come with us and we told her no so your wife could come.”

                As any schoolboy knows, yesterday was Marshallese liberation day.  I asked a cleaning woman at work how she celebrated on Third

Island.  She said they had a BBQ so she cooked all day and made coconut drinks (I’m not sure what that was but will investigate for you).  She has been helping me learn Marshallese.  When she comes round to empty my trash (dump my dustbin) I ask her how to say some word in Marshallese.   She appears to be about 55 years old so I’m guessing she is about 25 (later I learned that she was 44 at the time of this writing).  I have been asking other Marshallese for help and they have been very patient in answering my questions.  I don’t really have a knack for speaking foreign so it takes a lot of patience with me.  There is a different, relatively prettier and much younger cleaning lady that I speak Marshallese to also but she spends most of her time in the other building.  On Ebeye they had a large parade.  One of the schools made a float that showed US Marines attacking a Jap bunker on the front and the World Trade towers complete with a plane flying into them in the back.  On the back of the float was a sign that said “United We Stand, God Bless

America”.  I found it quite touching.  The Republic of the Marshall Islands has been a very loyal and steadfast friend to the

US.  They are the only nation on the planet to vote with us 100% of the time in the UN.  One of their representatives commented in the paper that they appreciated

US support both now and during World War II.  I am still planning on doing a future installment on the Marshallese who are a dynamic and culturally rich people.  A friend of mine has arranged a trip to Majuro, the nation’s capitol, to celebrate the long President’s day weekend coming up.   I plan to use it to do some first hand investigation of the Marshallese culture and people and to try to find a Marshallese-English dictionary.  I am hoping there will be more materials available there than here on Roi-Namur.  The only materials I’ve found is a Marshallese cook book. 

                I finally received my household goods.  I was pleased that they made the ocean crossing safely except that my power chord for my VCR did not arrive.   So I plan to spend the rest of Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) and Chinese New Year celebrating by watching the end of Crouching Tiger for the 9th or 10th time (I watched the beginning yesterday morning).  I also was lent a book called “Year of the Rat” which is about how Clinton (Bill not Hillary) revealed state secrets to the Chinese for money.  I thought that would be appropriate as we start the year of the horse.  So I’ve covered quite a few holidays in a short time.

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