Filed at 12:22 am under Island Life and Cultural by glennstu
Yokwe. Tonight I was sitting in the bar at Buffalo Wild Wings playing buzztime trivia with my friends. I was having a decent night having won one game and finished second or third in all the others and had a perfect game going into the last question when I heard a voice behind me talking to his buddy and mentioning that a basketball player had played at Kwaj. The average person would have minded his own business but then the average person does not go and live on a small tropical island for 3 years, so instead I turned around and asked the dude if he’d been to Kwaj. That might sound cheeky to you but there is a certain camaraderie amongst Kwaj and Roi survivors. As it turned out he had lived there approximately the same time as I did but perhaps a little before me but with some overlap. Naturally we discussed life there and common acquaintances etc. Turns out there is a reunion group here in Tucson and if you’re a part of it please contact me because I’d like to participate. I registered on some kind of Kwaj roll at some point or you can get a hold of me through this highly entertaining and informative blog site. But our mutual reminiscences brought to mind a story that a good friend of mine from Kwaj once told me. To protect his identity I’ll refer to him as Sam. Read more »
Filed at 5:18 pm under Island Life by glennstu
Posted 1/1/2008
The title is kind of a tease because I only know one Roi-Namur ghost story. There was a huge battle fought on Roi back during WWII. There were quite a few Japanese soldiers and a few American soldiers who lost their lives during the battle. Some of the more notable sites are signposted. You would think that with that many guys giving up the ghost some of the ghosts that got gave up would still be hanging around. So if you know of any good ghost stories or even some bad stories about ghosts on Roi or Enniburr please send them to me and I will add them to this blog.
OK here is my Roi ghost story. Read more »
Filed at 12:04 am under Island Life by glennstu
Well Christmas is almost upon us so I would like to thank all of my readers and wish everyone out there a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Most likely your next question is, what is Christmas like on Roi-Namur. That is a very good question but it is one I cannot answer. I spent almost 3 years on Roi but never a Christmas on Roi. My first year there, 2002, I skipped off to the Philippines to visit a friend there. It was my first Christmas in a different culture but the Philippines is a Christian nation so they celebrate on Christmas Eve. I spent Christmas Eve with my friend’s family and it was quite fun and there was a lot of celebrating going on around town. In sharp contrast, nothing at all was happening on Christmas day. Evidently they do not celebrate the actual day of Christmas in the Philippines. Read more »
Filed at 10:56 pm under Island Life by glennstu
Roi Namur Survival Kit
Posted 12/7/07
OK, let’s say you’ve just landed what looks to be a challenging and highly rewarding job working on Roi-Namur and you’ve started going through all the usual steps of preparing to relocate there such as the thorough physical examinations that are required to insure you are in the prime of health. You’ve also put most of your household goods in storage, stored or sold your car and now you’re wondering what is it you should take with you to this island paradise. Here are a few tips. Read more »
Filed at 10:49 pm under Island Life by glennstu
Day in the Life
If you’ve been checking out this web-site for a while or even a first time visitor you may be saying, “OK we’ve read all about your many exciting experiences in a highly entertaining format but tell me what day to day life is like on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific.” Well today I will walk you through what it is like to live on Roi-Namur. My first caveat is that Roi-Namur is not your typical south sea island that you may have fantasized about. It might look a little like that in places but the presense of several radar antennas, an airport, and various buildings does not solicit images of living on a beach and talking to a volleyball. But that aside I will walk you through what life is like on this island. Read more »
Filed at 9:55 pm under Island Life by glennstu
Posted for the first time October 17, 2007
My radio show started from humble beginnings and over time it grew into a show that was not quite humble anymore but still close to being humble. I think I can say with all due conceit that it was the very best reggae show on Kwajalein atoll. I guess it was also the worse reggae show since it was the only one but I’m a glass half full guy except when drinking beer. But all seriousness aside, it did grow as an island event. When I started I was by myself at the station but at some point we turned it into an event where folks would come down to the station and BBQ (outside) and play frisbee and generally hang-out keeping me company while I did my show. At times we had maybe 15 people there, which was about 15% of the island population. I wonder how many radio stations in the states could boast of having 15% of their city at the station or even listening to their show. We had a stereo system that we would carry outside so that the folks could hear my show while they BBQ’d and played frisbee. You might be asking yourself how I could enjoy the show when I was hard at work spinning the hits. Well, I had a number of CDs that were compilations of various artists, such as Roots, a mix of Jamaican and Hawaiian reggae. I could put one of those CDs on and go outside and play frisbee through several songs…. Read more »
Filed at 10:40 pm under Island Life by glennstu
While on Roi I was a DJ at the local radio station. Here is a letter I wrote home after my initial show originally dated March 27, 2002. My next blog I will describe what this show eventually grew into from its humble beginnings described here, the KVZI 97.9 FM Roi-Namur Rastaman Vibration Reggae Hour(s) Extravaganza with DJ RG Dread.
I guess you are wondering what antics I’m up to now. I am now a radio personality here on Roi-Namur. They have resurrected radio Roi-Namur 97.9 FM also known as Roi Rat Radio. We are broadcasting 50Ws of raw power. With this much power we can broadcast all the way to third island and beyond (have even had reports of hearing it on 7th island). Of course, they don’t have electricity there so if they want to hear my show they will have to listen to it on a battery powered radio.
On Friday nights I host my own reggae hour. My first show was last week and I got rave reviews so I am keeping my 8 PM time slot. I made it through my first show without playing a single Bob Marley song just to see if I could do it. But I did finish my set with a Ziggy Marley song (Dreams of Home).
My next show is tomorrow night and this time I am going to play some Bob Marley. I am the only DJ broadcasting reggae music here. Pat has a blue’s and rock show that is pretty good. Ray follows my show with a blend of rock and country. There are 2 Marshallese gentlemen, Dino and John, who host a Marshall Islands music show. They are broadcasting right now while I type and the songs sound kind of Hawaiianish with a lot of slide guitar with almost a reggae beat. A lot of them told me they like reggae. I heard a CD from a band on Ebeye that is a reggae band and they are pretty decent. I want to buy the CD. All of us are having fun playing DJ. They listen to us in the bar and the cops listen to us as they make their rounds in the police truck, other than that I am not sure if people are listening to us in their rooms. I have to get back to planning my play list for tomorrow so for now this is DJ RG Dread signing off.
Technorati Tags: reggae, bob marley, radio, kvzi, ziggy marley, ebeye, Marshall Islands, Kwajalein, Roi, Roi-Namur, Micronesia, travel
Filed at 10:59 pm under Island Life and Cultural by glennstu
The day that I am posting this blog is Daisy’s 7th birthday. It seemed appropriate to post it today. When I met her she was only 3. I talked to her mother’s cousin last night and he told me Daisy still calls me baba (father). This article is also about a trip to 1st island with some guys I knew.
I’ve had few zany adventures to write about since my return from Ailinglaplap last month. Life has settled down to the drudgery of day to day living on a tropical island. Last week though, I received a phone call from my friend Atma telling me that my friend Jabyokwe’s daughter Daisy had nearly drowned and was in the hospital on Ebeye. It was too late in the day for me to catch a plane down to Kwajalein so I would have to wait until the next day to visit her. As it so happened Atma and Jabyokwe’s sister Rosalina came up to visit me that day so we all flew down together. Read more »
Filed at 10:10 pm under Island Life and Cultural by glennstu
A Dave Barry article that was posted this week on the Miami Herald web-site brought to mind an incident on Kwajalein atoll. The article discussed modern art in public places and questioned whether the average tax payer would appreciate large sums of money being spent on an object that essentially looked like a mangled air conditioner. It was something like that. It reminded me of a controversial art object on Kwajalein. In this case it was a mermaid statue that (parents don’t let your kids read this part) had her breasts exposed. I would not say it was exactly anatomically detailed if you catch my drift but if you looked at it and were a love starved bachelor you could imagine that they were breasts. There are many such bachelors there especially on gender deprived Roi-Namur. Well, a certain well intentioned woman decided the statue was pornographic and complained to the authorities. I hope this lady never goes to Europe because I’ve seen photos of the statues there such as Michelangelo’s David and Venus de Milo and they are much more detailed than this mermaid. But the authorities on Kwaj are sensitive to offending the public so they covered the mermaid with a t-shirt. I don’t know if the lady in question (who is an otherwise nice lady that I was friends with) did not consider that good enough or they were worried the t-shirt would come off but eventually they removed the statue altogether based on one person’s complaints. Read more »
Filed at 12:19 am under Island Life and Travel and Diving by glennstu
I got involved in some hunting last weekend. There is no large game in the jungles of Kwajalein atoll so the sportsman must seek his game in and around the water for the most part. Sunday I awoke to a gloriously splendid day. The skies were blue and the air was warm as usual. It was my day to go diving. The week prior my friend Jeff had lost his dive knife on the wreck of a Japanese cargo ship that had been sunk during the battle here. He asked if we could go back to it to try to find it so we did. But we didn’t have any luck finding the knife. For our second dive we chose a coral head off of Third Island. It was beautiful there as usual. We saw the usual assortment of fish, coral, and sharks…. Read more »
