Catch Up Post 1 - September 20

I have been doing a terrible job of posting to this blog. I’ve been keeping occasional journal entries, but have not had much chance to get on the internet. I am going to try to post at least once a week from now on, and definitely no less than every two weeks. So here are the catch-up posts from the last month and a half:


Thursday, September 20, 2007

I can’t believe it’s been less than two weeks since my last entry. So much has happened. School started on Monday last week, and has occupied a lot of my time since then. I am teaching English to all the juniors and seniors at my school – the National Vocational Technical Institute (NVTI). The school was founded with a few missions: to provide students who aren’t in the mainstream high school a chance to still learn, and to train ‘alternative-achieving’ students for entering the real world after school (hence, “vocational”). In reality, we do not have much of a vocational program yet. It’s basically a school for students who didn’t score highly on the national test given at the end of 8th grade to all students. Previously, students who didn’t make the cut weren’t offered any chance for an education. Now, they can enter NVTI through our “Pre-9” program and retake the test in a year, and if they pass can continue to 9th grade at Marshall Islands High School (MIHS), which is on the same campus and is the primary high school for the entire country. Students who don’t end up transferring to MIHS stay at NVTI and can graduate with a degree. We are on our way to getting certified and had the first senior class graduate last year.

All of this amounts to a very challenging experience in the classroom. All the students are very eager to learn, but are at a really wide variety of skill levels. Classroom management is definitely a challenge, and I have worked really hard at implementing some classroom discipline and procedures over the first two weeks. Still, there have already been numerous occasions where I think I have gotten every student in class on board with relatively simple tasks, and discover a few have no idea what is going on. I only teach four real classes a day, starting at 8 a.m. and ending at 12:30, After the fourth class, all I have are two periods of prep time and one study hall to monitor, and then I am out of school by 3 or 4. Despite this relatively easy schedule, I usually feel completely drained by the last class. Right now things are being reshuffled and I might end up teaching math as well all afternoon.

One of my saxophones arrived in the mail, and I have started going to National Band practice every day from 4 to 7. I really enjoy playing with the kids. It’s amazing that even though I haven’t sat and played with a band for so long, it still feels natural seven years later. It’s a feeling that I really missed, and at least so far, whenever I feel frustrated in class (i.e. several times a day), I think of playing in band with the kids later in the day.

I bought a bike at the hardware store last week. Riding around here is a lot of fun, but fairly dangerous. There are very, very few people who ride bikes here (I have only seen one Marshallese biker and three or four ribelles), and drivers and pedestrians have absolutely no regard for them. I have almost been hit a few times and one of my roommates was hit by a cab a few days ago. Still, it’s great to ride a bike again, particularly for someone who couldn’t finish off a bike ride two years in a row at the annual Greenhill analyst bike outing. Riding around definitely gives me some of my “island highs.” There is a little neighborhood by us that I usually cut through that is always filled with people on the street, including some of my students and other Marshallese families I have met.

Last weekend, I moved out of faculty housing (“the Dorm”) and into a little house also on the Ministry of Education housing compound on school campus. The Dorm offered a lot of modern conveniences – air conditioning, several layers of security, kitchen appliances and modern plumbing – but I was feeling a bit stifled living with so many Americans and didn’t feel like I was actually living on an island. The house I moved into is really cozy. I am living there with another volunteer – Tim – a really chill guy who is one of the three people from Portland in the program. The house lacks many modern conveniences: there is no air conditioning, the plumbing doesn’t work, all other water uses a pump that can only be turned on for 10 minutes at a time, there are way more bugs, few kitchen appliances, and there is only a tiny wooden door with a flimsy lock securing the place (it was broken into twice last year). However, it’s a great change from my perspective. There is an amazing view of the ocean from my room, and I love falling asleep to the sound and breeze from the water. It feels like an actual house rather than a prison-like compound, and I feel like I am living in a chill island home. Just trying to keep it real I suppose. Hopefully I’ll be able to acclimate to the tropical weather soon.

My new house

New living room and roommate Tim

Bedroom My backyard 1
My backyard 2