I've got bugs in my head...

This morning we awoke to a beautiful sunrise and majestic waves crashing right behind our back window.  Then Janae turned to me and said, "Last night was the worst night of my life."  Now there's no question that she was using major hyperbole here, or at least I hope so, but I'm sure you're now wondering, "Oh boy, what happened?"  Well it was termites.  Janae is no fan of bugs, but especially not of the invasion of the size that we had last night. 

            I came in from a beautiful evening of sunset basketball and as I was getting ready to shower I noticed a few moth-like bugs flying around the lights and noticed that they were all over the outside of our screens.  When I say "all over," I mean that you could barely see out the screen because they were covering it so densely.  As I took a shower I noticed that many were getting in somehow through the screen and by the time I was done showering there were no less than 100 termites in the bathroom and shower.  As I went out to the bedroom and kitchen I realized that in that 10 minutes that I was in the bathroom our apartment had been invested with the tiny creatures.  Janae was not happy to say the least.

            They were in our bed, in Neyla's bed, on the floor, on the counters... they were pretty much everywhere.  Janae immediately got into Navy Seal mode and started fly swatting the s#%t out of every termite she could.  The gritty angry look on her face was one I had not seen since the last time she tried to beat me in a 1 on 1 game of basketball.  She was not happy.  She started spouting all sorts of non-sense that I found mildly humorous, but I thought best not to laugh at the time.  I thought that someday she'd laugh about this, or I at least hoped she would.  She was yelling, "I can't live like this...  Get out of my house...  Die! Die! Die!..  I will not allow my baby to sleep in this..."  If you know Janae well maybe you can imagine this. 

            I put my sandals on and started stomping the life out of the poor buggers and then swept them up poured them outside into a large pile of dead termite carcuses.  Janae kept fly swatting, Neyla kept crying and our neighbor Rachelle was wondering where these bugs came from and if Janae was possessed.  I then went into the bathroom and Windexed the life out of the ones in the bathroom and it actually worked.  Very soon they all reached the end of their lives and I scooped them up to meet their friends in the newly minted termite cemetery we had created outside.  We were convinced (actually just Janae) that our apartment would be permanently invested by these silly creatures, but to our amazement our stomp, swat and windex plan was working quite affectively.  Slowly, too slowly for Janae, their numbers were dwindling and our termite genocide was showing some success. 

            An hour later our apartment was mostly clear of the termite invasion, with a few stragglers being eliminated throughout the remainder of the night.  As Neyla went to bed I vacated the premises to have a glass (or 3) of whiskey with my great friends Dan and Rachelle and our new fantastic colleague Karina and Janae stayed up until almost midnight frantically cleaning and recleaning the entire apartment.  I came home about 1 am and Janae and Neyla were both sound asleep in a surprisingly clean and bug-free environment.  Janae is actually still cleaning as I write this, but she is slowly getting to point of being able to laugh about last night, but still thinks that I did not take the infestation of the evil ones seriously enough.  I was going to have Janae write this blog, but she is still way too emotional about last night and it would've been way too anti-bug and we are an equal bug opportunity blog.  Maybe in a few years when she has settled down a bit I'll have her write about her thoughts on last night.  

I'm going to borrow your stuff...

I'm going to borrow your stuff indefinitely

... and other concerns

I woke up this morning in a great mood. The night before we had a staff potluck with dancing, guitar playing, singing and a generally nice kum-by-ya evening. Even though I'm not officially staff this year, they let me and Neyla come along for the ride for the social gatherings. Potlucks are my favorite because someone often makes these delicious coconut sticky white rice balls that are amazing and I eat as dessert. I try to limit myself to one.

The next morning, I wander out the door, probably to look at the ocean or something, and I notice Neyla's shoes are missing. I had left her new swim shoes outside to dry and I forgot to take them in overnight. I cursed at myself for leaving them out and then proceeded to tell Bryan how angry I was someone took her shoes.

In Marshallese culture there is a very "what's mine is yours mentality," I guess it's from living on such a small island trying to survive for so many years. If I catch fish, I give you fish and if I collect coconuts, I give you coconuts. Mind you, that was many, many years ago. In today's Majuro, you go to a store to buy food like most of the rest of the world, but sharing is still expected.

I kept thinking, those darn kids took her shoes! They've taken her soccer ball a couple times before when I've left it outside. I found kids playing with it later and got it back. One time, I heard kids by my front window trying to be sneaky and giggling. I had old cardboard boxes by my front window and they took them, clearly thinking that I still wanted them but instead they just took out my trash for me.

Bryan, good ole Bryan, set me straight and said these kids have nothing, literally nothing, often no toys, no shoes, no clean clothes, and are constantly knocking on our door looking for food. If they took Neyla's shoes maybe they are better off with them. That is good reasoning but it still didn't make me less mad it just made me guilty and mad.

Bryan's coworker at Coop used to live on an outer island and he said they his host family would constantly take his stuff, like his iPod, but never return it. They would also "borrow" his light bulb for the main house. He said he ended up buying like 3 lightbulbs because anytime the main house's went out, they'd knock on his door to have his. The kids here in Majuro embrace this idea and will play with any and all toys left outside. Sometimes they are permanently borrowed. I don't mind so much with the toys, but the shoes are a different story. They wereher reef shoes and they fit her exactly.

Well back to this morning, I was sulkily taking the trash out and lo and behold I see Neyla's shoes. The stray dogs had taken them and chewed them up. 

Cockroaches, Ants (marching) and Crabs

Cockroaches, Ants (marching), and Crabs

Who needs pets when you have these friends?

When I would convince Bryan to have lunch with me in the Loop, back when we were in Chicago, he said it gave him the creeps. The thought of "ants marching" came to mind often for him. Though I agree with him to extent - there was a palatable air of misery on the El on a Monday morning - I am now dealing with my own version of ants marching in my new occupation, housewife. This time it's in the literal sense.

We live in a 500 square foot apartment with a lot of critters. In fact, I just caught a crab that wandered in through our front door. (Sidenote: after some trial and error I figured out the best way to catch a crab is with tupperware. The lid makes a nice scoop to help the crab in the main tub. Then you also have the top to keep him in.) Or sometimes I just let the crabs wander. I was bathing Neyla last night and gave her a toy crab to play with, meanwhile a (real live) crab had crawled up the drain and was sitting right next to us. I thought about throwing him in the tub but decided against it. That's the thing about Majuro, Neyla gets to do things that most kids have to imagine or simulate with toys, for better or worse.

This morning Neyla decided to pet a gecko at the base of our bed, not knowing that it was a living, breathing and, most importantly, moving animal. When she reached for it, it didn't move, but once she touched it it started wiggling away. Neyla is still learning how to pat gently so she poked the poor guy. As soon as it started moving, she looked at me and began to wail. I picked her up and explained to her what it was. I'm not sure if she understood, but she's getting better about words. She can now say "shoes" and "outside" really well. Both of those words, of course, get her closer to her one year old self's goal of playing outside at every possible moment. I'm anxiously waiting for her to want to pet a hermit crab which won't end as nicely as the gecko, I suspect. You can find those in droves just outside our apartment.

If you stare at one spot in our apartment long enough, you'll find an ant. They're everywhere. They're annoying to me, but most people here don't mind them. The most optimistic opinion I've heard about the ants here is that "At least you know where you haven't cleaned." Bryan looks at me like I'm crazy when I say, "Die ants!" then proceed to smack them with my flip flop. If reincarnation and karma exist, I'm most definitely coming back as an ant. 

My craziest critter story is actually Bryan's most heroic moment. I was lazily snuggling with Neyla at night on our bed, chatting with Bryan. I'm not sure what we were chatting about but it went down something like this:

Me: "... and then Neyla walked not once but twice today! Ten steps total, I bet."

Bryan: "uh, huh."

Me: "I'm pretty sure she said mama today, or maybe was just humming..."

SMACK!

While mid-conversation, Bryan got up from the bed, grabbed his flip flop (best bug killer tool ever) and killed a cockroach right above my head. I jumped a mile high, Neyla started bawling and I asked him what the heck was he doing! You don't want to know, was his reply. I knew right then it was a cockroach, my biggest critter foe. Bryan had killed him right by my head on the wall above our bed. I don't think I've ever loved Bryan more.

Cockroaches are the grossest creature on the planet. Here is why. I almost always see them out at night in the dark, which makes them the most vampire-like of all insects. Their antenna would be comically long for their body if it wasn't so creepy long. They move at the speed of light or maybe just sound I'm not sure but either way it's impossibly fast. The Orchan commercials with the cockroach close up has not helped the cockroach PR. It's a disease bag. Before they die, they lie face up as a final F you so you have to stare at their beyond disgusting underside. Pretty sure they have 65 legs. I have to smack them with my flip flop (turned weapon) at least 3 times before they die.

So to sum up:

Gecko (so adorable! and they eat ants)

Crabs (interesting and cute if small)

Ants (annoying)

Cockroaches (the worst)

And those are just a few of the critters in our apartment. Tune in for more critter info and Neyla info on "Life in the Marshall Islands" with Janae Rusin. I've got a lot of time now that I'm not teaching Algebra anymore.

The Silenced Majority

It is so easy to see the world and the happenings of the world in a purely negative light without any redemptive factors.  The crazy despotic country that is North Korea has nuclear weapons, war looms (as always) in the Middle East, mistreatment of women and children around the globe and talking heads always blaming “the other party” for everything that is wrong in their respective country.  However the media doesn’t cover the silent majority and too few people realize that the powerful minority doesn’t represent the hopes and dreams of the majority.  The majority of Koreans want a peaceful reunification someday, the majority of Palestinians and Israelis want a peace of compromise, grass roots women’s groups and orphanages are popping up all over the desperate parts of the world that need them and there are (believe it or not) many government officials who are silently trying to actually get good work done for their people.  But the voice is given to the loud and terribly arrogant extremes.  It takes work, but if we look deep enough into the issues of the day we may just find that same hope that the silent majority has.

* * *    *

I’m not sure if I’m just getting old and crumudgeny or if there is real rapid change happening in the world, but I sense that the beginning of real substantial earth-shaking change.  A sort of change that has been experienced before in history like in the years 1919, 1945 and 1989.  I think that one of the years of the recent past will go down in history as these previous years have.  I sense a real move toward more inclusion around the globe of more peoples in the market and political decision-making process.  But as we’ve seen time and time again in history, those with power are unwilling to relinquish it without a fight.  We see that fight today in Syria, but we have seen multiple other Arab dictators toppled.  We see Chinese and Indian citizens gaining a middle class that has included billions of more people in the globalized market and in the last decade some of the “darkest” and most hopeless places in the world have had a light shined upon them.

People now know of the horrible cruelty in the diamond mines of Sierra Leone and forced change.  People now know of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and their use of child soldiers and how 3 teenage boys with hope and determination can change the future.  People now are able to see the courage of protestors all across the Middle East to determine their own futures.  And on and on…  This can be the real power of an interconnected and global world, the fact that truth can be revealed so much easier.  A film like “Blood Diamond” can change the entire market place for good.  Three young boys who have a desire to better the world can shine light on the previous darkness that too many children had to endure and start a global organization for good known as, “Invisible Children.”  And brutal dictators can no longer get away with harsh treatment and shutting down their media by courageous young people posting the brutal treatment to YouTube or joining international media via satellite. 

  There is more work by every human to be done for sure, but the amazing thing about change is that it happens so slow, but so sure, that many people don’t even know that it has happened until it has.  There are innumerable instances of courageous people taking a stand for hope and succeeding.  If you make an effort to look, you will find that there is a great hope under the surface of cynicism, complaining and negativity that pervades our public discussion today. 

   

July 4th Thoughts

The 4^th of July is a great time in the middle of the summer for families to get together, bbq’s to be enjoyed, parades of celebrations and fireworks at night.  However like most holidays in modern America the meaning and history has tragically been forgotten.  America is not something to mindlessly celebrate, it is a set of ideals to be continually chased after and collectively pursued.  There is still so much work to be done today in America to live up to the grand idea of a place where everyone could respectfully come together and have choices so long as they don’t interfere with other people’s choices.  The thing that sets America apart is the blank slate of ideas that this country was founded upon.  Despite the greatness of those ideas there has always been a cost.  On July 4^th it is my contention that we ought to remember what this day really is and remember it as such and remember it is not a celebration for all.  On this day we should all reread the Declaration of Independence that Thomas Jefferson so eloquently wrote and remember why it was written and how serious it was when the Continental Congress adopted it.  We too must remember that July 4, 1776 signaled the beginning of the end for the vast majority of the Native American tribes that inhabited the western ¾ of the country for thousands of years.  It is a bittersweet day to be sure.  On one had we have the great ideas of a shared liberty and yet we have the loss of a people as well.  

What is Majuro like?

Ever since we got back to the States, people keep asking us one question, "What was it (Majuro) like?"  There are so many different ways to answer that question and I think I've tried to answer it culturally, politically, economically and educationally; however, what I find is that it is incredibly challenging to answer this question.  I have been to 25 different countries and The Marshall Islands are by far the most difficult place I've ever been to explain.  I feel no matter how I answer that question, it is never a very good answer and it is always incomplete and the people that I describe it to inevitably get an incomplete description.

Any proper description of Majuro and the Marshall Islands has to start with the fact that it is incredibly tiny, especially to someone who is from Chicago.  Majuro only has about 20,000 people in the entire Atoll, which actually makes it quite crowded since it is only about 12 square miles in total area.  There is one major road, which doesn't really have a name, because when there is only one road there lacks a purpose to name it.  There are parts of the road when you are driving where the Atoll is only about as wide as the road.  On one side you have the crashing ocean waves and on the other is the placid beautiful lagoon.  When I first saw a picture of the international airport in Majuro, I thought it was a photoshop joke, but it isn't.  It really is a runway just put essentially in the middle of the ocean.  

Majuro is small for sure, but it's people are what make this country so unique.  Again it is difficult to describe the Marshallese people.  The language is fascinating to listen to and there has only been a written language for less than 100 years.  To me it seems there are two groups of Marshallese, the "well born" and those who struggle on a daily basis.  There is a small minority of wealthy and powerful people who seem to have all the luxuries of a modern lifestyle, but then there is the majority.  The unemployment rate hovers around 50% and there is neighborhood after neighborhood of shanty towns.  There are an uncountable number of children who do not go to school and who roam Majuro on a daily basis, just hanging around.  There seems to be a beautiful fatalism to Marshallese culture.  Beautiful in that so many folks just go about living their daily lives with seeming little worry enjoying all the beautiful weather has to offer.  The fatalism on the other hand is quite worrisome to a foreign westerner.  There seems to be no sense of urgency in the culture to make the situation of the majority better, mostly it seems because it is and would be an impossible task. 

The Marshall Islands is an incredibly poor country.  The reason for this and their shockingly high unemployment rate is that there is no viable local industry now or in the near future.  The only real economic activity seems to be the many local stores that sell exclusively imported goods, clothes and food.  Virtually nothing is produced locally and therefore there is no way to employ the masses.  People seem to think that this is the way it is and there is very little to be done to change the country in the future, hence what I see as a sense of fatalism.  

My favorite part of Marshallese culture is the love of basketball.  I love playing basketball and all of the hoops takes place outdoors in Majuro.  Occasionally you'll have a rain delay, but there's nothing like playing hoops on a beautiful Marshallese evening.  I love playing in the various leagues in Majuro and can't wait until my ankle heals so I can finally play again.  

The food in the Marshall Islands is ok.  It's not great and it's not bad, it's ok.  You can buy almost anything there that you can buy in the States, but if you go to a grocery store and buy "American brands" then you better plan on paying at least 50% more in price.  A bottle of beer is $2, yes one bottle, not a 6 pack.  A box of Cheerios is about $8 and milk... well milk as it exists in America is seemingly not to be trusted in Majuro.  Powder milk is the way to go as both times we got proper milk, it was spoiled.  Restaurants really aren't that much more expensive than cooking yourself and there are a few good options there that we'll take advantage of several times a week.  When you go out, salads are rare, but not bad.  Burgers and pizza are common, but you can always find a good piece of fish!

Scientists have said that because of global warming these islands will be under water in less than 100 years, thus forcing all Marshallese people to abandon their homeland and become exiles somewhere, most likely in America.  This will undoubtedly force upon the Marshallese people and their culture a massive evolution as they've already gone through in the past 150 years.  They have journeyed from a primitive hunter-gatherer society focused around warfare and local traditions to a real melting pot culture that has mixed traditional Marshallese culture with that of modern capitalism and come out with something somewhat indescribable.  They are a country dependent upon generous foreign aid and reparations from generations of disrespect, but the Marshallese are a unique people who are trying to adapt their lives to craziness of a fast paced modern society.  

I am sure from this description you're more confused and even have less of an idea what Majuro and the Marshall Islands are like, but I tried.  Maybe you just have to go there.  I can also recommend a few fantastic books and films.  

Books: Surviving Paradise by Peter Rudiak-Gould, and For the Good of Mankind by Jack Niedenthal

Films: Radio Bikini, and The Sounds of Crickets at Night

I think those would be more helpful than asking me, but here was my futile attempt and describing Majuro, The Marshall Islands and Marshallese culture.  I'm quite certain there are those who have different opinions and I'd love to hear them...

Loving Chicago, Missing Majuro

We have been home in Chicago now for about 2 weeks.  It has been a fantastic time seeing friends and family and doing a lot of relaxing.  I have been playing a bunch of golf with friends and in tournaments and it's been really nice to play again.  Janae and Neyla have spent a lot of time playing with cousins and enjoying the cool Chicago weather.  After being in Majuro for 6 months Chicago is like a culinary explosion for us.  We have enjoyed Tapas, Chicago style Pizza and delicious Italian food.  None of those are accessible in the beautiful Marshall Islands.  Of all of these great things, there are some things that we miss about Majuro. 

We miss the simpleness of not having a TV and a cell phone.  It seems that since we have been home we've watched way too much TV and been on our iPhone way too much.  When you have these conveniences of modern life it is difficult to not use them.  I have read for 0 minutes since we have returned and spent too much time watching TV.  In my defense, the US Open was on last week and I hadn't been able to watch golf in several months, so that's my rationalization.  I am surprised how just by having technology as an option it sucks you into using it more than you ever would.  If living in Majuro has shown us anything it is that you really can create better more fulfilling relationships and spend more time exercising if you just do not have technology.  Janae and I have discussed and agreed that when we do return to the States, we will not get cable as it just eats up so much time that we could spend together and/or exercising and/or reading.  

Technology is obviously not a bad thing in and of itself.  In fact, there are so many great things that our modern technological society allows us today, but when we become too dependent upon it or rely on it too much, we clearly lose something.  

In Majuro I read more books than I could have ever imagined.  I was more fit than I had been in the last 10 years and I was able to spend more time with people building relationships.  Majuro has helped to reveal to us what truly is the most important things in life and we are excited to return for one more year in August.