Watch the Walk

Giving a speech, with money pinned to him The other day I went to a ceremony for English students to receive their certificates of completion. This was the first ceremony of this type ever held in that particular village, and it was quite the experience. I've been to dozens of ceremonies, but this was by far the most intense. And while the style wasn't particularly to my liking, it occurred to me that it might have been very much to the liking of another person. So here's a description of a couple notable parts of the ceremony, told two different ways: There were so many people at the ceremony! The town square was filled with chairs, but there were far more people than chairs. And what an excited crowd! There were old people and kids, and everyone wanted to see what was going on.  The number of people was intense. Even though they'd set out chairs, the number of people standing dwarfed the chairs that were set out. And the crowd kept getting closer in on the stage too. ...

A restaurant meal Lately I’ve been working on a “Ramadan Special” English program for the radio. Basically, we just take an easy dialogue, say it once in just English and once with translation, then ask questions about the topic. Each week there’s a different dialogue and every day we ask a different question which listeners can answer by sending a text message to the radio station. Well, we chose topics which interest islanders who travel abroad, trying to think of phrases or words they might want to know. One of the scenarios is at a restaurant. What things do you think are important to know when you go to a restaurant? Things like the bill/check, menu, order, to go, and how to phrase your request for food and drink, right? What about how to ask where the bathroom is? It occurred to my islander counterpart and I that learning the location of the bathroom is a common part of going to a restaurant. But it caused a fun discussion between the two of us. Islanders can go all day without...

Documents to deliver for a stranger Here in the islands we have a somewhat unique issue of transporting goods. Seeing as how most people don’t have a post office box and, besides which, the postal system is rather slow, how do you get something from one island to another? A lot of families are split between different islands, and with the cultural expectation that better-off family members will help out those who are worse off, there’s a fairly steady flow of goods between islands. Additionally, there are often official documents that have to reach government offices on the big island. So, when you know someone going to another island, you often will ask them to deliver something for you. Or maybe you don’t know them, you just go to the airport and look for someone who looks trustworthy (hello, Abby!) You know how in the US, they ask you if you’re carrying anything for anyone else? Well… um… yeah. I’ve ended up carrying a variety of things for others. Most common is an envelope with m...

Sunset from a taxi In my class the other day we were on the topic of describing your hopes and dreams. Each student was supposed to come up with a couple of hopes for how their island would be different 20 years from now. The first student's answer really caught my attention: "My hope is for my island to have a good economic situation in 20 years. By that I mean that everyone will be paid at the end of every month." Yeah, let that sink in for a moment. As Americans, we often think about "the economy", but how often do we wonder whether this is the month we'll get paid? Can you imagine going to work every day for months on end, without getting a paycheck? Yet many islanders do. Some, however, get tired of it. Sunrise from my roof Recently the teachers in a couple of towns told their students that they weren't going to teach that day. If the students wanted to be taught, they needed to go on a parade and demonstrate, demanding their teachers be paid their ...

How often do you think about whether you should be on time, late, or early? Do you think about it, or not really? Here on Clove Island I often have to consider whether the event I'm going to calls for being early, on time, or late. Recently, there was an English certificate ceremony that I was supposed to go to which was planned for Sunday morning. They agreed to start at 11, giving my team time to worship and study together before going to the ceremony. Then the invitations were issued for the ceremony: the time on the first ones was 8:30, the rest of them said 9:30. Students we asked claimed that the ceremony would start anywhere between 9 o'clock and 10:30. They were planning to be there by 8. Well, you can imagine my anxiety-- am I going to be late to the ceremony? That would be embarrassing, since they have teachers sit at the front! I checked again with the administrator and he assured me that they would try to have things ready so that things could start after we arri...

How much is enough for you? Do you have goals in life? Places you want to go? Things you want to see or experience? People you want to involve? I've been teaching an advanced English class and we start each class session by discussing a proverb or saying. Often the discussions turn philosophical in nature. Recently the lesson was on money, and we started talking about the saying that "money makes the world go around." After discussing money and how central having things is to the way the world works, I started hearing comments like the following: "You know, you can get away with any kind of crime here, so long as you have enough money." "A poor person will never find justice for himself." "I want to have a lot of money so I can do anything I want." "I want to be president so I can have a lot of money." "Rich people don't have any worries in life." Now, you may be shaking your head at this. But aren't these thoughts...

My neighborhood cleaned up their trash pile What do you do about your trash? Did that question make you pause for a minute? Is trash something that you think about on a regular basis? Or maybe you pride yourself for recycling? Or compost-- what a great option! But some places the "options" are a little more complicated. I've probably complained about the trash-covered beaches here in the past, but maybe the real problem has been less than clear. See, we have no landfill here. Between the steep mountains and private property, they've never found a good location for a landfill. We also have a fairly large amount of imported goods. And since buying in bulk requires having a larger amount of money at a time, many people buy in single-serving packages that that average 30 cents apiece. And you can imagine the plastic and metal involved in the packaging for all of that. Then there's the organic waste. Some of it, goats and chickens will eat. But not everyone has goats o...