New Stories, Old Stories, French Stories, and Hermit Crab Stories

Life is good, a little too good sometimes, and I have too many good things on my plate right now. I've had to triage, and it hurts not to be able to do everything all at once. Curse time! But the goals I set for myself this year are being accomplished little by little. Proposals for typesetting children's books on the outer islands (see here for more on that—I added more short stories from the Marshallese kids. They are awesome and crazy and scary), finishing my grandmother's history, and doing my French class through FSI are my non-Max 'n Andrew priorities this week.

It has been very rewarding to work with people on the island for a good cause; getting outside myself and my comfort zone has been very fulfilling. I now have 27 new friends, plus Mr. Savu, their teacher. Typesetting my grandma's history has been an emotional roller coaster. Weeping and laughing, weeping and laughing. I admire my grandma even more for what she didn't say about her first husband. It is easy to find sympathy when you have been treated poorly—you have "the right" to say bad things about that person—but it takes a strong woman to forgive, to not be bitter, and to let go of the hurt, and to not defame the person that hurt you everywhere you go. To not only move on, but to truly move on and stop dragging the past into the present. I admire that in my grandma. I feel like her faith in Christ sustained her throughout her—in my opinion—very difficult life. Good for you, Grandma! I love you. I should have the book done and published by the end of this week. (My grandma is also a very faithful blog reader.)

My Sub-Saharan French Express class has been delightful. My pronunciation's not too bad, but it's wondrously difficult to have to be tested on how you're progressing over the phone with a mentor (who is from Burkina Faso, which I think is awesome. He is very nice). I don't even actually have access to the course yet because—and we only found this out after signing up—because it's not Mac-compatible. I guess enough of us Mac-ophoids emailed in asking what we were to do, because they're making the course available on Macs starting in June. So, hopefully I'll have enough internet power to get the course. If not, the CD-ROM of the course will come in the mail, but I'll have to find a PC to use it. Je suis très heureuse d'apprendre le français. But their keyboard is really wacky.

Have a great week! Any tips on learning Maghrebian French are welcome.

<--Massive hermit crab that Andrew found and brought into the house. Poor thing can't find a home that he or she will fit in (we always tend to call creatures "he," especially in books for children. Gender equality, yo! Subtle things like this make a big difference in how we view gender. Full disclosure of this topic [gender equality, not hermit crabs] will come later . . . that's another goal for this year). Don't worry, our home was a little too big for the hermit crab, so Andrew put him/her back outside.

The Unbound Bookmaker Project

My bookmaking experiment with Marshallese schools is well under way; see The Unbound Bookmaker Project webpage for what's been happening.

Also, I wanted to post that the short stories that the fourth graders did with very little direction were amazing. Here is the link to all of them so far (more are coming), but I wanted to post a couple of them here:

The Princess's Problem

Once upon a time there was a princess. She had a big problem. Her problem was she didn't have a prince. One day she asked her parents to find her a prince. But, they were busy looking at a basket. They were thinking, "Who brought the basket?" It was for the princess. Then she found out. It was from the prince. Then they married and had babies, and they lived happily ever after. The End

Mike the Mouse

Once upon a time there was a mouse. He likes to eat cheese. And his town is made of cheese. And one day he went to another town that was made of logs. And the mouses were poor but Mike just went and said, "Do you want to come and live with me in Cheese Land?" But the grandpa mouse didn't listen to Mike. Then Mike yelled at him. "Why all the time you don't listen to me? Come and live with your childrens in Cheese Land."

The Pretty Girlfriend

Once there was a girl in a village. She was the most prettiest girl in the village. Then this guy asked her to marry him. Then she said yes. A few days had passed. When the girl went outside she talked to other boys. Then when her boyfriend came out of the house he saw his girlfriend talking to boys. After that they had a big fight at 12:00 a.m. The boyfriend said, "Why did you hangout with those boys?" The girl said, "It wasn't me it was the boys." Then the boyfriend said, "Why wouldn't you just ignore them?" Then the girl said, "Hey, it's not my fault that I'm pretty." The boyfriend got mad. He took a knife and cut her mouth. The girl was crying. In a few weeks the girl will ask you if she is pretty.

Yes—cut your mouth too
No—kill you with the knife

[An interjection here from Jamie: I find this hidden voice particularly powerful. This child has described a not-uncommon scene of domestic abuse that occurs in the Marshall Islands. It was only in 2011 that a law was passed making it a crime to beat or injure one's domestic partner, and it only happened after Emson Makroro was violently killed by her husband in a domestic dispute. I find it interesting how this child is trying to grapple with violence. WUTMI, the women's organization in the Marshall Islands, is trying to stop this abuse in all its ugly forms. Praise to the voices, especially little voices, who protest this type of violence, who seek outside help, and who strive for better relationships not based on coercion.] 

Max the Cutest Dragon (I brought Max to school with me one day)

Once upon a time there was a baby dragon. His name was Max. Every day he would say to his mother, "Fee fie foe! Do you know the Gruffalo?" His mother, Mrs. Jamie, would get annoyed. So early the next morning he set off looking for the Gruffalo. His mother was worried. Max met the Gruffalo but he was grumpy and mean. He was going to kill Max. But luckily Max blew flames out of his mouth and burned the Gruffalo's hand. Max flew off and got home to his mother and he never disobeyed his mother ever again. 

Atoll Softball: Battle of the Embassies

In conjunction with the Constitution Day of the Marshall Islands, we participated in a Goodwill Game of softball, with the Marshallese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on one team and the U.S., Taiwan, and Japan embassy personnel on the other. It sounds pretty cool to say that I was a pitcher for a nationally broadcast, official softball game against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the nation's largest stadium. . . .

. . . until you hear the actual details—it was a radio broadcast to a population of 26,000 people, Andrew and I were the only mildly decent pitchers, and the diamond had a few busted-up benches. Doesn't sound quite as impressive. But pretenses aside, it was a great game.  I haven't played softball in a long time, and it felt so good. Andrew and I took turns pitching and making sure Max stayed off the field.

Back on the pitcher's mound after . . . um . . . sixteen years.

Baseball diamond out in Laura.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was leading for most of the game until we had an 11-run comeback in the final three innings, including a grand slam by Andrew. In the bottom of the ninth we were ahead by one run, and the Ambassador put on her rally cap (which thing I had never heard of before). I pitched for the final inning and struck out the last person before they could bring in the winning run. Then we all ate hamburgers and chips as the sun set. It was glorious.

Edel made the hit that drove in the winning run. You can see the Ambassador as the 3rd base coach. Her rally cap must've made a difference. I will miss her.

Take me out . . . WAY OUT IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN . . . to the ball game!

(All pictures approved and used with permission.)

The Hunger Games: Subversion and Containment

Andrew and I have had quite the series of discussions about this series. He has posted a good review of it on his blog, most of which I agree with.

Andrew's Review of The Hunger Games

I would add that Collins missed her chance to make a much bigger impact on our society because of the last chapter of the trilogy. Katniss, having killed the rebel leader, goes back to District 12, wallows for a little while in her nightmares about all the people she's brutally killed, but then here comes Peeta with his bread and they frolic more or less happily in the Meadow with the two children Katniss never wanted to have, but did so because Peeta wanted them. What could have been an incredible and independent female character was neatly put back on the shelf as a submissive woman, back in the place where she belongs, doing things because her male counterpart wants it. Why?

In my BYU critical theory class we learned about Stephen Greenblatt's Subversion and Containment: this is when a text (or a play, or a movie) within a society calls into question a critical element or an ideology of society. King Lear, for example, calls into question the divine right of kings—a no-no in that era—and the text has to work extra hard to overcome its subversive nature. The author creates a tiger, but then creates the cage in which to contain it.

In the case of The Hunger Games, the tiger was a young woman who didn't follow the correct societal pattern of I Need Protection Because I Am Female, Must Find Husband, Must Have Children. The tiger, or mockingjay if you must, was not just in the arena creating havoc; she was causing us, the readers, to have these subversive thoughts against the status quo. What? A woman that has a valuable physical skill (hunting)? A woman that was intelligent enough to anticipate and beat her enemies, over and over again? A woman who didn't feel the need to jump into the arms of two handsome, yearning young men? A woman who didn't want to have children?

No. Don't worry. It was contained. The cage was built for this mockingjay. In the last little bit of the last book. Collins gives in to the Hollywood need for a happy, socially acceptable ending, because ambiguity and unresolved problems don't sell. Collins enacts authorial control upon her own subversive female character, Katniss, and Katniss is contained, marrying the man she didn't want to marry and having the children she didn't want to have.

One of the best discussions of ambiguity that I have ever, ever read—and still read on a frequent basis—is Bruce C. Hafen's On Dealing with Uncertainty (available online). We humans can't handle ambiguity. We must have causes for effects, reasons for actions, answers to questions, however inaccurate or oversimplified those causes, reasons, and answers may be. Hafen discusses Dostoevsky's The Idiot, "where the question is seriously raised whether it is possible for a true Christian to love unselfishly . . . As you might expect, he leaves that huge question unresolved, forcing the reader to ponder it for himself." Hafen's discussion of "leveling up" to the type of attitude where we can emotionally, mentally, and spiritually handle the gray areas of our lives is a very important skill that is often overlooked in our make-it-better, soma-soothed, relief-of-pain-please society.

Because subversive texts like The Hunger Games are contained, we are not left with the task of handling the subversive material. Why is it considered unusual, unnatural, or even evil for a woman have a valuable physical skill, intelligence, and a desire to do something other than have a husband, children, and a nicely decorated, Pinterested home? Why (as Andrew discusses in his review) do we consume violence as part of our corpus of entertainment—even, paradoxically, within The Hunger Games themselves?

Sometimes we need to be left uncomfortable, to grapple with the gray.

Marshall Islands Constitution Day

It's been a year since we've come! Here was last year's Constitution Day, right when we arrived in Majuro. This year it was fun to see the parade, the decorations, and the food stands. Max didn't last much longer than that in the heat, but we did get to sit down and enjoy eating ma (breadfruit) chips. They have become my favorite local food here.

I can't quite think about food right now, though; yesterday I got food poisoning from an apple turnover at the store. Sometimes I feel it's safer to stick with what I can get off the trees. Life will always have its ups and downs, and there have been many more ups than downs for us in the Marshall Islands.

Reef fish. Always have to ask a local if it's poisonous or not.

The ever-present chicken on the grills.

(Taken with permission)

Take Your Child to Work Day at U.S. Embassy in Majuro

A week or so ago I took Max to the Embassy for Take Your Child to Work Day. Although it wasn't nearly as awesome as Novell's Take Your Daughters to Work Day (with their duffel bags of free stuff/propaganda) when I was a pre-teen, the kids got to see the embassy (we're already pretty familiar with it!), listen to the Ambassador and the other staff talk about their jobs, and eat crackers and chips afterward. Andrew gave mock consular interviews and stamped their fake passports.

The photos are from Embassy Majuro's Facebook page, so I'm allowed to repost them here.

Ambassador Campbell in her office.

Andrew giving mock interviews at the consular window.

Last week the Embassy also sponsored a cleanup of a picnic area by the airport. It was really quite disheartening. This is such a beautiful place and we're all destroying it with our garbage. The dump is overflowing and no one wants a new dump next door, understandably. Most of the trash comes from the packaging on U.S. items. It really affects things out here. You may not see the trash because it is whisked away, but I think we all could try to do better in purchasing products that don't destroy my home.

Happy Scwub

Maxwell's table dancing. Maxwell has been table dancing for a long time.

Spelling "five" and "six." He says "Happy scwub" instead of "How do you spell . . ." (He can spell up to ten, but gets stuck at eleven.) I know a lot of videos can be annoying, so if you're going to watch one, watch this one and you'll get the idea.

Spelling "cow."

Spelling "Jamie."

Spelling "happy."

Women in Government: Jamie Judges a Debate Competition in Majuro

I was surprised and pleased when I was asked to participate as a judge of one of Majuro's high school debate competitions. What a fascinating experience! The majority of the debaters seemed to be young women, and the topic was incredibly controversial (for the Marshall Islands): should there be a quota of seats designated specifically for women in the Nitijela?

A little background before the sparks start to fly: The Nitijela is the Marshallese parliament; there are 33 seats, at least one from each of the 24 inhabited atolls. Currently, only one woman, Hilda Heine, holds a seat. The President and all of the cabinet members make up 10 of the 33 members of the Nitijela. It's like choosing the President and the President's administration from members of Congress.

I wanted to mention what the debaters in my group, four female Marshallese seniors or juniors, said in their arguments and then in the crossfire. The following is a truncated, patchwork version from the notes I took, but I have tried to keep their words as they said them:

Pro: "Nitijela" contains the Marshallese words for "head" and "know." We are a matrilineal society and so it is only fair that there be a quota allowing women to participate in the Nitijela.

Con: Quotas are against equal opportunity for everyone; they aren't democratic. It is not fair to the men. Have the women "go up there" in the right way.

Pro: Do you think that there is enough gender equality in the Marshall Islands that women could work their way up? There is no gender equality in the Marshall Islands.

Con: It was the men that signed Bill 93 [the law against domestic violence, passed in 2011].

Pro: Yes, that is why it took so long! The bill took 10 years to pass, and only when WUTMI [Women United Together in the Marshall Islands] pushed it through after a woman lost her life.

[The debater was referring to Emson Makroro, who was brutally slashed and murdered in a domestic dispute in 2010, while four men played bingo outside and heard the whole thing. Bill 93 was passed after more delays in September, 2011.]

Con: It is part of our culture to have men run the Nitijela. The men can think more clearly than the women. Women in our culture are highly respected but they are not leaders.

Pro: You say women aren't leaders. Have you ever heard of leiroj? [The highest ranking female landowner of a clan, ultimate owner of all the land in her jurisdiction. Land is extremely important here, as you might imagine.] Men are elected to the Nitijela because people are related to them, and they bribe people with gifts and food. Women can't compete with this bribery.

Con: Women should be at home and not in the Nitijela. They need to fulfill their responsibilities in the home and take care of the children.

Pro: We've grown up with the idea that men are supposed to run the world. Can't men be at home too? Without quotas, we are depriving women of the ability to help make policies that affect them too.

Amazing experience, like I said. It was a hard topic to debate, but the young women did an admirable job. What would be your Pro argument or your Con argument for quotas for women in government?

The team that won our round (the Pros—not because of ideals that I personally side with but on preparation, presentation, and debate style, not really shown in the snippet above) had to argue the opposite side in the semi-final round (I only judged one round), so they had to turn around and argue against quotas of seats for women. Also interesting—they attacked the system of quotas itself, citing other countries like South Africa where the quota system failed, and how quotas don't ensure that the candidates are qualified—but by this time Max had grown impatient and I had to leave.

Max was miraculously good during our round and drew numbers and letters on a pad of paper the entire time. It looked like he was taking notes with me.

This topic was very interesting in the light of the collaborative project I am involved in right now. Official announcement coming soon.