February 13th, 2013

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            Plans for the Majuro Middle School Talent Show have really taken off! We’ve officially booked a space at Robert Reimer’s resort, have made 4,000 raffle tickets to sell, and held auditions on February 12^th. We’re getting sponsored by local businesses like EZ Price (a hardware store), Payless (a grocery store), and DAR (a restaurant). The grand raffle prize is going to be $300, but we’re going to have gift certificates to a number of these businesses as consolation prizes. I’ve been running around organizing all of this, and I can’t wait to see the final result. My homeroom students have been diligently practicing their “hula dance” routine every afternoon, and I’ve been helping them out with their dance a bit. They’re doing it to “Danza Kuduro.”

Room 205 practicing for Talent Show

More practice

            On Tuesday, we had Talent Show auditions. There were about 100 students there, and they were all crowding around the windows of the classroom that the auditions were being held in. We had 10 eighth grade acts, which took about 2 hours to watch because there was a lot of shuffling around between acts. They were all “hula dance” routines, and I have to admit that my homeroom looked very put together! There were 3 other teachers helping me with the auditions. From the auditions, I’m going to put together a lineup for the night of the show. We also have a number of other acts lined up like a musical performance from a parent, songs from a Fijian choir, the SDA singing group, Ejit Elementary school students, Co Op Elementary school students, and an act or two from us Dartmouth Volunteers! As of now, we have 18 acts in total, but I’m going to try to cut it down to 14 or 15 by combining some of the student acts.

Auditions

More auditions

Room 205's audition

            Over the weekend, we ran a 5k, which was part of the Majuro Day celebration that’s going on next week. That event was very fun, and Nancy even won some prize money! I met a lot of interesting people there too, like the principal of Co Op, the private school on the island, and a Japanese man who works at the Ministry of Education. We also went to the Majuro Peace Park, which is a little bit past the airport on the way to Laura, about a 30 minute drive. The park is a memorial for Japanese nuclear bomb victims in World War II, since Bikini atoll was used as the site for the nuclear bomb testing. We took a taxi there, and it cost $6. From the four of us, the driver made $48 round trip because he picked us up on the way back. Normally, taxi drivers earn about $15-$20 in a day, so it was nice to give him such good business. Taxi drivers don’t own their own cars either, so they only put about $4 of gasoline in their cars (it’s around $5.50 a gallon).

Relaxing at the peace park

Sign for Majuro Peace Park

Ocean side at peace park

Lagoon side at peace park

            I also spent a lot of time helping out with play practice this past week and over the weekend. I’ve been working with the actors and coaching them through their lines. I’ve gotten the chance to practice with Nitan, who plays Riff in West Side Story, Varjid, who is Bernardo, Jennifer, who is Anita, and also a few actors who have smaller parts. Most of the leads know all their lines, but most of the actors with supporting roles barely know any of their lines, so it’s tough to smoothly run through an entire scene. The dress rehearsal is in less than 3 weeks, so everyone is starting to feel the crunch.

            We also visited the copra processing plant on Monday after school. Copra is the Marshall Islands’ biggest export. It’s made from coconuts. The meat is ground into coconut oil, and the shell is used as feed for livestock.

Copra processing plant sign

              I gave my students a group project for Monday and Tuesday. In their groups, they wrote persuasive paragraphs about whether or not they think littering, which is a massive issue in Majuro, should be illegal. They made colorful posters that they presented to the entire class, and then I hung the posters around the classroom.

Group work

            Every day, I am struck by the amount of artistic talent I discover in Majuro. On day one, simply walking down the street, I witnessed mere five and six year olds expertly strumming the ukulele. As the weeks pass, I find more and more of my students possess an incredible knack for dancing, or singing, or making handicrafts, or merely painting intricate designs on their nails. I’ve really come to realize how talented my students are through the talent show and West Side Story. It is such a shame that laziness is so ingrained in their culture. If they had more opportunities to develop these talents and show their worth, they could do so much more.

It is extremely frustrating to see my students and others accomplish very little in the classroom and on a global scale because they are not given the chance to demonstrate what they can do, or they procrastinate too much. Something that Marissa, Professor Garrod’s choreographer for West Side Story, said has stuck with me. She declared that the, “Marshallese children can pick up any dance or song faster than any American children she has ever taught. They have an uncanny knack for song and dance that is unparalleled possibly anywhere else in the world” she has seen thus far. I really hope there is a way for all of this talent to be recognized outside of the Marshall Islands. All I can do for now, though, is to encourage my students to work hard and manifest their talent to Majuro and themselves.