Cba President's Message to Members
| Publication year | 2009 |
| Pages | 5 |
2009, October, Pg. 5. CBA President's Message to Members
October 2009
Vol. 38, No. 10 [Page 5]
"That my country should be served is the first wish of my heart. I should be doubly happy were I to render it a service."
Thomas Jefferson to the Officials of Norfolk, 1789.(fn1)
In 1971, as an idealistic and somewhat naïve college graduate, I had the opportunity to enter the Peace Corps. After ten weeks of training in Hawaii, I was assigned to be a teacher at an elementary school on the tiny island of Ujae in the Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific. I was the only American among the 300 Marshallese men, women, and children living on the island.
My idealism faded during my first few months abroad. I experienced a great deal of difficulty learning the new language, and adapting to the new culture presented interesting personal challenges. My proverbial "grass hut" lacked all the comforts of home. I ate rice and fish three times a day and my late night trips to the "benjo" (outhouse) often were made in the middle of a tropical downpour. I felt very isolated and began to feel sorry for myself.
Fortunately, the Marshallese people were wonderful and treated me like a king. They were tolerant, patient, and kind. A couple who lived nearby with their five children virtually adopted me as part of their family, inviting me to dinner every night and making sure my needs were met. My colleagues at the school did everything they could to help me learn my new language and my new profession. I was given the largest and nicest classroom in the school, and I had my pick of the books in our small library for use in my classes. Even the students did their best to help me along. Despite my poor accent and syntax, they rarely laughed at me and did their best to help me with translations from Marshallese to English. One day, an eighth grader named Lokar saved me great embarrassment by letting me know that a nasty Marshallese slang word sounded much like the Latin American country "Peru." He warned me that I needed to emphasize the hard "p" to avoid getting my face slapped.
Despite all this kindness, I still struggled. Had there been a way off that island in those first few months, I would have taken it. I was, however, more or less stranded, because...
To continue reading
Request your trial