Me teaching....Yikes!!!

And so it goes.....This week has had its fill of ups and downs and I'm only half way finished. It is currently after 10pm and I had one heck of a day...Today in my sophomore biology classes we were to discuss the homework (that many didn't do) and then the scientific process. Now lets just say it isn't the easiest thing to do. The one saving grace is remembering my own High school experience...I too would have not wanted to be there and most likely wouldn't have done my homework....Karma....Bites you in the butt, doesn't it....LOL (that means Laugh out Loud in case you didn't know...Mom) My English class is also difficult. We are working on the Writing process and they are to write a five paragraph essay about their lives....Its like pulling teeth....Hopefully this weekend I will get a better gauge of where they are as far as ability because I am collecting there notebooks. We have been doing writing every class...It is composition 3 after all Tuesday was awesome. We all went out side and I told them that they could write on what ever they wanted to, they all looked at me in disbelief and then when they became comfortable with the idea they all seemed to be doing agreat job. What I am struggling with the most is finding ways to relate what I am teaching to their life. Even though right now it may seem pointless.

As far as questions from the peanut gallery go....

In the Marshall Islands everything is pretty much laid back and casual...The ideas of initive and the individual are foreign. As for as what the kids call me it is quite simple....They call me Greg....Some have taking to calling me Mr.G but for the most part all teachers including the principal are addressed by their first name. Very Interesting if I must say so myself!

As far as the lice goes...we now have two community members who have the bugs....These lice are also no ordinary lice....They grow them big out here in the islands compared to the lice I have seen in Colorado while working with the Rocky Mountain HeadStart. Lice here are a fact of lice it is common from students to have them, but it is still not desired. In fact during breaks and lunch it isn't uncommon to see girls going through one anothers hair. Diane has also informed me that apparently lice make a popping sound when bite. Apparently some of the kids bite the lice to make them pop! mmm!

Harris my bud
There is a young boy, about 10 who is very well behaved and his name is Harris. Considering the fact that he is not in school and his father just past away he is an incredibly good kid. The difficult part is the fact that he is not in school....This my at first seem to be only a money issue, because it does cost $700 a year to attend Assumption elementary, but looking deeper it is a much bigger issue. Harris is not the only kid in school in fact many kids don't attend the public schools either, because there is no room and they are over crowded. I often think about the saying "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach a man how to fish and he'll never starve." The bigger problem with this is that as a JV community we have the money to send Harris to school...( we do have a savings account that has accumulated over the years). But what does this solve. Are we creating a dependence? Just like we don't usually give food to the kids, because then where do you draw the line? and then what about when we are gone, who will pay for his schooling then? The questions that I am asking are not all that new to me. The difference is seeing them first hand. I am here for these two years to "walk in solidarity with the poor" I am not here to offer a hand out, to be the "big, bright American" with all the answers. And even though I am unsure what my role is exactly I hope that as time goes on I am able to push myself to ask the tough questions and to challenge my own outlook on life.

Well, If that came out as rambling I do apologize, but Its been on my mind...So thanks
Keep me in your prayers cause you all are in mine.
Nothing but Love

Lice, Kids, and no Mr. Montoya....

Wow! It is so hard to believe that it has only been one week since I last posted a Blog Man I feel Loved with 32 coments on my last post. I wish I had the time to respond to each one of your coments but with the internet costing me 8 cents per minute, it adds up quick. After an hour I have already spent about a 10th of my salery! Yikes. But I will do my best to answer some of the questions I have recived...

Mom...Yes I got the box thank you am putting on a new set of sheets tonight and the zone bars are great. Please feel free to send some more Zone bars as well as golden Oreo's or chocolate. Im Glad to hear that all is well. And that you recived my card. I will try to call you tomorrow around 6 but dont count on it for 100% because I have to use the office phone and the secratary may not be in to let me use it.
Dayna...Wow...very interesting....please write me a letter and ill respond in more depth. The recipe segestions are good...I think Im doing Pizza tomorrow night!
Shannon....You down loaded Holla Back Girl....GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR they are not apropriate for kids...lol please tell them all Hi and give them all a big hug from me
Clare....It was so nice to have a card waiting for me when I got here....Did you get yours?
The heat is deffinatly a killer and Assumption Schools are deffenitly poorly organized....Im glad I have my community to vent with because we all find some of the ways they choose to do things to be very different then what we are used to. I hope all is well take care and keep on writing me letters...
Danny...Yo yo yo....I got the goods...The Ipod that is thanks a ton its nice to listen to while working on lesson plans I am going to try to get a letter in the mail to you asap. Please keep me in the loop
Caitlin...Thanks missy for the letter and the recipies...It was so nice to recive mail...The taco ring just made me hungry thinking about it...unfortunatly we have a vegitarian amoung us...lol I plan on writing you back this weekend.....
***If I didn't answer your question I apologize....I am not able to go back and forth between this screen and your coment screen so I did the best I could. :)

The details...
Well kids the fun has begun....Yes school has started and that awsome, but we also have an out break of Lice....Yes thats right my fellow community member name to remain anonomos...(Diane) has Lice....Last night the two other female JV spent over two hours combing her hair picking out eggs....mmmmm yummmy!
So classes started on the 16th and we had a half day both the 16 and 17. It was nice I got to meet my students and begin trying to learn their names....Here in the Pacific...It is common for individuals to raise there eyebrows to signify yes....It is very quick and very slight and I think I like it...At the same time it can be a bother when asking an entire class a question and no one says a word...lol...It will definetly require some skillful training on mybehalf. This past weekend we were invited to a volunteer BBQ it was nice, but Im deffinetly glad that many of the volunteers are headed out to the outer islands because I feel that many of "them" are here for reasons very different then my own...I hate saying that it makes it sound as if I feel my reasons are better, and thats not what I mean to imply....My reasons are just different, and dont include drinking heavly and acting like a "typical Ri-belle" (white person). I also found it very interesting when speaking to these fellow volunteers the conversations seemed to be very one sided...I seemed to be asking the questions and they seemed to be doing all the talking.....Man, Im knit picking.....lol
Today was my first full day of teaching. In my Composition 3 class we reviewed the student handbook and disscused ESLR's (Expected school wide learning results) It was a challenge to be able to define such terms as "the whole human person" and "Critical thinkers" But I think I was somewhat successful. Biology was different, We spent the first half of the period covering text books and the second half looking through the topics within ch1. Today was the first day I really felt like a teacher....I mean I told the kids to do something and they did it....and to all of you who know me well. I like being the boss...lol now that doesn't mean I have let it get to my head It in fact has made me nervous....because with power comes responsibility....

The Caous that is Assumption HS
On the very first day of school we were supposed to have a hour long assembly. It only lasted 30 minutes at most and started 15 minutes late....all of the falculty was interduced, but there was no organization and many of the teachers had to be asked what they were teaching....In fact there wasn't even a list of all the faculty and Edna a woman who has been teaching at Assumption, since the Assumption...LOL was almost looked over.
The Irony is that as a JV I see the JV perpose to be that we are trying to "work ourselves out of a job" meaning, that if possible we would like to see the staff be of all Marshallese individuals, but it is ovious that now it is not the time.
Two days ago we had a faculty meeting. and intead of retaining one girl who managed to slip through the cracks and was promoted to 10th grade they were going to let her stay in 10th grade and promote the other 10 or so students that were held back....Im not making this up! Jacquline and I were speechless...In fact I started reading a text book because I felt like me being A) a volunteer and B) a new teacher I had no right to talk....Lukily Chris the veterain spoke up and the plan was changed....Things are deffinetly done differently here.

Lastly
Im glad that tomorrow is Friday This week is going to be a lot of work....I have to put together my procedures for the classroom and lesson plan lesson plan lesson plan. I hope all is well I miss you all and hope to hear from you all...I bought stamps so start writting....

Gregory Montoya
Jesuit Volunteer's International
P.O. Box 8
Majuro, MH 96960

Nothing but Love,

Majur...WHAT!!!!!

Well I'm here and boy is it hot....not unbareable but very warm. I have so much to say. So I guess I better start at the begining. We landed at around 10am on thursday (thats wednesday for you all) and meet my fellow volunteers. There names are Chris and Diane. They were great. The weather was hot and sunny and the water was everywhere. We drove to our house minus our luggage. When we arrived at our house It was hard to believe that i would be living here for two years. The walls and floor are nothing but cement and the condition is in need of repare. The bathroom is also very interesting, but i did find the toilet facinating. It uses salt water from the ocean. (the question still remains....where does it go when I flush?...) After having a tour of our church and school aka "The Project", because it has been under construction and will remain underconsruction for an unlimited amount of time. We headed to Laura, The island of Majuro is a big U with the far end named Laura and the end near us named Rita. Anyway we dove to the end where we were able to watch our first sunset and drink from coconuts. It was way cool. And apparently a bit of a JV tradition. The next couple of days were a wirl wind of events, from meeting our principle, Fr. Rich our prist and the children who hang around. One kid in particular. his name is Kon and it suits him well aparently he opperates the kinder balack market...lol and smuggles snacks on to the school grounds and sells them from a higher price. He I can tell by his feet and the sores on his legs that he has had a hard live. The two of us played with the other kids as well and ended up using Jenga bloxs to consruct a tower. He also taught me his handshake and i taught him one to....Now everytime I see him he insists that we shake hands...not once but twice. Saturday was Diane's 23rd Birthday so we went out to dinner, I had a burger it was mmmmm good. On Sunday Chris and Diane had people from church over for brunch there was about 15 of us...seveal nuns and a couple people from the community. Emily Jacqueline and my self attended mass on both Saturday night and Sunday morning which is what the 5 of us will do every week, because the english mass is on Saturday, but were unable to all attend this week cause Chris had to cook brunch...Speaking of cooking...I need recipies...I am supposed to cook dinner on Friday, and am sure I will be able to come up with something for this week but would love to receive suggestions for the future cooking I will be doing weekly. Yesterday.....(Monday for me) We went to the US embassy and had a small social with the ambasador She attends our parish along with several of the Embassy staff. Many of the other voluneer programs were also there it was nice. Today Jacqueline and I had the fun task of clean our desks in the teachers office and boy was it fun...but at least now I have my own work area in an air conditioned office.


Ok So I kinda was getting side tracked. These are just a couple of things that I have observed since arriving in Majuro.
1) its hot
2)air conditioning is nice...i love going to the grocery store
3) all the children who hang out at our house and color are very friendly and their parents most likely have no idea where they are.
4) there are MANY other volunteers here...ie World Teach, Dartmouth Volunteers, Japanese Volunteers, peace core, and there have been many volunteers before me.
5) My community is great and we are geling nicely
6) rats are huge
7) I dont have an ear for Marshallese...and will require hours of practice
8) the reason why i am here is ever changing...and the question of weither i am as a volunteer doing more harm or good is going to be ever present.
9) Taxi rides to the store are only 50 cents and are a great way to enjoy AC
10) the house phone is out of order.
And finally....
No matter how much I write I can not capture everything I am experiencing in words.

Ok so here is some basic Logistical stuff for those of you who are interested.
I will be teaching 2 sections of both(drum roll please...) Sophmore biology and Junior English.
There are 7 periods in a school day and will always have 4th and 7th off.
Each one with in our community is required to cook dinner once a week and do dishes once a week. The high school students do not rotate for classes, instead the teachers do.

Most likely I will check back in a week love you all XOXO

Aloha!!!!!

IT is currently 5:30 in the morning in Hawaii, and boy what a time we have had. a group of 5 of us arrived here on monday evening around 6pm and were in aww over the beuaty of the water. Yesterday, I think we managed to do more in one day then most people do in their entire vacation. We woke up at around 7 and were out the door by 8 after being on the bus for a while we got off in China town and looked around at the market and each got a pastery. I got a coconut felled thing it was amazing. We got back on the bus and met up with Julie Walsh, an Alumi of SHC who is also a former volunteer who was in Majuro back in 1990. She now lives in Hawaii and has her PH D. in cultural Anthoropology. ( ....Hawaii may be in my future....) after having a wonderful breakfast we decided to climb a tree while Julie took Chuuk Jaclyn ( another island in micronesia) to the air port to pick up AJ the rest of us hung out at the beach and climed an amazing tree. I felt as if I was part of Swiss Family Robinson. When we all were reunited we rentend bikes and rode up to Dimond Head, where we continued on by foot. For those of you who are unaware Dimond Head is a valcano, but no worryes it hasn't exploded in thousands of years. I was actually inside the bowl of the valcano, so tecnichly speaking....I was inside a valcano!!! well we climed up to the highest point and the view was breath taking. It was ocean every which way and mountains behind us. It was beautiful. After riding back and returning the bikes we went back to the beach and found a place to eat. I had fish tacos. They were mmmmmmmmmm good. Well it is now 5:45 and and our plane leaves at 7:00 I can't believe I am about to leave for 2 years. I am so excitd to meet Diane and Chris, our two fellow community members who have already been there a year. I hope everyone is doing well it is so nice to read all of your comments remember to keep in touch. Nothing but love.