Majuro, the Marshall Islands

Iakwe (pronounced ‘Yak Way’ which means hello).

Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands was first stop on our trip across the Pacific. That is downtown Majuro at the extreme right of the atoll (pronounced as if saying ‘a tall’ man) pictured below.

Atolls are the remnants of long dormant volcanoes that have sunk into the ocean. The atoll on which Majuro is located is 30 miles (50 km) long and about 300 yards (275 meters) at its widest point. The elevation of the Majuro atoll is about 3 feet, a little less than one meter. The highest point on the atoll, on the top of a small bridge (shown below), which joins a break in the atoll, is thirteen feet (4 meters). Needless to say, storms with strong winds send waves clear across the island destroying any of the ramshackle structures that dot the atoll.

Island schools range from the recent modern facilities constructed in the last 5 years and some that are in danger of being washed away during a violent storm.

Marshallese children attending the schools look much like kids on Hawai‘i or the mainland, wearing school uniforms that are distinctive for each school. The girls shown below are from two different schools located on the same school grounds. One girl is from the high school pictured above, and the other student is from the middle school that can be seen behind the girls.

There are similarities among life on Majuro and life on other Micronesia islands. Typically, these islands have one main road that on Majuro runs the length of the atoll. On the widest part of the atoll there is a second road, mainly residential, that parallels the main road.

The islands have a wonderful sense of whimsy that sees stores such KLG instead of KFC as shown in the picture below. Probably half of the vehicles on Majuro are right hand drives as can be seen in the KLG photograph. The reason for the right hand drive vehicles is that importing from Australia or Japan is much cheaper than getting cars from mainland USA.

Schooling on Majuro suffers from a decline in education system that occurred after the Second World War. New efforts are being made to bring the Marshallese culture to a more prominent place in the school curriculum so that children can build on everyday life experiences for their understanding of school subjects. Mainland math textbooks that ask children to say how many snowmen are in the playground if the girls build three and the boys build four do not have any meaning for the children of the Pacific, yet that is the type of mathematics that gained hold in the islands as part of the Americanization of the school curriculum over the last 60 years.

The Macimise (Mathematics And Culture In Micronesia: Integrating Societal Experiences) Project is designed to enable local informants to recover/ discover/ uncover the mathematics in everyday life experiences of the people of their islands, and to then build that into the curriculum of the schools.

Marshallese children who move away from the Marshall Islands have a wealth of everyday life experiences that their teachers on Hawai‘i or the mainland could tap into if the children were given an opportunity to use and display that knowledge. The Marshallese children would be assisted in their transition to a new life by being able to demonstrate what they know, and the other children in the class would gain a first hand awareness another culture and way of living.

After two days on Majuro, we once again boarded the Continental Island Hopper to fly further westward to the island of Kosrae. Along the way we had a brief stop on Kwajelin atoll that is a classified military establishment. We snapped the pictures below to give you with another image of an atoll

that appears like a snake-like piece of thread in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The long white strip on the middle of the atoll is the runway towards which our plane was heading. After a 30- minute stop, we proceeded on our way to Kosrae. Little did we know at the time that Sandy’s suitcase decided to get off on Kwaj and wouldn’t catch up with us till a couple of days later since the Island Hopper only passes each island every second day!

So that's it from the Marshall Islands, folks. Kommol tata (thank you very much) for reading this posting of our Blog.