Almost Paradise Pt 34 Island Check

(29 Jan. 87) I was told to walk around the island and check for anything that might belong to the Russians from Brand X. I took my camera and a 1000 mm lense and made my way down the west side and back up the lagoon side. I didn’t find any suspicious objects but I did encounter the usual abundance of spider webs. The thick undergrowth and rocky terrain caused me to choose my steps carefully. One of the officers did find an empty Vodka bottle on the reef.

A  hundred yards up the lagoon side I encountered a Marshallese family among some coconut and Pandanus trees. They ignored me so I continued on. While the mother and father cleared the ground with rakes, their three children sat on a mat next to a basket filled with food. One of the girls set plates woven from coconut palm leaves on the mat. Marshallese on the outer islands weave these plates shortly before a meal is prepared and then discard them after one use.

This custom is no longer practiced, of course, on the almost treeless island of Ebeye.

At one of the geodesic domes on the north side of the village that same fat hog was again lying beneath the air-conditioner where the drain water dripped off its backside. And the smile was still on its face.

(1030) I’m taking the time to do some studying and log in some little bits of knowledge I’ve picked up. A few weeks back Anjelok and I were sitting on a bench on Eniwetak waiting for the Huey and and I asked him the Marshallese name for helicopter. He gave me what was probably the earliest exposure the islanders had for a chopper. “Wan Kwot,” he said. Wan is a general term for vehicles and kwot means to steal, according to my dictionary. I couldn’t make the connection and asked him to explain further.

“It is a vehicle,” he continued and used his hands to illustrate, “that can come in quickly to an island, set down and steal your property, then take off before you know it.”

I asked him if an incident like that had ever happened and he said that as far as he knew, it hadn’t. The potential is certainly there, though, and if an act of thievery involving a Wan Kwot ever occurs, the name is already in place.