(02 March 88) Corinth has been sleeping on the benches behind DSC lately. He uses his backpack for a pillow and the roof keeps out most of the rain. When the first boat arrives in the morning he gets up, checks in at the police station, then boards one of the choppers for an outer island.
He can’t sleep at home since a fire destroyed the family sleeping quarters. He said that he completed a room with bunk beds attached to the walls, each bed stacked atop the one below it. The room can accommodate eight people.
It was still early and I sat next to him on a bench and we talked a bit, mostly about the past. Corinth said that before the German period (mid 1800s) the Marshallese used a variety of weapons to hunt with, including the slingshot, bow and arrow and a throwing stick, sort of like a boomerang but, loaded with shark teeth, it was designed just to strike a target.
He has a large bone artifact and other objects, such as needles made from bones, that have been handed down from generation to generation. How far back he couldn’t tell me. (American Indians also made needles from animal bones.)
Corinth was ten when the American invasion began. He recalls moving from island to island as the attack progressed. In the days after the battle the Army and Navy gave the Marshallese a bonanza of gifts, from clothing to food. The K-rations were good, Corinth said, but the thing he remembers most fondly was the chocolate bar the soldiers gave him.
“I loved that chocolate.” He gazed out over the lagoon.
“The soldiers gave us pants and we cut the legs off and wore them.
“I collected seashells for the Americans and they paid me ten dollars for a bucket.”
Corinth remained silent for a minute as he thought about those wonderful times. Then the smile on his face changed and he appeared more thoughtful.
“Now,” he said, pointing to a security fence surrounding DSC. “It’s like being in prison.”
Corinth and his family lived on two mid-atoll islands before the U.S. moved them to Ebeye in the 1960s so missile testing could take place in the central two-thirds of the lagoon. Like the other islanders, they had no say in the decision. And the quarterly rent payment was only a fraction of what was needed to live in Ebeye’s consumer society.
“My home was beautiful and not crowded. We raised chickens and pigs, had coconuts, breadfruit, collected snails, caught fish. Life was good.”
I brought up the problems caused these days by the horrendous diet of many Marshallese and he responded quickly.
“I think American food is not good for Marshallese. Before, we were healthy, nobody lost a leg to diabetes. Now, I have it. We eat the fish, drink coconuts. It’s good for us. Maybe our food is not good for your bodies. I don’t know.
Corinth put his backpack on and headed for the outer islands where life is so much better than on Ebeye.
The sad thing is these people will most likely never get their homes back. In a few more decades, sometime this century, the rising oceans are predicted to sink these awash islands beneath the Pacific and the islanders will become refugees in the United States. Homeless forever.
Filed under: Almost Paradise Volume 3
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