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RE: Coffee
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: Coffee (in reply to aeolus)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: aeolus
Any male visiting the Texas border is inevitably shown Boys Town as a prime local attraction. It's really sad but it provides earrings I suppose for a few years. What happens then?
I got to know a guy in San Antonio, friend of my cousin Tommy. He was married to a girl from Mexico City. She was maybe 25, 26 years old, he was 35 or 40. She was a real beauty, smart, well spoken, read a lot in Spanish and English.
Years later Tommy told me the story. The girl's mother was the mistress of a fairly big-time politician in Mexico City. When the girl was 16, Mama's lover began to take an interest in her and her 18-year old sister. When the girl was 17 they ran away and went to work in one of the clubs in Boys' Town in Nuevo Laredo. They lived at the club, as many of the girls did.
Her future husband met her on a trip to the border and fell in love. The girls had absolutely no use for men in general, after their experiences with their mother's lover. He may have been their father. She took her future husband as a steady customer, but would have nothing to do with the idea of any other relationship.
Over a period of four or five years, the guy went back to Nuevo Laredo whenever he could. He bought her presents, took her on trips to Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta, did everything he could think of. Eventually she came to trust him, then to love him. They got married.
Last I heard, they had two grown children, one a school teacher, one a lawyer.
But I don't think that kind of story happens very often.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 14 2014 19:31:50
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
Eventually she came to trust him, then to love him. They got married.
I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and as soon as we teenagers got a driver's license, or knew someone who did, one of the first things we did was make a trip to Nogales to experience the carnal side of life (many of us for the first time!) on the Mexican side. We had been warned, with good reason, to be careful in the brothels and to show respect to the ladies. There were always "enforcers" hanging around, and in those days a good many were accomplished knife-fighters who could slip a blade between your ribs as easily as drinking a Dos Equis cerveza. (Today, I suppose they all carry guns.) I never knew anyone who had the remotest intention of falling in love with a "puta," though.
Later, after university, graduate school, and a stint in the U.S. Air Force, I took the U.S. Foreign Service exam, passed, and entered the Foreign Service. As a junior diplomat assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Manila, one of my assigned duties was to act as liaison between the Embassy and Subic Naval Base at Olongapo and Clark Air Base at Angeles City. I would visit the bases for two days each once a month, mainly on political-military business.
There were a large number of enlisted personnel at each base who were going to marry Filipina girls they had met in the bars. In addition to my political-military duties, I would give a talk to them about the immigrant visa process to bring their wives back to the U.S. after marriage. U.S. immigration law requires an immigrant spouse who has engaged in prostitution to obtain a waiver of ineligibility. I explained this and agreed to talk to couples individually after the session. One couple came into my office, and the girl, claiming she had just been a "cashier" in a club (a common dodge) blurted out, "My fiance was the first to pop my cherry," thereby, with her choice of language, giving herself away as to her true activity. I often wondered how, when they returned to the U.S., the introduction to the guys' mothers went.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 15 2014 15:01:47
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Coffee (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
I never knew anyone who had the remotest intention of falling in love with a "puta," though.
As I hinted, she was not your average bar girl. I think the guy first liked her because she was a genuinely stunning beauty, by any standard whatsoever. I think it was after he got to know her better that he fell in love. I was impressed with her intelligence, her self-education through reading, and over the years, her character.
When I got to Roi-Namur at the north end of Kwajalein Atoll in the Central Pacific in July 1991, I think there were only two American female residents. There were Marshallese women who came over from an island three miles away to work every day. In theory at least they all went home at night. One drawback to a Marshallese girlfriend was that they were all somebody's sister or daughter or niece, and the clans were tightly knit. In usual Pacific fashion, if you took up with a Marshallese girl, you ended up being a significant financial resource for her extended family.
Among the seasoned bachelor range rats (Roi Rats in Kwaj parlance) I arrived at the trailing edge of the fashion of Pohnpeian girl friends. Pohnpei is a high island around 500-600 miles to the west of Kwaj, two hops of the Island Hopper airline route.
There were the usual difficulties of long-range relationships, further complicated by vast cultural differences and sharply varying versions of the concept of truth. But I was told that Pohnpeian girlfriends went out of style due to a pattern of violence if a guy dropped one girl and took up with another, a fairly common occurrence given the frequency of stormy relationships.
The scorned woman didn't attack the Roi Rat ex-boyfriend. It was the new girlfriend who got knifed by the old one.
Five of us Rats went to Pohnpei for a week of diving and had a blast. But the only girls I got to know were a Filipina waitress and a Japanese girl who worked for the dive operator.
The Japanese girl had left home at age 18 and gone to Madrid to study flamenco baile at the Amor de Dios studios in Madrid. She stayed in Spain for three years, then went to work in the dive business in the Pacific. She was about 5 feet tall (152 cm), weighed maybe 95 pounds (43 Kg) and was a sight to behold aboard the dive boat in her utterly minimal bikini. Among the Japanese couples on the boat, the guys were very careful to steer clear of her, at least while their girlfriends or wives were watching. Her Spanish was better than her English, and I was the only one on the boat who spoke it.
The dive operation was run by Japanese guys who had seen too many WW II movies. They sported wire rimmed glasses, held their cigarettes funny, and spoke in measured tones while peering at you through the smoke with a thoughtful expression. I never saw anyone act like that in Japan.
One of them asked me if a Japanese had ever dived Kwajalein. I said not to my knowledge, and probably not at all, given the restrictions on visiting the military base and the absence of any commercial dive operation. They seemed eager for an invitation, which got me thinking.
The girl turned out to be the first Japanese to dive Kwajalein. She couldn't stay on the military base, at least not officially, because the paperwork for her to be the guest of a resident couldn't be put through at such short notice. Whether she could sleep aboard my sailboat at its mooring near one of the the military harbors was a legal gray area. So in theory at least, she stayed on one of the non-military islands of the atoll.
But somehow she got in a number of dives with me and my regular dive buddies. Then she went on to a new dive job in Bali. Flamenco was a natural for her. She was a pint-sized ball of fire.
…but this was supposed to be about coffee, wasn't it? 
RNJ
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Date Mar. 15 2014 19:30:51
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
Among the seasoned bachelor range rats (Roi Rats in Kwaj parlance) I arrived at the trailing edge of the fashion of Pohnpeian girl friends. Pohnpei is a high island around 500-600 miles to the west of Kwaj, two hops of the Island Hopper airline route.
I know both Pohnpei and the Marshalls well, having had both (as well as Palau) in my Pacific Island portfolio during an assignment at the State Department in Washington many moons ago. Traveled to the islands frequently, and in 2011, I pulled a three-month consulting gig for the State Department as Charge' d'Affaires at our Embassy in Kolonia, on Pohnpei, Micronesia. As far as my choice for a girlfriend, I definitely would choose Pohnpeian girls over Marshallese. In my opinion Pohnpeian girls have finer features and, in general, are much prettier than Marshallese.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 15 2014 19:42:44
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Coffee (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
As far as my choice for a girlfriend, I definitely would choose Pohnpeian girls over Marshallese. In my opinion Pohnpeian girls have finer features and, in general, are much prettier than Marshallese.
Cheers,
Bill
I would agree with you in a moment, if I had never been to the "outer islands" of the Marshalls.
At Kwajalein and the capital Majuro, the two most Americanized parts of the Marshalls, you might see an occasional pretty teenager. By the time they were 18 and had their first child, they would very likely have put on weight, and have lost the fineness of facial features. With a few more years of age, essentially none were appealing to someone like me, acculturated to American, Mexican and East Asian concepts of beauty.
I used to have Sunday breakfast fairly often with "Doc" the retired Navy medical corpsman who was the resident nurse practitioner on Roi-Namur. Although his job was only to take care of the American residents of Roi, he had delivered more than half the babies born in the northern half of Kwajalein Atoll during the previous 20 years, none of them American. There were stories of heroic all-night trips aboard a fast boat to Ebadon, 40 miles away at the western tip of the atoll, to assist at a difficult birth.
Doc told me that 60% of the Marshallese people admitted to the military hospital on Kwajalein, for any reason, were diagnosed with diabetes. He attributed it to the local diet of plates heaped with rice, frozen chicken and Coca-cola. My brother the M.D. told me about the "thrifty gene" discovered among the Nauruans, who suffered a similar epidemic. They had evolved to subsist on a diet very low in carbohydrates. When their diet was "modernized" they succumbed in swaths.
My first sailing trip was with a group of six boats to Namu, the next atoll south of Kwaj. It's only 35 miles from the south end of Kwaj to the north end of Namu, but they are different worlds.
As soon as we came to anchor in the lagoon off the village and island of Majiken Namu, outrigger canoes appeared alongside with drinking coconuts for us. Somehow they already knew the precise crew size of each boat. Any offer of gifts or exchange for the coconuts was politely refused. They were ceremonial welcoming gifts. One young man did ask for a peek down a hatch to the spiffy teak interior of a friend's 46-footer (14 m).
At the skippers' meeting the morning we arrived, I was chosen to go ashore and formally announce ourselves to the village government, and to negotiate a convenient time when the rest of the group could come ashore. We bore gifts of clothing for everyone, toys for the kids and books for the school.
I was amazed when my two companions and I stepped out of the dinghy onto the beach. White haired old men, slender and fit, sitting cross-legged on the sand, stood up without pushing off with their hands. Women with teenage daughters and a few gray hairs were still slender and good looking. Young women with toddlers clinging to their skirts were fresh and pretty.
I made my way to the school and presented myself to the elected head of the government council, who was also the school principal. He took me to meet the Iroij of the village, the hereditary high chief. We were accompanied from the school by the 18-year old daughter of the Iroij, who was slender and very pretty, with a flashing smile and flirtatious eyes.
Before long I met the American Peace Corps guy who lived on the island. I was the first American he had seen in 8 months. He was glad to see me. As we talked later, I asked about the health of the people. There was no medical care on the island in any way, shape or form. Perhaps part of the vigor of the population was the fact that they were the ones who survived childhood illnesses. Even minor injuries to adults could become fatal with infection, though prompt application of traditional treatment helped fend it off.
But he also attributed the people's generally vigorous health to the incompetence of the Marshallese government. The ship that was supposed to deliver the rice subsidies was usually broken down. On the rare occasions it was seaworthy, it was often diverted to other purposes. The island went for months, most of the year without any external food supplies. They subsisted the old way on fish from the lagoon, coconuts, breadfruit and a few small taro patches built up with composted soil. It was the traditional diet the people had lived on for centuries. And they had to work hard for a living.
It was a different world. It was much the same on the other "outer islands" I visited.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 15 2014 21:34:53
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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Back on topic. It is Sunday morning, March 16, and I am on my third mug (mug, not cup) of great Colombian coffee, brought back from Colombia by a good friend of my wife who was visiting Medellin. It is a great pleasure to spend Sunday mornings reading the Washington Post while leisurely drinking that wonderful nectar, coffee. I cannot say I have a favorite. I love very good Colombian, and I really enjoy the Sumatran "Kopi Luwak." Brazilian can be excellent as well. Nothing beats that first swallow of rich coffee first thing in the morning. All seems well with the world, regardless of what is actually happening.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 16 2014 14:47:58
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
She got into enough trouble at 17 for the a$$hole base commander at the time to ban her from the military base for a year.
I don't know what kind of trouble she got into, but I can imagine it may have been sufficiently disruptive that the base commander may have had good reason to ban her from the base. I am well aware of Marshallese women and their behavior after drinking, not to mention their penchant for offering sexual favors, inebriated or not.
I spent one month on Kwaj in 1993 as the State Department representative working with a Brigadier General and a contingent from CINCPAC, as well as a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Rep, dealing with 525 illegal Chinese who were diverted to Kwaj by the Coast Guard, after first trying to enter Hawaii illegally. We eventually sent them back to Xian, China aboard four chartered Indonesian Air Force C-130s.
But more to the point, After completing our efforts to repatriate the Chinese back to China, I carried on to Majuro to conduct some business with our Embassy. I stayed at Robert Reimers hotel, where I had stayed on previous visits. As usual, I would repair to the Tide Table for a couple of beers each evening, followed by dinner. A couple more beers after dinner, and I would return to my room. Invariably, within an hour a Marshallese girl would knock on the door and asked if I wanted "company." Not wanting to sully the good name of the US Government by having one of its diplomats caught in a compromising position, I would politely decline. But it occurred on several occasions. In any case, a base commander is responsible for maintaining "good order and discipline," and can be sacked if he fails to do so.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 16 2014 18:26:10
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Coffee (in reply to BarkellWH)
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She was a bit of a ringleader in high school hi-jinks. I think someone was out to get her, perhaps the base commander herself.
At age 17 she had a 20-year old American boyfriend--itself against base regulations, but tolerated in almost every instance, even among American members of the police force with underage Marshallese girlfriends--and far greater age disparities.
She was at a yard sale at the residence of her boyfriend and his male American room mate. She went inside to use the bathroom. Regulations prohibited anyone under the age of 18 in bachelor residences. The cops showed up immediately and arrested her. She was the only one inside the residence. Someone must have been watching for an opportunity to get her.
On Roi-Namur, Marshallese girlfriends and their young children regularly stayed overnight in bachelor quarters, against regulations posted on the apartment building doors. At monthly town hall meetings conducted by this base commander, Roi residents regularly complained of the crying babies, cigarette smoke and crowding of the laundry facilities to this base commander, but she did did nothing whatsoever about it.
Both the Roi and Kwajalein police chiefs were friends of mine, They confirmed that they never received any direction from their higher-ups to do anything about it. Of course, they were powerless to do so, since a large proportion of their forces were Marshallese, who would never follow orders to take action against friends, relatives and clan members, unless the orders came from a member of the Marshallese aristocracy.
I never asked the Kwaj police chief who called the cops on my friend's daughter, not wanting to put him on the spot.
The Roi-Namur American civilian Island Manager, responsible for the non-radar work force and island facilities, including residence buildings, was of course a close business associate. He was also a good friend. He confirmed that he never received direction from his superiors to address the Marshallese girlfriend problem. But he himself was married to an aristocratic Marshallese woman, and to do so would have stirred up trouble for him within her clan and her feudal subjects.
Personally, I complain about this base commander advisedly. Of the many I served under she had earned the title of the very worst within six months of showing up on the atoll. I was a member of the top management team of the civilian contractors who actually ran the base, and had ample opportunity to observe and evaluate the actions of the various base commanders.
Two or three were very good. Most were mediocre, and occasionally had to be advised against ill-considered actions. Twenty years of Army experience wasn't very good training for being proconsul of a highly skilled, experienced and largely mature civilian population. A handful of the commanders were a serious blight on the reputation of the U.S. Army.
In two or three cases it looked to me like they were sent to Kwaj because they had made full colonel, certainly were never going to get promoted to brigadier general, and nobody else wanted them around.
There were only about 20 military personnel on Kwaj, and at most 18 direct U.S. Government employees among a population of 2,500-3,000 civiians. The commanders got a good talking-to from their superiors about paying attention to civilian advice before being sent to the atoll. On more than one occasion the commander had the error of his ways pointed out--politely--by his Space and Missile Defense Command 3-star boss, in my presence.
This one managed to definitively alienate the entire civilian population, her Army and government civilian subordinates, the Marshallese population and government, and just about anyone else she met, all within six months of her arrival.
quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
In any case, a base commander is responsible for maintaining "good order and discipline," and can be sacked if he fails to do so.
Cheers,
Bill
This base commander did more to alienate the military and civilian population of the base, and to provoke dissent and disorder, than any other person during my 18 1/2 years working at U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll.
Nothing personal. I never had a run-in with her. I carefully avoided being in the same room with her whenever possible. But her effect on my employees was a serious problem, provoking the departure of some of my best people, who didn't have to put up with pseudo-military chicken sh1t.
The personalized vendettas of this base commander, exemplified in her treatment of my friend's daughter, were part of the pattern of behavior that made her universally disliked and disrespected.
As you know, I have no beef against the military, having grown up the son of a military officer, and having worked in the defense business for decades. I have the greatest respect for the best qualities of the military services. But maybe that's what angers me so when the best traditions of the services are betrayed.
I doubt that anyone knocking on your door at Robert Reimers Hotel was a member of the aristocracy.
Over the past decades I have been approached by women a number of times in Washington, DC, but I draw no conclusions about your friends from it.
I'm sure you don't mean to imply that my friend's lively, intelligent and beautiful daughter is a common prostitute.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 16 2014 19:47:18
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
I doubt that anyone knocking on your door at Robert Reimers Hotel was a member of the aristocracy. Over the past decades I have been approached by women a number of times in Washington, DC, but I draw no conclusions about your friends from it. I'm sure you don't mean to imply that my friend's lively, intelligent and beautiful daughter is a common prostitute.
Of course I did not mean to imply that your friend's daughter was a common prostitute. I wrote at the very beginning that I did not know what kind of trouble she got into. But neither were the girls who knocked on my door at Robert Reimer's Hotel prostitutes. I assure you they were not prostitutes. But they would easily spend time with someone who accepted them. They did not require money, but a gift was always appreciated.
There were many such Marshallese girls. Not prostitutes at all, but quite willing to bed down with you and be your "girlfriend" while you were on the island. If you have ever spent time in Thailand, you will find the same thing. Many Thai girls will willingly be your "girlfriend" and accompany you during your visit. Of course, there are Thai prostitutes, but the girls I am talking about are not. And neither were the Marshallese girls knocking on my hotel room door at Robert Reimers. They were simply free with their sexual favors, especially with Westerners. Their motives probably ran the gamut, from getting gifts and having fun to the vain hope of snagging a Westerner as a husband.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 16 2014 20:53:53
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Coffee (in reply to BarkellWH)
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Indeed Micronesian sexual attitudes are different from the "official" attitudes of America. So are those of Southeast Asia. And there are utterly corrupt members of the Marshallese aristocracy, among them one former President.
But in my experience, the aristocratic Marshallese women are far less free with themselves than the dri jerbal. After all, there are large implications for landed property and political power in the relations of aristocratic women, since land and titles of nobility descended exclusively through the female line in the old days. They still do now to a large extent.
Amata Kabua, the first President of the Republic of Marshall Islands was a brilliant politician and diplomat, unlike his cousin and successor Imata Kabua. Amata was Iroij-alap-alap, the highest chief, not because he was descended from the 19th-century Iroij-alap-alap Kabua, but because he was married to Miriam Zedkaia, the highest ranking woman of the aristocracy.
Imata once claimed to be Iroij-alap-alap of the Ralik chain of atolls, but he was ignored, and ridiculed by many.
This is what I was told by Michael Kabua, Iroij on Kwajalein Atoll, Amata's first cousin, and Imata's older brother. It conflicts with what is written in Amata's brief Wikipedia biography, but I am more inclined to take Mike's word for it than that of the anonymous Wikipedia author.
Mike is a serious student of Marshallese culture, the conservator of an extensive and valuable collection of antique artifacts, and a patron of traditional Marshallese arts.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 16 2014 23:00:31
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
Amata Kabua, the first President of the Republic of Marshall Islands was a brilliant politician and diplomat
I knew Amata Kabua well, as I always had meetings with him and his Foreign Minister every time I made a trip to the Marshalls from Washington. Our meetings invariably focused on the profligate manner in which the Marshallese government wasted the funds allocated to them via the Compact of Free Association. Air Marshall Islands, an airline that was established with no hope of ever creating a stream of income, and which was subsidized with Compact funds. Fish processing plants that never earned a cent but were heavily subsidized with Compact funds. At one point, they wanted to use future Compact funds as collateral to secure an immediate loan for a project with little hope of success. We performed a "due diligence" exercise and recommended against it.
I always got on well and had a good relationship with President Kabua, but he was no different than the other Marshallese leaders who wanted to spend money on projects that created no future stream of income. They all, including Kabua, thought the Compact funds were heaven-sent and had no thought of how they might manage once the Compact funds ran out.
Nevertheless, one of our main priorities in the State Department (working closely with the Defense Department) was to protect our interests on Kwajalein so that you and your colleagues could continue the valuable work you did (and that continues to be done) there. Another priority that was met via Compacts of Free Association with the Marshalls, Micronesia, and Palau, was the denial of the entire Western Pacific to any hostile power. That remains the case today.
So, all in all, in spite of the dependency created in the Marshalls by a "welfare state" mentality, the United States has preserved our strategic interests in the Pacific for a fairly low cost overall. Not a bad bargain, when all is said and done.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 17 2014 0:03:53
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Coffee (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
Not a bad bargain, when all is said and done.
…for the USA's "national interests"--which are of course paramount from the point of view of one charged with protecting them.
Returning to Kwaj aboard the ill-considered L-1011 leased by Air Marshall Islands, Amata walked through the cabin from his private accommodations in the front of the plane, greeting everyone, and stopping for brief friendly chats with acquaintances. I never met any Marshallese who didn't regard Amata with near reverence. He led the Marshalls to whatever independence they gained from the USA, insured separation from the Federated States of Micronesia so the $millions of annual income from Kwaj didn't have to be shared, and continued--in Marshallese eyes--to milk a veritable deluge of Compact subsidies from the USA.
After passing through the cabin, he stood at the back smoking a cigarette. With raised eyebrows, I glanced at the Attorney General of the Marshall Islands, sitting next to me. He smiled and said Amata's wife wouldn't let him smoke in the front cabin. From the look he gave me, I saw it as a comment on the balance of power in the upper reaches of the aristocracy between the hidden hand of the women and the public actions of the men.
Because of overdue fuel bills, at one point the Army threatened to refuse landing to the L-1011. I'm sure you were in on that one. As you no doubt know the L-1011 project bit the dust because they couldn't get the annual maintenance done on it, due to what I described as the Marshallese government financial policy: never pay any bill to anybody, anywhere, at any time, for any reason.
From my perspective the smaller planes of Air Marshall Islands, profitable or not, were an essential form of transportation among the many atolls of the country. The managers of AMI were all Americans, some of whom I knew from their previous experience at Kwaj, running the commuter service there. AMI was far safer and much more reliable than the erratic and often poorly maintained and dangerous sea transportation. A couple of the AMI managers complained to me about interference from the government board of directors.
Another ill-advised AMI initiative was the Saab-2000 aircraft. Was it on your watch, or did it come later? With it they initiated service from the Marshalls to Fiji, via the Gilberts and Tuvalu. We chartered it for a dive trip to Fiji. It was modern and fast, though the commuter seating was painful for the long trip. I don't know about its financial numbers, but it met the fate of every aircraft ever put into regular service in the Marshalls, by the U.S. military or the Marshallese: destruction by the corrosive tropical environment.
By the way, have you read Francis Hezel's recent monograph, "Making Sense of Micronesia?" As usual, it is well written, in a friendly and unassuming style. In it he summarizes many of the things he learned from a lifetime spent in Micronesia as a Jesuit educator on Chuuk and head of the Micronesian Seminar. Perhaps you knew him from your diplomatic experience?
Hezel describes an early experience that taught him a lot. An American baseball coach for the high school team publicly criticized his Micronesian shortstop for missing a ground ball in practice, due to inattention, in the coach's opinion. He addressed the player in stern terms any American coach might have used.
In the subsequent actual game the shortstop was alert and quick. He picked up the first ground ball with precision and grace, pivoted and threw it far over the head of the first baseman. The runner was safe. The next ground ball was expertly fielded but thrown so wide that the first baseman had to step away from the bag. Again the runner was safe. The team lost. Every score against them was due to the runner getting on base from the shortstop's clearly intentional bad throws to first base.
The coach was furious, but not so furious as not to notice that the shortstop's Micronesian team mates bore no grudge at all against him for throwing away the game. In fact they seemed even more affectionate toward him than usual.
The coach found the shortstop's inattention in practice unacceptable. The team unanimously found the coach's public embarrassment of the shortstop equally unacceptable. Confronting the coach or grumbling would have gone against deeply ingrained cultural values. They showed their disapproval by intentionally losing the game.
The manager of the store on Roi-Namur was a cultured Viennese woman who shared my taste for classical music. She did a wonderful job under difficult conditions. She loved to make her customers happy. One day however, she mentioned briefly a difficulty she was having with her Marshallese employees. It occurred to me to ask, "How much of it is failure to understand the exotic ways of the Ri-Belle [white people], and how much is passive resistance?"
With a slightly weary sniff she replied, "Oh, about half and half."
I learned some things from this book of Hezel's, as I have from the others. He applies the divergence of Micronesian culture from "modernizing" culture to a brief analysis of the failure of development projects in Micronesia.
I like Hezel, and I have enjoyed all his books on Micronesian history.
One of my American employees was the leader of the largest religious denomination among the Marshallese people of Kwajalein, an important position among the extensive formal hierarchy of his worldwide church. He spent a very significant part of his life in social welfare and development efforts among the Marshallese population of the atoll. They turned to him in time of need or trouble, and he did his very best to help.
Though he knew I was not religious, we were good friends with a considerable measure of mutual respect.
His kids finished college, and he returned to the USA before I did. I commented, "You must be going to miss all your work here among the Marshallese."
He paused for a moment, then with an emotional look said, "I'm going to miss my friends. But in a way, it will be a relief."
I have always lived in a context that was at least bi-cultural. South Texas in the summer and the Air Force the rest of the year. Gringo and Mexican/Central American. Military/long time resident/Native in Alaska. Military and political as a high school kid in Washington, DC. Officer and enlisted. Classical/Jazz/Pop/Latino/Flamenco in music, each culture largely disdaining the rest. Academic and industrial. Military and civilian in the defense business. American/British and American/European in business. An old-family American with a Japanese girlfriend. The culture shocks of Bali, Java and Thailand in month long visits to these places. And now a moderate political liberal--on an American scale--in the most powerful right-wing conservative state in the USA. Yet Larisa tells me she has come to realize how much of a Texan I really am.
The divergence between American and Marshallese cultures was by far the widest I ever experienced, far wider than the gap between American and Southeast Asian, or between American and Japanese.
I came to see the gap only quite slowly, due to the myriad of clever and effective strategies the Marshallese have developed over the centuries for avoiding any hint of confrontation in their small island bound villages, with their intricate webs of kinship, rank and mutual obligation. As in any human society, the strategies for avoiding conflict are not 100% effective. But they often concealed what was really going on from the untutored eyes of this outsider.
An interesting discussion, as always.
Now it's time for some chicken cacciatore, a little pasta, a salad and a glass of Montepulciano D'Abruzzo.
RNJ
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 17 2014 0:08:24
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
…for the USA's "national interests"--which are of course paramount from the point of view of one charged with protecting them.
That, of course, would include both you and me, as both of us (I on the diplomatic track and you on the technical, operational track) were charged with protecting and advancing the United States' national interests in regard to our relationship with the Marshall Islands and our activities on Kwajalein. Personally, I have never experienced any conflict between protecting and advancing U.S. national interests and my deep appreciation for the cultures within which I lived and worked in order to protect and advance those interests.
By the way, I share your respect and appreciation for Father Hezel and his work. Anyone who wants to begin to understand the islands (Marshalls, Micronesia, and Palau) must read his works of history and culture. He also produced a magnificent film history of the islands, with lots of original film footage from the German and Japanese eras, as well as more recent times. Father Hezel is a real gem.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 17 2014 11:57:19
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Coffee (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
quote:
…for the USA's "national interests"--which are of course paramount from the point of view of one charged with protecting them.
That, of course, would include both you and me, as both of us (I on the diplomatic track and you on the technical, operational track) were charged with protecting and advancing the United States' national interests in regard to our relationship with the Marshall Islands and our activities on Kwajalein. Personally, I have never experienced any conflict between protecting and advancing U.S. national interests and my deep appreciation for the cultures within which I lived and worked in order to protect and advance those interests.
Cheers,
Bill
From personal experiences I won't bore people with here, I grew suspicious of the American Cold War policies many saw as "imperialism". The way I came to see it was that the Soviets saw us as imperialists and reacted imperialistically, while we saw them as imperialists and reacted imperialistically. I think now that both sides were right in their perceptions, and in the consequences were largely both wrong.
As a Washington, DC teenager, I thought the Foreign Service might be an attractive career. We knew some sub-cabinet level State Department people, and I liked them. By the time I quit my involvement in Central America, I no longer harbored such feelings.
When I turned in my resignation as the youngest commander of a paramilitary airborne company, I told the Station Chief, "I thought fighting communism in Central America was the right thing to do. Now I think we are just continuing the 4-century war of the whites against the Indians, while the Somozas blow smoke up Uncle Sam's a$$."
I breathed a little tear gas opposing the Vietnam War while the police attacked peaceful demonstrations. I seldom feel entitled to the moral high ground. I saw too many people in my youth who did. I just thought it was a wrong move to choose sides in a war between a corrupt kleptocracy and a repressive revolution, at the cost of thousands of American lives. Based on combat experience in Central America countering the early phases of an armed rebellion against repressive dictatorships, I thought we would lose in Vietnam. I thought that knowledge of who their bosses were would kill the morale of the South Vietnamese Army, just as it had done in Central America.
I lamented the radicalization of friends who joined the Weather Underground. I thought it was a wrong choice. Turned out it was. I had known and admired the first African-American undergraduates at the University of Texas. I thought Martin Luther King had a chance to assuage white fears, while shaming us into doing the right thing. But they killed him. I thought the Black Panther Party had chosen the wrong path. If they really went up against The Man, they were going to lose.
In the midst of this moral maelstrom, and having stumbled into it in the defense business, I saw direct opposition to the Soviet Union in the nuclear standoff as potentially "right livelihood", if I may borrow a phrase. The objective of the nuclear chess game itself on both sides was not to capture the king, but to play with exquisite caution to a draw, since there was no winning that deadly game. In the broader focus we could much better afford to play than the Soviets. The drain of their military budget was one of the factors in their eventual economic collapse.
Eighteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, more than 20 years after Larisa as a 13-year old and her mother left the Soviet Union for America, Larisa and I visited the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. They had added a lot of material from the Soviet space program since the last time I was there. Larisa's mother was an aeronautical engineer in the Soviet Union. Her job and Larisa's father's job gave them a higher than average standard of living. With obvious pride she pointed out Soviet "firsts" in manned space flight. Teasing, I said, "So, should the Soviets have won the Cold War?"
I was surprised when she flushed with anger. She never swears, but she practically spit, "NO! They were a bunch of evil bastards!"
I apologized. It added to the degree of satisfaction I have felt from the small role I played in their downfall.
After the Cold War ended, I looked around for a secure job. Kwajalein seemed like a good, more or less morally neutral choice. I had been there several times for a week or two, planning or overseeing flight tests. I knew and respected people there. The only contact I had with Marshallese people were the cooks who fixed my breakfast. The lifetime veteran of bi-cultural situations and stratified societies, I never gave it a thought.
It turned out to be even more secure than I thought, and a lot of fun for a guy who enjoyed challenges in both engineering and human relations. Diving, sailing and underwater photography were a joy. I saved enough money and booming markets multiplied it into a financially independent retirement.
I found I couldn't ignore the ill effects our hegemony upon the Marshallese. It wasn't all bad. We did some good. Almost all the Americans I knew were trying to help, or were at least neutral. There were a handful of racist bastards among my acquaintance, but there's a bad apple in every barrel.
We did a lot of damage as well. I didn't brood over it. I didn't dwell on it all the time. Most of the time I went about my business or enjoyed myself.
I had a few Marshallese friends who worked at Kwaj, or were landowners who got lease money. They were practical about it. They appreciated the opportunity to better their families' lot materially. With that ultimate Micronesian tact, they never brought up the fact that we had taken over their land and leased it without their having any real choice in the matter. It was the puppet government of the Trust Territory who signed the original leases, not the Kwajalein landowners. What little objection there was from the Kwajalein landowners was muffled by the shower of lease money. No one denied that.
Besides we were already there in force. They or their parents had seen us wipe the Japanese Army and Imperial Navy off the islands in three days of mind numbing, spectacular violence, after the Japanese miltarists had utterly dominated them for decades. The uncle of the grandmother whose photo I showed earlier never spoke another word after witnessing the battle. I saw him only once, a very old man with fear in his eyes at the sight of me. It was impossible even to conceive of opposing us.
Now we were going to give them money or jobs, and not even make them bow down to us. People I knew were grateful to us for liberating them from the Japanese militarists.
Nowhere in the contract did it say that the bargain was going to finish destroying their culture. Only a few, like Amata Kabua were smart enough to figure that one out. He realized he was helpless to prevent it, but he set about trying to cushion the blow. In the traditional Micronesian way, he held his cards very close to his chest.
There was the kerfuffle of the strikes and "sail-ins" of the 1980s over lease money and working conditions. An American friend who knew Imata Kabua as a young man told me that being beaten by the Roi-Namur police put the finishing touches on his radicalization. But that died down, and things went back to "normal". We made a few concessions, but we were still The Boss.
I still can't say how I think it all balances out, or even if there is a way to balance it out. Some of my Marshallese friends were already wealthy enough to travel the world. Others worked hard, saved money and sent their children to school in the USA. Most of them stayed.
I can't help thinking at times that our hands would have been much cleaner if we hadn't inherited colonialism from the Japanese in the Western Pacific, and if we hadn't perceived the necessity to expand and secure our sphere of influence everywhere in the world, at any opportunity to counter the Soviets. But that's not how it turned out. Choosing a different course could well have resulted in the destruction of our culture.
The destruction of our culture would have pleased quite a few. But in my reading of history, it always results in chaos and suffering that take a very long time to get over.
Are the Chinese and the Russians better off now than they were before the revolutions? Yes, definitely. Would I choose to pull up my tent stakes and move there? No thanks. Not yet. Not in my lifetime, the way I see it.
As I said Bill, I seldom feel entitled to the moral high ground. I congratulate you on a well-executed career in the service of our country. I enjoyed our dinner at Killeen, and I hope to see you again.
RNJ
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 17 2014 22:44:38
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
As I said Bill, I seldom feel entitled to the moral high ground. I congratulate you on a well-executed career in the service of our country. I enjoyed our dinner at Killeen, and I hope to see you again.
I appreciate your thoughts on the subject, Richard, but I am not invoking the moral high ground. I simply made two observations in my previous comment, both of which I stand by here. First, Regardless of the vicissitudes of the Cold War and some of the mistakes that were made, your eighteen years working on Kwajalein were every bit as much in support of the U.S. national interest as were the careers of those of us working the diplomatic track. We all were working toward the common goal of supporting those interests. Second, I personally have never felt a conflict between protecting and advancing U.S. interests and having a deep appreciation for the cultures in which I have lived and worked while protecting and advancing those interests.
Although I would argue that the United States and the West were by far better representatives of a liberal, humanistic order than were the Soviet Union and the Communist world, I would never couch the struggle in moral terms. I have always considered myself to be in the "Realist" camp when it comes to international relations. I have never considered myself in the "Idealist" (Wilsonian) camp. In my opinion, morality has little to do with maintaining an equilibrium that favors a liberal, humanistic order. In fact, more often than not, I am repelled by those who invoke "morality" as the driving force of their world view. There is an old dictum that history bears out: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
The Cold War was a long, bitter 45-year struggle. While I do not invoke the "moral high ground" in making the United States' and the West's case, I certainly do not consider there to have been an "equivalency" between the U.S. and the West and the Soviet Union and its allies. For all their faults, the U.S. and the West, with their liberal, humanistic values derived in large part from the Enlightenment, unquestionably allowed for much greater freedom of thought and human development.
At any rate, Richard, I commend you, too, for your part in bringing to a successful close that long struggle. I, too, hope we cross paths again before too many moons pass and raise a glass or two over a good Mexican dinner.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 18 2014 1:12:19
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Aretium)
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quote:
I never understand why when a woman is easily taken to a man for sex, they are whores or prostitutes. Men are worse.
I don't know if you are referring to my comment about Marshallese women offering sexual favors to Westerners, Aretium, but I wish to emphasize that I made it clear in my comment that they were not prostitutes. I cannot say what motives they had, but they did not necessarily expect money. Perhaps they just wanted to live well for a few days with a Westerner. Perhaps they had hopes of snagging a Westerner for marriage (it occasionally happened, just as it happens often enough in the Philippines).
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 18 2014 1:23:27
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Coffee (in reply to BarkellWH)
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Bill-
The difficulties of internet communication strike again. I didn't mean to accuse you of moralizing. I was relinquishing any claim to my own moral superiority.
My 18 years at Kwaj were all after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I didn't feel nearly the urgency to defend U.S. national interests that I did before that threat essentially disappeared--for a while at least. I didn't feel my role in protecting our interests was anywhere near what it had been.
So the price the Marshallese paid for being our allies appeared proportionately higher to me--whenever I took the time to think about it.
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To anyone else not bored out of their skull by all this--
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China was eager to exploit any chinks in our influence in the Western Pacific, and abandoning Kwajalein would have left them a much clearer field.
The welfare mentality Bill mentioned was readily apparent in political campaigns. Aspiring politicians might pay lip service to some vaporous industrial scheme, but they spent more time saying, "Look how tight I am with Taiwan. Elect me and they will send money."
Or, "The Taiwanese are a bunch of tightwads. Mainland China just paid for my ticket to Beijing and back. Elect me and they will send money."
Sigh.
But how are you going to run a country on the international stage with only 50,000 people to choose from for leadership? When maybe 10% of them have ever even finished high school?
Look at some of the specimens we send to Congress from electoral districts with populations that average nearly 15 times the size of the whole Republic of Marshall Islands.
Australia and New Zealand assisted the Marshalls in patrolling the vast ocean area of their economic zone. They acted both out of generosity and out of self interest, as any country may be expected to do. They didn't want any bigger buildup of illegal fishing anywhere in the Western Pacific.
One of the few Marshallese government activities that seemed actually to work to some extent was their own ocean patrol boat. It looked a bit down at the heel, but it regularly arrested unlicensed interlopers and regulation violators.
Of course the Aussies and Kiwis could do nothing about the huge unlicensed Chinese fleet, some part of which was to be seen at anchor in Chuuk Lagoon at any time. Instead of fees to the Federated States of Micronesia for licenses which might not have been available for so many boats, they paid their money straight into the pockets of the Chuuk big shots.
Visitors to Kwaj would enthuse over the palm trees, white sand beaches, blue Pacific waters full of tuna, wahoo, mahi-mahi and rainbow runner, and the vibrant dive sites. "You lucky dog," they would say after we set sail for a weekend at Nell, "living in Paradise."
"Live here for five years," I would respond, "and it will break your heart."
It broke my heart to listen to that spunky 19-year old in the photos as she sat on her father's veranda and spoke of her love for her grandmother, her parents, all the aunts of her mother's bwij, her siblings, cousins, nephews and nieces, tears brimming in her eyes, lamenting the disappearance of their culture, even if she was better fitted than almost anyone else of her people to do well with her brains, beauty and education in the culture that was steadily replacing it.
Afterward she went to the USA for university. After a couple of years she was married for a little short of two years, into a prosperous extended family of the old South. I had feared that it might not last. They weren't used to having someone in their midst who expected to find the family solidarity she had grown up with.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 18 2014 2:49:04
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ruphus
Strategies to avoid confrontation are so counter productive compared to obtaining pragmatic skills for clearing conflicting views.
It is bypass compared to solving.
Let aside all the phoniness and remaining distant that it involves.
Ruphus
You might find Hezel's book interesting. In one chapter he compares traditional Micronesian methods of conflict resolution with the Western legal system, which presumably has the same purpose.
To oversimplify, the Western system focuses on fixing blame and awarding compensation. The parties to a legal dispute may never see one another again, so any simmering resentment may not present a serious threat to the functioning of society.
In contrast, in the 200- or 300-person traditional Micronesian villages, the parties to a dispute will see one another every day for the rest of their lives. The solidarity of extended families demands that all extended family members support any party to such a dispute. The risk to society of an unresolved or poorly resolved dispute is serious. Traditional Micronesian dispute resolution focuses not as much on fixing blame, but on restoring harmony through village elders and aristocrats mediating a set of mostly ceremonial and mutually agreed exchanges of goods or land, with appropriate meetings and speeches of apology and acceptance on both sides.
The avoidance of conflict doesn't imply the avoidance of resolution when it arises.
A repeated trouble maker can become a significant expense to an extended family. They will be dealt with by the authority structure within the family, which has a clear hierarchy.
If the trouble maker does not conform, he may be threatened with ostracism from his extended family. This occurs only with very extreme rarity. The extended family formed by a set of sisters, their spouses and children is the strongest social structure of traditional Micronesia. If ostracism occurs, maybe once in the living memory of an entire village, just as likely never, it results in exile, often followed by suicide.
But under modernizing influence, traditional conflict resolution is giving way to western style courts in the larger urban areas of present day Micronesia, and large extended families are being supplanted by the western nuclear family of husband, wife and children.
This transition, incomplete thus far, gives rise to serious difficulties. For example, American legal people typically see Micronesian courts as partly dysfunctional, due to the influence of traditional attitudes on the verdicts they return. Certain actions, seen as serious offenses by Americans, may never result in a conviction, either because the jury does not see them as crimes, or because the statutory punishment is seen as unjust.
On the other hand Micronesian people may see the actions of western style courts as harsh and arbitrary, serving only to stir up trouble, not to resolve it.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 18 2014 5:34:15
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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This thread has accomplished two things for me, Richard. First, it developed into a discussion and exchange of views, the likes of which I always enjoy having with you (and others), in this case on Marshallese society and how the United States and modernization has affected it, as well as on the U.S. national interest (always of interest to me) and our stake in the marshalls, Micronesia, and Palau. Second, I always enjoy rehashing memories of my time in the islands, and you are one of the few people (Stephen Faulk is another one) who have actually lived and worked in the islands and can talk about them knowledgeably.
Nevertheless, having failed once, I will try again to steer this thread back on topic. We had a significant snow storm in Washington on Sunday night into Monday, and today (Tuesday) it still looks like a picture postcard of a winter wonderland (on March 18th!) So here I sit while writing this, with a crackling fire in the fireplace and a large mug of rich coffee by my side. I will finish this first mug of coffee at the same time I sign off on this comment and then get a refill, sit by the fire, and read the Washington Post. All is well with the world.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 18 2014 10:38:53
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Coffee (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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Thank for explaining so well, Richard.
Eventhough there is no reason for me to distant from the difference between moral and ethics ( between blaming and seeking justice, if you will ) and the contrast of these in view of usefulness, there are advantages to the tradition you describe which would need deep pondering about what is what. ( There are several aspects involved and blending.)
One example being that I strongly oppose traditional / regardless solidarity of familes, while however highly valueing family and more even extended family glue.
In General I think that both can be had, strong bounds within extended families with given sobriety in the same time which will grant a stranger´s right against a family member, whenever soberly required.
I don´t think that a sensible justicia couldn´t be shouldered by a highly social culture. Just as pragmatism mustn´t erase emotionality
I think it should be very interesting to compare to northern island examples, only that there you have no atolls / no such density of population / for most only small communities.
I have seen docus on Behring Island for instance, and it makes you homesick for a place you never been. ( What ads to peace there naturally are challenging weather conditions / an enhanced traditional need to be friendly.)
A kind of paradise of sincerity, entegrity and kindness.
( People who visit there just staying.)
-
With my above post I was rather reflecting of other cultures anyway, where inability of sober evaluation and of constructive dispute has developed large-scaled customs of avoidance, and where the customs do not at all result into an actually peaceful and generous living side by side.
Ruphus
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Date Mar. 18 2014 12:42:05
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