Amature Traveler Podcast Interview

I am featured on this week’s Amateur Traveler Podcast where I talk about my trip to Micronesia. (Hence, the photo of Palau for todays Daily Photo.)

The Amateur Traveler Podcast is one of my favorite travel podcasts along with the Indie Travel Podcast. Both podcasts focus on talking to real people, not just having tour guides and guide book editors on every episode.

If you are a regular podcast listener, I strongly suggest you subscribe. It is a very well done weekly podcast.

While I’m on the subject, Chris refers to a video I shot in Palau in the Jellyfish lake. For those who haven’t seen it before, here is the video

Daily Travel Photo - Majuro, Marshall Islands

As part of the Compact of Free Association the United States has with the Marshall Islands, we provide a group of Army Engineers to help with public works projects. Here is a soldier cleaning the outside of an elementary school which will be renovated.

Micronesian Military

Some of the Micronesian fallen

I want to post this before I leave Micronesia and forget about it.

While walking through the Guam airport I was struck by a large sign that listed the Micronesian servicemen and women who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I knew that Guam and CNMI had soldiers in the US military. While I was in American Samoa I was frequently reminded that American Samoa had the highest percentage of enlistment of any US territory or state. One man from American Samoa and Guam were killed while I was in both places and it made the headlines of the local papers.

What I didn’t know, and sort of shocked me, was that FSM, the Marshalls, and Palau were represented in the US Military. All three countries have no military and their citizens can join the US military. Many do because it offers them a better career path than anything they could have at home. It was not uncommon to see American flags and Army bumper stickers on the cars in all of these places.

Palau has had three men killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. On a per capita basis, they have probably made a greater sacrifice than any state or city in the US….and they are technically not even Americans. I’m sure no one in the US would really fault them if they wanted to sit this one out, especially considering most Americans have never heard of these places and don’t know they even exist.

It was just something I wanted to pass along…

Majuro Recap

Majuro is pretty much 30 miles of this one road…

Where to begin about the Marshalls???

For starters, I didn’t explore Majuro as much as I did other cities I’ve visited. I put 20% of the blame myself spending too much time catching up on photos and blog posts and 80% of the blame on Majuro for being an uninteresting place with nothing to see.

I try to put a positive spin on places I visit. If you read my first post from Majuro you can see the positive impression I had in my first hour after arriving. However, the view was very different on the drive back to the airport. Sunshine will do that. (One of the nice houses I thought I saw on the drive in from the airport at night turned out to be the US Embassy…)

The Marshall Islands is an independent country. They have a seat in the UN, other nations have official relations with them, and they issue their own passports. They are however independent in the same way a 20 year old college student who has their parents pay for all their bills is independent.

Talking to people in both FSM and here in the Marshalls, I can only conclude that the only reason the Marshall Islands exists as a country, and not part of FSM, is to maximize the benefits and pay-outs it can get from the United States. I do not believe that statement is in any way an exaggeration.

There are a few things I need to establish before I talk any further about the Marshalls and its current situation. These things fall under the category of tragedy. The present day situation falls under the category of farce.

- The Marshall Islands are one of only four countries in the world which are made totally of atolls. (Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Maldives are the others). Atoll countries have zero resources. They have no minerals (unless calcium carbonate suddenly becomes a valuable mineral). They have no timber. They have little land to grow crops. They have no source of fresh water other than rain. They are isolated from major population centers. They have small, rather uneducated populations so they have very little human capital. Developing an economy beyond the subsistence level which existed before the arrival of Europeans is almost impossible without outside assistance. In sum, atoll countries are screwed and there is little you can do about this condition. (I have not even factored in potential sea level rises. The highest point in any atoll might be 10 feet at best. Most of the land is at the same level as a beach)

Everyone has a ocean front view on an atoll

- The United States detonated nuclear weapons on four different atoll groups in the northern Marshalls in the 40s and 50s. The population of those islands were removed and relocated to Majuro or other islands in the Marshalls. The most famous example was Bikini Atoll which had 127 residents moved in 1947. While the islands have for the most part recovered, there are still some lingering effects. People can live on Bikini (and a few do), but you can’t eat any food grown on the island. You can eat fish, but not plants. There were health issues which resulted from the tests including increased rates of thyroid cancer, miscarriages, and other problems which were not handled well by the US. The US did cause serious upheaval and problems in the Marshalls and has an obligation to make it right. Detonating nuclear weapons can do that…

- The Marshalls, from the end of WWII to the 90s, was part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific. Along with the states of FSM (Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae), Palau, and the Northern Marinas, they were, as a single unit, made the responsibility of the US by the United Nations. They were treated for all practical purposes as a US territory during that time being integrated into the US Postal System and other federal agencies.

In the 80s and 90s, the question of what to do with the Trust Territories of the Pacific came to a head. There was a great deal of debate among the different islands as to what they were going to do. The Marinas decided to stick close to the US and become a commonwealth on a par with Puerto Rico. Palau decided they didn’t want the baggage of the other islands and went it alone, becoming one of the smallest countries in the world at the time of independence (~12,000 people). The Marshalls had to decide if they wanted to become a state in the FSM or go it alone. In the end, they decided that they didn’t want their biggest assets (an Army base on Kwajaleen and nuclear reparations) to be diluted by other islands, so they went it alone.

While the official population of the Marshalls is about 60,000, the actual number is probably much less. I have heard estimates of maybe 50,000. That 10,000 represents an exodus to the United States. Citizens of the Marshalls, FSM and Palau can all work in the US without green cards and without limit according to the terms of the Treat of Free Association they have with the US.

About half of the population lives in Majuro and a quarter lives in Ebeye. Ebeye is on Kwajeleen atoll and is one of the densest places on earth with about 15,000 people living on 1.5 square miles of land. I was told by the travel agent I booked tickets with I could not visit Kwajaleen if I wasn’t in the military, so I can’t visit Ebeye, but I have been told by several people it is a slum and probably the worst city in the Pacific (having been to Honiara, that is quite a statement). The rest of the people are scattered on the atolls in the country, living mostly without electricity and eeking out a subsistence living.

The Bikini Town Hall is not in fact on the island of Bikini

The benefits to the original 127 Bikini residents has bloomed into about 3,200 people. Clearly this many babies, even over several generations, did not come from 127 people. I was told the story of one woman who’s mother was moved from one of the test islands and has never set foot on the island. She married an American man. Her, her husband, and their children , none of whom have ever been on the island or have any desire to ever live there, can get all their health care paid for, housing, and a stipend. Factoring in all the people who receive benefits, it is a significant part of the population.

The tragedy of the nuclear tests had led to the farcical situation where the fact that nuclear weapons were blown up on their country is now perhaps the single largest asset of the Marshall Islands. Re-read that last sentence closely. If there had been no nuclear testing done 50 years ago, the Marshalls would be a poorer place and probably wouldn’t even exist as an independent country. That is messed up.

Reading the local paper, its seems to be nothing but a list of various scandals by government officials. There was one case of someone creating a blog which criticized a local official. A complaint about the blog was raised, not on the factual basis of the claims made, or because of slander or libel, but on the basis that if someone in the US were to see it, they could get a negative view of the Marshalls and that could hurt they good deal they have going getting money from the US….I shit you not.

The Marshalls is more firmly attached to the teat of the US government than any place I have ever heard of…. and by a wide margin….and it isn’t even part of the United States.

Part of the Compact of Free Association stipulates that the US will provide an engineering group to work on construction projects in the Marshalls

A recent crisis here and in FSM, was that they were moved from domestic treatment by the US Postal Service to international. This increased postage costs and everyone flipped out. The USPS eventually reversed the policy. The Marshalls has its own zip code (96926) and state code (MH). Before I arrived a navy ship was here for a week performing all sorts of good deeds on the island, including health clinics and doing repairs at schools. The health clinics I understand. Washing the walls at a high school however seems like something locals could have done for themselves. I watched an Army Corps of Engineers group working on installing a basketball court and fixing an elementary school in town. The airport runway is being fixed by the Department of Transportation. A grant from the Department of Education made the newspaper while I was here. The banks are FDIC insured. Citizens can, and do, join the US armed forces.

The total dependence on US money has created a situation where they have paid large amounts to lobbyists because they are desperate to get more money. Sometimes they get scammed.

At some point, I think all of this is going to come to a head. The US will one day say:

“We apologize for what we did decades ago. The land is once again habitable and we have created housing and roads for you to use. The infrastructure is the best it has ever been and we have paid for it all. However, no one wants to move back and leave behind the luxuries they have grown accustom to on Majuro. The people we are paying stipends to are several generations removed from the original people wronged during the nuclear tests. The government of the Marshalls is corrupt and much of the money we provide is squandered. We will be ending the financial support we feel we have been very generous with over the last century. We wish you the best of luck. Sincerely, Uncle Sam”

…weeeeell, maybe it wont go down quite like that, or even all at once. but the fact is the Marshalls are dependent on their sugar daddy. If we did stop or even reduce aid to the Marshalls, they would be screwed. Flat out screwed.

I would not be surprised to see the exodus to the US accelerate in the future. Kids are more aware of the outside world and the limitations they face living on an atoll. I can’t blame them one bit for wanting to buy a one-way ticket to Honolulu or LA. I’d do the same.

Post Card Extravaganza!!!!

I’m off to the airport in 30 minutes to spend most of today on an airplane to Palau.

Seeing that Palau is the last place I will be in the world with any sort of link to the US Postal System, I’m going to make a special offer to the readers of this website.

To out all the lurkers out there who never comment, if you send me an email (gary@everything-everywhere.com) with your name and address in the next four days, I will send you a Post Card from Palau. Palau postage costs the same as US postage, but they make their own stamps.

Also, just tell me one of the places you’d like to see me visit in Asia….and don’t say “The Great Wall”.

I reserve the right to limit this offer if it if the requests get too crazy…

Working Vacation

I’ve been here two days and I’ve done little more than catch up on my writing and photo editing. I haven’t seen much of Majuro (not that there is much to see). I have had some interesting conversations with some American ex-pats however.

I’ll try to take a few photos to give you a flavor of what the city is like. It is basically long and flat. To call it one dimensional wouldn’t be an exaggeration. It is a single 30 mile road where you have the ocean immediately to your right and left.

Tomorrow moring I’m off to Palau for my last stop in the Pacific and the one which I’ve been looking forward to the most. My plans are several dives, a trip to jellyfish lake as well as a kayak tour of the rock islands.

My current plans for the Philippines are shaping up as well. I’m looking at trip to the north of Luzon to the rice terraces as well as a short flight to Palawan to the underwater river.

You also may have noticed that my latest photos on Flickr are shots of Easter Island and Rennell. I have been monkeying with Photoshop and I have figured out how to salvage some photos that I thought were lost due to poor lighting.

Fun Fact: The Marshall Islands is one of three countries the United States has detonated above ground nuclear weapons on. (Japan and the US being the other two).

Marshall Islands Internet

For a country so tied to the US, I had rather assumed that the Marshalls would have decent internet connections.

It is the worst I’ve seen in the pacific by a long shot.

I’ve been almost everywhere in the pacific so I got an idea for how expensive and slow it is to get online. I am at the National Telecom Authority in Majuro right now using a terminal. While I was waiting for a computer (20 teenage Mormon missionaries descended on the place) I checked out the prices for “broadband” internet connections in Majuro.

A 512k connection, worse than most DSL connections in the US, is $5,000 per MONTH….and that isn’t even for the bandwidth which is an extra $800 per month. A 64k connection, about as bad as a dial up modem, is $800 per month and $200 for bandwidth.

I haven’t been enough places to compare, but the Marshalls just might have the worst internet set up in the world.

Majuro

I stated in one of my entries from Tonga that it was my first time on a coral atoll. That should be corrected. The main island of Tonga, Tongatapu, isn’t at true coral atoll. It is a raised atoll. It is flat like an atoll, but it is not the classic ring shaped one dimensional shape of a true atoll.

Majuro is my first time on a true atoll

….and let me say, when you have no expectations for a place, you will always be surprised.

My five days in FSM were quiet to say the least. At no time did I see anything resembling anything urban. The villages were very small and didn’t even have the stores I normally see in most pacific villages. Pohnpei and Korsae were quite, peaceful, with very few people and little development. I assumed that going to an atoll even farther out in the ocean would be more of the same. Even during my very very brief stay on Kiribati, I didn’t get the impression that the place was a hopping destination. I was preparing for three days of boredom on Majuro counting coconuts.

Boy was I wrong.

The moment I got off the plane I could tell I was wrong. The airport had…..people. There were kiosks with people selling…. things. BOOKS were sold. After we got into the car to go to the hostel, the entire drive there was houses and stores, and many of the houses would be right in place in an American suburb.

In fact, I’m writing this on my laptop in a god damn sports bar watching the Cowboys vs Giants on a plasma TV eating a cheeseburger. (The bar is 20 feet from my hostel room and was the closest thing open).

Within the next two weeks i’m going to write a post about the Micronesia region and the former Trust Territories of the Pacific and how it wound up ending in three independent countries and two US territories. I think its a fascinating story, more-so having talked to locals about it (its not ancient history either. It all went down in the last 10-20 years)

While I sort of have access to the internet here, it is slow. Photos may have to wait until I get to Palau or during my layover in Guam.