This last week some friends and I ventured over to Ebeye (pronounced ee-bye), the nearest populated island to us. According to
Wikipedia, Ebeye is known as the ghetto of the Marshall Islands. Although Ebeye is part of a 3rd world country, I didn't think it was as bad as I was thinking it would be but things are still pretty rough on the island. A lot of houses have no running water or electricity and in the central district there is almost on average 20 people living in a house. I have heard of numbers as high as 40 actually living in a tiny shack though. I still can't quite figure out their government structure. Although I do know they have a queen/princess that sets social standards. So when us women go to visit, we have to make sure we wear dresses/skirts that cover our knees and shoulders so we do not offend the queen. This applies to all women on Ebeye as well.
Here are some pictures from my trip:
Here is a barge on the same pier as the ferry that goes over to Ebeye. Our personal items that came from the states was packed into containers like the ones you see on this barge and sent over. This barge makes the same circle of deliveries between the continental US, Hawaii, Guam, and Kwaj over and over again.
I sat on the top deck of the ferry so I could see around the lagoon (this is the part of water in the middle of the surrounding islands). It is a 30 minute ferry ride between Kwaj and Ebeye.
The 1st thing we did on Ebeye was go shopping! I am so glad I had a guide as most if not all Marshallese run their shops out of their homes. You will walk down an alleyway and voila there is a shop. Unless you know what you are looking for, finding the shops is almost impossible (that is unless you want to try doors of houses to see if there is a shop inside). People are very nice so maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing. As a greeting you say Yokwe (pronounced Yuck Way, means hello, goodbye, and love). And Komol Tata (prounouced as it looks with 'o' saying their letter sound and 'a' sounding like ah) means Thank You Very Much.
Some things you find are normal household items. For instance I found a rake for the leaves in my yard (yes we have leaves although they don't drop in season, they drop year round!). Women also make these beautiful clothes by hand. So I picked up some skirts like the following.
Sometimes you find 'interesting' items too just like this. The ingredients didn't seem too strange but the name grabbed our attention as we walked by it in the store.
With a population of over 15,000 people living on 80 acres of land I was surprised to see cemeteries scattered all over the island. Land is already so scarce that I fully expected cremation to be common practice. Over 50% of the population is under 18 so maybe that is why cemeteries can still exist on the island. There may be problems in the future as their population continues its exponential growth!
Housing varies by a large degree on the island. I am not sure how this house is even standing as it goes from smaller to larger as it goes up. I am assuming that multi families or maybe just 1 really large family lives in this house.
Some houses are very sad looking such as this one made out of aluminum siding and plywood/cardboard. It does look like this house might have some electricity however based on the wires running into the house on the right corner.
This house was probably the most beautiful on the island. Although the materials weren't what we are used to in the states, the paint job makes it look very prestigious. We talked to the owner and found out that her son painted the entire house.
If you have enough money, some people will buy or build their own containment system for rain. I am not sure how or if they treat their water but this is a luxury to have 'running' water in the house. Most containers were on the ground. This was the only 'on house' system I saw during my visit.
Schools are lacking on Ebeye. There are not enough schools for the high number of kids. Some of the schools looked to be little better than a shack where other private schools were like this one in the photo. I am not sure what it takes to get your child into a private school but I am told schools like these are mainly staffed by American teachers. The kids also wear uniforms.
Here are some school kids from the school picture above. It seems like maybe they don't have a recess area so on breaks they just end up out on sidewalks and the road. Some came into shops with change to buy a bag of chips and a soda. You can see the school on the upper left past the truck.
Something that is quite amazing to me about Ebeye was the cars. Some families have hardly anything, schools are lacking, there is no infrastructure at all yet there are taxis and personally owned cars all over the island. Gas is very close to $7 per gallon yet people drive everywhere and the island is a 1/3 the size of Kwaj where there are no personally owned vehicles allowed. It seems like children are often left to entertain themselves but they don't seem to have any issues finding fun things to do like these boys here playing some basketball.
Okay the last of my photos. After a couple hours of wandering we decided a taxi ride around the island would be great so we could all take in everything we were observing. All Taxis are trucks with benches in the back. So you just hop in (very interesting in a skirt!) and go. It was 75 cents per person to ride around the island (again not sure how the taxis stay in business when gas prices are so high!).
