Surviving Paradise by Peter Rudiak-Gould Page A

of an affluent paradise.
    Or perhaps they were much wiser than I. They were curious about my country and impressed by some of its details, but they did not seem eager to call it home. The things that gave them joy—that leisurely ritual of conversation-coffee, a day fishing on the lagoon, the relaxed rhythm of work and play—would be difficult or impossible in my land, and they realized this. “ Emman mour in majel ,” Fredlee would often say. “Marshallese life is good.” For better or worse, they expressed more satisfaction with their way of life than Americans typically did with theirs. They were intrigued, but not awed, by the grand old USA.
    Fredlee and Joja spoke with evident pride about their country and customs, and answered my questions thoroughly but with a generous simplicity of language. The Marshallese flag was displayed on my shirt,and I asked them one day about its meaning. It had struck me as one of the more elegant national banners: a diagonal stripe, half white and half orange-red, shined from the bottom left to the top right like a ray of sun; a twenty-four-pointed star gleamed in the top left corner; and these designs floated on a field of deep blue. The orange-red ray represented peran , said Joja, and, from his numerous examples, I gathered it meant courage. The white ray represented aenomman , or peace. Each point in the star stood for an inhabited atoll, and the four longer points formed the cross of Christianity, while also representing the urbanized atolls—Majuro and Kwajalein—and the more developed outer islands—Jaluit and Wotje. The symbolism of the blue background was obvious: it was the sea, and it surrounded everything.
    They taught me Marshallese songs, little ditties in major keys, accompanied languorously on the guitar. They were about as untouched by foreign influence as the name “Fredlee,” but they still expressed local sensibilities. One children’s song, called Ta Kijom in Jota , had these words:
Ta kijom in jota, ta kijom in jota
    Ma ma ma, iu iu iu, keinabbu, bu bu bu a bu
    Ta limom in jota, ta limom in jota
    Jekaro-ro, jekamai-mai, jekajeje, je je je a je
    This could be translated with extraordinary awkwardness as:
What are you eating for dinner? What are you eating for dinner?
    Breadfruit breadfruit breadfruit, sprouted coconut seedling sprouted coconut seedling sprouted coconut seedling, papaya, ya ya ya ah ya
    What are you drinking during dinner? What are you drinking during dinner?
    Coconut sap-sap, coconut syrup-syrup, coconut sap by-product, product product product ah product
    Those terse native words next to their monstrous polysyllabic English equivalents spoke volumes about the different objects these languages had developed to describe.
    Then there was the classic Bunniin Bunun Naam:
Bunniin bunun naam, bunniin bunun naam
    Iban kiki, bwe eju naam ekkan niin
    This translates as:
There are zillions of mosquitoes tonight, there are zillions of mosquitoes tonight,
    I can’t sleep, because there are ludicrous numbers of mosquitoes and their teeth are sharp
    The melody could have been composed anywhere, but those lyrics were quintessentially Marshallese.
    These songs were a welcome change from the usual radio fare, which alternated between Western pop offerings and their tedious Marshallese derivations: endless ballads, lackadaisically sung and accompanied by monotonous drumbeats from an electric keyboard. (I learned ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and Britney Spears’s “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” all too well during my year in the alleged middle of nowhere, and I became equally familiar with their Micronesian knock-offs.)
    I was learning many things during these bwebwenato sessions. I noted my companions’ love of reciting lists, counting each item zestfully on their fingers. But I was floored by some of the uses they put this to. One day I asked Fredlee, “How many children do you