Surviving Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page B

away my inner thoughts, reducing me to a hollow exterior? Not really; it was more the contrary. It was the flashy surface—or the attempt at such—that was gone, and now my inner self was all too visible. I couldn’t put on a social show. I missed superficiality.
    So here I was, unable to connect, unable to disconnect, both isolated and stifled. I had neither intimacy nor anonymity; I had all the loneliness of solitude with none of its privacy. I was becoming painfully aware of just how much I had sacrificed.
    Whenever I was in danger of developing a bit of self-confidence, the villagers would begin to compare me to the previous volunteer. I freely admit that my grasp of the Marshallese language after a week was less than my predecessor’s after a year. So you can’t fault the children for telling me how much better he spoke the language than me, and reminding me repeatedly of my linguistic ineptitude. That previous ribelle must have been some sort of mythic creature incapable of fatigue. On every day of my stay, I learned something new that he did on every day of his. He fished every day; brought his guitar to class every day; played basketball with his countless friends, baseball with his adoring students, and ping-pong against awestruck opponents—all the while romancing the young women and planning yet another day of thrilling education for every child on the island, every day. His skills in all of these areas were, of course, vastly, unquestionably superior to mine. Oh yes—and he was better looking than me too. The children were not being mean. They were just telling me the truth about my obvious inferiority in every category to that brilliant, beloved, omnicompetent model of humanity that came before me.
    I could understand little of what people said, but with the adoring pantomimes, the word “Patrick,” and that repeated phrase aolep raan (“every day”), I got the gist all too well.
    Already I had developed a feeling of ownership of the island, a jealously guarded possession of the experience. Ujae belonged to me and the islanders only. And, like a jealous lover, I was painfully attuned to any sign that her affections might fall elsewhere. My unspoken quest was to outshine any other expatriate who had been in my position. My ostensible reason for requesting an island with no other foreigners had been to experience a more traditional lifestyle. Perhaps I had also wanted to be as far as possible from any rival. Now I saw the mistake I had made: there was a rival here, and he visited every day in the children’s memories.
    Later, when I got in contact with my American predecessor, he told me that he had experienced the same thing. Since his year was thedebut of WorldTeach in the Marshall Islands, the children couldn’t participate in the unflattering comparison, but the adults were only too happy to dredge up the memory of a decade-past Peace Corps volunteer and all of his stunning accomplishments.
    So I was not alone, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was a newbie comedian coming to the stage after an old pro, and the audience was not pleased with the change of entertainment. I was the island’s new beau, and she was comparing me unfavorably to her old lover.
    It would have been nice to drown my sorrows in hedonism, but, alas, that too was impossible. The Ujae diet was a reverse Atkins: the four Marshallese food groups appeared to be starch, starch, starch, and starch. For breakfast, the starch was flour made into zestless pancakes (edible), uninspired donuts (edible), bare-bones bread (edible), or flour soup, packed in worm-like strips (inedible). (The soup, jaibo , was named after the giant squishy slugs that vegetated in the lagoon—an apt comparison.) If I was extremely lucky, I would be served instant ramen, but that is only starch in another form.
    For lunch, there would be rice. It came in two varieties: plain (bad) and drenched in coconut oil