Back in the Marshalls again

June 21, 2013

I arrived.  The Marshall Islands once again becomes my home, for three weeks anyway.  Four years brings changes to everyone and everything, but great joys accompanies a return when once upon friends reach out to welcome you, hug you and make you feel a part of them.  Majuro shifts and changes with regularity. It appears cleaner than I remember, while great piles of rubble sit where once I ate, sleep and/or played.  I feel lucky to be living in a newly opened apartment.  I enter a side street through a large gate interwoven with dried coconut leaves, called a ‘secret door’ by one friend.  I veer down a short path under a well-stocked breadfruit tree (called ‘Ma’ [meh] here) and into a tight alleyway.  A hungry-looking dog has stared at me each time I entered, until once when she ambled over.  I thought she might be shy.  But then she tried to take a bite out of me.  This is possibly the 12th or 14th place I’ve lived on this island, several of which don’t exist anymore.  The organization is now run by new folk, but they have heard ‘urban legends’ of my previous work.  They offer me the chance to reinvigorate their drama work in a way that this organization was once famous for.  It has been 22 years since I first came here. It will be a joy to see how my work and theirs has evolved.