As a volunteer with WorldTeach, I will spend the next year teaching English in the Marshall Islands. I will live in Gugeegue and teach at the Kwajalein Atoll High School. Last week I received this placement in addition to two handover letters from the 2010 volunteers were also placed there. Their letters were very insightful and helpful, only making me even more excited for what is to come! Gugeegue is an island in the Kwajalein Atoll--the largest atoll in the world!! It is long and thin, and apparently only takes about twenty minutes to navigate and a minute to walk across. One side is surrounded by lagoon and the other ocean. Only about 200 people live on Gugeegue. I will be living in a 2 bedroom apartment with one other volunteer. Here we should have electricity, internet, and air conditioning; although those can never be certain, I hope to at least have a fresh source of rain water to live off of! Through a causeway, Gugeegue is connected to Ebeye, a much more densely populated island. There are about 15,000 people that live on this 80 acre island, making it the fifth most populated island in the world. As a result, Ebeye is unofficially known as the "Slum of the Pacific." Even further south from Gugeegue, is the island of Kwajalein. This is the location of the US Military Base and is referred to as a "mini United States suburb." As long as I get someone from the base to sponsor me I will be able to visit there (via a 20 minute ferry ride) and enjoy some American amenities such as warm showers, Subway or Burger King, a pool and gym, and of course, wearing American clothes!
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| Map of Kwajalein Atoll |
On July 19th I head off to LAX to meet with the entire group of volunteers. From there we will head to Honolulu for an overnight layover before arriving in Majuro, the capital city, for our month-long orientation. I couldn't be more excited for the journey to begin! Until then, I'm sure I'll be running around panic-stricken, trying to make sure I don't forget to pack anything :)
