“The bikini waxing, after we go there you can't turn back.”
Khloe Kardashian
Our Continental ‘island hopper’ flight left the ‘sunset’ western Ralik chain, for the Marshall Island eastern ‘sunrise’ Ratak chain and capital, Majuro. On the map, it didn’t really look like a country. It looked like a large expanse of empty blue nothingness, with the very odd circular flyspeck of sand, as if you took the number of people visiting Disneyland every day and dusted them over Mexico. There were only seventy square miles of land, chopped into 1200 islets, over an area of three quarter of a million miles.
As well, Marshall Island life existed in one dimension. The narrow sand halos, around most of the vast lagoons, allowed its inhabitants to live only in single file. The pig our taxi hit, on the one ribbon road that encircled Majuro, had nowhere else to run.
Robyn and I had actually landed at Amata Kabua International Airport after sunset. I’m still not sure that Continental had informed our hosts that we were coming. If they had, no one was really paying attention. Its not as if we were bringing them anything they could use. The ‘downtown’ was actually a linear connection of three smaller settlements, code name D-U-D, not a totally inappropriate acronym, given what we were about to experience. In the middle of the dud of Delap-Uliga-Diarrit was our Continental-approved accommodation, the Outrigger Hotel.
The lobby looked promising, with a large central bouquet of flowers beneath a large illuminated inverted breast of a chandelier, under a mural of hand-painted fish stuck on a powder blue ceiling. The desk clerk handed us a room key, and noted that we would have to hurry to the restaurant, if we wanted anything to eat.
Bright and cheery disappeared down a gloomy hallway lined with food scraps, to a dingy box with battered and faded furniture. The carpet was sticky, with the unmistakable musty odor of old vomit. Water dripped from the floor above. The roaches scurried to escape the flick of the bathroom light switch, but the ants continued to circle the sink, headed for no specific destination and less purpose. The water that came out of the tap was brown, and the shower piping had come away from the wall, likely in self-defense. There were no towels. To flush the toilet, Robyn needed to hold down the handle, long enough for me to be given the task to get towels and sort out the water problem. I returned to the front desk.
“There are no towels in the room.” I said.
“People steal them.” He said, handing them over. They were stained. I promised I wouldn’t steal them.
“The water is brown.” I said.
“So is the swimming pool.” He said, handing me a bottle of water, and noting that we would have to hurry to the restaurant, if we wanted anything to eat. I clubbed a roach to death on my way to fetch Robyn. She told me there was now no water, of any color.
The only anything to eat in the restaurant turned out to be pizza, which hadn’t arrived after half an hour of waiting. I asked about the delay.
“The oven is broken.” She said. And then she brought the pizza. It was sticky, and smelled like the carpet. Also, we weren’t supposed to be there.
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