Holliston Reporter Article - Part 1. Holliston Native ventures to the Marshall Islands

In today’s world of smart phones, iPods, iPads, 4G, twitter, facebook, the “cloud”, and on-and-on, could you imagine living in a world without them?  How about no electricity, telephones, television, or other basic comforts of life?  Well, Boo Flynn, a lifetime Holliston Resident and 2008

graduate of HHS not only can imagine it, but has spent the last 10 months living it.

After graduating last year from The College of Wooster with a major in French (thanks Holliston French Immersion) with a concentration in Education, Boo volunteered to teach on Bikarej, a small, remote Island that is part of the Arno Atoll that is part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The program, run by World Teach, sends volunteers to help teach English to the Marshallese, as the RMI Government tries to adopt English as it’s official language.

A collection of hundreds of small islands and islets with a total land area about the size of Washington DC yet spread across a physical area the size of Mexico, the Marshall Islands are located approximately 2,500 miles west of Hawaii in the Micronesia area of the Pacific.  Strategically located, the Marshall Islands were occupied by the Japanese during World War II and saw many battles during the war in the Pacific.  The Kwajalein Atoll, home of the US Army Reagan Ballistic Missile Test Facility, and the Bikini Islands, site of post World War II Atomic Weapon Tests, are two of the more known Islands.

Leaving Massachusetts last July, Boo arrived in Majuro – the capital of the RMI – for a month of training and orientation with the other volunteers before sailing to her official home of Bikarej in Early August.  It is Bikarej where Boo is the only “Ribelle” – literal translation meaning “person who wears clothes” but now meant as a non-native.  Her home for the next year is a garden shed-sized tin hut, on an island with no electricity, no running water, no direct ties to other communities, but yet a most delightful location in an exotic setting.

The only means of communication for Boo is via mail – the lost art of written letters.  Often taking weeks to arrive, as mail is sent from the Island only when a visiting boat from Majuro arrives to transport any mail back.  Boo’s parents have created a blog – http://BooSurvivingParadise.blogspot.com - that contains her letters home.  Open for all to read, it is a wonderful diary of her experiences.  “Surviving Paradise: My Year on a Disappearing Island” is the name of a wonderful book written by Peter Rudiak-Gould

And to demonstrate that even the smallest, most remote islands of the world are closer than it may seem, there is a great section on the connection with a Bikarej native now living in Maine who contacted Boo’s parents after stumbling upon the Blog.  He has been wonderful in explaining situations to Boo’s parents and writing his relatives still in the RMI to connect with Boo.