Where the Streets Have No Name- Navigating on Ebeye
When I first arrived on Ebeye, I asked my friend Katie (from Changing Focus Ministries) how to find her house. She said their house was on the south end of town, halfway down the street past Calvary Church and that if I made it the DIY hardware store, I had walked too far. It took me 10 minutes to find her house, most of that time spent wandering up and down the road wishing for street signs!
For some reason, I'm guessing because of how organically Ebeye developed, no one named the roads or assigned house numbers. Most people identify their home location by the "town" they live in and the major landmarks around it and. There are seven towns on Ebeye: North Camp, Jablik, Mid-Corridor, KIB town, Mon Kubok, Mon Nin, and Rock Town. I live in KIB town and my friend Katie lives in Rocktown and our family lives in the Mid-Corridor.
I'm guessing if you've lived on Ebeye your entire life, you internalize the map of the towns and the landmarks and finding someone's home for the first time is pretty straightforward, but for newcomers like Earth and I, it's pretty confusing. Let's take a little walking tour of Ebeye to show you what I mean.
First, let's go to my family's house in Mid-Corridor, past the SDA school on ocean side. Their house is actually pretty easy to find since it's on the ocean side of the road and wasn't built that long ago. From my apartment building, you walk to the ocean side road:
Then you turn towards the SDA school (the white and blue building on the left):
Walk to the end of the new houses (see the green one on the end?):
And there it is:
Now it gets a little harder. Let's try to find Katie's house. As she told me when I tried to find it, it's the green two story in Rock Town past Calvary Chapel but before DIY hardware. From my apartment, we walk out of KIB town towards Rock Town:
Keep going past the hotel:
Past Calvary Chapel:
And into Rock town
Wait, there's DIY Hardware. We went too far. She said there was a road here somewhere...
Let's back track a little bit. Maybe this is it?
Found it!
I think my definition of road is different from Katie's because this path is barely wide enough for a car!
Luckily the island is pretty small so it's hard to really get lost here. I'm sure getting around will get easier as I get more familiar with Ebeye but for now, life there is definitely a little adventure every time we go out!
This was hysterical to me, and a whole different form of orienteering than GPS on the iPhone... I'm sure you've learned your way around quite well!
ReplyDeleteNavigating on Ebeye is crazy! You know what, thought? I haven't tried using my maps app while I'm there- maybe I'll see if it works when I go home tonight!
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