March 23: Writing Prompt #82-Local Flavor

Write a piece about a typically “local” experience from where you come from as though it’s an entry in a travel guide.

If you’re visiting Kwajalein near the end of October, I suggest you head down to the Richardson Ravine (next to the Richardson Theater where Bob Hope once stood on stage with the USO to entertain the troops stationed there) and check out the annual Shaving Cream Social. Here you’ll find passels of children from ages 3-18 along with their parents, their parents’ cameras, and loads and loads of shaving cream cans.  For approximately 10-20 minutes at a time (shorter time periods for the younger groups), children listen for a horn, and then follow their friends into the ravine with their cans of shaving cream. They prepare for this by wearing swimsuits and sometimes even goggles or masks to keep the cream out of their eyes. For their set time period, they “cream” each other running around in the pool of water created by a large fire hose at the other end of the ravine, which a teenage lifeguard usually mans.  Afterwards, they climb out of the ravine to get washed off by the fire hose “above ground,” so to speak.  This event is a long-standing “Halloween” season tradition on the island.  It started out being held in one of the cement swimming pools on base, the pool drained of its usual salt-water contents for the event.  The children continue to come year after year until they are grown or move away, and the adults always have their cameras at the ready to catch that perfect shot of children laughing and playing together while getting messy.  It’s definitely a can’t miss “local” experience. 

After the Shaving Cream Social (which is usually held the Friday before Halloween), go grab a Subway sandwich and a bottle of wine and head down to Emon Beach or North Point to watch the sunset. Make sure you have your camera out for this one, and when the sun goes down, head back towards the ravine and check out a movie at the outdoor Richardson Theater.  This is one of the most historical recreational facilities still in use regularly on the base. As mentioned earlier, Bob Hope once performed on this stage and movies have been playing here for free since the island became a U.S. base after WWII.  If you are able to fit all this in your schedule in one night, you will truly know what it feels like to be a local Kwaj resident.  The island is so small that it’s possible to enjoy multiple recreational activities in half the time or less it would take you to do these same things in one night stateside.