This Week in Review

Pohnpeian Word of the Day: uluhl = "pillow"

Micronesian time is finally starting to creep its way into my consciousness… the days are blurring together, one into the next, and I seem to have forgotten to update everyone back home on recent events. Here’s my attempt to rectify that.

First, a quick note on the Pohnpeian names for days. There are several different counting systems in the language, though the standard one begins ehu, riau, siluh, pahieu, limau… a slight modification of these yields the system used for counting days: ehd, are, esil, epeng, alem and so on. The weekdays are then named by appending the prefix ni- to these, to yield:

Niehd(Monday)
Niare(Tuesday)
Niesil(Wednesday)
Niepeng(Thursday)
Nialem(Friday)

The days of the weekend are named by combining the word rahn(day) with the words kaulop(to prepare) and sarahwi(church/sacred). Thus, Saturday is Rahnkaulop(literally, “day of preparation”) and Sunday is Rahnsarahwi(literally, “day for church”). Obviously, all of these names were invented after the island was Christianized – before that, I doubt anyone tried to keep track of what day or even what month it was. That should give you an idea of what its like to live in the seasonless tropics.

So, on Niehd, we met with Nora Esigrah, an American ex-pat attorney who has lived and worked in the FSM for more than a decade – she has a Kosraean husband. Her talk was a good opportunity for the Kosrae volunteers to get a better sense of the island they will soon call home (and have yet to see), but what I most enjoyed was her discussion of the Micronesian legal system, which is similar to ours in most respects.

Later that day, we walked down to the Micronesian Seminar, an organization dedicated to research on everything pertaining to the region (including not only the FSM, but also Palau and the Marshalls). They have a library with almost 20,000 volumes on everything from Palauan tuna fishing to Yapese politics, and have produced 48 in-house documentaries which you can order from their website.

The purpose of our visit was to meet with “Mr. Micronesia”, father Francis Hezel. He is a Jesuit priest who has lived in the region since the 1960’s and is widely regarded as its foremost expert (hence the nickname). Having been well-informed about this reputation, I was a bit surprised when a man with a vague New York accent wearing a T-shirt and shorts walked up to greet us – then again, everything here is just a little more casual.

He did, however, live up to expectations and proceeded to spend about an hour filling us in on various aspects of Micronesian culture and history, from the unusually high suicide rate (two to five times that of the US) to the practice of adoption within a single family. One of the big issues confronting the country today is the break-down of the traditional extended family into the nuclear units more familiar to Americans, and the resulting effects on conflict resolution and so on. Father Hezel also gave us great reassurances that we are in fact needed in our roles as educators, and he emphasized that we should do our best to insure the best and most competent people are given opportunities to excel.

Niare was most notable for the fact that orientation let out early and we had the chance to try out one of the local restaurants for lunch. A few of us decided to try out the Joy restaurant, which I can attest serves delicious sashimi – no nasty cheeseburge this time. I still can’t get over how cheap the fish is here… the same meal in American would cost maybe two or three times as much.

After eating, the Pohnpei volunteers walked to the college, where a van was waiting to take us to the airport. The last two members of our group (the married couple I discussed earlier) were arriving, and we went to greet them. Planes only land once a day or so here, and a lot of people show up to stand by the chain-link fence and watch their loved ones deplane onto the tarmac. In the post-9/11 world, where you have to say your last good-bye or get your first hug next to the security checkpoint, it was refreshing to see the way things used to be.

We spent most of the rest of the day showing Andy and Erin around town, and doing our best to bring them up to speed on the Pohnpeian they’ve missed these last few weeks. I’m afraid we may have overloaded them with information, but they seem to be adapting well. At least they have plenty of teaching experience, so missing the rest of orientation shouldn’t affect them.

That night, a few of the volunteers met up at the Rusty Anchor, which has to be by far the most beautiful bar I have ever seen in my entire drinking life. It’s located in the basement of a hotel which has sat abandoned for some 20 years – the only thing marking the outside is a small neon Budweiser sign, but once you head down the stairs and follow the ropes you wind up in a large room with an open-air balcony overlooking the jungle and the lagoon beyond that. I can tell I will spend quite some time there.

When I arrived, only Scott was there already, and he was drinking with a couple of surly ex-pats. One of them was an Aussie with the darkest tan I’ve ever seen, whose wife apparently owns the place. He gave us a good ribbing about being “do-gooders”, but then to make up for it he bought us both shots of tequila, as he did with every volunteer who showed up that night. The only good beer in the whole place (in fact, the whole island from what I’ve seen) was Heineken, which I hate, but I managed to knock back five anyway. It was just the kind of stress relief we all needed.

Niesil was pretty boring… the only notable event was my trip to the video store, where I procured a membership and rented some movies. You can get DVDs for three days for $2.50 each (or two for $4), and apparently they’re not all copied. There are no copyright laws here, so proprietors basically buy one movie and copy it several times, but you can still get the original if you’re the only one renting that title. They have a decent selection for being in the middle of nowhere, and the little slice of home was nice.

Today, Niepeng, was our last day of orientation with the Kosrae volunteers – they will get on a plane tomorrow. Later tonight, we plan to take a taxi to a resort called the Village to celebrate with beer and quesadillas. I hope it will be as much fun as the Rusty was, though some of the good-byes will be hard to say. We’ve gotten quite close these last two weeks.

Last night I had a strange dream that I had gone back to visit JU, my alma mater, and everything was different. Like, crazy different... they had a shopping mall and twice as many parking lots, all the buildings were made of glass, stuff like that. I think my greatest fear is that when I get home, everything will be so different I won't be able to recognize it. Of course, I guess I'll be different too.

Wish List

Okay, so I've been here for a week and I have a pretty good idea of things I need/want that I can't get here... Here's my list:

1) An action figure of the Thing from the Fantastic 4, for Sousol (Age 5)

2) A comic book of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, for Floid (Age 12)

3) Diapers, for AJ (14 months)... they have to buy them individually for 25 cents apiece!

4) A Shania Twain CD for the girls... they love dancing to christian/country music, so anything along those lines

5) A bottle of black tattoo ink, for me... I found someone who will do a traditional tattoo, but he doesn't have any ink and I'm not keen on the homemade battery-acid variety.

6) A six-pack of Stella Artois, again for me... you might want to wrap those very carefully :)

7) Tapes/DVDs of recent Daily Shows/Colbert Reports... I don't have a VCR, though I'm sure I can find one, but if anyone has the techy know-how to do a DVD that would be sweet

8) Letters, pictures, news, updates and all-around love from home

If you should happen to get any of the above, you may ship them to:

Brian Boucher, c/o WorldTeach

P.O. Box 2378

Kolonia, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia

Zip Code 96941

Also, please post a comment indicating what you got to avoid two people getting the same thing... except the Stellas - keep those coming. Seriously, I don't expect any of you to buy anything, but some people have asked so here's a list. I know nothing above is a necessity, but I can get most of the necessities here anyway. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for whatever I should get.

The married couple arrived today, and it turns out they are taking the last of the three bedrooms in our house. Our host mother, Tirecher, has sent some of the family back to Kitti to make space, since the rest will only be able to sleep on the floor in the living room. I guess it will be a packed house until we move out next Wednesday.

An Amazing Weekend in Salapwuk and Nahlap

Pohnpeian Word of the Day: pampap = “to swim”

Sorry that I haven’t posted anything in a few days – this weekend has been a bit intense, as you’ll soon read.

On Nialim (Friday), all of the volunteers – save the married couple which has yet to arrive – met for dinner at the Island Café near the airport causeway. About half of our number will be leaving for Kosrae on Friday, so this will probably be the last chance we have to socialize with them for a year.

The restaurant itself is completely open-air with an ocean view, and everyone was in high spirits for the meal. Sashimi turned out to be the best ordering choice (you can get it here for ridiculously cheap), but I just couldn’t resist the cheeseburger and fries. It had to have been the worst one I’ve ever eaten in my life - including Rally’s – and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more.

On Rahnkaulop (Saturday), we all woke up bright and early and walked down to PICS for the big hike in Salapwuk, near Kitti. After making and packing peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, we piled into the bus/van for the half-hour drive. Our destination was closer to the interior of the island, so at some point we turned off the circular road running around the rim and onto a pretty intense incline – the old vehicle strained to pull its full load up the hill.

Eventually, the paved road ended and it was time to start walking… and thus began what would turn out to be a ten-plus mile hike lasting some six or seven hours. At first, the going was smooth and level, and the hardest part was simply keeping your shoes out of the mud – but that didn’t last.

Before long, we were on a trail carved out of dense jungle by a machete, which at some points was so narrow you had to put one foot in front of the other. The ground was a combination of slippery, sticky mud and slimy moss-covered roots or rocks, which resulted in dozens of hilarious falls throughout the hike. We were almost always climbing up or down a steep mountain ridge, and it was often necessary to use your hands as well just to hold on. That’s the thing about rainforests – they are awful damn wet.

After an hour or so of this, we finally reached our destination – a deep river valley. From the rim of this valley, six waterfalls tumble into the river below, and it was these that we had come all this way to see. Unfortunately, this part of the hike was also the hardest and most dangerous – for a few miles, we followed the course of the river, slipping and sliding along the rocks which lined either shore. More times than I can count, we were forced to cross it, and I am amazed I managed to keep my backpack (and the expensive video camera inside it) safe and dry.

The waterfalls were, however, well worth all this effort. The sound is penetrating in the almost silent jungle, so we could always tell when we were near one. Some had large pools at the bottom, and at these we stopped for a few minutes to swim – the cold water was amazingly refreshing in the tropical heat, and we always hated having to leave.

We finally crawled out of the jungle two hours after we had told the bus driver to pick us up, but he was fortunately still there. We were soaking wet and covered in mud, and a few of us (including me) had managed to pick up a few cuts and scrapes, but the sense of accomplishment was overwhelming. Everyone congratulated me on doing so well for my first real hike, to which I quipped, “Anything you can do, I can do slower.”

When we returned to the house, I was ready to pass out but we had other plans – our family was gathering for a little holiday on the island of Nahlap, and we were soon swept into the back of a pickup trudge barreling down the roads to Kitti. We made several stops, dropping off or picking up food and/or people, until finally we arrived at the boat dock. About a half-hour later, a boat arrived and picked us up for the ten-minute trip.

Nahlap is one of the barrier reef islands encircling the main volcanic one – as such, it is basically little more than an overgrown sandbar. In most places it is maybe a hundred or so feet wide, though it is a few miles in length. There is a sort of resort on one end of it, and this is where everyone would be spending the following day.

When we arrived, we were quickly led to a very large and well-built nahs that the family had rented for the night. True to Pohnpeian form, mats were already set up for us to sleep on, and I quickly made use of mine. I soon dozed off to the sound of the ocean crashing on either shore, and the laughter of the children as they danced to Shania Twain (don’t ask).

On Rahnsarahwi (Sunday), I woke up excited to explore the place I had been transported to in the dark of night, much as I had the day I arrived on Pohnpei. Indigo walked me to the other end of the resort, where a small white chapel stood empty, overlooking the first sandy beach I have seen since being here.

Soon after everyone was awake, the swimming began in earnest. The waters of the Pacific are warm and crystal-clear here, as I had always been told, and through them I could see the giant clams and blue starfish on the reef beneath. I could tell this day would be as relaxing as the day before was arduous.

We were offered a bottle of unmarked “sunscreen” which looked more like baby oil to me. I took one look at our host’s dark brown skin and decided to stick with my SPF 50, but Meghan took them up on it. Guess who got burned?

There were two piers where people congregated to swim. On one, a simple water slide had been constructed from a large piece of PVC pipe. If you had a friend with you, you could haul a bucket of water up from the ocean on a long cord, and have them dump it down the slide after you for the full effect. Unfortunately, on one of my many trips down this slide, I banged my hand on one of the wooden supports and now I can’t flex my middle finger – don’t worry mom, it’s just a sprain; they won’t have to airlift me to Guam. :)

The other pier ended in a platform which was ideal for jumping in – or pushing other people in. I spent at least a half-hour playing with some dozen kids on it. They would all try to push me in and I would try to push them in one at a time; it doesn’t seem all that fair, but I was the oldest and tallest so I held my own pretty well. I also taught some of the boys the cannonball, which I renamed the “coconut” in the interests of cultural sensitivity.

When I wasn’t swimming, I was napping in one of the few hammocks – it left marks on my back, of which I was quite proud. There was also barbecue… with such a large family, they essentially fill up a basin with chicken parts and marinade, then roast them a few dozen at a time on a grate over a barrel. It’s unbelievably delicious – I have to get the recipe.

Oh, and at some point I broke a light bulb on my head. I am taller than just about every Pohnpeian I know, and our nahs was definitely not built for six-foot Americans. None of the lights here have covers, so… well, you get the picture.

All in all, it was a full and amazing weekend – I got to know two different faces of the island I will be calling home, and I pushed myself to try all sorts of things I have never done or at least never enjoyed doing. I hope I will still be able to do stuff like this when orientation ends and I move out of the host family’s house...

Reflections on a Week in Paradise

Pohnpeian Word of the Day: duhdu = "shower"

I thought I’d take a break from the normal format today… rather than bore you with the details of my orientation sessions at PICS, I’ll give you some snippets of what life is like here.

Although I miss my mom, Brenda, Taydy, and especially Katie, I have to admit I don’t think about home as much as I should. The days out here are long and they keep me very busy, so that sometimes I barely have the energy even to write something here. I wake up every day to the sound of roosters, or kihng as I have learned to call them, and I am asleep not long after the sun sets. In between, I spend at least an hour walking with a backpack in the tropical heat and consequently chug at least one or two Gatorades.

There are no snakes here, nor any bees or wasps – in fact, no pollinating insects of any kind. You can go trudging through the jungle (nanwel) without fear of being attacked by something hostile, excepting perhaps the occasional thorny plant – this goes against all of my intuitions about nature from growing up in Florida. The biggest threats are microscopic – Leptospirosis from the water, Siguatera poisoning from the fish, and so on.

I’ve been showering every other day with a bucket – actually, two buckets. You fill up the bigger one from the tap, then you scoop cold water out of it with the smaller one and dump it over your head. Believe it or not, after the initial shock of the first bucketful, it is really the most refreshing feeling. I relish being cool and clean for that few minutes before I start to sweat all over again.

The stores here are plentiful, and though they lack the selection I am used to, there are few things you can’t get here. Nonetheless, some of the prices will shock you – $5.98 for a box of Cocoa Puffs, $1.20 for a package of Jello, $4.25 a pound for grapes. Oh, and gas is $6.22 a gallon.

I have been lucky in avoiding both sunburn and mosquito bites, given that I have applied neither sunscreen nor bug spray on a regular basis. Even deodorant seems a moot point – I imagine it washes away after my first half-hour walk of the day. I brush my teeth with bottled water, and my electric toothbrush always amazes the kids.

More than anything, I am shocked at how easily I have adjusted to all of these changes. My definition of “clean” has, in particular, been radically altered – both by the ever-present sweaty grunge that coats my body, and by the soda cans and junk cars that litter the street – but I am still alive, and happier than I can remember in a long time.

Please know that I read each and every comment that is made on this blog, and these little glimpses of home mean a great deal to me. I love you all, and I am happy to see that I am still in your memories, even as you are in mine. Anyway, that’s my life now… stay tuned

Fifth/Sixth Days on Pohnpei

Pohnpeian Word of the Day: lairom = “How are you?”

Yesterday, we met with Miriam Hughes, the American ambassador to the FSM, and Vic Hobson from the Department of the Interior. Our meeting lasted about an hour and a half, and provided many insights into the relationship between our countries and our specific roles here as volunteers.

When I returned home I was greeted by one of the neighborhood boys, also named Brian. We met a few days ago, and now we shout “Brians unite!” everytime we see each other. He invited me to go play volleyball, and though I’m not the – er – athletic type, I agreed to join on the condition he would teach me how. He then led me on a winding path through backyards to a volleyball net randomly set up between houses next to some abandoned junk cars.

The “game”, such as it was, went well – at least so long as I kept my hands off the ball. At any rate, it was good exercise and better fun, and I was soon soaked in sweat. After losing our side of the court to two newcomers, we sat on a nearby truck to continue watching. I was ready to leave, and was attempting to think of a polite way to excuse myself, when Brian turned and offered to take me home.

Funny thing about Pohnpeians – I swear they can read your mind. From a young age, they are taught to pick up on miniscule social cues, and as a result they can almost always tell whether you are tired, hungry or sad long before even you know. On a personal level, its an amazing skill – it will however create problems for me as a teacher, since this constant social attentiveness often diverts their attention and makes it difficult to focus.

Today was mostly uneventful – these orientation sessions are long, and they take a lot out of me. When I returned home, Sousol ran up to greet me and proudly displayed his arm and back, on which “tattoos” of flowers had been drawn in pen by one of his sisters/cousins. Other than that, I can’t think of much to tell, and I’m exhausted… so I’ll call it a night for now. Stay tuned….

Fourth Day in Pohnpei

Pohnpeian Word of the Day: nohno = "mother"

As usual, I have risen with the sun (and the roosters) and trudged down to Telecom to report yesterday's events... unfortunately, there isn't too much to say as we spent most of the day down at PICS for orientation. Anyway, here's the highlights:

I now have a Pohnpeian driver's license - and though I didn't have to take a test to obtain it, that does not mean it was easy. First, we had to get photos taken at the public library. Then we walked to the license office (about 15-20 minutes away) to fill out a form and have an instructor sign off on it, after showing him our American licenses. The license fee had to be paid at the finance building, another 10-15 minute walk away. After paying the $6.50, we walked back to the license office, where we were eventually handed simple paper cards with our basic information typed on them and our pictures affixed. Of course, like anything paper in this humidity, they will fall apart soon - so I had to walk all the way to the NIHCO store (across from the library) to have it laminated. From there, the walk home was at least 25 minutes. I have been told this is pretty much standard for the way things are done around here. 

At least I'll get plenty of exercise. :)

Upon my return home, I was greeted by Floid (11) and Sousol (5), both of whom are very enamored of me at this point. I don't know if Sousol realizes how poor my Pohnpeian is, but he rattled away at me for quite some time, and I took this as a sign of being accepted into the family given these people's culturally ingrained shyness. I tried to return the affection by flipping through a volume of an old encyclopedia with him, explaining space travel and the Apollo missions with a scattering of Pohnpeian words like usu(star), maram(moon), aramas(people) and sampihl(airplane). 

The three of us watched "300" on bootleg DVD for a little while, before I decided it was time for some downtime with the drum. The irony of this island is that it is actually somewhat difficult to get close to the ocean, though you can see it from just about anywhere, but the one good place is the airport causeway so I decided to head there - it's also the only place I could think of where I could practice alone and not disturb anyone. I played through the sunset (hidden from my view behind Sokehs ridge), and when I was tired I laid down on one of the benches with the sea breeze blowing over me. It was peaceful beyond any words I have to describe it. I was afraid I would fall asleep out there, but I soon trudged home and passed out.

Third Day in Pohnpei

Pohnpeian Word of the Day: malek = "chicken"

Well, my slovenly day in the Telecom building fell through - by the time I walked back to the house to get some paper, my lack of sleep caught up with me and I passed out. The next thing I knew, a knock at my door awakened me. It was time for the family barbecue in Kitti.

We all piled into vans for the half-hour drive. I rode with Leto and his wife Kathy, along with one of (their?) little girls named Emma. The route took us by the national government buildings in Palikir - like most modern construction around here, they stand out like a sore thumb in this place, where the humidity devours anything metal and most houses are slapped together from whatever materials are available.

Eventually, we arrived at the large nahs where the get-together was to be held. Everyone was busy with some duty or another - the men were gathered around a barrel in which a fire was lit and over which was placed a steel mesh laden with marinated chicken, while others were scraping coconuts, pounding taro and grating bananas.

While we waited, Meghan and I entertained ourselves by playing with the children. I learned yesterday that my drum is apparently quite the novelty, so we brought it out and tried to get the children to play - they were extremely shy at first, but eventually it was impossible to hold them back. I would play a rhythm, then pass the drum around the circle and have each of them attempt to copy it.

At some point, we were also lead through the jungle to a nearby river. As we walked, our guides pointed out various plants, including sakau. When we arrived, we found a group of a dozen or so people swimming and playing in a deep part of the river. I wish I had brought my swimsuit.

The meal itself was amazing, as every meal I have had here has been. My favorite dish was the cucumbers in kimchi sauce, and I also had the opportunity to try taro for the first time. After cleaning two chicken legs down to the bone, I was stuffed to the rafters.

I am very thankful for my adopted family - they have embraced us as one of their own, and this is definitely helping with the homesickness. A few of the boys have really taken to me - in particular, they love the drum, so I'm glad I brought it. Anyway, I'm exhausted so I think I'll head home now.... Enjoy this video of our music-making day. I really suck at ukulele.

Second Day in Pohnpei

Pohnpeian Word of the Day: karakal = "hot"

Meghan and I woke up early Saturday morning to get picked up by Mikayla for a tour of the entire island. Around 8:00, we took off for what would turn out to be my first experience with motion sickness. Our driver, Tatsuo, took little note of the 25-30 mph speed limit sign as our retro-fitted school bus van tore around the winding island roads like a roller coaster from hell. 

We circled the whole island in about three hours, stopping at Kitti and Madolenihmw to visit the houses those volunteers will stay at and the schools they will teach at. After seeing them, I can definitely say I'm glad to be teaching in Kolonia - one of the houses had no walls, just wood lattice work. The breeze will be nice - the bugs, not so much. I'll take my two-bedroom apartment in town, thank you very much.

When we finally got back into town, we ate lunch at PICS and finally headed back to our host families. When we arrived, we met a new cousin by the name of Floid - I have all but given up on figuring out which kid belongs to which parent, opting instead to simply identify which generation they belong in. Floid immediately took to me, and we spent the next few hours watching bootleg chinese DVDs, including the second Fantastic Four movie.

Floid is in special-ed classes at Ohmine Elementary School in Kolonia, and I believe this is because he has ADD - he's quite intelligent, but very unfocused. I told him I would tutor him in Math once the school year begins on the 14th, and I hope he takes me up on it. I want to make him my own personal project.

Our field director Mikayla was running a half-marathon at this time, and the finish line was just down the street from us, so Meghan and I walked down to meet her. On the way, I noticed a dozen people or so gathered in an apartment courtyard for a barbecue, with a strange pounding sound emanating from them. At first, I thought they were playing drums but I soon saw that they were instead pounding sakau.

Sakau is a local drink and mild narcotic sedative made from the roots of the Piper Methysticum plant. It is prepared by pounding the roots of the plant for over an hour and then straining the juice through freshly cut hibiscus bark. This is always a community production - it took four men at any time to pound the roots, and another prepared the bark.

After prodding Meghan a little bit, we walked up and asked if we could observe. We struck up a conversation with a man named Marvin, who told us he was a state senator representing the district of Kolonia - he then introduced us to his cousin, the governor of Pohnpei himself. Marvin explained how the Pohnpeian legislature works, and we ended up sampling some sakau as well - it tastes like slimy dirt and makes your tongue numb. All in all, a very productive encounter.

Anyway, my plan today is to sit around the air-conditioned Telecom building and drink soda, watch cable and write some letters home. Enjoy the attached video of AJ and his sister Trini (pronounced charini) - she has the cutest smile you have ever seen, and I rarely see her without him on her hip.

First Day in Pohnpei

Pohnpeian Word of the Day: Kaselehlie (CAS-uh-lay-lee-uh) = “Hello/Goodbye”

It’s hard to believe I’m finally here… and even harder to believe it’s only been a day or so. I can barely process all that I’ve seen, but I’ll try to record some of it here.

The flight from Honolulu was the longest and most horrible experience I believe I’ve ever had on a plane. The entire thing took some 10 or 11 hours, but it wasn’t a direct hop as I’d thought. Instead, we island-hopped for the last half of it. First Majuro and Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, then Kosrae and finally Pohnpei in the FSM. At every stop, we took on and dropped off passengers, and the crew had to perform what they called a “security check” of the plane – which meant a lot of jostling about of some very exhausted people and their bulky bags.

Across from us on the plane, they had cleared a space for a stretcher and surrounded it with a curtain. Apparently, a man from Chuuk (another island in the FSM and second-to-last stop for our flight) was dying and wished to see his last days at home… his family sat behind him, occasionally breaking the curtain to feed him ice chips or otherwise tend to him. It was a touching scene.

We finally arrived in Pohnpei at around 2:30 in the morning, where we were picked up by our field directors Mikayla and Matt and taken to our host families (who we will live with for the next two weeks). I was assigned to the home of Tirecher Doses, who I have been instructed to simply call “mom”, along with another volunteer named Meghan. By the time we arrived, all we had the energy to do was introduce ourselves and ask where our beds were.

The small three-bedroom house was (by American standards) full of people – a few adults and a ton of children – but we were each given our own bedrooms. This is apparently stipulated in our contract with WorldTeach, but I couldn’t help but feel incredibly guilty at the sight of so many people sleeping on the tile floor while I enjoyed a comfortable bed. I found out later that most Micronesian families actually prefer to sleep on the floor together, as a family, and that our rooms would most likely be used for storage if we weren’t here. There is no air conditioning in our house, only electric fans which wax and wane in effectiveness with changes in the unreliable electricity, so sleeping on cold tile may not be such a bad deal.

I was awoken by the sun and the crowing of our neighbor’s rooster. I found Tirecher sitting on the floor in front of a griddle making pancakes – we were eventually served a heaping pile of these, along with some scrambled eggs. While I waited, I took some time to figure out who all of these people were. Apparently, “mom” is originally from the village of Kitti (pronounced like “kitschy”) on the island’s southwestern shore. She has six daughters and two sons, with the latter both living in the states. The adults I had met were some of her daughters (the others still live in Kitti) and the children, mostly female, were all theirs.

I had once read that asking a Micronesian how many people live in their house is like asking someone how many teeth they have, or how many holes are in their head. I have yet to ascertain exactly which of the sisters actually live with “mom”, and the roster appears to be rather fluid. The only consistency is the lack of men – aside from myself and an infant named A.J.

After introducing myself to the children, I decided to take a stroll and get the lay of the land. We had landed in the dead of night, and I had no clue what sort of place I would find myself in. The sight I beheld was unlike anything I have ever seen – the most surreal mix of paradise and third-world squalor.

The houses are mostly simple affairs, constructed of cinderblocks and corrugated tin roofing (which is not always used on the roof). Some houses have a nahs, basically a semicircle of benches beneath a crude roof but otherwise open to the air – these structures are where barbeques are held and sakau is drunk. The fancier houses have a second floor and stucco walls. Some of the houses I passed have collapsed completely, or burned down to their foundations.

The streets ¬- which are a mixture of paved roads, concrete slabs, and gravel - are littered with trash (sometimes collected in small piles) and roamed by wild chickens and dogs. There are mostly no sidewalks, and where they do exist they are little more than concrete slabs laid over open storm drains. Nevertheless, there are always people to be seen strolling along their edges, and little children play in groups as large as ten or twenty on some of the less-used neighborhood streets. Hibiscus and jasmine flower everywhere, and in front of our house grows a water apple tree. Basically, a water apple is like a regular apple but pear-shaped and without a core so you can eat the whole thing – and damn are they good.

Around lunch time, Mikayla came to pick us up for orientation. The three of us walked down to the main street in town (Kaselehlie Street) and it quickly became apparent why Kolonia is the place to be. It boasts innumerable supermarkets, a bank, the Telecom building (where phone cards can be purchased and you can use the internet for $4 an hour) as well as a movie theatre and video rental.

Oh, and did I mention it is hot as hell here? I mean really freakin’ hot. We must have walked two or three miles in the equatorial heat and constantly saturated humidity – I drank maybe six bottles of water without going to the bathroom once. Every time we entered an air conditioned building (which only means a wall unit cranking out 75 degree air anyway) I secretly prayed we’d stay there all day.

Orientation was interesting – we walked all the way to the Pacific Island Central School, or PICS, where some of us will be teaching, and met in one of their classrooms for about an hour or so to discuss our expectations and our reasons for being here. Then we ate lunch (half-frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) in the school cafeteria. The most exciting part of this trip for me was the school’s freezer, which I was disappointed to find would not close completely with me in it.

We then walked back in to town to open our accounts with the Bank of Guam, and finally I broke off from the group to return home and take what turned out to be a five-hour nap. This heat will do that to you. Unfortunately, this meant I failed to show up to a church service which I had been invited to by a very precocious neighborhood boy named Daniel. I have to remember to apologize to him.

When I woke up, I was greated by a traditional Pohnpeian dinner spread, which included breadfruit, plantains, rice and parrotfish. Some of the parrotfish were cooked and others were simply served raw – at the expense of my already rumbling gut, I decided to go for the latter. This turned out to be a wise decision given my love of sushi – you just rip the flesh off the fish with your fingers and dip it in soy. If this is what the food here is like, I’m going to be just fine.

It’s about 5:30 in the morning here now – I can’t sleep due to the combination of jet lag and the long nap I took earlier. Plus it starts getting hot as soon as the sun comes up. I just want my family and friends to know that I got here OK and that I think I’m going to like this place, though I still miss you all.

En Route, Part 2

In the LA airport, I met the other members of the Pohnpei group. There are 13 of us traveling together, some of whom introduce themselves in the video above. We met in the Daily Grill and shared a small lunch (i.e. water) with a returned volunteer from the Marshall Islands.

The flight to Hawaii was uneventful - I took some more sleeping pills and passed out for the whole trip. I remember the meal they served me only as a warm thing occupying my tray table which forced me to sleep sitting up. I think they gave me an apple juice at some point, and half of it ended up spilled on my jeans.

Fortunately, the flight out of Hawaii was delayed 10.5 hours, so we all had time to stroll around Honolulu and Waikiki beach today. A very pleasant surprise, except that now we won't get into Pohnpei until after midnight their time. Anyway, the trek continues....

En Route, Part 1

Well, the day has finally come. Last night was my last in Jacksonville - I had a wonderful "bon voyage" dinner with both my parents, my girlfriend Katie and my best friend Brenda. It was so nice to have the most important people in my life together in one place to say good-bye, and I will miss them all terribly. After everyone except Katie left, I finished packing my 150 pounds of luggage and watched my last Daily Show for a while.

This morning we all got up early and left the house at 4:30. I said my final farewells to everyone at the security checkpoint... when I turned the first corner, the tears I had been choking back for two days finally burst out. I must have looked stupid bawling like that while TSA checked my shoes for WMDs, but I couldn't help it. This will be a lot harder than I thought.

When I boarded my first flight to Atlanta at 6:00, I quietly thanked Delta for wedging me between a window and a 250+ pound man, because every bone in my body was screaming to fly out of that seat and go tearing down the aisle back to the gate. That first flight was miserable, but by the time we landed I had managed to calm down a bit.

I bought some sleeping pills and a magazine in the Atlanta airport, and fortunately the former worked so well that I barely touched the latter throughout the 5-hour flight to Los Angeles. When I first booked the flight to LA, I planned on being here several hours before our group meeting at 3:00, and this turned out not to be such a bad idea... by the time I had retrieved my backs, re-checked them and gone through security it was already 1:00.

Of course, that's 4:00 EST and I hadn't eaten all day, so the first order of business was food. And that brings me to here, sitting in El Cholo Cantina in LAX. I need to go now and find my group... hopefully I'll be able to post again in Honolulu, but I'm not sure. I miss you all already.

Introduction

"I wish that... I was born a thousand years ago.

I wish that... I'd sailed the darkened seas,

on a great big clipper ship,

sailing from this land here to that,

put on a sailer suit and cap..."

- Lou Reed, Heroin

The island of Pohnpei is located in the western Pacific ocean, less than 500 miles from the equator. At 130 square miles in area with volcanic peaks reaching 2500 feet, it is the largest and highest island in the Federated States of Micronesia and comprises almost half of that tiny nation's total land area (the rest being found on six hundred islands scattered over more than a million square miles of open ocean). The island boasts the FSM's only urban area (Kolonia) and its national capital (Palikir) - together with six nearby inhabited atolls, it forms the country's second-most populous state. The other three states (also named after large islands) are Yap, Chuuk and Kosrae.

Pohnpei is one of the wettest places on the surface of the earth, with parts of the island receiving an average daily rainfall of almost an inch. All that rain feeds a network of rivers originating in the island's mountainous interior and terminating in more than forty waterfalls around its rim. The main island is covered in thick rainforest and ringed by mangrove swamps, with eight coral atolls (between one and three miles offshore) forming a protected lagoon.

As part of the WorldTeach program, which is run out of the Center for International Development at Harvard, I will be teaching mathematics for a full year at the Pohnpei State Campus of the College of Micronesia, located in Kolonia (whose geographic coordinates I have used as the title of this blog). I will arrive on July 16th, and will not return until April 29th of next year - my hope is that this space will allow me to keep all of my friends and relatives updated on my journey.

Although the FSM is now a sovereign nation, from 1947 to 1986 it was a part of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and was administered by the United States Department of the Interior beginning in 1951. In 1986, the newly-created FSM government (along with the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau) signed a Compact of Free Association with the US, under which it receives financial assistance in exchange for certain basing rights.

My program in particular is funded by these aid dollars - WorldTeach provides my airfare and lodging, as well as a small stipend of some $120 a month. Also, under the Compact, each Micronesian state has its own US postal zip code (Pohnpei's is 96941), and all FSM citizens may freely enter the US or apply for federal programs such as the Pell grant.

Although I am only 21 years old, I have been in college and graduate school for ten of those years and I am very ready to experience something different. I decided more than a year and a half ago to try volunteering overseas - at first I considered the Peace Corps, but since they require a 27-month commitment I decided to look for alternatives. I soon found WorldTeach and settled on the Pohnpei program, which was attractive at first because it was fully funded and lasted only a year. After doing some more research on the island, I decided to apply. I was wait-listed for the 2007 program, and finally accepted for 2008.

I should note here that, aside from trips to Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas, I have never actually left the country of my birth - the furthest I have lived from my parents is a mere 70 miles, while this trip will take me more than 7500 miles away. I don't doubt for a second my competence at teaching (which I have been doing in one form or another for seven years) but I am obviously quite worried about adapting to a new culture, with the core of the earth between me and everyone I have ever known. I will try to chronicle my experiences here, in hopes of keeping some kind of connection to home. Stay tuned!