I Visit Kitti and Find Out Things Could Be So Much Worse

Pohnpeian Word of the Day: likan = “spider”

As promised, I went down to Kitti with the Doses family on Rahnsarahwi (Sunday). They go every week for church, and I’d been meaning to visit Beth and Nick.

When I arrived at the house in Ohmine at the appointed time, I was greeted by the usual entourage of kids, now dressed in their finest church clothes. The women were all wearing brightly colored muumuus, including Naki (who I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a dress) – in the Kosraean church, married women wear muumuus while the single women wear skirts to signify their status, but this rule apparently doesn’t apply to Pohnpeian churches.

Sousol had recently gotten a haircut – like a lot of the boys here, he has most of his hair cropped short except for a rat-tail in the back, and they had recently buzzed down the sides quite a bit, giving his head the distinct impression of a coon-skin cap. He began holding my hand as soon as I showed up – this was very affectionate, even for him. Normally he just does his best never to be more than three feet from me, but we don’t get to spend as much time with each other as we used to. When it was time to go, I heaved him into the back of the pickup and jumped in after him.

As we rode, I did my best to catch the interesting sights with my camera. The problem is that the road is hemmed in closely by palm trees, and you usually can’t see much beyond these. From time to time, you’ll pass a break in them and the landscape will open out into some lush valley or mountain ridge, but these picture-perfect views only last for an instant – by the time I would get the camera started, they were gone. Eventually I gave up and sat back for the ride, enjoying the wind roaring all around us, except for those moments when the truck would stop and the sweltering heat would close in again.

When we passed the house, I hollered for the driver to stop, only to realize that the church the family was headed to is right next door. It turns out that Beth and Nick usually attend the ten o’clock service there, mostly because everyone will know if they don’t – I might start coming down regularly and joining them. I haven’t been in a church (except for weddings or funerals) in at least five years, and while I swore never to step in one again, it can’t possibly be as bad when the whole service is in a language I barely speak.

Beth and Nick’s place definitely has one thing going for it – it’s huge. Two stories, and a spacious yard with their own nahs and a sort of greenhouse structure. There is, however, one thing it could really use – walls. Most of it is a woodwork lattice, so that essentially the whole house is open-air except the bathroom. Don’t get me wrong, I love being out in mother nature, but (as with any mother) from time to time we need some space from each other.

Although I had mentioned I might be coming down, they were pretty surprised to see me. Beth immediately proceeded to show me around, despite feeling a bit under the weather. The downstairs has a large kitchen (though they have to store all the food in ziplock bags to keep it away from the humidity and the local fauna), a nice little living room with some couches, a workspace with a desk, the bathroom, and areas they describe as the “changing room” and “cleaning room”. When you climb the stairs, you find the tiny little bedroom they share, with two beds draped under mosquito netting. It’s pretty close quarters, but they seem to be getting along just fine. Outside the bedroom, there is a balcony where they’ve hung a parachute-style hammock which I can attest is extremely comfortable.

**(This is the point at which I would have the little video I shot of the house, except that the stupid COM internet keeps breaking the connection while I’m uploading it. Check back here later, and I might get it to work.)

After we chatted for a while (mostly about my encounter with the Jesuits), Nick headed off to church, while Beth decided to skip it since she wasn’t feeling well. I stayed home with her, and we visited some more. While we were eating cookies and talking about Obama’s chances in the general election, the hymns from next door began to float over to us, and we could hear the sermon through some sort of loudspeaker or megaphone.

At some point, Beth told me she needed to wash clothes, so we headed to the “cleaning room”. As soon as we walked in, I immediately noticed that there was no washing machine. The floor is basically just an empty concrete slab with a hole in the wall that drains to the outside, next to a faucet. In the corners, a few large spiders sit in their webs awaiting their next unlucky mosquitoes.

They take bucket showers in this room, behind a set of sheets they’ve hung up to separate it from the dressing room for privacy. They also use the same faucet, and for all I know the same buckets, to wash their clothes by hand. I’d never actually seen anyone do this. I’ve gotten used to not having a cell phone, or cable TV, or a microwave… but this one threw me for quite a loop. Nobody ever taught Beth how to do it either – she just kept squeezing the clothes in the wash water, but I suggested she might need some kind of washboard, something to scrub them up against. Eventually, she tried using an ice cube tray, despite it being a little dirty and not quite the right size.

After I had been there a couple hours, church was over and the truck pulled up to take me home. This time, I kept the camera on for most of the trip, and despite getting some twenty minutes of jungle drive-by footage, I still managed to miss most of the good shots. Oh well, at this rate I should have enough driving video for a halfway decent montage by the end of the year. When we passed my apartment, they stopped and let me out. I felt a bit bad for using the family as my own free taxi service, but I’ll find a way to make it up to them.

On Rahnkaulop (Saturday), there had been a poster attached to our door with Pooh stickers, obviously made by some of the neighborhood kids, advertising a “Talent Show Tomorrow 2:30-3:00” – there was one on every door in the building, along with the stairway and some random walls just in case. When I returned from Kitti, these signs had all been taken down and replaced with similar ones announcing “Talent Show Today 2:30-3:00”. The one on our door had also been addressed – it named the kids it was “from” and added “to: Americans” :)

At this point, I was pretty excited about this little show, so I stepped inside to take a nap before it began. Sadly, when I walked out of the apartment a few minutes before 2:30, all of the signs had mysteriously disappeared and there were only a couple of kids in the courtyard – obviously, the “Talent Show” had been cancelled. Maybe Tanja and I will try to help them do a real one – kids often make plans that are a little over their heads, but maybe with a little grown-up help…

On Niehd (Monday), I decided it was time to try something a little different with my last group of kids. We have started discussing equations and solutions, and once again I’ve noticed that they feel reasonably confident doing the arithmetic, but have no real understanding of the concept. I made a bunch of cards, half of them with equations and the other half with corresponding solutions. The task was for each “equation person” to find their “solution person”.

I made the equations too difficult to actually solve, so that they only way they could do it was by going from person to person, checking each number to see if it worked or not. The idea was that they would work in ever-changing pairs, so that if one of them understood the task better they could explain it to the other. It seems to have gone over well – I shook things up a bit, and it will be a good example to refer back to whenever we review the concept. I graded the exercise by starting them all at five points and taking one point off for every time they brought an incorrect pair up to me to check, and all but a handful got the full five points.

I also collected my first homework assignment from all my classes on Niehd, and was pleased to see that most of them seem to have done it. I’ve already graded one of the classes, and I can tell some of them are definitely putting in the time like I wanted them to. The good thing about the homework is that it has brought a couple of them into my office hours finally. As frustrating as I find them in a class, they’re a lot of fun one-on-one… many “a-ha” moments, which are like crack to a teacher.

The other good thing about Niehd was that we all got paid – I get $300 on the first of every month. Tanja and I each bought $50 worth of CashPower, which should hopefully last us about three weeks. I also spent about $40 on groceries, mostly on lunch foods and cheap dinners that should last a while. Money is tight, but at least it’s coming in again. Now if only I could afford a new pair of headphones…

On Niare (Tuesday), I brought in a big box of chik-o-stick candies, in hopes of getting my kids to speak up a little in class. The results were mixed – they did venture a few more explanations, but every time I gave out a treat the class would erupt in disruptive laughter. I’ll try it a few more times, hoping the novelty will wear off, but this wasn't exactly the sort of energy I was looking for. The reason they don't want to talk is because no one wants to stand out from the crowd or be seen as a suck-up, and giving them treats when they do talk only seems to exacerbate this embarrassment.

As usual, I devoted at least a half hour of class time on Niare to letting/making them start working on the assignment, with me there to answer questions. The theory is that doing the homework is like cleaning your room – the hardest part is beginning, and after that it goes on its own momentum. It sounded like a good idea, but I’ve already started to regret this, since it quickly becomes a classroom discipline nightmare. Half of them don’t bring their books (so that they huddle together to ostensibly copy problems but more likely copy answers), and they’d rather spend the time chatting with their friends or trying to sneak out when I’m not looking, but some of them really do buckle down and get started.

During my lunch, I walked over to Telecom to pay the installation fee for our new phone. It was only $24, split two ways, and the monthly is supposed to be $8 – not bad. The number (if you’re calling from the states) is 011-691-320-7940. If you feel like dropping us a line, the best way to do it is get some kind of international calling card. Oh, and don’t forget about the time difference – I leave for work around 7:30 AM, which is 4:30 PM the previous day in Florida, and I don’t usually get back until 4:00 PM (1:00 AM) on MWF and 6:00 PM (3:00 AM) on TTh. The best time to call is probably early morning your time.

Also, I’m going to try and start using my COM e-mail more: bboucher@comfsm.fm. The server is here on the island, and I can access it a lot more quickly than the g-mail web server. The only thing is that I can’t accept or send out attachments bigger than 2 MB – not that I’d want to, since even a file that small would take at least a minute to transfer.

Of course, don’t let all this “fancy new technology” dissuade you from sending postcards - we still have a lot of wall to fill up. My two (one of which I brought with me) are quickly becoming swamped by various photos of Ljubljana from Tanja’s parents. “Stand up for America! Be American!” as the F-150s I am so glad to be missing would say. My address, once again, is:
Brian Boucher, c/o WorldTeach
P.O. Box 2378
Kolonia, Pohnpei
Federated States of Micronesia
96941

Today (Niesil) has been somewhat hectic, but there was one good pick-me-up. Belinda and one of the other MS 95 students came to my office hours today after a particularly difficult daily problem, which I must confess I wrote in a slightly sadistic mood. We spent a half hour or so going over the problem in detail, and I kept reassuring them that I was more interested in their thought process and planning than the actual answer, and that I would grade them very gently.

At the end, Belinda made a comment about how she used to hate math in high school (which she graduated from about a decade ago) but that now she’s trying to start liking it. I can tell that she takes the course very seriously, devoting time to making her homework neat, listening intently during my lectures, and always explaining her work fully. It’s students like these that can make a whole class seem more worthwhile, although I have to work hard to get the others to follow her example. At least I know one person I can have an impact on here.