The Pacific Islands Peace Corps program is sometimes dismissed as the “Beach Corps” by other Peace Corps regions. So,
despite the contents of this post, I want to assure everyone that I will NOT be
living the next two years as a beach bum on the US taxpayer’s dollar.
Since Pohnpei doesn’t have any beaches (the shoreline is
covered with mangrove swamps), people sometimes travel out to the nearby
“picnic islands” within the reef. Last weekend my host family went to Nalup for
the weekend to celebrate a cousin’s birthday.
We traveled out on a tiny speedboat loaded with coolers and
picnic supplies (I was kind of shocked that the boat didn’t sink under all the
weight) to the island “resort.” I use the term resort loosely because this is
where we spent the night:
We pretty much spent the entire weekend swimming – it was
fantastic! Some photos of the gorgeous island:
The most exciting part of the trip was the discovery of a
beached shark. Craziness! After the kids played with the corpse another family
apparently took the shark to cook it.
On an unrelated note, there are two songs that I’ve heard
nonstop on the radio here. The first is “Payphone,” by Maroon 5. This makes
sense, since it’s a new song and is probably topping the charts back in the
states too. But the other song has me baffled – it’s “As Long As You Love Me,”
by either the Backstreet Boys or N’SYNC (can’t remember for the life of me
which group sang which songs). So I get a little 90s flashback daily now!
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