Free Time

Last month an adorable 4^th grader in Massachusetts sent a thank you note to all the Peace Corps volunteers in Micronesia. He had lots of questions about life in the Peace Corps, like “Who do you save more – adults or children or both?” (Technically I think I’ve “saved” one person – I pulled a three year-old out of the path of a speeding car last Christmas…) and “Do you have time to read?”

The answer to question number two is YES, more time than I’ve ever had in my whole life!!! There’s a LOT of free time in the Peace Corps! And without internet to distract me, that means lots of reading! I’ve read 83 books so far. This was my reading stack for November:

I’m always trying to find new ways to pass the time. This summer I made lots of scavenger hunts and treasure hunts for the kids. This month I recreated the board games “Sorry” and “Candyland” using file folders and colored pencils. We’ve been having fun with them.

Sorry!

Candyland

Church

 When I first arrived, one of the first questions my family asked me was “What religion are you? Protestant or Catholic?” It’s not considered a personal question, like it would be in the states, partially because there are only the two possible answers. Probably 99.99999% of the population here is Christian – those missionaries did their job very well, to say the least. Other religions don’t really come up, and I doubt the concepts of atheism or agnosticism even exist here. (One of the Peace Corps volunteers in our group is Jewish, and she’s had a very interesting time trying to explain that to people.)

Needless to say, religious diversity doesn’t really exist here. One of the other volunteers asked her students if they know anyone who isn’t Christian, and one of them said, “Yes, I know Catholics.”

Just to give you a sense of how important Christianity is here, I’ll share the story of our mini English-Pohnpeian dictionaries. Peace Corps gave us dictionaries that are only about ten pages long – very concise, so clearly only the most important and commonly-used words could be included. Right along side words like “bathroom,” “to follow,” and “what” are the translations for “Only Begotten Son,” “crucify,” “baptismal covenant,” and “Eternal Father.”

My host family during training was Catholic, so I went to Catholic mass with them on Sundays. Now I live with a Protestant family, so we go to our small village church.

I love going to church because I love the songs – it’s a great way to learn Pohnpeian! Oh, and a fun fact: “dihp” means “sin,” but “dihpw” (with a stronger p sound at the end) means “grass.” Since I had learned the word for grass but not sin in training, I understood one hymn to be saying “I hate grass.” I was a little puzzled – what does this sect of Christianity have against grass? Turns out they were singing “dihp”/sin, which makes a lot more sense…

Last week baby Maia Jane Tom was baptized and I got to hold her for the baptism! Unfortunately, I was so preoccupied making sure she didn’t cry that I missed my cue to “accept” the baptism. The grandma quickly covered for me.

Here’s a picture of me and Maia Jane!

Pohnpeian Names

Names here in Pohnpei are an eclectic representation of the various foreign influences on the island. From the Spanish colonization, there are lots of Spanish last names (my host family in Kolonia had the last name Panuelo San Vincente, and some of my extended family here has the last name Miguel). Japanese presence during World War II also has continued influence on names (from my observations, not as much as Spanish influence). And, of course, as a territory of the United States after World War II and a country tied economically and politically to the United States, American names are everywhere.

But Pohnpeians have managed to make so many names completely unique. Earlier in the year I gave my 6^th  graders had an assignment to find out how they got their name (mostly because I was curious). They were so fascinating that I kept all of them instead of handing them back (I'm a greedy teacher!). Here are some samples.

Many of the names reflect the culture’s focus on family…

Oryan: "My father’s name is Bryan and his uncle’s name is Oliver. So my parents just took out the B from Bryan and the O from Oliver’s first letter so it becomes Oryan."

Daillia: "My brother’s name is Detrick my sister’s name is Sylvia. So it becomes Daillia."

Sherraine: "Erraine is my grandma’s name and She means a girl so we make is Sherraine."

Kapwry: "We take the first part of names Kasilda, Pwilikinslo, Rebeca, and Yunid."

Prayden: "When I was baby I almost died so my mom prayed for me that is why my name is Prayden."

JB: "I was born in the jungle behind our house no in Pohnpei State Hospital. Then my parents gave me J.B. as my name so J.B. stand for Jungle Boy."

There is also a biblical element to some of the names…

Zion: "They just name me after the city of Babylon. They want me to be holy and they take the name from the bible."

When I saw that one of my students was named Jericho, I assumed it was another biblically-inspired name. Nope! Movies are even more prominent in the naming process…

Jericho: "My mom watch a movie and the man named Jericho. The man was handsome so my mom name me Jericho."

Jimmy Jack: "My mother gave my name immy Jack because my father name Jim. Then they saw the movie of Titanic. Jack was the lover guy. Jim my father and Titanic Jack. That’s me Jimmy Jack!"

And then there’s Simion’s explanation…

Simion: "My parents name me Simion because they just run out of names."

Yup, that’s what happens when you’re kid number 7!

October: Witches and Waterfalls

It’s been a relatively eventful month. I went on some hikes, took the GRE, and celebrated my birthday and Halloween. (Oh, and I taught everyday… I always forget about that aspect of my life when I write this blog!)

At the beginning of the month, I went with a few of the other volunteers up to the mountains of Pohnpei to a tiny village called Salapwuk. There, we took an epic all-day hike to see six different waterfalls. So just in case you haven’t believed me every time I’ve gushed about how beautiful Pohnpei is, here are MORE pictures to prove it!

 

For my birthday, I went with some of my host sisters/cousins/nieces/whatever to another waterfall – less epic, smaller, closer to home… but still really fun. We had a picnic with cookies and frosting!

At the waterfall, even though you can't see it in

the picture...

Frosting Face!

 

 

One of the highlights of school this month was reading “Rumpelstiltskin” with the 6^th graders. They made puppets and put on puppet shows to review the story events. It was pretty funny. I took pictures, but the kids all got super shy the moment the camera came out…

Also this month, the 7^th graders read about the Titanic. Like any country with a significant American pop-culture influence, everyone was familiar with the movie. And even more so than the movie, with the Celene Dion song. They LOVE that song. I’ve heard it more  times than I can count since coming to Pohnpei. You know how it’s sort of become a joke in the United States? How everyone starts laughing the moment it starts playing? Not so here. Most of the 7^th graders knew all the lyrics, despite their varying English abilities. We couldn’t get very far into the reading before all the students wanted to sing the Titanic song!

The state of Pohnpei recognizes a holiday called "Education Day," which we celebrate by… not having school. I was complaining to some of the other volunteers about how ridiculous this is, when one of them pointed out, "Well, what do Americans do on Labor Day?" Ah, touché. Anyway, all the teachers had a celebration in Kolonia – here’s a picture of some of us volunteers in our school uniforms:

To finish off October, Halloween! My parents sent an awesome Halloween care package with face paint and LOTS of candy! Halloween is celebrated American-style in Kolonia, but is unrecognized out in the villages. So I introduced "trick-or-treating" to my family, which was a blast. I gave candy to all the homes on our compound and the kids (after practicing saying "trick or treat!!!" sufficiently) went around to get their candy! I got lots of good pictures!

 

Baby Lebron as a cat

Donn and Gayson looking scary!

 

Jenet as a butterfly

 

 

"Trick or treat!!"

 

We also played "Halloween Bingo" and made skeletons!

 



Back during summer school, my students got started drawing a giant map of the world on our classroom wall. This is a project that a Peace Corps volunteer first developed in the 80s or something, and Peace Corps liked it so much that they made a “how-to” manual for volunteers worldwide.

It was a massive undertaking – I don’t think I fully understood what we were getting into at the beginning. Before summer school started up, I had to draw a meticulous grid – you can see it in the pictures below. Then the students learned about enlarging images according to the grid lines and started drawing all the countries – the result is actually pretty accurate, considering this is basically just one step up from freehand.

The original plan was to finish the map during summer school, but that goal soon proved entirely unrealistic. With the sketched outline done, we left the painting and labeling for September. We worked on the painting most days after school for about two weeks. Basically, we made a huge mess, made lots of mistakes (“oh no! We forgot Rwanda!”), and somehow managed to create something that actually resembles the world. That being said, we do have lots of unintentional “peninsulas” as a result of dripping paint, he he. Also a massive “tsunami” when students accidentally painted ocean over most of Central America (that one we fixed, though).

This week, Robert Reid (our new country director) came to our school to see the map. The kids sang a song about the world “We’ve got the whole world in our hands!” with verses about the different continents. About ten of them also talked about their favorite Magic Tree House books and pointed out on the map where the books took place. I was very proud :)

Also, here’s your reminder to SMILE!

New Faces

One perk of volunteering in a tiny country is that you get to meet people with really important titles. We met the US Embassador a few months ago, and this month we were invited to meet the president of the FSM himself! Here's the pic to prove it!

We have nine new volunteers on Pohnpei, bringing us to a grand total of 15 volunteers on the island. We all went to a picnic island for some group bonding. Here's a little photo-video courtesy of Joyce: group shot.

Also this month, we met up with the new Jesuit volunteers for a waterfall hike:

Summer Update

Wow, it’s been an eventful summer! Most importantly, my dad came to visit Pohnpei in July!

He stayed with my host family for the complete experience! It was so much fun to show him around the island. We visited the ancient ruins of Nan Madol (which most of my host family had never been to before!) and spent the weekend at a small picnic island on the reef surrounding Pohnpei. The rest of the time we played with the kids, went swimming, and chatted with the English speakers in my host family (although I was also able to do some translating between dad and my nohno). Dad also visited my summer school classes and helped act out the poem “Casey at the Bat!”

He also took lots of great photos that I stole…

Flying in over Pohnpei:

He tried sakau, the traditional drink of Pohnpei. In this picture the men are pounding the sakau roots to make the drink and little Bobo Len tries to copy her dad:

With Bobo Len, Carleen, and Dane at Nan Madol:

With my principal, Nalik, and his wife, Nalikie (also at Nan Madol):

Our island paradise for the weekend!:

At our picnic island, with the view of Pohnpei in the background:

Dad with his biggest fan, Bobo Tol:

We had a treasure hunt for the kids to find the candy and toys that Dad brought as presents. The “no running” rule was quickly broken. One kid got trampled but he didn’t let it stop him from finding the candy:

Also this summer…. Olympia gave birth to six puppies! She’s not even one year old yet – I guess this is the dog equivalency of teen pregnancy:

I got to go fishing for the first time! We went out in a tiny traditional canoe. The men spear fished while Sayleen and I did line fishing from the canoe:

I'm running out of time, so I’ll write about summer school activities in my next post!

And now for something completely different…

To celebrate our one year anniversary on Pohnpei, Christy and I decided to get the hell off Pohnpei for a week. So we went somewhere the complete opposite of our tiny rural island – Tokyo, Japan.

Needless to say, the culture shock was a little intense. I mean, imagine going from this:

…to this:

We had a seven-hour layover in Guam to begin the adjustment process. During this “adjustment” time, we ate at Burger King, nearly froze in the air conditioning, and experienced a complete sensory overload with all the illuminated advertisements.

Then, finally we arrived in Japan and met up with Kassi, my friend from college. She is teaching English in a suburb of Tokyo, so we stayed at her apartment, visited her kindergarten class (so cute!) and did our best to navigate the train system into the city.

Since the signs didn’t always have English translations, we relied a lot on the kindness of strangers to find our way around. Luckily for us, the entire population of Japan is overwhelmingly nice, so we had no shortage of help! I was blown away how people would go completely out of their way to help us out when they saw our panicked faces. We also had people come up to talk with us just because they wanted to practice their English. I love Japan!

Lots of reminders of our pre-Peace Corps life (“oh my god, it’s an ESCALATor!!!”), but we also encountered new technology, like floors that heat up and toilets that are smarter than us (there were so many buttons – we couldn’t figure out how on earth to operate them!!!!).

There were so many highlights of the trip – visits to lots of temples and shrines, a karaoke night with Kassi and her friends, delicious sushi dinners… Here are some pictures of more favorite moments!

Feeling overwhelmed by the big city, we stumbled upon a beautiful iris garden in Yoyogi Park:

Before entering a shrine or temple, everyone needs to cleanse their hands and mouth:

Christy and I at the Meiji Shrine, dedicated to the emperor who opened Japan to the West:

We went to Shibuya crossing, the busiest pedestrian intersection in the world – traffic stops at the same time from all directions and the pedestrians swarm in. We watched the chaos from the 2^nd floor of a Starbucks(!!!!):

We took a day trip to Kamakura to see the temples there. This is a zen temple:

Also in Kamakura, we saw this giant Buddha statue – it weighs over 120 tons and was constructed over 800 years ago:

This is my favorite picture from the trip – we were walking around outside the sumo stadium when these wrestlers came out and begrudgingly posed with us:

Amid the chaos of Shinjuku – more sensory overload:

Kassi took us to the Senoji Temple on Saturday – it was such a relief to have her as our navigator and translator on the weekend:

Another picture from the temple:

We walked around the outside of the Imperial Palace and Gardens, but weren’t allowed to go in L:

This is the Skytree, “the tallest free standing structure in the world.” We’re not exactly sure what a “free standing structure” is, but we’re pretty sure it’s some sort of architectural technicality that allows them to say it’s the “tallest.” (Despite the fact that it’s not even the tallest building in Japan, let alone in the whole world.):

We went to Harajuku to see the crazy fashion! These girls were taking pictures with tourists, so we joined in on the fun: