A Very Pohnpeian Christmas

It was a wonderfully long Christmas season – starting with school Christmas celebrations on the 19^th and culminating in a huge New Year’s Eve/belated Christmas bash. (Hey, it’s literally 12 Days of Christmas!)



Oly Girl wishes you a belated Merry Christmas! (in front of the
"Christmas tree" that the kids decorated!

Since there’s no separation of church and state here, the annual Christmas party is a BIG DEAL. The entire month of December, students were decorating their classrooms (they may not have snow here, but these kids can make some mean paper snowflakes!). For the Christmas party, all the kids brought a food platter and a gift for their Secret Santa gift exchange (I was the designated Santa, handing out the gifts!). Lots of food, lots of dancing, lots of singing (bilingual Christmas songs!) – it was a good time. 

The 8th grade girls loved making paper snowflakes
in my room during recess!

We had three days in a row of church – December 23, 24, and 25 – which was sort of pushing my limit for sitting in a hot room while people preach in a foreign language.

Matching muumuus with my nohno for the Christmas Eve church service



"Sexy muumuus," as my host sister called them (because they're
slightly more form-fitting) for Christmas Day

But at least I got to learn lots of Christmas songs in Pohnpeian! Peren Me Laud (Joy to the World), O Kodo Me Pwoson (Oh Come, All Ye Faithful), Pwong Kalomw (Silent Night). Plus the kids taught me a Christmas song about animals and animal sounds. It’s always interesting to see how different languages interpret animal sounds. Here, a pig says “ngoap” and a frog says “kluk.”

Anyway…. Christmas was a nice calm day. After church in the morning we just hung out, danced, and ate candy. It was very low-key. And, for the first time ever, I went swimming on Christmas! Life in the tropics, what can I say?



with little Kalni on Christmas morning

The BIG party came on New Year’s Eve, which is without a doubt the biggest holiday of the year here on Pohnpei. We had a big feast with extended family (and extended-extended family…) that we spent the whole day preparing for – so much food! Then we hung out, played bingo, and chatted until midnight finally came around. Unlike in the states, the actual moment of midnight isn’t a big deal here – no countdown (and definitely no kissing in public!). Instead, once we were generally confident that it was 2013 (two watches confirmed it), all the kids ran around from house to house, banging makeshift drums and shouting “Parakap maingko! Kaski karahka!” (Happy New Year! Throw the candy!). It’s basically like Halloween without the costumes. 

Also, it was Bobo Len's first birthday on the 31st!

Then around 1 in the morning began the craziest dance party I’ve ever seen. All the men got completely wasted – I’ve never seen so much drunkenness (and keep in mind that I survived four years of college). They would pass out for awhile, then get up and dance again. I avoided that scene and danced with the kids – we had a fun, sober time! I called it a night around 4, but apparently the party was still going strong at 6 in the morning!

So, Happy 2013 to all! Hope it’s a wonderful year!

Pohnpeian Bingo, Extreme Weeding, and the Dreaded VRF

I should probably start this post with an apology to my mother for being AWOL recently. I’ll try to sum up the highlights of the last two months here (plus Christmas and New Year in a separate post).

December was a wonderful month – I really needed the break from school to restore my sanity, ha ha. I played lots of Bingo with my family. Pohnpeian Bingo, by the way, is the greatest thing ever. There are like 10 different ways you can get a bingo (diamonds, “six-packs,” corners, etc.), so you’re looking for all these different patterns on six different boards. It’s like a giant puzzle. And when you play “doubles,” you have to get two of these patterns on a board to win. The first 30 times I played, I wouldn’t even realize when I got a bingo because it’s so complicated! But now that I’ve played maybe 200-300 games, I’m getting pretty good at spotting bingos!

One of my favorite days over break was when someone brought back a package of balloons from Kolonia. We played “don’t let the balloon touch the ground” for hours that evening. I got some awesome photos of the kids – they don’t quite capture the insane excitement in the room, but still…

The other highlight of break was getting to go up to the mountains of Pohnpei. It was a 1-2 hour trek up the jungle-y slope to the clearing where my family plants sakau (I can’t do sakau justice here – I’ll be writing a separate post later!). Sometimes they stay up on the mountain overnight or for several days, but this was just a daytrip for my first go. We had an amazing view of the sea – so glad I brought my camera!



Our little mountain chalet

After a quick rest to recover from the hike up, eat some food, and take pictures, the work began! We were “mut”-ing (pronounced “mutch”) which I think best translates to English as “extreme weeding.” Everyone took a machete, and we just hacked at everything coming out of the ground that wasn’t sakau. Keep in mind, this was done on a mountain slope, so we were rather precariously climbing up the rocky slope as we worked. It was kind of awesome.

After we came down and walked back through the village covered in dirt and sweat, everyone passing by asked if we had been working in the jungle. No one could believe that I had gone up there! I made my host sister promise to take me along next time they go to the jungle on a weekend!

Also, it’s time for our first dreaded VRF (Volunteer Report Form). This is how volunteers report to Peace Corps Headquarters absolutely everything we’ve done in the previous six months (it takes about 5-6 hours to fill out the whole thing). It’s rather daunting, but also a really great opportunity to look back on the progress that’s been made so far and to recognize the greatest needs for the coming period. However, Peace Corps also manages to make you feel like a total failure. Despite being constantly told that we’re expected to save the world (just have an impact on our small communities), the VRF asks questions like “Did this activity help combat Human Trafficking?” “Did this activity contribute to food security?” “Did this activity support renewable energy efforts?” Wow, Peace Corps, sorry that my teacher workshops didn’t end human trafficking! Way to make my work feel insignificant!