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!
I can't wait to chat with rick about his visit! I think it's great someone was able to come see you even though it would of been really nice to have you home for a visit! I recently read a book called "the gringo"about a peace corps experience abroad, time to start writing yours ;) love the updates as aways, take care!!
ReplyDeleteGood morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Federated States of Micronesia? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Federated States of Micronesia in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez