It was a wonderfully long Christmas season – starting with school Christmas celebrations on the 19th and culminating in a huge New Year’s Eve/belated Christmas bash. (Hey, it’s literally 12 Days of Christmas!)
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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.
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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.
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| Matching muumuus with my nohno for the Christmas Eve church service |
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"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?
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| 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.
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| 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!
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