Back in the Saddle Again

Well, after lots of setbacks in February, I’m now back at school! Finally! It’s definitely been a weird adjustment back to island life after the chaos of Bangkok (and all the modern amenities I was getting used to again!), but mostly I’m just relieved to be back.

Two years ago, my school received eight computers from a grant program, but was unable to turn them on. This year we FINALLY got them fixed AND got internet access at our school! I’m teaching a computer/keyboarding class for 8^th graders in the afternoons. It requires lots of flexibility – we don’t always have electricity or internet access. Also, we have lots of unannounced half days. So we only end up having computer class about half the times that I actually schedule it. But at least it’s happening!

I only have a few more months of service to go. I’ll COS (“close of service”) in July or August (still working out the details), and in September I’ll start attending the Evans School  at the University of Washington! I’m so excited to live in Seattle after two years in the middle of nowhere!

Lots to look forward to this month. Easter week is basically the biggest event of the year on Pohnpei, and at the end of April we have our COS conference with PCVs from all the islands! I’ll try to post more regularly now that I have better internet access!

Med Evac!

My Peace Corps journey took a dramatic and unexpected detour this month when I had both parasitic and bacterial infections in my intestines. (Fun stuff.) Since the hospital on Pohnpei didn’t have the resources to treat me, I was “medically evacuated” (informally called “med evac” by volunteers) to Bangkok, Thailand. I found out they were sending me to Bangkok the day before my flight!

Usually the Pacific Island posts med evac to Manila, but since the doctors there were already busy with other med evac-ed volunteers, I was sent to the Asian posts’ med evac hub. (I met the country director and he said that they usually get about 70 med evac-ed volunteers each year.)

For the first week that I was in Thailand, I was hospitalized in the ritzy Bumrungrad International Hospital. It was basically like a 5 star hotel – flat screen TV, kitchen, huge bathroom, city views… A bit of a shock to get used to – all that I really cared about was getting a hot shower! I got that and a whole lot more!

Half of the hospital room - I was very spoiled!

View from my hospital room

This week I was discharged from the hospital and got the chance to explore Bangkok a little. It was overwhelming to navigate such a huge city after living in a little village for almost two years! So many cars, motorcycles, people... I was always in somebody's way!

I took a boat taxi to visit some of the temples on the Chao Phraya River

Climbing to the top of the steep Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn)

View from the top - my attempt at a "selfie"

Another elaborate temple

The giant reclining buddha at Wat Pho, representing the passage to Nirvana

Buddhas everywhere!

Royal Palace - there were lots of tourists here, so of course there were lots of
sketchy pickpockets and opportunists around. There was a sign and
loudspeaker system that warned, "Do not trust wily strangers!" I love the
word choice! I wanted to take picture of the sign but one such
 "wily stranger" was standing in front of it (perhaps on purpose...?)

After one day of sightseeing I was pretty exhausted, so I found low energy activities for the rest of the week. I got a traditional Thai massage (a mix of massage and yoga-like stretching) and went to see a movie. Before the movie started, everyone stood up while they played the “long live the king” anthem. He’s a pretty big deal here. (The movie, by the way, was Saving Mr. Banks. I highly recommend it!)

Images of King Rama IX are everywhere!

I also visited the Jim Thompson house and gardens for a much-needed break from the busy city. Jim Thompson  was an American who moved to Thailand and helped to revitalize the Thai silk industry. He also built a traditional Thai house and filled it with art and antiques from around Southeast Asia.

Perhaps the best part of Bangkok? Thai food!

No, I didn't eat here. But I couldn't resist a photo
of Ronald's Thai "wai" greeting

I’ll be returning to Pohnpei tomorrow – hooray for health! 

Hospitalization and Pohnpeian TV

My 2014 did not exactly get off to a great start. In January I spent almost a week in the hospital for a bacterial infection that was resistant to almost every available antibiotic. Fun times.

But every cloud has its silver lining, and Peace Corps forked over the big bucks to put me in the private hospital in a private room with TV. (I hadn’t watched TV since last June, when all the volunteers were put up in a hotel for our mid-service training.) There’s no cable in the villages, so TV is a purely Kolonia-based diversion on Pohnpei.

Pohnpeian TV is an eclectic mix of channels from various countries. There’s an Australian news channel, a Japanese channel (that showed sumo wrestling every time I flipped through), Lifetime, ESPN, Spike, CNN, The Food Network, etc. There is also a San Francisco news channel with important information like “Rain in the Bay Area… and what that means for your morning commute!” I learned all about the weather across Asia, Australia, San Fran… basically everywhere except Pohnpei. (Not that a weather report would be that helpful here… “And, just like every other day, we’re going to be seeing some unbearable heat!”) There is, however, one Pohnpeian channel that broadcasts exclusively (as far as I can gather) low-budget PSAs about voting, betel nut, vaccines, etc.

Another fun thing about Pohnpeian TV is that the American channels air a week or so after they originally aired in the United States. So I got to watch a Seahawks game on ESPN that I afterwards found out was a month old (but they still won!).

I’ve come to the conclusion that it is impossible to avoid “The Big Bang Theory.” It was on almost all of the available channels! At all hours of the day! Also, does Lifetime offer any programs other than “Dance Moms?” It was on all the time! (Although on my last day they did air an all-day “Project Runway” marathon that I thoroughly enjoyed…)

I gotta say, even horrible TV is mesmerizing after such a long absence. I never watched much TV before Peace Corps, but I might turn into a couch potato when I return… Or at least for a few days.

Pakin

How do you go on vacation when you’re on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere? Travel to an even smaller island in the middle of nowhere! Over Christmas Break, Ben and I took on the open ocean in a tiny motorboat to visit the outer atoll of Pakin. (Thank goodness for our fabulous driver, Simone. Neither of us had seen – let alone been in the middle of – waves that big! I have a new level of respect for the powerful Pacific!)



Wearing our welcoming garlands

Pakin has less than 100 residents, yet still manages to boast both a Protestant and a Catholic church – I guess the missionaries were battling it out even on the tiny atolls. The elementary school has only one teacher and 20 students grades 1-8 – talk about a challenge! There’s no high school, so the high schoolers go to “boarding school” on Pohnpei. 

The elementary school and church



There are lots of challenges to outer island life like limited water (it had been three weeks without rain when we arrived) and no access to healthcare or prenatal care. The previous Peace Corps volunteer on Pakin, Ap, did lots of community work to help out. We were given a tour of the basketball court and community house that he helped create.

One of the best parts of the trip was playing with the kids! We played on the beach, organized a trash pick-up, and made a little “trash village” before getting rid of the garbage.

Another highlight was listening to people play the keyboard that Ap sent them. There were lots of church songs, but we were also treated to “Funky Town” during breakfast. Can’t get much more random than that!

Looking through my pictures, I realize that most of the photos fit into two categories – palm trees on the beach... 

 ...or baby pigs.

Unlike most of Pohnpei that keeps pigs in cages, the Pakin pigs were free-roaming, and they were everywhere! The piglets were ridiculously cute.

We were so fortunate to stay with Jonathan – the principal of Pakin Elementary School – and his family. They took good care of us (and served us the best sashimi EVER!).

with Jonathan and two of the kids, Pelma and Ryan

Christmas Snapshots

December marked my second Christmas in Pohnpei! Yet somehow I managed to forget that when people refer to “Christmas,” they don’t necessarily mean December 25^th. Actual Christmas Day isn’t a big deal here – it’s just another day to go to church. The BIG days are the school Christmas party (last day of school because Christmas Break) and family Christmas (varies from family to family – my family celebrates on New Year’s Eve). But people don’t say, “the school Christmas celebration is on the 19^th,” or “we’re celebrating Christmas on the 31^st.” No, they say “Christmas is on the 19^th.” This caused lots of confusion with my homemade advent calendar and the chocolate advent calendars that my parents sent for the kids. “Mia, Christmas is tomorrow, not in six days!”

Here are some photos from the holiday season:

During December, my seventh graders read
“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and then
performed it for the 6^th graders. It was a hit!



Santiago, our fabulous Grinch!

 

The 6^th graders sang Christmas songs for the 5^th graders



Our New Year’s/Christmas party was a big
event – everyone went all out with
decorations, food, presents for the gift exchange

 

The girls performed lots of dances



I helped make baskets from palm leaves



The Christmas style trend? Red hair dye



Bolein turned 2 on the 31st and learned how to smile for the camera!

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!