Last

Thanks to everyone who's been reading our blog over the past year. It's been a month since we left Pohnpei, and Pete and I have really been enjoying our time back... although we miss our family and friends we made. Kalahngan en kupwrumwi, oh ih pahn kilang uhk pileou. Kaselehlie!

Sakau en Pohnpei

And here is a step-by-step tutorial on sakau en Pohnpei, as demonstrated by our friends and family in Diahdi:

This is the sakau from the funeral. The roots are the part that are pounded to make the sakau.

Large, flat stones are used as the base for pounding. The smaller, rounded stones are used to pound the roots into a finer, mulch-like consistency. The pounding can be highly ritualized, as is the pounding during a kamwadipw in the presence of the Nahnmwarki.

While the men are pounding the sakau, others prepare the hibiscus through which it will be squeezed. The bark is stripped from the trees and torn into long shreds.


The hibiscus is soaked in water and worked, creating a slimy liquid that lightly flavors the sakau.



The hibiscus is laid out and the sakau is placed inside.


Once the sakau is rolled inside the hibiscus, it is squeezed and the muddy liquid is caught in a half-coconut shell to be consumed. The first few squeezes are extremely potent and are usually reserved for the Nahnmwarki or those with the highest titles or guests.
After that, more and more water is added to the pounded sakau roots before they're squeezed, so the drink is more diluted for the rest of the crowd.


And here is a picture of the final product. Looks like chocolate milk... unfortunately it doesn't taste the same!

Diahdi

Tay here again, posting a couple more pictures whilst we're in town.

This is at Nahlap, a small island off the coast of mainland Pohnpei. Pete's holding a local speargun, getting ready to swim out past the breakers and shoot some fish.

Part of our family lives next to our house most of the time, but also goes back to their rural house in Diahdi every so often. One of the children was having her 1st birthday party back in February and Lilly invited us to come along. We drove down the ring road a ways, and then started a 2 mile trek straight into the jungle to get to the house. This view greeted us at the top of a hill, looking back where we'd come from.

Nano, Malakai, Pete, Lilly, and Sinana lead the way.

Once there, the family went out fishing and caught our lunch.

While we stay there, we only eat freshly caught fish, fresh breadfruit, the occaisonal freshly caught crab, and rice. And everything is cooked with coconut milk, which is made from the coconuts the boys climb to get.

And here are some of the kids playing games with us in the kitchen.

Kaselehlie! We're in town for the weekend, so I thought I'd take the chance to put up a couple of pictures.

The crystal clear water at Black Coral.

The jungle reclaiming a broken down car.

The sakau offering for our host father's younger brother's funeral.

Grating coconuts for a curry dish and some freshly caught fish.

The stones at Nan Madol.

COMET results!

Finally, after 3 1/2 months of waiting, we got the results for the COMET!

As I'd said before, apparently only 8 students passed last year. I'm pretty sure that means that only 8 got into either the National or Degree program. Well, this year was much more fruitful. Here's the breakdown:

Of my 74 students...
11 are going straight to COM National Campus
23 are accepted into the Developmental Education Program
24 are accepted to the Certificate Program at COM Pohnpei Campus
15 did not pass
1 did not take the exam

So the COM Nat'l Camp is an actual accredited college, so they'll basically be going to a regular college. The Dev-Ed program is for students who were close to Nat'l level, but need a class or two first. So they'll take some remedial English classes for 6 weeks and if they improve, they can go straight to Nat'l from there. The Certificate program is mainly a vocational program and is for those whose English wasn't quite up to par, and the 15 who didn't pass the first time have the option to retake it in May or November. I'm going to have an extra class for them a couple times a week to help them get ready for the retake.

Also, three of our students got the 3rd highest score on the math section in the whole FSM and one of our students wrote an almost perfect-scoring essay (49 out of 50 points).

I'm so proud!!! I've been having students come into my room all morning just to shake my hand, take pictures with me, thank me, or bring some music and have a random celebratory dance party. It's been great. I'm really proud of my students and excited that I could help them out so much this year. Apparently these are the highest scores in a number of years. I just hope that next year's WorldTeach volunteers can take all the hard work that Pete's put into the Junior class and help them achieve similar results on next year's COMET.

Anywho, I'm sure we'll put up some more stories and pictures later!

Ant

With less than two months left in Pohnpei, Pete and I have been taking more advantage of the adventures this island (and its outer atolls) has to offer! We've both been buffing up on our spearfishing skills at Palikir Pass (complete with world class surfing waves from November-March) thanks to our friend Tyler's connections. We went out once with the Pohnpei Surf Club, a somewhat pricey but luxurious option with larger boats and coconuts and snacks to share when we were out of the water. We went out another time in a local boat with Tyler's friend Ancher, and it we got soaked by the waves long before we even reached the Pass. The coral was decent at the Pass and we saw a plethora of animal life, including a large family of squid and $5 floating through the water. I have a shot-to-kill ratio of exactly 0% as of yet, but just getting to shoot the spear gun was enough excitement for me. Aiming will have to come later. Pete has shot several fish, including trigger fish, squirrel fish, a spotted red grouper, and parrotfish. Tyler, who spends most of his free time spearfishing around Pohnpei and has a pretty badass speargun, has shot too many fish to count.

This past week, Tyler's mom and sister came to visit from the states and he planned a vacation for them that was chock full of the kind of adventuring we were looking for, so we joined them on some of their outings. The first day we went out with Ancher to Palikir Pass. After snorkeling around for a while, we asked him to take us to a more local spot that tourists don't come to, and therefore will have better coral and bigger fish (the advantage of going out with a local guide). We swung around inside the reef to a shallow spot that was teeming with wildlife. The water was amazingly clear and its depth ranged from just 3 feet to around 30 feet. The boys took their guns out to the deeper waters and hunted fish while I was content paddling around and observing the fish. The shallow areas were particularly cool because I could get up close and personal with the sea stars, crown of thorns, angel fish, clown fish, and giant clams. Upon returning to the mainland, we realized that our SPF 55 sport sunscreen did not protect us very well from the noon sun and that we were in fact extremely burnt. A week later, I'm still nursing the burn on the backs of my legs!

The next morning, we set off with the Pohnpei Surf Club for Ant Atoll, approximately 8 miles off of Pohnpei's shores. There was a storm brewing and large enough swells that by the time we arrived I was feeling a little queasy and was ready to jump into the water. Allois and Jerry, our captains for the day, dropped us off near one end of an island and advised us to drift along with the current and he'd pick us up at the other end. Tyler and Matt were the first to jump in, and the first thing they did was yell, "This is amazing! Get in the water!" Tyler's mom, sister, Pete and I jumped in and found ourselves staring through crystal clear water at a 70 foot wall of coral and exotic fish. The sandy lagoon floor gave way to coral that stretched up to plateau just two feet under the current water line. It was absolutely breathtaking. We drifted along and gaped at the complex coral structures and the dazzlingly colorful and bright fish inhabiting them. We swam up and down the wall for a while, and then the sharks started coming. The ones I saw were just 3-4 ft. white tipped reef sharks, so pretty harmless. But one of them happened to be swimming up the wall perpendicular to my position, and just being able to see her mouth and the jagged edges of her teeth coming up at me were enough to hasten my departure from the beautiful coral wall.

Allois and Jerry then took us to another island that had a beach. A real live beach! A sandy beach! Small though it was, it was the first beach I've stepped on since being in Pohnpei, and it felt great. The water was shallow and sandy and stretched out to a rock "cliff" where the floor dove down into the surrounding ocean. I started out to the rocks with the boys, but the outgoing current was stronger than I would've liked and so I turned back. Along the sandy floor, a few sharks were perusing in search of a snack and a healthy population of fish was avoiding them. The best part were the giant clams, of which I saw so many that I lost count. They are truly beautiful creatures, with colors encapsulating all those of the rainbow, and the ones I saw ranged in size from a few inches to a foot across. Some coral housed up to 8 clams on one surface! They were quite remarkable to watch. On my way back in, suddenly all coral gave way to a completely sandy incline leading up to the beach. Now, I knew there could be stingrays in the sand, so I was careful. For whatever reason my attention wandered and resulted in me almost putting my hand directly on top of a burrowing stingray 2 feet in diameter with angry looking barbs on its long tail! The water was only about 2 feet deep at this point, so the only way I could get a comfortable enough distance was swimming away sideways from it, hoping that my flippers wouldn't accidentally disturb it! I payed much more attention to the sand after that.

After a short break on the beach where we barbequed some of the fish Matt, Pete, Tyler, and Jerry had caught we moved on. A heavy storm opened up right above our boat and it was freezing. The feeling of "cold" is novel in Pohnpei, but it still wasn't all that welcome. We boated over to our last snorkeling destination which was on the oceanside of one of the islands. The water was about 50 feet deep where we were and the visibility was impeccable. Tyler caught a pretty big grouper almost as soon as we got there, and the sharks were very interested to see if he'd share. One glimpse of a 7 ft. long grey reef shark coming up from the depths was enough to send me back to the boat in a fit of swimming that I'm sure would've qualified me for the Olympics, if they had a category for "flailing/desperation." The waves were rocking the boat so much, though, that pretty soon I was feeling sea sick and ready to go home. All of the sudden, Tyler was yelling for Jerry to throw him a buoy and line- there was a school of dogtooth tuna nearby and he wanted to eat one. I new I couldn't miss that, so I jumped back in with the sharks. Tyler ended up spearing one that looked like it could easily be a 75 pounder straight through its gills. It immediately dove straight down, taking all 300 ft. of line with it and plunging the buoy 40 ft. underwater. Then, without any fight, the buoy, gun, and line began floating back up to the surface. The tuna had wrenched the barb off of the spear and gotten away, surely now pursued by the nasty looking sharks that had been eying us earlier. So the big tuna was the fish that got away that day, but it got Tyler's excitement up for his next run-in with a tuna.

We got back in the boat and it took almost 2 hours to get back to the shore, with me feeling sea sick the whole time. I was very grateful to feel my feet back on solid ground, but totally pumped about everything I'd experienced that day. After we showered off we caught some dinner at a asian-fusion buffet, saw Shutter Island at the island's only movie theater (with air conditioning!), and turned in for an early night. The next day we got some pizza and then headed back to Madolenihmw to get back to teaching. I mention each of these things, because FOOD and ENTERTAINMENT are not things we come by easily in Mad-town. There are no building except for houses, churches, and schools, and there's nothing even remotely resembling a restaurant in the whole municipality. So it's nice for us to get into town every now and then and fatten ourselves up.

So here I am now with only 5 weeks of school left! I've opened this last quarter up to learning anything and everything they've wanted to learn but haven't yet, including drama, poetry, dance, human bio, how to bake a cake, and about the Iraq War. It should be much more interesting than grammar and thesis statements! I'm still waiting to hear the results of the COMET, although what I've unofficially heard so far is that 26 students passed, our school ranked 3rd in the FSM (for what, I'm not sure), and one of our students got the 3rd best math score in the FSM. Are any of these true? I highly doubt it, but I'll let y'all know when I get the official word.

Kaselehl,
Taylor

Rain Dances

It finally rained!!! Forget those weatherpersons, they don't know what they're talking about. For the past couple days, it's been raining on and off, which is bringing us new hope that the drought will be cut short. We still don't have any running water in our house, but a new pipe built out front is supplying us with all the water we can carry. So there's the newest update! As well as the fact that I, Taylor, have my return date booked. Pete and I'll be leaving the island on June 9th, stopping in Hawaii for a week, then stopping in LA for a few days, and flying into IAD on June 20th. I'm pumped!! See you all soon,

Taylor