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

Class Pictures

Kaselehlie! It's Taylor again.
Since people are worrying about whether or not school will finish if this drought continues and worsens (no, we do not have water back yet), I decided to take a couple class pictures just in case.

All of my students are seniors, and there are 4 different tracks in the high school- A, B, C, and D. The tracks are chosen for them based on their performance on a high school entrance test, and they can switch around somewhat but mostly they stay in their sections until graduation. My sections are all pretty even- around 20 students- and then there are some sections, like Pete's 11D class with 60 students (they split them up into 2 separate classes to spare him)!


This is my 7th period 12C group. They're the business track of the school, and my smallest (and most estrogen filled!) class.



This is my 5th period 12B class. They're the second academic track. This is the class I had a fight break out in, a "love letter" written to me, and all sorts of other wonderful surprises.



This is my 2nd period 12A class, posing outside. They're the first academic track, and for the most part they're the most gifted at English and academically driven.



And finally, this is my 1st period 12D class. Or at least some of them. Having English as their first class of the day isn't necessarily the best for them, as many of them get to school late and then miss my class. There are 17 boys and 1 girl, quite the opposite from my 12C class. These are the vocational students, and they're focusing on agricuture, mechanics, engineering, and home arts (for the ladies, of course...).

Title Ceremony

Hello all! It's Taylor. I meant to write this up a while ago, and it just popped into my head the other day, so I guess getting around to it late is better than never, neh?

Now I'm not an expert on the title system of Pohnpei, but here goes nothing...
The Pohnpeian culture is built on a hierarchy of titles, with each of the five municipalities (Madolenihmw, U, Nett, Sokehs, and Kitti) having their own mini-system of titles, and each having their own Nahnmwarki and Nahnken- the man with the highest title and his second, respectively. Madolenihmw is the largest and the "highest" municipality, so the Nahnmwarki of Madolenihmw is the most powerful traditional leader on the island. At kamwadihps and other ceremonies, tribute is paid to the Nahnmwarki by bringing sakau (kava) plants, yams, and pigs. Therefore, a man's wealth is measured in the amount, size, and age of his sakau, yams, and pigs. As men acquire more wealth, they can apply for higher titles and therefore gain higher positions in society and the traditional government. Recently, money has been added as a tribute. Wives receive a complementary title to their husband's.

Anyway, I bring up my own botched understanding of the culture to explain the ceremony Pete and I were invited to wherein our host father was receiving a higher title. It was back in our old neighborhood, Nahnponmal in early December and 12 men were receiving titles as part of this ceremony. It was an all-day event, and Pete and I showed up somewhere near the beginning of it, around noon. It was an extremely hot day, but everyone was in good spirits. Sitting in the nahs was the Nahnmwarki of Sokehs, other high titled men, and their wives. The sakau rocks were already in use when we showed up and didn't stop until well into the night.

To the right of the nahs was a collection of yams. The yams are dug up, strung up between two or more poles for carrying, and propped up by a series of old oil cans. As you can imagine, these yams are supposed to be a statement of how wealthy you are and how much you respect the Nahnmwarki, and thus they are huge. Then there was some other random tribute items, including pillows, mattresses, chickens, rakes, just many household items.

To the left of the nahs was the pig area. These pigs, also huge, are hogtied and brought to the ceremony early in the morning and then remain hogtied and lay around in the heat without water or food, waiting to be slaughtered. When their time was up, I watched as men walked up to the prone pigs, some already dead from heat stroke or exhaustion, and stabbed them inceremoniously in the side with machetes. The pigs were very much still alive after the initial cut, alive enough to attempt to run away and make the more horrible raptor-like sounds I've ever heard, and had to be stabbed again and again with the machete. When they finally succumbed, a man walked through the hog crowd with a blowtorch and sizzled them. Removing the hair? Getting the skin ready for pig skin treats? I have no idea. But it was kinda cool to watch. Then the professionals got in and started gutting and dismembering the pigs. At the end of the ceremony, everyone left with a piece of pig. The higher your title, the bigger piece of choice meat you left with. The whole head, even, if you're lucky.

Much of the ceremony was sitting around, waiting, but there was some entertainment and no shortage of food. At pretty much any event you go to, your lunch will be a "take-out" which is basically a huge platter or bucket filled with food and ceran wrapped, or sometimes a modest takeout container packed to its brim with food. All the women involved in the event prepare a large amount of their delegated food/drink and put a little in each takeout bucket. At the appropriate time, the woman picked up the largest buckets and danced in a long line to deposit them at the feet of the Nahnmwarki in the nahs. After the highest title holders had their food, every last person at the ceremony was handed a box of takeout.

Afterwards, it was time for the presentation of the yams and sakau. The men grabbed their offerings and lined up to bring in their yams, one by one, and present them to the Nahnmwarki. They started with the smaller ones, and eventually were bringing in yams so large that four or more people had to carry them. They removed these from the nahs and began the same process with the sakau plants. For traditional ceremonies, it is important to leave the whole plant intact, even though it is only the roots that are pounded. I had seen larger (meaning older, and more potent) sakau plants before, but these ones were just absurd. The last sakau brought in were as large as two people crouching together on the platform they were carrying, and I'm sure whoever drank them in the end got messed up.

Finally, the men and women getting new titles were invited up into the nahs. They sat facing each other, got smeared with coconut oil on their neck, shoulders, and arms, and a coconut shell of sakau was passed along them as they were given their new names.

After that, the official ceremony petered out, as did our energy. No amount of water was enough to keep us hydrated, and we were glad the whole ceremony was taking place just down the road from our host family's house. Our host father's title when we arrived was Sedin and his wife's was Sehd Pein. The ceremony was to gain the higher title of, what sounded to us, like Nano RRRrrrRRRrrrr en Sokehs (we'll definitely have to get them to write that down for us...) and Sehd Pein is now Nanopei. At the same time, though, everyone still pretty much always calls them Sedin and Sehd Pein. But that title's there, waiting for when they need it.

We live on a tiny island.

Still no water, but we're focusing on bigger and better things these days.

Such as the local fads.

With a population of only about 30,000 people, Pohnpei is about as big as a state university. What this lends itself to is trends spreading like wildfire throughout the entire island, and no one knowing exactly by whom or why it was started. When Pete and I first got here, we noticed a lot of students walking around between classes holding their cheeks. It looked kinda funny, so it was pretty noticeable. We only just found out that it's a sort of game that they've been playing: you have to hold your cheek, and if you don't, anyone around you can slap you in the face really hard. Are we having fun yet??

The next fad wasn't so much as a game, but more like an annoying call. Anytime someone says something jokingly, or if you even think they're joking or should be joking, you yell "kaing!" at them. This is just to say, "Yeah right!" or "Liar!" They say it in a very nasal, loud way, and it's kinda hilarious.

And now, we've entered the Budget Phase. Any time someone asks you a question and you say/indicate "Yes," they yell "budget!" at you and then you have to do something for them, if they ask it. It's pretty innocuous, but also ridiculous because our students often engage in budget wars with each other or, even better, with us during class. So Pete and I have had to be really careful about answering our students, and they're getting more and more sneaky about weasling a "yes" out of us, haha.

That may be all the wisdom I have to expound on this fine afternoon. We had a little bit of on-and-off rain this morning, so let's all keep our fingers crossed that it'll come back in force soon!

Water!

It's Pete

There's no water. They're saying this will be the worst drought in 15 years and that we may not have water untill May (el nino and stuff). The generator for our section is on and off and definitely on its way out... Well running water and electricity, it was nice knowing you.

No Water

It's Taylor again, on day 2 of Championship Week. Our teams have... well... lost pretty much every game so far, but it hasn't dampened our spirits. We still have the loudest cheerleaders! Our girls softball team is playing now, and last I checked they were actually kicking some butt, so we'll hope for them to be the one team that pulls it through for MHS!
Interestingly enough, the rainiest place on earth can still have its dry spells, and we're experiencing one of those right now. There haven't been any heavy rains since the New Year, and the past 2 weeks have been completely dry. So yesterday afternoon, just as we got home and were readying ourselves to dive into our massively neglected pile of unwashed dishes festering in our sink, we watched as the stream of water slowed to a trickle and stopped.
Sohte pihl! No water!
As of now, we have no water at all in our house, and the number of houses in Madolenihmw with water is rapidly dwindling. We went up to the high school campus last night to take advantage of a small bit of water for a shower. But sooner or later that water will dry up, so we're all doing our own versions of rain dances to encourage a massive downpour that will hopefully replenish our ranks.
Well I'm going to go cheer on our team some more, and hope that we can take one win for MHS this year!
Soutik mwahu.

Just Stars

Well heloooo there! It's Taylor again, back from a long absence.
Things have been crazy around here for me, as the College Of Micronesia Entrance Test (COMET) approached. The date was originally set for sometime in mid-November, got pushed back to January 29th, and then pushed back again the week of the 29th to... sometime in February. Finally we found out the date, February 5th, which has (thankfully!) come and gone.

This test has somewhat been the bane of my existence, especially recently, when the administration decided the seniors needed intensive English and math classes only for the 2 weeks leading up to the test. This meant that my 4 classes of seniors were collapsed into 2 classes (40 students each) that met for 2 1/2 hours instead of the usual 45 minutes. It was difficult, but we got through a surprising amount of information, so I guess it was all for the better. The test is broken up into 4 sections: math, writing (essay), grammar/vocab, and reading comprehension. Each section is between 40-60 minutes long and is supposed to test the students' aptitude for each of the sections on a college level. There's no real "passing" or "failing," but the students need to get certain scores in each section to be accepted to the COM National Campus- a 4 year university. If they do not get satisfactory grades, they can go to the COM Pohnpei Campus- a community college. Last year, Madolenihmw High School only had 8 students get satisfactory scores while the other two high schools, PICS and NMHS, only had a total of 9 students get unsatisfactory scores. Our school was very upset by this, and determined to change the outcome for this year's students. I've been working extremely hard with the students and pushing them to learn everything I could teach them to help them with the test, in an attempt to help as many pass as possible. Early on, however, there began to be grumblings that we could not have so many people fail again this year, it would be terrible for the numbers you see, and maybe the solution should be to only let the brightest and most-likely-to-pass students even take the test this year. Obviously, I was not a fan of this idea. I am not a numbers gal, I'm all about the people. Ultimately, all the students who wanted to were able to take the test. And now it's over! And now we can all relax a little bit! YES!!!

Now we're revving up for Championship Week, a 3-day tournament for the three public schools, and somewhat of a celebration for finally getting through the COMET. We'll be competing in events such as baseball, volleyball, track and field, and an essay contest. The competition is being held in Madolenihmw, so everyone will be heading out this way to watch the games. This will certainly be an exciting event for Madolenihmw and all of the staff/faculty at our high school, where the games will be held.

Of course, school has not been the only thing we've been up to out here in the Pacific. As Pete has written about, we spent another awesome weekend at Black Coral seeing sharks and fighting with the raging winter currents. We've gone into Kolonia a couple times to eat at real restaurants (oh, the thought of it makes my mouth water!) and see the other WorldTeach and Peace Corps volunteers. Mostly, however, we've simply been enjoying the beauty and quiet of life in Madolenihmw. We've taken a short break from drinking sakau en Pohnpei, although we're itching to get back into it soon! Our friend down the road has opened up a nightly Bingo game at her house, so we've partaken a couple of times. Although let me tell you- Pohnpeians are not messing around when it comes to Bingo! They have very intricate rules and different types of games you can play, all under the heading of Bingo... suffice to say I haven't yet won a game.

Pete and I have also been hosting some of the Peace Corps and WorldTeach volunteers out at our house, giving them a taste of life outside of Kolonia. But most of the time, it's just Pete and myself. Most of the time, we just hang out with the family or take long walks down the road to end up sitting on the sundial at PATS and watching the sun set behind the mountains overlooking Madolenihmw Harbor. Most of the time, life moves slowly and quietly forward.

The other night, we lost power around 5 pm. This isn't a huge deal, we frequently lose power for long stretches of time. This time, however, it stayed out for a long, long time. We cruised through the food we could make without cooking for dinner, and then were confronted with the question of "So... what do we do now?" Pete and I went down to hang out with the family for a while, and then wandered over to the steps outside our family's sometimes-open-store. From there, without any lights or noises, we sat under a blanket of a billion stars and talked about religion, stars, the single-serving pre-packaged insanity of life in the US, the Universe, and what foods we were craving most. I've been reading a lot of National Geographics lately (thanks Grandma!) and in one it talked about light pollution. It said that if you can see only 8 stars in Orion's constellation, you are in an area of heavy light pollution (that is, if you can even see it at all). However, if you are in a clear area, you can see upwards of 50 stars in the constellation. That night, I'd say we could see much closer to 50. Just being without power for those 5 hours made me realize how harmful so much light and noise all the time can be to one's system. Just sitting and looking at the darkness can be an amazingly cleansing experience. I would recommend it.

Well I'm off to go do some laundry and clean up the house in case we have visitors this week. Until next time!
Kaselehlie,

Taylor

Sharks Part 2 and other assorted goodies!!

Wow, I sure am sorry it's taken so long to get back to you on that one... don't worry, I haven't been eaten, and it WAS a white tip although apparently they get the occasional great white inside the lagoon (or so I hear).
This is Pete by the way. So, allow me to elaborate on that last post: we went to a little island off of this island. The little island is called Black Coral. It is private property, just land owned by a family. If you know the guy or if you get ahold of his phone number you can go. It's really beautiful. By many accounts the best snorkeling around Pohnpei. This is because fishing is forbidden. So, the fish population and coral are left fairly untouched and teeming with life. And where there's a teeming fish population, there's a teeming fish population, there's a teeming shark population!
Black coral consists of two TINY pieces of land with a small channel between them which has the bluest water I've ever seen. The channel can get some pretty strong currents going, regardless what the current is like in the greater lagoon because, well... it is a channel. It is easy to be a happy and sated snorkeler after a long day of simply swimming in this little channel, but I decided to explore so two other guys and I went out a little further.
As we swam away from black coral, the coral beneath us got deeper and deeper down until it was perhaps 80 feet down (at which point the bottom was still clearly visible). On the swim out we saw a shark or two just resting on the bottom. I can safely say the rumor that sharks never stop swimming is bullshit. Anyway, when we got too close they would get up and swim away. Black tips and white tips maybe 5 feet long. When we got to a certain point the coral just dropped off into the deep abyss of ocean. At the edge were thousands of fish!! We saw a school of Barracudas, maybe two or three dozen of them. A giant school of fish with hundreds of members just sitting there in the shape of one giant fish. It was fun to dive as deep as possible and stir them up.
Then we saw more sharks. Up to this point we'd seen three or four swimming alone, but now we saw a pack of four or five grey reef sharks. Those things are big and sleek and these ones were circling. We were all really pumped at the prospect of seeing an actual shark kill. We waited for a while but alas they moved on.
We saw the water from the channel was getting a little murky indicating that the current was turning against us so we decided to head in. We made our way back, and as we approached the head of the channel the current became considerably strong (the easiest way to land is through the channel). So we've reached the channel (we're in like 6 foot deep water) and I'm going only slightly faster in my direction then the current is going the opposite direction. I turn my head to the right as I prepare to cross the channel to land and there, no more than 10-15 feet away from me, swimming with the current and with unsettling ease, possessing a body longer than my own is a white tip shark. I watched it for a second, raised my head to tell my friends, looked back and it was gone.
Shortly thereafter we made land and told stories over our fire and under the infinite stars.

I realize I shifted to 1st person, but it just felt right. Ok, I'll have to get back to you with the "assorted goods" promised by this post's title.

Much love

SHARKS! Part one.

DUDE! it's Pete. The other day I saw SOOO MANY SHARKS!!!! I swam with them. More than I can count. Pretty big ones too. White tips, black tips, and grey reef sharks. This one six foot white tip (like on the discovery channel) was like 10 feet away from me NO JOKE. OH MY GOD! I will write more soon. Perhaps sometime when it's not so muggy... ha, that's funny.

Into the Jungle

Well, it's Pete and I would just like to share with you a little story about what I did last Wednesday during our long weekend.

At about 10:30 in the morning just as Taylor and I were starting to mosey around the house and the sun was beginning to wear out it's welcome as it does for about 6 hours every day, my three Pohnpeian brothers, Anthony, Dan, and Rico (several European empires have had more than just their hand in this island's cultural evolution) burst into my house. Their faces were bright and I could tell spirits were high.

"Madau!" (That's my title, pronounced 'Matao') the word spilled out and before I could reply... "Madau we're going into the jungle, bring food. Let's go!" I was a bit dazed by the suddenness of all this but as I've started to realize, that's just the way things happen here. "Ok, ok" I said, "should I bring a knife?" He nodded and after indicating which of my machete's was the right size for this particular outing, we were off.

We were fortunate to get a ride for the fist couple of miles. Our grandma's van took us inland to thicker jungle. I couldn't get a straight answer as to what we'd be doing when we got there but once again, I am becoming more accustomed to ambiguity than I'd like to be. Finally, when we hopped out, we found ourselves in somebody's side yard. The boys led the way which seemed to be straight into this guys land. Going into the jungle, first the trees get closer together and there are more and more fruit plants and other bushes. Next the grass gets higher and higher and pretty soon the only way through is with a machete. We wound our way into the jungle, over slick logs, under fallen trees, through deep mud, past all kinds of fruit. The grass was chest high and all of us were hacking away. At one point we stopped and Rico ascended a tree effortlessly to retrieve a special leaf which they chew with their betel nut (I have read that betel nut is actually the most commonly used stimulant in the world. Think India). We came upon a stream with clean, delicious water and after stopping briefly for a drink we continued straight up a rocky, rooty mud hill. After maybe an hour of working our way into the jungle, Dan said in a low voice "ok, don't cut anymore or they will know where we are planting" so we continued straight through the thickness until we reached a satisfactorily remote spot. They explained to me that last year they had planted in their usual spot but when they came to harvest, someone had beaten them to it and they had lost a lot of bananas and Sakau (Kava). Apparently theft is making it harder and harder to find a safe place to plant.

Once we arrived at our spot we had to clear the land. This basically meant razing anything that wasn't bananas or Sakau. Each of us had to sharpen our machetes at some point in this process. Mine was to dry to sharpen so they simply stuck it through a banana tree and when it came out it was dripping wet. At one point we heard some whacking from not far off. Clearly we weren't the only ones taking advantage of the days off. It was a bit tense when I think all parties involved realized each others' presences but fortunately the other party moved on.
After a good amount of clearing and planting under the high sun we set back for the river. We followed it up a ways to a beautiful, hidden, red waterfall where we swam to cool off. On the way back Anthony stopped, looked up and asked "you like Karat[variety of banana], right?" before pointing to the top of a 30 foot banana tree and saying you can have those. "Really?" "Yes, just cut the tree." And after felling the tree, the vitamin A-filled bounty was mine.

On the way back home we had no ride so it was about 3 miles hauling the bananas in the sun. What a day it was. They told me we're going to be doing that a lot soon so I'm excited. I'm sure I'll have more to tell. Sorry the end was a bit rushed but I gotta run to class. That's the way it is, you know?

Hey, it's Pete.

So, lately I've been in a scuba open water certification course. It's AWESOME. The "confined dives" which are normally done in a swimming pool are done on the beautiful coral reef. I'm really enjoying it so far, although the parts of me that don't get covered up end up looking like they've been in the deep-fryer for a while because we're out under the tropical sun from 10 - 3 pm.

Let's see... first quarter's over, and I know you'll all hate me for saying it but I really do miss the cold. I have these flashes of physical memory of the cold and it's really nostalgic. No worries, because mango season is coming and soon everything will be just right.

Every day I learn more about why a western, imposed school system is impossible with this culture, even if the intentions are good. School has absolutely no place in this culture (except perhaps in that it tingles the self-preservation reflex which we all have). There's a lot of tragedy inherent to becoming a part of this island. It is and especially has been imbued with incomprehensible beauty, but the rate at which that beauty (both culturally and physically) is being laid waste is alarming. I guess it's the same story all over the globe.

All that said, I really like the students and have developed some bonds with them. Making friends has proven to be extremely difficult and frustrating because in this culture, we are viewed as children (everyone is until they're around 35), but if we are to receive even a fraction of the respect necessitated by our station as teachers, we can't really make friends with the students. Also, the students feel a barrier due to our status.

Anyway, I've been working with all of my spare time on chess and composing. I am working on a large scale, themed collection of piano suites based loosely around the Lorax. It is exciting and I've really been putting a lot of mental energy into both its creation and my improvement as a composer. I hope to gather a contingent of pianist friends when I get home who are willing to help bring it to life.

Ok, that's about it for now. Lot's of thoughts, lot's of jumble, and there's so much more that's been left unwritten. Until next time...

Pete

T.G.I.F.

So we're in between classes on a Friday, so I thought I'd write some word-vomit on this site since, I guess, that's what blogs are for. This past weekend was a lesson in living like vagrants, and it was awesome. Pete and I wanted to finally get back into Kolonia Friday night, so we could do a little shopping, but mostly just hang out with the other WT volunteers. When we got back from school, which wasn't really school, it was just a Welcome Party, we happened to mention to the family that we're living with that we wanted to go into town. Caropei informed us that they happened to be heading into town in approximately ten minutes. So Pete and I ran inside to hurriedly pack up a single backpack for the weekend. We jumped into the van without having told any of the vols in town that we were coming and without having planned for a ride home. It was awesome.

We got into town just as school should have been ending, and we decided to check out the movie theater (the only one on the island, I might add) and wait for our friends to get home. We saw Inglorious Basterds on a whim, and just the experience alone of sitting in an air conditioned movie theater, eating nachos (albeit stale nachos), and being deafened by the movie was amazing. The movie ended up being hilarious and amazing, I don't care if anyone else liked it, maybe it was our deprived condition, but we absolutely loved it.

Then we caught a cab over to our friends' apartment and one of the ladies in the cab happened to be our host mother's sister-in-law, so we chatted on the way over. I love all of these coincidental meetings here. We got to their apartment and, alas, no one was home. So we headed over to the hotel/restaurant near the expat bar, the Rusty Anchor, and happened to run into all of the other volunteers. We hit up the bar and crashed at the apartment. The next morning we got up early and walked all over town getting our shopping done. Even though cabs are only $1 per person in town, we felt much more comfortable walking around, although I did get a nasty burn from it (all between the hours of 9 and 11!).

We really wanted to get back to Madolenihmw for a variety show in the Pingelapese community in Mand nearby, so we went over to Ace Commercial to see if we could bribe someone to take us back, if they happened to be driving to Madolenihmw. We were in the planning stages of making a huge sign, "Kokohla Madolenihmw? Mie Krakah!" (Going to Madolenihmw? We have candy!) when I happened to run into one of my students. I asked him if he was going back home, and he said no, but then on second thought, he told us he would drive us the hour drive back for free, and he wouldn't take no for an answer. So Pete and Junior rode a wind-whipped ride in the back of the truck, while I got to know Junior's father and family a little bit in the cab. We even stopped by their house on the way home so they could show us the river behind their house, which they boasted was the deepest and widest in Madolenihmw, and it was. It was a really beautiful experience.

On the way out to the variety show later, we randomly decided to walk out instead of catching a ride with our neighbors, and on our walk we were invited by some of our other neighbors to come drink sakau with them. This family lives across the road from us, and we've really really been wanting to get to know them better, because every time we walk past the house they're always just so happy and the house seems so full of life. So we hung out a little and drank sakau on the rock with them, it was great. Then the variety show, starring a bunch of mine and Pete's students, was awesome, if somewhat deafening. It seems that Pacific Islanders don't have the same pain threshold as we measly Americans do for listening to loud music... or blaring orders to a crowd of children through a megaphone in a tiny room with crazy acoustics.

Then Sunday, we just laid around all day reading and/or composing. It was glorious. And it definitely was another one of those weekends that makes me feel all the more connected to this place we're living in for another 8 months. Pretty much as long as the experience has nothing to do with school, then it'll be a powerful and enriching one.

Schoolwise, it's been a weird week since I had to go to Kolonia with a few students on Monday for an essay contest and then I gave out a test on Tuesday/Wednesday. I'm really really glad it'll be over in a couple hours, I've just gotta get through two more classes, and then the Writing Workshop with all of the seniors at the end of the day. Also, I just heard from one of my 12A students that most of her classmates like my class, but know that I'll give a bunch of extra credit on the tests and quizzes, so they basically don't study and think they're a joke. So that sucks a lot, but it definitely gives me license to toughen up on them a little bit. For my other three classes, I feel like I'm pushing them at just the right pace, but this A class could definitely be moving faster and I'm just trying to feel it out. Ah, oh well. I'll figure it out eventually. At least I can still see that they're learning things, even if they think they don't have to study it.
Well, this is surely much too long so I'll stop here. But I hope wherever you are while you're reading this, you're enjoying some cool weather and watching the last of the leaves change!
Oh, what I would give for a change in seasons right about now!
Peace,
Taylor

More Pictures!

Lehlie maing ko, it's a beautiful Friday in Pohnpei and it's Taylor here, attempting to share some more pictures with you all.
Pete and I have had some really exciting adventures in the past few weeks, including another trip out to Nahlap, becoming a science teacher (briefly), and finally getting to the top of a coconut tree!

This picture is from our Nahlap trip. We went with a couple of the other WT volunteers and another mehnwai friend. It was a really beautiful and relaxing trip, except that when it got dark, Pete and I realized we couldn't sleep! The bugs, heat, rats, mice, geckos, coral injuries, sand fleas, and lack of bedding made for a rough night. So while I was wandering the small island in the morning wrought with insomnia, I found this lovely feast! The whole entire hermit crab community, it seemed, was munching on this mature coconut, it was all very cute.



Now what we have here was Pete's first coconut-tree-summit ever! Very exciting. He finally reached the top and got his first ever coconut. Let me tell you, it's definitely much harder than the locals make it look!
While I still haven't even attempted climbing, I did get to scrape my own coconut meat and make the milk from it myself the other night, which was an hour-long experience. I tore off the coconut husk with the help of a metal pole and scraped the meat out with a sort of bench/scraper thing. After I soaked the meat to get the milk, Pete cooked a delicious spinach and potatoes curry with it.




























Here's the proud guy now! With his delicious, delicious, uhp.

















This is one of the babies who lives in the family we basically live with, taking a bath in the middle of the forest. His name's Tristan and he's just over 1 1/2 years old.
The bathtub is right next to our manual washing machine behind our house, just next to a huge drop-off into a valley with a little river/creek thing. I just thought it was in interesting sight, having a bathtub right in the middle of the greenery.
And yes, everything here is this green.










Ok, so I'm just going to post a whole bunch of pictures because it looks like they upload on this site a whole lot faster than flickr or facebook. This is just a picture of me while we were at Nahlap. We built a fire and roasted some meat some other vols had brought and played tons of different card games, dominoes, yahtzee, chess, and backgammon.








This is a kitten in a food coma, cutest coma ever. The cat's unofficial name is "sweetie," but we call her/him Professor Cereal. S/he lives in the Nahs with other family, but escapes the torture the little children inflict upon him/her daily by running up to our house. I really wish we could just keep her/him, but s/he tries to pee all over our house and there's just no way to keep the kids from getting at her/him. But the cats are all kinda figuring out I'm a huge softie for kitties, so they frequent our porch, just looking for some extra food scraps or love.








This is back at Keproi Waterfall. Rolmy decided to take a daring leap from one of the super wet slippery rocks up next to the falls. Rico and Anthony are the two climbing up after her, and John is swimming in the pool below.















A too-dark-but-too-bad picture of Pete and me at the waterfall.

Pete and I finally made it out to Nan Madol, the ancient ruins, on Saturday, so I'll try to put up some pictures of that later. Hope you all are well!

Photos of the hike

So i'm a-gunna try to put up some pictures as I can in between classes and the likes, I think this link should work to take you to my flickr page. If not, let me know!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42248032@N04/