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/

The Milky Way is Visible from the Greenest Place on Earth

Hello! It's Pete. I'm getting Sick!! somau enwai (American sickness aka flu). Let's see... I simply cannot explain how beautiful this place is. It cannot be put into words. The other day we went on the aptly named "six waterfalls hike" an 8 hour excursion. One hour straight into the thick heart of the jungle, then walking up a stream stopping at the six waterfalls and swimming at each one. The hike is part walking, part scrambling (it's very steep at points) part falling on your butt because the rocks are too slippery, part swimming, part wading. Everything is the most brilliant green. As green as the back of your eyelids are black. The falls are rediculous. Several points to jump off.

If I'm not writing perfectly it's because I'm really hungry. This hunger tends to be the state of things (food care packages?). The ATM on the island has been broken the past 3 chances we've had to get into Kolonia so we haven't really had money for like a month. Fortunately the island is made of food and we have quite a nourishing family-like thing over here so...

Let's see, we still haven't gotten our stuff from last years world teach stuff which leaves us without a bed, fan, table, silverware or pots (although we are borrowing some from our fam). The only reason we have a fridge is because once our host dad realized the state of things he aquired one for us the following day.  We're still getting by, though, especially thanks to some amazing care packages from home!  I never knew we needed Nutella here, but now that we actually have it... it's pretty awesome.

Anyway, this place is incredible and I'm feeling more and more that there could be nothing better than a year exploring this unique place.

When I say "unique" I really mean it. Of all of the countries to which I've had the fortune of traveling, this country is by far the most culturally isolated. I figured, due to my experience in tropical southeast asia, that my preconcieved notions of the life here would be at least slightly more grounded than those of others, but I've found myself being constantly thrown new curveballs from every direction. It's really an island.

People's ideas about African Americans have been really weird to confront. The whole teenage population is obsessed with rap pop culture and think that all black people are gangster rappers. They also reffer to African Americans as Africans almost always, and all of the teenagers dress all ghetto. Actually all of them.

We've got a hume mango tree in our front yard and apparently November and December is "little" Mango season. Now, even though it's not the beggest mango season, according to the everyone who's been here for at least a year says that there will be more Mangos than we know what to do with. Apparently they will just be lying all over the ground. AWESOME. Ok, I think that's all I've got in me now but I promise more. All in good Pohnpeian time:)

c/o World Teach
PO box 2378
Kolonia, Pohnpei 96941
Federated States of Micronesia

While the internet may be free for the next year, it's still horribly slow. So here are a few pictures Pete and I wanted to share of our Madolenihmw Paradise.

This is Kehproi (hmmm... spelling is pretty fluid here, so I guess I'll settle on that) Waterfall, just a five minute walk from our house. The kids took us on a special "shortcut" so we could bypass paying the Mehnwai Tax (i.e. pay a buck if you're not a local). It's so beautiful and so refreshing. The kids climbed right up the rocks in the middle and jumped off into the deep, eel-infested pools. The water is safe enough, but we have to be careful not to swim in it after it's rained a lot, since it will wash nasty little things from the village upriver down onto us.




Pete and I haven't yet made it out to Nan Madol, the revered ancient ruins, but those too are very close to our house. This next weekend our group is planning on doing a six waterfall hike up into the interior, which should be amazing and challenging.


This is Alien! Isn't he the cutest??? He loves us and we love him. Which means that I'm sure this story will end in heartbreak, one way or the other. But our family promised not to eat him, and that's all I could really ask for. Not only is this cute little pupster lovable and cute, but he makes
for a great garbage disposal!








Well he hasn't mastered it quite yet, but Pete's still practicing shimmying up the coconut trees to get us some nice uhp, the coconut water. I haven't exactly tried climbing yet, but I'm sure I'll be on some adventuresome kick someday and just run up a tree.














And here I am, all dressed up local style! I'm wearing one of the local skirts, made for me by my host mama back in Nanponmal. When woman are hanging out around the house, they frequently are sans shirt and just wearing their skirts up as I am. And in this heat, it definitely makes sense to be wearing as little as possible. We still don't have any of our things in the house (and yes they've been promising "tomorrow, for sure" since three weeks ago.........) so we're cooking everything in a borrowed iron pan over a small electric stove. If we need to heat anything up the next day, we either refry everything or put a plate of something on top of our coffee maker and let the residual heat warm it up.







Pete and I have started our second or third week teaching, respectively, and our classes have been relatively good so far! Only one of Pete's classes is just flat out not coming to class, and he's only sent a couple students to the principal's office. I've only had one gross fake love letter to deal with, a class of all girls and one boy that has some serious 'tude, and a fist fight last Friday. Other than that, I think we're getting along quite nicely. Oh, and the COM entrance test that is a huge deal here and that I'm basically supposed to be single-handedly preparing these seniors for has been moved up to November. So, now I have two and a half months to teach them how to use verb tenses correctly, reading comprehension, and how to write and essay more or less from the basics up. Intimidating? Nahhhh...

Mad, Mad, Madolenihmw

HELLO! This is Pete. SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED THIS WEEK. I have no Idea where to start or how I'll ever get to even half of it but here goes nothing:

Last thursday we moved into Tony Augustine's house in Madolenihmw. Tony is the brother of our host Father for the last three weeks. Although leaving our amazing host family was hard for all involved (our sister cried:() it's nice that we're still in the family. Just to clarify, Tony is not living with us in our house, the house is all ours but anywhere from ten to twenty family members (brothers, aunts, grandparents adopted cousins, little kids that wander around and have no intelligible relation) are living on the property with us. It's nice to be a part of the community. The Pohnpeians are very guarded with their emotions when around new people and it takes a while for them to warm up, but once they start to accept you, the warmth of their social embrace is truly amazing. People can be so genuine here. That is, when they're at home. Who people are at home and outside are verydifferent as well, and I'm trying to get a handle on some of the nuances.

Tay and I are learning the language with easily. It is pretty simple. I've have an amazing time listening to the intonations and the way people call to each other. The level of non-verbal communication here is astounding. It is WAY over my head but I try to make what observations I can.

I don't mean to sound like I'm exotisising a people here, I am just makeing a conscious effort to emphasise HERE the differences between this new culture and my own because I don't want to bore.

Anyway, we don't really have any table or refrigerator or many of the necessities here because we are in a different house than last year's volunteers and there is serious drama with the DOE and the renters of the other house and contracts being signed and broken and so forth, so long story short, hopefully we'll have things in our house soon.

EEEEWWWWWWW The second night here I woke up in the hot night because our AC is really loud but does not cool things (I'm not kidding at all). I thought I felt something on my foot so I shook it off thinking it was nothing and tried to go back to sleep. About thirty seconds later, however, a BIG FAT cockroach craweled over my back and down my arm before I could flail it off. I've been a bit fobic since. The things are all over our house and they're BIG. The Pohnpeians just think I'm silly for minding which I'd have to agree with to some extent, but still...

So, let's talk professional. We've been forced into teaching English for which neither of us has desire or preparation, so that's been a bummer. To look on the bright side, it's what they really need if they want to go to college. I've sort of been questioning the whole thing though, because it all just buys into imposed western ways. Oh well.

Taylor has started teaching, but I don't start till next week because I'll be teaching Juniors. right now we're on indefinite half days bacause funding is low and the school can't afford to pay for lunch. The principle tells me it should last untill sometime in October but I wouldn't be surprised if it's sooner or later than that. ACTUALLY it would be hard to surprise me with anything right now because if you weant to survive out here you've got to be absurdly laid back. (which is where Sakau, the indiginous Kava like drink, comes into play). So, I'm just in preparation mode, writing syllabus, etc... Anticipation is starting to peak out from behind relaxation and nervs will follow. Wish me luck!

Love

Hello again! Here are a couple more pictures, before Pete and I head out to our house in Madolenihmw. Classes start on Monday, so we'll let you all know how things are going once we settle in.

This is Sokeh's Rock, as viewed from along the road while driving up to our homestay. There is just a small opening in the trees, and this is the beautiful sight awaiting us. The sunset is particularly gorgeous over the rock.

This is our ever-loving host mother, Sehd Pein, and her granddaughter, Lenisha Mae. Lenise has proved to be our best language teacher, as she adores us but speaks nothing but pohnpeian to us. I got to feel like I was finally an integral part of the family the other day when I actually got to babysit Lenise for a while, which included bathing her and our new host sister, Denise, and playing endless games with them.
We're definitely going to seriously miss our host family when we leave, Sehd Pein (or S-Pain, as we like to call her, thanks to Pete giving her a "traditional" American title to go with our traditional pohnpeian titles: Madau and Kedin Madau- He who traveled over a great ocean, and Lady of he who traveled over a great ocean) and Sehden have been so kind and including of us ever since we got here.

So, one of the local games is a hand/rock game. You have to throw the rocks up into the air and catch all 12 on your hand. The ones that fall onto the table can then be collected through a series of complicated (and always changing) rules. Pete and I spent the afternoon yesterday playing the game with some of the neighborhood children, as well as doing some serious relaxing, pohnpeian style.

This is a picture of our homestay. Traditional pohnpei style houses have thatched roofs and a "nahs," another area in which the family spends time along with anyone else who happens by and is invited to come eat and drink sakau.

This last picture is of Denise, our new host sister. She was recently adopted from Sehd Pein's brother (I think?) in the U.S. Adoption is very different here, and very fluid. Anytime a family member is having difficulty taking care of their children, other family members step in and adopt the children to take care of them, whether it's indefinitely or just until the parents can get back on their feet, I'm not sure.