Hello to all! I am able to post again today because I am in town seeing off one of the two remaining volunteers from the group before me (M77’s), Cori Jo. She has been a joy to get to know, however briefly, and I wish her all the best in whatever life has in store for her next. It’s sort of funny because Cori was friends with the previous volunteer who lived with my family, Mollie (she was an M76), and she often came over to visit. So my family sent me off to the airport baring their well-wishes too. In fact, they probably knew Cori better (and defintely longer) than I did. She will most definitely be missed. Now it’s just the seven of us M78’s and one remaining M77, Janelle, who extended until May. We all feel so fortunate that Janelle is sticking around, because she provides us with endless wisdom and support, as well as her shining personality.
All is well here in Pohnpei. Not much has changed since my last post, except that the wonderful Bacon family sent me a bulging care package of school supplies! THANK YOU! The teachers snatched up the pencils like vultures, as pencils are so hard to come by, and that item alone was enough to make my school eternally grateful. But the other supplies, specifically the index cards, sharpies, and yarn, helped me to create an awesome review game/skit adventure for my 7th graders. They LOVED it.
The most recent story that we read was Yertle the Turtle, and I thought of my father every day when as we read it, as I can remember countless nights growing up when he read Dr. Seuss books to my sister and I. His specialty was “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”, and I’m sure as he reads this he will begin to recite to himself the first few pages by memory. (“This one has a little star, this one drives a little car, Say what a lot of fish there are!”)
Anyway, there is not a lot to report here. But I do have a few amusing stories to regale you with; hope you enjoy!
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Laundry (and Rain)
I have been very fortunate, both in my home in town and here in my village, to have a washing machine at my disposal. Don’t get too excited, though. These are not washing machines like we are accustomed to in America. It is a top-load machine, consisting of two cylindrical compartments, one large and one small. The first you fill with water, your clothes, and soap, then turn a dial and the cylinder gently shakes. Afterwards you can flip another dial, and the water drains out. In town, my family would then fill it up again for a rinse cycle, but here we remove the clothes and rinse them ourselves in some kind of bucket. Then the clothes are slowly fed into the smaller cylinder, which spins and shakes violently, removing excess water, at which point the damp clothes are ready to be hung to continue drying. The two machines, the one I used in town and the one I use here, are almost identical, except for the fact that the one in town worked and this one frequently does not.
Yesterday was one such day. I woke up to a beautiful sunny day after several of pure rain, and in a world where laundry hangs outside to dry, a sunny day means it’s time to wash your clothes. (You can’t afford to let a sunny day pass you by, because tomorrow it might rain all day—this is a lesson I learned very early.) So I lug my bin outside, only to discover the machine was missing. My uncle explained that it was broken and that he was fixing it (By the way, he is incredible with tools. Just last week he made a new fan out of discarded parts from various deceased machines.). So I could either wait until tomorrow, as he said, which really means next week sometime, or I could wash my clothes by hand. I opted to be hardcore. This is the Peace Corps, after all.
Washing clothes by hand consists of sitting on something—I chose an upturned bucket—and scrubbing and pounding your clothes against the cement in soapy water. It was awesome. The process was long and arduous, but ironically, I think my clothes were actually much cleaner than they would have been from swishing around in the soapy water in the machine. I washed about five skirts, seven or eight shirts, two bras, and about ten pairs of underwear. It took me two hours, and the whole time, my Nohno kept walking by and smiling and laughing at me. I told her “kaperen” (it’s fun) and that made her laugh even harder.
Now, a side note, adding to the list of reasons why being a woman here is difficult is the fact that women only wear skirts (another example is being routinely completely disrespected in my classrooms because of my gender). So all the manual labor is done while also attempting to be dainty. During training, one of the staff actually took time to show us how to get up and down off the floor in a skirt, and the exercise seemed excessive and somewhat childish, but now I completely understand the necessity. But I am proud to say I now have the skills necessary to lay or sit in almost any position in my skirt without revealing anything unladylike. It all involved careful folding and tucking of the skirt that at first required careful trial and error, but eventually comes as second nature. Most important to this story, I am able to squat over a bucket for two hours completely covered. I was very impressed with myself. I think this is yet another skill I’m acquiring that will do absolutely no good for me when I return to America. Oh well.
So I finished my laundry, all of which I washed by hand, on the ground, in my skirt, and I was feeling pretty happy with myself. I then wrung all my clothes out the best I could I stood up to go hang them up. And I kid you not, in that very instant, the heavens opened up and it began to downpour. And in true Pohnpei fashion, the rain lasted the entire day, so my clothes sat wet in my basket in my room.
Now, try not to judge me, but in my life now the word “clean” has taken on a whole different meaning. “Clean” can mean a lot of things, and for clothes specifically, “clean” comes in a broad spectrum, with varying levels and categories of clean. For example, it would be absurd to wear a skirt or shirt only once before washing it, so one of my categories is “have worn only once”, then “have worn two or three times” (this level is close to washing, but not quite—again, don’t judge). But ultimately it all comes down to smell. If when pulling on a t-shirt or a skirt, I can smell the stink, that is the time I surrender and toss it in my laundry basket (Wow, I sound like a teenage boy with a messy room).
So imagine my remorse at the thought of my clothes smelling of mildew by the time I was able to hang them up to dry. I would have to wash them all over again, by hand, on the ground, in my skirt. Not okay. But God smiled down upon me, and miraculously, I was able to hang them up the next day, which was only partially sunny (I had to run out and grab my clothes twice and then re-hang them), and they are now nice and fresh. Well, I don’t know if I could say fresh. They do sort of smell funky. But only a little. They’re “clean”. Don’t judge me.
But the whole experience, as does every day here in Micronesia, taught me a lot about what things I used to take for granted. Take my last apartment, for example. We had a really nice washer and dryer right in the apartment. I need only walk through the kitchen and then I could wash and dry my clothes with ease and without really thinking much about it. As I’m sure most of you do too, I’d just toss my clothes in, add some soap, turn a few dials, and then walk away. When the buzzer went off I’d come back and move them to the dryer, turn a few more dials and again walk away, only to return when my clothes were warm, dry, and fluffy. All of this happens, probably in the course of 90 minutes, regardless of the time of day or weather. Amazing.
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Rats
As the title indicates, this story is a little on the gross side, so feel free to skip it (Mom).
Let me start by talking about cats here in Pohnpei. Unlike my unusual family in town that kept a dog and a cat as pet, it seems the vast majority of people here only keep cats as pets. Dogs are kept solely for eating purposes, a fact I learned the hard way one day (I don’t really want to talk about it, except to say I cried for about 3 hours). Anyway, we have a cat in my family named Mimi. Unlike the dogs, Mimi is never beaten, routinely fed with quality food scraps, is allowed to walk into the house or kitchen, and she is often petted and played with by the children and adults alike. And as an added bonus, Mimi patrols the area and eats small creatures such as lizards, small frogs, and bugs. Mimi especially enjoys my bedroom, and I frequently come home to find her asleep on my floor or on my chair. Up until today, Mimi and I were friends.
Today I was taking a nap on my bed when I heard Mimi run into my room then jet under my bed. This is not uncommon, so I paid no heed. Then I heard the strangest sound, and I thought maybe Mimi was sick or hurt, so I hung over the side of the bed and lifted my bed skirt (yes, I have a bed skirt!) to investigate, and there’s Mimi in the corner, with a giant squirming rat in her mouth.
Naturally, I screamed and ran out of my room. At any given moment, there are usually a dozen people at my house, any of which would have be eligible to help me with my current situation, but of course, on this day when I ran from the house there was absolutely no one to be found. Unbelievable.
So, I start hurrying down the road to find someone, which I do, my nephew Tristan (age 10) and I practically drag him to the house. By this time the rat has freed himself and has drug himself across my room and is hiding under a small table, but Mimi had him cornered. While I hid outside the house, Tristan went in and fought off Mimi, grabbed the rat, took it outside, and killed it. But of course, not before showing it to me—like any good little brother—while I screamed like a little girl.
With the immediate crisis averted, the question plaguing my mind was where the rat came from. Did Mimi find the rat under my bed and attempt to kill it on my behalf? (If this is true, then I’m horrified that there was a rat inside, but grateful to the cat.) Or did she capture the rat outside and bring it into my room, one of her favorite spots, to play with eat? (If this is true than I am furious and no longer speaking to the cat.)
Those were the questions I was contemplating about an hour later while I sat with Nohno and Pahpa outside the house, and Mimi herself answered them for me. To my utter horror, we saw Mimi dash across the ground with yet another rat in her mouth, sprint into the house, and head straight for my open bedroom. Of course.
Now, my Pahpa is a very quiet, slow-moving, docile man, but he jumped up and pounded into the house so fast that it startled me more than watching Mimi take another rat into my room. We could hear him thudding around for a few minutes, then he came out, laughing, holding Mimi by the scruff in one hand, and the rat (very much alive) by the tail in the other.
So mystery solved: Mimi sucks. And this is officially the end of my friendship with the cat. An unfortunate side-effect is that now I am keeping my door closed, for fear of a second encore. So like now, for example, as I sit in my room typing this, I feel very closed off from my family. But it’s a price I’m willing to pay to not have another rat in my bedroom. Yuck! Kay, I hope this is making you even more excited to come visit me!
But the plus side (if you can call it that) is that now I know the word for “rat” in Pohnpeian (kitik) and there’s another embarrassing story my family can recount time and again to visitors. Score! I‘m glad I never cease to amuse them.
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Holidays
As a product of a culture that is super laid-back and always eager and willing to take a rest, there are an incredible amount of state and national holidays that result in days off from school. They call these “rahn en komoal” or “days of rest”, and every month has at least one. This month in particular, has three. The names of these holidays are always things like Pohnpei Independence Day, Pohnpei Constitution Day, etc. But when I ask a Pohnpeian what these holidays celebrate, they just shrug. No idea. All they know is there is no school.
The result is that pretty much every week has at least one day with no school. I’m coming to understand that a “normal week” does not and will not exist. In addition, we have a huge amount of arbitrary half days for various (unnecessary) reasons that also spot the weeks. So basically, I’m never working. This week in particular, we had Friday off and the following Monday, so a four-day weekend. This is my life. Pohnkahke douluh (super lazy).
Typically on the days leading up to a rahn en komoal I am grumpy and annoyed. But my continued frustration with the lack of commitment to school and the mentality that school is not that important and therefore can be routinely missed quickly melts away when I get the day off. It’s true. Everyone loves a day off. I usually do absolutely nothing. I’ve read mountains of books. Last week on my rahn en komoal, I went up to my family’s other house, near the water, and I just lay on the cement, starring out the open door at the ocean. For hours. Literally. Life’s tough.
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Church
Going to church is one of my favorite things to do here in my village. The word for church is sarawi, and the word for Sunday is Rahn Sarawi (the day of church). Clearly, church is a big deal here. Everyone cleans themselves up and gets dressed up nicely, fixes their hair, cleans their shoes, and gives true meaning to the phrase “Sunday best”. In fact, church is the only place you’ll ever see anyone wear closed-toed shoes, typically tennis shoes (but occasionally dress shoes). The men’s feet are never in sandals. The women wear earrings and flowers in their hair and some even wear makeup. Every man and boy is in a collared shirt and every woman and girl is in a dress.
If you only ever saw my community while they were in church, you’d never know that at home the kids don’t wear shoes, or that they run around naked, with dirt smudging their happy faces. You’d never know that the women are usually clad in old tattered skirts, and their skin moist with the sweat of work and their hair lay haphazardly bundled on top of their heads. You’d never know that the men are covered in dirt from outdoor labor, smelling of fish and earth. You’d just see a bunch of clean-cut, smiling church-goers. But the instant everyone gets home, and I mean the instant, everyone disperses and immediately changes their clothes back into their normal wear. It’s the funniest thing to witness.
How you look for church is such a big deal, that most people (at least in my family) have designated “church clothes” that get stored away in a special, safe place during the week. Often times each person has just one or two shirt or dress that they wear to church, and they just alternate which they wear. Early on in my time here, it became clear to me that I was not living up to their standards with my Sunday appearance. But Pohnpeians are very indirect, so they would never outright tell me I looked bad. It started small, with cousins and sisters offering to let me wear their dress to church (which is code for ‘your dress is kind of ugly’). Then they began to offer to do my hair for me, even after I had spent several minutes doing it myself (aka ‘your hair looks bad’). One Sunday my cousin offered to clean my sandals for me before we left for church (‘your shoes are nasty’). And finally, one of my cousins asked me if I had nice earrings (which really means, ‘you look tacky’). I only brought simple silver studs from home, as I did not anticipate needing to dress up. So I took the hint and bought a pair of cheap pearl studs in town the next time I went in, and the first time I wore them everyone kept telling me how beautiful I looked. I think now I’ve mastered the Pohnpeian church look.
So that’s one reason I love to go to church—I love to see everyone all dressed up. It shows a whole different side of my family, friends, and neighbors that I don’t get to see on a daily basis. In fact, this past Sunday, my Nohno made it to church for the first time since I’ve lived here (she has been sick), and I was so elated to see her all done up. She looked beautiful.
Another reason is because I get to practice Pohnpeian. Everyone stands around and talks before and after church, and people are always eager to come shake my hand and talk to me. I love the practice. And sometimes I just like to sit with a group of women and listen to them while they talk. Just hearing Pohnpeian helps. And the service itself, of course entirely in Pohnpeian, is an exciting experience. It feels like a treasure hunt. I wait for a word or phrase that I understand, and it makes me so happy to feel like I’ve understood something. I always bring my Bible, so that when a verse is quoted, I can (after asking someone to translate the name of the book into English) locate it in my Bible, read it in English, and then have a context from which to try and decipher meaning from the sermon. Sometimes it even works.
And the last, and probably the best thing about church is singing. Pohnpeian music is beautiful to listen to. And since I can read Pohnpeian like a pro (don’t ask me to tell you what it means, though!), I can follow along in the song book, which makes everyone ecstatic. And as I learn more and more Pohnpeian, I can read along in the song and sometimes even understand certain phrases. I love it. We sing about four songs as a church body in every service, and the choir gets up and sings one, too. This is my favorite part, because I get to just sit and listen. It’s wonderful. I’m excited for Christmas, as there is a rumor that many of their Christmas songs are in English. Stay tuned!
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I’ll leave you with two of my very favorite Pohnpeian words. In a language that’s incredibly simple, I find it amusing when a word exists to describe something for which there is no direct translation in English. Usually it’s the other way around, that it takes a mouthful of words in Pohnpeian to describe an English word. So I find joy in the Pohnpeian words that are not easily explained in English.
1. Mese mwonge- literally “food face”, but it is an adjective used to describe a person who wants to eat everything they see, or someone who always eats whatever is put in front of them or whatever is nearby, especially people who want to eat what someone else is eating. I love mese mwonge! We usually use it to describe my cousin Marla, because she’s pregnant and super-duper mese mwonge. But also the baby, Ray, is mese mwonge, as most babies are. It’s one of those idiomatic phrases that I love knowing because it really amuses people when I say it. I am always met with explosive laughter and excitement whenever I can find an appropriate situation to use it. I’m definitely bringing this one back to the States.
2. Inginsoi- this word is so Pohnpei and also so mehn wai (American). It’s an adjective to describe someone who gives up easily at a task because they do not have the proper tool. That might sound random if you don’t understand Pohnpeians. Let me give you some examples. My nephew Hayden frequently declares that he cannot go to school because he can’t find his uniform shirt or because his shoes are dirty. Inginsoi. If someone refuses to eat without a spoon. Inginsoi. If someone discards a knife because the handle broke. Inginsoi. Not wanting to sleep on the floor. Inginsoi. My little cousin Disha complains when she has to walk across the road to the store in the rain. Inginsoi. Failure to start a fire, simply because you’re out of matches. Inginsoi. It captures so beautifully equally the utter lethargy of Pohnpeians and yet their extreme craftiness, and also the spoiled weakness of Americans. (Pretty much all mehn wai are inginsoi.) Such a wonderful word.
I hope everyone is healthy and happy in America-land! Thanks for reading!
--Christy
