MST

Well, it finally happened—all of the Peace Corps Volunteers from my team were together and had our week-long mid-service training (MST). It was so great to see all of my friends living in Kosrae, Chuuk, and Palau! And even though it has been a year since we’d seen each other, it was as if not a second had gone by. It was nice to catch up and swap stories about our first years at site. It was especially great to see how everyone has grown and adapted to their surroundings.  And although we all live in unique and different communities, we all had similar joys and struggles that we could connect with.

But we spent the week in sessions that enabled us to share successes, swap ideas, and create action plans for the coming year.  We even had a few Q&A sessions with staff members where we were truly able to voice our opinions and concerns. It was refreshing to be treated like an adult, but I suppose that after a year we’ve earned it. But my absolute favorite session was a team building activity in which my whole team was divided into three teams and combined with several staff members to compete. We had three tasks to complete as a team in a sort of relay: husking several coconuts, opening the coconuts with a machete, and then grating the coconuts using a local grating tool. Team members were assigned to tasks randomly, and I was given coconut husking (I rock at coconut husking, by the way).  It was especially funny to see which of the rest of my group clearly don’t do these tasks at their sites. There were some obvious “I have no clue what I’m doing” moments. But it was all in good fun and it was great to cheer on my teammates and to see the staff in a whole new light.

At the end of the week, it was time for all of my friends to return to their islands. But unlike last year, when I was quite sad to see them all go, this time saying goodbye was easy. I knew they were all happy and at home on their islands and that they were returning to someplace good. It even sparked a desire in me to go visit a few of them on their islands. Who knows where this year might take me.

Additionally, the new group of 19 trainees (M79s), just arrived and we were able to all spend 2 days together getting to know each other, both M78s and M79s. It was sort of surreal, to be honest, to put myself back in their shoes, one year ago. I have changed so much in a year, grown stronger, and realized so much about myself. It’s almost impossible to imagine myself as the excited and scared 22 year old who came here last June. But it was great to be able to offer advice and stories for information-hungry newcomers. Everyone in the new group seems wonderful, and I can’t wait to see what this crazy thing called Peace Corps has in store for them.

Thanks to everyone who helped and supported me in my first year of Peace Corps.

Stay well,

Christy

Ahi Pahpa

I’ve always known I have the best dad in the world. This is not a hard one to figure out. My dad Gary is a wonderful, smart, talented man who truly cares about the people around him. I am incredibly lucky to have him in my life, a fact even more evident with the great expanse of globe currently between us.

But evidently the universe didn’t think one incredible father was enough. Because I am here to tell you that not only to I have the best dad in the world, but I also have the best Pahpa in the world. Hands down.

Being with and getting to know my Pahpa Ioney (Yo-knee) has been one of my biggest joys. He is easily the kindest and most generous man I have met on this island. And he is so full of happiness and laughter that he is simply a delight to be around.

My Pahpa is also extremely intelligent. He may not have finished high school, but he can navigate his fishing boat in the black of night without any lights, using only the stars to guide him back through the treacherous reef and safely home (rumor has it he’s the only fisherman in the area with this particular skill). He can wander off into the jungle and return with plants to cure any number of ailments. He can construct beds, tables, chairs, and even houses in a matter of hours using crude tools and incredible craftsmanship. And he can fix literally anything around the compound (a leaky pipe or roof, a broken door handle, an old boat engine) while carrying a child on his shoulders and a smile on his lips. He is an amazing man.

My Nohno, my sister Ioren, and I joke that I am my Pahpa’s princess. He calls me “his girl”. He goes out of his way to do unsolicited nice things for me (like scaling one of the coconut trees to get me a drinking coconut on a hot afternoon), and I’ve already mentioned before about his tendency to overly prepare my food for me (cutting up large chunks of meat or removing bones). Initially the latter drove me nuts. I took it as a sign of disrespect or mistrust of my capabilities. But now I know better. That’s just my Pahpa, doing anything and everything he can for me because he cares about me. Now I simply smile and let him pour my drink for me because he thinks the kettle is too hot for me to handle. It’s his way to take care of me, and I am enormously grateful.

Communication with my Pahpa has been a goal I’ve been working toward since the beginning. He has the least English of anyone in my family (in a year I’ve heard him say exactly three things in English: “airport”, “one thousand”, and “yellow fin tuna”), and he also unfortunately is now almost completely deaf due to his career as a fisherman. (The repeated diving for years has taken a toll). But my Pahpa is infinitely patient with me, skilled at lip-reading, and is also a world-champion at charades.

Tonight, multiple elements of our relationship converged into one experience: crab for dinner. I’ve eaten fresh crab many times before (yum!), and of course my Pahpa always prepares the crab for me. He painstakingly cracks open the shell with his hands and squeezes all of the meat out onto a plate and then hands it to me with his wonderful, partially tooth-less smile. Not only do I adore this, but I really appreciate it because I have got absolutely no clue how to get the meat out of a crab shell. Well, tonight I decided that it was time I learned, so my Pahpa gladly took on the duty of teaching me.
Now, as part of their continued assistance in my language learning, my family members have come to know how to best explain things to me and which words to use to ensure I understand. But, since my Pahpa can’t actually hear any of the things we talk about, he has no knowledge of my vocabulary. So our crab lesson began with several strings of sentences that I completely didn’t understand. But, our trusty failsafe—charades—came through in a big way and I was eventually able to liberate some meat from the crab legs. All the while, my Nohno looked on and howled with laughter at my incompetence and my Pahpa giggled happily at my determination. It was a wonderful experience.

And as a reward for my success, my Pahap scooped a particularly colorful meat blob out of the main body cavity and excitedly plopped it on my plate and told me to try it. Here’s were communicating with my Pahpa is literally essential. What am I about to put in my mouth? I obviously don’t know all the Pohnpeian words for internal organs, so I began to panic and steal glances at my Nohno who was now overwhelmed by her laughter and completely unable to assist me. I Pahpa just continued to point to his own abdomen and enthusiastically insist that I eat it. In some alternate universe, I might have tried to politely refuse this mystery meat, but instead I did what you do when you get offered questionable food in the Peace Corps: I just ate it. And you know what? I was quite tasty. My Pahpa was literally giddy with happiness.

When I came here, I expected to become close to my family, to sincerely care for them and wish good things for their futures. But I guess I didn’t expect the deep, genuine love and admiration that I feel for my Pahpa. He has lived a life far different from my own and it is likely that we will never fully understand each other, but he is an incredible man and I am lucky to know him.

I think this, these personal connections are what Peace Corps is really about. We are here under the guise of working as teachers, but we’re really here to get covered in slimy crab meat with our Pahpas.

And I’m totally okay with that.

--Christy

The Real Me

As evidenced by my short thesis on chicken life several posts back, my day to day here leaves me with plenty (sometimes too much) time to think and reflect. And lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my perception of reality through the lens of this experience. I know, that sounds pretentious, but stick with me.

I constantly find myself prefacing statements with “in real life”, such as “In real life I enjoy spending time outside.” Or “In real life I love being a teacher”. But suddenly it dawned on me that this is real life. I am not asleep or lying in a coma somewhere imagining all this (at least I hope I’m not)—this is real. And I suppose it’s due to the fact that this life I lead now is not my normal or my permanent set-up that I tend  to separate it from reality. But that is a foolish premise, because what I see and do and experience every day is very much a part of my reality, and will surely continue to shape me as an individual for the foreseeable future. Just because my current surroundings are wildly different from those waiting for me stateside does not negate or diminish their importance or value. 

But that got me thinking more about these seemingly parallel universes that I am living in between. One in which a magic metal box rinses and washes my clothes for me while I casually flip channels, and another where I beat my clothing with a wooden paddle. Which leading lady is the real me? Is there even an answer to that question? I think the deeper question here is:  are you the person you are while surrounded by the comforts of home or are you what’s left when everything is stripped away?

That last question has been lurking in the back of my brain for weeks, and I’m still not sure what the answer is. I’d like to say it’s the latter—that we, as people amount to our core belief systems and elements of character that cannot be altered by a change of scenery. However, while I’ve been here in Pohnpei for the past year (holy hell, has it really been that long?), I’ve encountered situations and experienced emotions that I never have before in America. In some of those times I behaved in “Christy” ways, handling circumstances in similar ways that I might have in America. But other times I completely surprised myself (in both good and bad ways) by my reactions. For example, in some ways I have become very shy since coming here; more soft-spoken, hesitant to join groups of people or speak to strangers, and preferring to spend quiet time alone. But at other times I can be incredibly self-assured; speaking my mind to figures of authority, sticking to my convictions, and being frighteningly direct in confrontation. Both of these alter-egos are very different from the “me” I remember. So is this now the “real me” or the “me” that I left behind?

I sometimes joke with some of the other Volunteers that I’m not sure any of us would be friends in real life (again, “real life”) if it weren’t for Peace Corps. Partly because it is likely we would never have met otherwise, but also because we are just dramatically different as individuals. But here we get along and function well as friends. This concept fascinates me. Do we adjust our criteria for friendship here because there is such a scarcity of candidates? (Probably.) Or do we change and evolve (perhaps temporarily) into the friend each other needs? (Also a possibility.) 

So then I come to a moderately satisfying conclusion: we are simply not the same people now as we were at the beginning. This seems obvious; of course being a Peace Corps Volunteer changes you. If you come out of this unchanged, I don’t think you did it right. But the more interesting question is what happens when the person you’ve become in the Peace Corps collides with the person you left behind in America at the end of two years? Do you revert back to what’s comfortable and familiar (leading to the confirmation that the person you were is the “real you”)? Or do you continue on, a stranger in your own life (implying that you are in fact what’s left once you’ve lost it all)? Which is right? Neither? Both? 

Maybe there is no way to define “the real you”. Maybe it is constantly changing and evolving without our noticing. Maybe. Maybe the real me is this girl I’ve become. The girl who squashes cockroaches without even looking up from her computer (true story: that just happened approximately 10 minutes ago). Or who watches a pig slaughter without even the slightest grimace. Or who can play with children and not notice that they’re naked. Or who can have long conversations with respected men who also have no teeth and are in dire need of a shower and not think it is strange. Maybe. 

But maybe I want to go back to a cockroach-free world where people wear clothes, practice proper hygiene, and refrain from killing animals in their backyards. Maybe I don’t want to accept these things as reality. 

How’s that for the “real me”?

Just some thoughts. Stay well over there in the “real world”.

--Christy