Yes – I’m still alive here in Chuuk, Micronesia. I know those of you who check this regularly have probably all but given up on me. I apologize – and hope that this post makes up for it!
Life here in Chuuk has been all sorts of things in the time since I last posted; wonderful, challenging, confusing, hilarious, random, exciting, humbling, hot (most of all hot). Since I last posted, I’ve become a full-fledged teacher, teaching three courses at a private Catholic high school. I teach Junior and Senior English Literature and Environmental Science (also to juniors and seniors). It’s definitely a challenge – not only as a first year teacher, but also as a first year teacher in a new culture. The kids are both wonderful and exasperating. There are a lot of days I leave the classroom feeling more ineffective than not, or bewildered as to why they insist on continuing to absolutely disregard my requests to stop talking and listen. The seniors are wonderful most of the time, and I feel much more comfortable with what I’m teaching them, making for a better overall experience than the juniors. I really enjoy the juniors as well, but I’m less confident about my lessons and the combinations of their personalities result in more behavior issues. I hope to move onto something more interesting next quarter; hopefully both the students and I will enjoy the change.
As for where I live: Chuuk consists of a large lagoon (one of the largest in the world), and several “outer islands” that can take a day or more of boat travel to reach from my island. My island, Weno (pronounced “weh-duh”) is the biggest and most “developed” (I’m using that term very loosely here) of the lagoon islands. The state government is housed here as well as most businesses, the hospital, the airport, etc. Again, the terms “hospital” and “airport” are used loosely. The airport is a single airstrip with a small adjoining building. There are certainly no security lines to contend with nor any Starbucks to take the edge off of a long flight delay. The hospital, I’ve been told, is where people go to die, and was quoted in a travel guide (Lonely Planet, I believe) as being a “place to avoid”. All this is to say that Chuuk is quite underdeveloped; certainly more so than I had ever imagined before arriving here.
I’m sure many of you have images of me rounding out a rough day of teaching with a jaunt to the beach, coconut in hand. Not so much. There aren’t any beaches here (or at least no public ones – or public anything, for that matter), so any swimming done is off of a dock on the opposite side of the island, or when we visit other islands. Although there may not be beautiful, pristine beaches here on Weno, fortunately the island is surrounded by incredible deserted island paradises. These small islands are called “picnic islands”, since they’re (obviously) used mainly for picnics. Last weekend, because my community mate Caroline’s parents were in town, Caro’s host family took us out for a tour of the islands, including a stop at a picnic island with a wreck of a Chinese fishing ship about 20 feet offshore. We snorkeled around the wreck and the island for an hour or so – I swam through thousands of sardines and saw a decent amount of beautiful tropical fish. From there, we continued on to another (inhabited) lagoon island called Fefan, the one where Caro’s host family is from. None of the islands in the lagoon, except Weno, have cars, so they have an inherently peaceful ambience. While on the island we were treated to some great local food (butter fish, tapioca, watermelon, coconut), and (BEST of all), I got to hold a baby sea turtle!! Can you even image? I can check that off my bucket list now. ☺
Other recent adventures include an impromptu group shower on the roof, and the massive extermination the mice that have taken up residence in our kitchen. The stories unfold as follows:
a.) Group shower – The power situation here is sketchy at best. For the first 5 weeks or so, we were on a steady 4 hrs on, 4 hrs off schedule. Nice, predictable. Then, inexplicably, we had 24 hour power for nearly a week (joy of joys!). Power here is pre-paid, and the school we live at purchases our power for us. Occasionally, it just so happens that the school forgets to buy more and we run out. It just so happened that the school ran out of “cash power” at the same time that the power company’s system was down, meaning they couldn’t generate a new code so that we could access the newly purchased power. Now, what does this have to do with showering, you ask? Our lack of power (which lasted about three days) also just happened to coincide with our catchment tank running out of water. Normally when that happens we plug in a pump and it pumps water from the larger tank on the ground floor up to the roof (where our tank is located), and gravity does its work to deliver water into our pipes. When there’s no water, however, we’re S.O.L. This news was delivered to me at the end of a typically sweltering day, after I had already made up my mind that I definitely wanted to go for a run. It’s nearly impossible to imagine going to bed without showering – to imagine adding exercise to the equation makes it absolutely unthinkable. What to do? I decided to run anyway, and figured I could take a bucket shower down at the water spigot near the main office to the school (where I also live) afterwards. Women here shower wearing skirts pulled up around their chests, so I figured I’d make it an exercise in solidarity with local women and do the same for my spigot shower. After my run, I made my way up to the roof of the school building to cool off and stretch, and take in the view of the sunset over the pacific (always incredible). A few of my community mates were up there, too, but they made their way back down as a gentle rain started to fall. Figuring I’d make the most of the downpour that was descending on the island, I decided to stay and let the rain wash off the disgusting accumulation of a days worth of sweat.
Before I continue, a note about the rain: The rain here is amazing. A breeze starts to pick up as giant storm clouds roll in, engulfing the mountains. Drops begin to fall slowly, but within seconds have accelerated into a full-on torrential downpour, the sound deafening. I love when it rains.
Back to the story: About 5 minutes into this particular storm I was thoroughly soaked and starting to get cold, and wishing that I had had the foresight to bring my shampoo and conditioner for a quick rinse, considering the water situation. I decided to head back downstairs and as I opened the door to the stairwell was greeted by Tyler and Charles heading up – serendipitously equipped with soap and shampoo! Shortly after Caro came up to join us and within a few minutes we were at various levels of undress (the boys in their boxers, me in shorts and a sports bra and Caro keeping it local in a skirt), laughing hysterically and vigorously lathering ourselves in the downpour. We discovered strategic run-off spots from the overhangs above the stairwells to get the most “shower-like” affect and happily made use of God’s providence. It was one of many wonderful bonding experiences I’ve had with my community so far.
b) Mice extermination – About a week after arriving here, I spotted my first mouse in the kitchen. I was assured that this was a new phenomenon; that the apartment had never had any mice prior to the summer. Fresh from orientation and pumped-up on ideals of simple living, our visitors didn’t really bother me too much. Besides, there were far too many other things to adjust to bother being annoyed by a few mice. As the weeks continued, however, the frequency of the mice sightings increased, as did the discovery of little mice-sized holes chewed into ANYTHING not stored in a tuperware container or tin can. As this problem increased, our resolve to fight it did as well. Being the humane, animal loving folks we are, most of us were rather opposed to killing the little fellows. We figured a nice “trap-and-release” system was the way to go. This led to complex mazes of tin cans, tuperware containers, and board games in strategic points along our kitchen counters, artfully directing trapped mice into our humane version of a mouse trap – an oatmeal container with a mouse-sized hole cut in the lid. For a few weeks, we would catch one every couple of days and carefully run it out to the balcony where we would launch the mouse off (mice are surprisingly resilient, even after a two story fall!). Our number of trapped and released mice hovered around 4 for most of August. Then, one weekend in September, Charles and I decided to get serious. The mice were getting bolder and it was time to call on our superior minds to devise precise strategies for eradicating our enemies. As a result, Charles and I spent an evening carefully analyzing what tuna can needed to be slid into what gap, who needed to flip the light while the other ran towards our trap to maneuver the Pictionary box into the right position, who would slap the oatmeal box on top of our newly-crafted flat-rate box trap once a mouse was inside. It was an exercise in military precision. Every 30 minutes or so, Charles would look at me and ask “Do you think we should check?”, to which I always replied “of course!”. We would both get up from our game, and sprint into the kitchen – Charles heading directly to maneuver the canned goods and I flipping the lights on and following up to position the front portion of our contraption. It was a major success. That weekend alone we caught 5 mice, more than doubling our grand total.
A few weeks later, Caro’s parents arrived, toting mice poison and sticky traps. Now, several of us had been rather opposed to the idea of sticky traps up until this point. It seemed like a terribly inhumane way to go – can you imagine your entire body being stuck to a giant pad where you would be left to slowly starve to death? It’s a horrible thought. But at this point we. had. had. it. The mice had to go. We carefully set out the six traps in all of the places we well knew the mice liked to frequent and left to go out to dinner. A few hours later, we came home to three terrified, squeaking (and yes, adorable) little mice glued to the traps. Now what to do? We just couldn’t imagine leaving them there to suffer. A few minutes were spent debating whether smashing their heads with a blunt object or a much less messy drowning would be the appropriate course of action. We settled on drowning. With broom in hand to hold the bobbing traps down, Tyler tossed our first victims into our dirty dishwater bucket as the rest of us stood around, horrified and fascinated. After a minute or so we pulled the traps over, confirming the death of our little invaders. The rest of the weekend brought 6 more deaths, and yes, by the end of it, even I had participated in placing the traps in the water, holding them down with a broom handle, and rather unceremoniously placing the dead bodies (still attached to traps) in a plastic bag to throw out.
Our “Mouse Tally” in the kitchen sits at 20, and has rested there for the past week or so. Tyler saw a mice earlier this week, but one sighting in 7 days is a far cry from the 4 or 5 sightings a day we were at before. So, knock on wood, I think we’re free from our infestation for the time being.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
I'm in Chuuk!
Ran Anim (sp?) from Chuuk, Micronesia! I’ve been on-island (as the second year volunteers say) for about a week now and have already managed to have a handful of adventures!
Last Sunday the seven of us new volunteers headed out together from Boston to begin our mega two-day travel extravaganza to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We flew Boston to San Francisco, where we had about 45 minutes to catch our next flight to Honolulu. After about 10 hours of air travel, we arrived in Hawaii where we spent the night and geared up for our 12 hour travel day that would bring each of us to our homes for the next two years. From Honolulu we flew to Majuro in the Marshall Islands; an incredibly skinny atoll that felt like a popsicle stick as we touched down on the plane. It was as wide as two, maybe three football fields at the point where we landed (!). From there we bounced to Kwajalein, a military base where we weren’t allowed to get off the plane for security reasons, Kosrae, the eastern most state in FSM, Pohnpei, another state in FSM, and finally, Chuuk!
We arrived to see all of our wonderful second years pressed up against the fence at the airport smiling and waving. It was so nice to finally touch down and meet the people we had been stalking through blogs and facebook for months! After some quick introductions, we piled into a van and headed to Saram, the school where I will teach and live with Charles (the other first year), Tyler, Caroline and Jessica.
We spent one night at Saram and shared in an end-of-summer-school BBQ with a few of the teachers and the principal. The next day, we all headed across the island to Xavier High School, where the other volunteers (Alex, Emily, Peaches and Mike) are placed. We spent several days at Xavier, hanging out and getting to know each other as well as adventuring around the island. On day one we hiked up to an old lighthouse from which we took in the most gorgeous 360 degree view of the entire those moments where I had to struggle a bit to believe that this was my new reality – that tropical island views are the new norm. After soaking up the scenery, we headed down to a dock to swim; it was refreshing, but only mildly so. The water was certainly the warmest non-bath or pool water I had ever swam in! Nonetheless, after pouring out buckets of sweat from the lighthouse hike, it felt wonderful. On the walk back to Xavier, we enjoyed our first tropical rainstorm and got thoroughly drenched by the time we arrived back – I loved every second of it (in fact, it’s been pouring all morning and I am continuing to love it!).
The following day, we took a longer hike into the rain forest back to some waterfalls. The first was a series of two falls that both lead into protected hot-tub-size pools and both of which required rather precise jumping so as to land in the deepest parts of the pool (don’t worry Mom and Dad, we all made it just fine). It was so incredible! Probably the most enjoyable waterfall jumping experience of my life (and yes, I’ve had a few). After we had our fill with the first pair, we hiked back to a smaller waterfall with a larger swimming area that was full of local kids. This waterfall was sloped at exactly the right angle, and covered with precisely the right amount of cushiony moss to be an excellent slide. And so, along with all of the village 5-12 year olds, we clambered up the rocks to the falls and slid down over and over and over. So much fun!
In between all of these adventures, we spent a lot of time playing games (bananagrams and Werewolves – basically the same as mafia), hanging out on the porch drinking out of fresh coconut, tossing the Frisbee and practicing (very well, if I may be so bold) the JVC value of just being.
On Saturday, the Saram community (that’s mine) headed back home to SCA (Saramen Chuuk Academy) for our first night alone as a community. Saram is “downtown”, while Xavier is off at the end of the island a bit removed from any areas of commerce. It was nice to get back home, and to experience a little bit more of the (very limited) hustle and bustle of town. We went to mass as a community that night, followed by stargazing together on the roof and dinner. Yesterday we all walked down to Blue Lagoon, a resort on the end of the island opposite from Xavier; definitely the most touristy spot of the island I’ve seent, though there weren’t that many people there. Touristy as in the spot most developed specifically to attract tourists. Micronesia (specifically Chuuk lagoon) is the number one spot in the world for wreck diving, and Blue Lagoon attracts a lot of foreign divers. While there we treated ourselves to lunch at the (mercifully) air-conditioned restaurant, followed by two hours lounging around and chatting, timed perfectly so that 50% of our hour long walk home was in torrential downpour.
Today is our first “free” day, so I’m taking advantage of the time to use the internet and start looking over materials for my classes. I’ll be teaching Junior and Senior English Lit as well as Junior Environmental Science; a schedule that could only be more perfect if I were able to teach a French class as well! Needless to say, I’m looking forward to my classes (looking forward to, though a bit terrified).
I think that about sums up my experience so far. Look forward to a forthcoming post about my impressions of Chuuk; this post is already far too long for me to include anything more today.
Thanks for reading this far, to those of you who made it! I miss you all, and hope that you’re doing well and enjoying the summer.
- Meg
Last Sunday the seven of us new volunteers headed out together from Boston to begin our mega two-day travel extravaganza to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We flew Boston to San Francisco, where we had about 45 minutes to catch our next flight to Honolulu. After about 10 hours of air travel, we arrived in Hawaii where we spent the night and geared up for our 12 hour travel day that would bring each of us to our homes for the next two years. From Honolulu we flew to Majuro in the Marshall Islands; an incredibly skinny atoll that felt like a popsicle stick as we touched down on the plane. It was as wide as two, maybe three football fields at the point where we landed (!). From there we bounced to Kwajalein, a military base where we weren’t allowed to get off the plane for security reasons, Kosrae, the eastern most state in FSM, Pohnpei, another state in FSM, and finally, Chuuk!
We arrived to see all of our wonderful second years pressed up against the fence at the airport smiling and waving. It was so nice to finally touch down and meet the people we had been stalking through blogs and facebook for months! After some quick introductions, we piled into a van and headed to Saram, the school where I will teach and live with Charles (the other first year), Tyler, Caroline and Jessica.
We spent one night at Saram and shared in an end-of-summer-school BBQ with a few of the teachers and the principal. The next day, we all headed across the island to Xavier High School, where the other volunteers (Alex, Emily, Peaches and Mike) are placed. We spent several days at Xavier, hanging out and getting to know each other as well as adventuring around the island. On day one we hiked up to an old lighthouse from which we took in the most gorgeous 360 degree view of the entire those moments where I had to struggle a bit to believe that this was my new reality – that tropical island views are the new norm. After soaking up the scenery, we headed down to a dock to swim; it was refreshing, but only mildly so. The water was certainly the warmest non-bath or pool water I had ever swam in! Nonetheless, after pouring out buckets of sweat from the lighthouse hike, it felt wonderful. On the walk back to Xavier, we enjoyed our first tropical rainstorm and got thoroughly drenched by the time we arrived back – I loved every second of it (in fact, it’s been pouring all morning and I am continuing to love it!).
The following day, we took a longer hike into the rain forest back to some waterfalls. The first was a series of two falls that both lead into protected hot-tub-size pools and both of which required rather precise jumping so as to land in the deepest parts of the pool (don’t worry Mom and Dad, we all made it just fine). It was so incredible! Probably the most enjoyable waterfall jumping experience of my life (and yes, I’ve had a few). After we had our fill with the first pair, we hiked back to a smaller waterfall with a larger swimming area that was full of local kids. This waterfall was sloped at exactly the right angle, and covered with precisely the right amount of cushiony moss to be an excellent slide. And so, along with all of the village 5-12 year olds, we clambered up the rocks to the falls and slid down over and over and over. So much fun!
In between all of these adventures, we spent a lot of time playing games (bananagrams and Werewolves – basically the same as mafia), hanging out on the porch drinking out of fresh coconut, tossing the Frisbee and practicing (very well, if I may be so bold) the JVC value of just being.
On Saturday, the Saram community (that’s mine) headed back home to SCA (Saramen Chuuk Academy) for our first night alone as a community. Saram is “downtown”, while Xavier is off at the end of the island a bit removed from any areas of commerce. It was nice to get back home, and to experience a little bit more of the (very limited) hustle and bustle of town. We went to mass as a community that night, followed by stargazing together on the roof and dinner. Yesterday we all walked down to Blue Lagoon, a resort on the end of the island opposite from Xavier; definitely the most touristy spot of the island I’ve seent, though there weren’t that many people there. Touristy as in the spot most developed specifically to attract tourists. Micronesia (specifically Chuuk lagoon) is the number one spot in the world for wreck diving, and Blue Lagoon attracts a lot of foreign divers. While there we treated ourselves to lunch at the (mercifully) air-conditioned restaurant, followed by two hours lounging around and chatting, timed perfectly so that 50% of our hour long walk home was in torrential downpour.
Today is our first “free” day, so I’m taking advantage of the time to use the internet and start looking over materials for my classes. I’ll be teaching Junior and Senior English Lit as well as Junior Environmental Science; a schedule that could only be more perfect if I were able to teach a French class as well! Needless to say, I’m looking forward to my classes (looking forward to, though a bit terrified).
I think that about sums up my experience so far. Look forward to a forthcoming post about my impressions of Chuuk; this post is already far too long for me to include anything more today.
Thanks for reading this far, to those of you who made it! I miss you all, and hope that you’re doing well and enjoying the summer.
- Meg
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
And I'm off!
And so it begins. I am officially beginning my trek towards Micronesia!
Tomorrow I fly to New York to visit some friends. From there I head to Boston for two weeks of training with the other international JVs (Jesuit Volunteers). August 1st I get on a plane with the 6 other FSM (Federated States of Micronesia) JVs to begin nearly 40 hours of travel towards my home for the next 2 years.
Oh. my. goodness! I am super excited to finally be embarking on this adventure. Although it hasn't even been quite 4 months since I was offered, and accepted, my position, it seems like this has been a long time coming. I am so ready to get started!
I know this post is brief - I'm hoping to get some sleep before my flight tomorrow (I can never sleep while flying). Hopefully I'll get at least one more update in while I'm still stateside, so keep your eyes peeled.
Thank you all for your support, I look forward to hearing from you and sharing with you all over the next two years!
Peace,
M
Tomorrow I fly to New York to visit some friends. From there I head to Boston for two weeks of training with the other international JVs (Jesuit Volunteers). August 1st I get on a plane with the 6 other FSM (Federated States of Micronesia) JVs to begin nearly 40 hours of travel towards my home for the next 2 years.
Oh. my. goodness! I am super excited to finally be embarking on this adventure. Although it hasn't even been quite 4 months since I was offered, and accepted, my position, it seems like this has been a long time coming. I am so ready to get started!
I know this post is brief - I'm hoping to get some sleep before my flight tomorrow (I can never sleep while flying). Hopefully I'll get at least one more update in while I'm still stateside, so keep your eyes peeled.
Thank you all for your support, I look forward to hearing from you and sharing with you all over the next two years!
Peace,
M
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Test post
Welcome to my new, all-Micronesia, all-the-time blog!
Stay tuned to read about my adventures across the Pacific on the island of Weno in the state of Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia. I've not doubt it will be a wild ride!
Stay tuned to read about my adventures across the Pacific on the island of Weno in the state of Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia. I've not doubt it will be a wild ride!
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