* Disclaimer* - This was also written quite a while ago, but also wasn't published because it felt incomplete. Oh well, it's a good overview of some major events in the past several months!
Because the climate and the length of the day here is so uniform, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when in the past certain events happened. I’m going to highlight some of the more interesting things that have happened since October in the order they appear in my memory, which may not necessarily be the order in which they happened in reality.
Ok, I’ll start back in October. October brought Caroline’s parents and with them a trip to the tropical island paradise of Pisar. I suppose it’s difficult to imagine escaping to a tropical island paradise when you all might assume I live on one (and it would be a correct assumption); however my paradise is crowded, polluted, run-down, and dirty whereas Pisar is pure, unadulterated tropical bliss. It’s a tiny island at the edge of the reef, about an hour boat ride from Weno. It takes all of about a minute to walk across the island at any point, and maybe about three to walk its perimeter. Pisar is white sand, hammocks, fresh coconuts and snorkeling. It is relaxation at its ultimate expression. While there aren’t amenities you might commonly associate with paradise (electricity, running water, air conditioning) it is all the better for it. It’s camping Chuukese style and it’s perfect. We spent three days and two nights snorkeling, reading, lounging, napping, eating and staging photo shoots on the beach. We even invented and spent hours playing both coconut bocce and coconut golf. Recently Jessica’s parents came to visit and they treated us to a similarly wonderful experience. Truly, Pisar is heaven on earth.
The JV community and Peace Corps volunteers here in Chuuk form a tight group. Back in October/November we had several memorable adventures together. One lovely Saturday we decided to walk the entire perimeter of Weno. We made a stop at local resort Blue Lagoon for some breakfast and a stop at the other JV placement, Xavier High School, to rest, but other than that walked for about 6 hours in order to circumnavigate the island. Along the way, we discovered a completely different side of Weno (both literally and figuratively). The main road on the island only extends along the western side, therefore the eastern side is considerably less populated and quite different from “downtown” where we live; surprisingly different, even. It was really nice to see a calmer, friendlier area, as downtown tends to be a bit rough around the edges and can seem unwelcoming at times. Along the backside of the island people greeted us warmly and kids ran with us along stretches of the path. Contrast that with when we made it back around to Nepukos, our lovely village, where we were mooned by children who were simultaneously shouting “f*@# you!”.
Another fun PC/JV adventure happened a few weeks after that when several of us headed out to visit our PC friend John on his island Eot. We spent the day hiking around the island then enjoyed a very generous, if not slightly awkward, feast and performance for us put on by John’s church community.
A few weekends before our visit to Eot, the five of us (Ty, Charles, Jess and Caro) went out to Udot, an island neighboring Eot, with one of my coworkers, Kiki. Kiki is a huge friend to JVs and her family is incredibly kind and generous to us. We went out for her grandson’s first birthday (first birthdays are a big deal) and spent the weekend hanging around, helping in food preparation, eating, and enjoying the peace and calm of island life off of Weno. While there I got to pound taro for the first time. Taro is the root of a large plant that is grown in marshy areas. The root is dug up and boiled for a long time, until it becomes soft and can be pounded. It’s then pounded, using a large mortar-like tool, into something that has the consistency of refried beans. It’s hard work and people often spend hours pounding. It’s delicious, and is a major staple of the local diet; especially when breadruit (another starch staple) is not in season.
In November I also visited my host family for the first time. They live on a nearby island called Tonoas, which is about a 30-minute boat ride from me. I went on a weekend that happened to be the 1-year anniversary of my host mom’s mother’s death and so there was a huge celebration and a ton of relatives there, easily 100. It was kind of nice to experience the family for the first time amidst the craziness of that weekend because although I didn’t get to spend a lot of one-on-one time with them, I got lost in the melée of food preparations and it was less awkward than one might expect the first night staying with a family of strangers would be. My host family consists of my mom, Derusa and dad Augustine. Their four kids are all in Hawaii. There are plenty of cousins around though, including three of my current homeroom students, so there are always a lot of people around. I’ve only been back once since, but hope to go more frequently as the school year comes to a close and summer approaches. Although the culture here is very shy and difficult to break into, once you’re considered part of a family, you’re truly in. When students ask me where I’m from, it’s almost just as often they mean where I’m “from” in Chuuk as where I’m from in the U.S. I can say I’m from Tonoas and no one would consider that weird, or justify it by saying “you mean your host family’s from there” – I’m truly “seni Tonoas” (from Tonoas).
Christmas was spent here on Weno with Charles, Jess and Caro. Tyler went back to the states for the month of December to be with his family while his brother and mom underwent surgery. On Christmas Eve, the four of us went to Mass at the church next door to our school, and it was a beautiful service. It was wonderful to share the experience with the local community. On Christmas day, our ICC (in-country coordinator) Fr. Marc came down from Xavier HS to pick us up and bring us back up to spend the day with the other volunteers and the boys who can’t afford to go home for the holidays (Xavier is a boarding school). It was a gorgeous day and was so nice just to lounge around and relax. We also helped decorate local style, by collecting huge piles of ferns and braiding them into garland, which we then decorated with plumeria and other local flowers. We also enjoyed an excellent dinner, mixing local and more traditional American foods, and had a great time watching the boys receive their presents and sing karaoke afterwards.
January brought another trip out to Tonoas to administer the entrance exam for SCA and another chance to visit my host family. In the beginning of February the local archdiocese celebrated the 100 year anniversary of Catholicism in Chuuk, which brought a lot of great cultural performances and a ton of people to our school campus. The high school I live and work at is part of a complex that includes the church, the local Catholic college and the gym. Therefore, everyone who came from other islands for the two-day celebration stayed on the complex, including the high school, which meant our home was temporarily transformed into a bit of a hotel for the weekend. It was loud, crowded couple of days!
March brought the end of third quarter and thus the beginning of the final quarter of my first year here (craziness!) and final quarter with three out of my four roommates. It also brought the first of two Emmaus retreats with the junior class. Emmaus is a three night, four-day retreat that (almost) every student looks forward to from the beginning of his or her freshman year. It’s an intense and moving experience for most of them and is one that I felt privileged to be a part of. It was really great to be with them in a context outside of the classroom. I truly love my students, and feel blessed that they make up such a significant part of my experience; I don’t know what I’d do without them!
And finally, the classroom. I’ve kept my work experiences for the end of this post for no other reason than the fact that they are the most difficult to thoughtfully and succinctly express. Therefore, prepare yourselves for some lengthy rambling!
My classes are going all right – I often struggle to find a balance between letting the students be themselves and disciplining their behavior. I’m definitely a softy in the classroom and have a difficult time being a strict disciplinarian. It’s a delicate balancing act between disciplining and forming personal relationships, made all the more precarious as the whole experience plays out in a foreign culture. Every time I have a bad day here I think fondly of how much better I’ll be as a second year teacher. Whether or not that’s true, it’s comforting to think about!
One thing that’s repeated often to us JVs, and that is echoed in other writings about international service or mission work is that one often encounters feelings of ineffectiveness in what he or she does. As an American, it’s so easy for me to be results-oriented, to seek praise to affirm that I’m succeeding, to expect direct communication about what’s expected of me so that I can rise to that expectation. However, using my American standards to frame this experience only sets me up to feel like a failure, and let me tell you – I’ve had my share of feeling like a major failure in all sorts of contexts this year. I say all this to share that although I have often felt like a failure and often feel as if my presence here is of little consequence, it’s all part of the experience. In seeing the problems that face this school and the problems facing education in Chuuk in general, perhaps I’m the one who is supposed to be affected, and to bring that renewed perspective back to my life at home. Perhaps I’m the one who’s supposed to be truly changed rather than assuming my presence here is changing anything or anyone. Often it feels like it’s not – like I could leave at any point without many people other than my students noticing.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Observations on beauty
* Disclaimer * - The following post was written maybe a month after I arrived, but I never posted it because it felt incomplete. I recently reread it and realized it's fine, so enjoy!
Chuuk is a beautiful place. Its natural environment is stunning. From the roof of the high school where I both live and teach, I can spin in a circle and slowly take in views of rainforest drenched mountains (large hills, really) and the Pacific Ocean dotted with neighboring islands. The ocean always has an amazing hue – sapphire blue when it’s a clear day; deep, dark, angry grey when it’s about to rain; purple-ish as the sun sets behind a smattering of clouds. Just the other day, I was on the roof after school with a few of my community mates, and we witnessed perhaps the most beautiful and intense sunset I’ve ever seen. The color began to appear behind us, hot pink clouds nestled between two large hills. Slowly it spread across the sky – the entire sky – streaking it with oranges, yellows, pinks and purples. The longer we stared, the more it appeared to intensify, until it slowly faded into a dim strip of light on the horizon and the stars came out to begin their dazzling show. A few weeks ago, we came up to the roof just in time to witness an entire rainbow stretched above the hills. The whole arc was clearly visible, end-to-end, and the colors nearly pulsed with intensity; the most amazing rainbow I’ve ever seen. Suffice it to say that Chuuk is rich in beauty, a beauty that is big and intense.
Once you climb down off of the alternate reality offered by the roof and its views, there is another Chuuk. It’s still beautiful - because on an island this size you can’t ever escape seeing the ocean and the ocean is always stunning - but it’s something else, too.
On the flight here we took the island-hopper from Hawaii; as a result the flight crew knew us pretty well after our third deplane-reboard procedure. As we neared our destination, one of the flight attendants finally asked where we were stopping. When we replied “Chuuk”, she asked “Why would you want to go there?” and when we told her we were staying for two years, she said, “Oh, you’ll be back on this plane in two weeks”. This seems to be the general feeling about Chuuk – why would you want to go there?
It’s true that here on the island of Weno, things aren’t in the best condition. The road that runs from one end of the island to the other is more pothole than not. When it rains, the potholes fill up and cars plow through lakes of water; people through fields of mud. Power is intermittent, ranging from 4 hours in a given day to 12 plus (or even 24, on one unique weekend) from my understanding not due to lack of resource, but due to mismanagement of it. Although I’ve never felt unsafe here, it’s generally understood that you probably shouldn’t walk around much after dark – alone or otherwise. You can often hear drunk men shouting as they wonder the streets and sometimes those drunk men wander carrying knives, looking for a fight.
There is so much that is good here – tight-knit families, the beautiful simplicity and relaxed pace of everyday life, an abundance of awe-inspiring nature, the spirit of sharing; but that good often seems overshadowed by the problems faced by this state.
Chuuk is a beautiful place. Its natural environment is stunning. From the roof of the high school where I both live and teach, I can spin in a circle and slowly take in views of rainforest drenched mountains (large hills, really) and the Pacific Ocean dotted with neighboring islands. The ocean always has an amazing hue – sapphire blue when it’s a clear day; deep, dark, angry grey when it’s about to rain; purple-ish as the sun sets behind a smattering of clouds. Just the other day, I was on the roof after school with a few of my community mates, and we witnessed perhaps the most beautiful and intense sunset I’ve ever seen. The color began to appear behind us, hot pink clouds nestled between two large hills. Slowly it spread across the sky – the entire sky – streaking it with oranges, yellows, pinks and purples. The longer we stared, the more it appeared to intensify, until it slowly faded into a dim strip of light on the horizon and the stars came out to begin their dazzling show. A few weeks ago, we came up to the roof just in time to witness an entire rainbow stretched above the hills. The whole arc was clearly visible, end-to-end, and the colors nearly pulsed with intensity; the most amazing rainbow I’ve ever seen. Suffice it to say that Chuuk is rich in beauty, a beauty that is big and intense.
Once you climb down off of the alternate reality offered by the roof and its views, there is another Chuuk. It’s still beautiful - because on an island this size you can’t ever escape seeing the ocean and the ocean is always stunning - but it’s something else, too.
On the flight here we took the island-hopper from Hawaii; as a result the flight crew knew us pretty well after our third deplane-reboard procedure. As we neared our destination, one of the flight attendants finally asked where we were stopping. When we replied “Chuuk”, she asked “Why would you want to go there?” and when we told her we were staying for two years, she said, “Oh, you’ll be back on this plane in two weeks”. This seems to be the general feeling about Chuuk – why would you want to go there?
It’s true that here on the island of Weno, things aren’t in the best condition. The road that runs from one end of the island to the other is more pothole than not. When it rains, the potholes fill up and cars plow through lakes of water; people through fields of mud. Power is intermittent, ranging from 4 hours in a given day to 12 plus (or even 24, on one unique weekend) from my understanding not due to lack of resource, but due to mismanagement of it. Although I’ve never felt unsafe here, it’s generally understood that you probably shouldn’t walk around much after dark – alone or otherwise. You can often hear drunk men shouting as they wonder the streets and sometimes those drunk men wander carrying knives, looking for a fight.
There is so much that is good here – tight-knit families, the beautiful simplicity and relaxed pace of everyday life, an abundance of awe-inspiring nature, the spirit of sharing; but that good often seems overshadowed by the problems faced by this state.
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