* 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.
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