6/16 Entry

Update 6/16

There is a LOT to update on right now--this may take me quite awhile to get together but I'll do what I can. Regrettably, training has been so intense that blogging had to take a backseat, as did journalling and photo-taking.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.  What do you want from me?  Island time, am I right?

Anyway, here's the immediate scenario.  I am living in Kolonia, Pohnpei, and specifically I am on Nan Pepper road (also a neighborhood) with my host family.  Nelson Joseph is a judge--he has been in Reno, Nevada on a business trip, so I haven't met him yet, but he is my host father (my "Pahpa sao," to use the formal title).  I don't remember her name because I never use it, but "Nohno kat" (my host mother) is a nurse in her late 50's.  She was not particularly responsive to me at first but as my Pohnpeian has gotten better and I have shown a genuine interest in the food she has warmed up to me.  Coincidentally, my judgment of warmth or lack thereof may be ill-advised, since emotion is handled very differently in Pohnpeian culture; this can be for another blog post, though.  I have a brother, Gavrin, and he has been the doorway into this culture.  Gavrin is 26 and a 6th-grade teacher at Ohmine Elementary school.  His English is quite good and he and Michi (my cousin) have been excellent teachers ("sonpata mwao") since I met them last Monday.  Tun-Tun is 19, girl-crazy, and loves baseball.  Some things are not so different--teenagers are teenagers.  Other people come in and out, as the household is very communal, but this is the core group.  I have probably the biggest bedroom in the house, a fan, and some drawers--it is at once a very comforting existance and a humbling one.  Nohno kat was going to go to Reno with Pahpa but decided not to so she could greet me, which further shows the extent to which they have invested in me as a guest.  We have seven dogs, countless chickens, and some pigs--none of these are pets, though.  The dogs guard the house, and if you know me at all than you know that getting used to them has been one of my first major trials in my new environment.  I wouldn't say I like them, but I am not afraid of them because they know me.  They stay outside, and are not considered pets--while we do not eat our dogs, dog is a popular food here and my family has told me that they do eat other dogs on occasion.  I have eaten dog before, coincidentally, so this does not particularly phase me.

Life consists of avoiding the heat, going to market, and getting back and forth from training (Monday through Friday).  I don't mean to shortchange a thing, as all of this has been fascinating to me.  As I write this I am experiencing my first Saturday on the island.  Saturday is a work day for most families, meaning that necessary chores (trash-dumping, lawn-mowing) are saved for today.  To my delight, I have recently been allowed to participate in chores, which makes me feel more like family than I did at first.  The turning point in this regard came several nights ago, when I managed to say "Bansang Ih ban cola witten ta" successfully, which means "tonight I will go wash dishes."  Somehow using the Pohnpeian got me in when using English could not.  Dr. Scott is always talking about the power words have and I have seen that quite clearly since I've been here.

Training is intense and makes me tremendously glad that I took a year of graduate school first. We are actually reading a book (Diane Larsen-Freeman's "Techniques and Principles of Language Teaching") for our methodology unit that I previously read in class, and so I have been quite comfortable in this regard.  I can see on the faces of other trainees, as well as our Pohnpeian co-teachers, that training is exhausting for other people as well, but I know it will pay off.  In two weeks, we are running a "Model School" at Ohmine Elementary (where Gavrin works) for interested students; my partner, Kasmery, has been teaching for 6 years, and though she is shy we hit it off immediately.  I'm excited to start working with her, and I'm excited to be working with kids again.  I'll do a separate blog post on education in the islands in a little bit; for now, this is enough to offer my readers some context.

Aside from the dogs, I've only had one "What am I doing here?" moment, and it is in regards to the water.  Being from a landlocked state, I am fairly nervous about water activities, and I am also aware that there are a number of things living in the water that an uninformed person could be seriously hurt by.  We had a training recently on many of these creatures, and it was good in some respects but it also made me more nervous.  Spearfishing, specifically, sounds awesome and rather terrifying--it involves diving down roughly 5 feet or so and catching fish to eat, and while not practiced everywhere, it is necessary on the outer islands for subsistance.  I want to be on an outer island because as a teacher the potential is greater for change (very few resources out there), but the spearfishing is daunting.  Nohno kat said she understood that very well today, and told me that when Pahpa sao gets back he can take me with his cousins and show me how to do it in a safe place.  I'm not sure if it's the calm tone of voices here or if it's the island, but her demeanor was such that I trust this as a good idea.  I don't want to be afraid of things, and I am aware that I am here to better not only Micronesians but myself as well.

That's all I want to say for now.  So far, so good.  I heard from a friend that he couldn't send mail to me for some reason--if there's a problem, it's isolated because I have gotten other mail.  My address, again, is

Ben Taylor, Peace Corps Trainee
Peace Corps Micronesia/Palau
PO Box 9
Kolonia, Pohnpei, FM 96941

Much love and blessings.  Bansang mwao (good night)!