6/24 Update

Update--6/24

I know it's been awhile;  that was deliberate, as I will be away from reliable internet access after the next few weeks.  I'd like to get used to using the net only once every two weeks now so that I don't have withdrawal symptoms (embarrassing though that thought may be).  Revelations from the last two weeks:

--Smiling gets you far here.  Occasionally, it gets you too far, and can be seen as a form of flirting.  While this is generally more of a problem for Western women on the islands than for men, if you know me at all then you're aware I'm a pretty cheery bastard, and I don't want to give off the wrong impression to any island ladies.  Coincidentally, here's what I know about the dating scene here.

--Night-crawling::Traditionally, families will live under the same roof until boys (buchak) and girls (sarapain) are married, generally around the age of thirty.  This is not entirely different from American living situations in many parts of the mainland.  What is different is how those marriages come about, and how the courting process is initiated.  Apparently, if a boy(defined as an unmarried man, so, basically, a guy my age) is interested in a girl (same scenario), he will go to her house at night and attempt to break into her bedroom window.  Contrary to what we may believe in the States, this is legitimately just to talk about connections and whatnot.  Romeo and Juliet for the breaking-and-entering crowd.  The islands are very different from one another--Yap completely forbids night-crawling, as it is seen as a major embarrassment when one is caught, Pohnpei sees men visiting women at night, and on pious Kosrae the women actually crawl men.  I have heard that when a woman likes  you in Kosrae, she will throw stones at you and pour water on your head as you are sleeping.  Clearly I have a lot to learn before I get an island girlfriend.

--Honor, the concept of "saving face" and a seeming lack of emotion are key elements of Pohnpeian life for men and women.  There is something noble and tragic about this in my experience thus far, and I'll try to speak about that in as many ways as I can.  As I said in the previous entry, my host mother (nohno) seemed completely nonplussed when she met me, and yet as I have learned more about the culture I understand that she was tremendously excited and could not show it.  "Subdued" and "understated" are operative words in this regard.  Pohnpeians, as Gary Ashby notes in his 2003 book (which I am currently reading) Pohnpei: An Island Argosy, are tremendously proud of their cultures and traditions but are incapable of showing it without bringing shame upon themselves.  I can complement my host father (pahpa sau) on his cooking, which legitimately is delicious, and he will beam a genuine smile my way, but prior to that he generally apologizes for what he assumes is lacklustre food in my eyes.  This lack of emotional output, or the heightened level of emotional restraint, predictably brings with it a share of problems, the most notable of which is an alarmingly high suicide rate for Pohnpeians of all ages.  Hanging seems to be the preferred method; boredom, isolation, and failed love situations have been given to me as primary causes.  My host brother Gavrin has only sounded once like he was going to cry when talking to me; over a bottle of sakau, he was describing the last days of a girl  our age who lived up our street, a girl who felt like she had nobody to talk to.  The problem is literally and figuratively next door in Pohnpei, and shows no signs of slacking.

--Food as I mentioned is delicious and varied here.  Lime is a key ingredient in sauces, as is pepper (Pohnpeian pepper is a gourmet ingredient, and I'm more than willing to send any interested parties a bag or two once I get on this whole letter-writing thing going).  You'd be surprised how much you can do with spam and corned beef.  Chicken and fish dishes are an almost nightly occurrance, and the fish is easily the best I have had anywhere in my life. Mangrove crabs, which I can already promise you I will miss tremendously, may even put the crabs up in Trinidad, CA to shame (though I'd welcome a taste-test any day of the week).  Dog is a delicacy reserved primarily for feasts, as is pork.  Peanuts, though rare on the island, do show up in baked goods on occasion.  I know this far too well now; on Thursday (6/19), a seemingly innocent cinnamon roll put me in the care of the Peace Corps Medical Officers for several hours.  Coincidentally, this ended up being a very good thing, as I am now fully aware of what does and what does not contain nuts on the island.  Moreover, the medical officers took such good care of me that I am more comfortable with something going wrong now than I was before Thursday,  My allergy, unlike my asthma, has gotten worse as I have gotten older; I was told after my scare last week that I will be serving on either mainland Palau or Pohnpei, as the outer islands are too far from hospitals for me to be comfortable.  I had visions of being on isolated beaches and living the "Peace Corps life" prior to this experience, but this is outweighed by my desire to come back to the States in one piece in 2014, so I am very content with this.  I include this story not to alarm anyone at home so much as to show the degree to which my medical officers have ensured my absolute safety, and trust that my writing will be read in this way.

--Intoxicants exist on the islands, of course.  As with anywhere, people like to get down.  Beer (men lai) is popular and cheap, generally fairly strong (~7% ABV), and far from the worst I've had (shoutouts to Korea on that one).  More engaging from a cultural perspective is sakau, also known as kava-kava.  The look from untrained eyes is similar to chocolate milk, but the taste is far different, I can assure you.  Sakau plants are cherished by those who own them, and while preparation is different from island to island, essentially the plant's fibers are twisted up in hibiscus leaves until a brownish juice is collected in coconut shells.  More concentrate is pounded out on a sakau stone, and tends to be much more potent,  The taste is widely regarded as unpleasant by foreigners, though I only find this to be true for the first few sips.  After several cups are passed, a general numbness (not unlike Novocaine) overtakes muscle functions, and speech is slurred somewhat, though most sakau-drinkers remain pleasantly lucid throughout their experience.  Some of my most honest conversations with Pohnpeians, the moments where they open up to me, have been over sakau, and so I can't act like I don't see its application to my Peace Corps service.  Sakau has a tendency to cause upset stomachs, and so eating food during or immediately after a session is highly recommended (I haven't tested the consequences of ignoring this suggestion, and I have no intention to)..  When one is sufficiently intoxicated (sakau lai), it is appropriate to say goodnight to everyone present and head to bed, where a pleasant sleep is guaranteed.  While some people mix alcohol and sakau, I certainly wouldn't recommend it, as the two products do very different things.  Sakau is a calming, narcotic substance and alcohol is alcohol.  Liver damage, a risk highly touted in medical articles stateside regarding the substance, comes primarily from the alcohol involved in so many people's sessions; More dangerous by far is the inclination to get loaded one way or the other and go driving around looking for girls, a level of stupidity which should ring familiar stateside as well, unfortunately.  As I write this, two members of my extended family are in jail on DUI charges for a sakau-drinking escapade last night.  As I would have done stateside, I told them not to go and thought I had convinced them that it was a bad idea before I went to bed, but apparently they had an unfortunate change of heart at some point aroiund 4 AM.  This, as I said, is similar to what you'd see in America, but it doesn't make it any more okay in my estimation.

--Education is dismal here, to put things mildly.  Because of a Compact Agreement with the United States, government positions outnumber private sector by far and pay roughly five times the amount of private sector jobs.  Compare this to the US where we have maybe 15% governmental positions (if that).  The upshot of this is that islanders tend to just wait for funding to come their way, and are not tremendously concerned about getting an education prior to that.  This. coupled with the fact that formalized writing instruction begins in roughly the 3rd grade (more realistically in some municipalities the 4th grade) means that none of us should be shocked at 97% failure rates on standardized tests.  Funding from the US, which has kept Micronesia afloat since the Compact was signed in '86, will dry up in 2023, and so true sustainability will be necessary then if the islands are to have any chance in a world economy.  My job as a Peace Corps volunteer is difficult, as a lecture from US Ambassador Prahar made abundantly clear yesterday, but in the confines of individual impacts it is a very possible one.  To say it differently, I am not meant to change the world, or even an entire school; if I can impact the lives of even a handful of students, or just one, I have done my job quite well.  With luck, I'll be able to encourage a sense of pride in traditional culture in my classroom, as well as an understanding that English is necessary to compete in an international market; a huge part of my job in  this regard will be sharing pedagogical techniques with Pohnpeian or Palauan co-teachers in the hopes that they can continue improvement after my service.

I think I'm satisfied with this post. One final note: we are officially more than two weeks into training now, and none of us have left yet.  I don't agree with the mentalities of every trainee, to be perfectly honest (different strokes, as always) and there are certainly one or two that I would never associate with under any circumstances in the States, but we are all here for a reason and so I will support even those trainees if obstacles come up.  I have grown quite attached to a number of them, and will miss them very much when we go our separate ways, but this is just another stage in a larger adventure; several of us already have plans to do an Appalachian Trail through-hike once we get back in 2014.  Until next time, best of luck in all you do, love and blessings to you and your family and sochuk mwao (good night).

--BZ