[continued from Summer (part 2)]
…oh wait no I couldn’t, because Chuuk State doesn’t have any Peace Corps approved medical providers. In fact if you read the Lonely Planet entry on medical care in Chuuk, you will get one simple sentence: “Don’t go to Chuuk State Hospital.”
This is the general wisdom that we follow as well, so Peace Corps bought me a plane ticket to Pohnpei where they at least have one clinic run by Filipino doctors. I was excited to go to Pohnpei because I would get to hang out with some Peace Corps friends who I hadn’t seen since last year and get to go out a bit in the big town (yay). But I was also a bit disappointed because I had to miss the Chuuk Department of Education Symposium and, more importantly, some quality time hanging out with my Chuuk friends (boo). But it wasn’t my decision—my ticket had already been bought so I was going there like it or not.
As soon as I landed I went to the clinic with the Peace Corps doctor, Koch. The doctor at the clinic looked at my toe for approximately 6 seconds before concluding that I had severed the middle tendon on my left foot and would need surgery to repair it. Wonderful. The doctor claimed that he could do the surgery there in Pohnpei, but Peace Corps generally doesn’t mess around with things like surgery and decided to send me somewhere where I could get pretty good medical care: the Philippines. Not Guam, not Hawaii, not Australia—the Philippines. But hey, free trip to Manila for me! So I packed up my bag and flew business class to Manila (because that was the only ticket left—thank you American tax payers for paying for my free wine and Jack and Coke!).
To give you some perspective, Manila is a city of 10 million people whereas the entire country of the FSM has slightly over 100 thousand. The only way I could have felt more like Dorothy landing in Oz even is if the world suddenly changed from black and white to color. [Insert any number of jokes concerning Munchkins and my relative height compared to that of most Filipinos] I changed my money at the airport and took a taxi from the airport to my hotel. Aside from having about 8 heart attacks during the drive because of the speed and craziness of the driving, I made it to the hotel fine. The hotel (which would be my home for the next three weeks) was simple but nice. It was really a hostel, but I had my own room with air conditioning and wireless internet access in the main lobby, so I was happy.
The next morning, a Peace Corps doctor picked me up and took me to the Philippine Orthopedic Group for my first appointment with the doctor. The office was very clean and it looked like any other American hospital or doctor’s clinic. My surgeon confirmed the diagnosis of a severed tendon and said he would do the surgery in about 10 days (to let the original wound heal) Heseemed knowledgeable so I was feeling pretty comfortable until I had this little exchange with him:
Doctor: So what kind of anesthesia are we going to use on you?
Me: Umm, what?
Doctor: Are we going to use local anesthesia or a spinal tap?
Me: Umm, I don’t really know. You’re the doctor, what do you normally use?
Doctor: Well, what’s your pain tolerance like?
Me: Umm, what?
Doctor: Your pain tolerance—is it high or low?
Yea, that made me feel a little less confortable, but whatever. Just another story…
So I had 10 days to kill in Manila. What did I do? Just about everything that I couldn’t do in Chuuk. I went out to bars, went to the movies, went bowling, went to a hookah bar, used the internet ceaselessly, skyped with a bunch of friends, ate Mexican food, ate Greek food, ate Italian food, ate Thai food, etc. The highlight was probably going to a transvestite karaoke bar and singing in front of a bunch of amused Filipinos (Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby and Miley Cyrus’s Party in the USA—yea, I’m that cool).
Well the fun times finally came to an end and I had to check in to Makati Medical Center the afternoon before my scheduled morning surgery. The surgery went fine (they used a local nerve block as well as sedation, if you were wondering) but I stayed in the hospital for a couple more nights just so that they could check on me. Considering all that I had was toe surgery, I was given an excessively large plastic boot that went almost all the way up to my knee and would be the bane of my existence for the next four weeks.
The week after the surgery was one of the worst weeks I have had in a long time. I was sick, my foot was sore, and my back was killing me because I was not used to the weight of the boot. I slept terribly that whole week and essentially couldn’t leave the hotel because I was on crutches and just generally felt like crap. I was homesick for Chuuk, wanted to be able to communicate with the people around me, and more than anything I missed my friends.
I was finally cleared to go back to Chuuk about 10 days after the surgery. I had made it abundantly clear to everyone in Peace Corps that I wanted to be on the first plane I possibly could back to Chuuk, so I was scheduled to fly out the same day I was cleared. After another business class flight (this time because I had a boot and “needed the extra legroom”), more wine and Jack and Cokes, and a bad movie, I was finally back in Chuuk and I couldn’t have been happier.
My little sojourn to the Philippines was a nice little break and an interesting adventure, but it really made me realize how happy I am to be in Chuuk. While it was nice to go out to bars and go bowling and stuff like that, that’s not what I imagined when I signed up for the Peace Corps. I imagined living in a tiny rural community and being hundreds of miles from any sort of development—and that’s exactly what I got. To be fair to the Peace Corps Volunteers in the Philippines, none of them are in Manila, but they still live a vastly different life than I do. All it took was a freak injury, a droopy toe, and a couple of weeks of being Dorothy in Munchkinland (seriously, I was at least at 8 inches taller than everyone!) for me to realize that I really am happy in Chuuk!
Endnote: my foot is healind well. I have a giant L-shaped scar on the top of my foot, but other than that everything seems to be pretty much fine.
September 27, 2011
September 26, 2011
Summer (part 2)
PART 2
The highlight of my summer was when 3 of my Peace Corps friends came out to the Mortlocks to hang out for a few weeks. Johnny, Julie, and Becky are all Volunteers in Chuuk, but they are in the lagoon meaning they are a solid 25 hour boat ride from me. Needless to say, I don’t see them very often, so it was really awesome that they decided to come out to visit.
If you have read my previous blog posts, you know that ship rides to and from the Mortlocks can be, well…interesting. I have had my fair share of awful ship rides, but nothing compares with the horrific ship ride from Hell that my 3 friends had to endure to visit me. For a detailed version of the story you can check out Johnn's blog, but to make a long story short, it sucked. Big time. It rained the whole time and they had nowhere to take cover. (Side note: Johnny updates his blog way more often than I do and he’s a pretty awesome writer, so if you’re interested in reading more fun stories about Chuuk, I highly recommend checking it out.) You can imagine that when I picked them up from the ship, they were incredibly excited to see me—not because I’m they’re friend or anything like that, but because my presence meant that they could finally GET OFF THE FREAKIN' SHIP!
The people of Satowan had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of 3 new white people to the island for some time, so that had outdone themselves in making a giant welcoming party for my friends. Unfortunately, they scheduled this party for the moment that my soaking wet, sleep deprived, seasick friends stepped onto the island. So, instead of taking a shower and lying down for a few hours, the 3 amigos had to endure almost an hour of singing and speeches welcoming them to Satowan. I finally had to stand up and explain to my Satowan friends that my American friends were very cold and wet and were very sorry but that they would have to excuse themselves because they kind of felt like they were gonna die.
After this less than perfect start to the trip, we all had an awesome time hanging out on Satowan. We walked all around the island, met a bunch of my friends, and even played a white people versus brown people game of basketball (no need for jerseys…). After about 4 days on Satowan, we packed up our stuff and headed over to Lekinioch island to meet up with another one of our Peace Corps friends, Farrah.
Farrah is one of my very best Peace Corps friends and I always enjoy hanging out with her. I have been to her island a couple of times for various events, so I know her host family pretty well too. We have fun jibing each other about our respective islands which usually goes something like this:
Me: Your island is full of homies and gangsters.
Farah: Yea, well… ummm…
Me: Punks and knuckleheads and homies and gangsters.
Farrah: Shut up.
This is kind of an inside joke between me and Farrah, but this exact conversation happens verbatim approximately every time we talk. Farrah keeps telling me that she’s going to come up with a comeback one of these days, but I’m still waiting.
But there is one thing that Lekinioch has on me: it always seems to get the better of me. Although I really enjoy going to visit the homies and gangsters, my past trips to Lekinioch have not been very successful. Something always seems to go wrong when I go there (iPod disappears, cut my arm on rusty rebar), and this trip was no exception. One night when all of us were getting ready to go to bed, I walked outside to brush my teeth. Farrah only has one light in her house, so as I walked around the corner of the house to spit, I was completely in the dark. Now normally this isn’t a problem—I walk around my house in the dark all the time because I know where everything is. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that there was a stack of broken window panes stalked beside the house (side note: Really Farrah? Broken glass right beside the house? Which gangster came up with that brilliant death trap?).
Well, dear reader, you can imagine what happened next. I kicked the pile of glass and cut the top of my foot pretty bad. Although it didn’t hurt that bad, the side of the house resembled a murder scene. After cleaning up the wound and the pool of blood, I noticed that my middle toe was drooping below the others. I’m no doctor, but one look at something like that and you can pretty much tell that something is amiss. I called the Peace Corps doctor on my SatPhone the next day, and he told me that I should come in to Weno ASAP to get it checked out.
So I waited another six days until the next ship arrived.
In that time, we all had an awesome time hanging out. My droopy toe wasn’t hurting, so I didn’t really think too much of it. My friends started calling me “Droopy Toe” and all sorts of permutations on that name (“Droops,” “The Droopster,” “Droopy the Clown”). We spent a few more nights on Lekinioch and then headed over to Oneop to our friend Naavid's house. Unfortunately, we could only spend one day on Oneop because the ship showed up without warning. After a delightful 40 hour ship ride back to Weno, I could finally get my toe checked out…
The highlight of my summer was when 3 of my Peace Corps friends came out to the Mortlocks to hang out for a few weeks. Johnny, Julie, and Becky are all Volunteers in Chuuk, but they are in the lagoon meaning they are a solid 25 hour boat ride from me. Needless to say, I don’t see them very often, so it was really awesome that they decided to come out to visit.
If you have read my previous blog posts, you know that ship rides to and from the Mortlocks can be, well…interesting. I have had my fair share of awful ship rides, but nothing compares with the horrific ship ride from Hell that my 3 friends had to endure to visit me. For a detailed version of the story you can check out Johnn's blog, but to make a long story short, it sucked. Big time. It rained the whole time and they had nowhere to take cover. (Side note: Johnny updates his blog way more often than I do and he’s a pretty awesome writer, so if you’re interested in reading more fun stories about Chuuk, I highly recommend checking it out.) You can imagine that when I picked them up from the ship, they were incredibly excited to see me—not because I’m they’re friend or anything like that, but because my presence meant that they could finally GET OFF THE FREAKIN' SHIP!
The people of Satowan had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of 3 new white people to the island for some time, so that had outdone themselves in making a giant welcoming party for my friends. Unfortunately, they scheduled this party for the moment that my soaking wet, sleep deprived, seasick friends stepped onto the island. So, instead of taking a shower and lying down for a few hours, the 3 amigos had to endure almost an hour of singing and speeches welcoming them to Satowan. I finally had to stand up and explain to my Satowan friends that my American friends were very cold and wet and were very sorry but that they would have to excuse themselves because they kind of felt like they were gonna die.
After this less than perfect start to the trip, we all had an awesome time hanging out on Satowan. We walked all around the island, met a bunch of my friends, and even played a white people versus brown people game of basketball (no need for jerseys…). After about 4 days on Satowan, we packed up our stuff and headed over to Lekinioch island to meet up with another one of our Peace Corps friends, Farrah.
Farrah is one of my very best Peace Corps friends and I always enjoy hanging out with her. I have been to her island a couple of times for various events, so I know her host family pretty well too. We have fun jibing each other about our respective islands which usually goes something like this:
Me: Your island is full of homies and gangsters.
Farah: Yea, well… ummm…
Me: Punks and knuckleheads and homies and gangsters.
Farrah: Shut up.
This is kind of an inside joke between me and Farrah, but this exact conversation happens verbatim approximately every time we talk. Farrah keeps telling me that she’s going to come up with a comeback one of these days, but I’m still waiting.
But there is one thing that Lekinioch has on me: it always seems to get the better of me. Although I really enjoy going to visit the homies and gangsters, my past trips to Lekinioch have not been very successful. Something always seems to go wrong when I go there (iPod disappears, cut my arm on rusty rebar), and this trip was no exception. One night when all of us were getting ready to go to bed, I walked outside to brush my teeth. Farrah only has one light in her house, so as I walked around the corner of the house to spit, I was completely in the dark. Now normally this isn’t a problem—I walk around my house in the dark all the time because I know where everything is. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that there was a stack of broken window panes stalked beside the house (side note: Really Farrah? Broken glass right beside the house? Which gangster came up with that brilliant death trap?).
Well, dear reader, you can imagine what happened next. I kicked the pile of glass and cut the top of my foot pretty bad. Although it didn’t hurt that bad, the side of the house resembled a murder scene. After cleaning up the wound and the pool of blood, I noticed that my middle toe was drooping below the others. I’m no doctor, but one look at something like that and you can pretty much tell that something is amiss. I called the Peace Corps doctor on my SatPhone the next day, and he told me that I should come in to Weno ASAP to get it checked out.
So I waited another six days until the next ship arrived.
In that time, we all had an awesome time hanging out. My droopy toe wasn’t hurting, so I didn’t really think too much of it. My friends started calling me “Droopy Toe” and all sorts of permutations on that name (“Droops,” “The Droopster,” “Droopy the Clown”). We spent a few more nights on Lekinioch and then headed over to Oneop to our friend Naavid's house. Unfortunately, we could only spend one day on Oneop because the ship showed up without warning. After a delightful 40 hour ship ride back to Weno, I could finally get my toe checked out…
September 21, 2011
Summer (part 1)
First of all let me apologize for not updating this blog in waaaaay too long. I could write any number of lame excuses, but the truth is that I just been lazy and haven’t written anything in a while. I have had a very eventful summer, so I will break it up into a couple of separate posts
At the beginning of June, we held our second annual Camp Boys to Men. Run by the Peace Corps Volunteers in the Mortlocks along with a number of local men, the focus of the camp is to help 8th grade boys in the Mortlocks make a smooth transition from elementary school to high school and from being a boy to being a man. The theme of this year’s camp was “Manawach Lessor, Ach Filátá Ikenna,” which roughly translates to “our lives, our decisions.” We led sessions on diet and exercise, substance abuse and mental health, and sex education and HIV/AIDS education. Additionally, we had lots of games and activities for the boys to do together.
While the camp had its downfalls (e.g. the legitimate no holds barred fist fight between two boys about absolutely nothing which I had to break up… fortunately my watch band was the only serious casualty of the event ) but I think it was a success overall. The topics that we covered are not talked about in Chuukese culture, so it is definitely important for the boys to hear it. The ultimate goal of the camp is that it can be taken over and completely run by locals in the next year or so. While this may be an ambitious goal, I think that it is certainly possible. I am already thinking about ideas for next year’s camp and how we can begin to turn the camp over to the local partners.
In the middle of June was graduation season. I went to three graduations: Satowan Elementary School, Satowan High School, and Moch High School. Graduation ceremonies are definitely a chance for the school and the community to show off a little bit. The schools get decked out with decorations, coconut fronds, and lots and lots of food. While it’s great that the schools take so much pride in the graduation ceremony, it is a bit frustrating that they don’t put the same kind of effort into the day to day operations of the school. If the community was as involved in school as it was in the graduation ceremony, I have no doubt that the school would be a whole lot better. And, like every ceremony/meeting here, the graduation ceremonies were long. Really long. Unnecessarily long. At the Satowan High School graduation, the keynote speaker spent about 45 minutes talking about what “commencement exercises” meant. That’s right, he didn’t speak about the THEME of the graduation (yes, there was a theme), he thought that it was most worthwhile to spend his time elaborating on how “commencement exercises” literally meant that the students were “beginning work.” And who was the keynote speaker? The governor of Chuuk State.
While the actual graduation ceremonies were a bit tedious, it was fun to get some time to hang out with my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers in the Mortlocks. There are currently 5 of us out there, and we don’t get to see each other too much, so we generally take advantage of the time we do spend together. And by this I obviously mean that we trade books that we have finished, steal movies and music off of one another’s computers, and otherwise prepare ourselves to spend a few more months on our respective islands.
At the beginning of June, we held our second annual Camp Boys to Men. Run by the Peace Corps Volunteers in the Mortlocks along with a number of local men, the focus of the camp is to help 8th grade boys in the Mortlocks make a smooth transition from elementary school to high school and from being a boy to being a man. The theme of this year’s camp was “Manawach Lessor, Ach Filátá Ikenna,” which roughly translates to “our lives, our decisions.” We led sessions on diet and exercise, substance abuse and mental health, and sex education and HIV/AIDS education. Additionally, we had lots of games and activities for the boys to do together.
While the camp had its downfalls (e.g. the legitimate no holds barred fist fight between two boys about absolutely nothing which I had to break up… fortunately my watch band was the only serious casualty of the event ) but I think it was a success overall. The topics that we covered are not talked about in Chuukese culture, so it is definitely important for the boys to hear it. The ultimate goal of the camp is that it can be taken over and completely run by locals in the next year or so. While this may be an ambitious goal, I think that it is certainly possible. I am already thinking about ideas for next year’s camp and how we can begin to turn the camp over to the local partners.
In the middle of June was graduation season. I went to three graduations: Satowan Elementary School, Satowan High School, and Moch High School. Graduation ceremonies are definitely a chance for the school and the community to show off a little bit. The schools get decked out with decorations, coconut fronds, and lots and lots of food. While it’s great that the schools take so much pride in the graduation ceremony, it is a bit frustrating that they don’t put the same kind of effort into the day to day operations of the school. If the community was as involved in school as it was in the graduation ceremony, I have no doubt that the school would be a whole lot better. And, like every ceremony/meeting here, the graduation ceremonies were long. Really long. Unnecessarily long. At the Satowan High School graduation, the keynote speaker spent about 45 minutes talking about what “commencement exercises” meant. That’s right, he didn’t speak about the THEME of the graduation (yes, there was a theme), he thought that it was most worthwhile to spend his time elaborating on how “commencement exercises” literally meant that the students were “beginning work.” And who was the keynote speaker? The governor of Chuuk State.
While the actual graduation ceremonies were a bit tedious, it was fun to get some time to hang out with my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers in the Mortlocks. There are currently 5 of us out there, and we don’t get to see each other too much, so we generally take advantage of the time we do spend together. And by this I obviously mean that we trade books that we have finished, steal movies and music off of one another’s computers, and otherwise prepare ourselves to spend a few more months on our respective islands.
Pictures!
I'm having some trouble loading my pictures onto Picasa, so instead here are links to my Facebook albums. No, you don't need a Facebook account to see the pictures, just click on the links. Enjoy!
Satowan 2
Satowan field day
Satowan youth picnic
Camp Boys to Men (part 1)
Camp Boys to Men (part 2)
Shippin' out
Graduation
Mortlocks adventures
Satowan 2
Satowan field day
Satowan youth picnic
Camp Boys to Men (part 1)
Camp Boys to Men (part 2)
Shippin' out
Graduation
Mortlocks adventures
June 3, 2011
Travel
Believe it or not, the FSM is a big country. In terms of the area of the globe it occupies, it is almost comparable to the US. That being said, the land area of the FSM is tiny. If you put all of the islands in the FSM together, the land area would still be smaller than Rhode Island. So, in a huge spread out country like the FSM, travel becomes pretty important. Below are four of the most frequently used means of travel in the FSM.
*note to my parents and other concerned parties: the following stories and anecdotes are not meant to scare you. I really do feel safe traveling here, but writing about all of my safe experiences would not make for a very interesting blog post.
Car—The nature of car travel depends greatly on what island you are on. Let’s start with Pohnpei. In Pohnpei, there is a fairly nice paved asphalt road that goes all the way around the island. Unfortunately, the presence of a nice road does not necessarily mean that car travel is…oh what’s the word?...safe. Factors that contribute to unsafeness of car travel in Pohnpei:
• Most of the cars in Pohnpei come from Japan, meaning the steering wheel is on the right. However, the cars still drive on the right side of the road like they do in America. This means that rather than sitting near the middle lane, drivers sit near the edge of the road. I should also mention that while the road is nicely paved, it is not very wide and doesn’t have any lines painted on it. You can probably see where this is going… When going around hairpin turns (of which there are plenty), the driver has pretty much no idea whether or not a car is coming the other way because he or she just cannot see.
• Seatbelts don’t exist. Rather, they do exist but nobody uses them. Furthermore, riding in the back of pickup trucks is very normal. My host family in Pohnpei owned a pickup truck, so I found myself in the back on many occasions. My best (worst?) pickup truck ride was going from Kolonia to Kitti (about a 45 minute drive) sitting in a purple folding chair in the back of the truck holding on for dear life as my host dad careened around the corners. The reason I was sitting on the folding chair and not on the bed of the truck was that there were two severed dog heads rolling around back there and I didn’t really want one to roll into my lap.
• People drink, and I’m not talking about apple juice. The beer of choice in Pohnpei—Milwaukee’s Best. If you’re unfamiliar with Milwaukee’s Best, or “the Beast” as it is affectionately known, it is a beer so far down the beer pecking order that most underage college students won’t touch it. There is also sakau (also known as kava in other parts of the world), which is a semi-narcotic root that is pounded into mush and then drank. It tastes like mud and makes your lips and tongue go numb as if you’d just gotten out of the dentist’s chair. Also, after a couple of cups, you get very lethargic and your reaction time diminishes significantly. While I wouldn’t say that drinking and driving is common, it’s probably best to avoid being on the road as a pedestrian or a driver after dark.
All this being said, I never actually witnessed a car accident in Pohnpei. There is however, evidence of car accidents all over the island. Broken, abandoned cars bespeckle the side of the road like a kind of jalopy graveyard. Sometimes they have been pushed off the road and into a ditch, but sometimes the just sit right where they fired their last piston. In the near constant rain and humidity, these cars turn into veritable ecosystems in their own right, housing all sorts of exotic plants, mosses, and animals.
The driving situation in Chuuk is pretty much the same as in Pohnpei with one major difference: the road. The road is dreadfully bad, with giant potholes everywhere and massive ditches and trenches all over the place due to construction. The only upside to the terrible road is that it is impossible to drive more than about 15 mph, so it’s hard for diving to be too dangerous. That being said, Chuuk is the only place I have actually seen a car accident. A few nights ago, I was sitting at my host family’s house chatting with my host brother when we heard a huge crash. A minute later a guy covered in mud ran through the yard being chased by another guy covered in mud wielding a large rock and screaming Chuukese obscenities. I never did figure out exactly what happened, but I’m pretty sure that the “chasee’s” car crashed into the “chaser’s” and pushed it into a construction trench. Subsequently, they apparently fought in the mud and then took to the streets of Weno. Yea…welcome to Chuuk.
Fiberglass boat—Probably the most common form of transportation in Chuuk, the fiberboat is used for transportation in between islands in the lagoon or between islands in the Mortlocks. These boats are generally between 18 and 24 feet and have a single outboard motor. Some have “seats” of a sort, but most just have a plank of plywood to sit on. A fiberboat ride on a calm day is a very pleasant experience. It’s nice to get out on the water and enjoy the fact that you really are in a spectacularly beautiful island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. On the other hand, a fiberboat ride on a rough day is anything but fun.
On a recent ride from Kuttu back to Satowan, I had without a doubt the worst fiberboat ride I’ve had so far. It’s about an hour boat ride from Kuttu to Satowan, and when we left the skies were clear and it looked like it was going to be a nice day out on the water. Then the clouds started moving in we got hit by a massive storm. It was only my host brother and I in the boat, meaning the boat was light and we got tossed around by the big waves like a couple of Raggedy Anns. I was sitting on my bucket (which, by the way, is the best travel accessory—it’s watertight, it floats, and it’s a seat!) and holding on to the anchor rope trying not to get tossed out of the boat. We were going over 5-7 foot waves and then slamming back down onto the water. If this doesn’t sound so bad, try jumping off a table and landing on your butt. Now, continue to do that about once every 10 seconds or so for 45 minutes. Also, it was pouring rain, which when your traveling in a boat feels like little needles piercing you all over your body. When we finally got back to Satowan, my back was killing me, my hands were rope-burned from hanging on so tightly, and I was completely soaked.
Continental Airlines—Continental is the only airline that services the FSM. As such, it is outrageously expensive to fly to and from the island or even in between the islands. Being a reputable airline, flying on Continental is quite safe. However, landing a 737 on an island with a short runway is not an easy maneuver and looking out the window during the landings is a bit nerve-wracking. Also, this being one of the rainiest places on Earth, the island-hopper flights also have a tendency to be delayed an/or cancelled due to weather.
Caroline Island Airlines—CIA is the official name for the “tin coffin,” the eight-seater twin prop that goes between Weno and the Mortlocks. Going on the plane is actually pretty fun. It’s much nicer than the ship (see below) and, despite the fact that it was built in the ‘70s and looks like it’s made out of tin foil, it’s relatively safe feeling. The pilot is a bit of a flake and has a tenancy to change the schedule whenever he feels like it, but that’s pretty much true with everything in Chuuk. The best way to describe the plane schedule is that you don’t know when it’s going to arrive until it is already there.
The one thing about the plane is that it’s loud. Really loud. In a plane that size, you are not very far away from the engines, and when the pilot turns on the props for the first you think “wow, it’s pretty loud in here.” Then he starts to power them up and you think “damn, it’s really loud in here.” Then he begins to take off and it gets even louder and you stop thinking because you can’t even hear your own thoughts.
Ship—The ships are the other way to get to and from the Mortlocks. To be clear, these are not cushy cruise liners. They are tiny fishing vessels with no cabins, no amenities, and no seats. You sit on the deck, on the cargo hatches, or on the roof—wherever you can find some space. There is a toilet of sorts, but it is unspeakably filthy and should be avoided at all costs. Depending on which ship you’re on, the ride is typically between 19 and 26 hours.
And so you sit and you wait. You sit next to the seasick woman vomiting over the side of the ship. You sit next to the mother breastfeeding her child. You sit next to the pigs and chickens wallowing in their own filth. You sit next to the men smoking countless cigarettes and cutting up the countless fish that they have caught. You sit on the roof and get cut up by the fiberglass hull of the ship. You sit on the railing and come inches from being pushed overboard when a very large lady lurches into you (true story). Reading is out of the question unless you want to join the women throwing up over the side. At night, you do your best to find a spot to lie down but the ship is crowded when everyone is sitting, so you can imagine the mass of bodies when everyone tries to lie down…generally sleep does not really happen.
My longest ship ride was 4 days. Due to ship schedules, I had to make a tour around all the islands in Morlocks before making the trek in. That’s right, 4 days of that all that ^. Not a fun experience, but definitely a good story.
*note to my parents and other concerned parties: the following stories and anecdotes are not meant to scare you. I really do feel safe traveling here, but writing about all of my safe experiences would not make for a very interesting blog post.
Car—The nature of car travel depends greatly on what island you are on. Let’s start with Pohnpei. In Pohnpei, there is a fairly nice paved asphalt road that goes all the way around the island. Unfortunately, the presence of a nice road does not necessarily mean that car travel is…oh what’s the word?...safe. Factors that contribute to unsafeness of car travel in Pohnpei:
• Most of the cars in Pohnpei come from Japan, meaning the steering wheel is on the right. However, the cars still drive on the right side of the road like they do in America. This means that rather than sitting near the middle lane, drivers sit near the edge of the road. I should also mention that while the road is nicely paved, it is not very wide and doesn’t have any lines painted on it. You can probably see where this is going… When going around hairpin turns (of which there are plenty), the driver has pretty much no idea whether or not a car is coming the other way because he or she just cannot see.
• Seatbelts don’t exist. Rather, they do exist but nobody uses them. Furthermore, riding in the back of pickup trucks is very normal. My host family in Pohnpei owned a pickup truck, so I found myself in the back on many occasions. My best (worst?) pickup truck ride was going from Kolonia to Kitti (about a 45 minute drive) sitting in a purple folding chair in the back of the truck holding on for dear life as my host dad careened around the corners. The reason I was sitting on the folding chair and not on the bed of the truck was that there were two severed dog heads rolling around back there and I didn’t really want one to roll into my lap.
• People drink, and I’m not talking about apple juice. The beer of choice in Pohnpei—Milwaukee’s Best. If you’re unfamiliar with Milwaukee’s Best, or “the Beast” as it is affectionately known, it is a beer so far down the beer pecking order that most underage college students won’t touch it. There is also sakau (also known as kava in other parts of the world), which is a semi-narcotic root that is pounded into mush and then drank. It tastes like mud and makes your lips and tongue go numb as if you’d just gotten out of the dentist’s chair. Also, after a couple of cups, you get very lethargic and your reaction time diminishes significantly. While I wouldn’t say that drinking and driving is common, it’s probably best to avoid being on the road as a pedestrian or a driver after dark.
All this being said, I never actually witnessed a car accident in Pohnpei. There is however, evidence of car accidents all over the island. Broken, abandoned cars bespeckle the side of the road like a kind of jalopy graveyard. Sometimes they have been pushed off the road and into a ditch, but sometimes the just sit right where they fired their last piston. In the near constant rain and humidity, these cars turn into veritable ecosystems in their own right, housing all sorts of exotic plants, mosses, and animals.
The driving situation in Chuuk is pretty much the same as in Pohnpei with one major difference: the road. The road is dreadfully bad, with giant potholes everywhere and massive ditches and trenches all over the place due to construction. The only upside to the terrible road is that it is impossible to drive more than about 15 mph, so it’s hard for diving to be too dangerous. That being said, Chuuk is the only place I have actually seen a car accident. A few nights ago, I was sitting at my host family’s house chatting with my host brother when we heard a huge crash. A minute later a guy covered in mud ran through the yard being chased by another guy covered in mud wielding a large rock and screaming Chuukese obscenities. I never did figure out exactly what happened, but I’m pretty sure that the “chasee’s” car crashed into the “chaser’s” and pushed it into a construction trench. Subsequently, they apparently fought in the mud and then took to the streets of Weno. Yea…welcome to Chuuk.
Fiberglass boat—Probably the most common form of transportation in Chuuk, the fiberboat is used for transportation in between islands in the lagoon or between islands in the Mortlocks. These boats are generally between 18 and 24 feet and have a single outboard motor. Some have “seats” of a sort, but most just have a plank of plywood to sit on. A fiberboat ride on a calm day is a very pleasant experience. It’s nice to get out on the water and enjoy the fact that you really are in a spectacularly beautiful island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. On the other hand, a fiberboat ride on a rough day is anything but fun.
On a recent ride from Kuttu back to Satowan, I had without a doubt the worst fiberboat ride I’ve had so far. It’s about an hour boat ride from Kuttu to Satowan, and when we left the skies were clear and it looked like it was going to be a nice day out on the water. Then the clouds started moving in we got hit by a massive storm. It was only my host brother and I in the boat, meaning the boat was light and we got tossed around by the big waves like a couple of Raggedy Anns. I was sitting on my bucket (which, by the way, is the best travel accessory—it’s watertight, it floats, and it’s a seat!) and holding on to the anchor rope trying not to get tossed out of the boat. We were going over 5-7 foot waves and then slamming back down onto the water. If this doesn’t sound so bad, try jumping off a table and landing on your butt. Now, continue to do that about once every 10 seconds or so for 45 minutes. Also, it was pouring rain, which when your traveling in a boat feels like little needles piercing you all over your body. When we finally got back to Satowan, my back was killing me, my hands were rope-burned from hanging on so tightly, and I was completely soaked.
Continental Airlines—Continental is the only airline that services the FSM. As such, it is outrageously expensive to fly to and from the island or even in between the islands. Being a reputable airline, flying on Continental is quite safe. However, landing a 737 on an island with a short runway is not an easy maneuver and looking out the window during the landings is a bit nerve-wracking. Also, this being one of the rainiest places on Earth, the island-hopper flights also have a tendency to be delayed an/or cancelled due to weather.
Caroline Island Airlines—CIA is the official name for the “tin coffin,” the eight-seater twin prop that goes between Weno and the Mortlocks. Going on the plane is actually pretty fun. It’s much nicer than the ship (see below) and, despite the fact that it was built in the ‘70s and looks like it’s made out of tin foil, it’s relatively safe feeling. The pilot is a bit of a flake and has a tenancy to change the schedule whenever he feels like it, but that’s pretty much true with everything in Chuuk. The best way to describe the plane schedule is that you don’t know when it’s going to arrive until it is already there.
The one thing about the plane is that it’s loud. Really loud. In a plane that size, you are not very far away from the engines, and when the pilot turns on the props for the first you think “wow, it’s pretty loud in here.” Then he starts to power them up and you think “damn, it’s really loud in here.” Then he begins to take off and it gets even louder and you stop thinking because you can’t even hear your own thoughts.
Ship—The ships are the other way to get to and from the Mortlocks. To be clear, these are not cushy cruise liners. They are tiny fishing vessels with no cabins, no amenities, and no seats. You sit on the deck, on the cargo hatches, or on the roof—wherever you can find some space. There is a toilet of sorts, but it is unspeakably filthy and should be avoided at all costs. Depending on which ship you’re on, the ride is typically between 19 and 26 hours.
And so you sit and you wait. You sit next to the seasick woman vomiting over the side of the ship. You sit next to the mother breastfeeding her child. You sit next to the pigs and chickens wallowing in their own filth. You sit next to the men smoking countless cigarettes and cutting up the countless fish that they have caught. You sit on the roof and get cut up by the fiberglass hull of the ship. You sit on the railing and come inches from being pushed overboard when a very large lady lurches into you (true story). Reading is out of the question unless you want to join the women throwing up over the side. At night, you do your best to find a spot to lie down but the ship is crowded when everyone is sitting, so you can imagine the mass of bodies when everyone tries to lie down…generally sleep does not really happen.
My longest ship ride was 4 days. Due to ship schedules, I had to make a tour around all the islands in Morlocks before making the trek in. That’s right, 4 days of that all that ^. Not a fun experience, but definitely a good story.
May 27, 2011
Challenges
I can see it now: about two years from now I will be interviewing for a job and the fact that I was a Peace Corps Volunteer will come up. The interviewer will ask, “What kinds of challenges did you face as a Peace Corps Volunteer?” Here’s the answer: May 16, 2011.
Things that I found out/had to deal with on May 16, 2011:
1. I’m recovering from a lovely 101 degree fever, all-over body ache, and diarrhea. (The euphemistic Peace Cops term for diarrhea is “homesickness.” During the first week of our training, one of the volunteers spent almost the entire evening on his host family’s local toilet. When he finally came out, his host father took one look at him and said, “You’re probably just homesick.”) Weeks upon weeks of eating essentially nothing but canned meat, grease, and salt seems to have caught up with me, and although I feel considerably better than I did yesterday, I am by no means feeling 100 percent well. I am hoping for a quiet, physically and mentally undemanding day.
2. The Peace Corps Volunteer on a neighboring island enlists my help to do something about the state of the high school which services out two islands. This high school, as it turns out, is located on my island and while neither of us teach or work there, both of us know many of the teachers there on a personal basis.
This school is not doing well. This is not the venue to discuss the shortcomings of a school, particularly a school that I do not work at, but suffice it to say that there are some serious issues. Unfortunately, I really can’t write/explain much more about this situation in this public venue but let’s just say this is an issue that’s weighing on my mind and might require some action in the near future.
3. I have just found out that one of my very good friends, a Peace Corps Volunteer on another outer island here in the FSM, may have to be pulled out of his site and sent home. This has nothing to do with his own actions, but rather a lack of support from his community and school. (In his words: “I essentially don’t have a job. I’m supposed to be a teacher but we’ve only had 5 full days of school in the last 5 weeks.”) While this does not directly affect me, I feel really bad for him because he has already moved sites once and is so close to the end of his service that it would just be a huge bummer for him to have to go home at this point. It also is not helpful to the overall status of outer island volunteers…
4. …which is challenge number four of the day. I just found out that Peace Corps officials have some serious issues to discuss about the status of outer island volunteers. While this is again not the venue to discuss these issues, the long and the short of it is that we (the outer island Volunteers) need to essentially defend the Peace Corps Program operations in the outer islands. If Peace Corps determines that the issues cannot be ignored, there is the possibility that new volunteers will not be placed in the outer islands or, worst case scenario, we will have to change sites, which is not something that I want to do.
5. Now the worst one of all: my host dad’s brother, Opich, died this morning. As you might expect, the family is devastated. I had met Opich several times and he was a great guy and a vocal leader in his community. I will come in to Weno for the funeral to support the family and show my respects. Unfortunately, this is really not a good time for me to leave Satowan. I will miss the last 3 weeks of school, final exams, and will miss all of the final planning for the summer camp that will happen in June.
All of these are on top of the everyday challenges I face: teaching, fumbling my way through a language I am still not totally comfortable with, and generally living on an island the size of a couple of city blocks. But…challenges are just part of the job. The way I see it, the toughest challenges make for the best stories later. I’m certainly going to have a lot of stories…
Things that I found out/had to deal with on May 16, 2011:
1. I’m recovering from a lovely 101 degree fever, all-over body ache, and diarrhea. (The euphemistic Peace Cops term for diarrhea is “homesickness.” During the first week of our training, one of the volunteers spent almost the entire evening on his host family’s local toilet. When he finally came out, his host father took one look at him and said, “You’re probably just homesick.”) Weeks upon weeks of eating essentially nothing but canned meat, grease, and salt seems to have caught up with me, and although I feel considerably better than I did yesterday, I am by no means feeling 100 percent well. I am hoping for a quiet, physically and mentally undemanding day.
2. The Peace Corps Volunteer on a neighboring island enlists my help to do something about the state of the high school which services out two islands. This high school, as it turns out, is located on my island and while neither of us teach or work there, both of us know many of the teachers there on a personal basis.
This school is not doing well. This is not the venue to discuss the shortcomings of a school, particularly a school that I do not work at, but suffice it to say that there are some serious issues. Unfortunately, I really can’t write/explain much more about this situation in this public venue but let’s just say this is an issue that’s weighing on my mind and might require some action in the near future.
3. I have just found out that one of my very good friends, a Peace Corps Volunteer on another outer island here in the FSM, may have to be pulled out of his site and sent home. This has nothing to do with his own actions, but rather a lack of support from his community and school. (In his words: “I essentially don’t have a job. I’m supposed to be a teacher but we’ve only had 5 full days of school in the last 5 weeks.”) While this does not directly affect me, I feel really bad for him because he has already moved sites once and is so close to the end of his service that it would just be a huge bummer for him to have to go home at this point. It also is not helpful to the overall status of outer island volunteers…
4. …which is challenge number four of the day. I just found out that Peace Corps officials have some serious issues to discuss about the status of outer island volunteers. While this is again not the venue to discuss these issues, the long and the short of it is that we (the outer island Volunteers) need to essentially defend the Peace Corps Program operations in the outer islands. If Peace Corps determines that the issues cannot be ignored, there is the possibility that new volunteers will not be placed in the outer islands or, worst case scenario, we will have to change sites, which is not something that I want to do.
5. Now the worst one of all: my host dad’s brother, Opich, died this morning. As you might expect, the family is devastated. I had met Opich several times and he was a great guy and a vocal leader in his community. I will come in to Weno for the funeral to support the family and show my respects. Unfortunately, this is really not a good time for me to leave Satowan. I will miss the last 3 weeks of school, final exams, and will miss all of the final planning for the summer camp that will happen in June.
All of these are on top of the everyday challenges I face: teaching, fumbling my way through a language I am still not totally comfortable with, and generally living on an island the size of a couple of city blocks. But…challenges are just part of the job. The way I see it, the toughest challenges make for the best stories later. I’m certainly going to have a lot of stories…
April 15, 2011
Back Blogged
I’ve been dreading writing this blog post. It’s not that I don’t want to write it, it’s that I don’t know where to begin. For the past four months, I’ve been living a life that is, in a word, indescribable. From the food I eat to the things I do to the way I interact with people, every little thing is just totally different from anything I have ever experienced before. So rather than trying to give you an overview of my life here, I will give you a few little anecdotes that you can piece together for yourself and fill in the gaps in-between with whatever you like.
The Time I Swallowed a Spider (well, almost)—So it turns out that spiders like to hang out in dark, wet places. It also turns out that if you fill your water bottle half way and then forget to put the top on it, it becomes a perfect little dark, wet spot.
Picture this little hypothetical situation: You’re already having a bit of a crappy week. The damn chickens outside your window have been waking you up before 5 every morning and you’re taking antibiotic pills twice a day because you sliced your arm open on a piece of rebar earlier this week and it got all green and infected. After peacefully dreaming of dead chickens, you wake up, pop an antibiotic pill in your mouth and take a swig of water out of your water bottle. Unfortunately, there’s more than just water in your water bottle and before you know it, you are shocked to find an equally shocked spider in your mouth.
Pause. You are now faced with a challenge: spit out the spider but not the pill all the while trying not hose down your bedroom with water or wake your host family.
Well, this hypothetical situation was not so hypothetical for me, but you will be proud to know that I accomplished the feat I spitting out the spider but not the pill with expert aplomb. The spider, I’m afraid, did not survive the ordeal.
The Time a Giant Breadfruit Tree Fell and Came within Feet of Demolishing My School—Breadfruit trees are not big, they’re enormous. A good sized breadfruit tree can easily be 12 feet around and over a hundred feet tall. As you might imagine, when one of these trees starts looking a little ill, people get pretty worried that they are going to fall on someone or something. The trouble is that every tree belongs to someone, and a tree is a valuable commodity. If it’s big enough, it can be made into a canoe, and I not, it at least represents quite a bit of firewood. So, you can’t just chop down a tree whenever you feel like it, even if it’s about to fall on your house.
Well, there was a giant breadfruit tree right next to the school that was not looking too good. The principal was pretty worried that it was going to fall, so he decided he would start up a collection so that the school could buy the tree from the owner and then chop it down. But, before the principal had collected any money, there was a big storm and the tree fell down.
To say that our school came within feet of being demolished is an understatement. I don’t know if there’s a stronger word than demolished—razed, perhaps—but had that tree fallen at a slightly different angle, fully one half of our school would have been turned into dust. I don’t even want to think about how long it would take to get funds together and build a new school. Probably decades; centuries, probably. And had it happened during the school day, God knows how many students and teachers would have been killed. But, the tree missed the school and everyone was elated—now we don’t have to pay for it! Sometimes, I guess you just have to have some good old fashioned dumb luck
The Time a Random Girl Showed Up at My Window at Night and Asked Me to Let Her In—This one happened pretty much just like the title says. Random girl + my window + “Ben, let me in!” This is actually not as weird/creepy as it may seem. “Nightcrawling” is rather common here in Chuuk, although it is usually the guys who nightcawl the girls. Dating, as we know it in the states, is a big no-no, so young people just sneak into each other’s windows at night…to, you know, chat…and have Bible study.
And by the way, the answer to your question is no.
The Time I Met the President of FSM—I took a trip to the neighboring island of Lukinioch in February because there was a massive celebration there for the 100 year anniversary of the Catholic church in Chuuk. It was awesome to see a couple of the other volunteers and just have a little change of scenery for a weekend. The celebration was enormous—thousands of people came from all over Chuuk and Pohnpei and every island had prepared songs and dances to perform for everyone. Perhaps this is a good time to mention the incredible ability of chon FSM (people of FSM) to endure marathon meetings sitting cross-legged on cement. The meetings at this celebration easily went 5 hours, and there were two every day. I couldn’t take it, so I walked around the perimeter on the guise of trying to get a good look at each group when they were singing.
Anyways, after church on Sunday, I was hanging out on the lawn and who should happen to walk by? Many Mori, President of FSM. Perhaps “meet” isn’t exactly the right word, but he came over shook my hand and said hello. And then he was off. In terms of population ruled, meeting President Mori was about equivalent to meeting the mayor of Topeka, Kansas, but hey, still pretty cool to meet a head of state.
I'm heading back to the Mortlocks this afternoon. Right now I'm trying to psych myself up for the 22 hour ship ride on a tiny fishing vessel. At least there will be a couple other Peace Corps Volunteers on the ship with me, and it has to be better than the four days it took me to get in to Weno three weeks ago. But that's a story for another time.
One more time let me say how much I appreciate all the love and support. Thank you to everyone for sending the letters, packages and good vibes my way.
Catch you all in another 3 or 4 months,
Ben
The Time I Swallowed a Spider (well, almost)—So it turns out that spiders like to hang out in dark, wet places. It also turns out that if you fill your water bottle half way and then forget to put the top on it, it becomes a perfect little dark, wet spot.
Picture this little hypothetical situation: You’re already having a bit of a crappy week. The damn chickens outside your window have been waking you up before 5 every morning and you’re taking antibiotic pills twice a day because you sliced your arm open on a piece of rebar earlier this week and it got all green and infected. After peacefully dreaming of dead chickens, you wake up, pop an antibiotic pill in your mouth and take a swig of water out of your water bottle. Unfortunately, there’s more than just water in your water bottle and before you know it, you are shocked to find an equally shocked spider in your mouth.
Pause. You are now faced with a challenge: spit out the spider but not the pill all the while trying not hose down your bedroom with water or wake your host family.
Well, this hypothetical situation was not so hypothetical for me, but you will be proud to know that I accomplished the feat I spitting out the spider but not the pill with expert aplomb. The spider, I’m afraid, did not survive the ordeal.
The Time a Giant Breadfruit Tree Fell and Came within Feet of Demolishing My School—Breadfruit trees are not big, they’re enormous. A good sized breadfruit tree can easily be 12 feet around and over a hundred feet tall. As you might imagine, when one of these trees starts looking a little ill, people get pretty worried that they are going to fall on someone or something. The trouble is that every tree belongs to someone, and a tree is a valuable commodity. If it’s big enough, it can be made into a canoe, and I not, it at least represents quite a bit of firewood. So, you can’t just chop down a tree whenever you feel like it, even if it’s about to fall on your house.
Well, there was a giant breadfruit tree right next to the school that was not looking too good. The principal was pretty worried that it was going to fall, so he decided he would start up a collection so that the school could buy the tree from the owner and then chop it down. But, before the principal had collected any money, there was a big storm and the tree fell down.
To say that our school came within feet of being demolished is an understatement. I don’t know if there’s a stronger word than demolished—razed, perhaps—but had that tree fallen at a slightly different angle, fully one half of our school would have been turned into dust. I don’t even want to think about how long it would take to get funds together and build a new school. Probably decades; centuries, probably. And had it happened during the school day, God knows how many students and teachers would have been killed. But, the tree missed the school and everyone was elated—now we don’t have to pay for it! Sometimes, I guess you just have to have some good old fashioned dumb luck
The Time a Random Girl Showed Up at My Window at Night and Asked Me to Let Her In—This one happened pretty much just like the title says. Random girl + my window + “Ben, let me in!” This is actually not as weird/creepy as it may seem. “Nightcrawling” is rather common here in Chuuk, although it is usually the guys who nightcawl the girls. Dating, as we know it in the states, is a big no-no, so young people just sneak into each other’s windows at night…to, you know, chat…and have Bible study.
And by the way, the answer to your question is no.
The Time I Met the President of FSM—I took a trip to the neighboring island of Lukinioch in February because there was a massive celebration there for the 100 year anniversary of the Catholic church in Chuuk. It was awesome to see a couple of the other volunteers and just have a little change of scenery for a weekend. The celebration was enormous—thousands of people came from all over Chuuk and Pohnpei and every island had prepared songs and dances to perform for everyone. Perhaps this is a good time to mention the incredible ability of chon FSM (people of FSM) to endure marathon meetings sitting cross-legged on cement. The meetings at this celebration easily went 5 hours, and there were two every day. I couldn’t take it, so I walked around the perimeter on the guise of trying to get a good look at each group when they were singing.
Anyways, after church on Sunday, I was hanging out on the lawn and who should happen to walk by? Many Mori, President of FSM. Perhaps “meet” isn’t exactly the right word, but he came over shook my hand and said hello. And then he was off. In terms of population ruled, meeting President Mori was about equivalent to meeting the mayor of Topeka, Kansas, but hey, still pretty cool to meet a head of state.
I'm heading back to the Mortlocks this afternoon. Right now I'm trying to psych myself up for the 22 hour ship ride on a tiny fishing vessel. At least there will be a couple other Peace Corps Volunteers on the ship with me, and it has to be better than the four days it took me to get in to Weno three weeks ago. But that's a story for another time.
One more time let me say how much I appreciate all the love and support. Thank you to everyone for sending the letters, packages and good vibes my way.
Catch you all in another 3 or 4 months,
Ben
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