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
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