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.