Dentists!

Sorry I didn't have a chance to update every day this week like I said.  But honestly, I have a good excuse this time.  I've been working with a dental project here for the past week.  You can check out what we've been doing at the website:

http://mdsp.unitedcp.org/

It's been a really cool project to work on.  I'll try to post some more details about it later.

Aramasei (my people)

The people that I interact with on a regular basis:



Arno hanging out at Turek



Arno: Arno is my host dad. He’s about 35, short and a bit pudgy with an everpresent beaming smile on his face. He loves to joke around and mess with people in a fun way. He is a delight to be around and is one of the most genuinely kind people I have ever met.

  

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Arno at Field Day



 





Merlin: Merlin is Arno’s wife and my host mom. She is the woman of the house and has a hilarious wry and sarcastic sense of humor. Things around Turek (that’s the name of my compound) would come to a standstill without her.

Arno, me, and Merlin

Morphy: Morphy is Merlin’s brother which technically makes him a host uncle to me, but I consider him my host brother. He is fairly reserved with a has a boyish face, but he does all of the hard work around Turek. He picks and pounds breadfruit, feeds the pigs, chops wood, fixes things, and pretty much does whatever needs to be done. Mortphy and I spend a lot of time together playing chess, playing guitar, and just hanging out.

Morphy

 

  

Carlos and his friends





Carlos: Carlos is a neighbor and probably my best friend on the island. We have made a fish trap together, go fishing periodically, and go for walks together. I go over to Carlos’ house pretty regularly and just sit and drink a coconut with him and chat for hours at a time.
  

Alcher (the village chief) and Carlos

 



Bob: Bob is the principal of Satowan Elementary School and my boss. He has big glasses and the most incredible white mutton chops I have ever seen. He is a hard worker who truly wants to improve the school and has been very easy to work with.

Bob and his chops

There are definitely other people who I spend a lot of time with, but these are probably the people who have had the biggest impact on my experience on Satowan.

Back at it!

A recent message I received on Facebook from my good friend Amy (GBS refers to my group of friends from college):

Dear Mr. Benjamin Perdue,

This is an official warning. Your blog, Ben's Micronesian Adventure, has been in a state of neglect some nine months. According to our records, the last post to this account occurred on the twenty seventh of December two thousand eleven at 18:44. This delinquent behavior is unacceptable. Please rectify this situation immediately. If the abhorrent condition of your blog has not been improved by the first of July two thousand and twelve, a fine shall be levied. This fine may include, but is not limited to, 100 hours of community service (specifically to the GBS community), 14 games of settlers (must endure constant harassment of fellow GBS members), performance in a back row two thousand ten reunion private concert (for official GBS members only), or the cost of 12 roundtrip flights from Denver, CO to Micronesia (for GBS members, because your blog has obviously become an unreliable source of information about your travels and therefore we must come directly to the source).

Your compliance is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Amy Howard
Unofficial Spokeswoman for the GBS Club.

Well said, Amy.  Although your dates are a little off—I haven’t posted anything since September, 2011.  I must admit that I have been seriously ignoring this blog.  The reasons for this are numerous and mostly stupid, but I will try to rectify that situation now.

My last post was about last summer’s adventures.  Considering a full year has past since then, I won’t attempt to talk about everything that has happened since then.  Instead I will (attempt) to write a post a day for the next week or so about various aspects of island life that have been conspicuously absent from this blog.

Today’s topic: basketball.

The two major sports that people play on the island are basketball and volleyball.  Generally, guys play basketball and girls play volleyball, but there is some crossover.  Satowan is fortunate to have two multipurpose courts for both basketball and volleyball—one at the elementary school and one at the high school.

I have gotten pretty involved in the basketball scene on Satowan.  There is a standing pick-up game from about 3:30 to 5:30 every afternoon at the elementary school court and anywhere from 10 to 40 guys show up.  If we have lot of people, we play 5-on-5 full court, but if we only have a few then we play 4-on-4 half court.  Full court games are played to 5, half court games are played to 7.  While there are probably no future NBA stars on Satowan, some of the guys are pretty good.  There is some influence of “street ball” culture of black America present, but for the most part they play pretty fundamental ball.

I haven’t played basketball since my Freshman year of high school, but after 2 years of playing on the island, I have actually gotten halfway decent.  Every time I play, I am easily the tallest guy on the court.  I am without question the all-time leader in blocked shots, and I always play center.  Unfortunately, this means that I have to defend Rodney.  Rodney is like Shaq.  He’s probably 6’1” and at least 250 pounds and just posts up under the hoop and throws up layups that are impossible to stop.  It’s immensely frustrating to play against him, and I usually just throw in the towel after a few games if he’s playing.

Although I was never that into basketball back in the states, it has become an incredibly important aspect of my life and an immense solace to me here.  I have become part of the basketball community on Satowan—the guys expect me to come every day and notice when I don’t show up.  More importantly, when I am on the court, I am just another guy on the island.  Nobody treats me any different (better or worse) because of the fact that I am a white American.  I can just play the game, hang out with the guys, and feel comfortable in my community.

For a few weeks a few months ago, I stopped playing basketball.  I had gotten kind of sick and was distracted with school work and planning for the upcoming summer camp, so I just sort of stopped going.  During this time, I also noticed that I was becoming irritable and in a bit of a funk that I couldn’t seem to snap out of.  I was feeling less connected to my community and more isolated.  While I didn’t see it at the time, it is abundantly clear to me now that this semi-depression was directly related to the fact that I wasn’t playing basketball any more.  As soon as I started going back to the daily pick-up games, I started feeling better, physically and emotionally.  My first day back, my friends asked where I had been, but in a matter of minutes we were back to our old ways of joking around, hanging out, and playing just like nothing had changed.

I never would have guessed that a simple daily game of basketball could have such a huge impact on my personal wellbeing.