I paint Palau in watercolor,
bluegreengoldenred melting, seeping into one another,
intertwining into new and rare patterns
of perfect
red of the dirt
(Martian-moonscape, howling, lonely Canyonlands-mesatop dirt)
runs red in the rain,
our hillside bleeding down down down into the sea
gold is for sunshine,
those glistening moments of good
as giggles ring through the schoolyard
as we jump jump and do the splits, splits, over the bridge and—
we collapse into laughter, cannot finish,
fall and laugh and start again,
as the golden rays kiss our faces,
floating down out of that cloudless, endless, Robin’s-egg-Dear-Prudence sky
I admire it from my mesa top,
stretch up up with all my might
as though maybe, just maybe, if I reach just far enough I can grab that perfect blue and hold it in my hand, for keeps.
around me, the sky darkens to a deep, majestic shade as it stretches (like me!)
out over the serene azure sea—
and I’m quickly running out of words, of language
for all the shades of beautiful before me.
and green! there’s another—
somehow kelly, hunter, lime—
the old standbys pale inadequately when faced with the momentous task of embodying a landscape of Serengeti trees and Japanese mist and and George of the Jungle vines and Dr. Seuss mountains
(you know the kind, almost friendly-looking, with a single tree growing out of the top at an almost comically sideways angle, to the point where, looking at it—every time!—you wonder, with a mix of jealousy and wonder, how the hell it can balance there like that anyway?)
yet we can’t forget the most brilliant watercolor of all,
the pinkorangeredpurple fireworks of sunset,
as the dying sun lights the sky and sea on a fire,
a grandiose last gesture on its (nightly) road to dusty death.
at first, the whole canvas is ablaze—
(our kelly-lime-hunter vegetation reduced to black silhouettes in its shadow)
yet then the picture changes—form, color, tone—by the second,
until slowly, slowly the sun dies away,
leaving only a few slow-burning embers in remote corners
as a remembrance to itself,
and then—
nothing.
we are left wrapped in the black velvet sky
and the promise of tomorrow’s masterpiece.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Soundtrack to my vaction: Side B (Thailand)
Soundtrack To My Vacation—B side (Thailand)
You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello...The Beatles
As with Bali, we hit Bangkok late and without plans. (Obviously, based on our utter inability to LEARN BY EXPERIENCE, we deserved whatever we might get.) Bookless—we'd elected to buy a cheap Lonely Planet off of the street upon arrival—we knew our best bet would be to head down to Khao San Road and try our luck checking into somewhere:
a) cheap
(but)
b) not a “den of iniquity,” as the tactful and euphemistic might put it.
We had, I suppose, learned something in Bali: we did elect, on this “wonderfully spontaneous” occasion, to station our friend G at a Swenson's (yes, they have Swenson's in Thailand!) with all of our bags. Meanwhile, J and I bravely, wearily ventured forth to price-compare hostels in the area. (It's around midnight by this time, btw.) After visiting several “contendahs”--one, swear I'm not making this up, called the Cha-Cha (see? I wasn't kidding with my lodging criteria above)--J and I returned to Swenson's.
We've collected prices and business cards. A little clean (though slightly strange-seeming kind of) place called the Hello Guesthouse is cheapest. Sweet. Decision made. We gather our stuff, wheel slowly over, and crash for the night (well, morning at this point). Look out, Bangkok! (In about ten hours!)
Now, our friend A—the recipient of the fateful phone call on Chuuk, if you remember—is, coincidentally, also going to be in Thailand and wants to meet up.
“No problem!” we had said. “There's Internet everywhere—it'll be a cinch to work out!”
So, that later morning, before we head out for the day, we email A to let him know where we're staying, what we're doing for the day, etc. Surely he'll be able to find us based on that.
We fill our first day to the brim and then some. We start out by trying to visit The Tourist Attraction: the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Though the palace ends up being closed for a national holiday, we do learn a few key pointers on Thai dress and custom. Now, as it is about 3000 degrees outside, and we're on vacation (e.g. off-of-perma-t-shirt&knee-length skirt duty), G's wearing shorts and a tank top, I shorts and my (new-found $5) Little Miss Naughty t-shirt. We do, however, know temple rules; we've brought sarongs to cover our offensive legs.
But, before we get a chance to show off our remarkable amount of cultural sensitivity, a temple employee before us snaps, “No tank tops in the temple!” Then, looking around at the slowly-collecting crowd of hopelessly dressed foreigners, she picks up her megaphone in order to tell us, loudly: “no sexy in the temple.” Evidently she likes her own phrasing, for she then repeats to the crowd at large, with added vehemence: “NO SEXY IN THE TEMPLE!!”
The day flies by as we flit from wat to wat, then finally from tourist office to home. When we get in, the desk informs us: “there was a man call for you. Nine o' clock.”
Hooray! A had gotten our message. We sought further information. “He called? He's coming by? Wait, nine o' clock this morning? Tonight? Tomorrow morning?”
Our only answer were puzzled expressions, shrugs. Without any phone number at which to reach our compatriot, we did the only sensible thing to do in the situation: go up to our room, eat ice cream, and wait...and wait...and wait. Finally, when around 9:30/9:45, we still had heard nothing, J called down to the desk.
“Hello Guesthouse,” they answered.
“Can you tell us,” J asked, “has our friend called?”
“Do you need a room?” they offerred.
“I'm IN one of your rooms,” a frustrated J cried.
Her questioning revealed that the desk had (well, we were pretty sure) received no calls or visitors for us. So, after a bit more waiting, J went down to the desk. They greeted her excitedly: “Your friend called!”
“Really? When?”
“A girl this time.”
A girl? Huh? We didn't have any girl friends in Bangkok. We scratched our heads about this for awhile. Then we got it: J was the “girl friend” of ours who had called for us. Good times.
As we would later learn, our friend A came by the following morning to find us checked out and gone, the only souvenir of our visit my photocopied ID at the desk.
With that, it was Goodbye Hello, Hello Chiang Mai!
When You're In Prison...The Offspring
Boy had we gotten a deal! (Or so the smiling man at the “official” Tourist Authority office had told us as we—quite unsmilingly—bought our tickets the prior night.) A two-day trek, two nights of lodging, mucho food, and a FREE BUS RIDE TO CHIANG MAI, all for a modest...[you get the idea].
Hello Chiang Mai!, the side of our bus cheerily proclaimed. I think after our ride, however, if anyone had greeted us after such a fashion, we would have punched them in the face. Hard.
You see, we had been assured that we would be traveling north in the lap of luxury—“not a bus, really...more like a hotel on wheels!” The seats were to recline to a near-sleeping angle, there was to be air-con, lively, interesting fellow travellers, and entertainment! [Care for a translation?]
Reclining seats! “Well golly gee! My seat reclines to a
luxurious 92-degree angle!!"
Air-con! Haven't been this cold since, oh, a real winter
Worldly and interesting travel Noisy, drunken British kids (who nearly miss the
companions! bus when we stop midway for dinner because they
are so oblivious), who enjoy nothing better than
lounging with their smelly socks on my armrest!
Entertainment! They're showing a DVD of a movie called THE
CONDEMNED. At least they've got a healthy sense
of irony.
I believe in miracles. Know why? Directly following this delightful jaunt, we got off the bus, and I asked J: “how did you sleep?” She answers something along the lines of “awful. And you?” “I slept great!” I reply. I AM STILL ALIVE AFTER THIS CONVERSATION. Case closed.
Every Little Thing's Gonna Be All Right...Bob Marley
After I fortuitously survived the above exchange, the tour people pack us off to the hostel we're staying at in Chiang Mai for the evening—Nice Place (gotta love the names!). We shuffle in with the other turistas and sit along the side of the lobby, sipping complimentary coffee and awaiting further instruction. We watch with a combination of amusement and horror as some of our fellow travelers put away beer alongside their morning coffee. Um, excuse me, I wanted so badly to ask, did you just get off of the same bus I did? Or did you just step out of some kind of parallel universe?
Well anyway, I'm sitting there in wonderment when I see a strange sight out of the corner of my eye. Could that familiar-looking white boy be...
“A!!!” I yell, putting aside my coffee and running over to give him a hug. “We found you!!”
“You found me?” he laughs. “I've been chasing you bastards all over Thailand!”
When we inform him that we're signed up for this all-inclusive trek, A's displeasure is evident (e.g. “you guys got yourself suckered into this and so now I have to come along?”). He's a good sport, though, and signs up to come explore with us the following day.
The next morning (post-bucket—the bucket is highly essential if you visit Thailand) dawns far too early. We're tired, headachey, wondering what exactly we've gotten ourselves into. (If this translates from spiel to reality anything like the bus did, I'm pretty certain that fewer people will come out of the mountains than went in, if you know what I mean.)
However, I think it was somewhere between our guide Pon singing Bob Marley with us in the truck, riding an elephant, and he and I turning our hats sideways gangstah-style that I knew the trip would be epic. Words can't describe accurately what was truly the greatest travel experience of my life, so a few moments/images will have to do...
being pounded by clear rushing water in the sunshine
laughing down a mud hill in the rain
rounding a bend in the road into a village out of another world,
wreathed in cloud like a holy place
and green curry and laughing and singing and Elephant beer and Pink Floyd—and no one can sing
along, but it doesn't even matter—and lying in a pile like warm puppies against the cold
and the dark
waking up fresh and bright
can't leave, but must,
our green-gold wonderland of goodness
and down down we go, singing all the way
on the truck, the wind whips our faces as we travel through time and space out of magic,
back to real
Singing don't worry,
about a thing,
'cuz every little thing's
gonna be all right, child...
Crazy Train...Ozzy Osbourne
We rolled out of our trekking world and back into real life on a tight schedule: we had to make the 5 p.m. night train back to Bangkok. Theoretically, this train would put us back in town at 7:30, and we would then hustle to catch our 8:30 bus down to Ko Chang. Perfect. This would give us two nights and a day on a gorgeous little island before heading back to Bangkok to spend one day sightseeing with A and a last day sightseeing on our own. Come Saturday, we'd catch the plane back for the long haul aaaalllll the way back to Kosrae. (Sorry, I know this seems boring, but it's relevant.)
Well, those of you who have traveled with me are probably quite familiar with the Megan Dichotomy: chill most of the time, insanely high-strung when it comes to making planes and trains and buses and things. We actually arrived at the train station quite early, so we stocked up on provisions (read: street food), hung out with A, and just generally chilled. Suddenly we realize: hey, whoa! Our train is leaving in about four minutes!
We accordingly start walking along the train. What we don't know is that we are in practically the LAST CAR. We're walking, the train has started making its starting up noises, we're in 5 and we're walking by 10 for crying out loud! We pick up the pace—this is it! No wait, dining car. Then we hear that awful sound—air brakes being released. We're going to miss the train and we weren't even late!!
J for some reason has gone at some point to the other side of the train to walk, we don't even know if she's abreast of us or not, I reach car 5, practically throw myself up the stairs, and then there's J and there's G and we've made it. I'm so worked up that I'm screaming profanity as we bust in the door. It must have taken me a good fifteen seconds before I look around, take in my surroundings. Holy shit. We're in a train car. We made our train, and now we are surrounded by a bunch of quiet, subdued, sophisticated travellers who are staring at me in shock whilst covering their children's ears in order to prevent the introduction of some decidely spicey new vocabulary words. I AM the walking stereotype of the asshole American. Awesome.
I shut up. The people in the booth to the left are giving me looks of horror. I silently skitter down the car to our compartment, shame-faced. (The train just started going.) However, J informs me that the people giving me the horrific looks were only kidding—they're Europeans. This makes me feel better.
We eat our food and begin to soak in the ambience of the train. (I think I like Goodbye Chiang Mai much better than the Hello version.) Our train attendant comes by and, though we hadn't planned to order additional (expensive) food, he's just so charming we can't help ourselves.
When our fabulous waiter returns with our food, he asks us what we'd like for breakfast in the morning. “We'll be getting in at 9:30. Would you like your eggs scrambled or fried?”
The problem? We can't get past his first sentence. “Whoa! What?? We're getting in at 9:30?? We have a bus to catch at 8:30. Are you sure about that time??”
He just repeats the scrambled/fried query, confused as to why we are freaking out.
“We don't want any eggs! Are you sure we're delayed two hours?”
Yes, we are in fact two hours delayed. Only now do we decide to refer to our newly-purchased guidebook. “Trains,” it informs us, “are a somewhat unreliable form of transit as they are frequently delayed.” Awesome. Our whole plan is fucked.
I'm crying on our tray table, G and J are flipping through travel books searching for a remedy to our problem, our non-refundable bus ticket problem. Around this time, the staff decides to come around and fold out beds. Sleepy time, everyone. Joy.
I broke my watch in LA en route to Peace Corps. I tried once to replace it, but that watch died by rain on Kosrae. Taking this to be Fate speaking to me through electronics, I never replaced it. So, on the train, my alarm clock and my iPod were my only guides as to time. I slept fitfully, waking up several times in the middle of the night. Upon one of the waking occasions, I discovered that my alarm clock had stopped. (This happens periodically when the battery slips out of place.) I reset it according to my infallible little iPod. (Thank you, Steve Jobs.) Alarm set for 6:15. This way, we could wake up early enough that, in case of an on-time Bangkok arrival—a possibility, we had been told—we would be ready to zip off and catch our bus and save our trip.
I awake to my alarm. No one else is moving about the cabin, but I'm sure they are just lazy, ill-planners. I run over to J and G's beds and wake them up. “Get ready, guys! I'm going to go find out when we're getting in.”
Five minutes later, G is cursing at me. “Megan, it's 5:15!” She brandishes her cell phone.
“Haha, whoops!” I say. Turns out the iPod doesn't know its time zones so well as it thinks it does. “Sorry.”
We all go back to bed.
By some sort of miracle, we end up rolling in to the Bangkok train station at 8:15. (Late, but still possible to make our bus.) As soon as we're there, I go into full-on NYC mode—weaving through the crowd on the platform, not looking back, prepared to bowl over the young the weak and the elderly, if need be. We are MAKING THAT BUS, GODDAMMIT!
I hurry over to the taxi stand. We get the first taxi, ants around in the car, jump out in traffic at Khao San (where we are to pick up the bus). We run over to the tourist office and find...all the other tourists are still there! We're saved.
We wheel through traffic to the bus stop (well, bus median, really). And wait. Ten minutes later, the bus rolls up. (We thought we were late—ha.) Then we sit for a good fifteen minutes at the stop, wind around town, and (around 9:30) make a stop at the train station before peacing out of Bangkok for Ko Chang. Told you this country had a healthy sense of irony.
You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello...The Beatles
As with Bali, we hit Bangkok late and without plans. (Obviously, based on our utter inability to LEARN BY EXPERIENCE, we deserved whatever we might get.) Bookless—we'd elected to buy a cheap Lonely Planet off of the street upon arrival—we knew our best bet would be to head down to Khao San Road and try our luck checking into somewhere:
a) cheap
(but)
b) not a “den of iniquity,” as the tactful and euphemistic might put it.
We had, I suppose, learned something in Bali: we did elect, on this “wonderfully spontaneous” occasion, to station our friend G at a Swenson's (yes, they have Swenson's in Thailand!) with all of our bags. Meanwhile, J and I bravely, wearily ventured forth to price-compare hostels in the area. (It's around midnight by this time, btw.) After visiting several “contendahs”--one, swear I'm not making this up, called the Cha-Cha (see? I wasn't kidding with my lodging criteria above)--J and I returned to Swenson's.
We've collected prices and business cards. A little clean (though slightly strange-seeming kind of) place called the Hello Guesthouse is cheapest. Sweet. Decision made. We gather our stuff, wheel slowly over, and crash for the night (well, morning at this point). Look out, Bangkok! (In about ten hours!)
Now, our friend A—the recipient of the fateful phone call on Chuuk, if you remember—is, coincidentally, also going to be in Thailand and wants to meet up.
“No problem!” we had said. “There's Internet everywhere—it'll be a cinch to work out!”
So, that later morning, before we head out for the day, we email A to let him know where we're staying, what we're doing for the day, etc. Surely he'll be able to find us based on that.
We fill our first day to the brim and then some. We start out by trying to visit The Tourist Attraction: the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Though the palace ends up being closed for a national holiday, we do learn a few key pointers on Thai dress and custom. Now, as it is about 3000 degrees outside, and we're on vacation (e.g. off-of-perma-t-shirt&knee-length skirt duty), G's wearing shorts and a tank top, I shorts and my (new-found $5) Little Miss Naughty t-shirt. We do, however, know temple rules; we've brought sarongs to cover our offensive legs.
But, before we get a chance to show off our remarkable amount of cultural sensitivity, a temple employee before us snaps, “No tank tops in the temple!” Then, looking around at the slowly-collecting crowd of hopelessly dressed foreigners, she picks up her megaphone in order to tell us, loudly: “no sexy in the temple.” Evidently she likes her own phrasing, for she then repeats to the crowd at large, with added vehemence: “NO SEXY IN THE TEMPLE!!”
The day flies by as we flit from wat to wat, then finally from tourist office to home. When we get in, the desk informs us: “there was a man call for you. Nine o' clock.”
Hooray! A had gotten our message. We sought further information. “He called? He's coming by? Wait, nine o' clock this morning? Tonight? Tomorrow morning?”
Our only answer were puzzled expressions, shrugs. Without any phone number at which to reach our compatriot, we did the only sensible thing to do in the situation: go up to our room, eat ice cream, and wait...and wait...and wait. Finally, when around 9:30/9:45, we still had heard nothing, J called down to the desk.
“Hello Guesthouse,” they answered.
“Can you tell us,” J asked, “has our friend called?”
“Do you need a room?” they offerred.
“I'm IN one of your rooms,” a frustrated J cried.
Her questioning revealed that the desk had (well, we were pretty sure) received no calls or visitors for us. So, after a bit more waiting, J went down to the desk. They greeted her excitedly: “Your friend called!”
“Really? When?”
“A girl this time.”
A girl? Huh? We didn't have any girl friends in Bangkok. We scratched our heads about this for awhile. Then we got it: J was the “girl friend” of ours who had called for us. Good times.
As we would later learn, our friend A came by the following morning to find us checked out and gone, the only souvenir of our visit my photocopied ID at the desk.
With that, it was Goodbye Hello, Hello Chiang Mai!
When You're In Prison...The Offspring
Boy had we gotten a deal! (Or so the smiling man at the “official” Tourist Authority office had told us as we—quite unsmilingly—bought our tickets the prior night.) A two-day trek, two nights of lodging, mucho food, and a FREE BUS RIDE TO CHIANG MAI, all for a modest...[you get the idea].
Hello Chiang Mai!, the side of our bus cheerily proclaimed. I think after our ride, however, if anyone had greeted us after such a fashion, we would have punched them in the face. Hard.
You see, we had been assured that we would be traveling north in the lap of luxury—“not a bus, really...more like a hotel on wheels!” The seats were to recline to a near-sleeping angle, there was to be air-con, lively, interesting fellow travellers, and entertainment! [Care for a translation?]
Reclining seats! “Well golly gee! My seat reclines to a
luxurious 92-degree angle!!"
Air-con! Haven't been this cold since, oh, a real winter
Worldly and interesting travel Noisy, drunken British kids (who nearly miss the
companions! bus when we stop midway for dinner because they
are so oblivious), who enjoy nothing better than
lounging with their smelly socks on my armrest!
Entertainment! They're showing a DVD of a movie called THE
CONDEMNED. At least they've got a healthy sense
of irony.
I believe in miracles. Know why? Directly following this delightful jaunt, we got off the bus, and I asked J: “how did you sleep?” She answers something along the lines of “awful. And you?” “I slept great!” I reply. I AM STILL ALIVE AFTER THIS CONVERSATION. Case closed.
Every Little Thing's Gonna Be All Right...Bob Marley
After I fortuitously survived the above exchange, the tour people pack us off to the hostel we're staying at in Chiang Mai for the evening—Nice Place (gotta love the names!). We shuffle in with the other turistas and sit along the side of the lobby, sipping complimentary coffee and awaiting further instruction. We watch with a combination of amusement and horror as some of our fellow travelers put away beer alongside their morning coffee. Um, excuse me, I wanted so badly to ask, did you just get off of the same bus I did? Or did you just step out of some kind of parallel universe?
Well anyway, I'm sitting there in wonderment when I see a strange sight out of the corner of my eye. Could that familiar-looking white boy be...
“A!!!” I yell, putting aside my coffee and running over to give him a hug. “We found you!!”
“You found me?” he laughs. “I've been chasing you bastards all over Thailand!”
When we inform him that we're signed up for this all-inclusive trek, A's displeasure is evident (e.g. “you guys got yourself suckered into this and so now I have to come along?”). He's a good sport, though, and signs up to come explore with us the following day.
The next morning (post-bucket—the bucket is highly essential if you visit Thailand) dawns far too early. We're tired, headachey, wondering what exactly we've gotten ourselves into. (If this translates from spiel to reality anything like the bus did, I'm pretty certain that fewer people will come out of the mountains than went in, if you know what I mean.)
However, I think it was somewhere between our guide Pon singing Bob Marley with us in the truck, riding an elephant, and he and I turning our hats sideways gangstah-style that I knew the trip would be epic. Words can't describe accurately what was truly the greatest travel experience of my life, so a few moments/images will have to do...
being pounded by clear rushing water in the sunshine
laughing down a mud hill in the rain
rounding a bend in the road into a village out of another world,
wreathed in cloud like a holy place
and green curry and laughing and singing and Elephant beer and Pink Floyd—and no one can sing
along, but it doesn't even matter—and lying in a pile like warm puppies against the cold
and the dark
waking up fresh and bright
can't leave, but must,
our green-gold wonderland of goodness
and down down we go, singing all the way
on the truck, the wind whips our faces as we travel through time and space out of magic,
back to real
Singing don't worry,
about a thing,
'cuz every little thing's
gonna be all right, child...
Crazy Train...Ozzy Osbourne
We rolled out of our trekking world and back into real life on a tight schedule: we had to make the 5 p.m. night train back to Bangkok. Theoretically, this train would put us back in town at 7:30, and we would then hustle to catch our 8:30 bus down to Ko Chang. Perfect. This would give us two nights and a day on a gorgeous little island before heading back to Bangkok to spend one day sightseeing with A and a last day sightseeing on our own. Come Saturday, we'd catch the plane back for the long haul aaaalllll the way back to Kosrae. (Sorry, I know this seems boring, but it's relevant.)
Well, those of you who have traveled with me are probably quite familiar with the Megan Dichotomy: chill most of the time, insanely high-strung when it comes to making planes and trains and buses and things. We actually arrived at the train station quite early, so we stocked up on provisions (read: street food), hung out with A, and just generally chilled. Suddenly we realize: hey, whoa! Our train is leaving in about four minutes!
We accordingly start walking along the train. What we don't know is that we are in practically the LAST CAR. We're walking, the train has started making its starting up noises, we're in 5 and we're walking by 10 for crying out loud! We pick up the pace—this is it! No wait, dining car. Then we hear that awful sound—air brakes being released. We're going to miss the train and we weren't even late!!
J for some reason has gone at some point to the other side of the train to walk, we don't even know if she's abreast of us or not, I reach car 5, practically throw myself up the stairs, and then there's J and there's G and we've made it. I'm so worked up that I'm screaming profanity as we bust in the door. It must have taken me a good fifteen seconds before I look around, take in my surroundings. Holy shit. We're in a train car. We made our train, and now we are surrounded by a bunch of quiet, subdued, sophisticated travellers who are staring at me in shock whilst covering their children's ears in order to prevent the introduction of some decidely spicey new vocabulary words. I AM the walking stereotype of the asshole American. Awesome.
I shut up. The people in the booth to the left are giving me looks of horror. I silently skitter down the car to our compartment, shame-faced. (The train just started going.) However, J informs me that the people giving me the horrific looks were only kidding—they're Europeans. This makes me feel better.
We eat our food and begin to soak in the ambience of the train. (I think I like Goodbye Chiang Mai much better than the Hello version.) Our train attendant comes by and, though we hadn't planned to order additional (expensive) food, he's just so charming we can't help ourselves.
When our fabulous waiter returns with our food, he asks us what we'd like for breakfast in the morning. “We'll be getting in at 9:30. Would you like your eggs scrambled or fried?”
The problem? We can't get past his first sentence. “Whoa! What?? We're getting in at 9:30?? We have a bus to catch at 8:30. Are you sure about that time??”
He just repeats the scrambled/fried query, confused as to why we are freaking out.
“We don't want any eggs! Are you sure we're delayed two hours?”
Yes, we are in fact two hours delayed. Only now do we decide to refer to our newly-purchased guidebook. “Trains,” it informs us, “are a somewhat unreliable form of transit as they are frequently delayed.” Awesome. Our whole plan is fucked.
I'm crying on our tray table, G and J are flipping through travel books searching for a remedy to our problem, our non-refundable bus ticket problem. Around this time, the staff decides to come around and fold out beds. Sleepy time, everyone. Joy.
I broke my watch in LA en route to Peace Corps. I tried once to replace it, but that watch died by rain on Kosrae. Taking this to be Fate speaking to me through electronics, I never replaced it. So, on the train, my alarm clock and my iPod were my only guides as to time. I slept fitfully, waking up several times in the middle of the night. Upon one of the waking occasions, I discovered that my alarm clock had stopped. (This happens periodically when the battery slips out of place.) I reset it according to my infallible little iPod. (Thank you, Steve Jobs.) Alarm set for 6:15. This way, we could wake up early enough that, in case of an on-time Bangkok arrival—a possibility, we had been told—we would be ready to zip off and catch our bus and save our trip.
I awake to my alarm. No one else is moving about the cabin, but I'm sure they are just lazy, ill-planners. I run over to J and G's beds and wake them up. “Get ready, guys! I'm going to go find out when we're getting in.”
Five minutes later, G is cursing at me. “Megan, it's 5:15!” She brandishes her cell phone.
“Haha, whoops!” I say. Turns out the iPod doesn't know its time zones so well as it thinks it does. “Sorry.”
We all go back to bed.
By some sort of miracle, we end up rolling in to the Bangkok train station at 8:15. (Late, but still possible to make our bus.) As soon as we're there, I go into full-on NYC mode—weaving through the crowd on the platform, not looking back, prepared to bowl over the young the weak and the elderly, if need be. We are MAKING THAT BUS, GODDAMMIT!
I hurry over to the taxi stand. We get the first taxi, ants around in the car, jump out in traffic at Khao San (where we are to pick up the bus). We run over to the tourist office and find...all the other tourists are still there! We're saved.
We wheel through traffic to the bus stop (well, bus median, really). And wait. Ten minutes later, the bus rolls up. (We thought we were late—ha.) Then we sit for a good fifteen minutes at the stop, wind around town, and (around 9:30) make a stop at the train station before peacing out of Bangkok for Ko Chang. Told you this country had a healthy sense of irony.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
And now for something completely different...
Friends, Amerrricans, countryfolk,
Lend me your eyes (ears seems inappropriate, in the context). If you haven't already read via email, Peace Corps transferred me to Palau last week. (Tomorrow will mark my one-week anniversary on the island.)
I'm excited to be on a new island (in fact, in a new country!), and I look forward to whatever the next year and change may bring.
If you'd like to write me here, my new address is:
Megan McCrea, PCV
c/o Peace Corps Palau
P.O. Box 158
Koror, Palau 96940
~Megan
Lend me your eyes (ears seems inappropriate, in the context). If you haven't already read via email, Peace Corps transferred me to Palau last week. (Tomorrow will mark my one-week anniversary on the island.)
I'm excited to be on a new island (in fact, in a new country!), and I look forward to whatever the next year and change may bring.
If you'd like to write me here, my new address is:
Megan McCrea, PCV
c/o Peace Corps Palau
P.O. Box 158
Koror, Palau 96940
~Megan
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Sountrack to my vacation.
I'm sure that you have all been drooling all over your keyboards in anticipation of what illustrious thoughts/transcendent moments/interesting feelings I would share with you, my literary public, regarding my equal parts lengthy/awesome vacation. Well wait no more! I hereby present:
The Spectacular, Spectular Sonic Accompaniment to My Vacation
[Please note, not all of these songs were listened to by said author during her travels. They have been chosen merely to invoke the mood of various locations, events--albeit an incomplete and possibly unrepresentative cluster--of her trip. Enjoy.]
Stuck in the Middle With You...Bob Dylan
I was, literally, packing my bags to leave Chuuk when a hotel employee knocked urgently on our door.
"Phone call for Peace Corps."
Certain that one of our fellow PCVs was eager to get into contact with either A or C about "social events" for the evening, I sent A down to the lobby to take the call. I was strapping on my snatch hatch (as I so lovingly refer to that dorky piece of travel paraphanelia which attaches around the waist and contains, obviously, the passport) when A burst back through the door.
"J's on the phone!! Get your stuff. Your flight's not coming."
Hooo, what?? I felt as though, after a mere five days, I knew the dusty street (yes, street, that is not a typo) of Weno like the back of my hand. Was I now trapped in some sick, real-life version of Groundhog Day? Had I done something to enrage some higher power or another? Would I really be grounded on Chuuk interminably?
As it turned out, no. Our flight was in fact coming, just in a rather leisurely kind of manner, to the tune of three hours' delay. This did, however, mean that, barring some kind of miracle/the arrival of the Concorde jet on Chuuk, FSM, we would be missing our Guam-->Bali connection. This, in turn, mandated one night's stay in the Hilton on Guam (a big loss. I still cry over it.) and an utterly insane flight itinerary. (a.k.a. Instead of flying straight from Guam-->Bali, we would be flying to Bali VIA TOKYO.) If you look at a map, you will see that this move was, indeed, insane.
Oh well. We might be stuck in the middle, but we'd be living...
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous...Good Charlotte
Let's see: 1) air-conditioned single hotel with a giant white bed AND A COFFEE MAKER (and complete with a balcony with an ocean view of course, dahling)
2) all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast
3) TWO STORY AIRCRAFT (though, alas, we sat on the first floor, mere mortals that we were)
4) the best airline meal I've eaten in life, complete with ice cream, wine, coffee
And all on Continental Airlines' tab. Yeah, not a bad way to start a trip.
Who Let the Dogs Out?...Baha Men
Many people extoll the benefits of travelling with no prior plans--no hostel reservations, no train tickets, etc., etc., etc. This method of travel allows them a wonderful measure of flexibility; they aren't locked into anything, they can follow the recommendations garnered from fellow travellers, etc., etc. Let me tell you something: THESE PEOPLE ARE INSANE.
I felt neither a light sense of carefree, childlike wonderment nor an atmosphere of giddy spontaneity as I dragged my stupidly giant wheeled suitcase around and across and through the twisting alleyways of Legian, Bali at midnight (alleyways which had seemingly been constructed entirely of broken, ill-shaped bricks), ignoring Indonesian men on motorcycles calling "Transport! Transport!" while simultaneously fleeing from/attempting to verbally intimidate small packs of vicious, large-toothed dogs. (Wait, hold on one second--weren't vicious, large-toothed dogs something that I went on vacation in order to get away FROM? What's wrong with this picture?)
We woke up hotel clerk after hotel clerk, all of whom offerred us the same answer. Why of course they had a triple room...with air conditioning. Whether they told us this out of truth or out of spite for being woken up at (now nearly) 1 a.m., I guess we'll never know. The pertinent point is, after waving a stolen broom menacingly at crazed canines, flipping off numerous taxi drivers, and working up a sweat carting our luggage from hotel to hotel, we ended up staying at the second hotel we had talked to. Awesome. [Not.]
At this point (well, at all points), I did NOT heart Bali, in particular Kuta/Legian. This felt less like a vacation and more like the 9th circle of the Inferno.
I Wanna Hold Your Hand...The Beatles
Fortunately, Bali did look up from there. In fact, it looked way up: our first scheduled activity was to climb an active volcano, Gunung Batur. (An activity that some of our friends thought to be folly! Imagine that.)
And that is when our friend J experienced a little phenomenon that the locals like to call "Kintamani magic" (Kintamani is the name of the nearest town to the volcano) firsthand. You see, the plan was to sunrise the volcano. This meant that we began our ascent at some ungodly hour, like perhaps 4:30 a.m. (This departure time would, theoretically, put us at the summit at sunrise. Pretty cool, huh?) Anyway, it also entailed climbing a very steep, volcanic-ash-strewn peak, in the pitch black. Well, J is a bit afraid of heights. Our sherpa friend--unfortunately, his name has slipped my mind, as he did not want to hold my hand--is paid to (and, clearly, enjoys) helping climbers. And thus it came to pass that, while G huddled as close to the ground as possible on the--at times terrifying--descent, and I elicited help from a friendly Frenchman in our group, J and Sherpa tangoed all the way down the mountain.
In fact, I thought for most of the climb that he was just a really helpful dude. It was only when we had reached the straight, flat road at the bottom (and their upper appendages were still entwined) that I began to suspect something. Kintamani magic was for real.
Bed of Roses...Bon Jovi
When I hear the word "spa," if I am not guarding myself ever so closely, I am apt to let out a very audible, disgusted sigh. A place where the obscenely rich sit around with cucumbers on their eyeballs and talk about golf and investment? Puh-leeze. Not for me.
However, when I hear the words "five dollar massage," my ears perk up and a smile lights my face. Really? Where??
As a matter of fact, Ubud. Eventually, the cheapness of the deal overcame my snobbery about not being a snob, and I landed in the entrance of (I still hate to say it) a spa. My friend G and I were paging through "treatments," looking for an appealing package. They asked us if we wanted separate rooms, or if we'd rather share the same room. (Oh! Important note: G is a girl.) Thinking of the delightful conversation we would share through a lace curtain (or something equally snazzy, like silk) as we were being massaged, we elected to share a room. We chose our treatments; however, there was a problem.
"Treatment A has a different kind of bath than Treatment B," we were informed.
Since, for some reason, we could only do the same kind of bath, G changed to another treatment which ended in a "fragrant flower bath of rose petals."
They then led us to our room. We walked by single rooms, each composed of: 1) massage table, and 2) bath tub. We reached our room and entered. Two massage tables...one bath tub? Whoa-ho! What?
And so it came to pass that, after our relaxing massages, G's salt rub, and my papaya treatment, G and I got to take a romantic bath together. In a rather small bath tub, with a low water level. Did I mention that this bath tub was FULL OF ROSE PETALS?
People may tell you that lots of various things are the test of a true friend, but I maintain that that test is: can you, non-awkwardly, enjoy a bath in a tub of rose petals together (while enjoying tea and fruit on cute little plates)?
If you can, congratulations. You are, indeed, true friends.
TO BE CONTINUED. Side B (Thailand) coming soon.
The Spectacular, Spectular Sonic Accompaniment to My Vacation
[Please note, not all of these songs were listened to by said author during her travels. They have been chosen merely to invoke the mood of various locations, events--albeit an incomplete and possibly unrepresentative cluster--of her trip. Enjoy.]
Stuck in the Middle With You...Bob Dylan
I was, literally, packing my bags to leave Chuuk when a hotel employee knocked urgently on our door.
"Phone call for Peace Corps."
Certain that one of our fellow PCVs was eager to get into contact with either A or C about "social events" for the evening, I sent A down to the lobby to take the call. I was strapping on my snatch hatch (as I so lovingly refer to that dorky piece of travel paraphanelia which attaches around the waist and contains, obviously, the passport) when A burst back through the door.
"J's on the phone!! Get your stuff. Your flight's not coming."
Hooo, what?? I felt as though, after a mere five days, I knew the dusty street (yes, street, that is not a typo) of Weno like the back of my hand. Was I now trapped in some sick, real-life version of Groundhog Day? Had I done something to enrage some higher power or another? Would I really be grounded on Chuuk interminably?
As it turned out, no. Our flight was in fact coming, just in a rather leisurely kind of manner, to the tune of three hours' delay. This did, however, mean that, barring some kind of miracle/the arrival of the Concorde jet on Chuuk, FSM, we would be missing our Guam-->Bali connection. This, in turn, mandated one night's stay in the Hilton on Guam (a big loss. I still cry over it.) and an utterly insane flight itinerary. (a.k.a. Instead of flying straight from Guam-->Bali, we would be flying to Bali VIA TOKYO.) If you look at a map, you will see that this move was, indeed, insane.
Oh well. We might be stuck in the middle, but we'd be living...
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous...Good Charlotte
Let's see: 1) air-conditioned single hotel with a giant white bed AND A COFFEE MAKER (and complete with a balcony with an ocean view of course, dahling)
2) all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast
3) TWO STORY AIRCRAFT (though, alas, we sat on the first floor, mere mortals that we were)
4) the best airline meal I've eaten in life, complete with ice cream, wine, coffee
And all on Continental Airlines' tab. Yeah, not a bad way to start a trip.
Who Let the Dogs Out?...Baha Men
Many people extoll the benefits of travelling with no prior plans--no hostel reservations, no train tickets, etc., etc., etc. This method of travel allows them a wonderful measure of flexibility; they aren't locked into anything, they can follow the recommendations garnered from fellow travellers, etc., etc. Let me tell you something: THESE PEOPLE ARE INSANE.
I felt neither a light sense of carefree, childlike wonderment nor an atmosphere of giddy spontaneity as I dragged my stupidly giant wheeled suitcase around and across and through the twisting alleyways of Legian, Bali at midnight (alleyways which had seemingly been constructed entirely of broken, ill-shaped bricks), ignoring Indonesian men on motorcycles calling "Transport! Transport!" while simultaneously fleeing from/attempting to verbally intimidate small packs of vicious, large-toothed dogs. (Wait, hold on one second--weren't vicious, large-toothed dogs something that I went on vacation in order to get away FROM? What's wrong with this picture?)
We woke up hotel clerk after hotel clerk, all of whom offerred us the same answer. Why of course they had a triple room...with air conditioning. Whether they told us this out of truth or out of spite for being woken up at (now nearly) 1 a.m., I guess we'll never know. The pertinent point is, after waving a stolen broom menacingly at crazed canines, flipping off numerous taxi drivers, and working up a sweat carting our luggage from hotel to hotel, we ended up staying at the second hotel we had talked to. Awesome. [Not.]
At this point (well, at all points), I did NOT heart Bali, in particular Kuta/Legian. This felt less like a vacation and more like the 9th circle of the Inferno.
I Wanna Hold Your Hand...The Beatles
Fortunately, Bali did look up from there. In fact, it looked way up: our first scheduled activity was to climb an active volcano, Gunung Batur. (An activity that some of our friends thought to be folly! Imagine that.)
And that is when our friend J experienced a little phenomenon that the locals like to call "Kintamani magic" (Kintamani is the name of the nearest town to the volcano) firsthand. You see, the plan was to sunrise the volcano. This meant that we began our ascent at some ungodly hour, like perhaps 4:30 a.m. (This departure time would, theoretically, put us at the summit at sunrise. Pretty cool, huh?) Anyway, it also entailed climbing a very steep, volcanic-ash-strewn peak, in the pitch black. Well, J is a bit afraid of heights. Our sherpa friend--unfortunately, his name has slipped my mind, as he did not want to hold my hand--is paid to (and, clearly, enjoys) helping climbers. And thus it came to pass that, while G huddled as close to the ground as possible on the--at times terrifying--descent, and I elicited help from a friendly Frenchman in our group, J and Sherpa tangoed all the way down the mountain.
In fact, I thought for most of the climb that he was just a really helpful dude. It was only when we had reached the straight, flat road at the bottom (and their upper appendages were still entwined) that I began to suspect something. Kintamani magic was for real.
Bed of Roses...Bon Jovi
When I hear the word "spa," if I am not guarding myself ever so closely, I am apt to let out a very audible, disgusted sigh. A place where the obscenely rich sit around with cucumbers on their eyeballs and talk about golf and investment? Puh-leeze. Not for me.
However, when I hear the words "five dollar massage," my ears perk up and a smile lights my face. Really? Where??
As a matter of fact, Ubud. Eventually, the cheapness of the deal overcame my snobbery about not being a snob, and I landed in the entrance of (I still hate to say it) a spa. My friend G and I were paging through "treatments," looking for an appealing package. They asked us if we wanted separate rooms, or if we'd rather share the same room. (Oh! Important note: G is a girl.) Thinking of the delightful conversation we would share through a lace curtain (or something equally snazzy, like silk) as we were being massaged, we elected to share a room. We chose our treatments; however, there was a problem.
"Treatment A has a different kind of bath than Treatment B," we were informed.
Since, for some reason, we could only do the same kind of bath, G changed to another treatment which ended in a "fragrant flower bath of rose petals."
They then led us to our room. We walked by single rooms, each composed of: 1) massage table, and 2) bath tub. We reached our room and entered. Two massage tables...one bath tub? Whoa-ho! What?
And so it came to pass that, after our relaxing massages, G's salt rub, and my papaya treatment, G and I got to take a romantic bath together. In a rather small bath tub, with a low water level. Did I mention that this bath tub was FULL OF ROSE PETALS?
People may tell you that lots of various things are the test of a true friend, but I maintain that that test is: can you, non-awkwardly, enjoy a bath in a tub of rose petals together (while enjoying tea and fruit on cute little plates)?
If you can, congratulations. You are, indeed, true friends.
TO BE CONTINUED. Side B (Thailand) coming soon.
Friday, June 27, 2008
My trip to Hawaii: from A to Z; or, Lost in the Supermarket
Aloft aboard a noisy 747 (it's strange, relearning the feeling of it), I watch my tiny island
disappear behind the wings, quickly lost in an overwhelming sea of
Blue. Blue, blue, blue floods my tiny window view. It begins in turquoise, clinging to the sandy
shore, then weeping itself into a deep as azure as the island disappears in the distance,
beyond our limited sphere of vision.
Colored clouds serve as our guideposts, pointing our way toward Hawaii. Like the sea, they too
metamorphose--first a mist, then light, fluffy wisps, then puffy cotton ball clouds, too perfect
for real life. We chase the sunset the whole flight, nipping at its heels.
Dark arrives, at long last, as we near the Honolulu Airport and descend into the glowing
phosphorescence of Civilization.
Emerging from the jetway, I see people, white people, EVERYWHERE. I feel like I'm living in a
Dr. Seuss poem, yet it takes not fishes or driving dogs as its subject, but people.
"Fat people, thin people, short people, tall people,
Old people, young people, big people, small people.
Gee! There are people everywhere--it's frenziness beyond compare--"
my poetic musings are interrupted by a glorious vision. A glimmering dream of green and
white. The long-awaited mermaid heralds my joy, singing the siren song of civilization. I've
no choice but to follow. Free will is a non-entity at this point.
How sweet it is! How rich, how creamy~nirvana has arrived in the (not-quite-so) surprising
form of a 24-oz travel cup (made from several percent post-consumer materials, they'll have
you know): a venti (VENTI!) Caramel Macchiato. Extra caramel. Happiness slides over me
like a drug.
I have officially entered the United Starbucks of America. Screw "immigration"--
Starbucks is my customs.
Joyously, I cry, deep in my soul:
"Kosrae, farewell,
Lihue, hello!"
My honeymoon has just begun, however.
Never before has a simple trip to Safeway so overwhelmed/overjoyed/unnerved/fulfilled me. A
whole AISLE of sliced bread?!
O the wonder! O the extravagance! O the gluttonous capitalist excesses of my homeland that I
have so long (and completely unbeknownst to me) sorely missed. And yet what is that sound?
That dull crash in the distance?
Poipu beach calls! Sun, sand, surf! Best yet, the opportunity to lie around (even walk around!) in
a bikini and short shorts! Will wonders never cease?
Quite knackered from this exhausting day of America, I chill out with a mai tai as I
(psychologically) stretch and purr.
Rest of the trip flies by in a blur, a flurried montage of images; images which become barely
discernible as the week speeds by, our surroundings clear at first, then becoming a blur,
almost in the same peculiar way that people on a subway platform melt into each other as
the train speeds up before, finally, disappearing from view entirely as you plunge into the
dark ahead:
Singing "Grease" in the rain, wiggling my ass across a Hanalei street as I revel in a moment,
Trying a new drink every time (every time) we pass a Starbucks,
Up in the air, flying across a green river valley on a zipline as I scream delightedly and throw
a shaka sign to anyone watching,
Vying for the "Craziest Snorkeler Ever" award with my mom, as we fight five foot waves and
a beastly current in order to meet our stated objective of "seeing fish on the east side of the
island with these snorkels we've just rented, dammit!"
Watching Indiana Jones swashbuckle his way through another adventure (followed, of course,
by repeated, possibly tunefully humming/singing of said film's extremely catchy theme song
throughout the rest of the trip when I think no one else is listening)--
Xhausted (c'mon, give me a break--I really don't care to discuss the "x-raying" of my
baggage, and there are no xylophones--at least that I saw--on Oahu or Kauai), I pour myself
into my seat on the plane.
Lucky You will be my farewell to American culture. Lucky me, indeed.
Zooming back through the clouds, I look back on my brief, confusing (and yet, ultimately)
joyous encounter with the States. Vacation's over, back to the "real world." Good thing my
real world is paradise.
disappear behind the wings, quickly lost in an overwhelming sea of
Blue. Blue, blue, blue floods my tiny window view. It begins in turquoise, clinging to the sandy
shore, then weeping itself into a deep as azure as the island disappears in the distance,
beyond our limited sphere of vision.
Colored clouds serve as our guideposts, pointing our way toward Hawaii. Like the sea, they too
metamorphose--first a mist, then light, fluffy wisps, then puffy cotton ball clouds, too perfect
for real life. We chase the sunset the whole flight, nipping at its heels.
Dark arrives, at long last, as we near the Honolulu Airport and descend into the glowing
phosphorescence of Civilization.
Emerging from the jetway, I see people, white people, EVERYWHERE. I feel like I'm living in a
Dr. Seuss poem, yet it takes not fishes or driving dogs as its subject, but people.
"Fat people, thin people, short people, tall people,
Old people, young people, big people, small people.
Gee! There are people everywhere--it's frenziness beyond compare--"
my poetic musings are interrupted by a glorious vision. A glimmering dream of green and
white. The long-awaited mermaid heralds my joy, singing the siren song of civilization. I've
no choice but to follow. Free will is a non-entity at this point.
How sweet it is! How rich, how creamy~nirvana has arrived in the (not-quite-so) surprising
form of a 24-oz travel cup (made from several percent post-consumer materials, they'll have
you know): a venti (VENTI!) Caramel Macchiato. Extra caramel. Happiness slides over me
like a drug.
I have officially entered the United Starbucks of America. Screw "immigration"--
Starbucks is my customs.
Joyously, I cry, deep in my soul:
"Kosrae, farewell,
Lihue, hello!"
My honeymoon has just begun, however.
Never before has a simple trip to Safeway so overwhelmed/overjoyed/unnerved/fulfilled me. A
whole AISLE of sliced bread?!
O the wonder! O the extravagance! O the gluttonous capitalist excesses of my homeland that I
have so long (and completely unbeknownst to me) sorely missed. And yet what is that sound?
That dull crash in the distance?
Poipu beach calls! Sun, sand, surf! Best yet, the opportunity to lie around (even walk around!) in
a bikini and short shorts! Will wonders never cease?
Quite knackered from this exhausting day of America, I chill out with a mai tai as I
(psychologically) stretch and purr.
Rest of the trip flies by in a blur, a flurried montage of images; images which become barely
discernible as the week speeds by, our surroundings clear at first, then becoming a blur,
almost in the same peculiar way that people on a subway platform melt into each other as
the train speeds up before, finally, disappearing from view entirely as you plunge into the
dark ahead:
Singing "Grease" in the rain, wiggling my ass across a Hanalei street as I revel in a moment,
Trying a new drink every time (every time) we pass a Starbucks,
Up in the air, flying across a green river valley on a zipline as I scream delightedly and throw
a shaka sign to anyone watching,
Vying for the "Craziest Snorkeler Ever" award with my mom, as we fight five foot waves and
a beastly current in order to meet our stated objective of "seeing fish on the east side of the
island with these snorkels we've just rented, dammit!"
Watching Indiana Jones swashbuckle his way through another adventure (followed, of course,
by repeated, possibly tunefully humming/singing of said film's extremely catchy theme song
throughout the rest of the trip when I think no one else is listening)--
Xhausted (c'mon, give me a break--I really don't care to discuss the "x-raying" of my
baggage, and there are no xylophones--at least that I saw--on Oahu or Kauai), I pour myself
into my seat on the plane.
Lucky You will be my farewell to American culture. Lucky me, indeed.
Zooming back through the clouds, I look back on my brief, confusing (and yet, ultimately)
joyous encounter with the States. Vacation's over, back to the "real world." Good thing my
real world is paradise.
Monday, May 26, 2008
an ode
warm smell
warm sweet smell
of afternoon, of slanting sunlight,
golden
beautiful moment, I breathe deeply, fill my nostrils, savor
serene
light and soft
under my arm
nestled neatly in the nook between
my shoulder and my elbow,
as though it were always, forever
meant to be
almost
written in the stars
open breathe
again, deeply
jealously guarding the seductive scent,
my treasure
mine alone.
half of me is ready to
pounce devour destroy,
the other half resists, desiring to perch,
here,
on the cusp of the having for eternity
the flesh
(I perch)
is
(I teeter)
weak
(I fall)
fall
into the ecstasy of the having,
loving, worshipping that first moment
when the desire, the dream
becomes the real, the mine
all all all mine
it and I
I and it,
at last are one.
destiny fulfilled.
~An ode to sliced bread
M. McCrea
warm sweet smell
of afternoon, of slanting sunlight,
golden
beautiful moment, I breathe deeply, fill my nostrils, savor
serene
light and soft
under my arm
nestled neatly in the nook between
my shoulder and my elbow,
as though it were always, forever
meant to be
almost
written in the stars
open breathe
again, deeply
jealously guarding the seductive scent,
my treasure
mine alone.
half of me is ready to
pounce devour destroy,
the other half resists, desiring to perch,
here,
on the cusp of the having for eternity
the flesh
(I perch)
is
(I teeter)
weak
(I fall)
fall
into the ecstasy of the having,
loving, worshipping that first moment
when the desire, the dream
becomes the real, the mine
all all all mine
it and I
I and it,
at last are one.
destiny fulfilled.
~An ode to sliced bread
M. McCrea
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Ants, Hem, and My Bicycle
It's a funny thing. Some days (e.g. when I forget that escalators are a real life thing and not some made-up fantasy in my head, when I realize "holy shit! I live in a foreign country!"), I almost feel as if I've lived here forever. Other days, I do things so idiotic that I wonder if I didn't actually step off of the plane from LA yesterday and somehow go through an eight-month time warp to the present day. Let me give you a couple of examples.
The other week, my friend M was sleeping over. We'd been up late talking, and I was exhausted and ready to crash. I sit down under my mosquito net and start writing in my journal (my usual pre-sleep activity). Then I notice something strange. One ant. No, two. No fifteen! Holy shit! There are little tiny ants crawling ALL OVER MY BED. Now, by this point in time I am semi-seasoned to this sort of thing, so I didn't scream. I just gingerly jumped out of my bed and ran into the main room of the house in my frantic search for bug spray.
"Gah!! M! How did this happen? Where did all these fuckers come from?" I asked in dismay, my voice reaching a pitch not attained since those voice lessons oh-so-long-ago (high school).
"Is there anything in your room they might want? Food? Candy?"
"No!" (What did she take me for? An idiot?)
At this point, M casually walks over to the foot of my bed and gestures toward an open cardboard box.
"What about this?"
Oh no, I silently curse myself, the Lemonheads!
Yes, believe it or not, after eight months of living in a tropical, insect-infested country, I had left an OPEN BAG OF LEMONHEADS sitting on the floor next to the foot of my bed. Way to go, Megan.
[In a somewhat ridiculous post-script to this incident, I left a skirt that had been soaked in hot chocolate hanging from the fishing line that connects my curtain rod to my mosquito net not one week after the Lemonhead incident. It totally slipped my mind until, hours later, to my dismay, I saw an army of ants marching along the fishing line as though it were a gangplank onto my sweet-smelling skirt. Good times.]
*************************************************************************************
I recently had a project that I had been working on since December go down in flames. I have yet to make sense of it, except to know that I am really really angry. However, I was flipping through For Whom the Bell Tolls the other day, and I came across a passage which particularly spoke to me. I feel like it speaks a lot to the whole "Peace Corps experience"--whatever that is. I also found it somehow comforting, and I hope you like it.
" How little we know of what there is to know. I wish that I were going to live a long time instead of going to die today because I have learned much about life in these four days; more, I think, than in all other time. I'd like to be an old man and really know. I wonder if you keep on learning or if there is only a certain amount each man can understand. I thought I knew about so many things that I know nothing of. I wish there was more time."
-E. Hemingway
*************************************************************************************
Sometimes I think that I must like embarrassing myself. That's really the only workable explanation for why I do it so much. So, without further ado, I present (part of the continued and, I'm sure, well-loved series) Megan & Her Bicycle.
The other day I was riding in to Tofol when I saw this car headed toward me, coming in the opposite direction. It was, in fact, quite a snazzy-looking car. The first thing I thought to myself was, Does someone on Kosrae have a Rolls-Royce? It had, you know, those little silvery side mirrors, a hood ornament. It was black. And then it hit me. It's Nina Rumina! (I LOVE this woman.)
It is customary here on Kosrae, if you know a person who's driving along in a car, to acknowledge them by yelling, "Nice driver!" (This actually means "you're hot," so it can be said either as a joke among friends or in a sketchy, lecherous fashion to a member of the opposite sex.)
So, excited in my recognition of her car, voice abnormally loud as I yell over my iPod, I shout,
"NICE DRIVER!!!"
The usual response to this is "Nice kom, pac" [trans: "you're hot, too]. I don't hear this, but I figure that it's just because Rumina wasn't quite as enthusiastic in her response as I was in my compliment. No worries.
Five minutes later, my (real) Nina Rumina passes by in her car. Fuck. I'm an idiot.
Coming back that same night, I was reveling in the cool night air, the gorgeous island views, and (of course) my newly returned (shall I say prodigal?) iPod. Now, every PCV has certain things that he or she misses more than others, and apparently my miss is singing (loudly) to myself in my car. I'm coming around this unpopulated curve in the road as "Don't Speak" comes on (which just so happens to be my favorite No Doubt song ever).
I begin crooning along with Gwen, first hesitantly, then at full-girl-power volume. I pass over the bridge going in toward Tafunsak, and I'm so excited by the night and the song that I completely forget myself. I'm now passing by hotels, people as I croon,
Touch me, touch me, darling
Touch me, touch me--
when I realize (to the tune of a curious and, possibly, semi-scandalized stare from a Kosraen: Oh! Shit! Singing on your bicycle isn't like singing in your car at all. People can hear me!!
Again, way to go, Megan. Great choice of song to belt out to the entire island of Kosrae. Not at all sketchy.
The other week, my friend M was sleeping over. We'd been up late talking, and I was exhausted and ready to crash. I sit down under my mosquito net and start writing in my journal (my usual pre-sleep activity). Then I notice something strange. One ant. No, two. No fifteen! Holy shit! There are little tiny ants crawling ALL OVER MY BED. Now, by this point in time I am semi-seasoned to this sort of thing, so I didn't scream. I just gingerly jumped out of my bed and ran into the main room of the house in my frantic search for bug spray.
"Gah!! M! How did this happen? Where did all these fuckers come from?" I asked in dismay, my voice reaching a pitch not attained since those voice lessons oh-so-long-ago (high school).
"Is there anything in your room they might want? Food? Candy?"
"No!" (What did she take me for? An idiot?)
At this point, M casually walks over to the foot of my bed and gestures toward an open cardboard box.
"What about this?"
Oh no, I silently curse myself, the Lemonheads!
Yes, believe it or not, after eight months of living in a tropical, insect-infested country, I had left an OPEN BAG OF LEMONHEADS sitting on the floor next to the foot of my bed. Way to go, Megan.
[In a somewhat ridiculous post-script to this incident, I left a skirt that had been soaked in hot chocolate hanging from the fishing line that connects my curtain rod to my mosquito net not one week after the Lemonhead incident. It totally slipped my mind until, hours later, to my dismay, I saw an army of ants marching along the fishing line as though it were a gangplank onto my sweet-smelling skirt. Good times.]
*************************************************************************************
I recently had a project that I had been working on since December go down in flames. I have yet to make sense of it, except to know that I am really really angry. However, I was flipping through For Whom the Bell Tolls the other day, and I came across a passage which particularly spoke to me. I feel like it speaks a lot to the whole "Peace Corps experience"--whatever that is. I also found it somehow comforting, and I hope you like it.
" How little we know of what there is to know. I wish that I were going to live a long time instead of going to die today because I have learned much about life in these four days; more, I think, than in all other time. I'd like to be an old man and really know. I wonder if you keep on learning or if there is only a certain amount each man can understand. I thought I knew about so many things that I know nothing of. I wish there was more time."
-E. Hemingway
*************************************************************************************
Sometimes I think that I must like embarrassing myself. That's really the only workable explanation for why I do it so much. So, without further ado, I present (part of the continued and, I'm sure, well-loved series) Megan & Her Bicycle.
The other day I was riding in to Tofol when I saw this car headed toward me, coming in the opposite direction. It was, in fact, quite a snazzy-looking car. The first thing I thought to myself was, Does someone on Kosrae have a Rolls-Royce? It had, you know, those little silvery side mirrors, a hood ornament. It was black. And then it hit me. It's Nina Rumina! (I LOVE this woman.)
It is customary here on Kosrae, if you know a person who's driving along in a car, to acknowledge them by yelling, "Nice driver!" (This actually means "you're hot," so it can be said either as a joke among friends or in a sketchy, lecherous fashion to a member of the opposite sex.)
So, excited in my recognition of her car, voice abnormally loud as I yell over my iPod, I shout,
"NICE DRIVER!!!"
The usual response to this is "Nice kom, pac" [trans: "you're hot, too]. I don't hear this, but I figure that it's just because Rumina wasn't quite as enthusiastic in her response as I was in my compliment. No worries.
Five minutes later, my (real) Nina Rumina passes by in her car. Fuck. I'm an idiot.
Coming back that same night, I was reveling in the cool night air, the gorgeous island views, and (of course) my newly returned (shall I say prodigal?) iPod. Now, every PCV has certain things that he or she misses more than others, and apparently my miss is singing (loudly) to myself in my car. I'm coming around this unpopulated curve in the road as "Don't Speak" comes on (which just so happens to be my favorite No Doubt song ever).
I begin crooning along with Gwen, first hesitantly, then at full-girl-power volume. I pass over the bridge going in toward Tafunsak, and I'm so excited by the night and the song that I completely forget myself. I'm now passing by hotels, people as I croon,
Touch me, touch me, darling
Touch me, touch me--
when I realize (to the tune of a curious and, possibly, semi-scandalized stare from a Kosraen: Oh! Shit! Singing on your bicycle isn't like singing in your car at all. People can hear me!!
Again, way to go, Megan. Great choice of song to belt out to the entire island of Kosrae. Not at all sketchy.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
A day in the life...
6:20 a.m. Wake up. Curse, slam my alarm off. Back to sleep.
6:40 a.m. Wake up for real: go shower and get ready.
7:40 a.m. Freak out as I'm eating breakfast--I'm late for work!!! Gah!
Nina: Shra, it's only 7:40. You're not late.
Me: My clock says it's 8.
Nina: The TV says it's 7:40.
(I proceed to make my host mom call telecomm and verify that yes, in fact, the
time on our TV is correct. I am wrong?!? Horror of horrors! Well, I suppose
this might explain how I've miraculously been on time to work for the last few
weeks. And how I biked in to Tofol in 20 minutes once. Everything is
illuminated!~that's for you, Jang.)
8:15 a.m. Work starts.
8:24 a.m. Suddenly, all of my students' attention is GONE. They're all staring out the
window and pointing excitedly at something, speaking rapidly in Kosraen. I walk
over sternly (in teacher-cop mode) to break it up. I ask, "meac inge?" ["what's
going on here?"] They tell me: "Shra! There's a giant lizard out there!"
Me: Where?
[They point.]
Me: [seeing this crazy giant--we're talking 6-8 foot--lizard on a tree outside my
classroom] Whoa! You're right!
I have seen a big lizard for one minute. I have also lost all of my classroom
management credibility points forever.
9:05 a.m. Our guest environmental speaker wraps up his talk on the native environments of
Kosrae. It is gorgeous outside: all the better for admiring our island environment.
9:10 a.m. We make our way out to the schoolyard to plant trees.
9:13 a.m. It starts POURING.
9:24 a.m. To my pleased surprise, one of my 8th graders makes his way intrepidly out into the
downpour with his seedling and shovel. He starts digging.
9:28 a.m. Hole complete, P puts his seedling in the ground. He carefully places the wet dirt
around the little tree, tamps it down, and then picks up an object--that I can't quite
distinguish--off of the ground. He puts the object on the ground next to the tree and
steps away, admiring his work. I scamper out into the rain to see what he's put on
his tree as a decoration. It's...a dead battery?!? This is why I love teaching.
Me: Is that to give it energy? [I start laughing hysterically]
My Kosraen co-teacher: What are you doing? Take that off of your tree!
That will kill it!*
*This is why I have a co-teacher.
1:30 p.m. School's out for the summer. School's out for-ever! (Well, or maybe just until
tomorrow.)
2:30 p.m. I start my bike ride in to Tofol for yoga that my lovely fellow PCV, M, teaches.
2:42 p.m. As I pass a particularly stately palm, I look up and admire the way the light is falling
on the branches. I should take a picture of this! This could very well be an iconic
image of my life on Kosrae. The harmony of colors, the balance--and then my bike
careens off the side of the road and I eat shit. Way to go, McCrea.
4:07 p.m. Yoga starts.
4:10 p.m. I have sweat out approximately a pint of water. Gotta love the equator!
4:50 p.m. We start relaxation.
4:52 p.m. I have passed out on my mat.
5:05 p.m. I get up to see that everyone else has already put away their mats and left. Sweet.
5:20 p.m. As I'm sitting in the computer room of the office checking my email, I notice some
small winged visitors arrive. No biggie, they're just the subterranean termites that
usually hang out in the office. They're flocking toward the light above my head, and
as the seconds pass, the population is multiply exponentially, like one of those
scientific-y graphs of fruit fly population or something.
Before I know it, they're crawling on the desk, the walls, me.
M: I can't take this! I gotta get the fuck out of here!! [She flails her arms and
shakes her head in a vain attempt to get the disgusting little creatures out
of her hair.]
Me: [Thirty seconds later] Gah! Me too!
We sneak out the back door, but our stuff is still in the main room. As I walk
around to the front of the office, I see M peering cautiously (and somewhat
horrified-ly) into the front window. "Look at them," she says to me in a low
whisper of mingled fear and awe. I look. There is literally a CLOUD of about
2,000 of these mofos hovering right over our couches. (That's where my bag is,
by the way.)
I take a deep breath and steel myself for the adventure to come. "Well," I say
resignedly, "it doesn't look like they're going anywhere." We open the front door
and rush in. I've put my skirt on my head to protect my hair--I looked something
akin to the Great Bungholio, no lie--, and I scamper gingerly over to the couch
where all of my stuff is, squinting my eyes in order to keep the bugs out (even as I
try not to step on any of the ones crawling on the floor on my way over).
Meanwhile I'm yelling, cursing at these ridiculous little bugs: "They're touching my
eyes and my face and I don't like it!!"
And best of all, as I get back to the safety of the door, I see that my
compatriot M has gotten it all on video, laughing hysterically the entire time.
"You f***ing videoed that s**t? You b******d!" We have a good laugh before we
shut the door and walk away, feeling as though we've just survived a very-B
horror movie.
6:20 p.m. On my bike ride home, I drop in to Dollar Up to buy a couple of packs of Ramen. On
the shelf ahead of me, I discover both the Miraculously Happy Dog and Dr. Happy. I
love my life sometimes.
8:00 p.m. Time for my weekly kahs kosrae lesson with Baba Isaac.
9:00 p.m. In the past hour, I learned that:
a) I've been asking my Nina "how was your birthday?" every day for the last
month.
b) The reason that the neighborhood kids have been refusing to race me on my
bicycle for the past--oh--three months isn't because they were scared of
losing, it was because I was asking them to "recognize." ("Ah, so that explains
those looks they gave me!")*
*This is why I still need a tutor.
10:30 p.m. I tuck my mosquito net into bed and drift peacefully off to sleep.
And such is my life...
6:40 a.m. Wake up for real: go shower and get ready.
7:40 a.m. Freak out as I'm eating breakfast--I'm late for work!!! Gah!
Nina: Shra, it's only 7:40. You're not late.
Me: My clock says it's 8.
Nina: The TV says it's 7:40.
(I proceed to make my host mom call telecomm and verify that yes, in fact, the
time on our TV is correct. I am wrong?!? Horror of horrors! Well, I suppose
this might explain how I've miraculously been on time to work for the last few
weeks. And how I biked in to Tofol in 20 minutes once. Everything is
illuminated!~that's for you, Jang.)
8:15 a.m. Work starts.
8:24 a.m. Suddenly, all of my students' attention is GONE. They're all staring out the
window and pointing excitedly at something, speaking rapidly in Kosraen. I walk
over sternly (in teacher-cop mode) to break it up. I ask, "meac inge?" ["what's
going on here?"] They tell me: "Shra! There's a giant lizard out there!"
Me: Where?
[They point.]
Me: [seeing this crazy giant--we're talking 6-8 foot--lizard on a tree outside my
classroom] Whoa! You're right!
I have seen a big lizard for one minute. I have also lost all of my classroom
management credibility points forever.
9:05 a.m. Our guest environmental speaker wraps up his talk on the native environments of
Kosrae. It is gorgeous outside: all the better for admiring our island environment.
9:10 a.m. We make our way out to the schoolyard to plant trees.
9:13 a.m. It starts POURING.
9:24 a.m. To my pleased surprise, one of my 8th graders makes his way intrepidly out into the
downpour with his seedling and shovel. He starts digging.
9:28 a.m. Hole complete, P puts his seedling in the ground. He carefully places the wet dirt
around the little tree, tamps it down, and then picks up an object--that I can't quite
distinguish--off of the ground. He puts the object on the ground next to the tree and
steps away, admiring his work. I scamper out into the rain to see what he's put on
his tree as a decoration. It's...a dead battery?!? This is why I love teaching.
Me: Is that to give it energy? [I start laughing hysterically]
My Kosraen co-teacher: What are you doing? Take that off of your tree!
That will kill it!*
*This is why I have a co-teacher.
1:30 p.m. School's out for the summer. School's out for-ever! (Well, or maybe just until
tomorrow.)
2:30 p.m. I start my bike ride in to Tofol for yoga that my lovely fellow PCV, M, teaches.
2:42 p.m. As I pass a particularly stately palm, I look up and admire the way the light is falling
on the branches. I should take a picture of this! This could very well be an iconic
image of my life on Kosrae. The harmony of colors, the balance--and then my bike
careens off the side of the road and I eat shit. Way to go, McCrea.
4:07 p.m. Yoga starts.
4:10 p.m. I have sweat out approximately a pint of water. Gotta love the equator!
4:50 p.m. We start relaxation.
4:52 p.m. I have passed out on my mat.
5:05 p.m. I get up to see that everyone else has already put away their mats and left. Sweet.
5:20 p.m. As I'm sitting in the computer room of the office checking my email, I notice some
small winged visitors arrive. No biggie, they're just the subterranean termites that
usually hang out in the office. They're flocking toward the light above my head, and
as the seconds pass, the population is multiply exponentially, like one of those
scientific-y graphs of fruit fly population or something.
Before I know it, they're crawling on the desk, the walls, me.
M: I can't take this! I gotta get the fuck out of here!! [She flails her arms and
shakes her head in a vain attempt to get the disgusting little creatures out
of her hair.]
Me: [Thirty seconds later] Gah! Me too!
We sneak out the back door, but our stuff is still in the main room. As I walk
around to the front of the office, I see M peering cautiously (and somewhat
horrified-ly) into the front window. "Look at them," she says to me in a low
whisper of mingled fear and awe. I look. There is literally a CLOUD of about
2,000 of these mofos hovering right over our couches. (That's where my bag is,
by the way.)
I take a deep breath and steel myself for the adventure to come. "Well," I say
resignedly, "it doesn't look like they're going anywhere." We open the front door
and rush in. I've put my skirt on my head to protect my hair--I looked something
akin to the Great Bungholio, no lie--, and I scamper gingerly over to the couch
where all of my stuff is, squinting my eyes in order to keep the bugs out (even as I
try not to step on any of the ones crawling on the floor on my way over).
Meanwhile I'm yelling, cursing at these ridiculous little bugs: "They're touching my
eyes and my face and I don't like it!!"
And best of all, as I get back to the safety of the door, I see that my
compatriot M has gotten it all on video, laughing hysterically the entire time.
"You f***ing videoed that s**t? You b******d!" We have a good laugh before we
shut the door and walk away, feeling as though we've just survived a very-B
horror movie.
6:20 p.m. On my bike ride home, I drop in to Dollar Up to buy a couple of packs of Ramen. On
the shelf ahead of me, I discover both the Miraculously Happy Dog and Dr. Happy. I
love my life sometimes.
8:00 p.m. Time for my weekly kahs kosrae lesson with Baba Isaac.
9:00 p.m. In the past hour, I learned that:
a) I've been asking my Nina "how was your birthday?" every day for the last
month.
b) The reason that the neighborhood kids have been refusing to race me on my
bicycle for the past--oh--three months isn't because they were scared of
losing, it was because I was asking them to "recognize." ("Ah, so that explains
those looks they gave me!")*
*This is why I still need a tutor.
10:30 p.m. I tuck my mosquito net into bed and drift peacefully off to sleep.
And such is my life...
Sunday, February 24, 2008
A slice of random. Eat up!
Infinite mosquito bites
Island-wide renown for my lack of skill at balancing on that crazy new-fangled contraption--the
bicycle
Strep throat
Dr. Happy (a tooth brush)
Mangoes and tangerines (as presents from my students!)
Care packages
Chocolate shake--mmm, goodness
A 40-pound bag of rice for Christmas
A haircut as I sat outside on a balcony with the breeze on my face, looking out over the Pacific,
admiring the blue glow the full moon casts on the rocks and sand at low tide
Goosebumps as I read Coleridge to my creative writing class, on the singular below-80 degree
day that I've seen here
Fleas
30 flat men
--in the mail--
two glorious hours on the radio
zero days of "vacation"
173 days of awesome
A wicked hot Reef tan
3.5 custom nuknuks
A bottle of (disturbingly orange) Bellagio bath gel
Soaked to the bone on a number of occasions
Never-ending fame for my fabtastic marching performance
(I'm the tall awkward white girl singing made-up words--"Ole!"--and shaking her kahpuh on
TV)
The satisfaction of seeing the look on my friend's face when we gave him a DVD of the Christmas
marching--which is shown 24/7 on TV--for his birthday
Yes!
The dullest snorkeling experience ever
The greatest diving experience ever
A sunburn (or several)
An ovation during volleyball
Frustrated
Amazed
Depressed
Ecstatic
Bored
Perfectly content
M. McCrea
"Things I've gotten on Kosrae"
Island-wide renown for my lack of skill at balancing on that crazy new-fangled contraption--the
bicycle
Strep throat
Dr. Happy (a tooth brush)
Mangoes and tangerines (as presents from my students!)
Care packages
Chocolate shake--mmm, goodness
A 40-pound bag of rice for Christmas
A haircut as I sat outside on a balcony with the breeze on my face, looking out over the Pacific,
admiring the blue glow the full moon casts on the rocks and sand at low tide
Goosebumps as I read Coleridge to my creative writing class, on the singular below-80 degree
day that I've seen here
Fleas
30 flat men
--in the mail--
two glorious hours on the radio
zero days of "vacation"
173 days of awesome
A wicked hot Reef tan
3.5 custom nuknuks
A bottle of (disturbingly orange) Bellagio bath gel
Soaked to the bone on a number of occasions
Never-ending fame for my fabtastic marching performance
(I'm the tall awkward white girl singing made-up words--"Ole!"--and shaking her kahpuh on
TV)
The satisfaction of seeing the look on my friend's face when we gave him a DVD of the Christmas
marching--which is shown 24/7 on TV--for his birthday
Yes!
The dullest snorkeling experience ever
The greatest diving experience ever
A sunburn (or several)
An ovation during volleyball
Frustrated
Amazed
Depressed
Ecstatic
Bored
Perfectly content
M. McCrea
"Things I've gotten on Kosrae"
Monday, January 21, 2008
You know you live in Kosrae when..., the wonders of capitalism at Dollar Up, other random sources of amusement
Inspired by several recent experiences/revelations, I decided to compile a brief checklist. If any of the following things have happened to you recently, then reach for an atlas! You may very well be living in Kosrae:
+You open your vitamin bottle in order to find that your vitamins are covered with mold.
+You become unexplainably excited when you realize that you haven't eaten white rice in 24 hours.
+You wake up one morning to the old, familiar, persistent blare of your alarm clock. You roll over and reluctantly open your eyes, finding yourself staring a large cockroach in the face. (He's on the inside of the mosquito net, by the way.) Your first thought is: "Dammit. Is it time for work already??"
+When you somehow miraculously manage to get cold, you're really stoked!
+You've started to become tired of eating fresh-from-the-sea lobster and crab all the time.
+You begin to wonder: "why don't any English words start with 'sr' or 'ng'??"
+You find sliced bread on the island and have an ensuing party for yourself.
+You know what a sea cucumber is (believe it or not, not a food or an innuendo).
*************************************************************************************
Let me begin by stating that, at the moment, I don't feel that I'm up to the daunting task of putting the incredibleness(?) that is Dollar Up into words. It's almost as presumptuous an undertaking as endeavoring to explain human nature/the meaning of it all/etc. My first visit blew my mind almost the way Harrod's did, but in very different ways.
Anyway, my favorite thing about this retail outpost is the names of the products one can buy there. For Christmas, I bought a fellow a PCV a toy called the "Miraculous Happy Dog." Honestly, how could you not shell out for a product entitled the "Miraculous Happy Dog"?? Another wondrous plastic contraption, next to the dog on the shelf, bore the missive: "every styles fully wonderful." Sounds good enough for me! My very favorite Dollar Up product, however, has to be a certain powder detergent. Now, I've grown rather accustomed to interesting uses of my native tongue here, but still, imagine my surprise when I picked up the detergent next to the machine to find that I was doing my laundry with White Power detergent. Who knew a laundry soap could be an argument for better social studies/English education in youngsters?
*************************************************************************************
Last but not least: other random amusing shit.
I was at a New Year's picnic the other week (hey, we like to stretch the holidays out here) when the grill we were using caught on fire. Apparently there was no water around, as people started (futilely) pouring their sodas on it in an effort to quelch the flames. To no avail. This only made the fire rage more. Then the guy who'd been barbequing tipped his beer on it. The fire was out like that.
All kidding aside for a second, diabetes is a HUGE health problem here on Kosrae. Thus, there have been many ensuing public health campaigns in order to fight this trend. Anyway, for New Year's, all of us PCVs went out to dinner at the nicest restaurant on the island. Our eyes were all aglow when they came to rest on the tantalizing menu. Very excited about my first restaurant meal in weeks/months/I really don't know, I ordered curry for dinner and chocolate cake for dessert. As we were eating our dinners, the waitress came out to ask me about my dessert.
"Do you want chocolate sauce or caramel on it?"
"How about both!" I excitedly replied.
"Oh!! Kom ac diabetes!" ["You're going to get diabetes!"] she delightedly exclaimed.
Best part of this story? She's not the first person on Kosrae to tell me I'm going to get diabetes. Ah, what a way to ring in the new year.
*************************************************************************************
+You open your vitamin bottle in order to find that your vitamins are covered with mold.
+You become unexplainably excited when you realize that you haven't eaten white rice in 24 hours.
+You wake up one morning to the old, familiar, persistent blare of your alarm clock. You roll over and reluctantly open your eyes, finding yourself staring a large cockroach in the face. (He's on the inside of the mosquito net, by the way.) Your first thought is: "Dammit. Is it time for work already??"
+When you somehow miraculously manage to get cold, you're really stoked!
+You've started to become tired of eating fresh-from-the-sea lobster and crab all the time.
+You begin to wonder: "why don't any English words start with 'sr' or 'ng'??"
+You find sliced bread on the island and have an ensuing party for yourself.
+You know what a sea cucumber is (believe it or not, not a food or an innuendo).
*************************************************************************************
Let me begin by stating that, at the moment, I don't feel that I'm up to the daunting task of putting the incredibleness(?) that is Dollar Up into words. It's almost as presumptuous an undertaking as endeavoring to explain human nature/the meaning of it all/etc. My first visit blew my mind almost the way Harrod's did, but in very different ways.
Anyway, my favorite thing about this retail outpost is the names of the products one can buy there. For Christmas, I bought a fellow a PCV a toy called the "Miraculous Happy Dog." Honestly, how could you not shell out for a product entitled the "Miraculous Happy Dog"?? Another wondrous plastic contraption, next to the dog on the shelf, bore the missive: "every styles fully wonderful." Sounds good enough for me! My very favorite Dollar Up product, however, has to be a certain powder detergent. Now, I've grown rather accustomed to interesting uses of my native tongue here, but still, imagine my surprise when I picked up the detergent next to the machine to find that I was doing my laundry with White Power detergent. Who knew a laundry soap could be an argument for better social studies/English education in youngsters?
*************************************************************************************
Last but not least: other random amusing shit.
I was at a New Year's picnic the other week (hey, we like to stretch the holidays out here) when the grill we were using caught on fire. Apparently there was no water around, as people started (futilely) pouring their sodas on it in an effort to quelch the flames. To no avail. This only made the fire rage more. Then the guy who'd been barbequing tipped his beer on it. The fire was out like that.
All kidding aside for a second, diabetes is a HUGE health problem here on Kosrae. Thus, there have been many ensuing public health campaigns in order to fight this trend. Anyway, for New Year's, all of us PCVs went out to dinner at the nicest restaurant on the island. Our eyes were all aglow when they came to rest on the tantalizing menu. Very excited about my first restaurant meal in weeks/months/I really don't know, I ordered curry for dinner and chocolate cake for dessert. As we were eating our dinners, the waitress came out to ask me about my dessert.
"Do you want chocolate sauce or caramel on it?"
"How about both!" I excitedly replied.
"Oh!! Kom ac diabetes!" ["You're going to get diabetes!"] she delightedly exclaimed.
Best part of this story? She's not the first person on Kosrae to tell me I'm going to get diabetes. Ah, what a way to ring in the new year.
*************************************************************************************
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