Thursday, October 8, 2009

Peace Corps--The Oscar Speech

As the end of my tenure as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Micronesia draws rapidly to a close—November 4th undergoing the miraculous process of transforming itself from long-awaited, much anticipated day, into living, breathing reality—many an hour have found me in a pensive mood, poring over volumes of long-forgotten lore…but I wax poetic.
The point is, as the end of my time here approaches, I’ve often found myself in a mood for reminiscing over all the times—the good, the bad, and the hilarious—that have befallen me here in Micronesia and Palau, and about the situations and the people to whom I am in debt for said times.
And so, without further ado, for your reading delectation, I do hereby present:

PEACE CORPS—THE OSCAR SPEECH

For the precise, fine-tuned ability to—at any locale upon the face of the earth, at any time of day or night, and in any physical condition—instantaneously locate and accurately throw a rock, within a one-inch radius of error, I wish to say…

“Thank you, canines of K----- and P----!”

Next, for the most wondrously ludicrous quotation ever…

All right, this kind of demands an explanation. So, in honor of B’s birthday back in March, we planned to take her out for a night on the town. The problem? I wasn’t exactly in the proper physical condition to do so.
When we arrived at K’s,—due to a combination of the massive, stubborn, never-receding cold sore on my face; the fact that I had [mysteriously] just thrown up everything I had eaten that day EN ROUTE to the bar; and that I was fighting (what seemed to be a losing) battle with head lice—I was feeling decidedly unsexy. T, E, and I had just sat down on our bar stools when I heard something odd.
Now, you know that whole cocktail-party-chitter-chatter effect, wherein, through the screen of ambient people/music/drinking/dancing noise, every now and again one decisive quotation will suddenly—at times for no reason at all—cut through all the static and reach your ears?
After sitting down at the bar, I could swear I heard the man seated kaddy-corner from us say, “You! Across the bar!! I KNOW you have lice.”
Infinitely disturbed, I turned and asked my friends about what I had just heard. They looked at me as if I had suddenly grown antennae, before bursting out laughing and, finally, assuring me that a complete stranger had not just commented on my oh-so-come-hither head lice across the bar.

“Thank you Heineken and head lice!”

For, by nearly killing me, somehow making me feel so very alive (o, irony!)…

“Thank you, triathlon!”

For granting me the opportunity to get in touch with my bad (coach) self, in public…

Now, I have this propensity—which works, by turns, to hilarious/insanely frustrating effect in the classroom—which is: I treat all children as if they are miniature (somewhat slow) adults. I never really saw the full effect of this tendency, however, until I oversaw a group of youth playing soccer.
When Education Awareness Week rolled around and my principal asked if I wouldn’t mind coaching a soccer team, I was thrilled. Wouldn’t mind?!? I’d love to!!
See, I played myself, from the age of 6 to about 14, but I never really did get soccer out of my system. After retiring from the field myself, I yelled so much along the sidelines of my brother’s games that my mom coolly asked if I were interested in the coaching position; I once got so intense during a college scrimmage that I sprained an ankle so badly my teammates swore it was broken. So…you get the idea. I’m a little serious about my soccer.
Anyway, back to Palau. By the time I stood face to face (well, more like face to hip, but you know…) with my squad of eight and nine year-olds, I had pre-sorted them all into positions, not to mention drawn diagrams of where each person should play.
“See,” I said, gesticulating wildly across the sea of carefully-penciled Os and Xs, “the fullbacks never cross that half line. EVER!!!! Midfield…”
And on and on I went, so drunk with my newfound power that I barely noticed the blank stares of my (intended) audience.
Of course, once the munchkins made it out onto the field, they had minds (and feet, and hands) of their own.
That, however, didn’t even dent my yelling (or cursing and covering my face when the other team scored. Or my—quite literally—jumping several feet in the air when my squad made a goal.)
All I have to say is, it’s a mighty good thing there were no chairs in attendance; I’ve never felt more Bobby Knight in my life.

“And so, thank you, Education Awareness Week, Principal F, and, of course, my oh-so-fortunate(?)understanding(?) team, for allowing me to get in touch with my inner Crazed Coach. It was invigorating.”

And, how could I forg---? [Sorry, just had to immediately run off for a few minutes.] For the constant surprises…

“Thank you, GI tract!”

Ah, my friends. You, through your amazing feats, keep alive in me an insatiable, childlike curiosity; every time we meet, you imbue me with a sense of awe about the universe, and even (where mystics, friends, foes, and world religions have all failed) convince me that, yes, indeed, there are some things in the universe that we human beings can never, ever—for all our logic and reasoning and science—comprehend.
You defy the laws of both physics and gravity, appearing (in hordes!) within the wrappers of FACTORY-SEALED energy bars; high up in the middle of the ceiling; on a bed purposely moved away from every single vertical surface in the room; inside of baskets suspended in mid-air…

“Thank you, ants!”

For the bad-ass, Rocky-esque bruise I sported above my right eye at school for several days (and let’s not forget the ensuing [instant!] cred it earned me with my students…

“Thank you, backpack full of rocks!”

[Yes, you read that correctly. I dropped a backpack filled with rocks on my own face while bench-pressing it.]

For (much-needed) reality checks…

On those days when I wander about, head planted firmly in the clouds, this person kindly yanks it back down to shoulder level.

Witness…
situation 1
I’m excited to sport the stylish new silk dress a Palauan friend gave me to school. In my excitement, however, I missed…
“Teacher Ngchui! You are not wearing any pants!!”
…the fact that it’s translucent.
Nicely done.

situation 2
It’s Earth Day; to celebrate, our entire student body population takes to the road to pick up trash. I’m walking along with this fourth grade girl when I find a plastic six-pack top. All my PC training flashing before my eyes at warp speed, I think to myself, ‘ hey! What a great ‘teachable moment.’’ And so, proudly brandishing the empty plastic rings, I say: “do you know how we can help the sea animals.
She pauses a moment, my little PETA activist in training. I await with baited breath. “Um…by eating them?”

situation 3
The student comes up to me, in the library, and compliments my day’s choice of outfit.
“Uh, thanks,” I reply, after surreptitiously glancing down to see what I am, in fact, wearing. “I had an interview this morning, so I wore this because I wanted to feel professional.”
(I think, by the way, that I can only get away with claiming turquoise floral stretch pants as “Professional Wear” to a fourth grader, in Palau.)
“Shhhhh!” She covers my lips with her hand. “If you want to be professional, don’t talk.”
Ouch. I got told.

“Thank you, B. T.!”

And, last but not least, for inadvertently creating an amazing (and practical) style statement, and ensuing amusement…

Okay, again, there’s a story here. So, it’s been a long, lazy, cloudy day, but I’ve—as usual—waited until my designated time (5:30) to exercise. Today, I need to ask Principal F for permission to take a few days off, at the beginning of school, for a trip. Her phone, however, is disconnected.
But hey! I figure I can kill two birds with one stone by running to her house, asking permission, and running back. (This will be a couple of miles.)

I set off. At first, the weather holds. In fact, I’ve made it all the way to I—Principal’s village—when the raindrops start falling. At first, it’s just a sputtering, the sky spitting on me. Within five minutes, however, the storm has ratcheted up from sputtering to monsoon. By the time I reach my destination, I’m soaked to the skin, like, Shamu Show-soaked.
Luckily, Principal’s there, my permission’s granted. I turn out and look towards the sheets of rain falling from above.
“Um, do you have an umbrella I could borrow?”
She lent it to someone.
-Rain jacket?
No dice.
“Oh!” She has an idea. “I did just get this on my way back from Guam…”
She’s holding…one of those ginormous clear plastic Continental Airlines bags, the kind big enough to fully encase a piece of luggage.
I pick it up, poke my fingers through a weak spot to make a hole for my head.
TA-DA!
“Are you sure you’ll be okay with that?” (She barely suppresses a smile.)

I nod, and run out into the downpour. It’s coming so fast and thick, I realize that I want to cover my head. So, I pull up my new “poncho” over my hair, so the hole now serves as my breathing hole in front of my face while I run.
As I jog faster and faster down the hill, I burst out in uncontrollable laughter. [I look so ridiculous right now, and I love it.] For some reason, the whole situation renders me so happy I start singing. Cake, to be specific.
Now, if you’ve listened to Cake, you know that, sans drums and guitar, it can’t really properly be called music—more like heavily drug-induced, often-witty, and occasionally socially relevant, spoken word poetry.
And so, here I run, down the road, in a downpour, wearing a giant (like, large enough to contain several minifridges giant) plastic bag as a poncho, chanting:

…and how long will the workers keep building them new ones?
AS LONG AS THEIR SODA CANS ARE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE!!
Aw, yeah, all right now…

And yet I wonder why no one’s stopped to offer me a ride back. Interesting.

“THANK YOU CONTINENTAL AIRLINES!”

And so, valued participants in my Peace Corps career—canines, head lice, Education Awareness Week, GI tract, ants, backpack full of rocks, BT, and Continental Airlines—truly, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Without you, my PC experience certainly would not have been as interesting.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Triathl-umph

we walk lightly through the cool gray dawn air,
ghosts gliding gently through a sleeping world completely unaware of
our existence.
but o, we exist, exist fiercly,
nerves a-jangle with the newness of the morning, the task at hand…

(I awaken before six for two things in this world:
flights and ski races.)
given these associations—and the novelty of the monumentous morning that lies calmly
in wait for us—
I’m hyperkinetic, aware ,
a cat ready to pounce.

we arrive to adrenaline—
I can literally feel my pulse ratchet up to match pace with the
pumpingtiresstretchinglegsfiddledwithhelmetsnervouschitchat
as every mind around me hums the same mantra so loudly you can almost hear them, like crickets,
on the fresh morning air:
can I do this?
am I crazy?
can I do this?
am I crazy?

head for the end of the dock,
we form a protective huddle
it’s just like the Superbowl!
well, except that all of the players are about to compete against each other in a fundamentally ridiculous (brutal) task, and they will not reconvene until all their mingled blood and sweat and tears have stained the water, the ground, and it’s over.

in my head, the mantra pounds, crescendoing:
can I do this?
am I—
dammit, I’m trying—
crazy?
can I—
to listen—
do this?
am—
to the official instructions!
I crazy?
can—
did he say two swim laps, or four?
can I do this am I crazy can I do this am I crazy—
“Good luck!” he booms

and suddenly it’s too late,
for listeningwonderingpussyfootingselfdoubting
we are in the water,
this mass of adrenalin-fueled (nutty?) humanity
and—
“1…2…3…go!”
and ahead we go,
a violent yearning seeking wanting tangle
of arms and legs and hands and feet and bubbles and energy
flashing, flying forward with all the strength we possess, have possessed, will ever possess,
high on endorphins, inhaled sea water, and competition,
each person stiving to break free, ahead
to grasp the Holy Grail,
of clear open water—

we move ahead,
deep-breathing mass trembling with energy, disentangle and..
it’s on.

suddenly I’m gasping for air,
hear pounding and
is-this-what-swimming-felt-like-back-when-I-was-12-and-racing-and-in-kickin’-shape?

now every breath I draw is so many knives,
a quick frenzied gasp,
a frantic gamble with the universe,
as I plead:
please-let-me-keep-going-and-not-drown-or-sink-to-the-bottom-please-let-me-at-least-finish-one-more-stroke

until

I breathe again, desperately,
air and seawater sear
my open mouth and lungs

I forgot the way the crawl stroke feels,
its desperation,
the somehow graceful gracelessness
of what is, essentially, a frantic movement,
a plea for survival

of my environment I know only flashes:
sea
sky
sea
sky
and breathe
and swim
and gasp
and swim
one…more…stroke…forward
come…on…Meg…an
you…can…do…it

and now I wish for the mass,
mourn the loss of the comfort, security
of a hundred bodies,
malefemalefatthinbrownwhiteblackoldyoung
writhing against each other in time,
a symphony of beautiful frenzy
and yet—

I am here
alone
I see only
sky
sea
sky
sea
and can…I…even…move
my…arm…through…the
wa…ter…once…move
draw…one…more…breath?

and (in some cruel twist of Fate perpetuated by an angry god)
the water’s suddenly molasses,
the air fire,
each stroke, each breath
sending shooting pain through every inch of me

but, as I look
up down up down
at
down
the
down
dock,
I see people milling, talking, sitting on cars, checking stopwatches,
acting as if other things exist than
my here now moment,
epic struggle for survival
for breath
for one next stroke forward

up
down
up, down
and
down
now
down
I
down
see
people walking by me,
they pass me,
their speed, their grace, their ease of movement, their unbroken conversation
mocking my very effort to
keep…moving…a…head

“all right, Megan! You’re almost halfway there!”
floats a voice from above.
I want to thank R,
to jump out of the water and hug him,
to clap him on the back,
to exclaim, “you don’t know what it means to me, to know that I’m not in this struggle against the sea, the air, the universe, my body, ALONE!”

and yet
right now,
I cannot even manage an acknowledgement,
a nod, that surplus of motion, of effort,
completely impossible at this moment
as my every fiber is now tense, focused upon
simply…moving…forward.

I rest a moment at the halfway point,
perch upon the gloriously solid concrete,
watch the faces and arms and legs of my fellow warriors
as they pass slowly by,
each engaged in his own private war against
the sea his body himself

it’s funny,
how in this alien environment
our distinctions disappear,
each person I see identical:
a pair of goggles arms legs,
nothing more,
as they pushpushpush forward,
gasp for air
keep…on…swim…ming

and suddenly we are one,
all of us,
competing not against each other
but against the human condition

I think of it now, gloriously,
(morning flashback in sepia tone)
one stalwart group of men and women trotted down to the start gate near dawn,
jumped in the water, and
casually redefined what it means to be a human being.

and now I’m nearly done,
lap 3 and I’m rolling along,
the pain, the gasping a distant memory of a time long ago, a person I once knew,
I’m humming along singing Green Day to myself,
and I could literally do this forever,
just put one arm in front of the other and breathe, survive

finally (mercifully) I look up,
reach the orange buoy (o beautiful savior!)
for the FOURTH TIME,
get up, look back
NO ONE’S IN THE WATER
I’m in last but,
for the first time since 1985
I don’t care
I SURVIVED!

“son of a BITCH!”
I yell, so eloquently
as I (somehow!) pull myself up onto the slick concrete and—promptly—
fall down.

I wonder momentarily if my legs and arms
[if that’s what I can truthfully call these long hunks of Jello which seem to be attached to my body]
will ever function again,
think nostalgically of the time—
was it real? or did I just make it up?—
when I could merely walk without being aware of
every ouch
single aie
movement eeeeee,
as though a minor miracle is taking place every time I put one foot in front of the
other
and now I have to bike and run.
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I trudge to my bike and hop—
well, if a ninety year-old crippled person can be said to hop—
on,
begin to pedal and…
this is cake!
I might as well be lying on a beach in a chaise lounge being fanned with banana fronds eating grapes ,
for all the physical effort this is taking me,
a long vacation after breathing fire and fighting barely liquefied molasses for over half a mile

the four bike laps pass in a quick beautiful dream,
almost over before they began
until…

I finish my last lap.

suddenly, it’s time to abandon my speedy chaise lounge
I dismount gingerly,
afraid my Jello appendages may collapse under me.

the pavement feels…foreign.
[have I ever walked before?]
breathe in (huh)
breathe out (huh)
take my bearings.
okay, now it’s only me, 5 K, the road, the baking sun, and my sneakers.

I sigh.
okay, just like swimming
one…foot…in…front…of…the…o…ther
and suddenly I’m moving,
buildings and people and cars and bikes
moving slowly by

by now,
our protective mass is a thing long past,
as distant a memory as infancy.
it’s me and the road,
racing myself
(at a snail’s pace at that)

and so, I fall back on the familiar.
set short goals.
walk run walk run.
one fool in front
of the o ther

and, before I know it,
I’m steering my feet—
they’re no longer me, really—
through the now-familiar gray graffittied M posts,

and (oh glorious day!)
I’m heading down the hill,
into a moment I pictured with such clarity and fervor so much during my private agony
that I almost feeling I’m reliving it as it happens

and I’m home I’m golden
and people are clapping
and the sun is shining

and oh God, did I really do this,
redefine what a human can do,
what I can do?

I’m shining as I cross the line,
glowing with sweat and pride and perfect,
gold as the sun and
free.

Friday, August 21, 2009

COS Snapshot #3 BIG

It is a Friday night in July, early evening. We sit communing upon an outdoor porch, enjoying the sea breeze, the sunset, afterglow from an excellent day of wreck diving, and muchomucho-extra-cheese-pizza. To the detached, untrained observer, surreptitiously gazing in at our cozy party of twenty, our converse embodies the perfect stereotype of crunchyhippiefeelgood Peace Corps bonding time: we are, in turns, standing up and sharing with the table at large how much we love them, how PC has changed our lives, how much luck we wish one another, how we will all go on to do great things. Perhaps, to this casual, slightly cynical observer, it's an exercise in generalities, clichés. But to us, it is all true. Holy.

As I munch my pizza and listen to the ruminations of these happy shiny idealist people (who just so happen to be some of my best friends on the planet), my wanders, strangely to that oh-so-classic-80s-childhood-Tom-Hanks venture: BIG.

Thinking back upon my initial entrance into the Peace Corps, I like to think of myself as the movie protagonist upon that first night in the amusement park. Evening's on its way~darkness gathering fast~it's raining, and I'm fed up [in my case, with the world at large]. And so, boldly, I seize matters into my own hands.

I approach a mysterious (yet promising-looking) contraption, stare thoughtfully at it a moment. We size each other up, Zordan and I.
-Can this mechanical fortuneteller in a box really fulfill my every wish?
-It's worth a shot.

Holding our breaths, we Micro 74s insert our collective nickels, squeeze our eyes shut...under our breath (or, perhaps, in our minds) we utter our secret sacred long-hoped-for prayers.
-I wish to save the world to grow up spread my wings stetch them fulfill my lifelong dream learn seek know (myself?) venture to LIVE BIG
Sharply suddenly we intake our breath yet tighter, (earnest anticipation!) open our eyes, and...nothing happened. We walk off through the rain, discouraged.

And yet, in the morning, we wake up to find...WE HAVE BEEN TRANSFORMED INTO GIANT COCKROACHES. (Just kidding. Thanks, Kaf.) [Take 2] WE'RE IN THE PEACE CORPS!!
Oh joy!
[Oh no!]
~to have a long-held wish so suddenly granted is simultaneously wonderful and profoundly disconcerting.

We are dogs tails-a-wag. Will it be the wondrous, long-planned for adventure of marvel, of delight, of benificence?

Full of coffee and vigor, we pack our bags and head off to the glittering, imposing, pleace-of-hopes-and-dreams, success & failure...MICRONESIA!!!

Our first day-of coconuts, smiles, and sunshine-holds all the hoped-for wonder and more. On our first night [think Tom Hanks pushing his bureau up against the door in the fleabag motel room in the slums here], reality sets in. Roaches scuttle across the floor, mosquitoes (hordes of them!) hover ominously DIRECTLY OUTSIDE the opening to your mosquito net [they're certainly disease-ridden, you can just FEEL it], voices uncomfortably close distance from your window [did you remember to lock it after all?], and, after your long, harrowing, sleepless night, to "awake" to the crowing of THE ENTIRE F***ING ROOSTER POPULATION OF THE PLANET EARTH??? AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH! Was this really what I wanted yesterday from the magic fortunetelling machine? you wonder.

Groggily, you rub your eyes, make your way outside into the brand-spankin' new reality you've proudly acquired for yourself. Head up Madison Ave until you reach...FAO Schwartz! [FAO Schwartz, in our case, being Nan Madol.] As, after ten minutes or so of walking, the unspeakably amazing, beautiful ruins come into view, your jaw drops. This is what you wished to be BIG for.

After exploring awhile inside this incredible labyrinthine wonderland, you suddenly emerge out into the bright warm daylight, gaze out toward the sea. You're suddenly looking into...a desktop background. Cool crystal azure waters fringe a tiny, white sand island housing a stand of leisurely-looking palm trees. "This can't be real!" Yet it is.

And not only are you living in it, this masterwork of perfection, but you notice a bump out on the horizon. Halfway between the ruins and Robinson Crusoe's island, a tall rock juts straight out of the deep water--a perfect natural diving board! Only when you climb the warm rock, barefoot, do you truly discover its perfection. At ten feet up, it's just high enough to be daring, just low enough to be moderately safe. You step to the edge of the rock, breathe deeply, look down into the churning sea below. [It looks like a hundred foot drop now.] You breathe again and leap. Perfection. You spend the laughing afternoon with your friends, flying through the air into the aquamarine sea as the sun and the sea and the universe smile down upon you, and you are happy, happier than you'd ever contemplated being, than you knew possible.

There will be, of course, further (alternately amusing and tragic) missteps/learnings/lessons/difficulties in this alien universe.

(Anyone who has ever learned a second language, for instance, has undoubtedly carried on a conversation as unintentionally humorous as Tom & friend's:
she: (coy) Should I come up?
he: (excited) Oh, like a sleepover?
[she laughs nervously as he waits in eager anticipation]
he: Okay, well I get to be on top! )

One instance that springs immediately to mind occurred while making coffee, of all things. I was making myself a cup one morning, and asked my host mom if she'd like one too. She would.

Anyway, my host mom goes outside; when she comes back in, I tell her that I'm fixing her cup.
-No, no, she says. You fix yours first.
I want to explain that I've already made mine, this is her cup.
Me: Don't worry. Nga orek tari!

She and my host father burst into uncontrollable laughter. Minutes later, once the belly laughs subsided and I finally coaxed an explanation out of them, it turned out that--in carelessly omitting the object of my "doing"--I had just matter-of-factly told my host parents, "Don't worry. I already had sex!" Oh, Megan.

And so, as we--my fellow M74s and I--have travelled along in our own little Brave New World (really as foreign to our former selves as was adulthood in NYC to Little Tom Hanks), we feared and laughed and stumbled yet, ultimately, triumphed.

My eyes sweep fondly across the familiar laughing, crying, happy faces around me again. I'm back from my trip down memory lane. "Well," I think to myself, "that day, in the rain, we knew not for what we asked." But damn are we glad we did.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

COS Snapshot #2 BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (OR MEGAN McCREA)

the entrance.
After our oh-so-strenuous day of...sitting in (very cramped) chairs, eating, and...sitting in chairs some more, we're exhausted. We deserve a nap.
My roommate C and I have been asleep for an hour(?) two(?)~impossible to tell in the mid-afternoon shadows of our hotel room~when I hear familiar voices tramping by our room. It's M and R!!!! I'm so excited I nearly bolt out the door when I realize--"oh, hey...I'm only wearing underwear!" Now, I'm not THAT familiar with Chuuk, but my (killer) instinct tells me that this may be, somehow, culturally inappropriate.
Seeing that I'm sitting up (and, hence, awake), C does the most rational thing in the circumstances: hops onto my bed and starts beating me senseless with a pillow. Now, I'm generally a pretty peace-loving individual (um, hence the PEACE Corps), but I was not about to let C get away with THAT lying down (well, or sitting up, as it were). I hop to my knees and rebut.
Soon, things have escalated--she's now standing over me, beating down upon me like some kind of fluffy downpour. "Oh yeah?" I think, "I'll show YOU."
I jump up and wind up for the superhuge pillow smack of all time. (BeWARE, C.) Unfortunately, doing both of these things simultaneous proves not such a wise decision--my (impeccably yoga-trained balance supahstar) body plummets off the bed onto the ground, smashing table, wall, and floor all nearly at once.
All conversation outside ceases.

C: Omigod!! Are you okay???
Me: [still half-realizing that I am on the floor] Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine.
Voices from outside/above: Is everything all right in there?

I triumphantlysheepishly emerge in a towel. "No worries."

N: I KNEW it was you! I heard a crash against my wall and was like, 'What? Oh, Megan must be my neighbor!

I give hello hugs all around. Guess you could say that, the consummate theater major, I always know how to make an entrance.

*************************************************************************************
megan mccrea, queen of the high seas.
Now, given that the last two times I piloted a kayak, I:

*1: Palau, October: (at first, unbeknownst to me) took on so much water that my boat was suddenly travelling along at a seesaw-like angle, all my possessions floating in a miniature (quickly-growing) pond behind me, the boat travelling at approximately the speed of a dying snail until finally, mercifully, B & I got the badboy beached.

*2: Pohnpei, December: on this illustrious occasion, four friends ane I were out on kayaks. ONCE AGAIN the back plug was jacked-up (what's that saying again? 'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on...?'). Only this time, when it was pointed out to me that I was taking on water, we were:
-300 yards from the island
-in a strong current
-at sunset.
And so, of course, when my friend G pointed out my situation to me, I did the only rational thing, in the circumstances~panicked and flipped my boat, throwing all my possessions into the water and all my friends into a state of terror. Only through their support, ingenuity, McGyverness, bandana, and wicked strong arm muscles did we (and the boats) somehow miraculously reach shore safely.

How J (she of the wicked strong arm muscles mentioned above) had persuaded me back out on a sea kayak in Chuuk I HAVE NO IDEA. (Temporary amnesia, mayhaps?)
Nonetheless, there we were: she with her handsome red kayak and shapely paddle, me with my handsome blue kayak and...two foot-long plastic child's canoe paddle. (What can I say? I'd checked out the last equipment on the lot.)
So, I'm Fisher-Pricing along as we behold the sunset and mull a sundry of topics. The problem, however? I keep falling further and further behind.
"Wait up!" I'm yelling, cursing and spitting and muttering obsenities under my breath at my stupid children's paddle.
J watches me from afar. Her lips curl into a smile. She starts to laugh.
"What?" I ask, through slightly gritted teeth.
"You're paddling backwards."
"What?" I'm befuddled. [My boat seems to be going forward...I don't get it.]
"You're sitting the wrong way."
And so I am. So THAT'S why my boat's steering like a drunken sailor. It all makes sense.
Amused by her discovery, J calls over to our friend N, "Hey, N! Megan's paddling backwards!!"
She (and I) await the expected laugh. Silence. N is unimpressed(?).
"Hey," she calls, "it's MEGAN. She's not bleeding all over the place--she's doing good."

*************************************************************************************
alanis morrissette and japanese fine dining.
Guess you could say that I've always been susceptible to contests involving food. You see once, as a kid, we were eating a dish with white rice on the side. The (full) pot was passed to my brother first, and he took (what I thought was) more than his fare share.
"K!!" I whined,"leave some for the rest of us!!"
"Megan," my dad turned to me, you-are-absolutely-ridiculous look splashed across his face, "I'll bet you FIVE DOLLARS you can't eat that whole pot of white rice."
"Oh yeah?" I motion for the rice to be sent down to me. Two hours (and a healthy stomachache) later, I was rich.

A few years later, I purchased my first CD: Alanis Morrissette's JAGGED LITTLE PILL. I memorized all the tracks, wholeheartedly adopting Alanis' own particularly screamy, angry brand of feminism as my own.

Little did I know that these two (seemingly unrelated) events would come into play on the same fateful night, in order to burn my tongue off.

As we're sitting around one evening, drinking beer and exchanging stories, JG has a great idea: WASABI-EATING CONTEST!!
Somehow, though he brought up the idea, he talks R and C into actually DOING it. As they prepare to face off, they exchange verbal jabs.
"You really think you can take me?"
"Oh, so you're gonna man up and challenge me?"
etc. etc.
Well, as soon as I hear the phrase, "man up," my Alanis genes kick in. "What's that?" I ask, poised to pounce. "Are you saying girls can't eat wasabi??"
The two exchange a look, meaning, "oh boy--we've got a live one!"
They shrug. "What do you think?

Me: Because women can do ANYthing men can do.
They: Oh really?

And so began a triumphant night for feminism, a losing night for my GI tract.

Oh, Megan. You [you you] oughta know.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

snapshots of COS (first installment)

#1 BACK TO THE FUTURE

It doesn't feel so odd this time: rolling out of the bright white light and softly comforting carpeting of our Penthouse room at 9:30 p.m., piling into the shuttle van, and driving over (our beloved) KB bridge and into we-know-not-what. In fact, there's a familiar, nostalgic mist covering the whole enterprise.
We're still tired, yet buzzed for our trip (o sweet reunion!), I'm still moving through check-in at the speed of a suddenly-surprised tortoise, E's bag still weighs an obscenely small amount, and WE STILL CAN'T WAIT TO SLEEP ON THE PLANE!! Not even our newly-minted~last night~and highly inebriated buddy M can throw us off-kilter. Like sleepwalkers, we spin, turn, retracing the motions of an old remembered dream.

Sleeping on the plane, a hilarious delicious and AMERICAN dawn breakfast in Guam...the dream continues.

I am jolted out of my reverie, however, as our plane anxiously (and rather bumpily) circles the runway in Chuuk, pacing in order to prepare for the big showdown with the little landing strip. I start to feel tremors of anticipation: THIS IS IT! COS!!! THE FUTURE!!
We land. As our plane slows from warp speed to a (more manageable) taxi down the runway, the island racks into focus: the velvety green Dr. Seuss hill before us, welcoming us to the place; houses and stores line the road; and then--I rub my eyes--IS THAT REALLY IT?
There, in peeling sea green paint, stands the R--. My home during my last night on the island last year, launchpad to [cue Good Charlotte, the Baha Men, and the Beatles here] the best flight of my life, wicked crazed dogs, Kintamani magic, the Hello Guesthouse, and so much more.

I inhale sharply--a gasp, really--as I realize that, oddly, I've just slipped still further into the quicksand of the past.

My nostalgic mood clings to me on the bus ride across the island (like a living thing, almost), as I recognize the landmarks of my past dotting the main road--the spot where we were chased by vicious canines, teeth flashing; the place where we all watched the sun set slowly out over the bodies of ships, dead and living; the store where I bought those fantastic~gratuitously tall~shoes (to the whistling and bubble-gumming of clerks)...

We arrive at the B--. I smile. The rooms, the palms, the white sand beach--it's all pristine, perfect--curated to be the precise fingerprint match to my memories of that time oh-so-long-ago. [Was it really only a year??] It's right on, loop for loop and swirl for swirl. I sigh contentedly.
Suddenly, unbidden, a conversation swims to the surface of my memory.

It's July 2008, I'm covered in freckles and yellow light. T (a fellow M74) and I regard the laughing faces of those a year ahead of us, the "graduating" volunteers, if you will.

Me: Wow. Do you feel like you're looking at the future?
T: No. (Pause) I feel like I'm looking at tomorrow. (More certainly) PST was yesterday; this is tomorrow.

And behold! Tomorrow comes (to take me away?). It is tomorrow and yesterday and today all rolled into one beautiful moment. Funny, I guess you sometimes have to go back to the past to get to the future.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

[Cue Sebastian:] Under Da Sea

we float down down down
out of the white light and heat and everyday into
other, a parallel universe,
alien planet,
so peaceful.

the silence plays
music upon my ear drums

and, suddenly, I breathe in, to
a forest of purpleredgreenyellow
as something tickles my thigh--
a chorus of bubbles softly stroke me
as they rise up

up



up


and into the light,
white light, above us
(looks like heaven, that perfectbeautiful halo of light)

turn, look up,
a forest of fish
eclipse the light from above

and if I die here, in this moment,
hoka hey,
for it is glorious

below me a symphony begins,
symphoy of sea anemone
wave in time to the almighty
beat beat beat
breathe breathe breathe breathe breathe
everything breathes here,
together,
not a thing out of time, out of place

even the fish are full of purpose.
Fred Flintstone-Jersey fish,
on his way to feast on barnacles
and Camo Man,
somehow (foolishly) convinced if he hides extra still I'll have no idea
he exists
(the Don Quixote of the sea, how charming)
and long lanky luxuriant Paris Hilton fish
(for the love of everything will someone please feed them some sandwiches??)
swish swish by,
fashion plates at fify feet

and then excitement
what? who?
in a cave
(is it Platonic?)
but this is no shadow, it's a something,
a prehistoric whatchewhosit,
fallen out of time,
into this sea cave before us,
his feelers testing testing
1 2 3 4
for signs of food life hope anything
(is anything out there? somewhere out there?)
unaware that he himself is the principal player in our little drama,
our eyes affixed to his every move as he struggles
to find a place in his world

it's as though everything--
the anemones, Fred, Camo, Paris, Caveman--
exists only for us,
our private showing into this crazy wonderland,
that when we leave suddenly poof!
all will cease
(will it?)

ah but alas,
the time has come,
the dive guide said,
to talk of many things:
of decompression illness and bottom time
and surfacing and things
and why the sea is boiling hot
and what kind of fish have wings.

so thus we part (reluctantly)
sweet sorrow of the sea
"adieu, adieu, till it be morrow!"
we chorus as we flee

and up we go,
the buoy line
(our glory fadeth fast)

and up we go
to light and heat
and oxygen--at last.

and as we look up at the sun
and round at each glad face,
we feel inside us rise something
that's e'er so hard to place

gladness? awe, perhaps?
or sheer bewilderment?
this universe we've found below--
how in hell can we explain?
for ne'er could we do justice to
the glory that we've seen.

we can't, of course,
each one of us,
and so we smile privately.
for though we can't communicate,
we've been changed by the sea.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

portrait of a burglary, in verse

Popped my head
into the past (the future?)
today

an interesting place to be
that bed
those walls
Les Fleurs du Mal...
(do I know this strange, strange place?)

I'm a cat burglar into a life
of a girl
who seems infinitely familiar and, yet,
somehow
strange, different

someone from another time--
so young,
with yellow light falling out of the September sky onto her
hair
as she glimmers with hope, promise, and a new BA so shiny it reflects light
like a perfect copper penny

but where's the girl?
I can't seem to find her anywhere as I
sleep in her bed
drive her car
hug her parents
barhop with her girls
walk her steps,
from one sunlit patch to another;
a thoughtful cat
searching for a warm, comfortable spot to rest

funny, though,
they all seem to know me,
these people...
"how tan you've gotten!"
"have you lost weight?"

the voices drift to me
as though from a great distance,
muffled, echoy, and yet
somehow beautiful

do they know me?
am I deceived?
have I tricked even myself into living
as this girl,
that faraway sun-dappled idealist who left on a jet plane
(don't know when she'll be back again)
one September morning
to a far distance freckle on the face of the vast, smiling Pacific,
never to be seen again?

I see her at a distance, too--
in a dream--
you know, the bright overexposed kind--
random shots strung together
into some kind of sorry semblance
of a whole
(and then, on waking, you scramble to arrange all the pieces of the puzzle before they disappear in a beautiful oblivion)?

as I drive these familiar paths,
pathways light along my mind:
now she's playing Capture the Flag on a long shag carpet of green, flanked by cars on either side
(6th Avenue Parkway),
grinning mischievously and loving life

girl moves to new house
(what is this strange, strange place?)
and then--get this!--hides from her new babysitter under the dining room table,
clinging desperately to the vain hope that hiding from the change will prevent it,
eyes shut tight in earnest anticipation of the longed-for metamorphosis into yesterday

first day at school:
so many buses;
they're all the same--
yellow, yellow--she's drowning in a sea of familiar strangeness,
gasping for air till she's found (saved!) by Principal K--
he may chain-smoke, but he delivers little one safely home

and oh there's more--
braces, glasses, learning to drive...
learning to drink (or not)
graduation, promise,
manifest destiny

then she was off to great places,
up up and away away
AWAY
out of her cocoon and into The World (look out!)

and so the South, the North, the Continent--
all got a liberal taste of Colorado sunshine in the form
of that bright creature (was she real or apparition?) who floted
(mostly) easily
between among through
them,
touching lightly upon all she encountered

and yet this is her place,
the girl,
nothing on earth--Paris, NYC, Timbuktu--
quite tunes her soul to perfect pitch
the way this view does,
right here, right now,

as I drive back into Denver from the mountains
as twilight gently enwraps that smoggy little metropolis she calls home
and I watch the gradual changes
as I fly up up up
and down the hill,
into that welcoming bosom of city light
nestled between the warm dark mountains on both sides and then spreading,
unfolding its glorious, languorous self
as far as the eye can see

and she (and I) involuntarily inhale
as we catch sight of it cresting the hill,
hold tightly onto its
perfection

and in that crystalline moment
it's clear where the girl I burgled is.
not in North Carolina or New York or lost in Europe or on some distant tropical isle

that young idealist,
the sun-dappled smiling hippie,
she lives in that same secret place that contains this view--
that deeply hidden spot in the soul
which no one or nothing can tug
in quite the way this moment can.

and as the car and her mind and the world
hurtle onward forward
through the space time continuum
(even here, back in the future)
everything settles.

I am home.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Lessons Learned of Late; or "April is the cruellest month"

Lessons Learned of Late…

I title this blog entry in honor of one particular section we get to fill out on our beloved T---------- Report Forms. Now, most of this form-filling out involves remembering and recording all of the specific, minute details of our work (yawn) and math (gah!! And I thought I was done with you forever after sophomore year of college!). There is, however, one section which amuses/befuddles me greatly: (the oh-so-fuzzy, I love it) “Lessons Learned This Quarter” section. Now, I say “amuses” because, without fail, whenever, in filling out the report, I stop and remember all of the “lessons” I’ve learned during that past four months of Peace Corps, I can’t help but smile at my own ridiculousness (who could?). Okay, you say, that explains “amused,” but “befuddled”? Que? That’s because, somehow, someone in the US government (evidently) sincerely believes that I can boil all of the trials, the tribulations, the skinned knees, the tears, and the “aha!”s down into a space THE SIZE OF THE PALM OF MY HAND. Hahaha…so not going to happen.

And so, I present here, for your reading pleasure, a few of my Lessons Learned This Quarter (Or, April is the cruelest month…). Enjoy!

Lesson #1 Sharks>Clifford the Big Red Dog

Huh? you may be wondering. Was there a fictional vs. non-fictional creature throwdown in Ngeremlengui I never heard about?

Well, sort of. Here’s how it happened. Once a month, several teachers, the 1st-4th graders, and I pile onto the school bus and head merrily down to the beach for our Friday noontime meeting of the Book & Lunch Club. It’s fun: everybody brings their bento (boxed lunch), a book to read; I bring dessert [this, incidentally, was previously the site of another lesson learned: ice cream ≠good non-messy snack choice—well, not, at least, if you value your books, your clothes, or the summer house].

Anyway, on this particular Friday, the tide is really in.

“It’s perfect for swimming,” the kids point out, oh-so-subtly hinting their intentions.

[I scramble.] “Well, you can come swimming any time,” say I, “but you can only read now.” [I’m sure any logicians reading this would love to list the ten ways I just—rather blatantly—lied to my students.] When the kids start talking about “tides,” I pretend I can’t hear them, shutting out their “reasoned explanations” and concentrating really hard on the book J’s in the process of reading me, Clifford’s Christmas.

Well, eventually, the kids accept the fallacy with which I’ve presented them and settle down to read. I sigh my relief inwardly, continuing to listen to the tale of Emily Ann and her large, oddly-colored canine. Then I hear it.

“Chedeng! Chedeng,” a small knot of students cries excitedly from the dock. The others, infected by their enthusiasm, put their books aside and run over.

“Hey,” I yell. “You can see a shark any time, but…” The words die away on my lips. Even my intrepid third grade reader J has dropped Clifford to the ground.

Ah, well, I think. Some of them you just can’t win.

Lesson #2 Masseuses Can Read Minds. Really.

In honor of my birthday (in case you don’t know me, this is my favorite holiday of the year. But birthdays aren’t holidays, you say. Really?, say I. I’m sorry you haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting me.), I decided to treat myself to a massage. Now, after taking (the extremely demanding!) Massage Therapy my second semester senior year, I went through pretty heavy withdrawal from those weekly, hour-long “full-body rubdowns” [to quote myself]. By the time I arrived on Kosrae in late September, I was hurting so bad for them (no pun intended, haha), that I repeatedly suggested, “hey…maybe I can teach the ladies of Kosrae to do massage therapy as an, um…secondary project. Yeah! It would promote…health and wellness on the island!”

Though no one had the gumption to tell me straight up, “um, Megan? Women aren’t actually allowed to show their shoulders or thighs here, so massage therapy…? Uh, yeah. Maybe not gonna fly, so much,” that pet project idea never really did pan out.

So, you can imagine how excited I was for my birthday massage. Imagine, then, my reaction, when I strip down, lie on the table, and my masseuse starts…talking to me. Sure, yeah, she was giving me a good massage, but what I really wanted was just to Zen out. Anyway, she asks me the usual cursory small talk queries: how long have you been on the island, what do you do here, etc. Well, once I had successfully supplied the answers to these questions (8 months, I am a teacher here), my masseuse takes the hint (from the curt nature of my responses) and remains silent for quite some time. Some minutes later, I am nearly asleep on the table when, suddenly, I am jolted by pain. Huh? She’s working my upper back. She comments that I hold perhaps the most tension that she’s ever seen there.

And then: “so do you teach little kids?” I love it. How did she guess?

Lesson #3 Puppies are not conducive to Zen.

I think one of my earliest actions out of the cradle rather beautifully illustrates the way I feel about canines. Now, I was my parents’ first child; thus, they baby-proofed the entire house, read volumes of books on how to take perfect care of me, sanitized all of my toys, etc. Imagine their reaction, then, when they found that I had rolled from my cradle, crawled over to our Dalmatian, and had proceeded to suck on Banjo’s paw!

When Bonnie, my dog on Kosrae, got hit by a car and broke both of her legs, I splinted them and fed her painkillers. After a couple of days of rest, my host dad suggested that I put her through a multi-faceted rehab program: taking her to the beach to swim every other day, and massaging her injured legs on the alternating days. Now, knowing my dad, I’m not sure whether his suggestion was sincere or in jest; however, the fact remains that, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I could be seen walking the street of Kosrae, carrying my dog in a basket down to the beach for our “rehab swims.” (I’m sure, also, that I quickly gained the rep among the locals of “crazy dog lady.”)

Yeah, I love dogs. I think the term “dog person” doesn’t quite do justice to the way I feel about them. I think the best way to put it is that I feel the way about dogs that people are supposed to feel about babies.

Thus, when our new puppy, Hunter, arrived a few weeks back, I was thrilled (kind of like, oh… “a little kid with a puppy”). Now, it has long been the tradition of our Siamese cats to join me in my yoga exercises—walking, rubbing up against me, but, mainly, just sitting around on my yoga mat in that very glazy way that cats will do. At first, it was, admittedly, slightly off-putting to (eyes closed) move into plank pose and find—ho, shit—I am planking on a cat! However, I’ve gotten used to their presence; I’ve even grown so accustomed to the cats’ quiet, furry presence that I sort of miss them when they’re not there during my exercise sessions.

Now, I don’t know whether Hunter got the idea from the Siamese twins, or all on his own, but one night he, too, decided to assist me in my yoga practice. Picture it: I’ve just warmed up, I stand up, breathe, exhale slowly down into downward dog and—my hair is being yanked (practically out of my head!) by an unseen force below.

“Hunter,” I say warningly, before continuing my exercise, “you be a good boy.”

Well, I guess if you translate from Human to Dog, “good boy” means “good boy! Pull my hair some more, MORE! That’s it!” because that’s exactly what he starts doing. I sincerely try to keep my calm, but each time he does it, I get madder and madder.

Finally, I stand to my full height and explode. “HUNTER!!” I yell. “Do NOT do that!!!”

The veins stand out on my neck. My crazed voice reverberates back at me from a thousand angles off of the metal roof of the carport above us. Well, I think, I’ve sure Zenned out this yoga session!

Lesson #4 I am a force to be reckoned with!

My school is really cute: we have assemblies every Monday and Friday, each classroom is labeled with its appropriate grade level sign, the kids wear attractive, matching uniforms, and we all brush our teeth together at 12:45 each day. (It seems eerily, in fact, like Lake Wobegon of the Pacific, where all of the men are hard-working, and the women are pretty, and all of the children are above average.)

Anyway, going along with this Twilight Zone-worthy, Americana perfection, we have an actual physical BELL (kind of like the Liberty Bell, only small, not cracked, and maybe—just maybe—slightly less historically significant) which we ring at the end of each period to signal a change in classes. Well, I must have been doing something really good that Tuesday, for—for the first time in my eight months here—I was asked to ring the bell.

Now, I hate the super-loud noise the bell makes when the kids (invariably) SLAM it in turn so, I resolved, I would hit the bell as lightly as possible to still produce a sound. I hit the bell, producing the familiar clang. Quite pleased with myself, I hang the hammer back up and stroll back inside the office.

“Teacher Ngchui!” I hear awestruck children’s voices outside the office. I walk back outside. “Look what you did!”

And I look. HALF OF THE HEAD HAS FALLEN COMPLETELY OFF OF THE HAMMER.

Certain that the kids are just punking me (ha, it must have been like that before, and I just didn’t notice), I walk back over to the bell. Sure enough, the forlorn other-half-of-the-hammer-head lies useless on the ground below. Well done, Megan.

Lesson #5 I am ridiculous.

Yeah, yeah…I know (for those of you who know me personally), this is not at all news. However, there was such a brilliant and amusing recent illustrative example of this fact that I could not, in good conscience, omit it from this blog entry.

It’s Wednesday afternoon, second grade library time. To everyone’s delight, we’re starting out with (that old, time-tested favorite) Simon Says. O, one of the boys, is now Simon. Now, this kid is something of a class clown.

“Touch your butt,” he says. Whoa! Did he really just say that? Honestly, I am just so amused that a seven year-old just told me to touch my butt that I forgot to scold him and just go ahead and, well, touch my a**. After this direction, however, he seems to have run out of ideas. He scratches his head, stalls for time. Eventually, my impatience (and semi-awkwardness) prompts me to speak up.

“Okay! Now give us a new one so we can all stop touching our butts!”

My friend A turns to me, “Um, he said ‘back.’”

General laughter. Nice, Megan, nice.

Lesson #6 Do not dyslexify directions.

Now, I’ve never been diagnosed with formal dyslexia for reading or anything. I do, however, occasionally have troubles with numbers. This explains, for instance, how, on Kosrae, where you only have to remember four numbers in order to call any person on the island, I REPEATEDLY (we are talking maybe 50 times) called the taxi company while trying to reach my friend G. I just couldn’t get those four numbers, IN PROPER ORDER, to work their way into my Permanent Record.

So, I have a lurking suspicion that, on occasion, I do the same thing with directions. After all, if you have to travel northeast to get somewhere, does it really matter whether you go north or east first? In this particular instance, I learned that, sometimes, yes, it matters a lot.

It’s Sunday morning. I’m excited because, for the very first time, I am going out SPEAR-FISHING! (I have wanted to do this my entire time in Palau.) My enthusiasm builds as we approach the reef: ooh boy! Ooh boy! I am a dog, wagging his tail at 90 mph; I am a warrior, getting ready to wage a battle against the creatures of the sea; I am—so not listening to the directions M, my companion, is issuing.

I dive in. Operating the gun is surprisingly easy, I soon learn. All you have to do is draw back your spear into a slot, secure it with two rubber bands, and ka-ching! you are armed and ready to go spear some unsuspecting aquatic life. I shoot once. A miss. Reload. Shoot again? Miss.

For my third attempt, I decide I will sneak up really, really close on the fish before going for it. I swim over a big coralhead and spot my target: a blue-green parrotfish a few yards away. He sees my spear, he starts making for the deep water…hey! Not so fast! I chase him down, take aim, pull the trigger and…miss. The difference, however, between this and my previous attempts, is that this time I shot into a huge abyss of water that I can’t even see the bottom of. I can’t even see my spear, let alone retrieve it.

I pop to the surface. “Um, M?” I call. “Don’t kill me, but…”

And that’s when I learned why you shoot from deep water into shallow. Ah. Now it ALL MAKES SENSE.

Lesson #7 “There are nice things in the world…We’re all such morons to get so sidetracked…referring every goddamn thing that happens right back to our lousy little egos.”*

*Wish I could claim credit for the quote, but it’s actually from J.D. Salinger’s Franny & Zooey. In fact, I urge each and every one of you to read the whole book; it does more justice to the quote.

I remember, back during PST (Pre-Service Training, for the uninitiated), the PC staff showed us this graph. Now, I’m not really one for math, but what it really reminded me of was the graph of a sine wave, only superamplified, like y=300 sin (x), or something like that. It’s this crazy roller coaster of a graph.

I leaned over the table to one of my fellow training mates. “What is that?” I whispered.

Imminently, my question was answered by our PC doctors, who were leading the session: “That’s your mental health during Peace Corps,” they explain.

And how true it was. Never have I ever experienced such vast, continued mood swings as during my service over here. It is like a rollercoaster: on high days, I swear to everything that I have the best f***ing job in the entire world! But, on low days, tears and anger flow freely.

The past couple of weeks had definitely been a long ride down the roller coaster hill, it was a (storm-threatening) Saturday afternoon, and I was attempting to hitch from Koror (our capital) out to Ngeremlengui (my home). Now, this drive only takes about 45 minutes; however, I had not had the good fortune in town of running into anyone from my place. So, three separate rides, a little patience, and a lot of tekoi er Belau later, I had managed to land myself at the compact road turnout to Ngeremlengui (thus putting myself maybe a 3-4 mile walk from my home).

At first, I stood there, just waiting. However, as the minutes ticked by and not a single car passed by on the compact road (going anywhere), I decided, well, might as well start walking… This was easier thought than done, though, so to speak, for my personal articles included:

a) My backpack, loaded with clothes, toiletries, etc.
b) My full bag of groceries
c) An (open—you really think I could wait to see what I got in the mail? Hahaha, think again.) box

A couple of cars go by, both traveling in the opposite direction from me. One stops. It’s a white car with A plates, a woman (whom I’ve never seen before) driving.

“Do you need a ride?” she asks.

Just as she does so, I spot a car coming off of the compact road travelling in the same direction as I am.

“Oh, no,” I say. “Ke daitsob. It looks like they’re coming this way—I’m sure they’ll stop.”

Satisfied that I am taken care of, the woman continues on her way out. The incoming car, however, does not stop for me. The b******s! Can’t they see all the s**t I’m carrying??

However, I brush aside my anger and continue walking. Well, I think, only 2.75 more (hilly) miles to my house…My (bitter) thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a car behind me. I turn: it’s my old friend, the white car!

“Hop in,” the woman tells me, in perfect English. “It looks like you’ve got a lot of stuff there.”

I gratefully assent. As we ride in, we chit-chat. She was here visiting the SDA missionaries. Yes, she knows B, the Peace Corps from her place. She asks me questions: how do I like Palau? Am I thinking of extending to a third year? What exactly do we get out of Peace Corps when we’re done, anyway?

I think about my own circumstance. Hm, I don’t want to work in a government job. I’m not doing the Masters International Program. In fact, my “real job” will probably have absolutely nothing to do with PC. She breaks my thoughts—

“Is it just for the value of helping people?”

“Yeah,” I answer, slightly awed at the newfound revelation of what a good person I am, “it is.”

L then goes on to say, “Sulang. [Thanks.] Maybe you don’t hear that too much, but we are so grateful you’re here, that you would leave our country, your family, to make things better for us here on our small island. (Pause) In fact, when I look at you guys, and all you’ve sacrificed, it inspires me to do more for Palau, for my country.”

Honestly, I almost couldn’t open my mouth and produce the sounds requisite to thank her, knowing that, if I said more than a couple of syllables, I would certainly start crying. Somehow, in those few minutes, L, a complete stranger, had made everything worth it: the tears, the sweat, the difficult moments we all have when we bang our heads against the wall and honestly wonder how it is that we do this job sometimes.

As I walked up the hill to my house that afternoon, despite the rain, I swear I was radiating sunshine. Zooey was right. There are goddamned nice things in this world, and we are morons to get so sidetracked. It is for these moments that I joined the Peace Corps.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

A Day in the Life--Palau

A Day in the Life—Palau

6:20 a.m. Wake up. Curse, slam my alarm off. Back to sleep.*
*Nice to know some things never change, eh?

6:40 a.m. Wake up for real: go shower and get ready.

8:00 a.m. Begin tekoi er Belau tutoring with J, our librarian.

8:11 a.m. I learn—to my shock, dismay, horror—that there is no word for “perfect” in the Palauan language. Decide that, evidently, I cannot live here long-term.

10:30 a.m. I am introducing persuasive essay writing to my 8th graders today. I love this lesson. In a nutshell, here's how it works:
I make them a ridiculous proposition (in this case, “we should have school six days a week, Monday through Saturday”)
After voting to make sure that they disagree with me wholeheartedly, I—through wily, skillful argument—manipulate my unsuspecting victims from outraged argument into strong agreement
Then, finally—this being the coup de gras, my favorite part of the lesson, of course—, I reveal the trick (“Just kidding—I was only arguing. You got punk'd!”), make some Ashton Kutcher-esque gesture, and go on to explain the basic structure of an argumentative paper. (The lesson from the trick being, of course, that—as Nick Naylor might say-- “The best thing about arguing is that, when you argue correctly, you are never wrong”.)

Now, when I taught this lesson on Kosrae, it worked flawlessly, my trusting little cherubs eating up my every word with a spoon, then starting in genuine shock and surprise once they realized that they had been tricked. Here, however, my students interrupt me every couple of minutes to ask: “Teacher, is this for real?”
[Aw, how cute! It just warms my heart to know that, as a teacher, I have succeeded in projecting an appearance of professionalism, knowledge, and...untrustworthiness. Well done, Megan. :)] Anyway, each time they ask, I unblinkingly assure them (with equal measures of hurt and surprise in my tone), “of course! You think I would lie to you?”

“Yes.”

Surprisingly, they eventually settle enough that I can pull off the trick. The kids are irate.

“See! We knew you were lying.” They swear that they will never come to class again. Ah, I think, another class well taught.

12:00 p.m. Lunchtime.

12:45 p.m. The cowbell rings. (And with Christopher Walken nowhere in sight!) Now comes my favorite time of day: Community Toothbrushing. I still remember witnessing this event for the first time, back on my first day at school in September. I had wondered: Where am I? Did I just walk onto a soundstage? Am I being set up? Seriously, 55 kids and 12 teachers brushing their teeth together? I felt as if I had stepped into an awkward (but extremely dentally hygenic) parallel universe.
I have come to believe that the kids have devised a game surrounding this time of day, game being: “Let's see who can make Teacher Ngchui spit toothpaste all over the schoolyard. (Wait and watch.)

12:47 p.m. Put toothpaste on my toothbrush. Start brushing.

B, a precocious 4th grader of mine approaches: “Ngchui, why aren't you wearing any pants?” I almost inhale toothpaste, before looking down and realizing the skirt I'm wearing is transparent. I give her a thumbs-up, meaning, roughly, thanks, B! I appreciate your comment, but I love these undies, so I don't mind all of Ngeremlengui checking them out.

D, an observant 1st grade, comments: “The inside of my mouth is very hot!” I nod sagely, I'll bet it is, I nod, mine is too.

A, a curious 4th grader, peppers me with personal questions:

-How old are you? 23, say my hands.

-Do you have any baby?

Wham-o. Crest violently shooting across the schoolyard as I spit, “NO!”

1:00 p.m. Remember how, as a kid, your favorite subject was PE? Yeah, I never outgrew that. As soon as the cowbell chimes again, I race out to the field. Bats, balls, and gloves have come out. Survey says...we are playing yakyu [baseball].
When I find out that I am on one of the teams, I am stoked. I am extremely competitive (some would say “too competitive,” those “some” being “wimps who like to lose.”); I can't wait to help my team grind the other team into the playing field. Bring it!
We are fielding first. I ask my kids (3rd and 4th graders, mind you): “where should I play?” They gesture somewhere around center field. I'm mildly offended, but figure: hey, they must be really good at fielding then. I'm sure they've got it covered. They don't. It's one of those long, painful innings where, as a spectator, you'd have time to, say, buy a hotdog, drink a beer, and debate the nature of man, time, and God with your neighbor, with time left over to make a phone call or two.
After witnessing error upon error, becoming more and more disgruntled, I cannot wait for my turn to bat and save my team at the bottom of the inning. When I look at the batting order, however, I see that I am far down the list—sixth or seventh, at least. I then watch our first three hitters strike out. I can't take this any more. As we head out to field, I (oh so coyly) ask: “Which base should I play?”
“First.” Sweet. I am their play maker, their Hank Aaron, their A-Rod. Give me your tired, your poor, your third foul tips yearning to be caught...
First batter smacks it hard to SS. He catches it, the runner's halfway to first--
“Here, here!” I cry, smacking my glove, adrenalin pumping.
S rockets the ball to me, as I hold my glove out and watch the ball's progress as it heads straight to me and—smacks me in the kneecap at around 80 mph.
I am on the ground, yelling words I am to tell my students not to use.
“Teacher, teacher, are you okay?”
I hobble off the field. I should not quit my day job. Oh, wait. This is my day job.

4:00 p.m. Finished with my work, I head home. Though my mom has offered me a ride, I feel like walking: the sky is perfect blue, the sun is shining, and who doesn't want to walk after taking a hardball to the kneecap? As I walk, I often like to fantasize about what I will eat when I get home. Today, the object of my desire is a Dulche de Leche Luna bar. I slowly, gently undress it, picturing its silky smoothness, its lovely golden hue. I begin to salivate as I luxuriate in its taste—the memories, the imaginings, the possibilities...so sweet, so caramelly, so not-found-in-Palau-and-only-coming-every-so-often-in-a-care-package-of-awesome.

4:15 p.m. By the time I reach the door, I can barely work my key I'm so entranced by the bar I'm about to eat. I rush to the kitchen, open my food box, remove the bar, and unwrap the wrapper to find...my lovely energy bar CRAWLING WITH ANTS.
I feel a rush of emotions—anger, hurt, sadness, hunger, and, above all, confusion: the bar was fully wrapped. HOW THE FUCK DID THEY GET IN THERE???
As the ants begin to crawl from my the bar to my arm, I walk across the room, possessed of purpose. There is only one thing to be done. I walk to the sink, run water over the bar, and—stick it in my mouth. I chew and smile. Nothing like an energy bar with a little extra protein.

4:45 p.m. Snack time over, it's time to lift weights. (By “lift weights,” that is, I mean “do squats, lunges, dead lifts, etc. with a backpack full of rocks and other heavy shit.”) All's going well; in fact, as I'm in the middle of a set of (backpack-enhanced) lunges, I find myself thinking, Ha, to think that some people fork out money for gyms! All's I need is my hilltop, a step, and a backpack full of rocks.
Now come military presses. For a military press, I need to lie on my back, hold my pack to my chest, and push the pack up and down, like I'm doing a bench press only, well, without the bench. I hold the pack, exhale, and push up until—I lose my grip on the (weirdly-weighted) pack. Before I can think, let alone move, my backpack has come crashing down straight onto: a my right eye. After screaming a few expletives, I get up and go look in the mirror. I am bleeding—swell. Not only do I have to explain the yelling to my family, tomorrow I will also get to explain to my students why I look like I ended up on the losing side of a bar fight. And the importance of spotters.

8:15 p.m. After a shower, dinner, and, of course, “Mr. Bean,” I am sitting in my room lesson planning for the next day. (As they say, no time like the last minute!) I hear a rustling, pause. I decide to ignore it—probably one of the cats outside. Then again. And that's when I see him: a giant red figure, beady eyes staring at me, little mind whirling as to where in my room it's about to go hide and lay one million tiny disgusting cockroach eggs.
Adrenalin a-pump, I gingerly grab a shoe from my closet, all the while my eye never leaving the little red intruder. I carefully raise my shoe in the air, take aim, and—SMACK! I slam down with all my might on the sucker.
“Gotcha, sucker!!” I shout.
I pause. Wait a second, I think to myself, gazing slightly impressed and yet, slightly disturbed at my reflection on the interior of my window, did I just shout at a cockroach?

10:30 p.m. As I'm about to turn in, I realize I have a problem. Now, this past Christmas, I asked for a French press, with which I could make real coffee. When my wish came true, I was overjoyed.
“Show us how it works!” said my family, intrigued.
“No problem,” said I, nonchalantly. (After all, I was a barista before I joined Peace Corps—I could do this in my sleep.)
I pull the press from the box and open my bag of beans.
“So, you just put the beans in there and put in water, and it makes coffee?” they ask.
“Ye—es,” I reply, slightly less sure of myself. Is that really all there is to it?
I measure out a spoonful of beans, pour in my hot water, put the press in, and sit, waiting for the magic to happen.
“It's not changing color,” my sister G commented.
“Give it time,” I reply, “it takes a couple of minutes.”
And so we wait. Two minutes, five minutes...and still, all we are looking at is a container filled with clear water and brown beans.
“Oh shit!” I have remembered. “When I had to grind coffee at S, we had to ask 'is that for regular, cone filter, or French press?'” I am a dumbass. “What should I do?” I ask my mom.
She turns, goes to a drawer, rummages through it. I'm thinking she'll emerge with a grinder, a blender, or--
“A taro spanker?” [This is a small wooden club, used for spanking taro.]
“It should do the job.”

And so, at 10:30 tonight, I am to be found out in our kitchen, spanking coffee beans.

And such is my life.