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...

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"

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).

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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?

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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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an irreverent nocturnal reverie, in tribute to the unique phenomenon that is Kosrae Christmas. in verse.

'Twas the month before Christmas
And all throught the isle
Was nary a creature
Not sporting a smile.
The palm leaves were hung
With white lights galore
Giantplastic Santa guarded
The front of Senny's store.
As planeload on planeload
Of visitors arrived
--I'd ne'er seen the island
Quite so alive.

Then one magical, mystical tropical night,
I lay under my net
Watching mosquitos fight
When into my ears
There arrived such a sound
That I open'd my eyes,
Took a good look around.

At first, 'twas a hum
Like the buzzing of bees,
Maybe o'erzealous wind
In the coconut trees
But the buzz was increasing,
The wind had a beat,
I listen'd, discerned
THE SHUFFLING OF FEET!

Curiosity peaked, outside I crept
What ritual was happ'ning
Out there as I slept?
I followed that sound,
With all of my might,
Saw the church up ahead
All a-blaze with light.

Here was the birthplace, the source
Of the sound
Sung by all my neighbors
As they walked around!
I stood at the window
And watched them with glee--
They spelled "MXM,"
And then "H," and then "P"!

The flock ne'er tired in pursuit
Of their stars;
O'er the course of the night,
They travelled quite far.
Spellbound I stood,
I know not how long;
Bewitched by the stars,
Marching feet, and the song.
The crowd made a turn,
Crossed over the floor--
Oh! It looked like--
They were headed straight for the door!

I panicked, I freaked, tried utmost to hide...
But too late, alas,
They were already outside.
When what should I feel
Hitting me on the nose,
But a butterscotch sucker
And pack of Rolos?

The shower continued--
I took off my hat
In time to catch mints,
Gumdrops, and a Kit-Kat.
I understood not,
But that was okay--
It was the best Christmas ever
That day!

And, as I staggered off under
The weight of my haul,
I turned back around toward the crowd,
I recall.
And I shouted with joy,
Ere I journeyed on back:
"Merry Christmas to all,
nofon mwet Tafunsak!"

M. McCrea

'Twas the night before Christmas

'

Zen wisdom from the South Pacific

~There are days when the best thing that will happen to you is not getting hit on the head by a falling coconut.

~Let sleepings dogs lie. Otherwise, they will bite you.

~"If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?"
"A hermit crab," my family decided last weekend. They then explained that they are easy to catch in the morning because "they like to sleep in, just like you."

~When it rains, it pours...if I've just put my clean laundry outside to dry.

Also, randomly, guess who is faster than me on my bicycle?
1) A small child sprinting.
2) A twelve year-old kid carrying another twelve year-old on the handlebars of his bike.
Awesome. I will continue to update this category as necessary.

Lastly, in lieu of doing a cliched "things I'm thankful for..." post, here are a few things I've seen here in the FSM that have already made my journey more than worth it.

I'm sitting on the floor in church in Pohnpei. All is relatively calm and still, but there's a little kid running up and down the side aisle nearest me. As he runs by a woman (presumedly not his mother), she reaches out and pats him on the head. He keeps running for what must have been 15 seconds, then walks back to the woman, slaps her (really hard!) on the thigh, and walks back to his seat. WHAT?

So I live on what is (no joke) one of the rainiest islands on earth. One gray morning, I woke up to the sound of POUNDING rain over my head. I walk out to have breakfast, and my mom laughingly tells me to go look outside.
"Your soris floated away," she says.
Now my family likes to joke around, so I assume this to be a lie. When I then open the door in order to humor her, I see that all of our shoes have literally been carried all the way down the side of the house on a torrent of water. This is not something you can see in Denver.

Before I officially started teaching at my site, I was visiting for a practicum day. Now, our school is situated such that all of the doors face the outside; they are padlocked shut. I was supposed to be teaching a first period class of 9th graders, but their teacher, I soon learned was out sick. I approached another teacher, asking him if he had the key. He smiled and said:
"Hold on. I'll go get the master key."
Now it was early, mind you, otherwise I might have wondered how you could have a "master key" to a bunch of padlocks. But I didn't. Then he returned, brandishing a hammer. He pulled the entire contraption, lock, hinges, and all, off of my door and proudly said, "There you go."

Style & Grace (or, "Me and my bicycle"); Everything I really need to know I learned in Walung

So, the PC hasn't actually issued us our bikes yet (a point of no contention, as I'm sure you'd guess); however, my host family here has become in the habit of lending me one of their bicycles to use. Now, you know the old saying--about anything--"oh, it comes back in a second. Just like riding a bike"? Well, I'm willing to bet that whoever made that up has never attempted to ride a bike sporting a long skirt and flip-flops, ill-balanced messenger bag slung over one shoulder. But that's another story.
Today I'd like to present to you a couple of shining examples of the fun I have had riding a bicycle here, where every trip is really an adventure. Young, carefree PCV has just begun her (soon-to-be weekly) bike odyssey on the road leading from Tofol (the capital) to her home. Dusk is just starting to think about falling. And action.

Out of nowhere, this crazyvicious-looking dog runs onto the road out of nowhere, clearly craving the taste of human flesh (but preferably that sweet, juicy flesh of the Homo homo sapienas americanus). Unsuspecting girl looks behind her, freaks out, and starts yelling "Teok! Teok!" literally at the top of her lungs. (This is probably Kosraen for some very bad word. She's not really sure.) Girl speeds up as fast as she can (still shouting) and pulls her right ankle up well above the crossbar, removing the tasty morsel from the eager, terrifying, (and, yet, not very tall) jaws of impending doom. Girl succeeds, hoping that no one was around to witness this ridiculous ordeal. End scene.

Another awesome bicycle incident befell said girl last weekend when she was least suspecting it. After running her bike off of the road and into a ditch, losing both her sunglasses and her dignity (but that's another story), our protagonist resolved to be very careful the rest of the way home. As usual, however, her procrastination meant that she was finishing her journey virtually in the dark. She becomes excited as she passes onto her street, confident that she has successfully avoiding having two embarrssing bicycle crashes in the same trip. As she passes her neighborhood store, she calls out "Eke wo" to the people sitting there.
One guy calls back "Eke wo. Kom lungse chocolate?"
Now here's where the ambiguity of the Kosraen language really starts causing trouble. Is this man merely offering an informational query ["You like chocolate?], or is this figure, now mainly veiled in shadows, offering our heroine chocolate out of the dark? In other words, small talk, or prelude to crazy real-life episode of True Crime? Well, as her mind has been working through all these cogitations, her feet have continued to pedal, the wheels have continued to spin, and Megan's head has turned progressively further and further around, toward the speaker of the confusing statement...and she's hit a giant (and very familiar, unfortunately speedbump). She recovers her balance in the nick of time, all still without a clue of what's actually just happened.

And now for something completely different...so, last weekend, our training class tromped out to Walung for "cultural activities"--though I think that it was designed as a break from the monotony of training as much as anything else. It was an odd melange of things: Berenstein Bears' Vacation weather, picture postcard setting, and a place of lodging that would have pleased Hitchcock and unnerved Edgar Allen Poe. But that's all for another time (when I'm not paying for Internet by the millisecond anymore).
For the moment, I present: "Everything I really need to know I learned in Walung"

1) Making fun of other people for taking Dramamine is never good karma

2) Snorkeling (anywhere!) can be fun, depending upon the degree to which you adjust your expectations. ("Ooh! Look! A rock!!!" "Oh yeah? I found mangrove roots. What what!")

3) Pigs can swim(!?!)

4) Contrary to popular belief, a higher proportion of yelling DOES NOT yield a higher proportion of caught fish while net-fishing

5) A coconut tree is a hell of a lot taller on the way down than on the way up

And, with that, I leave you for the moment. By next post will be as an OFFICIAL Peace Corps Volunteer. Expect great things (haha).