I've been meaning to do this for some time now. Here are a bunch of short anecdotes about my time in Pohnpei. It was a beautiful summer!
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HAP: The Higher Achievement Program, run by the Jesuits in the region, is a summer program for high achieving 7th going on 8th graders. A couple of students are taken from each elementary school all over the state, and they come together for a summer of advanced teaching and relationship building. At the beginning, everyone is terrified to speak. At the end, we had a whole day picnic/party on the beach! And, as a bonus, I got to teach alongside Colleen (JV from Xavier) and under Tim (a JV from Pohnpei) as a director, which made my summer complete.
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HAP II: Teaching a bunch of great students, for a half a day in the summer, was great fun. Everyone wanted to be there, wanted to participate, wanted to learn. This allowed for hilarious moments to be hilarious and not awkward. For example, I told one of the better students to change seats. He got up, and I pulled the chair away as I looked around the class for where he should go. He didn’t want to wait standing up, so he sat back down – only there was no longer any chair. A crash, a moment of me looking down at what I had done, and then histaria. Good times.class.
We also did swing dancing, and I have to mention two students - Jerome and Jocelyn. We were preparing a dance for a performance at our graduation, and these two went to town. They were awesome at it, and they led and inspired the other kids. Sadly, on the day of our performance, Jocelyn’s over-demanding father took her away when she didn’t receive any special awards at the graduation ceremony. She didn’t have a chance to tell anyone, and so we all waited, delayed as long as we could, before finally performning because we could not wait. We danced, but without our usual joy and spirit. Jerome said “Me and Jocelyn will dance tomorrow, at the picnic.” But they did not, as she wasn’t allowed to attend that either. I didn’t find out why she hadn’t come until only a couple of weeks ago. Sad and frustrating.
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Buses: We took our HAP kids to Nan Madol for a field trip one Friday. Nan Madol is akin to the pyramids in it’s majestic mystery – absolutely massive basalt pillars and beams shape and frame the place, and no one has any idea how they got to where they are. So that was cool to see.
And cool to get there alive, see them alive. We were late leaving due to a miscommunication, and perhaps someone felt bad for this because all three bus drivers drove us to Nan Madol like they were being chased by Jehu’s Chariot – and they went the long way. The roads in Pohnpei are small, and given it’s island nature, absolutely not straight, and so we were literally careening around the island. I haven’t been as scared since driving in India. Students throwing up, people yelling, it was a bad sight.
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Kids in the rain: Sean is a Peace Corps guy in Pohnpei who started a youth soccer program. We became good friends, as he is a great guy. As for the program, we got to help out a little while we were there and it was amazing. Such dedication, enthusiasm, and natural talent! I will never forget one Wednesday practice that I was doing on my own. We were just playing a game, and it started pouring – and I mean pouring. Windy, muddy, soaking, swampy wetness. The field was getting flooded, all shirts were getting muddy, and no one cared. They were so happy playing, so excited about playing that they didn’t even blink an eye. Even the adult players, who usually came every night at around 7:00pm (they have field lights!), didn’t show up that night. But the kids, man, the kids were amazing. They said it all in their smiles.
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Soccer: One of the greatest joys this summer was being able to play soccer at least twice a week. Ex-pats and Pohnpeins would gather around 7:00 pm, under the lights, and we’d usually play until 8:30, 9:00pm. We’d use small goals (which, frustratingly, often people just stood in to block shots. Lame.), cones and pinneys. It was fast, energetic, and challenging enough to be satisfying. And so awesome to play under lights! We only got one full field game in over the summer, but that game was great. It made me excited to see organized sports again.
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Bikini Island: One day Dali, our awesome Pohnpein teaching colleague at HAP, took us out to a small, man-made family island they had made just inside the reef. Due to its size, it was named “Bikini Island.” Swimming at “Bikini” was beautiful – there was coral, a bamboo raft, salt water, and the most spectacular benjo (outhouse) you’ve ever seen. Check out pictures for that one. Swimming there, with the younger kids and my fellow JVs, it just felt like home. So comfortable, so peaceful, and nowhere else to go but in and out of the beautiful water.
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Thorphin: The Thorphin is an old Norwegian whaler that has been converted into a lagoon live aboard diving ship. It is captained by someone from Canada, and is a staple in Chuuk. It has a diesel engine, and single handedly consumes the waste oil produced by the generators in the four F.S.M. states. At the beginning of the summer it inexplicably ran into the reef while leaving Pohnpei after refueling. It remained stuck there for the whole summer, mostly for legal rather than logistic reasons. The Pohnpein Port Authority (PPA) wanted to fine the Thorphin for not using a pilot (it hasn’t in decades). The Thorphin, represented by a great guy we played soccer with (Steve), said they would simply sue for the innumerable negligent actions of the PPA, including placing none of the marking buoys required by their own laws.
Can we look at this for a second? An example of ineffective bureaucratical functioning. We have a ship, sinking on a reef, which has thousands of gallons of oil on board from refueling. Even without the environmental danger, if the ship sinks in the pass, supply ships won’t be able to make it into the harbour until it is salvaged. There is no salvaging equipment in the country. Lastly, the ship in question single-handedly deals with all of the waste oil produced by the entire country. And the PPA is trying to nail them on breaking a transportation law, before they’re trying to get them off the reef. A rethinking of priorities may have been, I think, in order. It’s ok now though, the Thorphin made it to the Philippines where it is being repaired on a dry dock.
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Airports: People traveling in F.S.M., especially those who fly, not only carry themselves but also act as the mail service for their friends and families. Friends of ours, a Shri-Lankan family with one sister in Pohnpei and another in Chuuk, approached me at the airport with a giant case of Soy milk and asked if I could take it to the other sister and husband and their son, who all love Soy milk but can’t get it in Chuuk. I was only checking one bag, so sure. I checked two. And I was met by Jonathan, our friend and the son of the sister, at the airport in Chuuk. It worked seamlessly.
But the best thing is, there’s no restrictions on who takes what. While waiting to get cleared at the customs place, one of the guys inside the booth saw the lady behind me, recognized her as a relative, and excitedly asked her if she was going to Yap. Yes, she said, and so he gave her a letter to deliver there. As it exchanged hands in front of me, I saw that is was from the Attorney General’s office and was addressed to a government official in Yap. Like I said, it works.
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Rise up singing: One of the best nights of summer, if not the best night, was the night a music professor from North Carolina inspired a round table of old Jesuits and young Jesuit volunteers to sing songs for hours after dinner. We had just finished eating when he pulled out the guitar, and asked if he might play one song. He did, everyone loved it, and we never stopped. I especially loved it because it was a lot of old folk songs I really like, so I was right in there with the Fathers. There was a little harmonica playing as well. It felt like Christmas in July in Pohnpei!
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Bittersweet: Leaving was. I was longing to get back to Chuuk, but Pohnpei was amazing. Living at the Jesuit residence, playing soccer any night of the week, having power, having great company, it was all a beautiful thing. But it wasn’t home. It was a vacation. And I was ready to get back home, to get back to Saram and the Saramen Chuuk Academy family.
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