Sunday, October 25, 2009
Scuba and Swimming
Last weekend I went scuba diving for the first time. It was really strange at first to go under water and not hold my breath. But once you get used to it, scuba diving is amazing! We were mostly practicing different skills but at the end of our dive we got to explore a little and saw some coral and fish. We only went down 20 feet though; going down to 60 is going to be a lot different. Amber and Ap are taking the classes with me along with some volunteers that are here through World Teach. I have another dive this weekend, and 2 more next weekend… then I will be certified! This week was the same as most in training. We went to an elementary school and observed an 8th grade English class. Next week I have to teach 2 lessons in the class. I am very nervous. I still don’t know what I am doing a lesson on and the more I look at lesson ideas the more I realize I do not know about English grammar. (As you may have realized from reading my blog) I probably should have brushed up on my own English skills before I came to teach it. Amber will be teaching with me (and she has teaching experience) so that is helping calm my nerves a little bit. I will let you know how it goes! Yesterday we had a nice day off of regular training and went to a nearby island for a picnic. We also learned how to weave baskets and start a fire. The fire starting involved a lighter and a sytrofoam ramen bowl so clearly, western influences have reached the islands. We asked our language teachers to show us how to light a fire with just 2 sticks but their reply was, “When are you ever going to be on an island without a lighter?” Very true, except possibly for those going to the outer islands. We also had a lot of time to swim around the island. There was a sandy beach which was very nice as all of the swimming spots on Pohnpei involve walking on some pretty sharp coral. After all, I joined the Peace Corps for luxury, not scraping my feet up. I have not been very good at taking pictures lately but I am receiving an underwater casing for my camera this week from my sister so I will take more then!
Mouse Update
Earlier I may have stated I did not mind the mice in my room. My feelings have drastically changed. A few nights ago I awoke to a mouse on my leg. In my bed. At 5 in the morning. Aren’t mice supposed to be afraid of people? Shouldn’t they run away from me? What are they doing climbing in my bed? Well, to say the least, I did not appreciate it. Somehow, I did not scream. In fact, all I did was sit up and shake my leg until I heard it scurry off my bed and back into its hole in my wall. Then rolled over and went back to sleep. I would have had a way different reaction a mere 2 months ago. I guess I am getting used to my critter friends in a way. But if one joins me in bed again, I am going to have to buy some traps.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
3 weeks left...
3 weeks of training left and then i will be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer! Right now, I am only considered a Trainee. I am excited to get to my site and see what my new host family and school are like. At the same time, the end of training is going to be very sad. I am not going to see the friends i have made here as often. Especially Kate, Heather and Ap who are all going to outer islands of Pohnpei state. That will definitely be a tough adjustment. Not being around Americans daily will force me to integrate into the community more than i have during my first 2 months here though, which is good.
Learning Pohnpeian is going okay. It is a tough language. And living with a host family is definitely helping me practice, but i still usually have no clue what they are saying to me. I hope that I improve during the last 3 weeks. I know that I will continue to learn when I get to my village as well.
Today we had "Cross Cultural Thursday" which was a lesson about how to clean and gut a fish. Ugh. It was disgusting. I was not very good at it. I managed to de-scale the fish... I couldn't bring myself to cut open the belly and pull the guts out. Amber had to step in and help me out. I guess I'm not really surprised, I can't even cut the fat off of a packaged chicken breast without gagging at home. I guess I will be offering to help was the dishes instead of cook dinner most of the time.
Last night I started scuba classes. The next 3 weekends will be filled with training dives. There are a lot of great dive spots around Pohnpei so I am very excited about learning. And once certified, your scuba license never expires so it is worth the small fortune it is costing me (when living on a peace corps salary).
Some pictures:
Snorkeling
Kate and I watching the sunset
Learning Pohnpeian is going okay. It is a tough language. And living with a host family is definitely helping me practice, but i still usually have no clue what they are saying to me. I hope that I improve during the last 3 weeks. I know that I will continue to learn when I get to my village as well.
Today we had "Cross Cultural Thursday" which was a lesson about how to clean and gut a fish. Ugh. It was disgusting. I was not very good at it. I managed to de-scale the fish... I couldn't bring myself to cut open the belly and pull the guts out. Amber had to step in and help me out. I guess I'm not really surprised, I can't even cut the fat off of a packaged chicken breast without gagging at home. I guess I will be offering to help was the dishes instead of cook dinner most of the time.
Last night I started scuba classes. The next 3 weekends will be filled with training dives. There are a lot of great dive spots around Pohnpei so I am very excited about learning. And once certified, your scuba license never expires so it is worth the small fortune it is costing me (when living on a peace corps salary).
Some pictures:
Snorkeling 
Kate and I watching the sunset
birthday
I'm 23!! I realizes that this may have been my first birthday spent outside of New York. At least that I can remember. Nonetheless, I had a great birthday here in Pohnpei. On Friday the trainees in my group had a card and chocolate cake (with icing!) for me. And on Saturday, Kate, Amber, Ruthanne (trainees) and Morgan (Pohnpeian friend) went to Nan Madol for the day. Nan Madol is a site of ancient ruins near our village that also has a great swimming spot. The funniest part of the day was probably the hour walk home (which included an unplanned hike down a mountain). Kate was not expecting this part of the adventure and made it clear the whole way through the jungle/path. I too, was complaining in fear on twisting my ankle on the steep hill. Little did we know that Morgan had actually taken us this way because it was a great shortcut! (**Please see Amber's blog for a much better account of this journey... on the bottom right of my page) My birthday was made complete on Sunday by calls with my mom and sisters.Thank you to everyone who sent me birthday cards, letters and packages! I am still receiving them. Miss you all!
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
some photos
Jason, me and Amber on the "men wei" (foreigner) bus
Kate, Amber and I on Nahlap
My training host family and I
Micro 76 group on site placement day
View from our training site
Nan Madol, ancient ruins near my village
Kaselelhlia!
Hello! I started language training a week and a half ago, so I know that kaselelhlia means hello. And I know a few other things. If any of you are itching to learn Pohnpeian, let me know and I’ll send you some of my notes after training. As with most languages, Pohnpeian is complicated and has a ton of exceptions and irregularities. Whenever I get frustrated with these things, I try to remind myself that English is the same way. And then I remember I will have to explain all of our irregularities, etc. to my students soon and get to freak out about something new!
There are 7 of us learning Pohnpeian and 2 instructors so we definitely benefit from the small class size. I am in a class with Nate and Amanda and our instructor, Antero, is teaching us a lot. Once we get to our sites, we will only really be speaking Pohnpeian so it is nice not to have to worry too much about spelling. There is still a lot of grammar though. For example, there are 6 pronouns that mean mine… 2 for general items (with no set rules to know which to use), 1 for food, 1 for drinks, 1 for vehicles, and 1 for a house. And for those 6 ways, there are the related pronouns for yours, theirs, ours. Not fun.
I just hope that Pohnpeian can be my first successful attempt at learning a second language… and think about the benefits for my résumé!
There are 7 of us learning Pohnpeian and 2 instructors so we definitely benefit from the small class size. I am in a class with Nate and Amanda and our instructor, Antero, is teaching us a lot. Once we get to our sites, we will only really be speaking Pohnpeian so it is nice not to have to worry too much about spelling. There is still a lot of grammar though. For example, there are 6 pronouns that mean mine… 2 for general items (with no set rules to know which to use), 1 for food, 1 for drinks, 1 for vehicles, and 1 for a house. And for those 6 ways, there are the related pronouns for yours, theirs, ours. Not fun.
I just hope that Pohnpeian can be my first successful attempt at learning a second language… and think about the benefits for my résumé!
begging
First off, thank you to everyone who has sent me a letter, card or package already. It definitely brightens my day to be reminded of all my loved ones at home. Mail time is usually the most exciting part of our day in training. I hope all the letters I have sent in reply or just have sent in general have reached you all. I just wanted to list a few items that would be useful (or just nice) for me to have if you are sending a package. I don’t need any of these things en masse right now, but I think that these will be things I will constantly want throughout my service:
-- magazines —it is extremely hard to keep up on current events here so even a month old magazine is a treat, real news and celebrity news are both welcome. And since print media is dead, if you are ever reading an interesting article online you could print it out and stick it with a letter.
--ziploc bags (sandwich and gallon)—battling many creatures and a lot of moisture in these parts so much of what I own goes in Ziplocs
--trail mix, raisins, other dried fruits, granola bars, and salsa would all be greatly appreciated food items (and the accompanying tortilla chips if you can figure out a way to keep them from getting too mangled in the mail)
--crystal light drink mixes
Thank you again to everyone who has sent me things already. I have been snacking on my birthday candy treats all week. And I and other trainees have been enjoying all the good books. If you are ever considering sending a book and are unsure if I have already read it, there is an application on my facebook page with everything I’ve read. (before coming here at least)
-- magazines —it is extremely hard to keep up on current events here so even a month old magazine is a treat, real news and celebrity news are both welcome. And since print media is dead, if you are ever reading an interesting article online you could print it out and stick it with a letter.
--ziploc bags (sandwich and gallon)—battling many creatures and a lot of moisture in these parts so much of what I own goes in Ziplocs
--trail mix, raisins, other dried fruits, granola bars, and salsa would all be greatly appreciated food items (and the accompanying tortilla chips if you can figure out a way to keep them from getting too mangled in the mail)
--crystal light drink mixes
Thank you again to everyone who has sent me things already. I have been snacking on my birthday candy treats all week. And I and other trainees have been enjoying all the good books. If you are ever considering sending a book and are unsure if I have already read it, there is an application on my facebook page with everything I’ve read. (before coming here at least)
I was lied to as a child
Written on 10/4/09
Whoever said that roosters crow only in the morning, pigs go oink and mice are quiet was LYING. These animals are loud at all hours. And none of it is pleasant. Roosters, who are everywhere, usually begin crowing a lot around 3am. And it subsides around 8 or 9… but only a little. They crow whenever they feel like it, all day long. I thought that roosters here might help me with my problem of waking up in the morning… but I got more than I bargained for. Now I get to wake up just about every hour.
Pigs. I don’t really know how to describe the sound pigs make. The closest thing I can think of would be children screaming, but not like for the ice cream man. Naturally pigs make their worst scream/squeal/yells when they are being hogtied or killed. This I can’t fault them for. But they also scream when they are getting fed. Or are hungry. Or sometimes when they are getting wet. (side note: it rains almost every day here, usually multiple times) My host family has 4 pigs. And feeding time is 5-6am, I think. That is when they are their loudest at least. I’ll let you know if I hear an oink, but none yet, not even from a piglet.
Mice. My roommates. Nice family really. I don’t mind sharing with them. But man, they are loud when they are borrowing my things, not to mention they rarely ask first. When I am in my half-sleep between crows and pig screaming, I am often woken up by the mice in my room. They run around all night. In the walls and my things. I haven’t found anything with bite marks or mice poop yet so I haven’t been driven to buy traps yet… but they need to quiet down! Their squeaking and rumbling is really annoying. I sleep with my head lamp next to my pillow so I can scare them away when they are getting unruly.
Wish I could say that I have found an animal in Micronesia that I like… but that hasn’t happened yet. (if I had to pick… I would go with starfish) I will save the story about dogs for another post.
Whoever said that roosters crow only in the morning, pigs go oink and mice are quiet was LYING. These animals are loud at all hours. And none of it is pleasant. Roosters, who are everywhere, usually begin crowing a lot around 3am. And it subsides around 8 or 9… but only a little. They crow whenever they feel like it, all day long. I thought that roosters here might help me with my problem of waking up in the morning… but I got more than I bargained for. Now I get to wake up just about every hour.
Pigs. I don’t really know how to describe the sound pigs make. The closest thing I can think of would be children screaming, but not like for the ice cream man. Naturally pigs make their worst scream/squeal/yells when they are being hogtied or killed. This I can’t fault them for. But they also scream when they are getting fed. Or are hungry. Or sometimes when they are getting wet. (side note: it rains almost every day here, usually multiple times) My host family has 4 pigs. And feeding time is 5-6am, I think. That is when they are their loudest at least. I’ll let you know if I hear an oink, but none yet, not even from a piglet.
Mice. My roommates. Nice family really. I don’t mind sharing with them. But man, they are loud when they are borrowing my things, not to mention they rarely ask first. When I am in my half-sleep between crows and pig screaming, I am often woken up by the mice in my room. They run around all night. In the walls and my things. I haven’t found anything with bite marks or mice poop yet so I haven’t been driven to buy traps yet… but they need to quiet down! Their squeaking and rumbling is really annoying. I sleep with my head lamp next to my pillow so I can scare them away when they are getting unruly.
Wish I could say that I have found an animal in Micronesia that I like… but that hasn’t happened yet. (if I had to pick… I would go with starfish) I will save the story about dogs for another post.
Ants
Written on 10/01/09
Ants are everywhere. I have already become accustomed to ants being part of my daily wardrobe and meals. One is crawling across my computer screen as I type. Surprisingly, they don’t bother me as much as ants in the US used to. I guess because they are unavoidable here. And they are not as big as the carpenter ants that attack my mom’s house every summer. Micronesian ants are little and brown, usually pretty easy to kill when you feel them crawling on you. There are often trails of ants traveling across the walls in my room. If I leave any food outside of a Ziploc bag, it will be infested within an hour. I thought ants on Pohnpei were bad, until I went to Nahlap this past weekend. Nahlap is a small picnic island about a mile off the shore of Pohnpei. The ants there are also everywhere, but they lack the organization that Pohnpeian ants have. Ants in Nahlap just run around in crazy circles, everywhere. Making them hard to kill when they crawl all over you. I am unsure of whether these ants bite or not, I have a lot of bug bites in general, but with all the other sorts of insects around, so it is hard to pinpoint where a specific bite may have come from.
Ants are everywhere. I have already become accustomed to ants being part of my daily wardrobe and meals. One is crawling across my computer screen as I type. Surprisingly, they don’t bother me as much as ants in the US used to. I guess because they are unavoidable here. And they are not as big as the carpenter ants that attack my mom’s house every summer. Micronesian ants are little and brown, usually pretty easy to kill when you feel them crawling on you. There are often trails of ants traveling across the walls in my room. If I leave any food outside of a Ziploc bag, it will be infested within an hour. I thought ants on Pohnpei were bad, until I went to Nahlap this past weekend. Nahlap is a small picnic island about a mile off the shore of Pohnpei. The ants there are also everywhere, but they lack the organization that Pohnpeian ants have. Ants in Nahlap just run around in crazy circles, everywhere. Making them hard to kill when they crawl all over you. I am unsure of whether these ants bite or not, I have a lot of bug bites in general, but with all the other sorts of insects around, so it is hard to pinpoint where a specific bite may have come from.
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