The splendor of the Pacific

One of These People is Not Like the Other Ones

2010-04-05T11:53:00.004+12:00

Remember that segment on Sesame Street which challenges kids to figure out which of the objects in a group is different from the rest? Well, it doesn't take a Sesame Street graduate to figure this one out. These are my sweet Filipino friends who live here in Majuro with me. They invited me over for lunch after attending church together. Despite the height differential, we actually do have a lot in common, and I'm grateful for them.

Winding Down

2010-04-04T20:17:00.006+12:00

After spending most of the long weekend inside my house, I was feeling so stir crazy that I just had to get outside and walk a little. It was dusk, and the weather was just perfect: warm yet breezy. It just absolutely bowled me over that I have confined myself to a tiny little 2 mile strip of my island and just gone back and forth and back and forth for the last 2 months. No wonder I'm feeling restless!

It was great to get out on Easter evening and just feel alive and a part of the island community. It's amazing the little wonderful things that I miss out on because I'm too busy hibernating in my house. Tonight some of these wonderful little things were: seeing my little friend Blueberry (whom I didn't recognize until he called me "blueberry...I was the one wearing a blue shirt afterall!), watching kids with home-made noisemakers made from palm fronds, watching the sun set from a nice little beach that I never took much notice of before, and dozens of friendly "hello's", "Yokwe's" and "Goodnight's" from people who I've never met before but somehow know me.

I can't believe that my time here is coming to an end. I have become so isolated and solitary for the past months, that I haven't even posted the blog entries from South East Asia last summer (I promise I'll do it! They are all written, it just takes forever to upload pictures here). The reality that I'm leaving in 2 months has not yet set in. Neither do I have any idea where I'm going after July. But whatever new adventures come my way, I'm looking forward to them. And in the meantime, I am going to try to get out and walk more often. I'll let you know how that goes.

P.S. The photos are from the Good Friday "Stations of the Cross" shrines at Assumption Catholic Church, next to my house. Aren't they so beautiful?

Kuala Terengganu and Pulau Kappas

2009-06-18T03:27:00.011+12:00

Terengganu is one of the most pious and conservative parts of Malaysia. The entire prayer is given over the loudspeaker at the mosque, not just the call to prayers. We were very grateful for that, because our hostel was just down the street from the main mosque and we were able to use the voice from the mosque to find our way home when we got lost in town. We were there on Friday, the Islamic holy day, so nothing was open. It was a nice chance to just relax and rest and have some down-time. We went for a walk on the beachfront, tried some new foods: Delicious soup (wow, Malaysian food is GOOD!) and "ABC" (a strange mix of ice, jello, beans, creamed corn, syrup, and some other unrecognizable things...see the picture). We met some new friends and lazed around a bit.

The next morning we took a bus out to Marang to catch a ferry to beautiful little Kappas Island, just off the coast. While it is the off-season (because of the rainy season) right now in most parts of Southeast Asia, it's the high season along Malaysia's Gulf Coast, so it was a little hard to find accomodation on Kappas. We met up with some other backpackers in Marang: Nina from Denmark, Marilyn from Australia, and Berten and Thomas from Belgium. They were cool folks, so we stuck together and found some bungalows that were not too unreasonably priced (for the high season...we have gotten spoiled with low-season low prices for accommodation elsewhere!) The snorkeling on Kappas was good. The reef was not very healthy in many places, but the fish population seemed to be doing well, as did the Jellyfish! Nina and Marilyn and I went out to a remote beach on the north side of the island and swam through huge school of fish. There were hundreds of little fish and they kept circling us, coming right up to our snorkel masks to look us in the eye. Every once in a while they would take a nibble at our legs or back. It was the coolest experience! The fish were no more spectacular than the ones I swim with in Majuro (if anything, they were less colorful), but in Majuro they all just swim away as soon as they see you, but these guys just hung out all around us for about 30 minutes.

We spent the rest of the day at Kappas and half of the next day, and then headed back to Terengganu to catch an overnight bus to our next destination: Penang.

Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur and Melaka

2009-06-16T03:25:00.017+12:00

I went to sleep on the train in Singapore and woke up at about 6am in Kuala Lumpur's central train terminal. Ray sent me a message that she had already left KL for Melaka because of a stalker situation, so I didn't want to stay in KL long, but there were a couple things I wanted to see. I made my way to the bus station and scheduled a ticket to Melaka and then headed over to the Petronas Towers (tallest twin buildings in the world). They offer free tickets up to the 41st floor walkway, but you have to arrive early (like before 8am) to queue for them. I hopped on the subway amidst a throng of headscarfs and skullcaps. It was 7:30am: rush hour in KL. There was hardly room to breathe, and I was grateful to make it to the towers. I met up in the line with Simon and Geoff, two British backpackers that I had met in the hostel in Singapore, and we were lucky enough to get tickets for the 2nd group to go up the towers (impecable timing...20 minutes later and our tour time would have been noon or 1pm). Petronas is the national oil company, and showed us a short video (complete with 3-D glasses) showing propaganda about how many community initiatives they support, and how great the company is. I was willing to listen to it for the privilege of a free trip to the top. The view of KL was nice. We headed down and over to the Musjid Jamek, the oldest mosque in KL. They gave us robes and me a headscarf and allowed us to walk around the outer prayer platforms at our own place. It's a beautiful building, and very nice of them to allow us to come visit. After spending 20 minutes in a headscarf in the KL heat, I have newfound respect for Muslim women! It is stifflingly hot under there! I don't know how they do it, but their dedication impresses me. We grabbed a bite to eat, looked for the museum which has now been closed, and then split up to catch my bus and their train. Six hours in the bussle and chaos and clatter of KL was all I needed to experience. It was nice while it lasted, but I was glad to be headed to a smaller city. Two hours later I was in Melaka.

Melaka is a city with a rich history. It's strategic location on the Straights of Melaka (between Malaysia and Indonesia, an important channel between the South China Sea and the Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean) has made it a very important and fought-over port. Since the 14th century it has been controlled by a Sultan from Sumatra, the Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, British, and finally the Malay people. Today Melaka's citizens reflect the diverse groups who came to Melaka, and people called Peranakan are descended from marriages between Chinese and Malays, Indians and Malays, and Portuguese and Malays. The main thing that I wanted to see in Melaka was the Straits, and so I walked around town until I found the tallest bridge possible. Luckily it had a sidewalk and I walked across it, took some photos, returned to the hotel, and made arrangements to return to Singapore to retrieve my thumb drive. Tony, the guesthouse owner, gave me some tips on where to most easily catch a bus. I walked down there with my bags and waited in the hot sun for 45 minutes without seeing anything. Finally I hailed a taxi and I was glad that I did, because the taxi driver was very friendly and gave me good tips on the best bus to take to Singapore. He makes the three hour trip to Singapore often to visit his daughter and grandkids. I bought my ticket, sat down and ate the nicest meal (Roti Canai with curry to dip it in and Biryani for about $1.75) and boarded the bus. The bus was a super VIP bus, which means that there are only 3 seats per row and they resemble lazy-boy recliners. It was heavenly! I got to Singapore, bought a laptop, picked up my thumbdrive, spent one last night with my friends in the hostel in Chinatown, and hoped on a bus headed toward Malaysia again.

At the border, I had a little problem. I checked out of Singapore and I was supposed to get back on the bus downstairs to Johor Bahru (the Malaysian side of the border), but as I came downstairs, the bus pulled away, and as I followed it, I got locked out from Singapore, yet a long causeway separating me from Malaysia. I went around in a circle, checked back into Singapore, then back out (this is the 4th time through Singapore Immigration for me in 1 week, and I'm sure they were wondering what the heck I was doing!) and finally got downstairs and picked up the next bus. By the time I got to Johor Bahru, I was relieved to find that I had just barely made the last bus to Kuala Terengganu for the day. I settled in for the 9 hour journey and enjoyed the sights up the East Coast of Malaysia to Terengganu, where I would meet up with Ray again and explore some of the tropical islands offshore.

I heart Singapore

2009-06-13T03:22:00.041+12:00

Singapore is the cleanest, most organized city that I've ever experienced! That's thanks to the government and their excessive system of fining people for anything and everything. If you're caught chewing gum you're fined. If you're caught jaywalking, you're fined. If you're smoking outside of the yellow box at the bar, you're fined. If you bring a Durian (the world's stinkiest fruit) on a bus or subway (the super-efficient MRT), you're fined. I can understand that the locals are really tired of so much regulation and restriction, but the result is a really clean, orderly city that is free of chaos and stress. It's the most peaceful and calm big city I've ever visited! The MRT is never crowded, the buses all look like they just rolled off the showroom floor, and everything runs on schedule like clockwork! Even Little India and Chinatown are clean, organized, and calm! Little India?!? Chinatown?!? This is truly a unique place!

Singapore is in a stage of transition. They are one of the wealthiest countries in South East Asia, but manufacturing which used to happen in Singapore has moved to other countries with cheaper labor costs, so Singapore is re-inventing itself to try to maintain its healthy economy and prosperity. The island of Singapore was established originally as a port and manufacturing city. It has many dutch and british influences, especially visible in the architecture. Many men migrated there from surrounding countries (China, Malaysia, India) seeking work. As a result, around the turn of the 20th century, the ratio of Men to Women in Singapore was 10:1! With a gigantic bachelor population, there was a need to feed everyone on the street, so hawker stalls set up shop. But the president was not happy about the chaos that could potentially ensue (and does in most other southeast asian countries) with stalls and stands up and down every street, so he organized huge hawker centers and moved all the food vendors to centralized locations where things could be kept clean and organized and under control. Today these hawker centers still exist, and they are still turning out delicious Singaporean food at bargain prices. I sampled Nasi Lemak, Laksa (one of my favorites!), Satay, and many other Indian, Malay, and Singaporean dishes. Most are an interesting blend of Chinese, Indian, and Malay culinary traditions. While in Singapore, Ray and I also tried some new fruits that neither of us had ever seen before: Durians (the spikey so-called “King of Fruits,” which resemble chicken organs inside (see the accompanying picture...Ray's face says it all!) and taste just as foul as they smell...despite what the vendors try to tell you, Rambutans (which look like aliens but taste pretty good), Dragonfruit (which are also very colorful...the ones that are hot pink inside are nice, but the ones that are white inside have almost no flavor whatsoever), and Mangosteens (which are dark purple on the outside with white, mushy sections on the inside...they are pretty good).

I went out to try to find some live music on Friday night with a guy named Chris who was staying at our hostel. He was on his way home to England after living in Australia and NZ for 2 years. We went to an Australian pub called “The Prince of Whales” only to find out that the live band was awful and loud, so we sat outside in the garden. We met two locals: Chris (a girl) and Dong who were very entertaining and told us all about their place. Dong has some interesting ideas that he pitched to us, including a vending machine that sells emotions. It was fun to get their perspective on life. The next day Ray took off for Malaysia, but I was having a good time and wanted to see more of Singapore. We had mainly wandered around Little India and East Coast Road, where we were staying at the time. After Ray left, Chris and I checked ouy Changi Villiage (where they serve up the best Laksa!) and Ubin Island (just off the coast of Singapore). We took a bum-bum boat out to the island, and rented bicycles once we arrived. The island is pretty and remains the way Singapore was before the high-rises and sky-scrapers took over downtown. In fact, Ubin island resembles Majuro in many ways (though it is bigger). The next night I shifted to the Chinatown branch of the same hostel, which was a great way to see a different part of the city. I met two English backpackers (Simon and Geoff) who ended up on the same train to Kuala Lumpur later that week, and Maria, a pretty, young Filipina who manages the Chinatown hostel. On Sunday I took the MRT to church and then went out walking at Bukit Timah nature reserve nearby. It is the last patch of primary rainforest left in Singapore, and it's a beautiful green space to visit. They have lots of gutsy Macaque Monkeys and great views of the city from the top of the hill. It is such a unique and beautiful contrast to look through the lush jungle onto the skyscrapers below. There were many cute families out spending time together on Sunday afternoon, which was fun to watch. This family togetherness is something I really like about South East Asian culture.

At church I heard a name announced that sounded familiar. I recognized it was a friend of a fried of mine who grew up in London but now lives in Singapore and teaches English to Chinese and Vietnamese students preparing to attend University in English, so I emailed him and he invited me to visit his class the next day. It was a lot of fun and his students were so sweet. I just love being in class with students, and his were a really wonderful group. After class we went out to lunch with a few of them and got to know them better. After class I wandered to the one part of Singapore that I had not yet seen: the Colonial district. When I passed by the Parliament building, there was a group of traditional dancers in white performing outside. It was a beautiful sight! I went up to the “Fountain of Wealth,” which is the largest fountain in the world. They have a free water and lights show at dusk, so I went to check it out. People believe that if you circle the fountain 3 times while touching the water, you'll accumulate greater wealth. It has been commercialized and when they had “water touching time and started playing the song, “Some People Wait a Lifetime, for a moment like this...some people search forever, for a moment like this,” I was so disgusted that I almost picked up and left. But then they put on an equally cheesy, yet less superstitious Celine Dion song and I'm glad I stayed because the light show was nice. On the walk back home I stopped by the famous Merlion statue on the Esplanade and took a few pictures. It was a beautiful view with the lights of the city behind. I walked by Clark Quay (another beautiful, lit up area) and back to Chinatown and then to the train station. I had such a lovely time! I'll definitely be back to Singapore!

Metro Manila to the Jungles of Borneo

2009-06-07T03:17:00.026+12:00

After such beautiful weather in Manila during my previous time there, the heavens opened and dumped on us. It rained continuously all day on the 5th and all day on the 6th of June. Ray saw nothing but rain and road congestion during her stay in Manila, and wasn't a big fan of the city because of it. I was still having issues with a pinched nerve in my shoulder, so we packed up our bags and took a Jeepney to Quezon City to the accupressure/holistic medicine clinic there. They were very nice and put us right in steamy roaster bags where we were cooked like Thanksgiving Turkeys! Steam therapy was the first part, then an accupressure massage. After the experience, I'm a believer in accupressure! I felt a little bit better that day, and within 2 days all pain in my shoulder was gone. I had been taking Tylenol with Codine and muscle relaxer for the past 3 weeks to try to lessen the excruciating pain, with no relief. After a 1 hour accupressure session, I was on my way to feeling better. I was so relieved that I wouldn't have to go through this 10 week trip with sharp pain from my shoulder down my left arm as had been the case for the prior 3 weeks! After the Roaster Bag/Accupressure experience, we took a taxi to the Megamall (holy cow, these Southeast Asians LOVE to shop!!) to get our bus up to Clark Airport (1.5 hours north of Manila). The Air Asia jet that we caught there was really cool. It's a new low-cost airline with glowing neon lights, highly made-up flight attendants, and fog blowing out of the airconditioners. It resembles a dance club in the main cabin. After seeing how conservative and understated Malaysia is (a strict muslim country), its a little weird to consider that Air Asia is a Malaysian-owned airline! Anyway, it was a good flight, right on time, efficient with good service, and a good price-tag, too! Two hours later we touched down in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo.

Kota Kinabalu (or KK at it's frequently shortened) is a nice medium-size city, a lot less chaotic and loud than Manila. We met a friend at our hostel and went out to dinner with her. I had firey, delicious Tom Yam soup, which I could not finish. When I asked the waiter if I could take it home, he said sure and proceeded to put it in a plastic bag for me! This seems to be the Southeast Asian wayDrinks, foods, sauces, all are sold in plastic baggies! The night market and the fruit markets in KK were outstanding! I ate so many Guavas, Mangos, and Pomelos that I made myself sick! For dinner at the night market you just browse the buffet selection at various stalls and then pick 3 items that look tasty to add to your rice for 4 Ringit (about $1.25). It's delicious, and less meaty (well, at least less weird looking/tasting meat) than the Philippines. Yahoo!

Our first excoursion in Borneo was a day trip to Gaya Island, which was fabulous. It's just off the coast of KK and the water was sparkling. We swam, hiked, made friends with some 4-foot long monitor lizards, and came back all in one day. The next day we traveled by bus across Borneo to a place called Sepilok, where there is an Oran-Utan rehabilitation center and also a rainforest discovery center. We stayed at a quiet Bed and Breakfast with a super friendlylocal host named Justin and a very nice staff. Justin grew up in the Jungle and has been involved in conservation efforts his whole life. He took us for a night hike to try to find some flying foxes (a type of squirrel), but the animals never came out. It was a really cool experience to stand on the 17 meter tall viewing platform at the top of the forest canopy as dusk settled over the forest. The cicadas and birds made a wonderful symphony for us, and across the top of the forest we could hear the last prayer-call of the day from the local mosque. On our way back from Sipelok, we stopped by Mt. Kinbalu national park. Mt. Kinabalu is the highest peak in South East Asia, and is supposed to have amazing views all the way to Palawan Philippines from the top. We didn't hike the mountain (a 2-day, vigorous trek that our sea-level lungs and muscles weren't really ready for!), but we did hike around some trails in the park through beautiful jungles, which was very nice. That night we got back to KK and boarded our flight to Singapore.

Tacloban and Samar Island

2009-06-05T03:11:00.008+12:00

The ride from Padre Burgos to Sogod was in a local (non-air-con) bus similar to the one I took from Banaue to Bontoc. It was just barely running. I met a nice girl named Mamie sitting next to me (I just can't get over the friendliness of the Filipino people!) Just after she got off the bus, the bus stopped in the middle of the road and the guys who had collected our money got our and started doing some repairs to the battery. They switched an old one our and brought a couple more (that looked to be just as old) on board the bus. We took back off again, but within 5 minutes, we had to stop for a detour in the road and the bus stalled. Evidently all three batteries were dead, so 3 guys who seemed to work for the bus company got out and pushed our bus backward down the street and then pushed it forward while the driver tried to pop the clutch. It took about three tries to get it back up and running, but eventually it did, all the passengers cheered, and we were back on the road again! It's just these kind of experiences that make me smile and count myself lucky to experience life in the developing world. I love it!

In Sogod I switched to an air conditioned van for the 3 hour ride to Tacloban, which is the capital city of Leyte Island. The van dropped us out at the airport instead of in town, and I was short of pesos since Padre Burgos was defintaly too small to have an ATM. I didn't have enough money for a taxi, so I jumped in a jeepney and hoped it would eventually go by a bank. It only cost 14 pesos (about 25cents) and I hopped off in town, without
a clue where I was in relation to the guesthouse I had booked. Luckily after only a few minutes, I spotted some sister missionaries walking down the street and introduced myself. They were fantastic, and were going on a jeepney in the same direction as I needed to go, so they pointed the way to me. Finally I made it to Ron and Fire's place. They are a really great couple about my age who both like backpacking, so they converted their home into a backpacker's guesthouse. There's not much tourist traffic through Tacloban (it's a shame, because it's a nice place, and an easy gateway to dive locations in Southern Letye). So again, I was the only guest. I wandered around a bit that night, then headed out the next morning to Basey, a quaint villiage just across the San Juanico bridge on Samar Island (the province next to Leyte). Basey is a great combination of rural life and town. They have some historical old churches and buildings, and walking down the street, you pass by large tarps laid out on the road with rice spread out on them drying in the sun before being husked. You even run across this right in town! There are natural caves and waterfalls nearby, but a trip up the river to get to them takes longer than I had, so I just contented myself with wandering around town a bit. Then I took a jeepney back and walked across the San Juanico bridge, which is quite large. Not as long as the Golden Gate, but almost. It afforded really picturesque views of both Northern Leyte and Southern Samar Islands. When I got back to town, I took a whirlwind tour of the Santo Nino Shrine, a house that Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos had built and put many of their oppulent things inside. It's now a museum and it's gigantic! The Marcos' never actually even stayed there, although there is a furnished bedroom for each member of the family. Imelda is considered the “Rose of Tacloban”. She was the illegitimate child of a housekeeper and the master of the house. Her father's relatives took her in and realized that she was very beautiful and talented. Then she met a young senator, Ferdinand Marcos, and they became married. It's quite an amazing rags to riches story.

That night was my flight back to Manila. Because of bad weather in Manila, planes had been delayed and there was the equivalent of 3 plane-fulls of people in the small waiting area. The airconditioner could not keep up and it was sweltering! Around 6pm, our time of departure, the Cebu Pacific employees made an announcement that the plane was delayed, and then they all went home! For two more hours we waited with no updates in the sweltering waiting room with not enough chairs for everyone. I was worried, because I told Ray that I would meet her at the airport in Manila (my flight was due to arrive 1.5 hours before hers). But by 10pm (4 hours late!) when our plane finally departed, Ray was already in Manila finding her way across town. Back in the chaos of Manila, it was raining like crazy (it had been for days) and there were traffic jams (at 2am). Manila is great, but there's absolutely no organization and the traffic can be maddening if you just want to get home. I was glad to get back to Friendly's, my home-base in Manila, and get a few winks of sleep before getting ready to head to Clark airport for our flight to Borneo.

Southern Leyte Island: Secret Paradise

2009-06-03T03:05:00.022+12:00

From Cebu I caught another, smaller ferry to Ormoc harbor, on Leyte Island. It was not as crowded as the previous ferry, and I had plenty of space. I also didn't have as much competition for the shower facilities, so I was able to clean up. It had open-air beds on the top bunk, where passengers can relax and look at the scenery going by while dozing. It was a really relaxing 6 hours! From Ormoc, I connected to a local bus going to Bay-Bay, then a van from Bay-Bay to Bato, then another van from Bato to Maasin, and then because it was late I had to hire a tricycle to take me the 30km to Padre Burgos, where I would stay for the next 2 days. It was late when I arrived, and I found to my surprise that I was the only guest in the entire dive resort (it's the off season, so no one was around). At Bay-Bay, I stopped by the market and bought a pineapple for about a dollar, which the lady made into a popsicle for easy eating. It was SO delicious and hard to resist sinking my teeth into until I got to Padre Burgos many hours later!!

In the morning I woke up to a beautiful sleepy little village on the edge of Sogod Bay with very friendly people and absolutely breathtaking views both above and under the water. A friendly little puppy came running up to welcome me and chew on the strap of my purse and anything else he could sink his teeth into. I started out the day with a snorkel in the reef just next to the resort. The coral diversity was great and there was a really good variety of fish. I swam with three turtles who make this particular reef their home, which was a first for me. The local staff were very friendly and waited on my every need (there were about 5 of them to one of me!) By the next day some other guests arrived (2 or 3 others), but I was no less spoiled! I took a walk into town, and along the way answered the question, “Where are you going?” about 150 times. At first I had to process the question for a while before giving an answer, until I found out that to Filipinos, saying, “Where are you going?” is just like saying, “How are you?” and all that they are expecting is for you to say, “Just there!” and they are satisfied. One many even said to me, “Hello, where are you coming from and where are you going?” I'm glad that I had figured out that it wasn't meant as an interrogation before meeting him! In town I had lunch at an adorable little cafe (I was the only customer again) and I got to try halo-halo for desert. If you ge the chance to try it, I'd highly recommend it! It is a layered desert made with icecream, fruit, sweet beans, ice, and condensed milk. Mmmmmm....

That evening I went for a walk in the neighborhood and made friends with some local children who were having races with a sticks and bicycle tires. They were so adorable and loved taking pictures, which was great for me, because they were such cute little willing candidates for a photo shoot. There were some boys jumping off a wooden structure into the water out in the bay, and I got a few really good action shots of them too. It was such a good experience that I didn't want to leave the next day, but I had to get back to Tacloban in time for my flight back to Manila. If you are in the mood for a laid-back holiday in a beautiful yet uncrowded place, Southern Leyte is a great place!

Mindinao and Ferry Ride to Cebu with Chickens

2009-06-02T03:02:00.011+12:00

I flew to Mindinao on Sunday morning and waited for a couple of hours for my boss, Joe and his wife Becky to arrive on a different flight from Manila. The previous Friday, Joe had invited me to come with them to their home province and see the college that he was once the president of (his twin brother Danny is now the president). With Joe and Becky was their daughter Darline, her husband Bart, and their 3 year old daughter, Brianna, who kept us amused during the drive up to Valencia, where the college is located. The drive was beautiful and mountainous, but very different from the Evergreen-clad mountains I had just visited in Northern Luzon. Mindinao has a subtropical climate so the landscape looks very different. The vast variety of environments and landscapes in the Philippines really impressed me. Mindinao and the Visayas Islands are famous for what Filipinos call "Habel-Habel" which means squeezing as many people as possible onto one motorcycle. It was very cute to see entire families on one motorbike, or even more amazing, 4 or 5 unrelated adults squeezing onto one bike. It's an economical way to get across town for very cheap. Well, Joe's brother Danny has a 4-wheel drive SUV, so we did not experience Habel Habel firsthand, but it looks like fun! The Dials were such gracious hosts to me. Danny's faculty were just starting a new semester and Joe volunteered me to give a presentation about critical thinking skills to them. I gave a similar one to the faculty at CMI in February after attending a conference in Berkeley, but it was definitely not fresh in my mind by May 31st! I had to wake my brain up out of summer-vacation hibernation, but I was flattered and glad that I could contribute something in return for their including me in their family vacation!

Mountain View College is a Seventh Day Adventist institution which has a wonderful system for offering equal access to all students. To subsidize educational expenses, the college has industries on it's campus. They have farms and livestock, a rubber plantation, a hydro-electric power plant (they are off the grid!) in which students can work to put themselves through school. Joe and Danny grew up in a very poor family, but they were able to educate themselves through the programs at Mountainview College and as a result, both have PhD degrees now and very successful careers. They have lived and worked in many countries. I came to find out that they actually lived in my hometown (Windsor California...a small place) for 6 months in the 1980s. Joe was the president of the college, but communist activists in Mindinao (a region known for it's political instability) were threatening to take him hostage, so he and Becky took their young family and moved to Windsor where some relatives were running a nursing home. What a crazy coincidence!! Had they stayed longer, Darline and I might have been elementary school friends!

The other thing I loved about spending time with the Dials was the food! Most Filipino food is filled with weird, scary meat (I tried only a small bit of meat on occasion, but usually the only vegetarian option on the menu was chop suey). However, Seventh Day Adventists are vegetarian and very health conscious, so we had a wonderful menu of scrumptious vegetarian food with lots of local veggies and fruits. Yum! Mindinao provice, and especially Valencia is really the breadbasket for the region, I thoroughly enjoyed it! Danny took us to visit a waterfall on campus, some naturaly springs with pure, fresh water squirting out from the rocks, and a picnic lunch on Lake Apo. It was such a grand time in breathtaking surroundings and good people.

From Valencia they helped me book a bus to Cagayan de Oro, on the north coast of Mindinao, from which I could take a ferry to Cebu. The Superferry was huge...with comfortable sleeping bunks. The thing that I was looking forward to most about the ferry was the peaceful night's sleep without being awakened by roosters at extremely early hours. I'm not sure why, but Filipinos seem to have an obsession with chickens. Every family has got at least 3 or 4 of them, if not more. So the result is that most mornings in the Philippines there is a rooster symphony at about 5am, even in Metro Manila! Well, I tucked into the Ferry bunk, happy to get a good, rooster-free night's sleep. But then, at 5am what did I hear? Roosters!! Evidently the ferry company allows passengers to bring their pet roosters along with them in little crates similar to the cages that people use for bringing their pets on airplanes. Of course the designated rooster storage section was right outside my room!! What the heck!?! Can the roosters not stay home alone?!? Aggghhh!! I just wanted to strangle those stupid little portable roosters!

When our ferry pulled up near Cebu harbor, we were met by families in banka boats (Filipino outriger canoes...some with engines, but most with only paddles). The people inside were sea gypsies, and their boats were colorful and quite a sight to see below our huge ship. They yelled up to us to throw down some peso coins for them to dive for. People would throw 1 and 5 peso coins down nearby the boats, and if we got it close enough, they could catch the coins with colorful banners they made of fabric stretched between two sticks. If it was not close enough to get with their homemade coin catchers, our sea gypsy friends would dive into the aquamarine water and retrieve the coins before they sank too deep. It was amazing to watch. I emptied my pockets of all the change I had and tossed it down to them. From a western perspective, it is a somewhat strange exchange between ferry passengers and sea gypsies, but to me it was a unique and beautiful experience to interact with people whose life is vastly different than mine.

Sagada, Luzon, Philippines

2009-05-30T02:57:00.027+12:00

To get from Banaue to Sagada, you must cross a perilous mountain round for about two hours to Bontoc, and then switch to a Jeepney for another hour over unpaved mountain roads to Segada. But Sagada itself is definitely worth the hassle it takes to get there.

After spending a morning trekking across Rice Terraces (which was spectacular, by the way!) Joven dropped me at the bus stop for the one Bontoc-bound bus of the day. Now I thought that the bus from Manila to Banaue was rickety, but it didn't hold a candle to this one. This was a true Filipino villiage bus, complete with chickens and goats on the top! Inside it resembled the old schoolbuses I used to ride in elementary school (and looked to be as old too!) The bus was packed to the gills with people and luggage: inside and on the roof. We wove our way up the sides of cliffs up to the top of Mt. Polis, at whose peak the road was literally at cloud level. The bus would teeter and sway as we went around corners, oftentimes in places where mudslides had eroded the road. I just had to close my eyes and keep in mind that the bus driver does this every day and that he cares about his life as much as I care about mine.

On the bus I met a wonderful young woman named Elly and her very outgoing seven year old daughter, Reynely. Reynely doesn't have a shy bone in her entire body! She introduced herself to me in perfect English and told me most of her life story during the first hour of the bus ride. Then during the second hour, she started belting out Celine Dion songs at the top of her lungs for all the bus to hear. She has obviously done her fair-share of Kareoke, because her voice is amazing. Oh, and she also speaks 5 languages. They were also going to Sagada and helped me to negotiate the bus to Jeepney change in Bontoc, and Elly even told me about her sister's guesthouse in Sagada, where I ended up staying. Elly and Reynaly used to live in Manila with Elly's husband, but she recognized that Manila is not a healthy place to raise a child, so she moved back to Sagada (her hometown in the mountains) and has a little place next to her father's house in the village. We stopped by their charming little house, met Reynely's adopted little sister (who was absolutely adorable!), and then Reynely showed me to her Auntie's place, the George Guesthouse. It was a great little family-run place on the main road in Segada, which is tucked high up in the hills North of Bagueo.

In Sagada, I made several new friends, including one man who I met at the yummy yogurt shop in town who also graduated from u of Michigan around the year I was born, and has lived all over Southeast Asia. He had great travel advice to give me, which I was grateful for. I met Graham, a funny Scottish man who is married to a Filipina. She's in Glasgow and he is in the Philippines overseeing renovations to a house that they just bought there. But when school holidays started, 14 of her nieces and nephews arrived at their house and drove Graham crazy, so he got on the first bus he could find to escape from them. He was staying next door to me at the guest house, so we went hiking up to some waterfalls, and also to see hanging coffins and burial caves. The Igorot tribespeople who live in Sagada believe that if you bury a dead person underground, their spirit will get stuck under the ground too, so they have to find creative burial places where the coffins will not be disturbed. This includes secret caves, hanging them on the sides of cliffs, etc... When visiting one cave, we met an Igorot man who I asked about cultural traditions. He explained that they still continue to bury their dead in secret caves, and asked if I'd like to make a reservation. No thanks!! In 50 years, my coffin might be discovered and turned into a tourist attraction!

When coming down from one of the waterfalls, Graham and I were looking for a lookout point from Sagada to lowland villages below. We were getting lost, so we asked a cute little girl for help with directions. She told us that she would go with us. She was the cutest little thing Ive ever met. Of course her English was beautiful, just like Reynely's. Every time we asked her a question, she would start her reponse with a little giggle. It was too cute. We learned that she is the youngest of 10 children, she's 9 years old, her father is a pepper farmer and her mother is overseas working in Dubai. We hiked with her for nearly an hour until we found the magnificent viewpoint. We never would have found it by ourselves! Together we walked back to town and bought Julianne a coke and a little snack as a thankyou for the 2 hours she spent walking with us. Can you image anyone in the western world allowing their 9 year old daughter to take of for 2 hours with complete strangers without telling the parents? Well, parenting is just a bit different in this part of the world, but the kids seem a lot healtheir and their environment is wholesome and healthy. There is no crime in the area and everyone keeps an eye on each other. It's really pretty great!

Well, Sagada is a wonderful place...charming little villiage, breathtaking natural environment, much cooler than the rest of the Philippines, and just overall a friendly, wonderful place to spend time. But I didn't have long before I had to get back to Manila to catch my flight to Davao, Mindinao, the Southernmost part of the Philippines. I'm so lucky to have seen so many cross-sections of Filipino life. It has such a variety of interesting climates, cultures, and natural wonders!

The ride back toward Manila was another winding, high mountain journey across cliff-sides on the Halsema Highway. But this one took 6 hours. The bus was packed to the gills and the cold air seeped right in. It's amazing the vast variations on climate between neighboring towns when one is below the cloud level and the other is above it! I was completely unprepared for cold weather, bringing only one small backpack with 2 pairs of sandals, t-shirts, and capri pants. I was freezing for most of the trip to Baguio. An overly-friendly Igorot man in his 40's took the seat next to me, and seemed to want my seat too, since he kept invading my personal space. I had to keep pushing him away and asking him for space to which he would smile, and then start doing it again 30 seconds later. I was pretty darn happy to reach Baguio after 6 hours of this. Baguio has a reputation for its second-hand shops, and I'm a sucker for a bargain, so I set off to find something long-sleeved. I found the perfect light knit zippered jacket which fits easily into my backpack and has been a lifesaver on many an overly-air-condtioned bus or train trip since, for only 150 pesos (that's about $3.50). It was raining in Baguio and I was cold and miserable, so I decided to get back to Manila that night. I took a bus out and in the morning I was back to Manila for one day before flying to Mindinao.

From the bus station in Manila I recognized the name of a landmark very close to my guesthouse on the side of a Jeepney, so I decided to venture onto the Jeepney by myself (a little intimidating because they all have paths that they follow but that are not published or posted, so you just have to know your way around...which I barely do). I took my chances and jumped in and found out it went all the way across town to my place for only 20 pesos (50 cents)! Wow, I was feeling so smart about myself when I realized all the other passengers were getting off except for me....that's strange! Then I noticed that we were backtracking because I started seeing landmarks I we had already driven past. I started to get a little ticked off at the driver...was he swindling me? He didn't speak much English and I wasn't really following his hand gestures, but finally I figured it out: Right Jeepney, Wrong direction! I had reached the end of the line in the other direction and now I had to go all the way to the opposite end of the line. It took 1.5 hours and I got a pretty good tour of Manila for my 50 cents (and a good dose of humility!)

Imelda's shoes and other adventures

2009-05-28T23:19:00.015+12:00

I set off on Monday morning toward Robinson’s department store in hopes to find the office to buy a ticket to get to the Clark Airport for when Ray and I go to Malaysia. The Lonely Planet has been a heaven-send, though only somewhat reliable (thing change quickly) and I soon got lost. I got adopted by an old guy who decided to be my tour guide (though he had no qualifications and had less of an idea where he was going than I did!). I reluctantly followed him off course for about 5 blocks from where the ticket office should have been, trying to ditch him several times, but he was pretty persistent. Finally he just asked for money, I gave him 20 pesos, and tried to find my way back to the correct street again. I was on my way back, feeling somewhat perturbed, when the “Schwarma Snack Center” sign caught my eye. I stopped in there for a falafel and hummus pita sandwich and a mango/banana shake (yum, what a lunch!) . I had found my way to “Middle East Street” in Manila and I couldn’t have been happier! A young couple about my age walked in and sat down at the table next to me. The husband said, “hey this is our table (pointing at the one I was sitting at) and asked if they could join me.” I was delighted to meet them. The husband, Zaid, is from Oman and the wife, Maricris is from Cebu (Philippines). She had been working in Oman at a shop that made fancy chocolates. Zaid kept coming back and back to the shop, buying chocolates for everyone and anyone he knew. Maricris thought he really liked chocolates, but the truth was that he really liked her. Well that was 5 years ago, and now they have a cute little son and another baby on the way. They were in transit to Cebu and didn’t have much on their schedule until the next day. When they heard I was going to the Imelda Marcos shoe museum, they said they would like to come along. I was glad for the company.

We caught the LRT (light rail train) in the wrong direction accidentally. None of us knows our way around Manila very well. We ended up at the crazy-busy Pasay rail station on the South Side of town. Then we took the MRT train around to the Northeast side of town. It was so tightly packed I was touching about 10 people at once. Let’s just say that it was an intimate Filipino experience! I thank my lucky stars that I’m tall, otherwise it would have been hard to breathe. Then we got off the MRT train one stop too far, so we had to backtrack a ways. We got a taxi and rode over to Marikina, hoping that the museum would still be open. We were exhausted, hot, and sweaty after a 3 hour trip to Marikina which should have only taken 30 minutes had we known what we were doing! But thankfully the museum was open, and we visited 750 pairs of Imelda Marcos’ 3000 pairs of shoes. It was quite a sight! After that we went to the local fruit market and indulged in mangos, grapes, papaya, tangerines, you name it! Maricris taught me the best way to eat a mango (I've been making a mess all these years when I really didn't need to...you just slice off the two sides and then make a criss-cross pattern in the fruit. When you flip it from concave to convex, you get lots of little squares of mango that you can eat right off the peel, thus getting the mango juice in your mouth rather than on your face like I usually do). We caught a jeepney back to the LRT and took the LRT back to Ermita (where we had met) and said goodbye. I grabbed my backpack, took a shower, and went back to the LRT station again to try to find the bus to Banaue in Northern Luzon. From the LRT station, I got in a taxi which got stuck in traffic and it turned out that the bus station had been relocated to different place than the Lonely Planet said. We finally found it, with only 5 minutes to spare (thank goodness I made a prior reservation!) and I hopped on. By that point I had lost my voice and I was completely exhausted, but so happy to be on board. The bus looked to be on it’s last leg, and I was a bit nervous about spending an all-nighter (9 hour) ride through the mountains on it, but I was just glad to be on board and resting. The air conditioner was freezing (I had nothing long sleeved) and the vents would not close, so I stuffed a plastic bag in them, put my towel over me and fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up in Banaue, a small town surrounded by beautiful rice terraces which have been there for 2000 years. The Ifugao people developed an brilliant way of irrigating all these terraces from the top down to the bottom by diverting mountain streams from terrace to terrace all the way down the mountain. Of course because machinery cannot make it up the hill, all the work is still done by hand. I hired a guide, Joven, to show me a traditional Ifugao village. He explained that his people were once fierce head-hunters, but not anymore. Another interesting thing is the level of English fluency among Ifugao and other hill tribe people! Because it’s a world heritage site, there is a huge tourism draw, so after their traditional tribal language, they learn English as their second language instead of Tagalog. It’s amazing how multi-lingual they have become. Tourism is a blessing and a curse…it disrupts their traditional way of life, but there are many positive things about it too. It provides jobs to young Ifugao men and women who would otherwise move to Manila and leave behind their home. It provides markets for older Ifugao men and women to sell their carved rice guards and beautiful woven fabrics. It also gives the tourguides a reason to understand the traditions and history of their people so that they can share it with others. The next day Joven and I hiked up and across the terraces for 3 hours. It was a magnificent scene, and truly gives a better idea of the immense scale and amount of labor involved in cultivating rice on a steep hillside. That afternoon I caught a bus heading toward Bontoc for my next desitation: Sagada.

Funky Manila

2009-05-25T14:05:00.007+12:00

The CNN weather report on TV said that it was going to rain all weekend in Manila. Fortunately the weather man got it all wrong. Since I arrived on Saturday night it has been warm and clear. Yesterday it was sunny and downright hot!
I really, really like Manila. I am not a city person, but this one is really great. I think what I like most about it, is that even though it’s a huge city and it has its fair share of poverty and problems, the people are incredibly friendly, down-to-earth, and warm. I felt the same way in Chicago…big city, yet people still act like Midwesterners. Well Manila has a similar feel. The city moves fast (holy cow, what a shock after living for 3 years in Majuro where the pace is less than ½ speed that Manila moves at). Filipinos are industrious, hard working, quick moving people, but they don’t get self-centered in all this hustle and bustle. They still treat others with kindness and respect. I love that!

I am also amazed at the level of English fluency among Filipinos, even those who have never left their country. This is a people who really value education and learning. Aside from these reasons I love the Philippines (after only 24 hours in the country) is that it’s a cheapskate’s dream vacation! The exchange rate is very favorable for those earning dollars, euros, or pounds. For example: 3 Mangoes, peeled and prepared = 20pesos (40cents). A decent room at a guesthouse is 500 pesos ($10), and an hour-long massage at a professional place is only 300 pesos ($7). There is so much natural beauty on these islands, from Ancient Rice Terraces on hillsides in Northern Luzon (I’m heading there tomorrow), white sand beaches and coral snorkeling with whale sharks in the Visayas, and plenty of jungles and volcanoes (some still active) to trek. Combine wonderful people with the great prices and a beautiful environment, and I’m really wondering why I didn’t come here a long time ago!

Yesterday afternoon (after attending church and meeting lots of great people), I decided to walk toward Rizal park. It’s a beautiful green space in the middle of Ermita district of Manila and a place where all the cute Filipino families spend time together on Sunday afternoons. On my way there, I met a nice Filipino guy named Miko who asked if he could accompany me. I was cautious at first, but soon realized that he was harmless. His job contract on an American Military base in Mindenao (Southern part of Philippines) just ended and he's home to Manila to regroup and look for work again. Underemployment has always been a problem here (there are so many highly skilled people with not enough positions for them), but more so now that the economy has taken a downturn. Miko is about my age (though he looks like he's 25 like all Filipinos do...they are such beautiful people!) His funny friend Raul came along with us. They are an unlikely pair...Miko is a well dressed young Filipino and Raul is a somewhat disheveled man in his 50s? with crooked teeth and a big grin. It was fun to walk around with them. I had them pose for my pictures in the park (which made all the families watching us laugh!) and then we walked back down the boardwalk by Manila Bay and took a Jeepney ride to town for dinner. I'm so glad they were around, because I really wanted to ride in a Jeepney but it's so confusing to figure out which one goes where and how much. They are so fun and funky. Filipinos got the idea for this form of public transport from the US military who occupied their islands during and after WW2. Jeepneys are elongated Jeeps with two benches in the back facing each other. But they’re not camoflouge colored! They are all pimped-out with bright colors, flashy signs, and sometimes pictures of Jesus or the Virgin Mary. Anyway...you can't beat the Jeepney price! (7 pesos/15cents) for a ride across town! We went to dinner at a nice authentic Filipino restaurant where I discovered that it’s difficult to find vegetarian Filipino dishes. Even the dishes under the “vegetarian” section have a few pig snouts/tripe/worse thrown in for good measure! I like adobo sauce, but not the meat so much. But I have to say that the Pancit was my favorite!
Niko gave me his cell phone and perhaps we'll hang out again when I get back from Northern Luzon next weekend. His story is so sad, though he doesn’t seem to wallow in self pity (I probably would). He was married and had two kids here in Phl. Then his wife joined the Overseas Filipino Worker program and moved to California, leaving their children with her parents here. That was four years ago. I asked him if he had plans to join her, he must miss her. His reply was that he can't because in the intervening years she met and married an American and got US citizenship, now with no intention of continuing her life with Miko or the children. It's such a heartbreaking story, and unfortunately it's not uncommon. 1/10 of the Filipinos live overseas in order to remit money home to their families here because the exchange rate is so favorable and they are such industrious, well qualified employees (I have met many in the Marshall Islands). OFW (Overseas Filipino Workers inject so much capital into the Philippines economy (over $12 billion per year) that the government provides incentives to the families of OFWs (my Filipina friend in Majuro's kids got free welding lessons during their summer break from University...isn't that hilarious? Her delicate little 20 year old daughter spent her break from Nursing school taking welding lessons with her brother!) But moving far from home often has really devastating consequences if you leave a spouse behind. I wish that the American government would make it easier for families to be together. One of the reasons I voted for Barrack Obama was his promise to make American Immigration more family friendly.

I went for a massage yesterday which was fantastic. Sweet girl, 20 years old, from Pangasinan province (3 hours north of Manila). Most Filipinas look about 10 years younger than their age, so she looked like she was 15. She kept calling me ma'am, which feels akward. I experienced that first with my Filipino colleagues at CMI...it is very strange to be called "Maam Britt" by colleagues who are my age (or my parents' age!) But it's 10 times worse here! Another funny thing is that as soon as you meet a friendly Filipino/a, they always inquire lots of details: Where are you from? how old are you? Are you married, single, divorced? I think I need to figure out more efficient ways to answer these questions.

Next destination on my trip is Banaue and Batad and Baguio. It’s a 9 hour bus ride to Banaue (starting at 10pm tonight!). Supposed to be very scenic, but I won't see much until we're almost there. Today’s agenda includes getting a haircut, arranging bus tickets, and a visit the Imelda Marcos shoe museum. Isn't that a hilarious?!? I love the Philippines!

On Friday (the day before I left Majuro) I was talking to my Dean of Academics, Joe. He and his wife are lovely people from Mindenao province. He said, "Britt, my wife and I will fly from Manila to Davao and visit my brother (president of a very progressive SDA University in the mountains there). Would you like to come with us? Of course!! I am so delighted! It only costs about $50 to fly down there (to Davao) and they can get me on a bus/ferry heading to the places I wanted to visit in the Visayas just after that. Prior to our conversation, I had wanted to see Mindenao (it has a reputation for being extremely beautiful), but it's not safe to go alone, due to terrorist activities in some parts of the island. But to go with Joe and Becky will be really wonderful. From there I think I will catch a bus to Surigao City (northern tip of Mindenao) and take a ferry to Leyte Island. There are lots of natural caves, snorkeling with harmless whale sharks, a natural bridge and thick jungles to trek in Leyte and Samar islands. Then I'll fly back to Manila to meet Ray and get ready to leave for Borneo. Two weeks is definitely not long enough, but I’m going to see as much as I can. I’ll write about the Rice Terraces and post pictures with this entry when I return next weekend.

End of a Semester, Beginning of New Adventures

2009-05-22T18:51:00.011+12:00

The semester has finally ended! Yahoo! For some reason, while the fall semester flies by, the Spring Semester (which was actually shorter than it was supposed to be) has dragged on and on. I’m so thankful to be finished and have prospect of a change of pace ahead. Graduation was wonderful. Now that I’ve been here for almost 3 years, I have good relationships with more and more of the students. I would guess that about 40% of the students in the graduating class of 2009 are former students of mine. It was such a happy occasion that by the end of the night, my cheek muscles hurt from smiling so much.

Part of what makes life here interesting is that one can never count on technology to work the way it should. One day a couple of weeks ago, the technology in my life all ganged up on me on the same day. I woke up in the morning to discover that my phone line was dead. So when I got to work, I called NTA to request service. Next I arrived at my office to find that my computer froze when I tried to start it (now this is worrying me…my colleague Dean’s hard-drive melted down taking everything with it, and I’m worried that this may be an omen). I powered it down and then turned it on again, only to discover that the internet in our building needed to be reset in order for it to work. Frequent power outages here take their toll on electronics. As there had been a power-outage the night prior, the air conditioner in my office was no longer working and neither was the internet. So I spent 15 minutes running around campus looking for someone from IT and someone from Physical plant to reset the switches in our building to enable things to work again. I went to use the copier (which is a complete lemon anyway), and of course in addition to jamming during every use, it now has an electronic malfunction and also freezes during startup. After running here, there and everywhere trying to resolve all these problems, I vented to my students, who were studying at the conference table outside my office. “The technology is ganging up on me today!” I exclaimed. They all smiled a bit sheepishly (as is typical of Marshallese), and Malachi suggested, “Perhaps you need to pray more!” which is also a very unique and typical Marshallese response to problems. Yes, perhaps I need intervention from a higher source than IT and the physical plant!! Ha ha ha!

Speaking of technology failures in the Marshall Islands….I would like to share with you an excerpt from an email which I received this week. I am not making this up:

”Iakwe CMI COMMUNITY,
This is to inform you that the CMI Basketball Court is temporarily closed for urgent and critical repair works to its “rusted” lighting arms. One of the lighting arms fell off last night luckily no one was hurt or injured. Therefore if you are walking by the basketball court area, we advise you to be “CAUTIOUS” at all times and avoid walking too close to the basketball court area.
Komool tata for your understanding and cooperation,
Safety and Security Office”

What the!?! At first I though perhaps this was a joke, but no, sure enough, when I walked home that day, there was yellow police tape around the ENTIRE front of CMI where the basketball court is. This is where we will held graduation last night! Luckily they took all the lights off the top of the other poles before they fell on someone during graduation.

Last month we had a Young Women’s activity at church. The purpose was to teach the girls how to make some traditional Marshallese Local food (and to teach me how too). Most people here eat rice and fried chicken, which is not local and not very healthy. So I was excited to learn some authentic meals. Well, what we cooked was called “Millenium” and it’s a new recipe concocted by the daughter of one of the young women leaders. We cooked for about 4 hours! It was a mixture of boiled, mashed breadfruit (the consistency of mashed potatoes), grated coconut & coconut milk, lots of sugar (not exactly a local ingredient), and tapioca starch. It tasted good. I don’t think I’ll ever have the patience to cook it again (after all, it takes at least 3 hours to make). But the very exciting thing is that I got to try grating coconut all by myself. Every Marshallese family has a little stool with a metal coconut scraper on the end of it. You grate the coconut by sitting on the stool and scrapping the coconut with both hands and a rocking motion. It looked like fun until I tried to fit myself on the stool and realized that coconut scraping stools are made for people who are about 5 feet tall, not 6 feet tall like me. I sat down and my legs were so long they completely obstructed the scraper. That did NOT work. So I scooted back to try to find the scraper and fell off the back side of the stool. Definitely NOT! I tried kneeling on the stool, but then I couldn’t get the right amount of torque on the coconut to scrape it correctly plus I was completely unbalanced and unwieldy. I was about to give up on the whole idea when one of the other leaders suggested I sit side-saddle. Well, finally I found something workable and managed to scrape a bit. But it takes talent to scrape all the white coconut meat evenly and I ended up scraping little bits of brown shell into the beautiful white pile of coconut shavings below. Well, it was a good learning experience.

This will likely be my last blog for a little while. Tomorrow I’ll embark on a 10 week trip to Southeast Asia. Ray finally got her tickets and we bought ourselves tickets to Borneo and over to Singapore. After that we’ll use ground transportation for most of the rest of the journey. The itinerary is definitely not set in stone, which is a great way to go, because you never know what great stuff you’ll find along the way that you want to stop and do. I’ve posted my tentative route map. I’ll explore the Philippines for 2 weeks on my own while Ray finishes school. Around June 5th she’ll fly to Manila and we’ll take off for Borneo, Singapore, Peninsular Malaysia, (possibly Sumatra for a few days), and train from the South to the North of Thailand stopping along the way. After that, she’ll have to fly back home because she’s starting a new job in Mexico shortly thereafter. After she leaves, I’ll have 3 weeks on my own again, during which I hope to cross from Northern Thailand into Laos, take a boat down the Mekong River into Luang Prabang, bus across into Vietnam near the de-milatarized zone, train/bus down from central to Southern Vietnam to Ho Chi Mihn City, and loop back through Cambodia. If time permits, I really, really, really would like to spend a week in Myanmar, but we’ll see how things go. The military generals are acting up at the moment and have transferred Aung San Su Kyi from house arrest to prison. She is an amazing woman of courage and grace!! She epitomizes the courage and grace of many Burmese people, who I would very much like to meet. Hopefully things will calm down a bit before then. It’s going to be the trip of a lifetime! I can’t wait!!

Acts of Kindness

2009-05-01T12:19:00.016+12:00

In the past several weeks, I have learned once a again, that I should never judge another human being in whose shoes I have not walked. This point was driven home by an experience I had the other day. I'll get to it later, but first there's alot of background detail: The Douglas family lives in Illinois. They adopted a Marshallese toddler girl about 10 years ago. Unfortunately (unbeknownst to them) she had already contracted tuburculosis prior to the adoption, and struggled with significant health problems for the rest of her life. Despite challenges, she was the light of their lives, and her death two years ago was devastating. I met the Douglases when they were trying locate their daughter's birth family to share the sad news. Over the last 2 years, Kathy, Bruce and Lydia have helped to care for their daughter's siblings here in the Marshall Islands by sending money for school, packages with food and clothing and toys, and otherwise checking in from time to time to make sure things are ok. The father of the family has issues with alcoholism and abuse and it has tragic consequences for these kids. My friend Annie (a neighbor and "Auntie" to the kids) helps out as much as she can and every so often I check in as well.

Also living in my neighborhood (at the catholic church) is Lino, who suffers from schizophrenia. His story is also devastating. He was also adopted by an American family as a baby and grew up abroad. He served in the US Military and had a wife and child of his own. I'm not sure at what point his schizophrenia became an issue, but it caused alot of problems in their domestic life. It caused him to be violent at times. After one such domestic incident, he was arrested and deported to the Marshall Islands (since he never obtained US citizenship). Now at approximately age 30, he lives here on Majuro without family (I believe his birth mom is from Ebeye...not Majuro), without medical care, and without an ability to speak Marshallese. The parishoners at the catholic church give him food and he does some landscaping work (beautiful work actually) around the Assumption church and school. But our hospital and our community are not yet ready to cope with such extreme cases of mental illness. Most of the neighborhood believes that his bizarre and sometimes aggressive behavior is due to a "Black Magic" spell that his ex-wife cast on him. They do not acknowledge that this is a medical illness that can be treated.

I have had several experiences with Lino on my morning and evening walks to work at the college. Most of them are harmless, non-sensical conversational exchanges. He is obviously very intelligent because he talks about all kind of world events and people who are obscure to me, but he's in a different world entirely. One time while I was riding my bike he even chased me down the street yelling lyrics to an old Duran Duran song. His unpredictability makes him somewhat unapproachable, yet I'm sure he needs to feel acknowledged. So I've decided lately that when I see him, instead of avoiding what could be an aggressive confrontation, I will be the first to say hello and call him by name. Sometimes he ignores me, other times he acknowledges my hello. But the greatest thing is that he has not been confrontational since I started greeting him by name. Then yesterday, the coolest thing happened. I was making the trip home from CMI with two gigantic boxes that the Douglases had sent for their daughter's siblings. I was struggling under the weight of them, but I couldn't exactly leave one on the side of the road. As I began to cross by assumption, I put them down for a minute to take a rest. Lino approached me and offered to help. "Here," he said, "let me help you with that." I was so appreciative and impressed by his thoughtfulness. I asked how he was doing and he told me he was fine and that I really ought to introduce myself to (some guy whose name I didn't recognize). I asked him who that was and he said, "you know, the Texas cattle barron." "Oh, ok, I'll try." When we got to my house I thanked him and offered him a drink of water. He declined and went his way pretty quickly. This simple exchange reminded me of an important lesson. First, that I should not judge others, and second that there is goodness and kindness in all people, regardless of their situation, their past behavior, and regardless of appearance. I believe that if we allow others the opportunity, they will show it to us. I was grateful for Lino's simple act of charity toward me. Sometimes I get so caught up in serving other people that I forget to slow down and allow them to help me. It is through acts of service that I most poignantly give and recieve love, so this small act meant very much to me. I am grateful. And I hope that Lino's family out there knows that he's doing alright. That despite the complicated state of his life right now, he's doing ok, and he made a difference in my life this week. I also want to say that I am really grateful for the Douglas' example of generosity. During these tough economic times, there are many reasons not to be generous. But they have chosen to give of themselves, and it brightens the day of those children who do not get treats very often (just look at their faces in the pictures!). What a good experience to witness these things and be inspired by them!

Marshallese Moments

2009-04-25T20:26:00.021+12:00

It has been a month full of very classic Marshallese moments that I would like to share. Luckily I had my camera handy to catch a glimpse of the funny yet typically Marshallese things that happen around me on a regular basis.

The first incident happened as I was walking home after dark from my office. Internet service is still quite new to the island and it’s expensive to buy internet service for home, so after work hours, I frequently stay at work to virtually keep up with the world outside this island. I was on my way home one night (a short 5 minute walk from the College) and was somewhat vigilant about dogs (they get meaner after dark) and strangers lurking in shadows. I’ve never had any bad experiences with strangers, except occasional conversations with Lino, a mentally-ill man who lives at the Catholic church in between the college and my house, who occasionally gets verbally aggressive (but never violent). Anyway, I was half-way home when I saw something gigantic coming out of the darkness, running down the middle of the road. Right down the middle of the road emerged a gigantic hog, running quickly away from something, toward me. He crossed the road and ran into someone’s yard out of sight. Now this would be no big deal if we were in an outer-island, but this is considered “downtown!” There are even traffic jams on the road outside my house during rush hour. But that doesn’t stop this pig from running wild. Sure enough, the other day I was on my way to work and he came running up the road right in the middle of rush hour! (see photo) Majuro is such a strange mix of rural and urban life!

Another crazy thing that happened this week at CMI. I had just finished Math class when I stopped by the science lab next door to give a message to my colleague, Dean. He and two students were just wrapping up their Marine Science lab, in which they were dissecting a Tuna and a Unicorn fish. They happily showed me some fish intestines and eyeballs. Balos (one student) was busy working on the fish with his scalpel. Aside from Dean’s instruction about fish anatomy, this activity was not too much different from daily life (Marshallese young men regularly catch and clean fish). Then I looked up and saw Balos’ lab partner Jefferson, who had brought a lemon to class which he was squeezing onto the slices of sashimi that Balos was taking off the fish and happily munching them! Sashimi is a Marshallese specialty, so dissection day is synonymous with lunchtime! I just shook my head in amusement. Only in the Marshall Islands! I wish I had my camera at the time so I could have captured the scene, but by the time I got back down to the lab, the tuna was the only one left in the room.

Tonight I went for pizza with some friends, including my two new colleagues from New Zealand. While we were waiting for some other friends near campus, Helen was remarking how her mother would freak out if she were here to see all the children playing in the road (parents nowhere in sight), some dragging each other down the street while sitting on a scrap of plastic (like a sled without a hill and without snow). Then, right as she was saying that, we looked up and saw a man holding a downed power line (I assume it was live) in his hands. Evidently a tree had fallen onto it and brought it down, so he was holding it up over his head to enable cars to drive underneath it! Oh my goodness, life here is a bit different than it is where most of us come from, but it makes for great stories!

One really cool thing that happened a few weeks ago was that two Beaked Whales were spotted in Majuro’s lagoon, in different locations. Mike, Peter, Isabel and I went down on Friday afternoon to swim with one of them. It was between 10-12 feet long, and the most beautiful creature! It was very friendly and curious. It would swim up towards us from below and then breach right next to us. It was just absolutely amazing! The Marshallese boy who was out there swimming with us (who lives nearby) said that it had been hanging out by itself near the buoy for about 2 or 3 months. That was not a good sign. It should have been out in the deep water where there are squid to eat and other whales to socialize with. Dean says that he thinks that perhaps the whale was in hospice here in the lagoon, because two days later it washed up on the beach dead. We were pretty saddened by the news, but grateful to have had the experience of meeting him while he was alive. I took my underwater camera and got some fairly decent pictures, as did Peter with his camera, and Dean with his super-high-tech underwater camera. Dean found that the whale liked to play with plastic bags, so he would locate some colorful bags and bring them out to his newfound friend. He will be missed!

Just before Easter, Stacey invited Suze and me over to her place for dinner and egg-dying. Friends and family from home had sent her 2 Paaz egg-dying kits. It was the first time I have dyed eggs in about 15 years, and my first experience using Paaz kits (we were always too frugal at my house for that, we always used a few drops of food coloring). Well, it was a fun and entertaining evening. Both my friends are much more artistic egg-decorators than I am. Something has gotten into Suze lately. Ever since she started dating Rob, she has become so much cheekier. Her cheekiness makes life amusing. Well, this time she pulled out some special cellophane egg-decorations that go around the outside of an egg. When exposed to heat, the cellophane contracts and fits the shape of the egg. So Suze decided to try it in the microwave (without reading the directions). Everything was great and she was watching through the microwave window when suddenly there was a loud explosion and she jumped backward. Upon opening the microwave, we found that Suze’s egg had become yellow and white sludge all over the microwave. Upon closer reading of the directions, there was no mention of a microwave (for reasons we now understand). Luckily no one was hurt, and it only took Suze 25 minutes to clean up Stacey’s microwave.

I’ve been volunteering at the weekly basketball practice that the Marshall Islands Basketball Federation puts on for girls on Saturday mornings. Giff Johnson, the editor of the Marshall Islands Journal, and a really fantastic guy, coaches the practices. It’s great exercise, a good chance to make new friends, and also to build the confidence of local young women, who don’t usually get much playing time on the male-dominated neighborhood courts. Giff is anticipating getting together a women’s team to represent the Marshall Islands in the Micronesian games next summer. I can’t play on the team because I have not been a resident of the RMI for 7 years, but I’m looking forward to practicing with them.

After basketball one day the weather was so beautiful that I couldn’t resist taking my snorkel and my camera and riding my bike out to the tide pools by the bridge. They are on the ocean side, so they get a great assortment of ocean creatures that swim in at high tide, but at low tide you can snorkel in the pools without getting battered by the waves. It was just beautiful. I rested on the beach for a while and enjoyed a few minutes of solitude before heading out to work on the program review report that our Liberal Arts and Sciences department is responsible for producing. Since then things have just gotten busier and busier at work and I’ve been spending more and more weekend time at work or working at home. We only have two more weeks left in the semester before finals, yet there’s so much to be done! (Including 20 transferring students who need advising on everything from admissions to financial aid to housing before they move oversees). Then in 3 weeks it will all come to a screeching halt for 2 ½ months and we’ll rest our brains and bodies. It’s a pretty extreme contrast, and not too good for the sanity (I can vouch for that!), but I love my job, and to live and work in a place as interesting and challenging as this island is a treat. Well, it’s late and I have a stack of 30 tests that I still have to grade. I’ll try to write at least once more before leaving for the summer. The destination is Southeast Asia, but the itinerary is still up in the air due to civil unrest in several countries and problems with my friend Ray getting her one-pass miles converted into a ticket. But it will all come together, I’m sure. More on that later…

Best Diet Ever: Simo (aka: Mohamed) Gomih

2009-04-01T05:04:00.001+12:00

Ladies: are you having trouble losing those last 5-10 pounds? Dieting and exercise simply not working out for you? I have found the ultimate weight-loss secret! He's handsome, poetic, romantic, and he will reel you in hook-line-and-sinker. Thanks to my 9 month relationship with him (at which time he was involved at least 3 or 4 other women...I was just the latest addition to the group), he has caused me so much emotional stress that I lost my appetite for days when I heard that news that my charming boyfriend is a liar and a player. I couldn't be happier! I am now as thin as I was back in High School (but a little smarter for the experience)! Can you believe it? So if dieting is not working out for you...please drop me a line! I would be happy to give you his contact information! Look at how happy we were together in Italy last New Years (while he was text-messaging the other women back in France to reassure them that he cared). By the way, they all believed him when he told them they were his only woman too!

Au Revoir, Monsieur Gomih!

P.S. Isn't the truth the best revenge?

P.P.S. I wanted to clarify that my purpose in writing this was not to ask for your pity (because actually I'm doing a lot better than before I figured this all out), but to give a little warning to any women who he will likely try to seduce in the future (now that at least three of us have broken up with him he'll be back on the prowl soon, I'm sure). I wish I had found something like this when I googled his name 8 months ago. I hope that the right women will find this and save their time, money, and hearts for someone a bit more sincere.

Cali Trip From Honor

2009-03-23T17:28:00.002+12:00

This blog entry is "borrowed" from Honor, since we spent the whole weekend together and she wrote such a nice blog about our family bonding time already. She graciously copied it over to my blog too. Thanks Hon!

Another of Mother's dreams came true on February 25th. Britt was flying in from her Island Paradise for a conference and made it possible for Grant and me to come home as well so we could have the whole family together again. It's the first time in about 2 years (the last being Christmas of '06, but Cash Man wasn't even there yet).

Britt arrived at SFO a few hours before Grant and I arrived in Oakland. She scooped us up and we headed home.

As Britt bragged about on her blog, she had found a CRAZY sale on Target brand jeans out in the RMI ($1.50 / pair) and had bought a pair for each of us. These might be the only photos we ever have of Mom wearing REAL jeans. I was surprised that we got her to wear them in the first place, but it was so fun! My favorite quote from the evening was when she said, "It's like being squeezed to death WHILE feeling like your pants are falling off!" Never have I heard such an accurate description of the styles these days!

Britt spent as much time as she could playing with her nephews. I was excited to see how the cousins would do around each other - thinking that they'd be little pals, but that first day proved to be otherwise. I'm sure you can see it in both their faces in the picture above, but they sized each other up, realised that they'd be competing with each other for attention from the same group and promptly claimed ownership on anything they didn't really want to share. They eventually warmed up to each other as the days passed and one evening while at our parents house, I saw them together on the floor playing with a train. Grant was saying and signing "train" like he was trying to teach Cash. Cash just giggled and kept playing.

I wasn't quite sure how the 3 of us fit on the couch together, but as Britt later pointed out to me I was laying on top of her, taking up most of the room. Britt, that's the price you pay for precious sibling physical bonding! You know I'll squish you anytime, anywhere! That's how much I love ya!

The second night that we were in town, we got together for the first family dinner. Uncle Clay had quite a knack for distracting Grant who was in a bit of a bad mood. I'll love these pictures FOREVER!

After dinner our friend Nancy came over to snap a few family pictures. What you see here are photos Mom took with our cameras while we were posing for Nancy. I'll post her pictures as soon as they're available.

Grant got his fare share of spoiling from his Grandparents, Aunts and Uncle. This was his first experience with licking the brownie bowl, and I'm sure it won't be his last.

One of his favorite features at Gr'ma & Papa's house was the piano. Any chance he got, he was testing out just how much sound he could get out of it.

On Friday evening we stopped by Trader Joes and Britt found Grant a kiddie cart. I don't think Grant has EVER had that much fun shopping. He was a pretty good little cart handler, even if he wanted to run more than walk.

On Saturday evening we had the second and final family dinner. While I'm sure Mom was hoping for some sweet family dinner pictures, her children made sure that our true personalities shone through. Cammie posed for the pizza bite and I was trying to, but at the last minute, my food fell in my lap.

We all went to church together on Sunday before Britt, Grant and I headed back to the airport for our departure. As we were all in the bathroom changing into our traveling clothes, Mom managed to snap one last picture of her girls. Looking at that picture, I can't help but think, "We're sisters?! How did we all end up with such unique looks?!"

While it probably wasn't the most choice setting for a photo (with the pink and white bathroom tile that EVERYBODY knows from the Stake Center in the background) I love that usually the quirky memories are the most fun and often held the most dear.

What a WONDERFUL weekend it was!

Back to Majuro

2009-01-26T20:24:00.000+12:00

So far this semester is off to a rip-roaring start! Well, it’s not even the start of the semester. We’ve just finished midterms and spring break. But I just feel like life has been moving at warp-speed and dragging me behind it!

I moved back to my old apartment block just before the trip to FSM, which has been really great. I LOVED my new place in Uliga, but it was on the other side of town from all my friends in my Small Island community, and I just got lonelier and lonelier in my new place. I found myself watching hours and hours of TV and not really getting out and doing anything meaningful with my life. So Stacey took on my lease and I moved back to “Jane’s Corporation” in January before I left for my trip. It’s a different apartment (4 doors down from my old one) but the layout is exactly identical. So far it has been really great to interact more with my Marshallese community and I feel less isolated when I go to church because I’m more involved in the lives of these friends and visa versa.

One of the funnest things about living in a country where English is spoken as a second language is small but very amusing mistakes that change the meaning of what someone intended to say. Take this sticker from the Division 7-12 store, for example. It just cracks me up every time I read it! “Thankyou, and have a New Year.” To which I respond, “Ok, thanks, I’ll try!” Another really funny one is the answer that one of my students wrote on their homework. The question read: Please write the set {Adam, Eve} using a written description. The student wrote, “The set of the first two people who landed on earth.” Well, yes, I get the idea...but according to the Bible, they didn't exactly come in a UFO! I also love this sign that I saw on the bathroom door at Monica's Chinese restaurant earlier this week. "So wait, you're encouraging smoking, or not?" One more funny thing that reminded me that yes in fact I am in the Marshall Islands: I went to the Tide Table (an American style restaurant) a couple weeks ago and my friend ordered a hamburger. The waitress said, “Do you want a hamburger sandwich or with Rice?” What!?! She tried to clarify, “Hamburger between two pieces of bread, or surrounded by a lot of rice.” Oh, that clears it up! Ha ha ha! Oh my goodness, I love living here!

In late January, after tossing around the idea for several weeks, some friends from work and I finally got bored enough that we jumped off the Long Island Bridge. The bridge is the highest elevation in the entire country (it’s about 30 feet from the water at low tide and about 25 feet at high tide). It’s the place where smaller boats can cross from the relative calm of the lagoon out to the Ocean. It’s also a hang-out spot for locals to fish or just shoot the breeze. So after Peter checked the exact time of high tide (to make sure there was enough water below…low tide would not be smart idea!) we headed out there. Although it doesn’t look very impressive from the side (that’s Stacey and I in flight in the photo), it’s pretty intimidating looking down from the top. We were cheered along by a group of Marshallese guys below on the Lagoon side and several cars whizzing over the bridge just behind us. Overall it was not bad. We jumped three times, didn’t break anything, didn’t land on any sharks or the decks of any boats. I would say overall we were quite fortunate. And it was fun, but I don’t think I’ll be making a regular habit of doing it.

Things are going really well at the College. It has been a nutso school year with Accreditation proceedings and such. We got the happy news in early February that the college has been removed from sanction for the first time in 7 years! We’re in the clear! But we couldn’t celebrate just yet, because the visiting team of 10 people who read our self study were on their way to inspect us for our regular 6-year accreditation visit. It went well (though I missed most if it because I was stranded in Honolulu on my way back…long story…the hotel forgot to send me a wakeup call and I had to wait for 2 more days for the next plane. Yeah, it sounds like a great place to get stranded, but it was rainy and miserable and I was stressing because I had no one to cover my classes or meetings with the team.) But now CMI's in the clear as far as the accreditation problems we've been fighting for such a long time. Though we won’t know the final decision on our accreditation until July, the exit report from the team was very positive, and it’s likely we’ll get full accreditation for somewhere between 3-6 years. Wow, all the hard work paid off, and now we can fine-tune little by little instead of constantly overhauling what we’re doing. 2+2 club has grown gigantic. We have between 25-30 students we are working with to transfer to Universities abroad in August. This little grass roots effort has mushroomed and it has become like a part-time job now (though I don’t get compensated and we still run the club without any college funding). But it’s exhilarating to be a part of helping them make this transition, and then to hear about all that they are learning and doing after they transfer. (By the way, that picture is of my reserved bike parking at CMI. Actually, it’s the reserved parking for the College President, but it’s close to my office and luckily he doesn’t mind sharing with smaller vehicles :) Cheeky, ain’t I?)

I went to California for a conference about teaching Critical Thinking in Berkeley during the last week of February. It was fantastic, but not as fantastic as seeing my family again. Honor and Grant came down from Salt Lake and the whole family was together in one place for the first time in years! It was a whirlwind 4-day visit, but was fantastic to spend some quality time together. I really lucked out and got sent to a great family! Honor generously offered to let me "borrow" the fantastic blog she posted about our time together because I’m lazy to write and also she’s so much better at keeping to the point and putting lots of pictures! Thanks Hon!

This week has been spring break. I spent the first half catching up on grading midterms and calculating midterm grades and then went on a day trip to Eneko Island (on the north side of Majuro lagoon) with some colleagues. I just got a camera with an underwater housing, so I went crazy and snapped a lot of pictures while snorkeling. The reef at Eneko is beautiful and pristine, and the variety of fish is just beautiful. While there I found Nemo and his little cousin, too!

I also got to spend some time cooking up summer traveling plans with my friend Ray. She is a teacher at Co-op Elementary school on Majuro by day and teachers part time at CMI in the evenings. She is a really, really cool person, and I’m looking forward to tromping around South-East Asia with her this summer. She and I coincidentally both landed in Kosrae during holidays just after Christmas, and found that we are similar travelers (ie: we prefer to go hiking and spend time outdoors away from the crowds, and we also like to get to know the local people and learn from them). So last weekend we exchanged our frequent flier miles for round-trip tickets to Manila, Philippines, and we’ll use that as our jumping-off point for some adventures in other countries in the region. We’ll try to visit Provinces in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and perhaps Macao or Hong Kong. Not too sure about the itinerary yet, but it’s exciting! I’ve never been to the Asian continent before, but living here in Majuro has given me lots of opportunities to get to know many Southeast Asians who are living abroad like me, and they are wonderfully nice! So I’m really looking forward!

Well, that’s about it (in a nutshell). More later…

2009-01-21T22:14:00.002+12:00

Today was one of the best days I’ve had in a long, long time. I just had to post a little something and not let this day pass by without acknowledging it. Now this is breaking the chronology of my blog significantly, because I’ve written 5 other entries already about all the other island stops on my post-Christmas trip (Pohnpei, Chuuk, Yap, Palau and Guam), but my computer is giving me major hassles with uploading pictures currently. So I’ll post a few more stories from my trip (ok, not just a few…you know how long-winded I always am!) with pictures when I can straighten things out (maybe by this weekend). But for now…let’s just focus on today.

My day started at 4:30am when I woke up, showered, and headed down to the Tide Table restaurant for the 5am live broadcast of the inauguration of Barrack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. I am SO glad to have made it. His speech was so inspiring and I am SO thankful for a leader who will guide our country with compassion and hopefulness, while extending a hand of inclusion to all the other countries in the world. I am a staunch independent. I will never register for either the Republican or the Democratic Party. I will always vote for the candidate who I think is best qualified for the job, regardless of party affiliation. From the moment I heard about and read the platform of Barrack Obama, I knew that this man had my vote. I read his stance on immigration reform (something I feel very strongly about) and it focused on compassionately controlling our borders while treating human beings with respect as well as focusing on reuniting families. I read other platform topics and the whole thing just resonated with me. It was such a joy to celebrate (we were celebrating on Wednesday morning) with a few others (mostly from the yacht-residents of Majuro) a wonderful new beginning. Then I ate yummy French toast with local bananas and went home to bed to catch a few more winks of sleep before work. I awoke again at 9am to find no water (our catchment was dry as a bone), so I was extremely grateful to have woken up at 4:30am before the catchment was dry!

School went really well. This semester I have a lighter teaching load (though overflowing class sections) that allows me to spend some quiet time preparing for my classes and keeping organized. It has been MONTHS since I’ve done this. Last semester I was running around constantly in survival mode, always frazzled, and I never had time to prepare creative new lessons, I just had to recycle lessons from past semesters (which is ok, they were good lessons from the past, but not putting your heart into teaching is not good for the morale). So yesterday and today I had the luxury of preparing adequately for classes and organizing my office. It feels great!

I also booked my flights for a weekend trip that I’m taking to Berkeley California at the end of February to a workshop on teaching critical thinking skills. This is a developmental need that the majority of our students have that we do not explicitly address on our campus. When you grow up in a place where there are not many decisions to be made, and those that are made are made by elders and chiefs, young people don’t grow up in an environment that forces them to practice critical thinking. In fact, Marshallese culture strongly discourages thinking for yourself. Yourself is not a concept that exists in this culture. Community is everything, the individual is nothing without it. This is absolutely true. Marshallese living on outer islands with very little contact with the outside world will die without the support of their communities, and it has worked like that for thousands of years. Then in comes the western world and a western College, and tells young people to start questioning (a strict Marshallese taboo), analyzing, criticizing at age 20 when they’ve never done that before in their lives. Can you imagine what a challenge it is to teach a global curriculum that is so counter to everything our students have ever been taught? Yet to survive in a global society, our students will have to take the good from their own culture and blend it with the good from western culture. Easier said than done!! I’m so excited to get new ideas to help them through this process much better!

In addition to attending this fantastic workshop and getting all kinds of new ideas, I’m going home! Berkeley is about an hour’s drive from my hometown, and I’m flying my sister Honor and her adorable 2 year old Grant in from Utah so we can all be together. It will be the first time the whole family is home in a long time. My brother and his wife and adorable baby live near my parents and my youngest sister Cammie also lives nearby. I am SO excited to spend a long weekend with them!

So after finishing work I raced off to aerobics, which was a great workout and very satisfying. After that I went to Payless to get groceries and found just exactly what I was looking for, and it was all on clearance. I also discovered that Payless had over-bought women’s jeans from Target and had reduced them all to $1.49 (you read that correctly, $1.49). Since there is not much competition for my size (the majority of women here are literally a foot shorter than I am if not shorter), there were tons of size 12 extra long jeans. Yahoo!! They fit great, they’re comfortable, and my inner cheapskate feels supremely satisfied that I found the cheapest jeans on the planet! (Believe me, I come from a long line of Mitchell cheapskates…even this bargain is sure make my family extremely proud!)

After exercising I came home and cleaned up my house and realized that there was still no water. No worries, I just came to my office and took a shower in the new scuba shower room just downstairs from my office in our new Math/Science/Nursing building at CMI. Hardly anyone uses it. Now I’m clean, happy, and back in my office at 10:30pm writing this blog. What a wonderful day!

Guam

2009-01-10T16:50:00.000+12:00

The flight schedule between Palau and Guam is the worst ever, with flights departing at 1am, stopping in Yap at 3am, and arriving in Guam at 5:30am. When we stopped in Yap, many, many travelers got on, and all of them were wearing beautiful fresh flower leis and alleles (head wreaths). Suddenly the airplane smelled so sweet! I landed for a one day stop-over in Guam before returning to Majuro.

My friend Rosana (a colleague of mine from the College who is studying at University of Guam) picked me up at the airport. She was dropping off her parents and aunt and uncle at the airport to fly back to the Marshall Islands that morning (she had been host to 4 extra houseguests besides her husband and two children in their 2 bedroom apartment for 3 weeks in addition to working and going to school…seriously, she is one amazing woman!) She was such a sweetheart to agree to one more houseguest for one night. It has been almost 2 years since she left to attend Guam and I have missed her very much. She was one of the people who helped me initially transition to life in Majuro and feel at home here. We dropped off her kids at school on the way back from the airport and went home and got a few winks of sleep. Then I went with their family to Two Lover’s point, to a movie, Taco Bell (wow, it’s been many months since I’ve eaten Taco Bell!) and shopping at K-mart (which is purportedly the largest Kmart in the world…why they would locate it in Guam is a mystery to me!). Guam is like a small version of Hawaii, and home to some very important strategic American military bases. It’s a US territory (though no one on the mainland really pays attention to it much).

It’s amazing what the Chamorros (traditional residents of Guam and Saipan) have been through! On the airplane back to Majuro I made friends with a really cool guy who is roughly my age and teaches at a private Catholic High School in Guam. He taught me so much about the history of his island and its relationship with America. He grew up in Guam, then studied Civil Engineering in Boston, then returned home to become a teacher and guidance counselor at the high school he had attended in Guam. He refers to Guam as the “bastard stepchild” of America. It is part of the family but ignored and not given much say in national decisions or even many local decisions. Guamanians carry US passports, but are not allowed to vote in American elections. The military uses land that was confiscated from local people many years ago without compensation. Guam was fiercely captured and occupied by the Japanese for 30 months during WW2. During that time, the indiginous people of Guam were subjected to family separation, forced labor, concentration camps, prostitution, encarceration, and execution. Approximately 1000 Guamanians died during this short time. America invaded and recaptured Guam before the end of the war. A 1951 treaty between the United States and Japan absolved Japan of future individual American war claims, which means U.S. taxpayers would be asked to pay for abuses committed by Japanese soldiers against American nationals on U.S. territory. To this day, the people of Guam are still negotiating and hoping for compensation(http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/15/news/guam.php) President Obama made a campaign promise to finally make the promised reparations to the people of Guam that they have waited 64 years for. I sincerely hope that he'll make good on this promise!

A new addition to a long string of decisions made for the people of Guam without local input was made by George W. Bush just before ending his presidency. This lame-duck legislation (no Congressional approval required) created a National Monument Marine Protected Area of the Marianas Trench. (The website: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/us/06oceans.html has more information) While environmental protection is a great thing, very little input was solicited from local people and the new legislation will limit the abilities to fish in their own waters! This means that local, indiginous recreational fisherman will have to ask permission of the US Government to fish around Guam. These people have depended on the sea for thousands of years and now they have to ask permission from the far off government in Washington to fish recreationally? That's absolutely ludicris! Decisions are continually made on their behalf by American presidents who have never visited their island who they did not have the right to vote for (despite the fact that they are considered US Citizens!). Today Guam has 1 Representative in the US House of Representatives, but he/she does not have the right to vote on legislation.

A particular moving and sobering display at the Guam Airport reflects a sobering reality. The pictures above show photographs remembering the soldiers from Micronesia, Guam, and the Northern Marianas who have lost their lives in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US military has such a strong and strategic presence in Guam, but it is amazing to contemplate the hundreds of soldiers of Chomorro and Micronesian decent who serve in the military of a country they are not full-fledged citizens of. And many of them will not come home alive.

Learning all these interesting (and somewhat shocking) new things makes me wonder about America’s decision to liberate the Philippines after World War II yet cling so tightly to Guam and Northern Marianas to this day, while allowing political independence combined with almost complete economic dependence from the rest of the islands in Micronesia. Truly their lives and societies have been impacted (for better and worse) by the influence of America while most of us mainland Americans have heard very little if anything at all about Micronesia’s existence. It is particularly fascinating to see the very diverse array of outcomes of American influence in the Pacific ranging from statehood and loss/exploitation of culture and language in Hawaii to fairly resilient traditional life in Yap and Kosrae with a whole range of other situations in between. I just have the hope that our new US President, with his upbringing in Hawaii and experiences living abroad will have eyes more open to what a powerful affect America’s actions have on so many people. I hope that he
will take as open and warm an approach to foreign relationships as they have shown to me these past two weeks! It has been truly wonderful to meet kind people from so many walks of life that are vastly different than my own! We all hope for the same things in our lives: for happiness, peace, opportunities to provide good experiences for children and young people around us. It truly has been a life-changing experience to see life from the perspective of many different types of people. Truly one of the richest blessings in my life has been interactions with wonderful people.

My mind is perplexed that despite so many good, wonderful people, there are others out there with potential for such evil and cruelty. My mind just cannot wrap itself around the concept that the potential for such extreme goodness and kindness can exist in the hearts of the same species capable of killing and torturing and maiming its own kind. It is so important to me to seek out the good and fill my life with it, while not forgetting the suffering of many and speaking out on their behalf. While I was in Micronesia, my Belgian friend Sinoui traveled back to his family home in Eastern Congo which is filled with war and suffering of innocents. I am aware that there are many such places in the world. My heart goes out to the suffering people of Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Sudan, Kosovo, Colombia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Israel and scores of other countries in conflict zones. It is hard to believe in the intrinsic goodness of humanity when one views the cruelty of humans toward each other in such situations. Still others struggle in situations of persistent poverty and lack of other basic needs. I hope that this New Year will be a year of change for the better for all inhabitants of the world. There is a tremendous potential for goodness and kindness in the world if only those who are full of it will share it as best they can. This is the year that I will do my part in my own sphere of influence, and not shrink back and hide from difficult things. Sharing these things is what makes me happiest!

Palau!

2009-01-06T04:29:00.000+12:00

Palau is one of the most naturally beautiful places in Micronesia with it’s famous rock islands and thousands of square miles of pristine reefs. It is much more commercial and developed than the other islands I visited (well, the capital city Koror, is). It actually had ATMs (Kosrae, Chuuk and Yap had none) and shopping centers (although nothing huge), and many immigrants from Philippines and other parts of Asia. My main regret about having only two days to spend there is not getting up to Babeldaob, the “big island” of Palau that is still very traditional.

I arrived at the airport in a throng of tourists coming to dive famous spots in Palau. The Filipino driver from the hotel moved about a million miles a minute and made me realize just how much I’ve chilled out and adapted to island time. He made me feel dizzy he was moving so fast! While waiting for the other hotel guests, I had a friendly conversation with Amena Yauvoli, manager the North Pacific regional office of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (the regional Pacific Islands partnership) coming for a conference and inauguration of a the new Palauan president. The members of the delegation with him were really important community leaders but all completely down to earth without the slightest bit of arrogance, which is one of the things I love most about living in the Pacific Islands.

Because Palau has really developed their tourism industry, there are many immigrants from the Philippines who come to earn dollars (which are significantly more valuable than Pesos). They work hard, provide excellent services, and are excruciatingly polite. My hotel in Palau was run completely by Filipinos and was immaculately clean and friendly, plus only cost $40 per night. It was just on the edge of “downtown” Koror, which made it very convenient to get around. I walked and walked and walked! The first day in town I got a haircut (my previous one was self inflicted and not very even…I don’t know why I do this to myself when I get bored, but cutting my own hair is a pastime that does not frequently have positive results), visited the Palau Aquarium and learned all about the coral reef ecosystem. I walked down to the end of the island hoping to climb a hill from which to see all the country, but realized half way up that I would have to bush-whack the rest of the way up and decided against it. So I walked back up to the other end of the island hoping to spend sunset by the bridge but never made it there because I got distracted talking to some friendly local Palauan guys.

When darkness fell, I decided to check out the Western Carolines Trading Corporation (Palau’s closest thing to a mall…it has one grocery store, one department store, and a couple of other small shops). The inner cheapskate in me couldn’t resist checking out the Ben Franklin discount center on the third floor, at which I found three new pairs of flip-flops for $2.50 each. It was there that I met Doods, with whom I became friends. She is originally from the Philipines but has lived in Palau for over 5 years now. She left the Philippines 1 month after marrying her husband because her mother got sick and she needed to provide for her parents somehow. She has an accounting degree from her country but there are so many talented people there and not enough jobs for all of them so competition is tough. She swallowed her pride and took a job at the Ben Franklin discount center working as a clerk (earning more than an accountant in the Philippines) so she could send some money home. Now she really wants to start a family as does her husband, but she’s locked into 18 more months of her contract or else she has to pay for her own plane ticket home and her work permit, which would empty all the savings she’s worked so hard for. Yet she misses her husband and wants to have children with him. Now it’s just a matter of putting her life on hold for another couple years before she can go home and resume her happy life. Meanwhile her husband is wondering if she’ll ever be able to return and is beginning to give up hope in her. My heart went out to her. I was reminded that despite challenges, my life has been so full of wonderful opportunities that many in the world have to really struggle and fight for. I told her that if she makes the decision to go home earlier than her contract ends I’d use my airmiles to get her a ticket. I look forward to keeping in touch and hope that someday our paths will cross again. It was just really easy to become friends because we have very similar outlooks on life.

The next day I spent kayaking through the rock islands of Palau. There are hundreds of these uninhabited small rock islands popping out of the lagoon outside the main island of Palau but inside the barrier reef. The water has undercut the edges of them so that many of them resemble mushroom tops or appear to be magically floating above the surface of the water. The water itself is emerald green from a distance and so clear to look through that you can see the rich coral and marine life from above the water just as well as if you were snorkeling (I took these photos from above the surface as the kayak drifted along). There were hundreds of neon colored small giant clams (mostly shades of blue and purple) and I saw three humphead napoleon wrasse (each about 2.5 feet in length) at the reef’s edge. There will millions of great snorkeling sites, so I paddled around for hours, occasionally tying the kayak to a tree and jumping in the water to see what I could see. It was just absolutely a natural paradise both above and below the surface of the water! I was pleased with the way the pictures I took turned out, although you know how the camera never does justice to real life!

That night I went back to the hotel, showered, and packed up to leave. It was a whirlwind stay there, but I saw a lot of beautiful places, learned a lot of new things, and made a nice new friend. I hope that I can return again sometime soon. All of these travels make me interested in renewing my contract at CMI for longer so that I can stay in this beautiful neighborhood! My boss will be glad to hear, I’m sure!

Yap!

2009-01-05T04:31:00.000+12:00

Words can’t possibly capture what a wonderful time I had in Yap. It was on of the most beautiful islands with overwhelmingly friendly and kind people (both Yapese and foreigners). I thoroughly enjoyed my stay there and would love to go back someday. It was my fourth destination of the trip, and because I spent so much time trying to figure out the first three, I didn’t really have any expectations or notions about it. On my flight I read about Yap in my 15-years-outdated Micronesia guidebook and it didn’t seem all that special or different from other islands in Micronesia. Boy was I happily mistaken!! As I approached Yap, I was a little nervous about accommodations because my flight arrived at 10:30pm and the apartment I had emailed had given me a quote but not a confirmation. I was unsure about landing in an unfamiliar country without a confirmed place to stay, but I was excited to explore and really didn’t know what to expect.

The reception I received at the airport was wonderful. I knew no one there, yet everyone was extraordinarily warm and friendly. As soon as I cleared the immigration desk (one of only two), two Yapese young people in traditional attire welcomed me to Yap with a lei. It’s a courtesy they extend to all visitors of their country, not only the ones staying in 5 star hotels. As is typical in Micronesia, there was a throng of locals come to the airport to greet arriving passengers (or perhaps just to check out who’s coming and going because it’s the most exciting social opportunity on a Saturday night). I spotted a senior missionary couple and was excited to be able to find out from them where and when the church was meeting the next day. When I was unable to find anyone representing the apartment I had previously tried to reserve, they (the Millers) introduced me to their landlord, Joe, who just happened to be at the airport in case someone like me needed a place to stay in Colonia. Not only was his place affordable and impeccably clean, but it was just up the hill from town and 2 blocks walk from church. Yap is comprised of Yap proper (4 solid islands close enough together to be linked by bridges or causeways, as well as two outer atolls (Ulithi and Wolea). Many outer-island families who had migrated to Yap proper were staying in Joe’s place and across the street. It was great to be among local people rather than isolated with other tourists in a large hotel. It was just my style! I was quite pleased at the serendipitous way the evening unfolded.

Church the next day was great. Since Yap is considered the most traditional state of FSM, I expected the service to be completely in Yapese (like in Majuro). I was quite surprised to find that the members spoke a combination of Yapese and English, and most of them spoke impeccable English. I came to realize that this is because the people of Yap proper speak a completely different language than the Ulithian and Wolean outer islanders, and English is the only common language they can use to understand each other. Imagine that! Three completely different languages spoken in just one state of the country! It’s comparable to Northern Californians speaking one language, Southern Californians speaking a completely different one, and those living in the Central Valley yet another language. To communicate, we would all have to speak French to each other. Bizarre, eh? I made many new friends, including Faltinag, who is a teacher also. She told me that she would like to stop by and visit me after church and I happily agreed. When she came, she invited me to come with her family (husband, three kids and three cousins plus a rooster) for a Sunday ride in the back of their family’s pickup truck out to visit her home village on the west side of Yap proper. It was such a wonderful chance to get to know her, her family, and the island.

Yap has done an absolutely wonderful job of encouraging tourism while ensuring that it does not exploit or have a negative impact on traditional life in Yap, as has happened in so many places like Hawaii and Guam. It was a brilliant idea and as a result they do tourism extremely well and show tourists a wonderful time, and yet still live as they have for many hundreds of years. For example, many Yapese women (especially outer islanders) still wear only a traditional lava-lava and nothing on top. It’s natural and traditional and not offensive in the least. Villages in Yap are manicured meticulously. It is famous for the stone pathways that have been constructed between all the villages as well as stone money (large circular stones with a hole in the middle which are still used
for land purchases even today), and for their beautiful craftsmanship of traditional village meeting houses (some for men only, others for everyone). Not only this, but the landscape is kept immaculately trimmed and tidy. Rows of plants are carefully placed along the roadsides. I told Faltinag in amazement that this looked just like the jungle land at Disneyland, except it was the real thing, which she found amusing. We saw the school where she works, her parent’s house, and walked the stone pathway between her home village and her husband’s. It was amazingly beautiful, and I was so thankful for their generosity because I got to see parts of Yap that I could not have just wandered through by myself (everything is private property in Yap and it’s considered inappropriate for foreigners to just start wandering through uninvited, although permission will almost always be granted if requested.) The Millers told me later that one of the reasons that Yap is so very clean and pristine is that each village has an old lady who goes around and inspects everyone’s place and fines (actually writes tickets) people who are not in compliance with high standards of cleanliness. They told me that recently a member of their branch was fined $5 for “tying his pig to close to the road!” Well it’s a strict system, but the result is that not one speck of garbage lies around on the island and everything is ship-shape 24/7.

As Faltinag dropped me off back at my apartment that evening, she told me about the dreams that she has for her kids to get a good education. Her oldest daughter Maxine attended University of Guam, but it was a huge financial burden on the family and Maxine had
not really found something she was passionate about. But recently she had gotten a job at the front desk of a posh hotel in town and was really showing interest in hospitality and tourism. I told Faltinag of a couple of tourism programs I know about in the region (including a new one starting on Majuro) and told her that if Maxine was interested, she’s welcome to stay with me while she studies. Maxine is bright and friendly and tourism is definitely something that she could utilize after returning to Yap.

The next day I rented a scooter from an American ex-pat who has lived in Micronesia for almost 20 years. It was the perfect way to get around the island and explore a little. I saw beautiful villages lined with stone money banks, remains of Japanese zero aircraft still scattered around the old Japanese runway since WW2. I headed north where things are a bit more rural and got stuck in some thick red mud. It took a while to free up the tire and get the bike going again. I then proceeded to get lost and find lots of dead ends in beautiful places. Each time, friendly local people helped me figure out where I was this time and how to backtrack to the main road. By the time I got back to Colonia it was after dark and I met the Miller’s for dinner. They are originally from Idaho and have been in Yap for 15 months now. They have such a wonderful, respectful, willing-to-learn attitude toward the Islanders that is instantly recognizable and the local people love them so much. It’s going to be a really a. They are incredibly generous toward both locals and me! I’m so grateful that I met them, I learned so much and felt really well taken care of while I was living upstairs from them.

My last day in Yap I arranged to spend snorkeling the reef which surrounds the island. Unlike Majuro, you have to take a boat to get to the reef, so I signed up with a local dive operation to go out on their boat. There were two really great local guides who drove the other three of us (me and a very friendly Australian couple who are both teachers also) to the reef and we snorkeled for about 4 hours. We didn’t get deep enough to see any Manta Rays (which Yap is famous for), but we saw tons of magnificent creatures including pipefish, spadefish, parrotfish, giant blue starfish and many other colorful, wonderful creatures! During the trip I discovered that Lynn and David (my new Australian friends) had traveled to the exact same islands I had, stayed in the same hotels (either just before or after) and met many of the same people including Salik from Kosrae and a taxi driver we both met in Pohnpei. It was really uncanny and we hit it off and compared notes. They invited me for “tea” afterward at Pathways hotel,
where they were staying. It has charming thatched cottages that look like Swiss Family Robinson tucked in a hillside. We exchanged emails, compared photos (mostly of the same things from each island) and promised to keep in touch and perhaps meet up again. Meeting them was wonderful. I was just really so blessed to meet up with so many fantastic, kind people in Yap. It really made that stop on my trip extra special.

That night I went to the airport for a 10pm departure and one hour later landed in Palau.

Chuuk!

2009-01-03T15:20:00.000+12:00

Chuuk would have been my favorite stop on my trip to FSM if I were a wreck diver. The chuuk lagoon is the final resting place for over 100 Japanese WW2 Ships and 270 Japanese planes. Unfortunately, submerged garbage creeps me out, especially when it represents such tragic loss of life. I prefer to stay at the top and look at the fish through my snorkel, thanks!

I arrived at Chuuk International Airport at Weno on New Year's Day (afternoon) to alot of happy clanging and banging on pots and pans and old metal pipes and shouting Happy New Year to everyone they encounter. The percussion ensembles have played almost continuously for the 2 days I've been here. It's a Chuukese New Year's tradition, I'm told. Wow, they're really into it!

I decided to stay just out of town at the Kurassa Hotel at the suggestion of Rensily, a Chuukese teacher colleage of mine at CMI. The hotel is a family business run by the family of a former student of mine who is now studying at University of Hawaii. When I arrived all the local businesses were closed for the holiday and windows were covered with plywood as if a hurricane were on its way. Actually, the hurricane they were anticipating was the throngs of young percussion bangers who might be inclined to bang on nearby shop windows in their New Years excitement.

Since everything was closed, I decided that it was a good afternoon for a hike out to a small waterfall. Weno is not as tall as Pohnpei or Kosrae, but it is much taller than Majuro (which isn't saying much! Majuro is only 20 feet elevation at the highest point). I started walking along the road away from town (basically there is just one road that runs around the perimeter of the island (except down the east side it is only traverseable on foot). Like Pohnpei and Kosrae, Chuuk is amazingly green and beautiful, as long as you keep looking up at the hills. But once you look down there is garbage strewn along most of the road and lagoon and the road is filled with gigantic potholes. Seriously, I found potholes in town that are about 6 carlengths long! (see photo). Perhaps it is the Chuukese way of forcing drivers (and walkers!) to slow down a bit. Anyway, on the road toward the waterfall a pickup truck stopped and asked if I wanted a ride. I agreed and hopped in to the passenger side to find out that the driver, who told me his name was "Marvin the Martian" was still quite drunk from the New Years reveling the previous night. I was very grateful for the potholes because they prevented him from driving faster than 5 miles per hour. He dropped me off next to a catholic church and told me that the nuns would take care of me. I thanked him and kept walking toward Peniesene, the villiage with the waterfall. As I neared the villiage it started raining and a local family invited me to wait it out with them under their outdoor tent. The nice guy who called me over explained that he was the assistant attourney general in Chuuk state and asked about my stay in Chuuk. When the rain stopped, he asked his three teenage cousins to accompany me to the waterfall. They didn't speak much English, but we had small conversations. Again, it's so frustrating that all my study and practicing Marshallese is good for nothing here in FSM.

The waterfall was small but nice, and the girls LOVED that I was willing to take photos of them all over the place (digital cameras are great!!) I was hoping to swim at the base of the falls, but the water was not very clean looking, so I opted not too. I'm glad they came with me because otherwise I never would have found the place and I would have had to walk through a bunch of people's back yards without permission by myself. I guess they don't get that many foreigners out that direction, so I created quite a scene. Sometimes I wish I were not so pale so that I could fit in a little easier.

While walking back, a car stopped and the lady inside asked me if I'd like a ride toward town. Diana grew up in Chuuk but her husband joined the US military and as a result she has lived in California for many years. Even her children, now grown, have never seen Chuuk. It was her first visit back for the holidays in a long time. She was very kind and dropped me at my hotel and I cleaned up and enjoyed a peaceful night while listening to gangs of people outside the hotel still banging away on thier instruments.

The next day I checked out town (the opposite direction). There is not much to it. I decided to start by going to the Chuuk Ethnographic exhibition to explore Chuukese culture a little. I walked all the way through town and never found it. The people where it used to be were very friendly and informed me that the visitor's bureau had relocated to the south side of town. When I got there, the visitor's bureau was closed and no one in the vacinity knew what had happened to the ethnographic center. Even the hotels in the area didn't know what it was. A government official I met at lunch informed me that the Chuuk historical preservation society had relocated to the North side of town. In order to get there I had to re-traverse the same main road and the ginormous pothole muddy lakes that stretched across the width of the road. After hiking all the way back up north, I found the building only to discover that they too were still closed (this is January 2nd people!!) My tourist handbook said that outer islanders come in to sell tropical fruits (such as mangos and pineapples) by the dock but all I found there were bananas and rolls. Good enough for me. I bought some and headed back to the hotel to ask about snorkeling sites. There must be some place local, I thought. Nope...it's surprising, but islanders don't really swim that often! The young many I asked at the front desk told me I could call a dive company, but I was looking for something a little less formal than that. I gave up on sight seeing and spent the rest of the afternoon reading and sleeping.

After 1.5 days in Chuuk I was very, very glad that I only booked 2 days there. The people here are wonderfully nice and the scenery is great, but there just isn't much to it unless you like diving WW2 wrecks, or have enough time to go to Outer Islands. Wish that I did! Next destination was Yap via Guam. I hear that Yap has amazing marine life, and I'm determined that I'll get into the water there and perhaps find some manta rays (Yap is famous for them). This whole experience has really helped me to realize the great potential tourism opportunities in my own place on Majuro and take advantage of them. For example, I've never gone to visit the Alele Museum of Marshallese History and Culture. And also there are amazing relics of WW2 on several of the outer Marshall Islands. This has inspired me with the idea to set up a trip to Mili Atoll for Spring Break. More from Yap and Palau Later...

Pohnpei!

2009-01-02T16:13:00.000+12:00

Pohnpei is the capital of the Federated States of Micronesia, and landing at the airport in Kolonia was like coming to civilization after the quaint airport experience at Majuro and Kosrae. The airport even had electric doors that open when you step in front of them!! Kolonia reminds me very much of Majuro, though not as crowded. It has an island-urban feel to it. They have one main department store, "WallMart" (not affiliated with the American superstore) which is like a
disorganized version of Majuro's main department store, Payless. Pohnpeians seem similar to Marshallese in their culture and the amount of western influence they have let into their lifestyles. The part of Pohnpei island outside of Kolonia is much more rural, but since I was only there for 2 days, one of which was a holiday (New Years), I didn't have the chance to get out to the other side of the island much. I had great hopes for finding tropical fruits which are cultivated in
small plantations outside the city, but Kolonia was devoid of any healthy produce, either local or airfreight. What a disappointment!

Whereas the driving situation in Kosrae was a little confusing with most cars having the driver sitting on the right side yet the car driving on the right, Pohnpei is downright confusing because about 50% of the cars are right hand drive while the other 50% are left hand drive. But everyone still drives on the right side of the road. I'm glad I'm a pedestrian, because after living in countries where both sides of the road are utilized, I would be completely disoriented!!

Because there were no ATM's in Kosrae, I was in dire need of some cash, so I took a stroll into town from our hotel through the villiage of Porokiet. It is a section of Kolonia that is a center for imigrants from the Polynesian island of Kapingamarangi (an outer island of Pohnpei in the very South). Their culture is really unique. While Kolonia's Pohnpeian population mostly lives in modest houses with German style (dating back to the German Colonial period of their history), the Kapingamarangi people live very much more outdoorsy lifestyle. Their houses are only for sleeping, but their cooking, washing, and leisure activites mostly take place outside. It was really intersting to walk though this pocket of unique culture. Plus it gave me about 15 minutes to work on wrapping my tongue around the pronunciation of Kapingamarangi. Try it, can you say it 10 times fast?

Bank of Guam was already closed for the holiday and their ATM (the only one on the island of course!) was down due to an electricity problem. That made me nervous! The next day when I returned it was still not operating, with made me even more nervous. I knew that I needed to pay a $15 departure fee at the airport, which was more cash than I had, and with New Year approaching the bank was sure to be closed. Luckily later that day the ATM was functioning, and I breathed a big sigh of relief. There was nothing to do but be patient. So Mike and I headed out for Sokehs Island and Sokehs Rock (see picture), which is not far from Kolonia but far enough to have a quaint, rural feel, and magnificent views of the northern part of the island. During the Japanese occupation of the island, they had militarized Sokehs mountain and there are still relics at the top. It is a steep climb, but worth the effort. On the top of the mountain we found an old bunker with a 6-inch diameter cannon(see photo), 2 large Japanese AA guns, and at the front of the mountain, spectacular views of the reef, Kolonia, and Sokehs Rock (a sheer basalt pillar extending upwards from the island's edge. The taller peaks in the background were enshrowded by clouds from which they wring the rain, making Pohnpei one of the wettest places in the world (annual rainful averages 400 inches!) While we were there, the rainfall was minimal, which was very, very lucky.

Pohnpei and Kosrae islands were formed from Ancient volcanoes just as the Marshall Islands were, but the geographic differences are vast. In the case of Pohnpei and Kosrae, they are tall volcanic mountains surrounded by a barrier reef. In the case of the Marshall atolls, the land is on TOP of the barrier reef, and the mountain in the middle sank long ago, forming a lagoon. So in contrast to the Marshalls, where the lagoon is surrounded by the small islands (in a ring shape), Pohnpei and Kosrae are Islands surrounded by lagoons with reef (that is still submerged) separating the lagoon from the sea. Chuuk on the other hand, is an atoll in formation. Its barrier reef supports outer islands while the 11 small main islands poke out of the middle of the wide lagoon. Perhaps Majuro had some middle-of-the-lagoon islands thousands of years ago, too!

That night was New Years, and there were plenty of loud explosions happening outside. People party with their families on New Years in Pohnpei, so everything was closed early. We really had to search hard to find a bite to eat at dinnertime. So we stayed in the hotel and watched a 30-Rock marathon and waited for 12pm. We were so exhausted from all the hiking that we were tempted to celebrate New Years in Majuro’s time zone so that we could go to sleep an hour earlier. But we kept awake until midnight, toasted (Mike with his contra-ban Budweiser (sale of which is prohibited in Pohnpei between Christmas and New Years) and me with my Sprite) and then slept soundly. Not the most exciting New Year I’ve ever experienced, but not the worst either!

The next day we explored a bit and saw some old parts of the city including the Spanish Wall (pretty much all that’s left of the Spanish Colonial period of Pohnpei's history), and the old German Belltower, which was very beautiful. Upon closer inspection, it still had a nativity inside, along with a a life-size paper-mache giraffe, ox, and llama, and wooden life-size cutouts Santa and Rudolph. It struck me as totally funny that Santa and Rudolph apparently participated in the events of the nativity according to Pohnpeian tradition. The whole display was such a characteristically Micronesian mix of both beautiful and tacky, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! My flight left that afternoon for Chuuk, the next island I was scheduled to discover.

Kosrae!

2009-01-01T09:27:00.000+12:00

I can't believe that Kosrae is so close to Majuro and yet I've never taken the time to get over there yet. It's a wonderful little island (well, little is relative, it's got much more land area than Majuro) with warm hearted people. It's less than 2 hours by airplane from Majuro, yet it costs nearly $600 round trip to get there. Continental is the only international airline that flies through Micronesia, so they gouge prices accordingly. That said, they provide a good, prompt, reliable service, which is rare in a place where everything runs on island time.

Kosrae is a high volcanic island of mountains densely covered in tropical rainforest. At the base of the mountains are small planes of mangrove swamps where the 5 Kosraean villages are located. Kosrae is wonderful because at the same time it is both developed and undeveloped. It is more developed than Marshall Islands outer islands (it has hotels, postal, educational facilities, internet, and electricity), yet let less developed than Majuro (which means that life is healthier for the people and there is less trash). The land area is bigger and the population is smaller (about 8000 people in Kosrae state living on 44 square miles of land) so there are enough resources to support the people there without destroying the natural environment. It was wonderful, quiet, and paradise-like. At the end of 3 days I had made up my mind to definately come back to Kosrae for longer. The College of Micronesia campus there only employs one math teacher, but she may be gone during summer, in which case I'd love to teach a class or two for them and live there for a couple months if they'd have me!

When we arrived at the airport and came through customs, we were greeted with a big smile from Tetrick, who works at the Pacific Treelodge hotel where we were staying. The first and most confusing thing was that while the majority of cars in Kosrae are right-hand drive (Japanese Style), everyone still drives on the right side of the road (American style). This got particularly confusing because that means that when the church bus dropped me off on Sunday evening I had to exit right into the middle of the street. Anywhere else, this might have been a problem because of oncoming traffic, but not in quiet Kosrae where two!

The Pacific Treelodge, where we stayed, was a perfect place to relax and unwind. It is located on a causeway that connects the main island to Lelu island, the home of the ancient Kosraean royalty. The rooms at the Treelodge surround a shady mangrove swamp which fills up at high tide and empties at low tide. The first thing we noticed in the swamp were funny little animals that were half fish-half amphibious with bulging eyeballs. They would sun themselves on the rocks at the water's edge while proping up their bodies with their two fins on the sides (using them like feet!) If we got too close, they would quickly run across the surface of the water to a new location. The Bully Hayes restaurant is behind the hotel at the end of an elevated boardwalk through the swamp right on the water's edge. The breakfast and lunch plates were only $5 and everything was cooked fresh and local. The fish was the day's fresh catch, the vegetables were grown locally and the bread was made from scratch. It was amazing!! Kosrea is known for it's very sweet green tangerines (which none of the other islands in Micronesia grow locally) as well as local bananas.

My friend Mike was feeling sick, so he stayed in the room while I went out to swim at the Blue Hole. It's a famous hole in the reef with wonderful coral structures and aquatic life, but unfortunately I never found it because the tide was too high. It had been beautiful and clear when I took off for the Blue Hole, but after my swim the rain started coming down in torents. I took shelter under the roof at Bank of FSM and it didn't take long to stop.

When I got back to the Treelodge the sky was clear agagin and there was an outrigger canoe at the restaurant for guests to use. Sepe, the manager of the restaraunt said she would go out in it with me, as I didn't mind that she wasn't wearing any underwear. She's a cute little round lady with a hysterical sense of humor. When she tried to get into the boat she fell in face first and dunked her head into the water. The other waitresses were laughing hysterically with/at her. We got ourselves all sorted out and paddled out across the water under the majesty of the tall mountains. Unfortunately, as soon as we got to the middle of the water, the skies opened up again and soaked us thoroughly. There is a wet price to be paid for all that fantastic greenery!! I felt so bad that Sepe still had to work for 6 more hours in wet clothing that I went back to my room to find a dress I could loan her. I had 2 dresses with me, but Sepe and I do not exactly wear the same size clothing. She is short and round and I am at least a foot taller. The one that fit was made of stretchy fabric and hugged every curve. She was reveling in how ridiculous it looked and showed it off to all the other guests who came for dinner that night. She said she felt like she was going to the prom. ha ha ha!

The next day was Sunday and I walked down the road about 1.5 miles to the Mormon church. It's a beautiful new building and I couldn't have gotten a closer hotel. There were some adorable children outside playing when I arrived (I was about 30 minutes early) who greeted me. The members were very friendly and made me feel very welcome with them. It helped that my friend Heather served her mission in both Marshall and Kosrae and is
like a local celebrity with the members. Because I'm her friend, I automatically became their friend. Thanks Heather! When I went into the chapel, the children followed and surrounded me. One adorable 7-year old girl had brought her tiny pet hermit crab with her to church and was playing with it. The church service was in Kosraean, but my new friend Permides translated for me. Her husband is the branch president and at the opening of the service he introduced me to the congregation, saying, "This is Britt Mitchell. She is from the Marshall Islands even though she is white." I got a kick out of that. The primary children presented the program for church and they were so well organized and they sang wonderfully. It was just too cute for words!

Kosrae is one of the most religious countries in the world. Part of it is due to their interesting history. After many thousands of years without wester contact, in the 1850s, Whalers, traders, and pirates came to Kosrae. One of the most infamous is Bully Hayes, and American pirate accused of stealing cargo, women, and selling people as slaves to other islands. His boat, the Leonora, sank in Utwe harbor on the South Side of the island, and his treasure is rumored to be buried somewhere around Kosrae. Mishima, one of my students at CMI who grew up in Kosrae warned me not to look for the treasure because bad things happen to those who do. Anyway, Bully died at sea during a fight with his cook years later and I'm sure that the Kosraean people breathed a collective sigh of relief at the news. Whaling and trading boats brought diseases such as smallpox to the island in within just a couple of decades, the native Kosraean populations were reduced from 10,000 people down to just 300. Congregational missionaries in Boston were concerned about the sinful exploits of the whalers and pirates and concerned for the welfare of the native people's souls. So they sent missionaries out to the islands in the late 1800's to try to undo the damage being done by their seafaring compatriots. I'm not sure how much success they had with the seafarers, but they had remarkable success with the local people, and as a result, every single Kosraean still alive after the epidemics was converted to Christianity. Kosraeans today are known for their religious devotion, wonderful choral singing, and kindness. Sunday is a strict day of rest in the country. Nothing is open on Sunday and both Fishing and Campfires on sunday are illegal. Mishima also told me that if the police see smoke ascending from your yard on a sunday they will come by and kindly ask you to put your fire out.

That afternoon we joined up with Ray and Jill, two other teachers from Majuro who also happened to be spending their break in Kosrae to go down to Sipyen waterfall with Salik, a local guide and ecology expert. In majuro we don't have any mountains or fresh water streams and thus no waterfalls, so this was a real treat. It was stunningly beautiful up there! The next day we went back down to Utwe with Ray and met up again with Salik to explore the Menke ruins, which are on Salik's families land. The origin of the ruins are still clouded by mystery, but they date back to the time before the arrival of the missionaries when people went up to the mountains to worship the Sinlau, the Goddess of Breadfruit. What remains are hundreds of two-roomed structures made from rocks many of which have mounds of rocks inside. Their exact uses and origins are unknown, but Salik said that a German archeological team is coming for 2 months in February to study the site and results will be published online.

The morning of our final day in Kosrae I hired a local guide, Hamilson, to take me to Lelu ruins. These ruins are a former palace of Kosraean royalty and are really impressive. The site was abandoned when Kosraens converted to Christianity, but the ruins are surrounded by Lelu village where may Kosraeans still live. In some ways, Kosrae was very lucky to be relatively small and off-the-beaten-path because it spared it from being a Japanese or American stronghold during WW2 (thought the Japanese did fortify some of the hills during the war) and has kept it free from much of the contamination and pollution of industrial development. By the time to leave, I wasn't ready to go! But I'm sure that I will be back. There's a possibility that perhaps local shipping or fishing ventures might take passengers between Majuro and Kosrae and it's worth a try to find out.

2008-12-14T16:25:00.018+12:00

This week I just feel like jumping up and down and singing at the top of my lungs. Why? Because after weeks of malnourishment, the shipments of green vegetables came to our island again! For about 3 weeks last month, there was not a head of romaine lettuce or even bok choy or kale or spinach or anything to be found on this entire island! The produce section of Payless Supermarket looked like a war-zone with pathetic decomposing fruit and only two kinds of vegetables: pale green cabbages and local cherry tomatoes, hundreds of them! That may not seem like a big deal, but since the time I was born, my family has eaten green salad in one form or another every single day. So what happens when the airplane doesn’t come bringing veggies from distant lands? Well, I didn’t feel very healthy.
I tried to improvise. I made so much Chinese Cabbage and Ramen salad that I almost turned into a giant cabbage myself. The frustrating thing is that every week I would make the trip down to Payless only to be disappointed time and again. So the Friday that the ship came in with the container of Veggies and they finally stocked the produce section again, I had a hard time containing my excitement in the shop. I was so grateful that I bought types of vegetables that I’ve never even eaten before. Life is good again!!

The semester is going full swing. I totally love my students, they are so sweet and eager to please. When I’m having a bad day or I’m frustrated about working 12 hours per day to keep up with all the things I’ve said “yes” to, all I have to do is go to class and interact with them and I feel rejuvenated again. My students this semester (as in the past) have very, very cool and unique names. Among some of my favorite names are male students Bertnie, Kimi, and Cece. I have both Nosie and Noji in class this semester, as well as Creamson, Elmi, Loney, Framey, Kone, and Hernest. I just wish you could all meet my students and see how fun and wonderful they are. I also have two students from mainland China in my classes, who are really wonderful as well. The cultural contrast is amazing, though! I can’t believe that on American demographic information they group “Asian/Pacific Islanders” together. The cultures could not be more different! My Chinese students approach life from such a different angle than my Marshallese students. For example, while Marshallese students all work together reviewing their homework (everything is done in communities here, there is not really a concept of individualism in Marshallese culture), my Chinese students are eager to charge ahead and do their own thing. They are very independent and don’t want to be confined by collaborating in a group. Most Chinese students grew up in crowded cities like Shanghai or Beijing where life is a fight for survival. It’s a sharp contrast to students coming from isolated outer islands with less than 1000 people and very simple traditional life and not much exposure to the outside world. It’s both challenging and fun to design lessons to try to bridge the differences and teach effectively to a mix of students with vastly different background experiences.

This reminds me, I received some really great answers to a test question recently. It was a probability test, and the question read: “You are taking a multiple-choice science test, and there are five possible answers for each question. If you don’t know the answer to a question and you take a random guess, what is the probability that you’ll get the question correct? Is it very likely?” Well I was happy that most of my students correctly calculated the probability and then explained that 20% is not very likely, but there is a chance it could happen. But my favorite answer came from one very bright student. She correctly calculated the probability and then wrote, “Oh yes, I’m likely to get the right answer because I want to get a hundred on my test and because I like to know and learn!” It was just absolutely so sincere and guile-less.

A few weeks ago I gave my very first talk in church in Marshallese. It took me 4 hours to write and edit it and it lasted 10 minutes in church. It also doubled my vocabulary and increased the church members’ expectations for my language ability. Perhaps that was a mistake because now they think I’m completely fluent. Well, I’m not but I’m getting there. I was so, so, so nervous. The feeling of relief after I sat down was wonderful. My friend Annie helped me edit my talk and steered me away from using vocabulary words which could sound like vulgarity if mispronounced from the pulpit. I was very grateful! I now have a responsibility as a Young Women teacher, and I teach ½ in English, ½ in Marshallese (“jimatin im jimatin”).

I have had many recent experiences with alcoholism that trouble me. There are such problems here with alcoholism! I usually eat my lunch in my office at work, but one day last week I had a tuna-fish sandwich and didn’t want my office hours just after my lunch to smell of tuna fish. So I went down to the reef flat along the Oceanside next to my building and found a rock to sit on and eat. I thought it was a harmless place, but now I realize that the Oceanside is the place where the seedy stuff happens (drinking and sex). When my female students saw me coming up from the shore after lunch, they looked shocked that I had been down there and asked what I was doing. Ooops, I guess I won’t be eating on the reef flat anymore! While I was down there, one of my students came over to talk to me out there. He’s one of my brightest students and has so much academic potential. As is customary, I offered him some of my sandwich (it is proper in Marshallese culture to share food with anyone in the area). He thanked me but declined, saying he had been drinking. It was 11:30am! He told me that if he doesn’t drink a little bit, his body gets agitated and he can’t sit still and focus in class. He said he has been drinking since he was 8 years old when his older brothers first gave him alcohol. Now instead of eating, when he’s hungry he just drinks. He told me he knows he needs help. I told him about the AA group that meets at CMI on Tuesday nights, as well as the counselors we have at school. It just makes me really sad to see. Right now it’s just himself that he’s hurting, but I worry about his future wife and kids. I have watched the effects that alcoholism has on families here and it’s just tragic. A good friend of mine from church has a husband with a terrible problem. For the past 1 ½ months, every two weeks at payday time he disappears and drinks himself into oblivion. When he returns 2 days later, there is no money for food or transportation so that the kids can go to school. She is left to beg for food from neighbors, and I try to help out whenever I can by taking a bag of rice for their family. Her brother is also an alcoholic to the extent that he sells their furniture and the kids’ clothing to fund his addiction. My friend watches out for her nieces and nephews as well as her own kids. It’s just heartbreaking to watch. But I’m continually amazed by the resilience of the kids in the situation. My friend’s teenage daughter keeps a smile on her face and goes about life, never feeling sorry for herself, but just trusting that God will provide for them. I hope that all the kids in this situation are as resilient and courageous!

One of the things that I love about the new place that I’m living is my commute to work. It only takes me about 5 minutes to ride my bike down the back road to work. At 7:30am as I’m riding to work, there are women out in their yard raking and cleaning up any debris that blew down the night before, children all pressed and proper in their school uniforms walking to school, CMI dorm residents out on the porch drinking their coffee and waving to me, and stray dogs running around trying to find breakfast. It’s just a wonderful slice of life. A good way to start the day!

A few weeks ago we went reef walking and had a good time. At low tide, the reef at the end of the island is exposed and you can walk to islands that are usually separated from the end of ours (Rita side) by walking across the reef. I went with my new friend Stacey (a clinical therapist who recently arrived at CMI) as well as Peter and Mike, who moved to Majuro in August and also work at the college. We had a nice time, found a baby giant clam, met some adorable and lively Bikinian children who live on the island of Ejit, and swam around a bit. It was nice.

There's so much more to share, but I have to get going. I'll fill you in on the end of the semester after I finish writing and grading final exams this week. See you then!

2008-10-05T20:24:00.020+12:00

There are many quirky things that I love about being back here in the Marshall Islands. On my walk to church this morning, for example, random kids came up and “high-fived” me. Also, as I was walking by the police station, the passenger door of a taxi opened (while the taxi was in motion) so one of my former students could yell a quick hello to me. I guess the window was broken, so opening the door was the only good alternative in order to greet me. Funny thing is, the police and the taxi driver thought nothing of it! Then there was a guy who was still drunk from the night before (this was 12:15pm on Sunday) who would ordinarily have been too shy to talk to me in English had he been sober. He said, “Excuse me, can I help you?” to which I replied “Good morning!” He repeated, “Excuse me, can I help you?” to which I said, “Uh, no thanks!” He said, “Ok, alright.” Then there were the dogs that started fighting with each other right outside the door of the chapel during testimony meeting today. They caused such a racket that it was hard to hear the person speaking. And of course, there were adorable kids everywhere. That’s one thing that takes a lot of getting used to. When I go back to the states I keep looking around wondering why there are so many adults and not very many children. The contrast with what I’m used to now is stark.

We sent off our 2+2 students at the airport in August just before school began, which was fun. We had dinner with all of them first, then saw them off from the airport. Most of them have gone to University of Hawaii at Hilo and BYU Hawaii. The reports that they send back are that they are really working hard to keep up academically, but they are learning a lot and liking being out there. We’re working with quite a group of other students who are planning to transfer in January and next August. We have some really bright and shining stars among our students at CMI, and it’s such a pleasure to help them take steps toward achieving their dreams.

This semester I have a new house and a new office. I’m quite pleased with both. I moved over to the Chutaro’s compound, which is great for its close proximity to work and town, but has a lot more green space and tranquility than most places in town (Uliga). I have a view of the lagoon out my kitchen window, and a wonderful little porch on which I’ve planted a variety of vegetables. So far the tomatoes are the ones doing the best. I also planted some morning glories which have grown well and I’m hoping to coax the vines to climb up the beams from the ground to my porch. They are such beautiful flowers. I just hope I’m still around by the time they bloom! My new office is also great. It’s about twice as big as my old one, and has a gorgeous view of the sea, framed by palm fronds. Every once in a while, when I’m working, I look up and am reminded that I need to get outside and enjoy the environment more!

This semester I’m sitting in on a science class taught by my colleague Dean. He is such a brilliant man, yet quirky in a science geek type of way. I say this affectionately since I myself am a science geek. He has a PhD from MIT in Marine Biology, and has been monitoring the health of the corals here in the Marshall Islands for over 7 years. It’s such a treat to be able to learn from him in this “Integrated Coastal Management” class. There are so many interesting things that I’m learning about the coastal and marine environments. I never realized how complex and interesting these issues are. This is a place where the state of the environment is directly connected to human quality of life. Our labs for the class so far have included snorkeling in one of the dirtiest parts of the lagoon to check out how coral are adapting to polluted environments, and a trip to the dump to see the sand dredging operation there as well as to check out the state of solid waste disposal on our Island. Dean goes to the dump regularly to scavenge things like old flip-flops, garbage can lids, and scrap wood for building bookcases, so he was an excellent tour guide. I'm looking forward to learning a lot more interesting things during this class.

There are some new employees at the College that have joined our social circle. The college suddenly hired about 7 men, most of whom are single like us. So it’s good to have some new faces and to catch up with old friends. Really, we’re so lucky to have such good colleagues here, old and new. We took a trip out to Eneko Island during our long weekend in September for Suzie’s birthday. It was great to relax in such a peaceful place. The snorkeling in the lagoon was AMAZING!! We tried to get out across the reef on the Oceanside, but it was sharp and the waves pummeled us against the jagged rocks. We tried later at high tide, and made it out through a few caverns in the reef rock below us. We saw a lot of jellyfish and saw a reef shark head-on, coming towards us. It was enough to convince us to go back to the lagoon again. On the way back we swam with a school of about 35 Hellers Barricuda and also found a beautiful neon-blue giant clam. It was pretty cool.

I’ve been trying to take care of myself more than I usually do. I have issues with codependence, which means that I take care of everyone else too much and don’t nurture myself enough. So I’ve made some resolutions about this for this new school year. I have never been one who likes to indulge, I grew up with such puritan values. But gardening and going for a massage once a week are the two things I have decided to do for my sanity’s sake. My massage therapist, Antoinette is a wonderful Filipino lady that I really like a lot. I should be quiet and rest during the massage, but usually we end up talking the whole time. She is a hard worker and a good hearted lady. Talking to her makes me want to be a better person. Her husband died when she was very young (she was pregnant with her third child at the time) leaving her to raise three kids on her own. She finished cosmetology and massage school and has sacrificed so much to support them. They are college age now, and she has come to the Marshall Islands so that she can make enough money to support them in higher education. Her eldest son just graduated as an Architectural Engineer, her daughter is studying to become a nurse, and her youngest son is finishing high school. They take care of each other while she is gone, and it’s clear that there is a lot of love in their family. I’m learning so much about the Phillipines from her that I really want to go there now. I just found out that it only costs 12500 frequent flier miles each way to go to Manila, so I’m scheming about next summer. I remember that there was a Filipino family who lived up the street from us during my childhood in California. They had teenagers that were sometimes a bit wild, and I remember hearing the neighbors speak derogatory things about “those darn Filipinos.” I’m ashamed to say I grew up thinking that Filipinos were troublemakers because of this experience. Since coming here to the Marshall Islands, I have learned that this stereotype is completely untrue! The Filipinos that I have become friends with here are the most kind, industrious, and polite people I’ve ever met. I’m so grateful to have this experience which has opened my eyes and my mind. I have learned that there is both good and bad in every culture and group of people, including many groups to which I belong. I am often ashamed about the pushy, arrogant way that we Americans sometimes behave in the world, but then again, there are many good-hearted, generous Americans as well! I hope that I can be counted among the later group.

Well, it’s getting late, so I have to sign off. I’ll write again soon!

2008-09-14T19:41:00.015+12:00

I landed in Michigan on June 28th and was greeted at the airport by my friend Christine and her daughter Debbie. Christine and her husband Gideon are Congolese who lived in Johannesburg for 13 years before immigrating to Ann Arbor, Michigan. I met Ireen on a bus while I was a grad student at UofM. We started talking and discovered that we actually lived right across the street from each other. We became good friends and I used to hang out with them and their African community in Michigan. They welcomed me into their home and Debbie and I did some serious hanging out. She is a bright, precocious 13 year old (doesn't she look like she's 20?!?) who kept me very entertained while I was with them. I spent some time with good friends from church and the Air Quality Lab at University if Michigan. It was the first time back since I left two years ago, and it was like a homecoming as well. My life has been so blessed by good people, and the three years that I spent in Michigan were made especially rich by such friends. The years I spent there were not easy. I dropped out of my PhD program there and passed through thick depression. But in spite of that, my life was so good there. I spent time biking along the Huron river again and enjoyed its serenity. I went with friends from the lab to dinner at Jerusalem Garden (yum!) and the Ann Arbor Summer Festival. I met up with the Downie sisters and Amy Jeppson and other wonderful friends for July 4th festivities. Michigan is exquisitely beautiful in the summer, and I enjoyed every minute of being back. My life has been so blessed!! The one thing I did not have good luck with is my car. Daisy is a 1971 VW Superbeetle in need of a full-body makeover. Because of the holiday weekend, I wasn't able to find a shop that I trust enough to restore her. That means I'll have to head back to Ann Arbor to work on that either in December or next summer. I'm looking forward to it!

During my entire trip I was reading self-help books to try to deal with my codependent tendencies. As a result, I was feeling more and more insecure and less and less inclined to go to my college reunion and see people I hadn't seen in 10 years. So I chickened out and diverted my flight to Utah instead. My sister Honor rescued me at the airport and gave me a place to hide from the world for a bit, for which I'm so thankful. We had a good time talking and playing with her adorable, rambunctious little boy, Grant. Her husband was really sweet to accomodate having me crash thier guest room for a couple of weeks. By the end of my visit with her, I was feeling a little more confident, so I called up some of my mission companions living in Utah and we got together. It was wonderful to reminisce and catch up with them. I can't believe it's already been 8 years since we were in Africa together! Where does the time go? They are such wonderful, intelligent, beautiful women who inspire me to be a better human being. I was so grateful to come out of my shell in time to see them.

I spent 2 more weeks at home with my family in California, which was wonderful! I was still pretty emotionally stirred up inside and was grateful to be safe at home. I spent good quality time with Clay and Cullen and Cammie (siblings living nearby home) and my parents. I saw some old friends from high school and caught up a little bit. I bought massive amounts of summer clothing to wear for the next year in Majuro as well as lots of antibacterial soaps and gels. My mother (bless her heart) woke up early again to drive to the airport for the 5th time of the summer to drop me off, and I made it back safe and sound to Majuro.

2008-08-23T13:56:00.061+12:00

My summer was wonderful, but I was feeling really insecure and messed up inside and it was hard to relax and enjoy it. That is one of the reasons I have been procrastinating updating this blog. Honestly, the past 4 months have been quite emotionally painful. Thankfully I'm finally snapping out of this funk and I'm taking care of myself better and improving. But during the summer it was simultaneously wonderful and yet hard to see so many fantastic friends from different parts of the world and different eras of my life, and pretend like I had everything together while inside I was constantly falling apart. Now that I’m back in Majuro I feel like I’ve turned a new corner and started afresh. To all of you who cheered me up this summer (if you’re reading) thankyou ever so much! You don’t know how much it meant to me!

I had a layover in London en route to Johannesburg, and had the chance to catch up with my good friend George in Bristol. He was so kind to me and showed me a really good time. We attended a BBQ with his former roommates, took a motorcycle ride, chatted about life and the unexpected course it always takes, attended church, and then he delivered me to the train station on Sunday night to head back to Heathrow for my Monday morning flight. I stayed at “Yotel” which is a very cool, small, capsule hotel (see pictures). I grabbed a few winks of sleep and then boarded the flight to Johannesburg.

I arrived very late that night (11pm) in Joburg and took a taxi to the hostel I was staying at. It was dead of winter and I thought I would freeze!! The blanket they gave me was not enough, but the next day when the sun came up, the temperature rose a bit and I thawed. I walked from my hostel to Melrose Arch, where Mbuso works at Stanlib Financial group and met him for lunch. It was fantastic to see him again. Our lives have changed so much in the 4 years since we saw each other last, but everything was just like old times again. We made plans to go to his mom’s house in Newcastle, Kwa-Zulu Natal for the weekend and then head to Durban to see other friends (and some warmer weather!) for the weekend.

In order to get to Newcastle, we had to take a taxi, which involved carrying our luggage through the taxi rank in Joburg which is big and chaotic. I was the only white person for miles, which meant I was a huge target for violence or theft. I was relieved when we stuffed ourselves into the VW minibus taxi. While we waited, many young men selling everything from socks to superglue to cellphone airtime came to the taxi window asking us to buy from them. This is the scene everywhere you go in Africa. People trying to eek out a living, and the taxi rank is a place to look for customers, but it’s a rough spot to spend your time. Soon our taxi filled up with the 18 people we needed to fill it, and we began our scary 3-hour journey. The driver wanted to get home faster, so he drove at least 100 miles per hour on 2-lane rural roads. Oftentimes he would veer into the other lane and hardly slow to take a turn. Seriously, we feared for our lives. The more experienced passengers knew what to expect and drank a lot of alcohol early on in the trip so that they weren’t bothered by the near-death experiences toward the end. We were so glad to reach our dropping-off spot!

Lindiwe, Mbuso’s mom (my adoptive South African mum) came to pick us up from town. It was so good to come “home” to Newcastle. She had faked illness at work (she’s a nurse in Zululand) in order to make the 4-hour trip home to “see her doctor”. It was so wonderful to see her again; she was in such great shape (much healthier than last time I saw her). After staying in Newcastle a couple days, we took Lindiwe’s extra car and drove down to Durban, where I stayed with my Zimbabwean friend Thamary and her two teenage boys. She is an amazing woman of strength. She has been through so much in the past 3 years: the disintegration of what seemed to be an ideal marriage, suddenly supporting her kids alone, finishing up her degree on a wish and a prayer, and getting a job as a social worker at an alcoholism clinic. God has really been good to her but it hasn’t been easy. I spent a week with her there and visited several other friends in Durban. It’s such a gorgeous city on the Indian Ocean. I went to Amanzimtoti on the South Coast (where I used to live) and spent some time walking on the beach that I once lived next to. I also spent some time with my friend Roberta, who lives in Durban North.

The funniest thing to happen while I was in Durban was the trip that I took with Thamary to the Maintenance (Child Support) office at the courthouse downtown. There were people sitting in the waiting area with two types of tickets: one for the complaints office and one for the new claims office. We spent a long, long time sitting there, just observing the Maintenance office comedy hour. It was primarily women in the line, from all types of backgrounds and walks of life, complaining and comparing child support and matrimonial mishaps. There was a pretty, young Indian girl in her 20’s complaining that her ex refused to pay for their child, yet somehow found money for the other kids he fathered. There were several African women whose partners needed a bit of coercion to take responsibility for their offspring. But the craziest was a white lady with her 26-year old daughter who were there to complain that the father had stopped paying for the 26-year-old’s cell phone bill and BMW. They were all talking up a storm and getting worked up about their situation, when in walks a middle-aged colored man whose son had turned 20 and was ready to stop receiving child support. The angry women all interrogated him and spewed man-hating comments in his direction, but then a few of them stood up for him saying, “at least HE paid his ex!!” He told us about how he’s now dating a girl who is the same age as kids he’s paying child-support for, and I just though to myself, “Wow, I’m the only one who is not a parent in this whole place, and after listening to these people, I guess my life’s not so dramatic afterall.” Thamary got her court date set, and I dropped her back at work.

At the end of the week, I picked up Gugu, Mbuso’s sister who is loads of fun to be around and we drove back to Newcastle for the weekend, listening to South African hip-hop and dance music. Gugu, Lindiwe and I went shopping for Mbuso (since he doesn’t care about fashion, those of us who do have to take care of him). We got him some smart new clothes for work. While at the second-hand shop (Lindiwe and my favorite!) we discovered some lovely taxidermy on display and took some photos. Lindiwe thought that the hyena was a dog until she saw it from the front side, but by that point, it was right in her face! I snuggled up to the zebra, while getting positioned in just the right spot to channel my inner springbok. At the end of the weekend we said our goodbyes and Mbuso and I headed back to Joburg while Lindiwe went back to Zululand and Gugu to Durban.

While Mbuso was at work, I drove up to Limpopo province to see my Malawian friends Kenny and Ireen, who were staying in the small town of Modimolle. It’s beautiful country up there, and I enjoyed staying with them. Ireen had accompanied Kenny on a big-rig drive from Malawi to South Africa (he was working for a trucking company), when he found a job as a police mechanic in Modimolle and they stayed. It had been 4 months since she had seen her kids, and she needed to return to Malawi to them, so I told her I’d buy us tickets and we would go. Next day we traveled back to Joburg to buy bus tickets at Vaal Africa and start shopping for things to take to the family up in Malawi. Shopping in the markets in downtown Joburg was no picnic. Again, I was a big white target, and we spent hours down there fighting crowds. Eventually I volunteered to be the bag-holder while Ireen dove in and out of shops. I enjoyed watching the looks on kids’ faces as they were strapped to their mother’s backs with blankets or towels, meanwhile the package atop her head was about to fall on them. Finally Ireen filled her own back so heavy with clothing and shoes that it was too heavy to carry, so she put it up top.

The next day bright and early, we went to the bus station to start our trip. The bus was packed so tightly it was about to burst! All I have to say is it’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic, because in Africa, there’s no such thing as personal space!! The bus left at 9am, but then we had to wait at a rest stop north of Pretoria for about 3 hours to wait for some passengers who had missed the bus. It should have taken us about 5 hours to get from Joburg to the Zimbabwe border, but instead, night had fallen by the time we made it there. I was on board a bus full of Malawians who were returning home after the horrible xenophobic violence against them in South Africa. We sat across the aisle from a sweet young mother named Grace and her adorable 5 year old son, Griffin. Grace had watched her neighbor’s house being burned in a Johannesburg suburb where lots of Zimbabweans, Malawians, and Mozambicans live. She was pregnant and decided that she couldn’t stay in South Africa with her son, so they were heading home. The timing of our bus trip was also on the eve of the run-off election in Zimbabwe, and things were desperate there! There was so much political violence being carried out by Mugabe’s henchmen, many of whom are Zimbabwean Police and Army members. There was no hope of a fair election. Meanwhile the ordinary people in Zimbabwe were (and still are) starving and unable to keep up with runaway inflation. I bought a cucumber on my way back through Zimbabwe which cost me $1billion. We got stuck at the border (leaving South Africa) for about 3 hours since almost every single person on the bus had overstayed their South African Visa. I loaned Ireen 400 Rand to pay her overstay fee, but that left me with only about R200 and no ATM machine in sight. After waiting there for a long time, we crossed the river with alligators below into Zimbabwe. The Zim side of the boarder (in the dark) was scary, with people clamoring to get out of that country and find a little hope for survival. I was informed that I had to pay for a Zim transit visa, costing $20 or R210. I had $14, R200, 10 UK pounds and 10 euros on me, but I was not allowed to mix currencies. I almost missed the bus because I lacked the extra 10 rand. Grace came to my rescue and loaned me R10 in exchange for my $10. That night we made our way through Zimbabwe, stopping every so often for police road blocks. When dawn came, we were nearing the Mozambique border. Zimbabwe is an extremely beautiful country, with awe-inspiring rock formations, kind people, and rich farmland. But all of Zimbabwe’s resources have been squandered and stolen by the current government regime. I sincerely hope to go back and stay a while if/when things calm down there. I pray for the people there often. Things don’t seem to be capable of getting worse and yet they continue to.

I was nervous about crossing into Mozambique because I was unsure of how much they would charge for a visa to cross their country. They required $18, but wouldn’t take my European or British currency (which would have been sufficient). The immigration officers were strict, straight faced, and no-nonsense. But one tall handsome officer with perfect caramel colored skin (his ancestors must have been both African and Portuguese colonists) was nice to me and suggested that I talk to the bus conductor. I explained the situation to her and she said she would loan me the Visa money and I could pay her back once we reached the ATM at the Malawi border. I was so grateful! Mozambique is much more colorful than the surrounding countries. Its architecture reflects the Portuguese colonial influence. The colors of buildings are bright, as are the marketplaces. We crossed the Zambezi River, which is vast!

After many hours on the bus, we finally go to the Malawi border. They did not require a visa, which I was relieved about. But we did spend about 3 hours at customs because everyone was bringing so much luggage into the country. Malawi customs is so corrupt. They see something they like in a bag and then they charge such a high tariff that the person can’t afford to pay it. Then the customs officer takes it home and enjoys the contents. They did it to Ireen, and she almost lost the bag of stuff we spent all day shopping for in Joburg. We couldn’t show up to her family empty-handed, so I gave her the money for the excessive (illegal) tariff and we got back on the bus. It took 2 more hours to get to Blantyre, Malawi. At Blantyre we switched to an all-night bus (which looked like a rickety old school bus, really) and traveled for 4 more hours to Lilongwe. We arrived at 3am before any taxis were running, so we snoozed in the bus until 6am and then took a taxi to Irene’s brother-in-law’s home (where her children were staying while she was gone). In total, we spent 45 hours traveling since Joburg without sleeping in a bed or showering! I was SO thankful to be somewhere I could call “home" even if it was just for 4 days.

Malawi's nickname is the "Warm Heart of Africa," and it doesn't take more than 15 minutes being there to understand why. Not only was the temperature much warmer than Johannesburg, but the people are so friendly, kind, and generous. We splept for a few hours at Ireen's sister-in-law's two bedroom house with 4 adults, 4 children, an outhouse and an outdoor water tap. It was in a part of Lilongwe where white people never go, but I didn't realize it until we got to the Market and I heard the word "Mzungu" about 45 times. The market is colorful and bright with fresh produce, dried fish from Lake Malawi, beautiful fabrics, and lots of people. Although it is hard to make a decent salary in Malawi (even if you are educated), the soil is rich and abundant and there is usually enough healthy food to eat at home. I especially enjoyed the food that my friends cooked for me while there. I picked up enough Chechewa (local language) to say "Muli Bwanji" (Hi, how are you) and "Ndili Bwino" (Fine thanks!) but not much more. It was really frustrating because I kept wanting to use Marshallese words but it didn't quite work.

The next day we took a bus out to Mchinji to visit Ireen's brother and sister. Ireen's brother's place was too far to walk from the main road, so we hired some bicycle taxi drivers to take us there. I felt terrible because my driver was literally half my size and worked SO hard to pedal both of us through the powdery fine dirt (similar to biking in sand). They were both very strong and I gave them my water bottle when we finally got there because I was so partched. I love the idea of bike taxis because it is an environmentally friendly, economically feasible way to transport people to remote places and also a good source of income for young men who would otherwise be unemployed.

We met Ireen's sister Fatima at her home in Mchinji. Fatima and her husband Rasheed are good hearted people who have been relatively successful in small business ventures they have made. They made us a wonderful meal of mealies, okra pudding, and vorst. Fatima cannot have children herself, but has adopted an adorable little boy Vincent (who helped me cook breakfast) whose mother died of aids and also Martha, Ireen's youngest daughter. Everyone in the neighborhood was so friendly and kind. They couldn't believe that a white lady had come to their place and treated me like a celebrity, which made me feel quite uncomfortable. Fatima took us to the market before we left the next day and bought fabrics for me to give to my mother as a gift from her and Rasheed sent us with some cash for sodas on our trip home. I was just overwhelmed with gratitude for their generous hearts.

Life for women in Malawi is very difficult. Domestic violence is so common there. Ireen's sister-in-law Brenda is a well educated, attractive, hard working woman. She has a good government job and a young baby. With the help of Ireen's daughters, Brenda does all the cooking, cleaning of the house, caring for the baby, and works full time on top of that. Yet her husband (of only one year) hits her without even listening to her side of the story when he hears rumors and lies from the neighbors and extended family. Ireen says her husband does too. The day we were there, he called Brenda at work screaming about a story his sister had told him. Luckily Ireen and I were there when he came home from work, so he had to be on his best behaviour. Unfortunately, this kind of behaviour from men is more the rule than the exception. I asked my Malawian friend Chilipo about it later, and he said that he had grown up in an abusive family. He's the oldest son and tried to protect his mom from his dad several times as a boy and got the brunt of his father's wrath. He has learned from the experience and will never repeat the cycle of violence, but unfortunately many others will.

Back in Lilongwe we visited with many family members and played with the children. We made arrangments for my bus ride home the next day and went to the ATM to make sure I didn't have problems with money for all the visas I would need again. At 6am the next day I boarded the bus to go back to Joburg. This trip took only 1/2 as long as the trip to Malawi because the bus was not very full and no one was bringing excessive amounts of luggage. The man next to me on the bus had been living in South Africa for several years trying to eak out a living there and returned to Malawi to visit his sick mother and his wife and children. At the end of his stay in Malawi he was without money (after missing a month of work in Capetown). In order to leave the Malawi border you have to prove that you have at least 800 Rand. But he only had 400 Rand. He was stuck in a no-win situation because he had no way to get more money in Malawi, and if he didn't make it back to South Africa, he would lose his job there. I needed my R400 to pay for all my visas but told him I'd loan it to him to show the border guards if he would give it right back to me. He agreed and went inside. He disappeared for about 15 minutes, and my heart sank. Here I was at the border, far from my friends, alone, having given my money to a stranger. I breathed a sigh when he emerged and gave my money back to me after having paid a small bribe inside. We crossed the border on foot and became good friends during the ride. It's amazing what a struggle life is for so many people!

We made it through Zimbabwe safely, but it was heartbreaking to see. It was 2 days before the runoff election and people were scared to leave their homes, but too desperate to get a little something to eat to stay home either. The price of a small pizza in downtown Harare was $400 billion Zim dollars at the time. I've just heard about a power-sharing agreement between political parties in Zimbabwe this week (due to be announced tomorrow). I pray that it will provide some relief and change to the people suffering there!

Back in Joburg, my friend Chilipo and went to lunch at the "Top of Africa" restaraunt to catch up on life. It gave me new appreciation for what a difficult transition it must be for someone to come from a small undeveloped country like Malawi to a gigantic, harsh city like Joburg. Chilipo's doing his best and hanging in there, but a little lost about what to do with his life and future. I can relate! We went out to the Nelson Mandela bridge to join a "Free Zimbabwe" protest march. I had not slept in a bed or showered for a couple days, but it was my last day in Africa and I had to make the most of it. Chilipo had to go to pick up his friend, so Mbuso met me downtown for the Free Zimbabwe rally. We had dinner that evening an Nandos (a YUMMY chicken restaraunt that has begun to franchise in the UK, but not he US yet), and he drove me to the airport. It was so painful and hard to say goodbye again and leave. But it had to be done, and there were several other destinations for my summer that awaited.

I'll write about the rest later because it's getting late and this post is already a mammoth!! Hope you've enjoyed reading/pictures. I'll be brief about the rest of the trip.

Celebrity Morph by MyHeritage

2008-07-20T05:15:00.002+12:00

So I've been hanging out with my sister and brother-in-law and their baby for a the past week, and part of the fun of being here is that my sister Honor does crazy stuff. Well this is the latest. We found a website that you can do "celebrity lookalikes". You scan in your picture, and it analyzes it to see what celebrities you look like, and to what % you are similar. Of the 9 celebrities it compared me to, 8 were female. And then there was Harry Belefonte. So as if that wasn't bizarre enough, Honor insisted on "morphing" me into Harry and back again, which is truly, truly disturbing if you ask me, but very entertaining. Here it is for your viewing pleasure! :)

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities

2008-07-17T11:12:00.013+12:00

I’ve been procrastinating about writing here for a long time, I’m sorry. During June I was in Africa and not nearby a computer that I could spend significant amounts of time working on. By the time I got back, the task of recapturing everything I had experienced grew so large that it intimidated me. Now finally I’m sitting down with the notes I took and I’ll try to put together a little bit of narrarative to go with the pictures. I don’t think that I’ll make it all the way through the trip back to Africa, but I promise to write about that soon.

Graduation was fantastic! The staff at CMI put in so much work to make it absolutely beautiful. Now that I’ve been teaching at CMI for 2 years, I have taught or advised more of our students and so the event was more meaningful. I’m so excited for the wonderful things that our graduates are going to go out and do. Many of the elementary school teachers that I taught at CMI are heading out to various outer-islands to go and put their teaching skills to work. Some of our nurses will head to the Majuro hospital (where I hope to see them only as a visitor, not a patient!) and many Liberal Arts, Nursing, Business, and Education students are headed overseas in August to pursue their Bachelors degrees (mostly in Hawaii). I’m excited for all the wonderful new things they will experience and learn. It’s almost as exciting as when I left home for the first time to go to University.

During the week after final exams, I packed up my entire office and moved it to a new location. The new Math, Science, and Nursing building is very nice, and my new office has a window that faces the ocean, framed with palm fronds. It’s also significantly bigger, so much so that I can probably fit an entire class inside (provided I can find enough chairs). I also packed up my whole entire house and left it at Susan’s house. I’ll be moving to a new apartment when I return in August. I liked my old place, but it’s time for a change, and my new landlord is fantastic. The family that owns the new apartment, the Chutaros, are a very influential and progressive family. Ben and Suzanne are young parents about my age who are movers-and-shakers in the community. Suzanne is assistant editor of the newspaper and Ben does consulting work for the Asian Development Bank. Ben’s father, Chuji, helped write the RMI constitution back in the 1970’s and his mom Beverly moved to Majuro 40 years ago from Ohio and teaches Social Sciences with us at the college. The new place is close to the college, nice and green and opens up onto the lagoon, has a boat launch, bbq area, and is just a nice, quiet place to be. I’m looking forward very much to a little change.

Isabel and I were on the same flight leaving Majuro, so we decided to share a hotel in Waikiki while waiting for our connecting flights. There were several other CMI folks on our flight, and I ended up sitting next to Nate Lennox, the 4 year old son of Jennifer and Randall (both of whom are colleagues from the college). He was so cute. Every other sentence he said started with, “Oh for cwying out woud!” Good reminder to watch what you say around 4 year olds!! We landed in Honolulu at 3am and then went through immigration and customs. Isabel and I had booked the cheapest hotel possible through hotels.com since we were only going to stay for about 6 hours before going back to the airport. We found it quite ironic that the only taxi we could find to take us to our cheap hotel at 4am was an aging stretch limo complete with a wet bar and neon lights flashing across the top. We sat sideways on the cushy leather seat and then hopped out and drifted off to sleep. Now walking around Waikiki (or any city for that matter) after spending 5 months on an isolated island with a population of 26,000 (mostly children) is quite a shock to the system. For one thing, suddenly people are taller. Also there are extremely attractive people and you realize how out-of-touch you are with the latest styles (who cares!). Going to stores is overwhelming because there’s WAY too much to choose from and everyone accepts credit cards. And you also realize just how spoiled and ignorant American tourists are, and hope that this was not the way you acted once upon a time. I also realize that my life is very different (since I hang out with expatriates all the time on Majuro, I don’t feel out of place) than most of my peers who are married with 2 kids, a house in the suburbs, and annual vacations to Hawaii. For us, Hawaii is just a stop-over for us on our way back to the life we put on hold before we moved out to the Pacific.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. My mom came down to the airport to pick me up (bless her heart, it’s become a ritual for her every 6 months and she does it uncomplainingly!) I spent Memorial Day with my parents, Clay, Cullen & Cash, and Cammie. Cash is a delightful baby and lots more fun than now that he’s getting bigger. Clay, Cammie and I went up to the old Future Farmer’s of America fair in Healdsburg where we used to spend every Memorial Day soaking Teriyaki chickens and burgers and working in the booth. It brought back fun memories of our growing up years. A few short days later I packed both my winter and summer clothes (for a trip to both Northern and Southern hemispheres) and my mom drove me down to the airport again, this time to catch at KLM flight overseas. Looking forward to adventures yet wishing for a little bit more time in my comfort zone at home. I'll write more about the trip later!

2008-05-11T20:15:00.014+12:00

There are plusses and minuses to being surrounded by “free-range children.” I have written here several times about the much more lax parenting style here. Well, having so much freedom and very little structure is probably healthier for the kids (as opposed to being over-scheduled and locked down as many children in America are). But when it comes to organized activities such as church, free-range children just can’t cope (and neither can their parents and grandparents!) Today was mothers’ day, and the little hellions at church were in fine form! The were running up and down the isles, showing absolute disrespect for all adults present, running out the door, down the street, returning with corn nuts and noisily eating them during the service, etc... Meanwhile where are their fathers and mothers? Sitting quietly ignoring their antics and giving them money to buy the corn-nuts! Ok, this is unfair because there are a few families with exceptionally well-behaved children (well, one or two) but in general, the scene was chaos. But no one seemed to mind. The assortment of 5-6 year old girls sitting next to me (far from their families) seemed puzzled when I told them to “jab keroro” (don’t talk) during prayers and sacrament. It’s usually a bit chaotic, but today seemed worse than normal. Maybe it’s a concerted effort on the kids’ part to make their mothers regret becoming mothers!!

That reminded me about an experience from my own family. When we were little, my brother and 2 sisters and I were usually well behaved at church but saved the hellion antics for when we got home. I remember for about 7 consecutive years my mother told us that her only wish was to have a peaceful Mothers’ Day Sunday without any fights. And it took us 7 years to give her one. I will never forget the glorious day it finally happened, she was on cloud-9. And all the while the people at church thought that the Mitchell kids were such angels! Ha!! Happy Mother’s Day mom!! Aren’t you glad we all turned out somewhat normal in the end? (and we all love each other now!)

My plans for this summer are taking shape, and I’m so excited! My friend George came to the rescue and invited me to stay the weekend in Bristol on my layover between San Francisco and South Africa. We have been friends since we served missions together in 2000 in South Africa, and it will be great to catch up a bit. When I arrive in South Africa I’ll hang out with 3 fantastic friends in Joburg (that’s short for Johannesburg) and then take a road trip to Durban with my ex-boyfriend, Mbuso. We've always been good friends and haven’t seen each other since I was there last time in 2004. He has such a wacky sense of humor; I'm looking forward to laughing alot. Then I’ll probably head up to Zululand to see Mbuso’s mom Lindiwe. She was my South African mum before I even got to know Mbuso and she’s such a sweetheart! I can’t wait!! She is the nurse manager at a hospital in a rural village called Mbongolwane set in the beautiful countryside with rolling hills of sugarcane and traditional round thatched houses. From there I’m hoping to catch a bus up the Malawi via Mozambique. It’s a part of Africa I’ve never seen before and I’ve heard the ride is beautiful and scenic. My friend Ireen is Malawian and I can’t wait to see her and meet her kids and family!! Though I’ve known her for about 8 years, I’ve never met her children, so I’m really thrilled. Then it’s back to Joburg for some last minute partying. Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday will be happening while I’m in South Africa, so I’m sure there will be some fantastic celebrations! Then I’ll head back to Michigan to visit with some friends, eat the most mouth-watering Pad Thai in the world at my favorite Laotian restaurant (Banh Na), and get the restoration of Daisy (my 1971 VW Beetle) underway. Perhaps a quick road trip up to Northern NY for my 10 year college reunion, and then home for a few weeks relaxing with the family in California (maybe with a quick stop through Salt Lake to see my sister and her family) and then back to Majuro. It’s going to be a wonderful break! While I’m going East to Africa, Susan and Isabel will go West and South respectively. Susan is headed to Thailand for a TESOL certificate course and then home to North Dakota for a little bit, and Isabel is headed home to LA and then to Peru, Columbia, Panama, and Costa Rica for her summer vacation. We’re going to have lots to catch up on at the end of our trips.

When I get back to Majuro in August, I’ll be moving to a new apartment, and I’ll also move to a new office in the brand new Math/Science/Nursing building. The new office is about twice the size of the one that Peder ( and I currently share. Poor Peder has been such a good sport. I was supposed to move out of this office at the beginning of last semester, but the new building was nowhere near functional (what a surprise!!). So Peder good-naturedly let me stay and share the office with him. It has been wonderful to have an officemate, but we’re both such talkers that we get going and really distract each other a lot. It’s going to be very strange not to have someone constantly sitting there to say, “You will NOT believe the email I just got from so-n-so” or “Hey, guess what?” I’m happy for Peder to have his own space, but it will take a little adjusting. Susan and I have decided that we need to find Peders to marry someday. Of course not this one, he’s the same age as my father and already has a wonderful wife Linda. It’s such a shame they don’t have any sons!

Well, that’s all I can think of for now. Finals week is approaching, so if I get any entertaining answers on any finals, I’ll let you know. Unfortunately I’m not teaching Survey of Math this semester, and that’s where most of the funny comments came from, but we’ll see if anything good turns up this semester. Happy Mother’s Day!

2008-05-02T21:40:00.029+12:00

There is a song by one of my favorite artists, Tunde Baiyewu, called “Great Romantic” that I was listening to the other day and it seemed appropriate for my life at this point:

Hey, so you threw your heart right in,
And it turned out less than perfect,
A losing streak is starting in your mind.
You let yourself believe the pain
Is never gonna be worth it.
Don’t beat yourself up
Know that you were never wrong for wishful thinking.
So now you’ve lost the battle, should we just cross out your name and let you sink?

You’ve got me feeling like the last surviving great romantic
Just stop the dreaming and the world stops spinning around
You feel foolish ‘cause love never turns out like you planned it
Stop believing and the world stops letting you down

So you had to let it go, It clearly wasn’t working
New love leaves you trembling, you hide behind the door
So unsure of what you used to know
So now you think your every move ten steps ahead
And you are frozen. Caught inside yourself,
You’re drowning as the anger overflows….

You’ve got me feeling like the last surviving great romantic
Just stop the dreaming and the world stops spinning around.
You feel foolish ‘cause love never turns out like you planned it
Stop believing and the world stops letting you down...

With that introduction, I promise that this blog entry will not be depressing. It's just that I’ve been reminded (again) that love doesn’t turn out like you plan it. It’s always more complicated, because the people involved are complex and complicated. I guess the risk you take when you write about personal stuff on a blog is that you set yourself up for public disappointment when the script of your life turns out to be more like a tragic drama instead of the happy romantic comedy it began as. Without going into lots of detail, I’m single again, which is not the direction that I thought I was heading, but it’s ok for now (after all, I’ve spent more of my life single than attached to someone and it’s usually less stressful).

Things at work have been extraordinarily stressful (not really anything new!) and as a result I’ve gone back and forth about 30 times on whether or not I will stay here in the Marshall Islands for another year. I’ve changed my mind on a daily basis. I really want to stay. I love my students and faculty colleagues and next semester will be a great chance to evaluate some of the changes I’ve led in our curriculum to hopefully better serve our students. But I have been under so much stress and anxiety from the environment here that it has been taking a toll on my physical health and I have been unsure if I’m willing to risk nervous breakdown in order to stay. The conclusion that I came to is that it’s the right thing to renew my contract for one more year. After a summer away I think that I’ll have the mental/spiritual/physical stamina to face another year. Hopefully I can avoid being so politically involved and focus more on my students.

I can’t believe that we only have about 3 more weeks until school is over! We have a group of about 15 students transferring to Universities in Hawaii and we’ve been trying overcome the glitches that inevitably happen along the application process. Our students are considered US Nationals, but no one really knows that, and they lack a lot of the things that other US Nationals have, such as US Social Security numbers, US Passports, etc…They have most of the privileges of US citizens, despite the fact that very few people on the mainland even know that the Marshall Islands exist! I’m so excited for our students, but saddened that I’ll leave the island in 3 weeks and have to say goodbye to them perhaps forever. As I have served them, I’ve grown to love them very much.

I have had interesting experiences that have reminded me how different life here is. There are both plusses and minuses about living in the Marshall Islands. The first experience is that about a month ago Ken Laupepa, a member of our church had a severe stroke and has been in the hospital for over a month now. I feel very close to their family because of their generosity to me and the way they helped me to adjust to life in a Marshallese speaking branch (they are from Tuvalu, so they are English speakers like me). During the time that their father has been in the hospital, the whole family has moved over there. Ken’s daughter Lynda who is a good friend of mine has not been able to go to work since she has been sleeping there so that she can turn her dad over every few hours. Hospitals here are very different than the states. The family feeds their own patient, washes them, does the laundry, sleeps on the floor under/beside the bed on mats, etc… It has been an exhausting month for them, so I try to stop by each week or so and bring a bit of food because they don’t have much time to go cook. They always greet me with a smile although I can see the fatigue in their faces. Hopefully very soon (and with lots of physical therapy) their dad/granddad will be well enough to go home. Though he’s in the “intensive care ward” there are still children running through the halls and people everywhere. But the lax atmosphere can be a blessing, too. Lucky for me, they don’t enforce strict visiting hours, since I usually don’t make it in time. But the nurses are kind and never give me any problems. My colleague Dave also got an amoeba last week and landed in the emergency room, so I had 2 visits to make at the hospital. He landed in the emergency room and witnessed some pretty scary/traumatic things. I’m just hoping that I don’t ever need to be a patient there. I’m glad to just keep making visits to others.

Another thing that is a bit surreal about living here is the lack of security at the capital building (pictured here). I was asked by a family in Florida if I could drop off their passport renewal application for their adopted Marshallese daughter. I was happy to do so, and I went down to the capital when I received the materials from them. While the US Embassy on Majuro has a tank-proof fence and security who grill you before letting you in, the RMI capital has gates thrown wide open and doors propped open. There’s no security officer in sight (I’m sure they are stationed closer to the offices of the president and senators). I walked right in and up to the Attorney General’s office with the paperwork. The lady at the desk explained that their days for accepting applications were Monday and Tuesday and that since it was Wednesday, I would have to come back next week. I asked if I could just leave the forms with her for next week and she had a change of heart and told me she would make an exception. The passport will be finished by Friday! Wow!?! Only 3 days turnaround time? Amazing! I offered to pay the expedite fee, but she said, don’t worry, it’s a special overseas case, I’ll waive the fee.” Wow, I was so pleased. The passport was ready on time and looked great. I was so impressed. I have come to expect that there will be problems with almost anything I try to do (that’s just the way things go here), but it’s such a wonderful surprise when things go more efficiently than planned!

Yesterday was May Day holiday (RMI Independence Day) and I was out in the neighborhood when the fireworks began. I had forgotten all about those, so it was fun to go to the Lagoonside with my whole neighborhood, including hundreds of children who all kept exclaiming, "Whoa! Wow! Wow!" over and over in unison. It was pretty cute and the mirror effect of the fireworks in the Lagoon was really beautiful. I was thinking about how amazing it must be for outer-islanders to come to Majuro for the first time and witness something so spectacular. It's little experiences like this that make my life out here very rich.

I am looking forward to getting a little break for the summer. I will fly to California to see my family for about a week after graduation, and then I’m on my way back to South Africa. It has been 4 years since I was last there, and I’m so grateful for the chance to go back and see people that I love very much. I am hoping to be able to go up to Malawi where my dear friend Ireen Sikanyika lives. I am unsure about the trip there, though, since Zimbabwe lies between Johannesburg and Malawi, and things are pretty tense there at the moment. I’ve always wanted to see Zimbabwe as well. The people I know from Zim are so wonderful, and it has beautiful landscape. Well, that’s true for most of sub-Saharan Africa. I hope I get the chance to go up there and see a little more of the continent during my stay there.

After that I’m headed back to Michigan where I will visit friends and put some time and attention into my 1971 Beetle, Daisy. She’s in need of a lot of work, and finally I’ve saved enough to restore her. I’m also hopeful to make a road trip up to my 10 year (gulp!) college reunion in upstate New York in July. Then back to California for a few weeks and back to Majuro. I feel so disconnected from myself these days that I really hope that visiting all these places and people among whom I have lived and loved will help me remember who I am and put myself back together somewhat.

Well, it’s getting late, so I’ll stop here. I’ll write again soon, though! Hope life is treating you all well!

2008-04-05T21:08:00.013+12:00

I am in love. It comes in the strangest and most unexpected ways, doesn’t it? I was not expecting this, but it’s a wonderful surprise.

After starting off the new year by sleeping through New Years I in Spain, I decided that I would not engage in relationships over the internet anymore. It’s a good way to meet people for some, but it just hasn’t worked out very well for me. I went about my work and got back into Island life. Then, half way through January, I received an email from my sister Honor (who has excellent internet love-life luck – she met her husband there) with the subject line “Please Don’t Kill Me”. “What is she up to now?” I thought. Well, just as I had given up on internet romance, she ran into a cute English guy online who had served in my mission in South Africa 7 years ago. She said he wanted to write me and asked if that was ok. I figured that it couldn’t hurt, since I have already met him a couple times in real life. Granted he was 20 and I was 23 at the time, and we were much different people back then, but I took her up on the offer. We wrote back and forth almost every day between January and March and enjoyed getting to know each other at this stage of our lives and reminised about the mission. I found that I really liked him.

When he told me that he was going to come here to visit, I just about fell out of my chair. Majuro is just about the furthest vacation destination possible from England. Only my mom has come from the states to visit, and that was a long trip! But England is a 30 hour trip (longer if you get stuck in LAX for 26hours like Darryl did going home). I couldn't believe it, but I was thrilled that he wanted to visit and experience everything I love about these islands, and I was excited for someone new to come hang out with us here.

Darryl arrived at the beginning of Spring Break and we spent some time with colleagues of mine in Arno. It was absolutely gorgeous and the peaceful respite we needed! Darryl and I hit it off tremendously well and discovered that although we have very different personalities, we have the same goals in life (ie: not wanting an ordinary life, wanting to serve others, live in remote places, etc…) I really admire everything that makes Darryl different from me. While in Arno, we relaxed, collected shells to make handicrafts with, rode our bikes around, sunburned ourselves painfully, played with hundreds of hermit crabs on the shore, and met up with our students who were there for a Marshallese Storytelling Project with Newton Lajuan, CMI’s director of Cultural Activities (and a colleague whom I respect very much). Newton gave Darryl a reef fish which he had smoked on a coconut-husk fire, which Darryl loved. We were captivated by the beauty and tranquility of outer island life. I wish that I could share with everyone I know this experience of being there in a place where traditional life exists as it has for thousands of years.

When we got back to Majuro, we went for a sail on a Marshallese outrigger canoe which was huge and beautiful. It was so big it took 4 young men to sail it. On Friday we rented a car and took a trip out to Laura Beach with Susan and Isabel, which was terrific. On the way back, we stopped at the end of the runway at the airport to watch the Continental flight take off and eat Phillipine Mangos. I'd be willing to bet that Majuro airport is the only international airport in the world that only has a waist-high fence about 15 feet past the end of the runway, allowing observers (most are smarter than we were and stay away) to get perilously close to the planes. As we were there at the end of the runway, an air-freight jet came in for a landing. We thought it was the Air Marshall Dash-8 (a much smaller plane), so we stood right underneath it as it came down for landing. It was Darryl’s idea, and since he’s a pilot, we trusted him. What we experienced scared the living daylights out of us! By the time the jet passed over us, it was only about 20 feet above us, and the overwhelming roaring sound and shock waves almost knocked us over. What’s more, we all had sticky mango-covered hands, so we couldn’t even cover our ears! Then, as if we hadn’t gotten enough already, we waited around for the Continental 737 to taxi down to our end of the runway and turn around. Again, trusting Darryl, we stood out there at the end of the runway only about 30 feet behind while it’s engines fired up to full power for the take off. The wind, rocks, and sand pelted us as we ran for cover behind the car. I was just so thankful that none of use were maimed and that we didn’t get a stone chip in the windshield after that!!
Ah, what a fun Spring Break! It ended all too soon and I had to go back to work. The second week that Darryl was here I convinced him to go to the dentist for the first time since a scary experience he had in South Africa (6 years ago!), we went snorkeling in several places, made dinner together, spent time watching the waves crash from my balcony, and other nice simple things. It was hard to see him go, but we’ll get together again in the summertime. We’re planning to drive my car from Michigan to California to hang out with my family and hopefully I’ll make it to England to meet his family, too. Right now for both of us life is so crazy that it’s probably a good thing that we’re not in the same place because it would be so overwhelming to try to balance everything at once. But I look forward to the day when we will both be in the same place. He makes me happier than I have been in a long time, which I’m so grateful for. He’s got about 6 more months of flight training to finish until he becomes a commercial pilot, so he’s thinking about New Zealand. At least we would be in the same time zone instead of opposite ones!! In the meantime, I’m glad to finally be able to commit to stay at CMI for at least another year after my contract ends in August. The thought makes me wince because work doesn’t look like it’s going to get any less stressful anytime soon, but a long summer break away might just be what I need to survive another year here. I was looking for a reason to stay, and thanks to Darryl now I’ve got one.

Since spring break things at work have been super stressful at work. We have about 10-12 students in 2+2 that are preparing to transfer and are hitting snags along the way that they need help with. It’s so exciting to help them prepare for their goals and dreams. It’s one of my favorite parts of being a teacher. My classes are going well, but intense! We’re also doing advising/early registration, so my office is full of students nonstop. As Faculty Senate president, I’m responsible for tackling some tough issues such as faculty retention and low faculty morale. The politics take so much of my time and really distract me from my students, which tries my patience on a regular basis.

Today the power went off, so Susan, Isabel and I joined the ladies for “Weaving 101” and learned how to make thatch from palm fronds. CMI’s Foundation Day celebration is next weekend and we have to re-roof the stage. It’s a huge job, but it was a relaxing way to spend a powerless day. It is so fun to learn from our Marshallese, Chuukese, and Yapese colleagues about traditional skills. Of course for every one frond we finished, our counterparts finished about 3-5. But it was great to spend some time there, and we got to play with Rainbow and one of her puppies that ventured out from under the old bookstore. I was just thinking to myself today how lucky I am to live in a place where traditional life meets modern life. In the morning I checked my email in my air conditioned office, and then minutes later, I was weaving on the lawn with the ladies. It’s just a wonderful mix of experiences.

After weaving, I went to check on some friends from church and buy some food for a friend whose brother's family is struggling because of his alcoholism and his wife's negligence. She is doing her best to provide a normal life for her neices and nephews. They are great kids growing up in a really hard situation, and so I want to do everything I can to support her in her efforts to provide a stable home life for them, even though their parents don't seem to be interested in caring for them. There are so many beautiful children on this island. They make me so happy when I see them. I just hope and pray that they will be able to escape the problems that plague mand of their parents.

Ok, I’m off to work on my faculty evaluation to prove my worth to the college so that they will hire me back after my contract ends. I’ll write more soon!

2008-03-14T17:11:00.017+12:00

I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to post these latest two blog entries! My “Microsoft Picture Editor” went on strike for several months, and the files are so big when they come out of my camera that it would take 14 hours to upload them through our slow internet connection. So I’ve been writing but delaying posting until someone from IT could come up and sort out my computer. Thanks for the patience to all of you who have been waiting a long time for something new!! (Sorry, Lindsay, I know it really irritates you when I don’t blog often enough!)

At school we've been really busy lately getting our 2+2 club students ready to transfer. There are always bumps in the road, but we're having good success, and we should have about 15 of them leaving in August and about 5 more planning to transfer to Universities in January. It's really exciting to help them make plans about leaving home and having new adventures. (the pictures are from a recent 2+2 meeting)

My old bike finally got so rusty that the brakes don’t work, the handlebars don’t really turn very well anymore, and it’s now red instead of the happy banana yellow color it used to be. Besides that, someone tried to jimmy the lock while I was gone at Christmas and now my key wouldn’t work, so it was stuck to the balcony of my apartment, exposed to the salty spray off the ocean for about 3 months. I finally broke down and bought a new bike, named Luanne. It’s the twin of Isabel’s bike Lucinda, so I decided to stick with the “Lu” naming pattern. So far she hasn’t been exceptionally reliable, primarily because whoever installed her at ACE hardware didn’t quite finish the job. As soon as I rode away from the store, the seat shifted forward and dumped me off. A drunken old man on the side of the road tried to “help” me, and then declared his love and asked where I live. I declined his offer and went straight back to ACE. They fixed the seat, but the next day while riding, the right pedal fell off because when I pedal it unscrews itself. At my office-mate Peder’s suggestion, I went back to ACE and bought some “lok-tite” stuff to seal the bolt that was striping, and things seem to be much better now. In the meantime, I asked my landlord to help me cut the lock off the old bike so I could donate it to some neighborhood kids. My little friend Kan, a clever and outgoing boy who sometimes comes to visit me at my office or my house had requested to inherit my old bike when I didn’t need it anymore. So finally this weekend my landlord cut the lock and I oiled it up and delivered it. He was the happiest kid on the island this weekend, and since I gave it to him 2 days ago, I have spotted at least 5 kids riding it. It’s getting good use these days, and that makes me happy! For my birthday, Isabel gave me this cute "I love my bike" bell for Luanne, which makes me smile every time I see it.

Recently I read something very, very disturbing in the newspaper. The headline read “Ebeye Water Poisoned”. I’m not sure if you’re aware of Ebeye, but it’s a sad story. It’s the island in Kwajalein atoll adjacent to the US military’s Kwajalein missile testing base. It only has 0.14 square miles of land area, and a population of 13,500 people. It has one of the highest population densities in the entire world (96,428 people/square mile) despite the fact that there are very few high-rise buildings here in the Marshall Islands. The reason it’s so crowded is that many people from outer islands move there seeking work on the US military base, but because of security issues, they are not allowed to live on the base itself, so they have to cram into this tiny little island with thousands of other people and ferry across to work every day. While the land owners of Kwajalein make millions of dollars from the lease of the Kwajalein property to the US government, I doubt any of them actually live in Ebeye. The services to the people there are very poor, and electricity blackouts are the norm. The latest news is that due to terrible planning and no regulation of development, people have illegally hooked their septic lines into the sewer. But what they thought was the sewer was actually the fresh water pipe, and now the water system is contaminated with E-coli and other horrendous diseases because of sewage contamination. Because they are illegal connections, it will take public works a long, long time to locate the source of contamination and fix the mess. Well, luckily most people have catchments on their roofs where they catch rainwater for drinking, but when catchments empty before the rain comes again, people are dependent on city water. Incidentally, several months ago I noticed a large rusting piece of metal wash up on the filthy beach near my house. (see the picture above) It's probably not a piece of a missile, but doesn't it have an uncanny resemblance to one? You never know!

I love my students this semester. They are so great! Many of them need a big kick in the seat of the pants, because they don’t study nearly enough or take class seriously, but there are also some real jems in my classes, and nearly all their personalities are sweet and they make me smile. It is so great to see them start to creep cautiously out of their shells like little turtles. One student who I’ve had in my class for 2 semesters now is really soaring in my College Algebra class. He is a diligent worker and is at the top of the class. He has taken initiative to come seek help at my office hours (which takes a lot of guts because he’s pretty shy). At the bottom of a recent homework he turned in, he wrote, “please go to the next page, thank q for ur cooperation”. It totally cracked me up. Another student in that class, equally as shy, has also begun to soar. He has volunteered on a handful of occasions to go to the board and work problems. When I ask if he would be willing to explain them to the class, he hesitates for about 20 seconds, gathers his gumption, and then does a beautiful job explaining to the class. It’s so exhilarating to see! Another of my students left me her homework under my office door with a note attached that read, “Hi Britt, I am sorry for not waiting for you because I just hurry to go to hospital with my daddy. Sorry! Love, Always, Kamo”. At least once a week when she leaves class she says to me, “Thank you for your time and consideration.” Where did she learn to say that? Ownership of time is not a Pacific concept. There is something wonderful and sweet about many of my students. Then there are always some cheeky ones who liven up class. Last week we were talking about Certificates of Deposit and after one calculation of the interest added to a CD with a rate of 6%, I asked my class how the bank can afford to give away free money like that. I was trying to help them identify the fact that the banks charge 13-18% interest on loans and then keep the 12% difference. Before I got to that, one rather vocal student in the back of class said in a very matter-of-fact tone, “It’s because they’re always stealing money from people’s accounts!” We all burst out laughing, and I said, “Yes, that may be true on this island, so please balance your checkbook carefully just to make sure!”

We have had a string of Yokwe parties at church for missionaries leaving. Elder Beecher, a young missionary who has been here in our branch for about the last 8 or 9 months went home, so we gave him a party. Then a week later, the Pattens, a senior couple who has helped our branch tremendously got transferred to Christmas Island, so we had another party for them. As the Relief Society president, I’m expected to organize it, and also to conduct it. Organizing the food is no problem, the ladies really help me to do a lot of the cooking and I’m a decent host usually. But conducting the formalities is so awkward because I’m a ri-belle and I don’t understand the order in which things are supposed to happen. The entertainment at both parties was great. At Elder Beecher’s party, a couple Elders went out and shook their hips, and Elder Beecher’s companion, Elder Beaumaiwai, did a traditional Fijian dance which involved a fan, shouting, and some sticking out of his tongue. Elder Beecher got asked to dance by some primary kids and ended up break dancing. Two Yokwe parties in a row were a lot of fun, but exhausting, so I’m hoping no one else leaves for a little while so we can recuperate a little bit. We already miss the Pattens so much! They really helped so many of the families in our branch who are struggling with alcoholism and also they helped strengthen the leaders of the branch. I’m excited for them to have adventures on Christmas Island, but we will miss them tremendously here!

Last blog I wrote about Le Bouquet closing. Well, it may have been a false alarm! The latest rumor is that they are still in business, the owners just went home to Taiwan for about a month for Chinese New Year, and they will be back soon. They didn’t leave any kind of note on the door and the shelves are bare, but I’m really hoping for their return so I can have some more “gween tea muffins!” Yum!

Spring break is coming next week, which is a very big relief. A friend from my mission in South Africa 7 years ago is coming to visit, and we're going back to Arno with about 8 colleagues from work. I’m excited to see him again and introduce him to all the wonderful and wacky things and people on this island. I still have not decided about renewing my contract in August. I am leaning toward staying for another year, but things are still SO stressful at work. We have opened up a dialogue with the administration, so at least the communication is improving, but faculty morale is at an all-time low due to lack of moral and physical support for teaching. As faculty senate president, I’m trying to do something proactive to stop an exodus of faculty (including myself) at the end of the semester. We’ve scheduled some extra meetings to try to iron things out, but it’s so time consuming and stressful and it distracts me from my classes and students. But if we can improve the environment for all those working and studying here, it may be worth the effort.

Ok, time to go home now. I’ll write more later. Cheers! Britt

2008-03-02T20:26:00.022+12:00

The New Year is off to a good, busy start! Already so much has happened that I haven’t told you about. We kicked everything off with a psychotic, chaotic registration week. I think that we are the only school that does registration by hand still, and I hope that sometime soon they will give advisors permission to register their students online instead of sending them running around the campus for 3 or 4 hours and making faculty responsible for signing up every student by hand. The schedule was chaotic, full of conflicts, and so our Dean kept changing it, which caused a lot of confusion. To add to the confusion, the decision was made to extent the registration period by another week, so while we were trying to focus on teaching classes, we also had to keep registering students by hand. The result was that the first week of school felt like it lasted for a month! But it’s over now, things are settling down a little (although there’s always drama and political intrigue at CMI) and hopefully soon we’ll all settle into the routine again. It was a bumpy take-off, I hope the landing is a bit smoother!

To add to the mix, my friend Anelang went to the Phillippines the week prior for cancer surgery. She has 4 really sweet children at home ranging from 5 to 13 years old. Her husband works the night shift, so I found them home alone the first night and invited them to dinner. This did not go over well with my Taiwanese landlord, who is paranoid that if some Marshallese Children come upstairs to my house, then the whole neighborhood of children will be over constantly. I explained to him that these are my sick friend’s children and they are home alone. My lease also does not have any statement restricting what visitors I invite. Anyway, the next day I was pleased to see that Anelang’s family had sent her sister to stay with the kids. Everyone told me her sister’s name is “Lebwebwe” which means “the crazy” in Marshallese. She is a little slow and not really capable of taking care of 4 children by herself, but she’s certainly not crazy. Sunday morning I got a knock at my door at 8am. It was Mary. She said she had terrible news: Anelang had passed away in the Phillipines. I couldn’t believe it! I was so shocked and saddened! Her husband was so distraught that he drank himself senseless that weekend. He had been sober for 4 weeks up until that point. We shifted into high gear to try to make plans for taking care of the children longer-term (which looked like it might include them coming to stay with me on weekdays until school finishes for the year). We called around and the Annie’s family in Laura started making funeral plans. Lebwebwe was grief-stricken. The kids heard the news but did not really internalize it. Three days went by (they happened to also be the first three days of school) and I was over at their house whenever I wasn’t working. I began to feel stressed out because assuming responsibility for 4 children means assuming responsibility for the whole community that they belong to. Annie’s kids are so well behaved and easy to care for, but the network of other people in the neighborhood who also need help was beginning to feel overwhelming!

On Wednesday as I was going to Annie’s house, her 13 year old daughter Della said, “My mom called my dad today.” I said, “WHAT?!?” She said that yes, her mom was alive, and that the story that she had died had been fabricated by Lebwebwe. I know that Lebwebwe believed it was true. She claimed that she had spoken with the doctors and they told her Annie died. Perhaps she had a really vivid dream or something, but we were SO relieved to hear that our friend was still alive and that her kids would grow up with a mother! By the next week, Annie was back in town, looking and feeling much healthier than ever before. Her surgery had gone well and she looks great. I’m SOOO glad that everything is ok!! But goodness, what a lot of grief and stress the whole episode caused!

During the time I was helping look after the kids, I went to the grocery store to buy some food for their family. I ran into my friend Robbin, who works at Co-op school. She has lived a fascinating life! She’s from New York City, was a very successful Reggae singer in the south of France in her early 20’s, recently worked as a Yoga instructor in New York, and then moved here for 2 years to teach school children at the same time I moved out here. I love talking to her because she has such great observations and comments. Her life has been so different from mine and it’s fascinating to me. She will be returning home in June after 2 years here in Majuro and we were talking about the difference between children here and children in the states. She coined the phrase (which I love and think very appropriate) “Free Range Children” (the variety that we have here in Majuro. If you walk out on the street at 10pm in Majuro on a school night you’ll find children everywhere playing. Their moms are at home (or at each other’s houses) talking, their fathers are all at little corner shops or take-out restaurants chatting, and the kids are running free and crazy. And because families have so many children here, the kids are EVERYWHERE. It’s just a completely different parenting mentality here!

I’ve had a lot of excitement with wildlife in my apartment. A few blogs ago I told you about the persistent little crab that keeps trying to move in. Well after coming back from Christmas break, I discovered little poops around my house that let me know someone else had moved in to replace the crab. Sure enough, a little mouse about 3 inches long ran from my sink to my couch one day. He’s cute and not threatening, but he keeps leaving chomp marks in my bread loves and he ate my chicken bouillon in the cupboard, too. So finally one time when he tried to run under the couch, I happened to have the broom in my hand and I was able to sweep him outside. I cleaned up the poops and had a good night’s rest. The next morning, there were poops in my cupboard again, but this time they were the cockroach variety. I emptied the cupboard and evicted him too (a 3-inch long sucker). I have found that cockroaches are easier to get rid of than mice. I had 2 full days of peace before finding poops again today! The mouse is back again, that little stinker!! My colleague and friend from work, Max, told me about how he got rid of mice in Kiribati. He put peanut butter in a plastic bag on the edge of the counter and then tied the bag with string to door handle. When the mouse goes inside, he falls off and ends up hanging in the bag from the handle. Sounded like a good idea, so one day I gave it a try. I set up the trap on my sink and left to do some errands. I came back to find the bag swarming with ants, but no sign of the mouse! After that I tried putting bread into the bag. I came home to find what was left of the bread on the counter and no mouse in the bag (see photo above). That little turkey! I chased him out from under the sink and turned the couch upside-down so he couldn’t hide inside. He ran right through the crack between the door and the frame (I didn’t even know there was space in between). He kept coming back and back, even though I locked away all my food, so I went to ace hardware store to look for humane traps. There were about 15 types of poisons, snap traps and glue traps, but only one harmless deterrent: a little box you plug into the wall which makes ultrasonic noises that hurt their ears (see other picture above). I plugged it in the kitchen and it worked very well. It annoyed him so much he moved into my bedroom with me! I didn’t see him for a couple more days after that. Then on Thursday morning I woke up and found him in the middle of my kitchen floor, spread-eagle on the tile floor, dead as a doornail! I thought he might be pretending, so I poked him with a paper, but he really was dead. I was really sorry, because he was a cute little guy, and very small. Maybe he ate my laundry soap or drank my bleach because there was no other food in the house accessible to him? Anyway, I’m sad that he died so abruptly, but I’m very grateful to not have so many poops all over the house! A lovely little gecko moved in soon after (aparently he's not detered by the beeper), but he eats bugs and doesn't poop in my house, so I think I'll leave him alone.

I’m so disappointed that I didn’t even get around to telling you about “Le Bouquet Café” (you read correctly, not "La Bouquet") before it went out of business! Yesterday Susan and Isabel decided to go to dinner there, but when we arrived, the door was locked and all the shelves were bare. We knew it was likely that the business would not survive, but it’s really sad to see it close. Last summer we noticed extensive renovations and the establishment of a little café next to the tuna loining plant and Majuro Sewer Company in the industrial section of town. Susan, Isabel and I decided to give it a try one evening. It is absolutely a surreal experience walking in there! It was owned by a Taiwanese couple who were so cute. They had fancy specialty rolls and breads, French provincial (floral and stripes) furniture from IKEA (keep in mind that the nearest IKEA is 1000’s of miles away, who knows how they got it all here!), a menu with 30 kinds of coffees and teas, pastries, and sandwiches. The walls were lined with shelves of specialty items, which included things from gourmet teas to cans of creamed corn. On another shelf I found Austrian crystal salt and pepper shakers next to an electric fly zapper and an overpriced hair dye kit! Just browsing the “specialty items” packed onto the shelves was plenty of entertainment for an evening! It had all the trappings of a European café, except for the fact that it was located in the industrial section of a small island in the developing world (and the creamed corn!) The owner, a cute Taiwanese lady in her mid 50’s would perk right up when we came in (I don’t think they got many customers) and excitedly point to their specialty breads and announce the names. My favorite was the “gween tea muffins”. The food was very good, and the atmosphere very nice. Last semester we sat on the pink floral couches, ate dinner, and vented about how crazy things at work were, vacation plans, any drama or excitement on the island. But we knew it couldn’t last long, and it didn’t. Yesterday when we looked inside the shelves were empty, even the creamed corn was gone! What a tragedy!

Today I got a Marshallese drivers license. Susan needed one too, so we went together. It was quite an interesting experience. There's no background check, no driving test (which explains why drivers are SO bad here!), no driver's training, no check to see if we had a previous license, or even if we're in the country legally! Just show your passport, get your payment form, go across town to the capital to pay your $20, then come back, take a picture, wait 5 minutes for lamination, and you're finished. While we were waiting at the police station for the picture and lamination, the prisoners were having a ukulele sing-a-long behind the door with a sign above it that said "May peace prevail on earth!" It was a really quite a unique experience. We never even filled out a form, the guy just gave us an interview: hair color? weight? height? Village you live in? and typed it right into the typewriter. Actually, he didn't even ask for my weight, he just guessed, and he was about 40 pounds underweight, but I don't mind. I don't even think they kept a copy of our information or any record that they gave us driver's licenses!! Unbelievable!!

Well, that’s about all I have time for tonight, I’d better get going home. I’ll write more again soon!

2008-01-12T17:40:00.000+12:00

New Years in Spain was not at all how I had expected it to be. It was disappointing in all the ways I expected it to be pleasant, and pleasant in many ways I had not imagined. The disappointments were partly my own fault. I went there with expectations of romance, which was ridiculous. It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything so hair-brained. But I guess it’s good to do something irrational every once in a while, and now I’ve filled my quota for this decade. But with a little perseverance and spontaneity, it was a great holiday.

I arrived in Amsterdam on Friday morning after an all-night flight from San Francisco to find that my luggage was still in SF. The airline promised to forward it to Madrid the next day. It arrived 3 days later, and I was so relieved to stop wearing the same clothes! My flight left for Madrid early Saturday morning. My watch broke and fell off in the hotel van, so I called the hotel from the airport terminal and asked them to check for it. I must have set my wallet down because when I arrived at Madrid it was gone. Without my watch or wallet I felt like I was loosing my mind and everything else important to surviving abroad. I was so grateful that my friend John met me at the airport. Had I been by myself, I would have been really stuck.

Unlike Amsterdam, very few people in Spain are willing to speak English, even if they know how, and since I took French in High School instead, my Spanish is almost non-existent. I became very good at saying, “Lo siento, no habla espanol!” and then either continuing to stumble along in Spanish if the other person did not understand English or in a little English if they were capable.

Madrid is a very beautiful city. The architecture is gorgeous and there are frequent Plazas and fountains. It’s almost always sunny (yet cold) during the day, and the streets were lit up at night for Christmas. Downtown, almost every street had lights strewn across it, and after dark they were just breathtaking. The first day we went downtown and walked round and round. Everyone was wearing crazy wigs for New Years. In Spain, the festive season is not just 2 holidays: Christmas & New Year. Instead it’s a 2 week long party celebrating any and all the events surrounding Christmas. The first day, John came with me downtown. He speaks English well since is father’s family is English and he has lived in the US and England. I was looking forward to meeting his (Basque) family very much, but unfortunately, they were not interested in meeting me. For people who pride themselves in their acceptance of diversity and claim to be very open minded, the Spanish are not very religiously tolerant. John’s family decided that it was not worth their while to meet me because I am Mormon (although I’d classify myself as pretty liberal and open-minded in my beliefs). I was ok with that, it’s their choice, but it means I spent a lot of time alone while John was with his family. John (who is a convert to the church) deals with this negativity all the time, so I count myself lucky to have tolerant friends.

I stayed with a sweet Bolivian family, the Churatas. They spoke no English and I speak no Spanish. We communicated with gestures and made bad translations of phrases using a Spanish/English dictionary. If it was really urgent, we could call John or the missionaries and they helped translate. The kids (teenagers and early 20’s) were really fantastic. I managed to build a good relationship with them despite the language barrier. Their mom was hung-up about the language issues (I don’t think she’s ever had to do this before) and that made her stress out. I felt bad and began to feel like a nuisance.

I wandered around town by myself as much as possible but it was cold and I mostly felt like sleeping. On New Years John said that his family was throwing a huge party that I was not invited to, and he would be busy with them all evening. I was kind of relieved not to spend New Years with him because we just weren’t on the same wavelength and making conversation was stressful. I considered going downtown alone, but there were explosions everywhere and the metro stopped at 9pm that night, so I decided against it. I slept for about 12 hours that night. Happy New Year!

The next day John and I went to Toledo, a beautiful city southwest of Madrid that has Muslim, Christian, and Jewish influence and is still well integrated and harmonious. It’s a walled-city with lots of history and beautiful architecture of diverse types. We walked and walked and walked and walked up and down hills. It was nice, but cold, so after 4 hours of walking and a nice paella lunch, we got back in the car and drove home.
Since I didn’t have my wallet and wasn’t having the time of my life in Madrid, I suggested that perhaps I could try to catch an earlier flight home. The following day was John’s birthday and his mother had big plans for him (which did not include me) so it seemed that it would work out well to make an early exit. John seemed happy with the idea. I used the Spanish dictionary to explain what was happening to the Churatas.

The next morning I was up at the crack of dawn with my bags on the first subway of the morning from Vinateros street to Barajas airport. Upon arrival, I was told that European airlines don’t let passengers fly standby. It would cost over $1000 to change my ticket. I sat down with my luggage and looked outside at overcast Madrid. I had no desire to stay in that city for 2 more days. While it’s a beautiful place, I’m not the type the loves the big city 24/7. So I started trekking across the airport in search of other options (all I had was an American Express card and 50 Euros). I couldn’t rent a car because my license was gone with my wallet, I considered flights to other countries, but they're hard to find on the day-of. The train looked appealing. I love trains, and it would be nice to give another part of Spain a try to see if it could redeem my vacation. I asked Renfe (Spanish Rail Network) if they took American Express. “yes!” The next train leaving that afternoon was to Valencia. I found a good hostel online and booked the ticket. I knew nothing about Valencia except for that it was on the Mediterranean, 3 hours from Madrid, and hopefully warmer!

As soon as I arrived at the train station, my vacation took at 180 degree turnaround. The metro ride from Aeropuerto to Puerto de Atocha (train station) took nearly an hour on 3 subway lines (they are not close), but as soon as I arrived, the hall opened up into the beautiful indoor rainforest. It was so calming and I set down all my belongings and relaxed for a couple of hours. The ironic thing about Puerto de Atocha (PDA) train station was the excessive amount of “PDA” that couples in lines all around me were showing each other. They were aggressively making out all over the place. In the Marshall Islands, public affection is SO taboo that you might be arrested for doing what they were doing in public. But cultures are different and that’s what’s great about the world.

Only first class tickets were available to Valencia, which is really not my style, but I enjoyed being taken care of after a rough morning of dragging my belongings all over the city of Madrid and Barajas Airport. On the train, there were handsome waiters with white linen wrapped around their waists bringing multiple-course meals, lovely relaxing music (instrumental movie soundtracks) in my headphones, and beautiful pastoral scenery flying by outside the window. There were Olive vineyards, rich red soil, farm houses, windmills, and best of all, the sun on my face! As we approached Valencia the Olive vines were replaced by bright green Valencia orange trees contrasted by bright juicy oranges. It was just magnificent!

The hostel that I stayed at was fantastic! “The Purple Nest” sounded a bit psychedelic, but it got good reviews from past guests. It was a short walk from the Colon (Christopher Columbus) metro stop, right next to Plaza Tetuan, where the last of the executions of the Spanish inquisition took place. The hostel is in a 5 story victorian building and my room had a cast-iron balcony on the third floor (see the picture above) overlooking Plaza Tetuan and Convent de Santo Domingo, where King Felipe III and Queen Margarethe were married. I got a great night’s rest and woke up early again to see all I could see before heading back to Madrid on the last train that evening. I went walking just before sunrise and watched the light dawn on Porto Real (the Royal Bridge….built for Phillip and Marguerite).

Valencia has so many trees, which makes it lovely, and along with the trees, many birds. In fact, it seems that the Madrid birds winter in Valencia because there were hundreds of them in the trees singing their hearts out in the plazas at dawn. I went to a corner café and ordered a pastry and hot chocolate all by myself in Spanish (what an accomplishment, right?). True to Spanish style, the hot chocolate was more like hot chocolate pudding. I realized the spoon next to my cup after trying unsuccessfully to pour it in my mouth.

I peered into the open door of the convent across the street from the hostel and felt someone’s hand on my shoulder. It startled me, and I turned to find a kind old gentleman, who explained to me in Spanish all about the convent. Of course, I only understood every 10th word he said, but he beckoned me inside the chapel where there were 2 sarcophagi. After a lot of explanation which I was dying to understand but could not, he asked where I was from, and upon hearing the response, he said in English, “Oh, I like Americans!” Aahhh! I should have asked him to speak English from the beginning! Later I learned that the convent was originally built in the 14th century by Dominicans. In 1812 it was used by the French to house their troops, and as I mentioned before, it was the site of wedding of Felipe III and Margarethe in 1599. It is now used at least in part by the Valencian military. A religious service was beginning, so I made myself scarce.

I got a self-paced audio walking tour (with 74 points of interest in Valencia) and set out. It rained, so I put on my wool coat, pulled up the hood, and pressed play. It highlighted fascinating things about the city. When I got to the Admiral’s Baths, the door swung open and handsome Spaniard with dark curly hair invited me in for the free tour they were starting. I learned all kinds of interesting things about the history of bathing and how people did it before houses had plumbing. Both the architectural and engineering design of this particular bathhouse were brilliant. By the time the bath-house tour finished, the rain had stopped and I walked for 3 more hours and saw Palaces, Courts, Cathedrals, the Serranos Gate (the old entrance to the city when the Kingdom of Valencia was under the Crown of Aragon), neighborhoods built during the Belle Epoche, Markets, Sanctuaries built by the Knights Templar, and many other fascinating parts of the city. The amazing thing is that there is such a wealth of architecture from ancient to modern standing right next to each other. All you have to do is turn 360 degrees around to see 4 or 5 different architectural styles and natural beauty all existing side-by-side. It’s really quite spectacular. They have also planned so much green space into the city (including the entire path of the old riverbed) that it makes Valencia feel so much less chaotic than Madrid. There’s so much that I didn’t have time to see that I’ll have to go back.

I was running out of time before my 8:20pm train and I hadn’t seen the ocean yet, so I got on a bus at the civic center as the light began to fade in the sky. It was rush hour, and took a long time to get to the sea, but it was worth the trip. Because it was so cold, the beach was empty and peaceful and the promenade was all lit up. I took some pictures, collected a few shells, strolled up the beach, and found a beautiful fountain in the shape of a boat. An older gentleman walking his dog came by and exchanged a few words with me (wish I understood more!). I was taking photos of the fountain when a young man rode up on a bike and spoke to me in Spanish. I gave him the same “Lo siento, no habla espanol” line that I gave everyone and he switched to English with a New Zealand accent. I took a picture for him and visa versa and we started talking. He had just finished a motorcycle trip from San Francisco to Rio de Janeiro, now lives on a houseboat and works in London and was visiting a friend in Spain for New Years. Within 10 minutes we were telling stories like we had been friends for years. We went for coffee/chocolate at a swanky beachfront cafe that we were both underdressed for, but there was hardly anyone inside to notice. He was adorable and animated telling stories and I didn’t want to leave, but I had only 35 minutes to get back across town to pick up my bags from the hostel and catch my train.

There was tons of traffic and my nice taxi driver kept trying to give me Spanish lessons, but I was biting my nails because of how late I was, and I just wanted him to drive fast. I grabbed my bags from the hostel and jumped in another taxi 7 minutes before my train was to leave. Traffic was bad again, and I communicated to the driver what a bad situation I was in. He dropped me off across from the station with 2 minutes before departure time because there was no way he could cross over to the station, and then I had to dodge 6 lanes of cars on Xativa Street. I nearly got hit several times, but was so focused on the platform that it didn’t phase me. I tore through the terminal, threw my bags up on the metal detector, grabbed them again and lunged for the train. Literally 20 seconds after I boarded it pulled out of the station. I found my car and collapsed into the seat and slept all the way to Madrid. What relief!!

I went to the Madrid airport and caught the first flight of the morning (5:50am to Amsterdam). I stood in line behind a sweet Nicaraguan man who immigrated to LA 16 years ago. He was returning from a visit to his girlfriend in Spain. We discussed the problems with immigration in the US. If politicians would just create foreign policy that would strengthen the economies and democracies of our neighbors in Central America, the US wouldn’t have need for taller borders. The European Union hasn’t done everything perfectly, but they have a great idea in cooperating for the good of all the countries involved. Spain’s transformation since Franco’s death in 1970’s is a perfect example of the possibilities.

In Amsterdam I jumped on the train during my layover and went downtown. I rented a bike and pedaled up and down canals for a couple hours. It was great, and Amsterdam is very beautiful, too, even in the middle of winter. There are more bikes than cars and at first it’s a little intimidating because you have to pay attention for all kinds of vehicles and pedestrians (and I was still figuring out my bike). Eventually I got the hang of it. I’d love to return there in the summer, too. I returned the bike, hopped the train, and jumped on another flight to Minnesota. I sat next to a college student from Bulgaria attending school in Illinois. What a fascinating conversation!

From there I flew to California, where I got really sick and was so thankful to be near my mom! Two days later I flew to Hawaii and then Majuro yesterday. This holiday I had a total of 10 flights on 5 different airlines. I’m so happy to stay put in my own house for a little while now! I am feeling really refreshed for a new semester, and I can’t wait to see my students. I am SO grateful to have had a second chance to discover Spain! I’ll definitely be back again, perhaps next summer after a few intensive Spanish lessons. What a beautiful country with kind and handsome people. It reaffirms my belief that the world is full of good people and places. When things are not going your way it’s hard to recognize that, but I believe that it’s true. It’s good to be alive!