A Taste of Life in Micronesia

The ocean is beautiful from the roof, as is the sunset that overlooks the ocean. If you look straight out from the roof that’s what you see, but usually there is a ship blocking the view. There are always other buildings in the view with rusted roofs. Looking down there are dirt roads and small houses. It seems already to be a place of complete paradox. There is incredible beauty and also ugliness. I don’t even know how to describe this place…It’s not the island paradise everyone thought I was going to, yet I do not see blatant poverty or life to be too hard to get through here. There is nothing to do though. That’s for sure. The students will even admit that. Either we hang out and talk inside, or we hang out and talk outside. Those are our options. So we watch movies on laptops, talk, and lay on the roof looking at the stars, water, and sunsets.
Teaching has been quite the adventure. Teaching my native language is so hard because it just sounds natural to me. I have had to relearn so much English grammar and continue to do so. Lesson planning and grading also is very time consuming and sometimes hard because I have to learn it before I teach it. Sometimes…ok most of the time, I’m really unorganized and don’t know what the heck is going on. I feel like my students can tell. Then there is discipline…I am a huge pushover and everyone knows it after that have known me for any time at all, so the students know. And if I’m not being a pushover, then I’m a bitch. I’m not stern…sometimes I just don’t care to enforce rules. If I don’t think the rule is super important, I don’t pick that battle. For example, I’ll let the girls know they’re supposed to have their hair braided, but I warn them to do it before their next class starts because I don’t really care what their hair looks like. Some things really bother me though…like students being tardy in the morning. I cannot start class on time, or if I do they just miss half of the class. I feel like it’s really disrespectful. I also love students to have fun, but when fun means they don’t listen to me, it’s really frustrating. The great things about teaching though are when students really want to learn and ask questions to better understand. I actually really love questions even though I’m always scared I won’t know the answer. I also love that some students really want to go to college. I’ve been asked by a student to help him with college. That gets me so excited. Even the small moments I share with students are great. They are a lot of fun, especially outside of the classroom. Inside the classroom is a whole other setting which is more difficult to handle.
Here is where it gets funny. I have already learned my first lesson…things do not work out the way you think they might they will in Chuuk. We went one weekend with no power because someone in the office did not pay the power bill. We were the only people around us without power. We cooked in the dark, ate in the dark, and did dishes in the dark. Then there are things like getting a refrigerator and fans replaced. Things that in the states would happen right away, have not happened for over a month because we can’t get answers or people to come to the bank to get money out with us during bank hours-because they are also working while the bank is open. So you learn to be patient…or in my case, remind myself that’s something I need to keep working on.
Additionally…cooking…oh cooking. So I learned I’m not a great cook. I don’t know what goes together without a recipe, and well, here I cannot identify food. Haha. So here’s the story. We only have a 2 burner stove top and a toaster oven to cook with. When the power is out the toaster oven does not work. One night I decided to make spaghetti which tasted decent, but I bought bread to make garlic bread. That was the first time I couldn’t ID food here, because the bread was cinnamon bread…so we had desert. Then the second and even better time…I figured I’d make breakfast for dinner…eggs, bacon, breakfast potatoes, and fruit, bought all the food and started cooking. The bacon was not cut in strips like we have it so I had to cut it myself, but I didn’t do strips, but small chunks. Fine. Whatever. Then I started cooking it. Welp, it just didn’t smell or look right, so I tasted it and decided I bought some kind of pork…cooked it anyways. When I put it on the table that night, my community mate Matt said “Lard?” and I told him I didn’t know what it was but I thought it was bacon. He replies, “No. It is lard. You bought lard.” And so we ate lard for dinner, and fed the rest to the cats. Oops.
Other parts of Micronesia include: It’s f-ing hot! As aforementioned, we do not have fans yet, so I sleep on the floor and do work on my floor because it’s a little cooler on the tile, yet sometimes I find I have ants all over me because they are EVERYWHERE!!! Then, there are cockroaches. Those things charge!! They run towards you while you’re laying on the floor. I’ve learned to jump up so fast to get out of their path or to get them to change paths…yuck! And termites…So much termite dust. IT’s everywhere. Anywhere there is wood, there is termite dust on the floor underneath. It’s so hard to keep things clean with dust falling from everywhere! And finally, mold. I think my favorite pillow is molding because it’s so humid, and everyone is always sweating, so if it is occupied, it’s getting wet with sweat. If it is not in use, too much of it is wet to dry, especially with the humidity. So things mold…a lot. And that is a taste of life in Micronesia. There will be more to come!
Peace, Love and Coconuts!
Jessica