Holiday Adventures

1/8/09

First, I must apologize for my poor blog management over the last couple of months. It is most certainly not for lack of news that I have been neglecting to post entries; since completing my training I have been very busy getting used to island life again. Since I last posted Christmas and New Year’s have come and gone, both of which were very eventful occasions involving lots of singing, eating, marching, candy throwing, water balloon tossing, sparkler twirling and dancing.

Christmas celebration is unique in Kosrae – the main activity is marching and singing. It is difficult to describe what exactly Christmas marching is (men, women, boys and girls of all ages lined up one behind the other singing and marching in patterns – some of the females carry large stars on poles, all of the males wave stars back/forth/up/down). I encourage you to uTube search Kosrae Christmas marching to see a real life version.

I spent New Year’s Eve bbq-ing with family and friends, which was started, incidentally, after the New Year mark, at around 1 am. Someone brought out the sparklers at about 3 am and at about 5 am started a small dance party. I saw my first Kosrae sunrise about an hour later and finally went to sleep at 7 am. New Year’s Day was spent watching/dodging water balloons and water guns that all kids were aiming at passing cars and trucks.

After 2 weeks of Christmas break I started back at school on January 5. I had decided with my counterpart that I would officially begin teaching at the beginning of the 3rd quarter, which began after break. So as of Jan 5 I am teaching 8th and 9th grade English lit and possibly 9th grade social studies in the near future. It has been very interesting so far. I just got done with a unit on Ancient Chinese with my 8th graders – we made paper (like the ancient chinese did) and they wrote chinese characters on them. The 9th grade is learning about metaphors, similes, and symbolism. I have no idea on any given day how much of the lesson my students actually understand. Overall, I honestly think I am learning more Kosraean from them then they are learning English from me.

On a completely different note, I have 3 new projects for the new year that are intended to try and help me stay busy during my down time.

Project #1: Garden – with the help of my host family I am in the beginning stages of starting a garden to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables including cucumbers, watermelon, papaya, lettuce, and bell peppers. So far this has entailed digging up a grove of white ginger (which I now loath not only because it is a terribly invasive plant species but mostly because of the back-breaking work it took to dig up), pouring boiling water into crab holes to ensure that no veggies will be sabotaged by hungry land crabs, and surrounding the garden with coconut tree trunks to keep out the herd of piglets that run around our yard. We still have to cover it with fresh soil and get seedlings from the agriculture center at the community college.

Project #2: Paddling – after watching for the last month, I finally started paddling this past week. It was the ultimate shock of the century for everyone in my town to see that the white person knew how to paddle. It’s been a really great way to get to know more people. The canoes are similar to those in Hawaii, the main difference being the placement of the outrigger – it is on the right side here instead of the left.

Project #3: Puppy – that’s right, I got a puppy. A few weeks ago one of our dogs died (don’t know why, he wasn’t old, general conclusion is that he ate something bad), so we were down to just 1. A fellow PCV had 4 puppies, in addition to 5 other grown dogs, so she was more than willing to send one my way. His name is Wally, he is black and white, he follows me around everywhere, and has taken to biting my feet. Even though I’ve grown up with dogs, I forgot how much work puppies are. Luckily he lives outside so no worries with house training, but between waking up at 6:00 am to feed him, finding a rope he cannot chew through, and following him around making sure he doesn’t get run over, he is quite a handful. But I love him already.