Yup,
It was Trieste and I's one year anniversary on Sunday. But actually you all will be celebrating it on Monday because the dateline screws everything up and we still can't understand it no matter how much we try. In addition we are still trying to figure out exactly where we are in relation to fixed areas like Australia and Japan. The truth is that maps are inaccurate and no one in a major country really gives a shit about this place so it will probably remain a mystery. Trieste may be right that the dateline was put here because nobody lives here, and nobody who does live here cares anything about dates or time.
Whoa, heady.
But we had a great day anyway. We happened to get invited to join an excursion to the the southern tip of the island and swim and snorkel and generally just relax and have fun on a boat. We saw a bunch of dolphins and it was surreal and incredible. I saw a stingray bury itself in the sand and that really freaked me out because it completely disappeared. I tried using a paddle board which is a big surf board that you stand on and use a paddle to move around. Trieste was really good at this, I could not stay on this thing for more than a few seconds. We had sandwiches and got bizzaro sunburns from being outside so much.
We ate a nice dinner at a hotel with the captain of the boat, we shared a pork chop and fish teriyaki dinners. It was delicious and much needed after so much exercise. Since we had to be at school on Monday we just watched a movie and went to bed.
I hope everyone is doing well.
jp
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
I'm on my way to Nahlap resort Island.
We're pulling in to Nahlap. I did the best snorkeling ever past the reef in the open ocean. WHEE!
Trieste took this picture of a stingray at Awak Pah. It was much bigger than it looks. The pictures of the mating sea cucumbers didn't come out, but the memory lives on.
A quick note about Crocodiles
The most exciting news that I've ever heard in my entire life is that there may or may not be a salt water crocodile on Pohnpei. I say may or may not because no one seems to know for sure if it is indeed a crocodile or a giant fish in the mangrove swamps in U. U is the name of the municipality next to ours. According to lore, and by lore I mean Barry the Australian ex-pat who we talked to last night, as long as there are plenty of dogs and plenty of pigs around there won't be any immediate threat to humans. Plus crocodiles are extremely rare on Pohnpei, they have not naturally occurred here for a long time if ever. They tend to stick south of the equator, and the only island in Micronesia that is known to have "salties" is Palau; which as you all know is 1000's of miles away. But if these extremely territorial animals are somehow forced to look for a new territory, they can spend months swimming in the open ocean until they find land. They only need to eat every few months. And if they can't find land in a reasonable amount of time, or if they just get too hungry, they use their magic to teleport to the nearest island or atoll.
In other news I will pick up my spear gun on Wednesday that Wilfred, this dude we know, ordered for me. In addition he is going to lend us his canoe so that we can go out and try to spear fish in the lagoon near Madolenihmw. Wish me luck as I track down and kill the crocodile that took my leg.
Also, as promised, here are some pictures. Enjoy, Mouseketeers!
JP
In other news I will pick up my spear gun on Wednesday that Wilfred, this dude we know, ordered for me. In addition he is going to lend us his canoe so that we can go out and try to spear fish in the lagoon near Madolenihmw. Wish me luck as I track down and kill the crocodile that took my leg.
Also, as promised, here are some pictures. Enjoy, Mouseketeers!
JP
Monday, August 17, 2009
Things I Have Learned in the Last Month:
1. Do not buy more than one or two rolls of toilet paper at a time. Soggy toilet paper is gross, and there is no way to keep it dry.
2. Horizon-to-horizon black clouds do not mean that you can spend more than ten minutes outside with no sunscreen.
3. Organic coconut oil sold in old Corona bottles at the gas station is not fit for human consumption. (This is obvious in retrospect, however, we make $300 a month and that oil only costs like $1.50. But it tastes like an allergic reaction, which is not tasty.)
4. Do not remove your glasses, if you are blind, before thoroughly checking the bath tub, bathroom walls, bathroom sink, and toilet for giant, evil, flying cockroaches. If you are not completely assured that your bathroom is giant, evil, flying cockroach-free, you will never be able to relax with your blindness. And I am setting a goal for Lasik by 2012, so that I never have to worry about this stuff again. (My sense of dignity is the only thing that keeps me from begging Jonathan to sit in the bathroom while I take my blind showers--that way he could warn me if a big terrible roach comes out of the pits of hell where they live.)
5. If you don't take at LEAST two showers a day, you will end up hating yourself. Take three showers if you leave the air-conditioned comfort of the college for more than an hour.
Also, I finally got around to cleaning out our spare bedroom, and I found a dessicated lizard and two full lizard skeletons (minus the skulls). I feel like there's a lesson in there somewhere.
Oh, and 6! We have discovered two areas of Kolonia that require a handful of rocks for peace of mind. If you fill your hand with rocks BEFORE reaching these areas, you have the luxury of scaring the horrible dogs while they're still far away. Scrambling around for rocks while one or three dogs are running at you with their teeth bared is not. cool. Relatedly, 7. It's always a good idea to make sure one hand is free for rock-throwing. Jonathan's hands were once full of grocery bags, and it was rough.
Other than learning our lessons (but not making any progress at Pohnpeian), we're doing fine. We spent part of the weekend at Nahlap and tonight we're going to our host family's for dinner. I promise we'll have photos up soon!
Love,
Trieste
2. Horizon-to-horizon black clouds do not mean that you can spend more than ten minutes outside with no sunscreen.
3. Organic coconut oil sold in old Corona bottles at the gas station is not fit for human consumption. (This is obvious in retrospect, however, we make $300 a month and that oil only costs like $1.50. But it tastes like an allergic reaction, which is not tasty.)
4. Do not remove your glasses, if you are blind, before thoroughly checking the bath tub, bathroom walls, bathroom sink, and toilet for giant, evil, flying cockroaches. If you are not completely assured that your bathroom is giant, evil, flying cockroach-free, you will never be able to relax with your blindness. And I am setting a goal for Lasik by 2012, so that I never have to worry about this stuff again. (My sense of dignity is the only thing that keeps me from begging Jonathan to sit in the bathroom while I take my blind showers--that way he could warn me if a big terrible roach comes out of the pits of hell where they live.)
5. If you don't take at LEAST two showers a day, you will end up hating yourself. Take three showers if you leave the air-conditioned comfort of the college for more than an hour.
Also, I finally got around to cleaning out our spare bedroom, and I found a dessicated lizard and two full lizard skeletons (minus the skulls). I feel like there's a lesson in there somewhere.
Oh, and 6! We have discovered two areas of Kolonia that require a handful of rocks for peace of mind. If you fill your hand with rocks BEFORE reaching these areas, you have the luxury of scaring the horrible dogs while they're still far away. Scrambling around for rocks while one or three dogs are running at you with their teeth bared is not. cool. Relatedly, 7. It's always a good idea to make sure one hand is free for rock-throwing. Jonathan's hands were once full of grocery bags, and it was rough.
Other than learning our lessons (but not making any progress at Pohnpeian), we're doing fine. We spent part of the weekend at Nahlap and tonight we're going to our host family's for dinner. I promise we'll have photos up soon!
Love,
Trieste
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Nature Freak Cinema
The natural world is wondrous and mysterious. I've been watching Nature Freak Cinema all my life and yet I find myself ill prepared for everything I learned last night.
Item 1: Cockroaches can fly and sprint. Trieste and I were playing dominoes at the Rusty Anchor, the expat bar, when we say a giant dragonfly buzzing around. Just as I was about to win yet another round, the dragonfly transformed into a giant cockroach and sprinted across our table. We were little prepared for such a crazy happening.
Item 2: Geckos do not make good doorstops. Actually this is story is gross; nevermind.
Item 3: Mosquitos, the bane of my existence, are quite tiny and much more powerful, than their continental cousins. Just one good bite from these invisible jerks will give you a goose egg.
Later Days,
jp
Item 1: Cockroaches can fly and sprint. Trieste and I were playing dominoes at the Rusty Anchor, the expat bar, when we say a giant dragonfly buzzing around. Just as I was about to win yet another round, the dragonfly transformed into a giant cockroach and sprinted across our table. We were little prepared for such a crazy happening.
Item 2: Geckos do not make good doorstops. Actually this is story is gross; nevermind.
Item 3: Mosquitos, the bane of my existence, are quite tiny and much more powerful, than their continental cousins. Just one good bite from these invisible jerks will give you a goose egg.
Later Days,
jp
Fish fry at the Applebottom's
So I ventured into my first foray into local cooking. I'd bought a breadfruit (ridiculous I know because they grow everywhere), a local squash, and a pound of reef fish from the fish market. Total cost $3.50. The picture to the left is the type of fish I bought; for reference sake a striped surgeon fish.
This meal was a comedy of errors. When you buy a breadfruit you'd better eat it right away or it starts to ferment. I didn't eat it right away so I ended up throwing it at the bulldozer that's been abandoned by our apartment. Trieste doesn't like squash. I don't know how to cook reef fish.
As anyone who has known me for a while will know, I had a traumatic experience with a flopping fish when I was a child so luckily these had already met their maker. But their maker did not gut and clean them for me so I had to take care of this myself. The whole process of cleaning, scaling, cooking, and recooking, took about two hours. Many lessons were learned, few tears were shed.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Cutthroat Island!
If any of you have not seen this Gina Davis classic, do yourselves a favor and put it right at the top of your little Netflix list...NOW!
Greetings from Pohnpei. Trieste and I had a great weekend with our new friend and fellow volunteer, Tyler, mweimweit and palapalap. That means hanging out and swimming. Our favorite place to go swimming is at the Awak Pah Marine park in Nett Municipality. It's about 15 minutes from Kolonia and costs a couple of dollars each in cab fare. Both Saturday and Sunday we were joined by other islanders and were fed well by the generous Pohnpeians. Tyler and I get along like clams. We both like to snorkel and ended up snorkeling for many hours on Saturday. And I saw a stingray which I have to say was very exciting. The Pohnpeian word for Stingray is Nohno which is the same word for mother. Pohnpeians are supposedly not afraid of sharks but deathly afraid of stingrays. What I noticed most about swimming with the locals was how afraid of the water they were. They never ventured out much farther than a few feet beyond the edge of the pier.
More on that later.
Jonathan
Greetings from Pohnpei. Trieste and I had a great weekend with our new friend and fellow volunteer, Tyler, mweimweit and palapalap. That means hanging out and swimming. Our favorite place to go swimming is at the Awak Pah Marine park in Nett Municipality. It's about 15 minutes from Kolonia and costs a couple of dollars each in cab fare. Both Saturday and Sunday we were joined by other islanders and were fed well by the generous Pohnpeians. Tyler and I get along like clams. We both like to snorkel and ended up snorkeling for many hours on Saturday. And I saw a stingray which I have to say was very exciting. The Pohnpeian word for Stingray is Nohno which is the same word for mother. Pohnpeians are supposedly not afraid of sharks but deathly afraid of stingrays. What I noticed most about swimming with the locals was how afraid of the water they were. They never ventured out much farther than a few feet beyond the edge of the pier.
More on that later.
Jonathan
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