Now I'm updating!

Hi! I'm at the Village, too, which is an amazing hotel made out of...huts? On stilts. But they're hut-mansions, and they're on a hillside with a view of the lagoon. It's a lagoon and not the ocean because the giant coral reef surrounding the island makes it that way. It's much saltier and darker-colored than the regular ocean. It's good for infections and cooling off.

We have the most amazing host family and we love them. I'll miss them when we move to our apartment. It's a strange thing, living with another family like this. We spend many evenings just staring at them while they chatter and go about being Pohnpeian. It's funny, the things that you can understand, even when you don't speak the language--one kid taunting another (that "nyah, nyah, nyah-nyah nyah" voice is universal), a mom telling a kid to knock it the hell off or she'll knock him around (not that our family would EVER be mean to a kid. Parenting here is so huggy and kissy and every mom has a dozen kids and every kid has a dozen moms--we all look like mean parents back in the states.); there's also universal language for "don't touch that!" and "time to eat."

I am excited to move into our place, though. It's not the hut that I envisioned (and hoped for, despite my being told from the beginning that we'd be given an apartment), but an apartment that's actually nicer than my last one. Although, if you've ever seen our Portland apartment you know that my standards are depressingly low. Our new apartment has shelf space and isn't a free-standing fire hazard, so we feel like royalty. We may have to think creatively to keep from roasting to death in there, but we're up for it.

My new challenge is making it out of here with all my toes! On my first full day in Pohnpei some staph AND strep set up shop in my toe. Jonathan and I got to play around with home remedies (think: a sewing needle, a lighter, and hydrogen peroxide) before we finally broke down and went to a doctor. Who was silly, and prescribed passe amoxicillin and...arthritis medicine. Which didn't help, naturally, so we tried another doctor a few days later. Who gave me powerful medicine and good advice--spend the day in bed, don't wash too often with soap, spend more time in the sun, eat more fruit. He also laughed a lot and I liked him tons. Between the two of us I fully expect to leave FSM with all my digits. Not that a wooden toe wouldn't be super cool. Plus I've been spending some downtime imagining all the prosthetic-toe-accessories I could build (like "Swiss Army Knife Toe," "Machine Gun Toe," "Calculator Toe" and ooo! "Spear-fishing Toe!").

I gave a practice lesson in Algebra to the other volunteers, who were pretending to be students to set the proper tone. They essentially spent 45 minutes falling asleep in class and cowering under my death glare. I discovered that teaching math bores me to death, so I'm currently, desperately, trying to think of ways to make it more interesting and less pointless. All I can think of is that if you study math a lot, science gets more powerful. Hee, and I keep thinking of what one advisor said, at my defense, when a committee member asked me something about math. Essentially: "Trieste is great working with genetic statistics, but hopeless at regular math." I guess one good reason to work on math is so that no one has to say that about you! Mitch, if you're reading this, I promise I'll be better at civilian math by the end of the year.

We still don't have photos up because we forget a camera every time we go anywhere. Even if we remember a camera, we forget to use it. Eventually, we'll get it together.

Love,
Trieste

It's always sunny in Kolonia.

Kaselehlie Maingko,

My super special nice friends and family wish list is for a reusable coffee cup and reusable water bottle, so that I can stop using Styrofoam and plastic everyday.

We’ve been here almost two weeks and so much has happened already. Things have been very busy with our language and teacher trainings. Pohnpeian language is next to impossible! You’d think that by the middle of two weeks of language class you’d be able to at least count to ten but you’d be dead wrong. Before you just start counting willy nilly, you’d better ask yourself if you are going to be counting people, animals, long things, plants, days, etc… There are about 55 different counting systems depending on what needs to be counted. Today we learned the seven different places for suffixes! That’s right! You can have seven different suffixes. “What would that look like,” you might be asking? Well say that you wanted to say come with me and let’s go over there. No need for separate words, just say lusungkiniedhlahngirailehr. I’m not kidding.

Trieste and I are moving into our apartment on Monday which is very exciting. The apartment is really cool, very spacious with a nice balcony. It’s close to everything in Kolonia and my only complaint is that we won’t have land to garden on, but I’m working on coopting the other Kolonia kids’ yard to grow veggies. To be a good Pohnpeian I need three things; pigs, yams, and sakau.

Sakau is the root of a pepper bush that you pound with a stone and mix with water. Then you strain it through the bark of a hibiscus tree and drink copiously. Sakau is weird. It makes you feel very peaceful and relaxed. No important meeting or celebration is complete without drinking sakau, it’s one of the most important customs of the island. But like I said it’s weird. It looks like chocolate milk, tastes like mud, makes your lips and mouth numb, and is the consistency of thick phlegm.

More later. The view from The Village is too beautiful.

Across the grapevine to LA

I've been on a whirlwind tour of California in the last week. Oakland, SF, Pacifica, LA! California is crazy. My friends and family have really gone above and beyond to be nice and show me all the things that make these areas awesome. I loved Oakland. Amy and I went to The Trappist and had delicious beers. Then we went to Jack London square, which was very strange. The highlight, however, well aside from visiting my good friend, was Burma Superstar. If you ever get the chance to have Burmese food do yourself a favor and eat a lot of it. I got to see Kelly and Jordan at a Karaoke bar in SF and watched Jordan blow everyone out of the water. Everyone wanted to ride the Pony!

My tour of Pacifica was really cool as we got to see dolphins swimming off the coast. Hiking was great and I got to see all my lovely family in one place.

Whoa, LA!

So I realized that in the last 2 weeks I've been to 7 different airports! But I've made it to sunny LA. I guess I had really low expectations about being here, but the last two days have been fun and interesting. I went to the Getty art museum and saw an amazing photography exhibit, swam on Venice Beach, drove past a thousand people in Hollywood, and have seen more people than I will see in an entire year. LA is huge and congested with traffic, and I don't know how anyone can drive here, but our good friend Zac did a great job of showing us some hot spots all over the city.

We will only be in the contiguous states for a few more hours really, and it feels a little alien. I've been trying to keep things in perspective, but it seems so strange to end my last few days in a place like this. I guess that's just how things are sometimes. I've had moments of freaking out, but I think I've been handling things pretty well. I'm definitely looking forward to having a a day in Honolulu to chill out. We'll be traveling from LA to Honolulu, and then we'll spend a day island hopping till we get to Pohnpei. I should say that we'll spend a day island hopping if everything goes according to plan, but there is no guarantee that it will be so painless. There have been people who have taken days to get where we're going. Once again, I guess that's just the way it is. Anyway, it'll all be different and crazy and weird, and I'm excited and nervous. That's all I can think of to say.

It makes a mountain peak seem little when it's not.

Can I just say that I have the worst luck possible with air travel. Trieste has already decided that she wants to steer clear of whatever voodoo is responsible for my terrible luck. I can't recall a time where my three hour layover hasn't turned into five for six hour layovers. My most recent bout with air travel was going to OK for the fourth of July, one last hello and goodbye before Trieste and I leave town. I got delayed in Denver leaving and returning. On my return trip a storm in Denver delayed a planed going to Tulsa delaying my plane back to Denver which caused me to be two seconds late for my connecting flight. Although I took it much better than the other guy in that situation. I bet he's still yelling at the wall in Denver.

But most importantly, has anyone else seen those crazy murals they have in Denver! They're nuts. Just google Murals in DIA and you'll get many hits dedicated to these bizarre pieces of public art. I mean it goes without saying that I love them, I just can't believe they are in the main entrance to the airport.

Well I leave for SF tomorrow morning. I can't believe that in one week I'll be on my way to Pohnpei.