Some photos of things we did a long time ago

A while ago we mentioned that Lenard, our favorite baby, turned one. And we loved his party. We had "Phillipino style pig," which means we ate a whole pig, and all the youngest kids (and Jonathan and Trieste) got a big kick out of the creepy face, which was thus:

Don't feel bad if you look at that and don't immediately think "food," or if you think other things also. It's not that you're not cosmopolitan or culturally sensitive enough. We all loved the pig head. AJ got entertained by his mom for awhile by getting whirled in near the pig face and then pulled, screaming and laughing, back away from it. That might have been my favorite part. Anyway, shrieky pigs' heads can be entertainment AND food, is what I'm saying, as long as you're not trying to be cool and culturally sensitive. Obviously, Jonathan and I took photos of the food and shrieked along with AJ, so we were being neither.


I keep trying to upload a close-up, but the Internet and/or Photoshop won't let me. So you'll have to Photoshop it yourself. We should have a contest! Who can do the most creative/creepy thing with a close-up photo of a pig's head? The winner gets 10% of my daily salary and blog glory. And maybe a special spot in heaven for entertaining me while I'm this bored.

Here is Lenard playing with the toy we got him for his first birthday. It's tradition, we found out, to give kids clothes on their first birthdays, so we committed a mild faux pas by bringing him a Strawberry Shortcake jingly ball. But the ball was fun.

Oops! No photo of Lenard for you! It won't upload.

A while ago, Jonathan and I also took a boat trip along the length of the island. Here is Kolonia from the lagoon:






Kolonia is bigger and dirtier than it looks from the lagoon, but not much bigger.

Here is what we look like at the end of a day on a boat:

I am not trying to do anything, by wearing a towel on my head, other than keep the damn sun off my exposed skin. The sun is just so much background info until you come to the equator.

I will try to upload one more photo. This is Sokehs Rock, the "Diamond Head of Pohnpei." Pohnpei draws lots of comparisons to Hawaii, which is awesome. Anyhow, Sokehs Rock is really pretty and you can see if from EVERYwhere, and everyone loves it, just like Diamond Head:

I don't think the photo will upload...Maybe from school, maybe next time.

This past weekend Jonathan and I went with a few friends to a fresh water waterfall...It was a double waterfall, with a 20-foot waterfall falling into an almost perfectly round pool that was ideal for swimming in (and jumping 20 feet into), and then from there it fell another 35 or 40 feet to another pool that was ALSO great for swimming. The best thing about these waterfalls is that they are within walking distance of our house. I'd show you pictures but 1) our friend lost his waterproof camera in the lower waterfall, and 2) they wouldn't upload anyway. But it was a good day. We invented a new game, called "Throw a Rock at a Rock and Try to Make it Hit Another Rock." We played it for a long time. We also played, "See What Trash You Can Find at the Bottom of the Pool." We found a car battery and a lawn mower motor; that was also fun. Too bad we couldn't find the camera.

The last few days since the waterfalls have been a struggle between life and death...When we first moved here, our Field Director told us that there was "a lot of life." This means, really, there's also a lot of death. Two days ago a dead cockroach fell out of my coffee pot first thing in the morning. Yesterday a gecko caught a cockroach and left its parts all over the living room. This morning a swarm of ants managed to kill a roach and they're still dismantling it in the hallway (far be it from me to interfere!), and this afternoon Jonathan accidentally shut another gecko in the back door. It crawled to the window, stuck itself to the sill, and then it died, still sticking to the window. Awesome. Also! The constant flood in our kitchen and hallway (did I tell you about that? Our hallway and kitchen are constantly flooded--I mean, they splash. It's because our fridge sucks, but our landlord insists it's because I don't stay home and clean enough) has proven to be an ideal place for mosquitos to lay eggs. We are now tormented, all night, every night. Tormented. I've bleached the floors twice in two days, and it's helped moderately. Any advice?

That's it! I've been trying to upload this blog for three days. That's why it's so long.

Love,Trieste