Happy Birthday - November 25, 2009

Today is Charvirn’s Birthday. I don’t actually know Charvin, but everyone sang to him this morning. It was really quite beautiful. I walked into the assembly and saw a boy about 8 years old with maramars hanging from his neck and atop his head. His chest, shoulders and back were covered in a white powder and someone had drawn all over his face with red lipstick. The girls, who were all sitting on one side of the room began singing happy birthday, followed by how old are you now? And may the good lord bless you. All of which were sung to the happy birthday tone. I have to say that it was the most beautifully sung version of happy birthday I have ever heard! I cant wait for my birthday!

Noodles? - November 25, 2009

So, I just ate something really interesting. It’s called “flowa”. That just meants the main ingredient is flower. Many things are called “flowa” here. Actually the recipe is as follows:

1. Tons of flower (white of course!)

2. Water (however much you feel you need)

3. Lots of sugar (about 2/3 bag)

4. Coconut milk (when I say this I mean gather older coconuts, husk, open, and grate by hand. Then mix with water and squeeze milk out. This is the land where you fine peoples canned coconut milk comes from!)

Mix all of these ingredients together to make a dough consistency and then roll into little pieces. Place those pieces in a big huge pot ½ filled with coconut milk (prepared island style). Place the pot over a fire made with coconut husks and cook for a while.

I am not completely sure how to tell when it is done. If you ask e it was not done. Maybe it’s done when it’s not done. Anyways, when it is done schlop a bunch of strange shaped “flowa” on your place, put a little soy sauce on top and eat it with your fingers! Bon Apatite!

Now I know you all are going to go and make this for dinner tonight, but I suggest you don’t. it’s really only good when you have gone half crazy from living on an island and anything that is not preserved bread fruit (Mar) is a treat!

On a realistic note “flowa” fixed this way vaguely resembles fat noodles that are not cooked all the way. Actually they taste like noodles after I put soy sauce on them . before soy it was like eating semi sweet slimy dough-still better than Mar.

As I was sitting by the fire moving my feet every 5 seconds to keep the flies from collecting on my ankles, I imagined eating flowa with spaghetti sauce and garlic bread. I laughed at myself for thinking such a thought. What I would give to have a pasta dinner at home.

Invade my house and be eaten! - November 22

So, I finally got Gwen to come look at the crab and she got all excited and called Simion over. I guess they thought I was just joking about the crab! Simion came and looked at the crab, grabbed a big stick, knocked the crab from my ceiling, and said dinner!

Apparently, it was a coconut crab which just happens to be one of their favorite things to eat! My mom cooked it up and we ate it for dinner. Just like that! I was a little nervous to eat it because of my aversion to crabs, but Bibianna picked all of the meat out of the claws for me and it was actually quite delicious! I am hoping that all crabs take note of this event and learn to stay out of my hut! Invade my house and you will become dinner!

Nelson

As I was slumbering peacefully last night I felt a hand touch mine. I awoke to a man waking me up telling me that he wanted to talk. I immediately realized that I must have failed to lock a door and a “ninja” had found his way in! I quickly backed up and told him to get away and get out and I kept pushing his hand away. Then, I grabbed my flashlight and shined it on him. He must night crawl a lot because he strategically shined his light into my face so that I could not see him and left. All I saw were his gray shorts. I told my family in the morning about my visitor and they insisted that Gwen sleep with me for the next few nights, which is fine with me! My mom also told me that if it happens again I just need to yell her name really loud and she will come running and chase the ninja away. I believe her too!

Later that afternoon, they said they knew who came to visit me. It was an elementary school drop out named Nelson who is known to make unwanted visits to women. Apparently he had drunk to much Faluba (fermented coconut that gets you really drunk. Only the men are allowed to drink it) and thought it would be fun to check out the new girl. I have definitely learned my lesson and will be locking ALL of my doors from now on. I am not really scared at all though. I just do not want to deal with creepy drunk men. I also think it is a bit silly that they think they can just go into someone’s house while they are sleeping and wake them up and that be ok! Do they think that the girl is actually going to want to talk? This is definitely a culture thing that I am not going to embrace!

For those of you who are now scared for my safety, please do not worry. People here are pretty harmless and if anything serious happened my family would take care of it. This was really more of a funny thing that made me stop and say only in Micronesia.

Worst nightmare! - November 21, 2009

Ok, so I was afraid of that little hermit crab going to find his family right? Well, it turns out that my fear was not too far fetched! The only thing is that he was not looking for his wife, he was looking for his big humongous mafia FATHER!!

Last night when I heard a similar scratching sound in my ceiling, I went to investigate what was going on. Much to my horror I found a HUGE HUGE HUGE crab sleeping in my ceiling! He is about the size of a big foot. I tried explaining to my family that I am afraid of crabs I would like to remove it from my hut so that it does not fall on me! (I did not tell them that I cringe every time I look up there and take extra precautions to avoid walking under where it is sleeping.) My family just looked at me like, yeah so what. They also laughed at my persistence on having it removed probably just thought I was being silly. Looks like I am going to have to do it myself…

Lots of roommates - November 20

My hut is alive! There all sorts of critters that creep and crawl around the floor, in the wooden beams, in the ceiling, and even outside climbing up the walls. I killed my biggest most creepiest roommate tonight. I was going to try and be at peace with the spider the size of a small child’s hand, but my plan failed. I was all because I saw it fall on my cousin Brandon while we were playing Uno. It was a hit and run, but I nailed the spider later with my handy dandy shoe. I am down one roommate, but I am ok with it especially because my sister, Gwen, said that spiders crawl up under mosquito nets…Eek!

Speaking of mosquito net, I am ridiculously grateful for mine, it keeps all kinds of critters from flying or falling on me. I saw a lizard (uzarde in Woleaian) crawling on the ceiling tonight and I though to myself that I am very grateful for lizards because they keep the bug population down a little, but I do not want to be under that guy when he loses his grip on the palm fron!

Early this morning I heard this creepy scratching on metal sound and thought NINJA! However, it was 5 o’clock and I was pretty sure that night crawling hours were over. When I got out of bed around 6:30 I went to see what kind of creature was making all racket and I found a giant hermit crab! We all know how much I LOVE crabs and he was headed for my roof which means that he can get inside my house!

Now, I do have to give this guy some credit because he was a very pretty redish pink color and he got creative and was living out of some piece of plastic. I guess he was so big that he couldn’t find a shell big enough for his butt! However, Mr. hermit crab and I could not be friends due to the simple fact that he was trying to invade my house and he kept me awake at 5 am with thoughts of creepy island men trying to get into my hut! I grabbed the closest coconut I could find and knocked him off my house. Let’s just hope that he was not trying to get to his wife and 3 growing children!

No you are not dreaming… - November 19, 2009

Have you ever had one of those dreams that you are in a very public place when all of a sudden your clothes disappear but no one seems to notice? Well, I have not only dreamt that, but I am living it! I just spoke with the principal of my school with no shirt on and no one even noticed! Not only did I speak with my principal, but I was introduced to the whole school!

Today was my first day at school and I observed 7^th and 8^th grade. I do not feel like they got any work done at all today or really do much work at all on any other day. Let’s just say this school has a lot of room for improvement. I feel that I will be able to help this school a lot in many different areas, one of them being the “library.” Right now it is just a room with lots of old books on the shelves. I hope to get it back into operating mode so that the students can actually use it as a library. I think that every one at the school wants to see things improve around here and are willing to help me help them. It is going to be a lot of work but I believe that I am here for a reason and that these people need my help and I want to help them!

Woleai at last! - November 18

Hey everyone! this is Sarita serving as Gita's personal blog secretary!

WOLEAI!!!! Holy cow! I am here! I cannot believe it either!

So much has happened in the last 5 days that it is hard to believe life is real. The boat ride here was insane! There was tons of rain day and night and waves crashing over the front of the boat and onto our stuff. Luckily nothing important got really wet. The boat rocked in every direction which made me a bit nauseous but not enough for me to toss my cookies. Every night was a battle to stay dry, to get comfortable on the hard wood, and to keep from getting squished or slept on by a sweaty man or squirmy child. I think I experienced a little bit of what it was like to stay in steerage on a ship back in the day. I just imagined living on a boat for weeks with no bathroom and animals everywhere contributing to the chaos. Luckily there were no animals on our boat, just a bunch of coconuts to drink.

Every time the ship stopped at an island people would come bringing coconuts and other food for the passengers staying on board. It gave a sense of community among these people even when they have an ocean between them.

Needless to say, I made it! Woleai is absolutely beautiful. I feel very lucky to have such a beautiful home for the next 2 years. The water is unbelievably clear and blue and I just want to swim in it all day long! The people here are all so friendly too. I have been greeted with big welcoming smiles by every one that I have met. My family seems pretty great too! My mothers name is Bibianna and my fathers name is Simion. I have two sisters, Gwen who is 17 and Dortha Leen (pronounced torta-leen) who is 7. Dortha is a very happy girl who laughs at absolutely everything! I have a lot of fun playing with her in the ocean. I also have a brother, but he is attending elementary school on nearby island called Euripic. There is also Sylvia and her son Calvert who is 8. I am not sure how they are related but weather you are actually related or not you are still considered family.

I have a thatched hut just like I thought I would! It is pretty big too. I feel kind of bad having it all to myself because there is room for about seven to sleep. I’m sure I’ll get over that though and I will be very grateful for my own space. I have locks on all of my doors. That just means I put a nail into a hole to keep the door from being opened from the outside. This will hopefully keep out unwanted visitors at night (aka “ninjas” or “snipers”) who want to woo me by creeping into my house. Dating is very secret and strange here and I do not think I will get used to that.