Chuukese girl: “Bun iea”
Me: “Burn ire”
Chuukese girl: “Bun ieea”
Me: “Burnn ieea”
Chuukese girl: “Bunnn ieea”
Me: “Bunnn ieea.”
That’s pretty much what it sounded like when a bunch of local girls tried to teach me how to say “flower” in Chuukese earlier this week. I was seemingly hopeless to mimic their accents, but none the less I tried my best, and the conversation ended with all of the kids giggling and wanting to teach me more words. It was excellent. The whole thirty minutes I spent with these kids probably left me feeling the happiest I have felt since I have been here. Learning the word for “flower” was only a very small piece of the experience. Let me tell you more.
It was Monday afternoon, the first afternoon I went running after participating in the local volleyball game (see below for more on it). I had already run through the village of Penia once and was headed back to Xavier. The kids threw a volleyball at me as I ran past them and in their minimal, broken, yet very enthusiastic, English said, “Stephanie, practice, practice.” The ball, which was literally falling to shreds, was more like a kickball than a volleyball. As I “peppered” with the kids for about 10 minutes, a group of older teenagers played a game in the street. The net was held across the street and if a car came through, they just lifted part of it so that the car could clear the net (Try to imagine this happening on the one main street of where you live with a bunch of little kids running all around. It still gets me). At one point when I was chasing the ball, I fell on a huge metal pipe that happened to be right next to the road, of course making a couple kids laugh and then later leaving a huge bruise on my butt. It’s always okay if I laugh with them so having a sense of humor helps. If you know me at all, you know I am used to falling. I wouldn’t have survived this long had I not developed a sense of humor around it, so I laughed also.
Then I saw one of the little boys that typically pesters me when I am running. He’s probably 4 and his name is Dumber (pronounced Dam-bear). He’s a little shrimp, but he has the personality of a “big kid” on the streets. I decided it would be a good time to actually try to “meet” him. So I walked up to him and tried to give him a high five (which I learned nobody does here and had to end up teaching some of the kids). Now that I was actually giving him attention, he ran away from me. Even though last week he was bold enough to pinch the back of my thigh as I ran by, he was all of a sudden the shy one. I ended up sitting down Indian style talking with some of the girls, ranging from age 10-early 20s. They are all really nice to me and somewhat look out for me. While I was sitting, Dumber came up and threw a flower at me. The girls around me got angry with him and said something to him that I didn’t understand. I put the flower in my hair and thanked him anyway. Then one of his side kicks came up and gave me another, which I also put in my hair. Now, Dumber wasn’t as scared of me anymore and nicely handed another one to me. I put this one at the top of my head and he laughed. With time, the mood seemed to lighten. While I am still a spectacle, I think that the people are slowly coming to see that I want to become a part of their community, rather than an outsider. In general, I think that the overall reputation of volunteers and students at Xavier is the opposite. The physical location of Xavier (on the top of Mabuchi hill in the “jungle” of Weno and away from the “downtown”) and the fact that it is for the most part an English only environment separates or isolates it a lot from the local community. Essentially, a large effort has to be made to overcome the obstacles of geographical space and language. Continuing on with the story…
As the sun was starting to set, I decided it was time to head back. Running up Mabuchi hill in the pitch black would not be fun. It’s not as if there are street lights even if the island power is on nor are they paved the way we are used to. Plus, while the locals knowing me by name is a positive for my personal safety, it’s still smarter to take precaution when I am alone. So I started to head back. Here comes the best part of the encounter. I had been running for about 20 seconds when I heard little screams behind me. I looked back and Dumber and his sidekick, Ansoor, were running toward me. “Stephanie! Stephanie!” I stopped and as they ran towards me, they both held out their hands to shake mine. I shook their hands, smiled, and said good bye. Now while it might not mean much to you to earn the respect of four year olds, I believe the encounter as a whole was symbolic of much more. I ran home at ease, listening to random calls from other neighbors, “Good morning, Stephanie,” (Yes, good morning at sunset…It makes me smile also.) It is not easy to enter into a place where you are the stranger. Although you may be educated or “American,” you are not familiar with Chuukese life or the culture and language of Weno. If I have to say one thing, this experience has challenged me to be confident and outgoing thus far- to continue to demonstrate to the people here that I want to learn from them as much as I want to teach them. It was memorable and I don’t think I will ever forget that afternoon with the red “bun iea.”
Now I know that was a long story, but hopefully you enjoyed it. I want to tell you a couple more things. As for the volleyball game on Sunday (my first game with the locals and the day before my encounter with Dumber)- it went well. My team won. I was pretty nervous. I knew that I would be the spectacle. So of course once I stepped foot on the court, everyone cheered and clapped. Margaret, my coach and the wonderful woman who has been so helpful to me in translating and such, assured me that they were saying good things and cheering me on. I told some of the girls on my team that I was nervous – most of their responses were “Why?” Of course, these games don’t really mean anything and are just for entertainment and local competition. I had to explain to them how I was the one that was different, the one that everyone was watching. Then, I asked them if they would be nervous if they went to the US and played in front of all Americans. They quickly shook their heads yes and smiled, understanding now where I was coming from. All in all, it was good to sit among the locals- rather than within the group of “white people.” I still have to get used to some things, such as playing in a long skirt and not following the rotation I am used to. However, with all things said, I’m really excited for this opportunity.
Some other notes:
Since I last spoke to you, we have had 2 ambassadors visit Xavier. First, the US Ambassador to the FSM and just today, the Australian ambassador to Micronesia (includes Palau, FSM, and the Marshall Islands) visited. It is a huge deal to have the ambassadors come to Xavier. Not only does the director make it a huge deal, but the students interpret it as meeting a celebrity. Last week when the American ambassador visited, one of my advisees looked at me with a giggling giddy look and literally while fanning herself, said, “Oh my gosh, Ms. Stephanie, meeting the ambassador, that’s like a dream come true.” I smiled and let her be very happy. If only she knew how many ambassadors there are in the world and that they are pretty much just people like you and me. Anyways, walking out of the presentation today, one of my sophomores turns to me and goes, “I don’t want to be rude, but I think the American ambassador was better. She made us laugh, rather than just laughing at herself.” I just smiled and agreed.
As for classes, both of my Biology and Chemistry classes have taken their first quizzes. The averages were pretty average- some A’s, mostly B’s and C’s, and some D’s and F’s. However, I have since learned the biggest obstacle my students are facing right now is knowing how to take notes. While a lot of science is taught through experimentation and demonstration, it also includes lecture. And for the most part, the students here don’t know how to or just don’t take notes. If you write a word on the board, then immediately copy it into their notes, but distinguishing what is important is apparently extremely difficult. For the most part, they have had little experience with taking notes or creating outlines. Next task- to figure out how to improve this situation without babying them! So…to say the least I am respecting teachers a lot more now. They have to work hard! (Not that I ever doubted that, but it is a lot more than I ever realized). Right now, I have about 40 lab notebooks waiting to be graded, I feel as if I just finished the last batch of 30, and I have 30 more coming in tomorrow.
And I can’t leave you without mentioning on a smaller note….The nurse at Xavier and I think that I had heat exhaustion or the beginnings of such (extreme dehydration) yesterday. I know that’s not actually a smaller note, but a big one. I had been on the roof of the school for almost 4 periods of class for a chemistry lab. Well, another lesson learned – bring an umbrella next time! The roof is covered with a silver reflector that basically resembles what “crazy people who want skin cancer really bad” use at the beach to get an ultra-tan. So, my cure was a cold pack, LOTS & LOTS & LOTS of water, and sleep. I thought I had been drinking enough water…more next time. It wasn’t so fun that island power has been terrible lately which means no fan. We went a week without any and then only had half power (randomly selected, only half of outlets work). We have been told we will only have intermittent half power until November because of the budget, so we’ll see. I know that was a long blog…hope you made it through. Miss you. Love you. Talk soon.
Peace,
Steph
P.S. I woke up this morning with this thing on my face. The nurse thinks either I got bit by a roach (on my face!!! gross!!) or that it could be a boil…ugh! perks of Chuuk.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
One week of teaching down …topped off by rainy weekend camping
What sounds better than a successful first week of class topped off by a weekend of camping? Not much. I was actually surprised how smoothly the first week of classes went. I’ve learned about three-fourths of the students’ names and am having much more fun teaching than I thought I would. Learning names isn’t as easy here as you would think. I’m typically good with names, but here students go by names that are radically different than what might be written on the roster. And when you ask them to repeat their names because you can’t understand them or move closer to hear them better, their voices get softer. Crazy phenomenon that makes all the teachers laugh somewhat. It’s almost as if they get embarrassed to say their names. I teach 2 sections of sophomore biology and 2 sections of junior chemistry. It seems that my first class everyday is a dry run – everything gets a little smoother after it, but at least the students in my first class are pretty enthusiastic. My juniors seem much more reserved, at least thus far. Plus there are fewer of them.
What better luck than to have the school generator break on the first day of school! So while Xavier is usually fortunate to have power at least during the school day, it didn’t for the first 2 days. My class room got pretty dark when it started raining. Nobody could read the chalkboard- which I barely use anyway since it doesn’t work very well. All of its surfacing has chipped off so the chalk doesn’t stay on the board. It’s a lost cause for the most part. It’s supposed to get replaced soon- but that just means it’s on a long list of future repairs and improvements. We’ll see. At least it forces me to branch out and come up with more creative ways to teach. My students are pretty eager to learn and well behaved (at least so far – I’m still new to them so hopefully I’m setting good classroom management boundaries now); however, they work much more slowly than students that would be 10th or 11th graders in the US. They also seem to struggle with basic problem solving and critical thinking skills. We are working to improve on those. I am using a textbook for both my classes. The Biology book is pretty good and updated. The Chemistry book is pretty decrepit. It seems that almost half of the books – my teacher editions included- are falling apart or missing whole chapters. So the students here are very accustomed to sharing books and it helps that the boys are boarders.
Yesterday was pretty notable for my days thus far in Chuuk. 1. It was my 1-month anniversary of my arrival! 2. I started playing volleyball with the locals. 3. I went hiking to Witipong (a nearby village) and went camping.
Now, as for volleyball, I really enjoyed it. I broke out of the Xavier bubble a little and walked down to the nearby village of Penias. The woman, Margaret, who invited me to play, is a first grade teacher at a local catholic school and she speaks pretty good English. I met her because I run through that village a lot and one day when I was wearing my old volleyball shirt, I go the courage to ask if I could join sometime. So the people only know me as the strange American who runs through the street everyday. Remember running to run is such a foreign concept here. She told me that the kids were very excited when I asked to play and asked her if I playing in the NBA or the National US Volleyball team. That made me laugh! For one, if you have ever seen me play basketball, I’m pretty terrible and for two, how are the NBA and me wanting to play volleyball in any way related. Well, I played for about an hour and a half before I had to go back to get ready for camping. It was a lot of fun, even though most of the time I didn’t know what people were saying to me. My Chuukese is coming along little by little and hopefully this will help. The court they play on would be the cause of hundreds of lawsuits in America. There are rocks – huge rocks- all over it, and since the net is tied up to coconut trees, they provide a good obstacle to dodge as well. Not to mention it is a couple feet from the lagoon so every once and a while you have to fetch the ball from the water with huge coconut leaves. At the end, Margaret cut me open a fresh coconut- a hospitality and peace offering here- and talked to me about how this will be good for everyone. I will be seen as their friend soon, rather than “the American,” and as Margaret said, “At least in Penia, people will not want to bother me.” Also, I can help them with their English as I learn Chuukese.
After volleyball, a group of us volunteers hiked to Witipong. It was about an hour and a half hike. Pretty rugged too. The machetes came in handy as we tried to truck through way-overgrown grass and shrubs that were probably a couple of feet taller than me, etc. It got even more interesting when we got to a mini-cliff we had to climb. We all made it up and back safely- but it was pretty slippery – and I did not enjoy that part of it. Although very physically uncomfortable, it was a fun night. The sun went down at 6ish like clock work and then 3 of the male volunteers built a mini-fire with the few pieces of dry wood they could find, while the rest of us broke open the peanut butter and tuna sandwiches. Not soon after the sun went down, the gray clouds rolled over. Perks of Chuuk! It rained the whole night! We came with a couple of mats and some of us had rain jackets, but for the most part we were highly unprepared. And even rain jackets can only withstand so much. So by midnight everyone was soaked. I would have never thought I would have been this cold in Chuuk, not mention within the first month of being here, but I was shivering the whole night. We counted down the hours until the sun would rise so we could start warming up and head back. Luckily the good humor and spirits of everyone kept the night entertaining. Some of the second year volunteers were just happy to be away from Xavier on the annual “Capture the Flag” night, where the boys lather themselves with coconut oil and try to scare the freshmen. Unfortunately, we could still hear their screams and laughs all the way from Witipong. Every time the rain would start, most of us would laugh followed by an uncomfortable groan. God must have been laughing at us. When we first got to the top of the mountain, we all thought that sleeping straight on boulders would be the most uncomfortable part of the night, but oh! We were so wrong. So while a couple of people took shrubs and literally built themselves a nest to sleep on, by sunrise, we were all cuddled together in an attempt to get each other’s body heat to warm us up.
At 5am, we all started hiking back to Xavier. It was a much quicker hike back since it was all down hill. I took some more beautiful photos of Chuuk. It was a new view of Weno- tall grasses and palm trees that almost remind me of Africa (except for when you look to either side you see the lagoon of endless water), some more Japanese artillery abandoned among the grasses, tapioca plants, etc. By the time I got back I was drenched and covered in mud from slowly sliding down the cliff we climbed to get there. I had small paper-cut-like-cuts from the grass all over my legs and heads. And about 100 meters from my house I slipped in a huge pile of rotten breadfruit! Disgusting! Rotten breadfruit may be something none of you ever experience, but it is gross. Just take my word for it.
So while I was supposed to make it down to Penia for the weekly volleyball games, I was too exhausted this week. I had my first official Chuukese lesson instead and planned for classes. All is well and I hope to hear from you all soon.
Take care.
-Steph
What better luck than to have the school generator break on the first day of school! So while Xavier is usually fortunate to have power at least during the school day, it didn’t for the first 2 days. My class room got pretty dark when it started raining. Nobody could read the chalkboard- which I barely use anyway since it doesn’t work very well. All of its surfacing has chipped off so the chalk doesn’t stay on the board. It’s a lost cause for the most part. It’s supposed to get replaced soon- but that just means it’s on a long list of future repairs and improvements. We’ll see. At least it forces me to branch out and come up with more creative ways to teach. My students are pretty eager to learn and well behaved (at least so far – I’m still new to them so hopefully I’m setting good classroom management boundaries now); however, they work much more slowly than students that would be 10th or 11th graders in the US. They also seem to struggle with basic problem solving and critical thinking skills. We are working to improve on those. I am using a textbook for both my classes. The Biology book is pretty good and updated. The Chemistry book is pretty decrepit. It seems that almost half of the books – my teacher editions included- are falling apart or missing whole chapters. So the students here are very accustomed to sharing books and it helps that the boys are boarders.
Yesterday was pretty notable for my days thus far in Chuuk. 1. It was my 1-month anniversary of my arrival! 2. I started playing volleyball with the locals. 3. I went hiking to Witipong (a nearby village) and went camping.
Now, as for volleyball, I really enjoyed it. I broke out of the Xavier bubble a little and walked down to the nearby village of Penias. The woman, Margaret, who invited me to play, is a first grade teacher at a local catholic school and she speaks pretty good English. I met her because I run through that village a lot and one day when I was wearing my old volleyball shirt, I go the courage to ask if I could join sometime. So the people only know me as the strange American who runs through the street everyday. Remember running to run is such a foreign concept here. She told me that the kids were very excited when I asked to play and asked her if I playing in the NBA or the National US Volleyball team. That made me laugh! For one, if you have ever seen me play basketball, I’m pretty terrible and for two, how are the NBA and me wanting to play volleyball in any way related. Well, I played for about an hour and a half before I had to go back to get ready for camping. It was a lot of fun, even though most of the time I didn’t know what people were saying to me. My Chuukese is coming along little by little and hopefully this will help. The court they play on would be the cause of hundreds of lawsuits in America. There are rocks – huge rocks- all over it, and since the net is tied up to coconut trees, they provide a good obstacle to dodge as well. Not to mention it is a couple feet from the lagoon so every once and a while you have to fetch the ball from the water with huge coconut leaves. At the end, Margaret cut me open a fresh coconut- a hospitality and peace offering here- and talked to me about how this will be good for everyone. I will be seen as their friend soon, rather than “the American,” and as Margaret said, “At least in Penia, people will not want to bother me.” Also, I can help them with their English as I learn Chuukese.
After volleyball, a group of us volunteers hiked to Witipong. It was about an hour and a half hike. Pretty rugged too. The machetes came in handy as we tried to truck through way-overgrown grass and shrubs that were probably a couple of feet taller than me, etc. It got even more interesting when we got to a mini-cliff we had to climb. We all made it up and back safely- but it was pretty slippery – and I did not enjoy that part of it. Although very physically uncomfortable, it was a fun night. The sun went down at 6ish like clock work and then 3 of the male volunteers built a mini-fire with the few pieces of dry wood they could find, while the rest of us broke open the peanut butter and tuna sandwiches. Not soon after the sun went down, the gray clouds rolled over. Perks of Chuuk! It rained the whole night! We came with a couple of mats and some of us had rain jackets, but for the most part we were highly unprepared. And even rain jackets can only withstand so much. So by midnight everyone was soaked. I would have never thought I would have been this cold in Chuuk, not mention within the first month of being here, but I was shivering the whole night. We counted down the hours until the sun would rise so we could start warming up and head back. Luckily the good humor and spirits of everyone kept the night entertaining. Some of the second year volunteers were just happy to be away from Xavier on the annual “Capture the Flag” night, where the boys lather themselves with coconut oil and try to scare the freshmen. Unfortunately, we could still hear their screams and laughs all the way from Witipong. Every time the rain would start, most of us would laugh followed by an uncomfortable groan. God must have been laughing at us. When we first got to the top of the mountain, we all thought that sleeping straight on boulders would be the most uncomfortable part of the night, but oh! We were so wrong. So while a couple of people took shrubs and literally built themselves a nest to sleep on, by sunrise, we were all cuddled together in an attempt to get each other’s body heat to warm us up.
At 5am, we all started hiking back to Xavier. It was a much quicker hike back since it was all down hill. I took some more beautiful photos of Chuuk. It was a new view of Weno- tall grasses and palm trees that almost remind me of Africa (except for when you look to either side you see the lagoon of endless water), some more Japanese artillery abandoned among the grasses, tapioca plants, etc. By the time I got back I was drenched and covered in mud from slowly sliding down the cliff we climbed to get there. I had small paper-cut-like-cuts from the grass all over my legs and heads. And about 100 meters from my house I slipped in a huge pile of rotten breadfruit! Disgusting! Rotten breadfruit may be something none of you ever experience, but it is gross. Just take my word for it.
So while I was supposed to make it down to Penia for the weekly volleyball games, I was too exhausted this week. I had my first official Chuukese lesson instead and planned for classes. All is well and I hope to hear from you all soon.
Take care.
-Steph
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