Under My Umbrella

Pohnpei normally gets a lot of rain, but lately the amount we have been getting has been quite ridiculous (Is that even grammatically correct? I’ve been teaching too much!). At least we now have plenty of shower and laundry water!

The end of the semester has been a whirlwind of activity. My juniors suffered through vocabulary and reading comprehension with varying degrees of success. I helped prepare seniors who did not obtain satisfactory results from the first College of Micronesia Entrance Test take the second COMET. My health science freshman have learned all about the food we should and should not be eating (which included a fun activity of reading labels from all of the cans, bottles, and ramen packages they consume), as well as the reasons WHY tobacco, alcohol, and drugs are harmful to their bodies. I chose to teach these because they are issues most relevant to teenagers in Pohnpei and maybe a little bit of what they learned will stick with them over the summer.

I have triumphantly conquered grading the final exams and calculating final grades (all 103 of them). My students definitely earned their grades (for better or for worst). You can refer to me as Ms. Santos, destroyer of GPAs (hehe). I am proudest of those students who steadily improved over the course of the semester and learned to take ownership and pride in their school work. I am definitely satisfied that I could help them grow on both personal and academic levels. That’s the whole reason I’m here, right? I kept that thought in mind as I was grading stacks and stacks of papers over the past few weekss.

So what else have I been doing besides grading…well, I have been reading plenty of novels, catching up on the Asian pop music scene, and researching HBO’s Game of Thrones which I DESPERATELY need to watch. AHH, it looks SO GOOD!!! Sorry. On the home front, I have been doing more chores (easy ones a mehn wai cannot mess up), hanging out with my host sisters (Heroes marathons and card games), and losing at raffles (all for a good cause). Peace Corps staff visited my house and had a productive discussion with my host parents, which was nice. My nohno also says that I have been getting fatter and thus more Pohnpeian, which was both depressing and encouraging at the same time. Speaking of which, my family has recently been on a kimchi spree, which has been a treat for me (I miss real Korean food). I have had wonderfully delicious food (breadfruit is the best) and food that was not so much to my liking (you try eating salt disguised as ramen and canned mackerel).

Socially I haven’t really been up to much (surprise surprise for those of you who know me, right? hehe). The PCVs had a “Princess Party in Pohnpei” celebrating the royal wedding (look it up on CNN iReport). There was also a delicious dinner in honor of Cinco de Mayo and a birthday celebration for one of the hardest working PCVs on the island.

To begin this edition of the cultural corner, Madolenihmw (the municipality where I live) celebrated its Constitution Day on May 1. Everybody gathered together at the baseball field to listen to speeches, buy trays of food from the high school juniors raising money for the seniors’ graduation, and watch baseball, of course. Interesting note – baseball here is called iakiu, which comes from the Japanese yakyuu (I hope I spelled those correctly!). A LOT of the words in Pohnpeian are borrowed and modified from other languages, with Japanese and English being the main culprits. I enjoy this because I can easily memorize some Pohnpeian vocab since I studied Japanese.

My church has been hosting priests from Chuuk for big events such as baptisms and confirmations. Hearing English spoken at masses was a welcome change! One lesson I learned as we were feasting after one such event – NEVER get between a Pohnpeian woman and food. My attempts to serve myself at a buffet style table were thwarted by hoards of women dead set on getting only the best food for their families. Oh well! Thankfully my nohno took pity on me and helped me get some food.

I finally attended a Pohnpeian wedding, albeit an unusual one. The groom was my nohno’s brother and the bride was half-Filipino. They were already married legally but they wanted an actual religious wedding ceremony. The guests ranged from Pohnpeians to Filipinos to straight up white people, which I think reflected the diversity of people the groom worked with (in the FSM Department of Education). The wedding took place at a marine park picnic area with simple decorations and lots of food (per norm). The ceremony was in both English and Pohnpeian (I tried to see if I could follow both). The couple did not kiss at the end, but they did hold hands.

Since I am done with teaching (for now), my primary project over the summer is cleaning up and organizing the library with the assistance of interested students. I will also be coming up with GLOW ideas and keeping tabs on the junior counselors, helping out with library camp in Kolonia by teaching youngsters about library skills (let’s all hug books!), and start serious tutoring in Pohnpeian now that I have extra time. I also plan on rereading A Song of Ice and Fire series in preparation for the fifth book, visiting some of Pohnpei’s touristy areas, and going to the Philippines (I want to buy a bike and a mahjong set).

Thanks for reading, once again! Hope all of your summers are both relaxing and exciting. Shout outs to my newly married friend (congrats again!), my ACen friends (was it a blast this year?), and my recent IWU grad friends (you will all accomplish great things). Much love to my parental units and their amazing packages. Tupene mwur (until we meet again)!