mutant ninja dinner

As I ripped off a piece of turtle intestine to gnaw on, I thought back to all the times as a kid when I was too squeamish to eat lima beans and cauliflower.  Not that I was extremely enthusiastic about this endeavor – don’t give me too much credit – but I think that I’ve come a long way.  This culinary opportunity came as the result of a spear-fishing trip that my host dad, Eksel, came home from late last night.  “Scott, turtle! Turtle!” I rushed to the backyard expecting to see a box turtle crawling around playfully and instead, I am greeted by an enormous sea turtle barely being restrained by two teenage boys.  This is a creature that I’ve only ever seen in aquariums before, and now one of them is walking around in the backyard as giggling children jump out of its way.  On top of that, I find out that we’re going to eat it the next day!  

Jaymore and Nadaniel holding back the turtle.

I actually don't like this picture because I feel like I can almost see into its eyes and experience what it is feeling.  But, I included it for the same reason.

Don’t get me wrong, I felt an immense sadness for this beautiful creature that was probably going through the most traumatic experience possible.  But this is the island of Pohnpei, where there are vegetarians and there are Micronesians.  So I kept these feelings to myself and joined in the excitement that is inherent to the act of tying up your dinner so that it doesn’t escape overnight.  I’ve heard stories about the treatment of turtles in the Pacific.  Most notably, in the Marshall Islands, they are sometimes kept alive on their backs for many days in the hot sun; because if they are killed immediately, the meat will spoil.  Furthermore, they often meet their unfortunate end when children jump on their bellies.  I only bring this up to highlight the relative beneficence and humanity that was bestowed upon our turtle.  Under the circumstances, I would say that it was treated pretty well for an animal that is viewed only as a source of food (no zoos on Pohnpei!).   

The red tape is keeping the turtle bound to the post which is out of the frame.

Apparently the turtle was captured by shooting it with a spear that was attached to a buoy; once the turtle nears the surface, you find the buoy and reel it in.  Eksel told us that they are sometimes captured when a fisherman pulls up next to the turtle in his boat.  When he is close enough, he jumps onto the back of the turtle and aims it toward the surface of the water.  Since turtles can only swim forward, he basically rides it up to the surface, out of the water, and into the boat.  My reaction to this was “GTFO!!” which stands for “get the heck out.” Pohnpeian fishermen are apparently the most badass individuals around.

The uhm as it is heating up.

I arrived home from orientation the next day to find that the fire had been prepared and the turtle recently dead.  After making a small incision, one guy got elbow deep into the turtle and pulled out the entrails.  Turtles are notoriously hard to kill.  I kid you not; the heart was still beating when the man pulled it from the turtle’s chest.  As if my mind was not already completely blown, he said something I didn’t understand to another man, who proceeded to come over and take a huge bite out of the still beating heart.  Like I said before...Pohnpeian fishermen…wow.  That guy ended up disappearing for a few minutes afterward and I think we can all figure out what kind of reaction he was having.  This was also when somebody else threw the intestines onto the fire.  As a rookie turtle-eater, I was obliged to try this delicacy.  Despite its chewiness and fattiness (and the fact that I’d seen the same thing on an autopsy table once before), the taste wasn’t objectionable.

Pulling the intestines out bit by bit.  I was impressed by this guy's knowledge of anatomy.

Here is the beating heart.  A couple seconds later, there was a sizable bite taken out of it.

Oh so delicious turtle intestine.

They cooked the turtle in an uhm, or a traditional Pohnpeian oven.  It is made by getting river rocks red hot and spreading them over the ground, and even putting some of them in the turtle.  The turtle was then placed on top of the rocks along with breadfruit, ripe and unripe bananas.  Then the whole thing was covered with enormous taro leaves (to keep the heat in) and cooked for 35 minutes. 

What followed can only be described as the most carnal, manly thing that I’ve ever been a part of.  It consisted of all the men crouched around the turtle as its arms, legs, and head were severed from the shell.  Then, it was a free-for-all as we tore strips of meat from anything within reach.  I learned that the best part of the turtle is a gelatinous dark green substance which I am pretty sure is pure body fat.  This was also something I was obliged to try.  If you can imagine what it is like to eat pure body fat, then you can imagine what it is like to eat this stuff.  It tasted much better when combined with the meat of the turtle, which I was amused to discover tastes like chicken.  The other other white meat. 

The finished uhm.  It is covered with large taro leaves which are held down by rocks.  The turtle is underneath along with breadfruit and several bananas.

The dissected turtle.  The large hunks of meat toward the right of the shell are the front flipper muscles.  This shell was quickly hollowed out by several hungry people.

Not a great picture but I wanted to show the general atmosphere of these types of things.  Mike and I were generously presented with a portion of the (neck) meat to save for later.

My host family didn’t think I would enjoy the turtle and they had already prepared a separate dinner for Mike and me.  So after our animalistic turtle rampage, we dutifully ate a second dinner of fried tuna and sashimi (raw tuna with soy sauce or lime) made available by another one of Eksel’s fishing trips.  Not to brag, but this marks the fourth dinner in a row where my food has been procured from the ocean only hours before (mangrove crab and fried fish the nights before) and I think I’ve been converted to a seafood lover.  I am certainly not looking forward to leaving my host family and having to cook for myself.  Until then, I’ll try to keep you updated on the latest and greatest Pohnpeian food! More pictures to come after Nan Madol and Ant Atoll this weekend!!

If only you could see the pictures I left out!

Driving the boat through the lagoon with Rick, our water safety instructor.  Sokeh's Rock in the background

Coral reef shot taken from a few feet underwater.  There is a blue starfish just barely out of the bottom of the frame

Taken around 4pm.  In the distance you can almost see the waves crashing on the outer reef, and further out you can see large freight ships.

The house I'll be moving into on August 7th!!  Straight out of Robinson Crusoe

From the kitchen looking into the living room.  The white box is a lockbox for my valuables, on its left is the entryway to the shower/laundryroom, and on its right is the ladder into the upstairs bedroom.  On the right side of the picture is the downstairs bedroom that will probably be for storage or guests.

The rest of the kitchen.  Luckily, the slatted walls are covered in mosquito netting.  You can see that last year's volunteers donated some kitchen supplies.

The walkout porch that is connected to the upstairs bedroom.

One of the MANY spiders found throughout the house.  Move in/cleanup day shall be fun.

View of the house from the backyard.  I plan on putting a garden to the left of the house for vegetables and spices.  My roommate, Gabrielle, is wearing the red shirt.

A day in the life...

 Although I’ve been told many times that this year will fly by, it’s only been a week and I can’t believe how much we have packed into these past couple of days.  Every day, the nine other volunteers and I meet at PICS (Pohnpei Island Central School) around 8am and participate in orientation activities including language/culture classes, crash courses in teaching (apparently everything I need to know about classroom management can be summed up in 90 minutes), and meetings with other expats who discuss their experiences with us.  For lunch, our field director has been making us pretty delicious vegetarian meals which are actually a welcome break from the deluge of carbohydrates we have gotten used to.  I get really excited when I see green things at meals now although I’ll get more into that in a separate entry. 

 PICS High School

The cool thing about having orientation at PICS is that this week overlapped with the last week of Upward Bound (UB), a summer enrichment program for students from all over the island and even the outer islands like Pingelap.  What this means is that I got to meet some of the future juniors and seniors that I’ll be teaching in Kitti this year.  I asked them some questions about what life and teaching is like in Kitti and what expectations they have for the year.  This turned into a conversation between me and one other student who was actually willing to speak out loud - he bridged the cloud of shyness that separated me from the other students.  Eventually they opened up and taught me a game that involves singing in a circle and randomly humiliating one person who is forced to dance in the middle.  I doubted the game’s randomness when I was chosen during the third round to do the dancing. 

Speaking of that, the UB students had a talent show on Thursday night that the WorldTeachers not only attended but performed in!  Fortunately, we were able to come up with an idea for a talent about 30 minutes before the show.  And, somehow the responsibility of introducing the group came down to me.  Standing in front of a couple hundred students and assorted family, I announced (using my full repertoire of hilariously pronounced Pohnpeian phrases) that we would be demonstrating our collection of bad menwai (aka white people) dance moves.  These included - but were not limited to - the lawn mower, the sprinkler, the fish hook, and of course my personal favorite, the air guitar.  This performance erased any lingering doubts that people might have had about our collective ethnicity.  The students’ traditional Pohnpeian dances and skits were really well done though and the riotous applause was well-deserved.

The next day, we made a quick trip back to American soil!  The US Ambassador to the FSM, Peter Prahar, graciously allowed the group to visit the embassy and speak with him for a couple hours.  Mike and I had actually met the guy a couple nights before at the Pacific Education Conference at the national College of Micronesia campus (our host family was almost single-handedly catering the opening night for 300+ people).  He’s probably one of the coolest people you could meet, especially for such a nerd.  Seriously, how is it possible to be fluent in like 8 languages?  But, his relaxed, welcoming personality and stereotypical Hawaiian shirts make you reconsider your perception of a government employee personally appointed by the US president .  He spoke with us about the history of the US Compact with the FSM and the economic status of the FSM presently and in the future.  The majority of the Micronesian economy depends on money from the United States under the Compact of Free Association and yet the GDP has remained unchanged since Micronesia became an independent nation in 1986.  This has caused a massive emigration of people with 6-7 Micronesians departing permanently on every single Continental/United flight out of the country.  It’s a shame because the islands have so much to offer in potential; but, skilled workers seek better jobs elsewhere instead of helping to rebuild their own struggling country.  On the bright side, the US has invested heavily in the future, and a lot of the money is directed towards education (one of the reasons that WorldTeach is able to exist here).  Mr. Prahar was super generous though and offered to let us use the embassy for any school functions that we had ideas for throughout the year.  I’d say that he could be a pretty useful contact.

 Some of my host family: Meldi, Anate, and Marlene at the Pacific Education Conference

Time for bed now though, more pictures to come soon!!

Finally here!

For those of you who have been worried or curious about how I am doing, I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to get online more often.  Because my host family doesn’t have an internet connection in their home, I have had to get to the Telecom building to access the internet.  This has proven very difficult with my orientation schedule.  Hopefully, once I move into my apartment in Kitti (which I now know is pronounced Kit-chee), I will be able to have a reliable dial up connection to access the internet.

Anyways, I am so glad to finally be here in Pohnpei.  Once I met my group in LA, we had a long flight to Honolulu and got about four hours of sleep there.  One volunteer met a family friend in Honolulu and spent the night going out to eat, seeing the beach, sightseeing in the Capital, and generally having an awesome time.  I saw what the airport and hotel look like at night…  From there, we had a four or five hour flight to Majuro which is an atoll part of the Marshall Islands.  Luckily, we were able to get off the plane and grab something to eat at the one room airport for a little while.  After another couple hours of flying, we landed on Kwajalein – another atoll of the Marshall Islands – where we were not allowed to get off the plane because it is a US Army base.  I was able to snap a few illegal pictures of the place before the military began a search of the cabin for suspicious luggage.  Then, we continued on for another hour or two to Kosrae (Koshe-Rye) and dropped off the set of 6-7 other WorldTeach volunteers.  Kosrae was astoundingly beautiful and it would have been a fascinating place to volunteer in since there are only about 6000 people living on the island.  After another hour or so of anxious anticipation, we finally arrived in Pohnpei.

 Sokeh's Rock from the plane

Flying in, the island is straight out of Jurassic Park.  I ventured into the jungle behind the high school yesterday and actually had a slight feeling of being that character that somehow gets split up from the group and eaten by a pack of starved velociraptors.  I was surprised at how much there is to Pohnpei though.  GoogleEarth makes the island look like a pretty featureless green circle floating in the middle of the ocean but once you see it yourself, it’s filled with enormous mountains, valleys, rivers, dense foliage, and winding roads that disorient and amaze you at the same time.  Much to my surprise and dismay, these same features prevent me from seeing the ocean on a regular basis.  Also, I knew that it would be hot and humid here but I had no idea to what extent.  When I stepped off the plane, I was hit with a wall of humidity that causes you to start sweating almost immediately.  I tried to think of adjectives to describe the humidity and I came up with “engulfing,” “suffocating,” and “violent.” I’ve adapted to this weather by avoiding any kind of exertion such as walking too fast or thinking too hard.

 Pohnpei from the apartment of our field director, Kate Troutman

Since I have been here, I have been living with another volunteer (Mike Hilbert - if you want to follow his blog) in a house in Kolonia.  We have three host moms, two of which are sisters and work in the schools, a host dad who has been teaching us traditional Pohnpeian customs and language, three host brothers ranging in age from around 7ish to 23, an 19 year old host sister who will soon be starting school at the College of Micronesia, and a young host sister who has finally overcome her shyness enough to tell me good morning and good night (mensang mwahu, pong mwahu) which is probably the cutest thing you’ll ever see.  They have been more welcoming and generous than I could possibly imagine.  Pohnpeians take great pride in making their guests feel like family (and also making sure they are never ever hungry).  For breakfast this week, Mike and I have been consistently presented with something along the lines of 6 fried eggs, 15 pancakes, 10 french toast slices, a bowl of spicy fried spam and cabbage, and a plate of sliced oranges.  Mistakenly, we have been under the impression that it would be rude for us not to finish this food.  I just recently discovered that our younger host brother and sister were getting our leftovers.  I wish I had found this out sooner.

 Our host family's house in Kolonia

To avoid making an unpalatably long entry and writing for the whole evening, I’ll cut myself off for now.  I plan on writing another entry this weekend explaining all of the things I have been doing, eating, and learning the past six days.  Everything is going really well, the other volunteers are awesome to hang out with, and the people here are super friendly (and curious – since there are very few “menwai” or foreigners in Pohnpei).  For now, I’m off to a mountaintop restaurant with an insane view of the lagoon to relax with some of the other volunteers!  I hope everything is going well back home!

 The lagoon from a local restaurant!

sleepless in los angeles

Today was filled with relentless traveling although I am happy to say that I have finally arrived in Los Angeles!  After an hour layover in Dallas – where, to the confirmation of my stereotypes, I saw a genuine cowboy getting his boots shined – I completed the six hours of flight time from Connecticut to California.  I shouldn’t forget to mention that my worries of not being able to fall asleep on the plane vanished quickly when I saw that American Airlines had chosen Jane Eyre as the in-flight entertainment.  Once I got myself situated at the hotel, I decided to take public transportation up the coast to Santa Monica.  It was everything you would expect out of a California beach – beautiful blue ocean, rollerbladers on the sidewalk, palm trees, mountains in the distance, and a majestic smog tying it all together.  Even the peddlers were better than average.  One of them spotted immediately that I was from out of town; when I told him I was from Connecticut, he asked “Hartford or New Haven?”  I was impressed, “Hartford.”  He says, “ohhh nice, how’s Manchester?”  Kind of creepy.  I gave him two bucks anyway.  

Anyways, the REAL news is that I have finally gotten my teaching and living assignment for the next year of my life!  Although things are far from set in stone, I will be teaching math and science (could this be any more vague?) to juniors and seniors in high school.  What is more certain is that I will be living in a division of Pohnpei called Kitti (pronounced Kit-chi) in the town of Kipar. 

According to last year’s volunteers, my housing will consist of a thatched roof two story apartment with mosquito netting and lattice work for walls.  The letter that was given to me stated that this was “great for ventilation” but also guaranteed that I would have some friendly neighborhood visitors such as “frogs, lizards, HUGE spiders [as if writing the word “huge” didn’t get the point across, they put it in all caps….thanks for the warning], rats, and the occasional stray cat.” I think it is safe to assume that my access to the internet will be much more limited than initially expected.  

Despite the inconveniences that may arise due to these characteristics, I think that the experience will be that much more educational for me.  I’m looking forward to adapting to these challenges and really learning something about Pohnpei and about myself.  All sappiness aside, I really am excited (albeit anxious) about what is in store.  Next time you hear from me I will be 8000 miles away - finally in Pohnpei!  Hopefully with lots of great pictures J