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!!
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