Saturday May 23rd
I ran another 5K today. I cracked the top 10, finishing in 8th place (22:23). Prizes were given to the top ten finishers and so I got to take the walk of glory up to the podium. In this case, the walk was the three steps from the parking lot to the entrance way of the sponsoring grocery store, but that made it no less glorious. My prize was a $25 gift certificate to MedPharm Clinic & Pharmacy. Thank you , Palm Terrace Grocery Store and all the other sponsors for your support of physical fitness on the island.
Last month, the race was sponsored by the local college so instead of prizes to the top ten finishers, prizes went to the top 10 college finishers. I’m not sure what place I finished in last month; I think 11th or 12th. Though I like to bask in glory when I feel it’s deserved, I don’t like to take credit when it’s not earned. I’m pretty sure a few of the students who beat me last month weren’t there this month. Their absence may have been the reason I cracked the top ten.
Ironically, on an island where most people are poor and unhealthy, the Medpharm gift certificates were awarded to some of the healthiest (if running ability is any indicator) people on the island. I heard a few people joking that they should have been awarded to the last ten finishers instead.
The choice of awards for the top male/female finishers in each age category is either equally as puzzling or a sad reminder of the link between poverty and unhealthy food choices. The top finishers in the adult age brackets were awarded with 20 pound bags of white rice and the juvenile winners with a case of ramen noodles. I’m not sure if the kids got ramen because it’s a lot lighter and easier to carry than 20 pounds of rice. Rice and ramen are about the cheapest foods a person can buy and are two of the dietary staples here. Unfortunately, white rice turns to sugar during the digestive process and is probably a reason why almost everyone here has diabetes. Ramen has an incredible amount of sodium (I think between 600 and 1200 milligrams depending on the brand and type).
On a positive note, while only the fastest of the fast get the rice and ramen, local bananas were available to everyone and the local ‘local foods’ organization given the microphone and few minutes to remind the crowd of the health benefits of local produce.
Note: For those of you who hang on my every word, have really good memories, and are into running - you might recall that last month I ran a 24:12. The weather gods were kind today. It was a cool, overcast day. Last month was hot, humid, and sunny. The course this month was also different. Last month featured two short but steep hills. This month, the first mile was a long but gentle hill that helped beat back the flip flop brigade and keep my pace in check.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
A week in review
Sunday May 17
On a slow Sunday back in Oregon, I would often tune the radio dial to NPR and listen to the news from Lake Wobegon on a Prairie Home Companion. Today, instead, I’ll write the news from island Pohnpei….
Another week has passed on the island of Pohnpei. Though things remain much as they are, there is a sense of change in the air… and of stillness. The trade winds have gone to do their trading elsewhere, having begun to die down towards the end of April. As a result, the air is more still and humidity hangs about. The clouds gather and with no wind to push them past the island, more rain begins to fall.
The change in weather marks the beginning of the end of the school year. For the 8 volunteer teachers here through the WorldTeach program, their time on Pohnpei draws to end. They will be gone in June. In August, fresh new faces will appear.
For many of the ex-pat instructors at the College of Micronesia (COM), summer is a time to return home for a few months. Like migratory birds, they fly off to the land beyond the waters. The yoga instructor is one of those teachers.
As the saying goes, ‘When one door closes, another one opens.’ With no Monday night yoga class I have joined the soccer crowd that gathers almost nightly to play pickup soccer. Saturday afternoon, after a full and active week that included pickup soccer games on Monday and Tuesday nights, exercise class on Wednesday, a good track workout Friday, and a trip to the gym Saturday morning, my aging body said, “enough, its time for a break.”
Late Saturday afternoon, while engaging in the simple act of throwing around a football with the neighborhood kids, I pulled a muscle in my leg. Perhaps there really is a valid reason why mothers tell us not to play in the rain?
With hopes of a quick recovery in time for next Saturday’s 5K, the last of the season, I passed on today’s hike. Instead, today will be a day of rest, recovery, and reflection.
The week had its fill of excitement for your’s truly. Heavy rains on Thursday caused the cancellation of the weekly ultimate Frisbee game so instead I decided to go grocery shopping. As a child, I remember trips to the ‘grocery store’ but somewhere in the passage of time grocery stores were replaced by supermarkets as the aisles got longer, the sides of the stores expanded, the choices multiplied.
Supermarkets, as you know them, don’t exist in Pohnpei. The term grocery store more aptly describes the venues located along main street Kolonia. Both they types and choices of goods are limited. Each store here carries nearly the same basic supplies as the others, but there are just enough variations in selection that a trip from the west end of the main street to the east end is usually needed. For example, the Blue Nile, the westernmost store, is the only store that carries a generic bran flake cereal modestly priced at $1.85 as compared to all other brands which are in the $5 - $7 range.
If you want bread to go along with your morning cereal, you would need to continue east to Palm Terrace, the only store with its own bakery. Palm Terrace also has some dried beans but you need to go to Yoshi’s for lentils.
One day, I felt like baking bread and so I set off on a shopping trip that felt more like a scavenger hunt. My quest for yeast took me to the Blue Nile, Palm Terrace, Wall Mart (named for its proximately to the Spanish Wall), before I found some at Yoshi’s the next to last stop along the road.
My Thursday night shopping trip brought with it a thrill that reminds me of how we can cherish the simple pleasures of life. As I rounded the aisle at Palm Terrace, my eyes swept past the usual selection of potatoes, onions, and garlic and came to rest upon vaguely familiar small reddish circular shaped objects. Tomatoes.
I hadn’t heard that the ship had come in. I’m still not quite dialed in to the coconut wireless communication network so pieces of important information can bypass me - like hearing that the ship came in. Every two weeks are so, a cargo ship arrives and the grocery stores are re-stocked. Usually a limited supply of produce has survived the long voyage, ripening (somewhat) along the way.
Life is often a lesson in learning to be appreciative, of learning to see the glass as half full rather than half empty. I often struggle with this but looking at the small reddish (but still somewhat greenish) tomatoes I felt appreciation. Appreciation and saliva as my mouth began to water at the thought of tomatoes.
These tomatoes lack the heady aroma of vine grown tomatoes fresh from the backyard garden. Having not fully ripened, they are not fully flavorful. Yet, the glass is half full and these tomatoes can add a little something to the typical dinner.
I went to bed Thursday night looking forward to Friday night, the excitement of which would involve cutting these tomatoes into small pieces and adding them to a jar of Pregu spaghetti source. There is no Little Italy section of downtown Kolonia, no Italian Bistros on main street, no mediteranean influence on the local cuisine. Pregu spaghetti sauce spruced up with semi-ripe tomatoes, and maybe some pepper and garlic, spread over macaroni satisfies the occasional craving for an Italian dinner.
I didn’t expect anything more exciting than the appearance of tomatoes in the grocery store to happen for the rest of the week. However, early Friday afternoon, as I looked forward to my tomatoes and the rest of the weekend, I was notified that we (my boss, the chief of our investigative unit, and I) were being beckoned to the President’s Office. Having shaved that very morning, I felt well prepared to make my first trip across the street to the Presidential Office.
Our office was seeking an amendment to an existing law and so had requested that the President submit the proposal to Congress. The paperwork must travel from our office to the Attorney General to the President and we had been forewarned that the A.G. would recommend that the President speak to us if we wanted more information. Hence, I had dutifully shaved each day that week even though it didn’t seem that the paperwork was traveling any faster than the many local drivers who dutifully obey the island’s 25 mph speed limit.
Protocal being protocol even in the small country of the FSM, Haser (my boss) informed Sophia and me that we should let him do the talking. For those of you who know me, I am quite generous when it comes to sharing my opinion. For me to sit quietly through a meeting would be quite unnatural. I mentioned as much to Haser so that he would at least be prepared when I interrupted, as surely I would.
During the course of the meeting I added my two-cents to the discussion and then maybe another dime’s worth. In a world where lobbying is both sport and mercenary activity, I must say it was very satisfying to look a President straight in the eye and speak earnestly from heart, with voice full of conviction and belief that the proposal is in the country’s best interest.
The meeting went well and our bill has been forwarded to Congress.
That’s the news from Pohnpei.
On a slow Sunday back in Oregon, I would often tune the radio dial to NPR and listen to the news from Lake Wobegon on a Prairie Home Companion. Today, instead, I’ll write the news from island Pohnpei….
Another week has passed on the island of Pohnpei. Though things remain much as they are, there is a sense of change in the air… and of stillness. The trade winds have gone to do their trading elsewhere, having begun to die down towards the end of April. As a result, the air is more still and humidity hangs about. The clouds gather and with no wind to push them past the island, more rain begins to fall.
The change in weather marks the beginning of the end of the school year. For the 8 volunteer teachers here through the WorldTeach program, their time on Pohnpei draws to end. They will be gone in June. In August, fresh new faces will appear.
For many of the ex-pat instructors at the College of Micronesia (COM), summer is a time to return home for a few months. Like migratory birds, they fly off to the land beyond the waters. The yoga instructor is one of those teachers.
As the saying goes, ‘When one door closes, another one opens.’ With no Monday night yoga class I have joined the soccer crowd that gathers almost nightly to play pickup soccer. Saturday afternoon, after a full and active week that included pickup soccer games on Monday and Tuesday nights, exercise class on Wednesday, a good track workout Friday, and a trip to the gym Saturday morning, my aging body said, “enough, its time for a break.”
Late Saturday afternoon, while engaging in the simple act of throwing around a football with the neighborhood kids, I pulled a muscle in my leg. Perhaps there really is a valid reason why mothers tell us not to play in the rain?
With hopes of a quick recovery in time for next Saturday’s 5K, the last of the season, I passed on today’s hike. Instead, today will be a day of rest, recovery, and reflection.
The week had its fill of excitement for your’s truly. Heavy rains on Thursday caused the cancellation of the weekly ultimate Frisbee game so instead I decided to go grocery shopping. As a child, I remember trips to the ‘grocery store’ but somewhere in the passage of time grocery stores were replaced by supermarkets as the aisles got longer, the sides of the stores expanded, the choices multiplied.
Supermarkets, as you know them, don’t exist in Pohnpei. The term grocery store more aptly describes the venues located along main street Kolonia. Both they types and choices of goods are limited. Each store here carries nearly the same basic supplies as the others, but there are just enough variations in selection that a trip from the west end of the main street to the east end is usually needed. For example, the Blue Nile, the westernmost store, is the only store that carries a generic bran flake cereal modestly priced at $1.85 as compared to all other brands which are in the $5 - $7 range.
If you want bread to go along with your morning cereal, you would need to continue east to Palm Terrace, the only store with its own bakery. Palm Terrace also has some dried beans but you need to go to Yoshi’s for lentils.
One day, I felt like baking bread and so I set off on a shopping trip that felt more like a scavenger hunt. My quest for yeast took me to the Blue Nile, Palm Terrace, Wall Mart (named for its proximately to the Spanish Wall), before I found some at Yoshi’s the next to last stop along the road.
My Thursday night shopping trip brought with it a thrill that reminds me of how we can cherish the simple pleasures of life. As I rounded the aisle at Palm Terrace, my eyes swept past the usual selection of potatoes, onions, and garlic and came to rest upon vaguely familiar small reddish circular shaped objects. Tomatoes.
I hadn’t heard that the ship had come in. I’m still not quite dialed in to the coconut wireless communication network so pieces of important information can bypass me - like hearing that the ship came in. Every two weeks are so, a cargo ship arrives and the grocery stores are re-stocked. Usually a limited supply of produce has survived the long voyage, ripening (somewhat) along the way.
Life is often a lesson in learning to be appreciative, of learning to see the glass as half full rather than half empty. I often struggle with this but looking at the small reddish (but still somewhat greenish) tomatoes I felt appreciation. Appreciation and saliva as my mouth began to water at the thought of tomatoes.
These tomatoes lack the heady aroma of vine grown tomatoes fresh from the backyard garden. Having not fully ripened, they are not fully flavorful. Yet, the glass is half full and these tomatoes can add a little something to the typical dinner.
I went to bed Thursday night looking forward to Friday night, the excitement of which would involve cutting these tomatoes into small pieces and adding them to a jar of Pregu spaghetti source. There is no Little Italy section of downtown Kolonia, no Italian Bistros on main street, no mediteranean influence on the local cuisine. Pregu spaghetti sauce spruced up with semi-ripe tomatoes, and maybe some pepper and garlic, spread over macaroni satisfies the occasional craving for an Italian dinner.
I didn’t expect anything more exciting than the appearance of tomatoes in the grocery store to happen for the rest of the week. However, early Friday afternoon, as I looked forward to my tomatoes and the rest of the weekend, I was notified that we (my boss, the chief of our investigative unit, and I) were being beckoned to the President’s Office. Having shaved that very morning, I felt well prepared to make my first trip across the street to the Presidential Office.
Our office was seeking an amendment to an existing law and so had requested that the President submit the proposal to Congress. The paperwork must travel from our office to the Attorney General to the President and we had been forewarned that the A.G. would recommend that the President speak to us if we wanted more information. Hence, I had dutifully shaved each day that week even though it didn’t seem that the paperwork was traveling any faster than the many local drivers who dutifully obey the island’s 25 mph speed limit.
Protocal being protocol even in the small country of the FSM, Haser (my boss) informed Sophia and me that we should let him do the talking. For those of you who know me, I am quite generous when it comes to sharing my opinion. For me to sit quietly through a meeting would be quite unnatural. I mentioned as much to Haser so that he would at least be prepared when I interrupted, as surely I would.
During the course of the meeting I added my two-cents to the discussion and then maybe another dime’s worth. In a world where lobbying is both sport and mercenary activity, I must say it was very satisfying to look a President straight in the eye and speak earnestly from heart, with voice full of conviction and belief that the proposal is in the country’s best interest.
The meeting went well and our bill has been forwarded to Congress.
That’s the news from Pohnpei.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Some pictures from a recent hike
The pictures are from a recent hike up a mountain. Micronesians are very sure-footed people and rather than use switchbacks to make their way uphill, the path just went straight up the side.
All land here is private land so in order to hike, we must first acquire the services of a guide and then pay an additional couple of dollars to the landowner.
Friday, May 8, 2009
My first interntational road race
When I first saw the banner proclaiming that a 5K fun run/walk was scheduled for an upcoming Saturday morning I was quite intrigued. A few locals walk at the track but I had never seen a Micronesian out for a morning or evening jog. As a general rule, the Micronesian body type isn’t built for running. To refer to them as stocky would be kind.
The parking lot was already full and people milled about when I arrived for the 7:00 AM race. Perhaps there were 150 people, its hard to say – my perspective on what constitutes a crowd has undoubtedly been altered during the time I’ve been on island.
Many people take the term ‘fun run/walk’ literally. Others use the event as an opportunity to forget that years or even decades have passed since a high school coach barked encouragement from the side of a track. I fall into the latter category. I always expect the simple process of lining up at the starting line to take inches off my waist and put hair back on my head. It doesn’t.
As I looked right and left I saw a mixed crowd that included the very young and the very old. The race was sponsored by the local college so a smattering of youthfulness was mixed in. Just like what often happens in races in the U.S., pint-sized participants clogged the starting line. They are a road hazard worse than potholes and cause one to run gingerly for the first few hundred yards until the crowd thins out and the risk of tripping over one of them decreases.
At the quarter mile mark a few of these munchkins were still running surprisingly strong. Generally, this can be a little demoralizing to the over-the-hill jock like myself. To make matters worse, the sound of these kids running is the all too familiar thumbing sound of flip-flops smacking the pavement. Yes, some of these kids run in flip flops (or zorries as they are called locally).
Zorries are the national shoe of Micronesia. They are worn everywhere. I wear them to work. Old ladies in dresses wear them to church on Sunday. I even once saw a kid wearing them while snorkeling. If Micronesia ever sends a man to the moon, that astronaut will be wearing zorries. A magical substance keeps the zorries firmly attached to the bottom of a Micronesian foot and, as a result, they can perform any task without having the zorrie slip off the foot.
Five or so minutes into the race the zorrie parade finally started to recede which lifted my spirits considerably. For the next two miles I only had to contend with the gravitational forces of the equator. I have found that gravity is stronger near the equator and therefore it takes considerably more energy to lift a foot and push it forward. Gravity plus the heat and humidity, which was probally in the 80 to 90 percent range, presented their challenges but I plodded my way towards the finish line finishing in a time of 24:12 which I think placed me about 15th among all competitors.
Only the first place finisher in each age category was recognized and I was competing in the large and tough 18 to 49 age bracket. My bracket was won by an American who just three seasons ago was still running on his college cross country team.
Some prizes were raffled away after the race and each prize was really two prizes. For example, someone won a cell phone and a 20 pound bag of rice. The grand prize winner won a television and a 20 pound bag of rice. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, rice is a staple of the Micronesian diet.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Geckos
This little guy didn’t react when I slipped a ruler up the side of the door and then snapped a picture of him lazing on top of the door. I had been wondering if the geckoes were as big as they seem from a distance and now I know. This little guy was a medium size one, definately not the longest or fattest I've seen.
Saturday May 2nd.
The other day while writing about my life in general, I mentioned both geckos and chuckles. In case you didn’t read it, I mentioned how several geckos occupy my house and how, unrelated to the geckos, every week some funny little incident will happen that will keep me chuckling for a few days straight. Friday the geckos were responsible for my weekly chuckle.
Wondering if the temperature was cooling down outside, I swung open the balcony door, peeked my head out, and then shut it. As the door swung closed, a brown blur passed by the corner of my eye and I felt something soft bump into my shoulder. Instinctively, I jumped back and looked down just in time to see a gecko run to the wall and then up into the window frame.
As far as I could recall, it was the first time I’ve ever had a lizard fall on me. They’re pretty surefooted but the quick movement of the door must have knocked it off. The gap between the top of the door and the door frame ranges from ½ to ¾ inches – just the right size for a lizard to hide.
Saturday I got on a chair and peeked up into the gap and was surprised to see that a differnt gecko had occupied the spot on top of the door.
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