2 months on the island

Camera shy Fat Charlie hurries back to his hiding spot

April 29, 2009

It’s Wednesday night and I’ve just hobbled in from exercise class. The instructor is an ex-marine and an ex-gymnast. To say the class is tough doesn’t do it justice. A Jacuzzi would be nice now but instead, a glass of scotch will have to do. Johnny Walker may not be a licensed masseuse but tonight he has the job of soothing my aching muscles.

Two months have come and gone since I first walked off the runway. Things have settled into a routine. Work fills the weekdays. After work on Mondays I go to yoga class which is taught by one of the ex-pat college instructors from 5:30 to 6:30. On Wednesday, its exercise class. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I usually head to the track and run.

After the class or the track, I head home for a shower and dinner. Given that roaches thrive in tropical climates, a thorough post-dinner kitchen cleaning is in order to ensure I haven’t left any inviting crumbs on the counter, floor, or table. By the time the kichen is cleand, only a couple of hours remain before bedtime and they are usually spent reading or writing.

All and all it’s pretty pleasant. I don’t have a phone yet but even if I did, I’m sure no telemarketers would be using it to pester me. I don’t have internet connection at the house. It keeps me from checking this or that fact and uploading my blog entries but on a positive note, in the past I would waste away hours tracking down meaningless trivia just because I could. Like everything else, having a TV can be both good and bad. I did learn a lot when watching PBS at home but I also spent hours getting getting caught up in the make believe lives of fictional people.

The weekends have their own routine. Saturday mornings Edwin and I go to what passes for the local gym. Afterwards I go to the office and use the internet connection to skype Wenonoa. Saturday afternoons and evenings seem to drift by like the clouds in the sky. Sunday afternoon I meet up with the ex-pat hiking club and we go on an excursion to here or there.

In this way the two months have flown by. I am excited that on Friday I’ll change the calendar page and be able to tick off the days of May. On June 1st I’ll leave the island temporarily and be relocated with Wenonoa. I’ve always admonished others for wishing their lives away whenever they express a desire for Friday to come but I would gladly give up the month of May and fast forward to June if I could.

I could not imagine enduring this two month separation without the constant contact that e-mail and skype provide. Of all the technological advances I’ve lived through, the ability to communicate in real time with no real expense amazes me the most. In 1984-5 I lived abroad. Back then e-mail didn’t exist and a call to the U.S. was over a $1 a minute. Even if cost were no issue, those were the pre-fiber optic days and a call was a frustrating exercise of trying to understand each other when you could only hear half of every word and there was a pause between each syllable.

Wenonoa and I e-mail daily and skype when the bandwith here allows us to. Still, the on-screen camera is a poor substitute for being in another’s presence. Though I am grateful for skype, at times it can make my heart ache. On screen I see Wenonoa sitting on our office chair. She is so close and in a place so familiar that I feel as though I can reach out and stroke her cheek – and I do. I put my finger on the screen to touch her but of course the element of human contact is missing.

My own personal experience of seeing my wife on screen but not being able to touch her leads me to ponder the more global issues of a world in which much of our human interaction now takes place in cyberspace. I spend time pondering this and other issues. The distractions of the internet, television, telemarketers and the such occupy no place in my little world (I should note that internet and cable TV are available on the island – I just don’t have them). When I don’t feel like reading or writing, I’ll spend my couple of post-dinner hours just pondering.

As the weeks flow by, this and that keep me amused and smiling. Little things happen that keep me chuckling to myself, sometimes for days on end. Last week it was the surprise visit of a stealth kitty.

The day was particularly hot so I had opened the front and kitchen doors while I was cooking some tuna. Screen doors have been ordered but haven’t arrived yet and usually the doors stay closed lest some roach, rat, or other unwanted visitor mistake the open door for an open invitation. Like a spectator at a tennis match, my head rotated back and forth as I tried to keep an eye on the doors as I cooked.

I had closed the doors and was sitting at the table enjoying my tuna when a small cat jumped onto one of the kitchen chairs. Not having a pet, I was not expecting to see a ball of fur fly through the air so imagine my surprise. As forcibly as the cat jumped onto its chair, I jumped off of mine. It seems logical to me that I was surprised but why the cat seemed surprised by my reaction beats me. When I jumped out of my chair, it jumped off its and headed down the hallway like a thoroughbred coming out of the gate.

With the doors now closed it took a while to get the cat out of the house. When I followed the cat into the bedroom it ran back to the kitchen before I could open the door leading to the balcony. When I followed the cat to the kitchen, it ran back to the bedroom before I could open the kitchen door. I was a little hesitant to leave the kitchen door open while the cat and I retreated to the back of the house(who knew what else might wander in, especially as my tuna and dirty pan were still out) but eventually I relented to in order to save the window screens from the cat’s claws.

The cat was a temporary visitor. The geckoes live here. They startle me every now and again but I’m getting use to them. After repetitive contact with a few of them I decided the only polite thing to do was to name them so that I can greet them formally when we run into each other.

Fat Charlie lives in the kitchen above the cabinets. He (or she) is impressive in both length and girth. Coach Potatoe Paul lives underneath the couch in the living room. He (or she) is just a twig of a thing. The couch is a little too dirty looking even for my taste so Paul will have to relocate when I have the landlord remove the couch. Bathroom Betty is the anti-Cinderella. Rather than spending time staring at the bathroom mirror, she (or he) spends her time behind it. Every time I swung the medicine cabinet door open, Betty and I would be face to face (face to whole body, actually). I’ve since learned to keep the cabinet door open and I’m not sure where Betty’s new home is.

So last week a cat gave me my laugh of the week, a couple weeks before that it was a young dog. I had stopped by someone’s house and, prior to entering, took off my zorries (flip flops to you Americans) as is the local custom. When I left a short time later only one zorrie was still there. Two friendly dogs had greeted me upon arrival and the younger of the two was immediately identified as the likely culprit. Since the dogs generally considered a three-house radius to be their home territory and since it was a dark and rainy night I had to consider the zorrie lost and hop to my car. It was a cute dog so I didn't take the loss of my zorrie personally.

My chuckle for the week hasn’t happened yet, but its still just Wednesday.

A century and a half of foreign occupation

The Spanish Wall was erected in 1887, during the time when Spain claimed ownership of the island. Back then it was a wall to protect the town from invaders. Today it is the right field wall of Kolonia’s main ball field.

Pohnpei (and much of Micronesia’s) history is a story of foreign rule. The Spanish claimed the island of Pohnpei in the 1850s and sold it to the Germans in 1899. The Germans ruled until 1914 when the Japanese forcefully took the island. When Japan lost WWII, it lost Micronesia.

Neither the Germans nor the Japanese would be categorized as kind rulers. Forced labor was a way of life under both and I’ve heard that starvation was common during the Japanese rule.

At the end of World War II, the area was put under the control of the U.N. which passed it along to the U.S. Under U.S. rule, the area was treated as a trust territory. The islands of Kosrae, Pohnpei, Chuuk, and Yap formed a country, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), and a compact of free association was signed with the U.S. in 1982.

True independence still has not been gained. Though a country in name, with its own passports and membership in the U.N., the FSM is as dependent on the U.S. as a baby is upon its mother for food. Roughly 70% of the government’s budget comes from U.S. aid.

The history of Micronesia has given me reason to contemplate how history shapes us. Micronesia’s history of foreign occupation and domination explains a lot about the Micronesian personality. As a people, they seem very accepting of whatever life throws at them – their typical reaction lies somewhere between complacency and apathy.

I’m told the government workers haven’t gotten a raise since the 1990s. In France they would have gone on strike. Here they just shrug their shoulders and go about their business.

In Chuuk the main road is in such a state of disrepair that it is hard to believe it has never been bombed. The electricity goes out nightly. In most democratic countries, protests would have turned violent and the leaders forced to resign. The Chuukese just shrug their shoulders, laugh, and go about their business.

Micronesia’s history is a different from the U.S’s as night is different from day.
When I close my eyes and think of American history as it was taught to me as a child, I see the story of a people blessed with righteous self-determination, moral superiority, and action.

As a young schoolboy, I pledged allegiance each school morning and spent at least an hour a day studying this history. The books taught us a lot. We learned more than just the names of generals and the dates of battles. In a sense, the history taught us how to approach life.

We were taught that ‘taxation without representation is tyranny’ and the proper thing to do is revolt. In 1812 we whipped the British again when they dared to cross the Atlantic. As a Yankee boy, I learned, with pride, of the sacrifice made by Northern soldiers to free the slaves and of their success in doing so (Textile taxes and states’ rights may have gotten a brief mention but those issues certainly couldn’t capture the imagination of a grade school boy – at least not in the North.).

Turn the page, skip to the next century, and Americans are crossing the ocean to bring peace to a continent at war. Turn the page and a picture of American soldiers being cheered as they entered Paris stares back at you. We entered World War II to make the world safe for democracy and we defeated our enemies. America’s battle for freedom is never over and so my grade school days ended with America in a cold war, holding off an evil empire that would happily nuke us all to hell if we gave them the chance.

I’ve been thinking about my American history and how it has influenced the way I look at life. From the Pilgrims to the Pioneers, from the wagon trains to the world wars, I was brought up to view life is a series of challenges and obstacles that must be faced and overcome - one at a time with conviction and action.

American history has molded me and is so ingrained in me that I often fail to consider that my approach to life may be a learned behavior and not a natural instinct common to all people. As a result, at times I struggle with the patient, accepting attitude of the Micronesians.

When my dear Wenonoa reads this, she will likely think of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It is a book that influenced and impressed her. She wanted me to read but it never made the journey from the bookshelf to my hand. As is often the case, I should have listened to her. Though I understand on a basic level how a country’s history shapes the worldview of its people, perhaps on a deeper level I would understand Micronesia.

Though at times I am critical of the Micronesians tendency to accept everything from their diabetes to the country’s dependence on the U.S., there are also many positive things to say about their cultural tendencies. These, however, are the ponderings for another night.

Local Foods

April 19, 2009

A yellow fin tuna caught yesterday by one of the local fishing boats, some local spinach, and some imported margarine and garlic, and I sit here feeling blissfully content. Estoy satisfecho!

The meal is satisfying for two reasons. Prepared and eaten after a strenuous afternoon hike, the meal satisfies a basic hunger. And, if I say so myself, was quite tasty.

Secondly, the local source of the food satisfies my environmental conscious. Having settled into the job, the house, the ex-pat community, it is now time to turn my focus towards my diet.

In Oregon, Wenonoa and I had adhered to the ‘eat local’ philosophy as much as we could which, in Oregon, was not that hard to do.

Food on Pohnpei can be broken into two categories: local and imported from America and Japan. The majority of food falls into the import category. Rice, chicken, ramen noodles, and sugary snacks seem to be make up the four basic food groups for most Micronesians I see. Spam and eggs, which I thought only existed in the minds of the Monty Python troupe, is an item I routinely see on the breakfast menu. Not surprisingly, and not unlike America, diabetes seems to be of epidemic proportion on the island. High blood pressure and heart disease, I’m sure, are also prevalent.

There is also an economic and environmental irony to the importation of many foods. Bizarre as it is, the grocery aisle is stocked with imported items like canned tuna and canned coconut milk. Even imported bottled water – and remember Pohnpei gets between 200 inches and 400 inches of rain a year – is sold throughout the island.

A Go Local campaign is underway to teach people of the nutritional value of many indigenous foods and I do see diabetes awareness posters at several locations. I have started my own campaign to find and learn how to prepare more of the local foods.

I was excited to stumble across the fact that there is a local egg producer on the island. While buying eggs (which cost about $4 a dozen) at the grocery store, I noticed that someone had taken a magic marker and wrote “local” on many of the California egg cartons. On my next shopping trip, the store was out of local eggs but the produce/fish market across the street had. When I asked, I found out they sell the local eggs. So now I know where to go to get local eggs.

On a quiet Easter morning, the produce cashier looked bored so I took advantage of the situation and learned a few things about their selection. The bark I have seen sold there can be put in boiling water to make tea. I’m sipping some now and the taste seems to fall somewhere between cinnamon and chai.

Coconuts are another local product. I found that they aren’t as tough as they look and my all purpose kitchen knife easily cuts into it. A chilled coconut can, with just a knife and straw, be turned into a cool, refreshing beverage.

Bananas come in several varieties. I’ve had several delicious coconut/banana dishes and I’m ready to start experimenting on my own.

The picture above is of the studio apartment I stayed in my first month on the island. In many ways it left a lot to be desired (such as the garbage system which was based on having tenants leave bags of garbage in the hallway and in the entrance way for the cleaning lady to pick up on the days she showed up) but in other ways it was o.k.

As a studio, it had a certain coziness and simplicity about it. I wouldn’t have wanted to entertain guests there but for a solo occupant, it compactness allowed for a certain efficiency. Had the air conditioner been of this decade or last (when did White Westinghouse go out of business?), one could have kept the place cool at a minimal cost. Certainly, it didn’t require much time or energy to clean.

I’m sure over time it would have begun to feel a bit confined but for my first month on the island, the small scale helped keep everything manageable. The studio had a small balcony and that is where I spent most of my time. The balcony provided both an escape from the heat and entertainment.

The apartment, like the house I’m now and like most buildings here, is built from concrete. One downside to building with concrete is that it soaks up the heat from the sun during the day and then slowly releases it during the evening. Passive radiant heating is, I believe, the term used in the green building industry. It’s a great concept for locations that enjoy a cold but sunny winter but its not so good for the tropics.

Why do they build that way here, then? The answer is simple – termites. But I digress –

As I was saying, in addition to an escape from the early evening heat, the balcony replaced the television set and provided me with my nightly entertainment.

Across the street was a big yard upon which sat an unoccupied building. The yard served as the local café for some neighborhood chickens that would appear regularly both for the morning special and the early bird dinner. The mother and her chicks would make their way hurriedly around the yard pecking away at whatever bugs they found, hurrying because soon a rooster would show up and bully them into leaving so that he could feast on the remaining bugs. The pickins must have been good because the chickens would all repeat the scene at dinnertime.

After the chickens would leave, a pair of puppies would show up for a twilight romp. It is always enjoyable to watch puppies play. The innocence and the energy. A simple coconut husk would often serve as a toy. Sometimes the game would be tug-a-war and other nights a game of catch-me-if-you-can.

Watching the battle for the bugs and the coconut husk Olympics provided me with a local version of reality TV.

Wed April 8, 2009

“In this great future, you can’t forget your past.”
Bob Marley – No Women No Cry

Chag Pesach. Happy Passover. I say it with forced bravado as, truthfully, my Passover holiday lacks a certain festive liveliness.

I may be the only Jew on Pohnpei. I suspect that there must be one or two more but my attempts to locate them have been unsuccessful. New to the island and just starting to get to know the ex-pat community, it felt strange to make inquiries of a religious nature but I last week I started to.

“Hey, ummm, I’m Jewish and the Passover holiday begins next week. It would be nice to find some other Jews to celebrate it with. Do you happen to know of anyone else here who might be Jewish?” I found myself asking a Peace Corp worker.

“None that I know of but I’ll ask around,” she replied, “I know there is a lawyer here named Ira, he might be.” The benefit of growing up in New York, she knew the telltale signs. It turns out Ira wasn’t and her other inquiries revealed no hidden members of the tribe.

“Listen this is going to sound like an odd thing to ask but since your name is Jonathon and you’re from New York, I was wondering if you happened to be Jewish. See the Passover holiday is beginning and….” I asked a guy I met at the bar Saturday night. He wasn’t. I suspected as much when I found out he was from Albany but it was worth a shot.

So, the single bulb burns diligently (yes, I really should buy more but I can’t bring myself to buy CFL bulbs at $5 a piece and I’m less inclined to buy standard bulbs) providing a minimum amount of light. The ceiling fan throbs and squeaks dutifully. The house is empty and I sit here by myself typing away at the kitchen table.

Still though, I find no reason to permit my self-imposed exile on Pohnpei to hinder me from observing the holiday. The primary symbolic element of the holiday is matzah and the essence of the holiday is the concept of liberation/freedom. So tonight I’ll recognize the holiday in a different way.

With Bob Marley ‘singing songs of freedom’ in the background, I’ll bake my own matzah and spend the night contemplating the essence of freedom.

Won’t you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever have, redemption songs, redemption songs, redemption songs

Emancipate you selves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds

Won’t you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs
All I ever had, redemption songs
These songs of freedom, songs of freedom
Bob Marley – Redemption Song

Pohnpei Cultural Day

Tuesday March 31

Today was Pohnpei Cultural Day. The day was marked by a celebration downtown. Dancing places an important role in the cultural heritage. I enjoyed watching the dancers though the meaning behind each dance was lost to me. There was one dance where the dancers pantomimed a canoe trip and another that suggested a story dealing with gardening.