Islands

Well, it took a while, but I am home now. I had a 40-something hour day yesterday that started in Guam at 4:30 am, went through tokyo and ended in my bed on that much different island, whidbey. 40 hours that were techincally all in the same day too. That was after 4 hours sleep and another day full of flying. It goes without saying that a home-coming after a trip like this is very emotional, but what those emotions are is not always clear. I had no idea that I would feel so hesitant to leave. I usually get nervous before a long trip or big change like this, but this time was different, anxious. When the time came to go to the airport, I came the closest I think I've ever come to having an anxiety attack. I was looking forward to coming home, but I didn't want to leave. I had an overwhelming feeling that I wasn't done with Kosrae yet. But I think that I'll go into that in more detail in a later entry. I'm writing this just to say "I'm home.... I made it." For now I'm eating as much good ahset food as possible, and resting. Jetlag follows me like a Kosraen cloud, and I've got a pile of z's on the tip of my tounge. I'll see all you islanders on monday, and the rest of you it might be give or take a while.
Blog out, and Happy Napping.
Randy

Posted by Randy Thompson at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So, I'm feeling better, and in case any of you missed it, there was a more recent blog than the last one- it just got posted in place before the most recent. It's called "Can I buy a vowel? No? How about a wife?" and although it's not new, it's probably new to you.

I decided after getting out of the hospital that I would let Walung wait a little so I could get back to full strength. Rimus called some people in Tafunsak to see if there was someplace for me. I moved in with Brookula Jackson (kind of like a cross between Brooke and Dracula, I love these names) last Monday. I really like Brook, she reminds me a lot of Meltina, only she doesn't talk quite so much. She is a single mother of boys too, Ceacky(SEE-eh-key), 18, and Froky(Froggy), 10. She spent some time in Pohnpei, so she is not exactly common among the women of Kosrae. Being a single mother is pretty rare here, and Brooke is pretty headstrong. She is funny, too. Also living in the house are Sepe, who is about my age and I think is a niece, and little Gina, who I am pretty sure is Sepe's daughter. There is also a puppy, Bingo, who is possibly my favorite. He loves to bite hands and legs. I've been avoiding dog bites so fervently, I never thought that I would let one of the dogs here bite me. My hands are covered in scratched from his razor-sharp teeth. I taught him to play fetch, which is very rare in a dog here.

It feels strange to be back on the topside of the island. Tafunsak is the town closest to the airport, and so it is considered more "civilised". There are more stores in Tafunsak than probably all of Utwe, Malem, and Walung put together. Brookula lives right next door to DJ store, which is owned by some Koreans. It's a pretty good store, and they have the only tofu on the Island, even though the newest of it expired back in February. Tafunsak is kind of like Lelu Island, it is nice, but kind of stuck up in regards to the southern towns. I am planning on moving down to Walung for a few days starting tonight or tomorrow morning. I only have a week left, and there is still a lot I want to do and see.
Last Wednesday I went back to the Forest at Yela with a big group of big-wig national politicians, a reporter, and a couple forestry people. Instead of taking a boat in, we hiked along the suggested route for the road that is being considered. It goes right through swamp, some uncatalogued ruins, and the very middle of the Ka forest. This time I made sure I had plenty of batteries for the interview with the forrestry official. The problem this time was that we were rushed because the politicians were ready to go before I was done. The trip was documented by the reporter, too, so I'll be there smiling in the next issue of Pacific Magazine. On Thursday I hiked out to Tafunsak Gorge, which was amazing! I was a bit worried in the morning because it had been raining pretty hard, and the gorge is prone to flash floods. My guide and I went ahead anyway, and it's good we did. The gorge is cut into the side of Mt. Metante, and the rock walls are up to 70 feet high. The first half of the hike was pretty easy, but them the second half was right up the river, waist deep at times, with my camera case, a bag, and one of the government tripods held above our heads. The end is spectacular though: Three waterfalls springing out of holes in the rock walls, giant cool pools, and dense foliage hanging on for dear life on the steep rock faces.
The rain has continued to be sporadically intense. It's not always coming down, but a few times a day, it pours with fury. The water is turned off too. Apparently the damn in the river got clogged. So, although it rains a lot, you can't get any water from the tap. Oh well, this is probably all a good intro to Walung.
Oh! On tuesday I finally recieved the care package my mom sent on my second or third week out! It had some food I had been CRAVING! There was tiger sauce, trail mix, fruit leather, easter candy, salsa, and refried beans! I know that a lot of you aren't experiencing the same Island experience as some of us down here in the pacific, but OH MY GOD! You have no idea of how good that food was! I heated up the beans, and was able to get some of the Torrengo corn chips that they eat out here. Never in my life did I think that I would be drooling so heavily for a chip dipped in salsa and beans. I saved half of the beans for the next day so that I could prolong the magic. And then there was CANDY! I am ashamed to admit it, but when I got that candy, I went crazy. The majority of the contents of the box were sugar-related, and they were all gone in a flash. I think my tolerance to heavy amounts of sugar has weakened over the weeks (months?) out here, so when I finally got my fix, I was like a kid on halloween: full, slow, and happy.
Anyway, there's a short update on what I've been doing. I only have a week left, so I'm gonna go enjoy it.
More love to all back home and away,
No Bliggity, I've got to Blog it- Blog it out, babe,
Randy

Posted by Randy Thompson at 07:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The following is part of a long blog that I wrote on Saturday 4/3, but apparently it never published. Whats more, the major part was lost to the abyss of program purgatory. Well, wouldn't be the first time. So what IS there, is the beginning, that I saved against such malignant computer espionage.-RT 4/5

This message is on borrowed peace corps computer time, so I'm going to keep it short, just a little update. It is out of order too, I have a bunch that I wrote in an entry before this, but didn't publish because I wasn't done. So the next blog will most likely be a prequel to this one...... yeah. Also, if you don't want to hear details about what comes along with a tropical bug, read no further. THe basic summary is:
I got Sick, which is bad.
I went to the hospital, which was worse.
I got out, which is good.
I'm starting to feel better, which is great.
There.

So, um, what to say.....

Don't get sick?

No matter what they say, stay away from the buffet?

I don't really know. Probably all of the rest of you, with the possible exception of Kashmir, have much better hospitals than the one I was just in. I really hope that you do.

So what happened? Well, Tuesday night I came home to Rimus Nena's house (he's the owner of armis taxi, in Utwe) and he told me that there was a party next door, and that his whole family(including me) was invited. His "son" tata took me over and showed me the deal. Tata stopped short, and told me that he was too shy to go. It was pouring, and there were a few big tent/tarp things set up over a huge buffet, and a lot of chairs surrounding. I looked through the crowd to see if there was anybody I knew -one on the senators, some other people I didn't really want to talk to- and started talking to Maureen, Salik's wife (Two people that I will talk/talked about in the next blog). She told me that this party was for the guy who owned this house's dead wife's anniversary. Great! I must have looked like the mooching ahset party-crasher. You know.... in writing this down, I'm developing a theory about why I got sick, but I'll expound on that later. I joined the buffet line, and, like at all kosraen buffets, got about 10 pounds of food heaped up on my freshly woven palmetto plate. The food was really good too! There were some Kosraen dishes that were new to me, which is a surprise, because there isn't usually ever much variety in the food here. Local recipes are dying as the food is becoming increasingly spam-rice-and-ramenized. I ate and talked and went home a little early. The rain was.... (what's more than pouring? Dropping?) gushing and there was lots of distant lightening. I started to feel a little funny. I talked to a guy named Simian out in front of Rimus's.
"Simian, that's an interesting name."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it means monkey..... in Latin, I think."
"Really?"
"Yeah. (realizing that he probably could have happily lived out his life without anybody telling him that) Randy has different meanings too."
"Blah, blah-

4/5 that's all that was saved.....
Am not really sure where I was going with that.....
Anyway, let me continue to narrate.

I was decidedly not feeling good at all at this point, and politely withdrew to my room to stretch out horizontally.

Uh oh, what's this? Diarrhea? Great. I better lay down again. Not a good idea? Ok, you know better than me where I want to be. Back to the bathroom it is. Ewwww, Diarrhea and vomiting! AT THE SAME TIME!?! I didn't even know that was possible. It's a good thing that the shower is right next to the toilet. Maybe some water will settle my stomach. No? OK! No.... I didn't really want to sleep tonight, not when I could be up like this!

You get the picture. After a whole night of this, I was severely dehydrated, and somewhat delerious. I got Rimus to take me to the hospital at 5am on Wednesday. I had only heard horror stories about the hospital. Nobody I knew had dared stay there overnight. They said that diseases there were on special, bring one, get one free! There were no beds, so they put me in the medicine storeroom for a few hours, and hooked me up to an IV. I was later transferred to my room. Well, our room. I had 5 roomates, and at least twice as many of their visitors. The Kosrae State Hospital is small, fairly open, and very crowded. My bed was right next to the window, which was good, because it made a breeze for the times when the power went out, and gave me something to stare out at after I had exhausted all of the hospital's magazines(a bug-chewed 2-year-old People, a water damaged Bejing Review, and a copy of Pacific Magazine from 1998. The room I was in was one of the better ones too, being at the end of the hall, close to the bathroom (whose lights only worked half the time when the power was on, and had one of the sinks ripped from the wall by some hurculaen vandal patient the first day I was there.) and seperated from the majority of the horrible smells and sounds coming from the rest of the wing. I say the majority, because the hospital is very open. The windows are the type common here, rows of thin horizontal pieces of glass on connected hinges that don't really close. There are no doors to the rooms and the walls between them don't reach the ceiling. Any food in the hospital needs to be eaten quickly, or else the rows of little ants take over. The geckos and lizards on the walls are fat because of the abundance of easy prey. Not that I had any appetite. The meals were standard new Kosraen: a plate of rice with a whole fried fish on top, or a piece of the lower-than-dogfood-grade chicken that is imported here. Breakfast was much better: an old tangerine, sliced bread(a real luxury here), and a hardboiled egg.
I had plenty of my own food though, rimus brough a bag of tangerines, cucumbers, and a pineapple, along with some bread and my peanutbutter. I found out later that one of the worst smells in the place, what I had previously thought must have been some terrible sick-smell, was actually the food that was brought in tupperware to the 80-year-old philipino on the other side of the room. He was the only constant roomate of my 3 day hospitilization, if you don't count what I began to call "the voice of DEATH." I never saw the source of the voice, and so I am not actually sure that the voice had a body at all. All I know is that it would howl and wail for hours on end, calling for "Shrue". Nothing distracted the voice from this one purpose, wailing and sobbing. Either the nurses ignored it, or there was nothing they could do about this ghost of the hospital.
At no point of the trip prior had I considered an early return, but now I obsessed over the idea. Why not. There was nothing better to do. There is nothing quite so miserable as being sick for a long time away from home.
but..
I began to get better by the third day. No more bloody diarrhea. I was able to eat more than a mouthful. The doctor told me that as soon as the bag at the end of my IV was done, I could go. I was overjoyed! I watched the IV like it was water about to boil. Finally, at about 5, I walked over to the nurses station, and got them to take it out. Joking with the nurse, I asked, "So.... When do I get to make a jailbreak?" Not appreciating my joke in the slightest, she said, as icily as a high security warden, "This is not a jail. Go back to your room."
"But the doctor told me that I could leave today!"
"Well, he didn't write anything down about it on his charts, and he went home."
How could this be? I was sure he had told me I could go. "This has to be a mistake. Can we call him?"
.....pause....."Ok, I'll call him. Go back to your room and we'll let you know when we get in touch with him."
I went back to my room and waited. Nothing. After an hour, I went back to the nurses station. "Yes?"
Apparently, the nurse I had been talking to went home without calling anybody. This time I waited by the station while someone called. Success! I got out at about 8pm on Friday, promising that I'd check in on Monday. There is nothing like freedom to make you feel better. I even went Kayaking on Sunday!
Anyway, I'm out, I'm better. I hope that none of you have to go through that.
Love to all of you at home and away,
Ran-done-being-sick

p.s. - STAY HEALTHY!

Posted by Randy Thompson at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

This was written a while ago, the week that I went to the hospital. It's not finished, but I think that I'll just post what I wrote, anyway. 4/9

Another week, another..... well...... week, I guess. Another church, maybe? My experiences here have not been static enough to see too many similarities between the days. Only rain.

There has been a lot of rain. Not Washington Rain, which is only a little nuisance that doesn't hurt anyone, but real, unabashed, 500-horsepower rain that sneaks up on you when you are walking down a dirt road, miles from any house you know and forces you to take shelter under a giant taro or banana leaf. At least the rain is somewhat warm. The outdoor showers here are all much warmer than the indoor ones. I've only just begun to develop a tolerance to the cold cachement water that comes pouring down out of the open end of a pipe which is a local showerhead. I don't shriek nearly as loudly at the cold, frigid, sub-artic gush. Now, if there were only some way to actually get dry in this humidity...

So.....

I'm staying in Utwe now, at the house of Rimus Nena(brother of Romus- I love these names), proud owner of Armis Taxi (pronounced Army's) and a reputation more notorious than Meltina's. I moved in on Thursday after 9 wonderful days with the George family. I'm very glad that I have been moving around, because life with these different families has been very different. The Kibby's were great, but they were very busy too. Meltina was working a lot, and the kids were off doing, well, their own stuff. The George family was much bigger, and much more interested in what I was doing. They too were very busy, mostly with church things, but there were always at least two kids following me around wanting to wrestle or play at all times. My favorite was little Manuo, who is two, and is convinced that I speak Kosraen. He would follow me around, talking to me, and his Kosraen vocabulary far surpasses my own. I would ask someone what he wanted, and it would always be "he wants you to climb the ladder with him.", or "He wants to play ball."

So, two Saturdays ago, when I was out in the channel with Tadeo, I told him that I wanted to go to the Menke Ruins, up in the hills in Utwe. He told me then that he was going to take a woman from KVR (the Kosrae Village Resort) up on Tuesday, and that I should go with him then. I happily agreed: the more the merrier.
I called Tadeo on Monday night to confirm the trip and to figure out when and where to meet him. He said to meet him at noon at the trailhead to the Ruins, and that any taxi would know where that is. So, I called a taxi on Tuesday morning, an hour before noon, and when no one showed up, got Bob to drive me in the family truck. I was about ten minutes late, or 20 minutes early in Island time, but there was no one to be seen anywhere close to the trailhead. After waiting and searching for people, we drove into the town of Utwe and used the phone at Rimus's house to call Tadeo.
"Papa Tadeo is not here. He went to the airport today."
Really? What about the tour of the ruins?
"Oh, my uncle led the tour, hours ago. A woman from KVR and a guy"
Really? Wasn't that supposed to be me?
"Um, hold on..(fourminutepausewhilephoneispassedaroundtheroom) Lwen Wo!(man's voice)"
Um, hello?
"This is Tadeo's son, Salik! I'll take you! You wait for me,Ok!?! I'll be right over!"

Salik showed up a few minutes later with his friend Ryan Kilfas (big home-made tatoo "RyaKil" on his arm) and we hitched a ride with bob to the trailhead. The trail was pretty easy, we only crossed the river 5 or 6 times and it was never too steep. We stopped along the way at one of Salik's tangerine trees and loaded up our pockets. I like Salik, he knows all of the plants and local remedies like his dad, but he is much younger, and speaks better english. He told me that he has been taking correspondance classes and wants to be the photographer for the local paper. Along the way he told me that we had been following the tracks of some people, but they had stopped. No one had gone this way for several days. It only took about an hour to do the hike, and we stopped along the way to examine Ka, the different kinds of Taro, and a strand of Eucaliptus trees(sp?). The ruins are very overgrown, but impressive. The locals didn't really know about them until they were rediscovered by a local about 100 years ago, and then shown to a German archaeologist. There are more than a hundred big stone rooms, all with central altars. It is believed that they were never lived in, but only used for ceremony, although I find it very hard to believe. It is not known exactly how old they are, but they are easily the oldest structures in Micronesia, abandoned before Nan Madol was even built.

On the way back we met Papa Tadeo on the road, and without apologizing for the changing plans without telling me, told us that his brother and the lady from KVR had got into an argument and had turned around after half-an-hour.

Wednesday night, I went with Bob to the church because he said they were going to be jamming. When we got there, we could here it from the parking lot. A lot of preprogrammed keyboard drumbeats, and female harmony. I started to talk to the musicians, the same guys who were rocking out on Sunday, and I tapped their equipment and recorded some of the music onto MD.

On Thursday, I moved out of the George's house, and I think that Kenye was crying. I know that some of the kids were. I met Rimus's family too. He has four young daughters, and two drivers that are like sons to him. He told me that I am now his white son. He's only 30.
After a good meal of salmon cooked in shredded mango, papaya, and homegrown chiles on rice, I got a phone call from Bob George. He asked, "Hey Randy, are you FROM Utwe?"
um.... no..... why?
"Well, you forgot your toothbrush."
The other towns are kind of snobby about Utwe. Apparently they were a low town in the heirarchy of ancient Kosrae, the farthest from royal Lelu. They were also the last to get electricity, and a paved road, and Utweians are sometimes treated like the barefooted step-children of Kosrae. Once again, politics and stereotypes abound. Bob told me that he doesn't really like Utwe because "there are a bunch of fags."

well.....

So, on friday I found out some weird news. A friend of mine here, who shall remain anonymous, asked me for some advice on Friday. There is this 30-ish guy in Missouri who has been calling and e-mailing him. I asked him about what?

'Oh, well he sent some money, but it never got here.'
Why did he send money?
'Oh well, he wants to help us. He says his accountant told him he's going to be a millionare this year. He's a friend of my sister-in-law who is in the states. He says he wants to come and visit.'
Oh, is he a tourist?
'No, he is a friend of my daughter's.'
Oh. How does he know your daughter?
'Well, my sister told him about her. He wants to meet her, but he told me that he can't come here because of business. He said he's going to send tickets so that we can go and meet him.'
Why do you need to meet him?
'So we can see if he's a good guy. he wants to meet our daughter.'
What do you mean?
'Well he want her to live with him. And he wants to help us.'
Help you do what?
'Send us money. And he wants to help my daughter.'
What do you mean help her?
'He wants her to be his wife.'
How old is your daughter?
'17'
And he's thirty? Does your daughter know this guy?
'Yes, sometimes when he calls, she'll pick up the phone. He's a real sweet talker.'
How does he know you again?
'My sister-in-law is married to an older man in america. He is a friend of her boyfriends. She told him about my daughter.'
Wait, why? What did she tell him?
'Just that her name is (name) and that she's 17. He told me that he would send a lot of money. He's rich. He said that he would send a certain amount each year, and it would equal to $46 thousand over 10 years. He's a real sweet talker'

I was dumbfounded. I told him that the whole thing sounded terrible. He told me that a lot of Kosraen women want American husbands. I know that a lot of Kosraens are very naive, and that things are very different here, but what exactly am I supposed to do when a friend of mine tells me that there is a guy half-way around the world who would like to buy his daughter as a wife, and that he's thinking about it. I told him "NO". I asked him what he even knew about this guy. Not much apparently. I asked him what his daughter thought about it. He told me that she knew about it, she had heard him talking about it, and that she was neutral. NEUTRAL. Of course she was neutral. So many women here are used to not having any say in their lives that they don't even think to voice an opinion about them. I told him that this was bad news. I took him to the Library to find an article in National Geographic about 21st Century Slavery (which is a shocking article, by the way. It mentions slavery busts in both Washington and Florida within the past ten years), but their subscription ran out a few years ago. I talked to the assistant Attourney General about the legalities of the whole thing, and she said that there was nothing in the spirit or the law that looked down on this. I'm going to get him to do an online criminal background check, to hopefully find something to help him protect his daughter. I just don't know. I don't look down on women in other countries who volunteer to join mail-order-bride programs voluntarily. For a lot of them, it is a good way out of a bad situation. But here is guy who is calling people who don't know him, telling them he'll send them money for their daughter, a GIRL half his age, in a place that is known for having submissive women. I don't know. I just don't know. I've been telling my friend that he has no reason to trust this guy, and he keeps telling me how great a guy he is. I'm gonna need to find a way to convince him that this is a bad idea. It is, isn't it?

blog out-
Randumbfounded.

Posted by Randy Thompson at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, I am just about Half-way through this little trip of mine, and it has been pretty good to me so far. I am happily placed in a new family in Malem, and things are going pretty well. I have about half of the footage I need, I think, and I have leads for the remainder. I think. It is sunny, once again.
Malem is a little bit farther to ride to get here, and the taxi is $2 instead of the 50 cents from Lelu. The 4 1/2 mile trip is pretty flat, only one hill, and I figured a way to deal with the dogs. I bring a stick, just about long enough to reach the ground when I hold it on the bike, and if any of them start to snarl, they soon get a friendly tap on the nose and stop chasing. There is only one dog that I've had to get more than friendly with.
When I got home the other day after writing the blog and riding back, I found a full house. There were a bunch of old ladies I had never seen before or since all around the table in the kitchen. I went in to investigat and saw a huge pile of picked-over meat on the table in a huge tray. Closer inspection revealed that the tray was no tray, and this was no regular pile of meat, but an entire roasted turtle in the shell. My better judgement clouded by curiosity, I let them talk me into trying a small piece of the white meat. It was very chewy, and different from any meat I had tried before (but remember, I make no claims to be a meat expert). I later found out that it was, in fact, endangered green turtle, and I feel terrible. Apparently it is illegal for Americans to eat, but Micronesians have a one month fishing season(or would that be turtling season?). I am now asking very careful questions about my food.

(if you notice any change in the narrative voice, that is because i am now writing the second half of this on Monday, not Friday. The Librarian here is not my favorite person. She takes immense pleasure in kicking me out. She'll sneak over about five minutes after I start writing and say "the students need to use the computers, you need to get out" regardless of whether this is true or not. The thing is, although the library is located at the high school, it is a public library and I am told by everyone else I've talked to that, being a member of the library, one who paid for a library card, I have just as much of a right to use the computers as the students from the high school [who, by the way, primarily use it to write each other love letters via e-mail on heart-festooned yahoo stationary]. On Friday I came in early to use the computer and she told me that I needed to come back at 2:00 when all the students would be done. Not phased a bit by this, I went about my day and came back at 12:30. After half-an-hour of use, mostly more correspondence with american companies for Kerick, she came and told me that the Library was going to close at 1:30. Kuloh Ma Lalulahp, Mrs Librarian. Sorry for the rant, but that is what I do.)

Anyway, back to Thursday, when I decided to go up into hills of Malem to the cascade falls and the Japanese caves. My host mom Kenye asked a friend of hers to guide me and my host-brother Bob came along too. The hike up seemed pretty easy at first. We got chased by a few packs of dogs, but we had machetes and rocks to fend them off. Then my guide, George told me about a shortcut he knew, and the next thing I knew we had crossed a river and were scaling a slippery slope. It began to rain (Afi!) and the trail got even muddier. A ways up we got to a trail cut into the side of the mountain, and George explained that it was a WWII path up to the caves, and that he had helped clear it a few months before for the parks service for $1.50 an hour. We followed the trail and eventually it flattened out. We got to some of the lower caves, more like tunnels. They were like the Japanese caves I had been to on Lelu hill with Nando, but much longer, with more turns. Bob and I got lost a few times in some of them while George preferred to stay at the entrance with a cigarette. Bob said he came with because he would be embarrassed if I, an ahset, got to see them before he did. (It is weird, well, weird to me, that most of the people in Kosrae have never seen a lot of their island. Here we were on a trail that started right behind Bob's house that he had never been on in his nearly 20 years of living there.) After the first caves we headed to the falls. We stumbled across several big muddy patches where the wild pigs had been digging for yams, and I could tell that George was getting excited. He told me that these were some of his favorite spots to hunt for pig, and from then on we checked every little cave opening and bush.
The waterfalls were really cool (soo-oon). I don't know if it compares to the ones that Jon has been sliding down, but they were the first I've seen since I've been here. There is another waterfall that is supposed to be about 70 feet high that I am going to go to when I'm living in Utwe or Walung. These were smaller, the largest being maybe 15 feet tall, but the pools in between were wonderful.

Once we got back to the trail, George asked if we wanted to keep going up to the top of the mountain. I was all for it, so we worked our way up higher into the hills. The trail got very hard to navigate, even though it had stopped raining while we were in one of the caves. I wore sandals, definately the wrong shoes, since Kenye had decided to wash my sneakers after I got back from the Ka forest at Yela. With mud between my feet and my sandals, I slid around with every step and wore a spot on the top of my foot raw by the end of the day. We took several breaks and explored more caves on the way up. The hill made me think of an ant-hill, or a giant prairie dog mound, and I got the image in my head of a bunch of japanese soldiers popping in and out of all the burrows. Someone told me that Kosrae was one of the islands where there had been Japanese soldiers living in the jungle for years after the war was over, still getting ready for the allied invasion.
George was very helpful on the way, and he showed us many local mountain foods, some of which were very tasty. Some of the plants were new to Bob, as they only grow over 1000 feet up. I did not really have a clear idea of how much farther it was to the top, because George would invariably estimate the distance at 200-300 feet more, and every little peak we reached would yield a view of the next one, towering above. At the second highest peak, George yelled out something to Bob, who leaped up the trail to catch up. I jogged up behind and then heard the squeel of a baby pig! George had found a baby pig in the middle of the trail, and with surprisingly fast reflexes, had caught it. He was holding it by the snout and laughing when I caught up, and he tied it up in his shirt while I nervously looked around for mom. George told me not to worry, but decided that it would be best it he made me a spear, just in case.
From there, it was just a short way to the top. It was cloudy and foggy too, but the wind felt great. Then the fog began to lift, and the view was amazing! Although I couldn't see the whole island, I could see from past the Lelu causeway down past Malem and around Utwe out to the mangrove channels past Saklem. I felt bad for not bringing my video camera, but not bad enough to want to lug it up those trails. I got some photos of the scenery, and of all of us at the top. Then we ate the doughnuts and tangerines I had brought up with us. After spending a half hour at the top, George pointed out the clouds that were overtaking Mt. Finkol and would bring rain our way. We decided to head down. It only took us 2 hours to get down, much faster than the ascent.

then....

After that experience in the library on Friday, I hung out at the peace corps lounge to vent some frustrations. Some high school kid had stolen the stick I use to hit dogs when I am riding the bike, so I didn't feel like riding home. When I got home by cab at 10:30, Hilman was just arriving with his brother, Georgie. They whipped out a dish of meat steaming in a sweet white sauce. It was freshwater eel cooked in a copra sauce, and it was actually quite delicious.

On Saturday I hired the "best" local guide, Tadeo (Tah-dow) Wakuk, to take me out through the mangrove channels to walung, up finkol river, and to look for monitor lizards. He has a battered-but-wonderful outrigger, hooked up to an outboard. It rides pretty low on the water, but we went slow so as not to splash any water near my camera. I got some good footie of the channels, but a storm had knocked some trees into the channel and stopped our progress to Walung. No lizards either. Tadeo is very knowlegable about local stories and plants, and showed me the local soap, visine, and antacid.

Did I mention that my host family is pentecostal? Well, they asked me to come to church with them and film, saving me the chore of asking them. I did not really know what to expect, but what I experienced was not it. It was the most spirited and fun church service I'd ever been to (mind you that is 1 out of 6 services I've been to). Everybody was singing, and going nuts about it too. People were crying, standing and holding their arms up high. The music was amplified and was louder than most concerts I've been to, and there was improvisational keyboard music during the sermon. (kind of like a bass behind a stand-up comic... kind-of) The youth group even did a few dance numbers, for my benefit apparently. I had a great time.

That pretty much wraps it up to now... Not much else to do on Sundays. The kids watched lilo and stitch, and I got some more reading done with my Thor Heyerdahl book. Blog-out. Love to everybody back home.
Randanger

p.s. I'm not gonna mention any more songs, in an effort to avoid any more strange coincidences. That said, I'm going "Bye, Bye Bye", "Up in Da Club" because "U Can't touch This".

Posted by Randy Thompson at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

SO.... um, first off let me tell you a little story.

You see, I was out in the cornfield the other day, don't ask for details, but I heard this strange voice calling me. "If you Blog it, They will Com.........ment."
Personally, I don't believe it, since I only got one comment on my last blog. It's not like I'm fishing for feedback, but here is some bait.

Anyway, so, what have I been up to?

I just got back from Yela, which is the world's last Ka forest. The Ka is a Micronesian form of terminalia which is very threatened. I went with Moses and Robert from the Development Review Commision, and Kerick tagged along. It is in the unihabited part of the island on the west coast between the airport and Walung. We had to take a boat from Okat Harbor, and then hike through a deep mangrove swamp to get there. I had my camera in one hand and my feet up to the ankles in mud, but I got a little good footage. I say a little because that's all I got. I let Kerick borrow my camera yesterday to edit some of the conference footage, and he didn't return it last night like he said he would. I didn't have it last night, so I never got a chance to check and charge the batteries and they ran out just after I started filming in the forest. ARGHHHH!!!!!! He had changed the display settings too, so that I had no idea that the battery was so low, so I have about 5 minutes of boatride, 3 of the walk through the swamp, and only 2 of the beginnings of the Ka, and river we walked across to get into the forest. It is Ok though. I still have time to go back and get more of the forest. I am just going to be more anal about keeping my camera with me and being more prepared. Let that be a lesson to all of you about preparation! The Forest was amazing though. The Ka block out so much light that there is almost nothing growing on the ground except their colossal roots. Also, there is just something about the journey out there that was very satisfying. I think it's probably the tromping through the mud. The whole trip reminded me of long treks through the woods in the valley back home, with nothing but a machete and lunch. Oh, except that it's tropical here. Moses and Robert also showed me the three possibilites of a road that will go through the forest, too. It's sad to think that someday soon there will no longer be any place like this anywhere. The people at the DRC have their work cut out for them saving this place.

Um, this weekend I met some more americans. There was a small group of Air Force pilots from Japan who were on a training mission flying to unfamiliar airports, finding lodging, and refueling. They were at the peace corp lounge when I went there on Saturday night. One of them told me that just one day here made him feel very claustrophobic. I laughed, but agreed.

I got new digs!

I am no longer on Lelu Island. I moved to Malem last night, in with Meltina's one-armed cousin, Hilman George. Their family is big, 8 kids in two houses, and they are Pentecostal, which is pretty rare in a largely Protestant Congregational Island. It's weird to think that I've been here for all this time, a month, and this was my first night actually spent on Kosrae. More on this later.

What else...

Um, let me think. A little more corespondance with some american companies trying to order some stuff for kerick. He is trying to start up a business doing video work on the island, in order to privatize his government job. He wrote up a business proposal, and is going to get a small business loan. It is just very hard to get equipment out here. Plus, it's no help that there are only P.O. Boxes out here and UPS and FedEX do NOT ship to those. Oh well, we'll figure something out.

Blog out. I've got a long bike ride from here to Malem, and I don't know which dogs are friendly along the way.
-Randango

Posted by Randy Thompson at 05:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

So, um, what kinda car did you get?

I got a Bitchin' HUFFY!

Ok, so maybe it's not a car, but I have been trying to get one this entire trip. I picked it up from Kerick's son Junior today. It a little small, and I had to fix the gears, but now I got WHEELS!! It's funny, because it seems that all the islanders have cars, and only one of the Japanese volunteers, one of the Peace Corps, and now I ride bikes. Eat your heart out Luke. There aren't even any hills. Now I just need to find a way to fix the breaks.

Oh, and I need to keep a rock in my pocket to throw at the dogs. Sorry, Ariella. Nobody would want to pet the dogs here. There is no distinction here between stray and pet. They're all dinner eventually. I've nearly been bit several times.

Posted by Randy Thompson at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Silent Sunday, and 3 days of Bull-shitting, all in Kosraen. 3/11

I've been kinda busy this week, and am very much ready for a break. It all started on Friday, when I was working with Kerick in the morning.

I really like Kerick. He's the camera guy I had mentioned before. He works for the Historical Preservation Office in a little room in the back of the museaum. He is like a micronesian hybrid of Doug Dirkson and Paul Weilandt, two people I worked for back home. (for those of you know those too, you'll agree with me at what an odd mix that is) We worked on his computer, and I was able to show him how to best use his hard-drives for editing. Previously he had been editing only on a 15 gig internal hd, but I showed him how to use his 80 gig main drive. Then I went home for lunch. I ran into my Host mom Meltina, who told me that there was a wedding that afternoon, and that I should go and film it. It sounded like a good idea, except that I had told Kerick that I would go with him to the library to help him shop for some equipment. That, and it was in Tafunsak and I couldn't convince Freddy to give me a ride because he was too busy Cockfighting. So instead I went to Tofol to meet with Kerick. We went to the library, but it turns out that they close early on Fridays, contrary to the sign on the door. At least they have a sign.

I've been eating at this place called Big Al's, the one restaurant that isn't in one of the hotels, and there is no sign what-so-ever that it's there. In fact, you have to go through a lawer's office to get there. Somebody had told me about it, and it actually took me three different trips to find it. It's weird that in a small town like this people can't give better directions. I'm just glad that there is a restaurant in Tofol at all. On Friday i ate with this peace corp named Tyler, who is a teacher out in Walung, the village that has no electricity, and no road to. He was in town to have a meeting with his higher ups in the Peace Corps because hebroke peace corps law and had a letter he wrote published in the micronesian paper. In the letter he criticised local education policy-makers. He had the choice of either hand-delivering a written apology, or being sent home.

Anyway..... after the Library, I told Kerick about the wedding, and he told me that he was going, but that he has heard it was later. I told him that Meltina had said it started at 2:00, and it was already 2:40. We scrambled back to his office in the back of the museaum, and called his wife who had the car. She picked us up, and we raced (in Kosrae that means going 30 mph, unless you're a taxi driver where that means about 50) to Tafunsak to catch the wedding. Like Meltina had said, It had started at 2:00, so we were just in time to get some free bread and watch the newlyweds shake a bunch of hands.

Kerick told me that this was all OK, because the best part was the reception, where we headed next. It was at Camp Driscoll, which up until this year had been a US Marines Camp, but had been turned over to locals, who now live in the dorms and rent the big hangers to events. There was a local dj, of sorts, who played a few songs on his keyboard and sang, and then the bride and groom smashed cake into their parents mouths. The bride was dressed up in a white dress, and the groom was wearing his military uniform. Being in the US Armed Forces is considered to be a very good job out here.
Then 2 lines formed for the food. Like in church, the men were on the right, and the women on the left. There were PILES of food. And I got to eat off of a plate like the ones I made for the Japanese tourists. When you are in line for food, it is nearly impossible to refuse anything. The people serving just load up your plate no matter what you say, and everybody ends up with pounds of food. I was barely able to make a dent in my pile.
While at the Reception, to my surprise, I met some fellow Washingtonians. There were 4 STA teachers there, all about my age, three of which are from Walla Walla. We made plans to hang out sometime down the line.

Kerick chose this time to let me know that he was having problems with his camera. Serious problems. We agreed to work on them on Saturday Morning.

So.........
Saturday morning.
I spent probably 3 hours trying to figure out how to fix Kerick's camera, which had suddenly decided to stop doing any playback. I don't know what exactly I did either, but I was able to fix it. The heads are still filthy, and we are ordering a head-cleaner. On the plus-side, I can now claim to be a semi-expert on the menus of a PD-150. great.

He told me about a Leadership conference on Monday too, and we decided to try to get two cameras on it.

That afternoon I had planned on making oom with freddy, the traditional food in banana leaves cooked underground that it seems almost all Pacific Islands have a version of, but instead Kerick took me with his family to his parent's house in Utwe for a party. His parents left on Monday for Kentucky to stay with his younger brother who's in the military. They have a traditional thatched roof cookhouse that we ate in, in the middle of a killer storm. We stayed till after 10, which is extremely late in Kosraen terms, while the family gave advice. At one point Kerick turned to me and said, "Now we are going to stand up and sing." so i stood up. I had no idea what the song was though. I was able to pick out a "jesus halleluiah" somewhere in the chorus, so I sang that one time. More of Randy The Dancing Bear in action.

On the drive back there was a full moon. That means that it's the time of the coconut crab. All over the roads, hundreds of crabs decide that this is the time to party, or risk their life by crossing the road. There are usually some out at night, but by full moon they look like trails of ants as they march around.

Sunday in Kosrae was another Sunday. Nothing to do except go to church. You're not allowed to work. Not allowed to snorkel. No stores are open. Streets are empty. Just an entire Island full of creepy silence and long afternoon naps. Traditionally, people are not allowed to make smoke on sunday either, that's why Kosraen soup and oom is so popular, because it is made the day before.

On Monday I got up at 7 so that I could prepare for the conference. I didn't really know what to expect. I went out to the cookhouse for breakfast. Sometime last week, Meltina made some Kosraen Pancakes. I told her that they were good, and kinda like crepes, so now whenever i get up, there is a plate in the cookhouse waiting for me with a pile of pancakes on it. sometimes they are even rolled up with powdered sugar in the middle. Kerick picked me up at 8:00 for the 9:00 conference. Leadership conference........... When i heard Leadership conference, I thought that it would just be a bunch of the the local leaders meeting and talking to kids or something, but it turns out its probably the most important political conference of the year. Representatives from a bunch of different delegations (executive, legislative, private sector, health, judicial, womens, senior citizens, national, and church) all meet and discuss the major policies of the state and nation. It was broadcast live on the radio, and most people in the state listen. There are presentations by all the major groups like tourism, agriculture, education, etc. and then long debate over what to do about each sector, and long-term goals of each sector. Lots and lots of Political Talk. All in Kosraen. It was very hard for me to film, since I don't know enough Kosraen to know when somebody's about to be done talking, or who they're passing the floor to. It's really weird, because all the written stuff, and all the powerpoint presentations were in english (some in better english than others) but apart from a man from chuuk, a guy from the states sent to make the budget accountable, and a doctor from India working for the agricultural center, all the talking was in kosraen. Well, mostly kosraen, a lot of english words and phrases broke through.
The conference was held in the main Government building, in the atrium. there were a bunch of tables set up conference style, with chairs behind the seats for assistants and lesser members of the commitees. The room was charged with power, and you could tell, just by body language who was in control. At the beginning of each day, a group of women brought out leis and put them on the heads of all the important people present. I got one on the third day of filming. the same women continued to serve food throughout the entire conference, bowing while they walked.
Not surprisingly, the most heated discussion happened during the presentation by the women's delegations, when several of the people in the room would simply not take them seriously. At one point, when they were reviewing plans to build a center for victims of domestic abuse, the chief justice said, "Is that Kosraen?" to the laughter and approval of many.
All in all, they were very tiring days, with over 7 hours of active conference a day. I'm very glad that I was able to experience the conference, because even though I didn't always know what was being said, I now have a much better understanding of Kosraen Government. I also met a lot of "very important people" a lot of whom offered their assistance in my project.

Yesterday, after finishing and getting back home, I went to go get a rat trap. On the way, I was greeted by my pohnpeian construction worker friends who asked me to join them again for sakau. I said, "Yes, I think I've earned it this week."
They are very friendly, and they told me that they were my teachers, and that I was in need of their "informal education". They invited me back tonight for more sakau and mangrove crab.

Today, I came into town after sleeping in. Is it possible to have a hangover from sakau? I didn't have a headache, I was just very sluggish. I had agreed to meet Meltina's brother, Simpson, at his office in the Development Review Commission to help train some of his employees with the video equipment that is collecting dust in their office. He agreed in return to take me into the pristine forests and preserves of Kosrae, some of the best spots in terms of nature. Simpson wasn't there when I arrived. Apparently he had the same idea that i did last night, drank too much beer, and called in sick. So I met with some of his employees instead, and I think that they are now confident in using the computer to edit, and with filming.

Well, that's all I'm gonna write today. I am going to take a much needed nap, and then go to a peace corps birthday.
love to all of youse back in the mainland and my island,
Randig-it

Posted by Randy Thompson at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So, I was all set to move in with the kibby family on monday. this was good, except that sometimes they are hard to reach, which is frustrating. I figured that I would be moving in around 4 or 5, i mean, Freddy has a car and no job: it should be a quick and easy thing right? well, I tried calling a few times, and i figured that i should just walk over there to see if anybody was around, because they have a cookhouse across the street, and they don't always answer the phone. So I'm walking to the kibby's house ( a short walk, they live on Lelu island as well) and someone yells at me from a yard somewhere "Hey! What are you doing? Come over here!" but in a friendly way. I was a little skeptical since the same thing happened last week, except that last week, after hanging out for a while with them, a fight almost broke out because they were all drunk and somebody didn't like the fact that some of them were speaking english to an ahset. But, curiosity always wins, and so i went over to the yard to see what was happening. Someone asked me if I wanted some Sakau (seka in Kosraen, Kava elsewhere). I told them that i didn't think that kosraens drank sakau anymore, but they explained that weren't kosraen. they were pohnpeians who had come over for construction work. actually, they were meltina kibby's host family in pohnpei. the ritual was fascinating. they had a large sekau stone in a kind of shed and were pounding the sekau root on it. then they placed the poundings on a bunch of tied hibiscus reeds, twisting them up in a certain way, and draining the twistings into a coconut. It was very strong.

on a side note, I heard a story about micronesian kava from a taxi driver named junior. (not such-and-such jr., his first name is junior. it's a pretty common name. I may have mentioned it before, but I love the names here. historically the surname was the fathers name, so there is not really any sense of first and last names. for example: Moses Henry, Nena Mike, Windon Clarence, and Salik Salik. There are 3 different Nena Nenas in the phone book, as well as a Zorro. A peace corp said she has a student named Steely Dan and i've also heard rumors of a Bruce Lee.) The story goes that historically there was no sekau in any of micronesia except for Kosrae, where they had lots and it was very strong. The pohnpeians were jealous, and they wanted to come and get some, but they couldn't figure out how. Then a pohnpeian woman cut up some root, hid it in her vagina, and smuggled it back to pohnpei. To this day the sekau in pohnpei is weaker and has a bad smell.

Anyway, after I left the Pohnpeians, i found Meltina. She said that i should just get a taxi to move. On weekends and most nights, the younger kibbys and neighbors usually sleep up on the concrete roof of the house where it's cooler, so on that first night i went up to the roof. The neighbors were up, playing guitar and singing. I was the only one of 5 who could not play guitar, so i sang a little. It was actually kind of creepy, their song selection. I'll never be able to listen to "Take me Home, County Road" without hearing a Kosraen accent.

3/5 So, apparently there was trouble with this entry, so I'm gonna try to make it work.

So...
My host brother, Freddy, is a mystery. He's on a break from college, and doesn't have a job. Now before you go and say "that sounds like somebody I know named Rand...," Mom, I would just like to say that nobody seems to know what he does. His family wonders too. He does make money though, by selling chickens he catches on the hill behind his house. There are lots of what are considered farm animals on the island, but the source of them is not from other farmers. If you want a chicken or a pig, you have to find somebody like Freddy, who will go through the jungle and catch you a wild one.
Now with this "hobby", as Meltina calls it, there is the result that on any given day, Freddy has four or five roosters in pens outside the house. (Roosters that don't like to sleep in. It's the most annoying quadraphonic alarm clock I've ever experienced.) A popular sport on Kosrae is Cockfighting. Freddy loves it. Actually, it seems that most of the people who live on my side of lelu do. Only they aren't doing it for money. Freddy says that he used to when he was younger, but now he only does it for fun.
So, I got thrust into watching my first cockfight yesterday, when i was inside trying to study some Kosraen. (I've got a collection of handouts big enought to fill a book, only they are sometimes conflicting, and mostly written by missionaries. For example, on one list of "common phrases" the progression goes something like: Hello. Good Morning. Thank you. What is your name? I am 20 years old. I love Kosrae. Is anybody home? Lets pray together. I know that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God. Do you want to be Baptised(date, time)? I want to drink coconuts!) Nando, my host brother, ran in to get me. "Come and watch the Cockfights!" I was intrigued. I went out and across the street, next to the cookhouse, there was a small crowd assembled around two roosters, who were circling each other. It was a weird experience. I had only seen small clips of cockfights in movies and those don't really prepare you for a real one. It seemed that it was very slow, and not that violent. The roosters circled, and pecked at each other. It wasn't until it was over and someone said "that was a bloody one" that i saw the blood oozing out of the backs, necks, legs, and frills of the cocks. I told Nando that it wasn't as exciting as I had expected and he told me to wait for another one.
I saw the next one from the beginning, and it was much more intense. The cocks are dropped next to each other, and instantly they jump and kick, dodge and peck, and move all around. The second fight was much quicker, and there was a much more obvious victor.
All in all, there were probaby 8 or 9 fights, some cocks going again and again. The owners had great pride in their cocks too. One man, who I later learned was named Stynson, called his the "Lord of the Ring" which was received with howls of laughter. It had won two fights in a row, and was almost untouched, but the rest of the crowd would not let this comment go unanswered. They brought out more cocks, and more people kept leaving and driving up with more people holding more roosters. Eventually the "lord" began to lose, and then people began to tease Stynson.
I don't know exactly what to think of the fights. Everyone is so protective of their rooster, and pet and hold them, and then they release them to tear at each other until one bloody cock runs away, and the other struts around. I'm glad I got to see it though. Freddy told me that one of these days we'll go up on the hill and catch some roosters.

There, that's shorter isn't it?
Bloggeroony-
Randy

Posted by Randy Thompson at 06:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

i don't know why, but i've kept coming back to this library to try and catch my blog up to date, but i never even come close. i think the problem is that i've been writing between 2 and 7 pages a day in my journals, and i am only managing to scrape the surface of this with the time i have at the computer. not that that's a bad thing, i don't really want to spend more time here than i already am.

so....

as i said before, THE JAPANESE.

I got up at about 7:10 on monday morning, after setting my watch to 6:00. (I figured out how to set the alarm on my $5 target watch so i can wake up, but i inadvertantly set the watch to beep on the hour, every hour, and it's driving me CRAZY!) it was raining, and i worried that it wouldn't clear up in time for the japanese kids, and their "cultural event". I ate a quick breakfast of stale Apple Jacks and reconstituted evaporated milk. I need to get a place with a kitchen!

the japanese weren't due into the KVB (kosrae visitors beureau) until 10:30, so i figured that i would have plenty of time to go to tofol, and check my e-mail. i had asked my buddy HART to try to translate the standard release form into japanese so that it would be nice and kosher for me to film these guys. sounds simple right? well, i hailed a cab as the rain stopped and went to the library to get a library card and to print out a master of the permission form to take to the print shop. the only problem was that hart sent the form as an e-mail, not as an attachment, and the computers here don't speak japanese. I asked the facilitators to try to help, but they didn't know, and the computer wouldn't let me download the japanese language patch because i didn't have administrator access. turns out that the people working in the library didn't have access either. they offered to let me use their computers in the back room, but that was no use either. those actuall had some sort of physical lock on the hard drive to prevent tampering. I figured that i would have to try some newer computer, so i went to talk to madison at the peace corps office, where i had left my camera, and he took me around looking for the japanese volunteer. that didn't pan out either. even the phone company couldn't help me. they had the japanese support, but no printer that i could use. i had been doing this for an hour and a half, and i was running out of time!
so, i figured that if the japanese kids were in college, they might, possibly, on the off-side chance speak a little english, so i ended up just printing the original release forms.
god, i don't think i resemble a dancing bear to these people, more like a sprinting headless chicken. oh well.
so, at 11:15, the busses began to arrive. three big yellow school busses, packed to the gills with trendy Japanese college students. they began to pour out into the KVB and fill the bleachers. the majority were wearing faded jeans or shorts, and shirts with rediculous combinations of english words like "#1 hero star" or "cowboy rider" This was my time to begin, so i had my camera ready, and began to shoot japanese like i was a WW2 pilot.
they were a very mixed group. i hadn't expected them to be so young. it seemed as if most of them were 19 or 20, and most of them had the mandatory camera around the neck. the cameras were small though. tiny. trendy tiny. there were maybe 20 0r 30 Kosraens there as well, mostly older, and they sat in groups and quietly watched the kids as they goofed around.
pretty soon the "cultural event" began. Grant from the KVB began to talk, and he introduced all of the leaders of kosrae that were there. the governor gave a short speach, welcoming the japanese and encouraging them to tell their friends back home about how wonderful kosrae is, so that more will come and visit.
i hadn't realized it before, but this was the largest group of foreigners to visit kosrae since it was a japanese base in WW2. it was the first cruise ship to ever visit. i was just lucky to be there at this momentous occasion.
so, then the kids wer told to wander around and observe the kosraens who were in the huts next door as they pounded taro, wove baskets, and carved model canoes. there was another guy filming all this. a kosraen. I found out his name is Kerick Benjamin, and he films all of the local events. I made an appointment to meet with him and talk about volunteering. He was shooting with a well-used PD-150.
After about another half-an-hour, lunch was announced, and a monstrous line formed out of the KVB to the tables where there were mounds of Kosraen food. During lunch there was a demonstration of fishing with nets and three little girls told the story of how kosrae was created.
I decided that i would try to get an interview, so i started talking to some of the students. for the most part, their english was very poor, but then i found the american language tutors. They told me to get on the bus with them to the marine park in Utwe, and they would introduce me to some of the students who speak english more fluently.

so, I got on the bus.

the bus ride was one of the weirdest experiences of the day. I sat next to the young nurse of the cruise, behind the language tutors. There were two tutors, a 30ish man and a 60ish woman. After talking to the woman a bit I realised that she did not speak very good english either. her pronunciation was perfect, and she had no accent, but living in japan had reduced her vocabulary to a fraction of what you might expect. she had to keep asking the other tutor the english words for things. stranger than that was the rest of the group. after about a minute of driving, about a quarter of them were asleep. a minute later and 3/4ths were, with their heads bobbing in tune with the bumps in the road. now, the trip to the marine park is long in kosrae standards: it's on the other side of the island, and all of the roads are coastal. however, it is still only about a 25-30 minute drive. a drive that is very beautiful. a drive that most of those kids will never get a chance to see again. i'm not sure if it was just because these kids had been up all night, or if they were so trained to sleeping on japanese public transportation that it was nearly impossible for them to be simultaneously awake and on a moving bus for longer than a few minutes. even when the pavement stopped, and the road became full of potholes and bordered by swamp, the majority of the kids were still sleeping.

once we arrived at the park, the tutors, true to their word, helped me round up a few english speaking kids. I took them away from the main croud for an interview, whih went pretty well considering the language barrier. I told them that if they felt better answering in japanese, i would try to translate it when i got home. this seemed to make them feel more confident, and even seemed to improve their english. the interview was short however, it was just too hard to communicate for any length of time. so i turned off the camera and played some frisbee.
on the way back, the bus stopped in malem. someone had the idea that they should walk through the town, or something. it was a hot day. i decided that i would rather have a shower and a beer than walk with all of my equipment, so i hitched a ride back to lelu. i would see them again. there was supposed to be a street fair that night.

after the shower and nap, i headed back to tofol to the fair. i asked some of the people about it, and they told me that it was the first of it's kind on kosrae. the intention had been to have something like a giant barter fair/flea market so that locals could trade goods. however, the date had been changed when it was learned that the japanese would be there, and it ended up as being about 10 booths of carvings, hot dogs, and woven mats.
did i mention the entertainment?
there was to be a load of local and japanese entertainment for the crowd. the booths were set up around a kind-of outdoor stage, and around the edge of the booths were bleachers. if you sat on the bleachers and wanted to see anything, you had to look through the booths. the entertainment was music blasting from the track PA system (the first song was a liminal, polka version of margaritaville) and dancing by church groups. Grant was the emcee and kept promising a "special surprise" later on. the surprise turned out to be an overweight kindergartner with downs-syndrome, dressed up like a girl, dancing a woman's dance with his grandmother. I didn't understand that they were mocking him, i assumed that he was supposed to be dressed like a sumo wrestler for the benefit of the japanese kids. apparently, they love to humiliate him.
the japanese kids did a song and dance number too. i was told that they had been up all night practicing it, and that was why they were so sleepy on the bus. it ended up with a vontrapesqe goodbye as they retreated to the buses that would take them home.

all in all, it was a long day.

I know that this entry might seem a little garbled. I wrote it in three parts, and in three different moods. I'll try to do a better job of catching up to date in my next entry. Here's the short story-did a bunch of exploring, got offered a home-stay(finally), got called "howli" by a drunk and had to leave a party, and went to church.

blog out-
randy

Posted by Randy Thompson at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Ha HA!!!! if any of you are having trouble finding internet access, try the school or the library (and if you're like me, they're the same thing). i bought a library card for a dollar, and so now i can use any of the unused library computers for FREE! well, that is assuming that it's open. but I'll take any victory I can.

so....
um....
as i was saying last time, i was cruising around the northern towns of the island bumping over-bassed hip-hop, and maybe i felt a little guilty. i decided that i would go check out the peace corps office to see if there were any projects that maybe i could help a little with. not anything too big, you know, just maybe a few hours a few days a week. so I hitched back to tofol and talked to the head honcho at the peace corps, a guy named Madison. i explained my project and asked if there was anything that i could help with, given my skills. he laughed and said "well, you definately won't get bored!" he told me that on monday there was going to be a "cultural demonstration" for a japanese cruise ship. A JAPANESE CRUISE SHIP! he said that i should probably start by filming that. i said "cool!"
on my way out, the blond peace corp girl, Molly, told me that if I wanted to start earlier than that, that I could help make traditional plates out of palm and banana leaves on saturday. she said that it would probably get me some beer too, so I agreed wholeheartedly.
on saturday freddy never showed up. I called his house, and meltina said he was out working on the farm. I was under the impression that freddy doesn't work so often, so that this was a good thing for him to be doing, so i decided that i would do some shopping. there aren't any big stores anywhere on the island, and all of the little ones, few and far between little ones, have such random collections of canned meats, crackers, and electric transformers that i wanted to do a little window shopping to see what was available. not too much, but there were some surprises. Kosrae sits in a weird dietary bubble, like most of micronesia, in that it gets old, bad junk food from the east and the west. a lot of stuff from malaysia. not good stuff, but lots of it none-the-less. there ae some of the foods that i like to get when i go to uwajimaya. exotic stuff in america, like good canned coffee and kimchee. japanese bean crackers and
those little jelly candies that kids choke on. of course it all is very expensive too, so most people eat spam and ramen. ramen and spam. and to spice it up a little, spam in ramen. there are coconuts and breadfruits on the ground all over the place just rotting away while packs of second graders wander around eating beef stew flavor packets.
food here is weird, actually, i think i could write a few entries about it, so I'll save that for another day and get back to saturday when I went to the KVB (kosrae visitors bureau (sp?)) to weave plates. i hadn't realized that there were 13 peace corp volunteers here. there are a few japanese volunteers too. the plates were easy, the problem was that there were not enough palm fronds to weave. there was only enough for about 50 plates. i only had time to make 2 before they ran out, because they had been working on them for a while before i got there.
i like the peace corps kids, well, the ones i've met so far. they invited me back to one of their appartments for pizza and more beer. I never say no to pizza, especially when i don't have any way to cook back at the hotel. i had to buy the beer because it is considered culturally inappropriate for women to. The gender politics here are pretty old-fashioned. The men get drunk and cruise around at night, but the women are supposed to always stay at home and not parade themselves around. I'm always surprised at just how much everyone drives here! But that's another entry in itself, again.
On sunday, the sabbath, i didn't go to church. I felt that since this is still my "resting" week, i would save it for the following sunday. Besides, I have the feeling that it's better to spread out the surprises here.
so, um......
instead of going to church, i finally went around the block and into lelu ruins. All of you Island All-Stars remember oliver sack's description of Nan Madol on Pohnpei, right? well, the lelu ruins are just as big and old, and they are much easier to get to. they're CRAZY cool. before european contact, Kosrae had a comlex feudal system, with 5 different strata of social class. all of the lower royalty and the King lived on Lelu in a giant compound. there were hundreds of rooms, giant walls made of stacked basalt logs, canals that flowed with the tide, and paved coral streets. i've gone back there every day since the first. it's amazing, and very close. it is the kind of place you imagine hiking through miles of jungle to find, but it's surrounded by houses. the place is full of lizards, geckos, crabs, ants, wild chickens and pigs, and those fish that walk on their fins. the thing about the ruins is that the jungle is so thick that you can't see it from the road, even when it's only about 50 feet away. I can't wait to start filming it.

Coming Soon: Randy and THE JAPANESE!

Posted by Randy Thompson at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Ah HA! so i think the best thing here is for me to just write down a segment of my journal, so all'a y'all can read what I've been up to.

6:02 pm 2/20
Things change. Things change quickly. Today was different (thankfully) from the last, and tommorow will probably be different as well. This morning, well, yeah morning, my time is still mixed up from the jet-lag, I got up at maybe 7:00 (the sun gets up and goes down around 6:00)... I walked out to Thurston's Enterprise to get a phone card. turns out that Norris works there too. ( i found out that his father was the first mayor of kosrae, and that his name is not norris thompson, but norston siba, his wife's last name is thompson. So if any of you are having language related communication difficulties don't feel bad. I'm confused, and I'm speaking in english.2/21) came home and called my mom. actually, i was confused momentarily about what the time difference was and i thought that it was saturday there, so i called home. nope, it is a day behind there, so i got the machine. oops. hey-ohhhh. then i called her at school and that worked.
Then, um....
I went to tofol to get some more leads on a homestay. I talked to the blond girl at the tourist information center, and to Grant, the guy who runs the place. they gave me some good info. I am very happy that this will probably work out for me eventually.
So, after that in tofol, i hitched a ride back to Lelu with a man named Nene Tolenoa who offered his help with the film. He owns his own business, but used to study broadcast journalism in Hawaii. He had his own radio show there and one back here on the island. He will probably be a great resource.
After that I tried to snorkel. Stupid American that I am, I tried to do it when the tide was very low. the waves pounded me against the coral, and i cut my foot and lost a fin. I was just too gung-ho to early. If i had waited, i would have been able to go in an incredibly high tide only a few hours later. the tide got so high that it swept coconuts onto the road. but i'll gegt to that later.
I had hitched a ride with a nice yapese man who was on kosrae for a few days to work with the marine center where they grow the 6-foot clams. he works for the fsm government, and told me that he was considered as much of a nuisance on the island as tourists like me. He was chewing betelnut the entire time.

When i got back to lelu, i called the woman at the customs office, Meltina Kibby, son Freddy. He said he'd come and show me around. He is a tall African-American-Kosraen who was born in Texas and looks suprisingly like Dr. Benton from ER. We talked and I found out hee likes hip-hop, so we hooked up Kelley's MD player, and the one music MD that I accidentaly brought with me to his jerry-rigged car stereo, and cruised around blasting loud, loud gangstar, doug e. fresh, and morcheeba all around Tafunsak and Lelu. I'm not sure if i made too many friends doing this. When he took me back, he invited me to dinner and said that he would show me around the ruins the next day.

After that I called the peace corp to see about any possible places i could volunteer while I'm here. Oh shoot. that's my hour. well, I don't want to spend another 4 dollars today, i'll continue later.

Oh, and sorry to all of the islands listserv, and to curt. I did not read that jon's reply was to the entire class, and so I just assumed that I would be replying to him. If that makes me a giant hippocrite, I am terribly sorry. It won't happen again.

Blog out!
Randy

Posted by Randy Thompson at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Hey y'all, the internet here is $4 dollars an hour, so I'm gonna hafta make this quick.... I'm here, and it's hot. the end.

nah, just kidding. but it is hot here though. I just waited for about 40 minutes for a 50 cent taxi ride to get here, to the phone company in Tofol. I'm staying about 3 miles away on lelu island at the tradewind hotel. turns out it's owned by a thompson. norris thompson. its a sweet little place right across the street from the water. i got there at about 1:00, after the incredibly nice lady at the immigrations desk arranged a ride for me. Turns out she just called norris. anyway, everbody i've met has been incredibly helpful and friendly. while i was jotting down my first impressions of the place one of the contractors who are working on the hotel took a break to grab a machete to cut down a coconut for me to drink.

it does kinda seem that island time is universal. I might just stop wearing my watch. It's not like it's a new thing though, whidbey for sure operates on a different schedule than the rest of the world, so why should here be any different.

I don't know if any of you are feeling the same way as me, but i can bet that at least a few others are wondering what the hell they're doing on an island. a remote island. it's ok though, cause then i just think back to our class and say, um.....
well......
i"m studying.

hope all of you are having a blast.
-randy

Posted by Randy Thompson at 05:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Soooo.......... i'm up at 11:33 and i am done packing. took a little longer than expected. oh well. my flight leaves at 8:40, so i probably wouldn't have been able to sleep either way. 8:40. yeah. for those of you versed in things that are whidbey, that means the 4:40 boat. yeah. that is now only 5 hours and 5 minutes away.

If you look very closely at this picture, you'll see the scale tipping at 255. I feel like I am the heaviest light-packer alive. but there was just no way that i could possibly go without that extra five pounds of trail mix, and what if i should bring another sweatshirt? oh no! i forgot to put the snorkel and fins in the big bag, i'll hafta rearrange........ yeah you get the drift. that is a fairly accurate summary of what i did today. it was a long day.

That, and I was on the phone 3 times with Royal Camera. People be Warned: they have great prices on cameras, but don't be suckered into buying their accessories. they will lie repeatedly and send you the wrong stuff. I hate those punk-ass theives. STAY AWAY!! I'm gonna have to deal with the better business bureau of brooklyn when I get back.

so, i re-discovered yesterday that i have an 18 hour lay-over in hawaii. you know i really should have checked that out a while ago. S'OK though. i checked in with my old pal Casey Tornga at the Star Store in Langley and he told me that this girl i kinda knew from the island was no longer living in Seattle with some of my friends from high school, but was in fact living in Honolulu. a friend of a friend is most definately a good friend of mine, so i called her and she offered me a place to stay. man, i love it when connections actually pull through! let me give a shout out to Molly in hawaii! you rock.

so.....

leaving.......

thoughts on this....

hmmmm.......

yeah, i think i'm ready. hell, i felt ready a few months ago. this has been the longest wait for a trip i have ever had. SO much planning. i'm kinda beat at this point. i've had two nights in a row where i was up till 3:30 working on leaving. one packing my stuff to move out of J-dorm, and the other the beginnings of packing today. i'd probably be up till 3:30 again tonight, except, what would be the point? i'd be leaving an hour later.

flying... i used to like flying when i was a kid. it was fun. take off and landing are kinda like a rollercoaster, there are cool views, and you get toys and fast food. i was probably pretty obnoxious on the plane back then.... one of those kids i fear i am going to sit in front of. the kid with the ball who loves to bang the lunch tray around. your seat is like a playground! but then you get big. and the seats got smaller. then i hated flying. it kinda sucks being tall on an airplane. there was a time when i was way down on flying. flying and airports. if you've ever slept in an airport, you know what i mean. there are not really any comfortable places, you can smell the cinnabon from any spot inside the airport, and as Walter said, you can never escape the tv's.

now i'm not so sure how i feel about airports. they are one of the only real consistently great places to people watch. most everybody goes to the airport at some point, and it usually seems like they're all there when i am. rich people, veiled people, those really, really obese people that hardly leave the house. and there are always at least a few cute girls. I just need to reconcile that with my squashed in the upright position knees, and i would totally dig air travel again. and the vegetarian meals are getting better.

hey! i just had a thought. do you get free drinks on international flights? i can't remember. I hope so. a mai-tai would be a nice way to kick-off my 32 odd hours of travel. or maybe i'll make it a bloody mary. that would be a fitting end to the waiting part of this class, and a nice throwback to good ol' Thurston Clarke and South Pacific.

Oh, and I figured after all that talk of my camera, I should show you folks a sneak peek at it. I'm totally stoked to bring this with me.

Well, with that said, or, rather, kind-of rambled, i am going to bed. when i wake up, i will be leaving on a grand adventure. i can't think of a better fate to wish on anyone, so i hope all of you have the journeys you have dreamed of. I'm off to dream mine. and, if i'm still dreaming when i get back, please don't wake me.
blogging off-
randy

Posted by Randy Thompson at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

God, what to do while waiting for my camera? this wait is KILLING ME! i ordered a panasonic ag-dvx100a for my trip on wednesday, and was told it would be here either on saturday or today(monday). so i have been waiting like a kid before christmas.....

only without all the holiday food and cookies to distract me.

i suppose i should be working on other preparations for my trip, but i can't seem to shake the visions of leica lenses that are dancing through my head. looking for some distraction today i tried to google my site. Jeremy had said that he was able to, so...

i typed in "Randy Thompson" in the field and did the standard search. Wow. a lot of stuff, but no THIS randy. i probably shouldn't be surprised really. when i was 6 and i got my first library card at the sno-isle library in langley, the nice, old, bespeckled lady behind the desk told me that i was the sixth "Randy Thompson" in island county to get a library card. and I know of at least one other Randy Thompson back on whidbey. all three of my given names are pretty common too: John, Randolph (randy), Thompson. in fact i think it was "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" that had both a John Randolph and a Randy Thompson in the credits. true story if anybody wants to check it out and call me on it. so.... anyway, here is a collage of some of the more easily accesible Randy Thompsons out there on the World Wide Web.

i'm in pretty attractive company, wouldn't you say?
and who are these people?
this collage includes at least:
1 ex-president of the texas amateur radio club
1 executive for a satellite communications company
1 bug killer
2 high-school football stars
1 minor-league baseball player
1 motorcycle enthusiast
1 college student/political activist
1 writer
1 computer game programmer
2 whiny singer-songwriters (1 is a christian minister)
and
1 beach property realtor

so, that is all for now, I'll be sitting by the door till the ups man comes.
-randy

Posted by Randy Thompson at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So here i go, writing my first blog entry. feels a bit different than i expected. less excitement, more html. oh well, at least i don't have to make a new webpage. well.... ok, so i enjoyed that. but i don't know exactly how to start one of these things.

Dorothy suggested in seminar to make a list of the things that i need to do, so i can see what they are and get more accomplished. i've done that in the past, and it does really help get the momentum moving because it makes you feel like you've accomplished alot whenever you cross off that item on your list. hell, it kinda makes a shopping list snowball into a real successful day.

so, i guess that i should probably start by figuring out what exactly i want to do with this BLOG thing, this marvel of modern technology. i mean, it's not one of those flying skateboards from back 2 the future:2 (which, by the way i am still totally waiting for, and was sorely dissappointed by the ginger/segway joke/debacle because of) but it still is pretty cool. i had only planned on using it to communicate with my geogroup, but after seeing Jeremy's and Walter's blogs, i guess i could use it as good resource. even though i've grown up with computers, i am still pretty old-school when it comes to journals. when i backpacked around brittain and spain i relied soley on pen and paper. oh well, the longer you live, the more you find out what works best for you. far be it from me to dismiss something before giving it a fair shot.

signing off,
-randy

Posted by Randy Thompson at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)