Kaselehlie

Kaselehlie (ka-say-LEH-lee-eh), welcome/hello, to Micronesia! Though it’s been a sojourn, I’ve finally arrived in FSM to begin my two years of service as a Peace Corps TESL volunteer. I’m currently at our training site, PATS (Pohnpei Agricultural and Trade School), which is about an hour outside of Kolonia. While we’re currently staying in dorms at PATS, we’ll be moving in with our host families on Saturday, most of them are about a 45 minute walk from PATS.

            Though I left Pittsburgh on Thursday morning, I didn’t actually arrive in Micronesia until Saturday afternoon. We spent about 12 hours in Hawaii and were able to meet up at the hotel. We also took a boat ride out to Diamond Head to watch the sunset, which was a pretty amazing experience. Our flight left Hawaii at 7:25 in the morning, stopped at 3 islands on the way, and arrived in Pohnpei around 2:30 in the afternoon. We spent about two days in Kolonia before we headed to PATS.

           

            We got to PATS last night, after a bit of delay getting the trucks, something I’m sure I’ll get used to over the next two years. Our dorms over look a bay surrounded by small mountains and is an amazing view. Last night, we were welcomed to PATS by the local community leaders with a saku ceremony. Saku is a traditional Pohnpeian drink made from the roots of the saku tree. It’s similar to alcohol but it calms you down and turns your lips/mouth numb instead of the affects of alcohol back in the states. This was the first time they had welcomed Peace Corps Trainees in the this manner so it was a pretty big deal, especially since one of the highest ranking community leaders was present and formally welcomed us to the community. 

            Though the weather is very hot and humid, temperatures in the 80s but the real feel is about 92, we have air conditioning in our classroom and ceiling fans in our dorms. This definitely makes things more tolerable and is also helping transition to our host family’s houses where we likely won’t have air conditioning or fans.      

            I’ll have semi-reliable access to internet during training so I’ll post updates as I can. We get our permanent placement sites in about two weeks so I’ll have a better idea of my internet access at that point.