A Typical Day in Pohnpei

            My normal day in Micronesia starts at 6:30, when my first alarm goes off. To the shock of absolutely no one who knows me, I of course turn it off and sleep until my second alarm goes off at 6:40, and only then do I get up. I am then out the door no later than 7:20, normally closer to 7:15, and as I leave, I text Rebecca that I’m on my way. Rebecca, another PCT, lives about a ten minute walk from my house and we meet most mornings to walk to PATS together. The 40-minute walk to school has quickly become one of my favorite parts of the day. The first ten minutes I’m usually the only one on the road and it’s nice to get some quiet time to myself. I also enjoy the walk because it hasn’t gotten hot yet, and by that I mean it’s probably in high 70s, I now consider anything in the low 70s as slightly chilly. Once Rebecca and I meet up, we have a 30 minute walk to PATS that passes some of the best views on Pohnpei and includes pretty much every car stopping and asking if we want a ride. My absolute favorite part of the walk is towards the end, where we pass right by the bay (I can’t figure out the name) and have an absolutely stunning view of the water and mountains on the other side. It’s a slightly different view every morning, the other day it was almost completely fogged in, and never gets old. I am a little reluctant to take pictures because I know that the images would never measure up to the real thing. 

 A tree on my walk to school that's possibly the coolest tree I've ever seen.

            We get to PATS around 8 and have anywhere between 30 to 45 minutes to kill before training starts. Now, I know that it seems illogical to get up early and leave early just to get to PATS 30 minutes before training starts, but I like to have time before training starts to relax, cool off from the walk, and talk with some of the other trainees who get there early.  Training starts around 9, though sometimes earlier if staff doesn’t have announcements for us, and goes until 5 in the afternoon. In the morning, we had three hours of language (Kosraean is hard!) and then in the afternoon we had teacher training or other non-language topics.  Once training is over, Aly, Rebecca, Stephen and I walk back to Temwen (pronounced Chemwen), which is a significantly harder walk than in the morning because it’s usually hotter and we have walk up a huge hill (though I do walk up hill both ways because there are smaller hills on the way to school). We’ll sometimes get ice cream before we walk back, but that’s a five minute walk in the other direction so we only do that occasionally. The walks to and from school are easily some of the best parts of my day and I’m really going to miss being able to spend so much time with Rebecca, Stephen, and Aly, even though her and I are going to the same island.

            Depending on what time we leave PATS, I get back to my house around 6 or a little after. My routine when I get home varies a lot, sometimes I’ll shower right away and eat an early dinner, other times I’ll chill in my room for a bit and other times I’ll make flashcards or spend time with my host sister in the main room of the house. I’m inevitably in my room by 9, where I spend an hour to myself, either on my computer or writing in my journal and I’m usually asleep no later than 10:30.

            This whole routine is going to change this week because we start Model School tomorrow! We’ll teach from 8:30 to 10:30, have time to lesson plan with our counterpart and then head back to PATS at 12 for lunch and in the afternoon we’ll have language from 1 to 5.  Model School lasts for three weeks and is really our only chance to practice teaching in front of students before we get to our sites and our performance also plays a role in PC’s decision to swear us in as volunteers, so no pressure. I’m teaching 3^rd grade, which I’m both excited and very nervous about. Third grade is when students are first introduced to English in the classroom and though many of my students are considered advanced, there’s a high likelihood that they will have very little English. My counterpart and I will be relying heavily on Pohnpeian in our classroom, which is both a good and bad thing. We want our students to understand what we’re teaching them, but we also want them to be speaking English and using a lot of Pohnpeian might discourage that. If there are any teachers out there with advice, please leave a comment, I’ll need all the help I can get!

            I know I promised I would write about the July 4^th celebration but there’s really not too much to write about so I’ll keep it short. There were a lot of speeches because 2016 is the 50^th anniversary of PC in Micronesia and there were traditional Yapese and Chuukese dances. As trainees we had to hand out hot dogs to people or paint faces, so we didn’t really have the chance to listen to the speeches or watch the dances. It was nice to celebrate the 50^th anniversary and Independence Day but it was a very long and hot day and I was not sad when it ended.

            Aly, Rebecca, Stephen, and I went back to Nan Madol last week after class one day because we got out early and it was a nice break. We got there between 4:30 and 5 and it was high tide, which completely changes how it looks. We were the only ones there and even though we only spent between an hour and an hour and a half there, it was one of the best afternoons I’ve had. It was nice to relax and swim and not have to worry about anything for a while. Nan Madol is an amazing place and I definitely have not taken advantage of my proximity to the ruins as much as I should. There’s so much more to do than just swim at Nan Madol but I haven’t had the chance to really explore the ruins, maybe that will be my goal for next weekend.  

I got to play around with the filters on my camera!

 

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