Every Peace Corps volunteer has three goals they hope to accomplish, regardless of the sector they serve or the country in which they serve. The first goal is capacity building and skills transfer, which for me means working with a teaching counterpart and passing along English and teaching skills. The second goal is to teach host country nationals about American culture, such as Thanksgiving. The third goal is to teach Americans about the culture and traditions of the country in which the volunteer serves. In an effort to teach my, admittedly limited, reading audience about Kosraean culture I have decided to post periodic culture posts. The title of each post will be Facsin Fridays, as facsin (fay-seen) means culture or tradition and I'll hopefully able to post on Fridays.
The rest of the title of this post, Alu (all-u) means church in Kosraean, one of the most important parts of Kosraean culture. Before talking about church in modern culture I'll need to give a short history lesson to put things in perspective and I'm a history nerd so I found all of this extremely interesting. The Christian church didn't appear in Kosrae until the mid-1800's and prior to the arrival of the missionaries, Kosrae was a polytheistic, matrilineal society. One of the few remaining ancient ruins in Kosrae are those of a temple to Singlaku, the Goddess of Breadfruit.
The first European contact occurred in the 1820s and shortly after, Kosrae became a stopping place for whale ships in the Pacific. The consistent contact with the Westerners led to the transmission of many diseases to which the Kosraeans had no immunitiy. As a result, the population of Kosrae plummeted to about 300 and much of the traditional way of life and culture was lost. The first missionaries appeared in Kosrae in the 1850's, and by the 1870's the entire island had converted to Christianity. Today the church is the most important part of Kosraean culture and is a major part of daily life.
Sunday in Kosrae is rest and church day. To start, traditionally, there is no cooking over a fire during the daylight. I'm sure some of you are saying, wait, Devon, you don't have a stove, you have to cook over a fire, how do you eat on Sundays? On Sundays, my host mom will wake up really early and cook a big pot Kosraean soup or fry fish, which we will eat throughout the day. Though this is the tradition, there are times when my host mom or others will cook anyway. Most other activities aren't allowed either; swimming, running, playing, any loud activity are all frowned upon on Sundays. So most Sundays are spent watching movies, talking and reading, a very relaxing day.
Now, on to church itself. Church service starts at 10 and will last anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. Immediately after church, is Sunday School, which lasts about the same amount of time. Unlike in the US, there are entirely separate services for the adults and the children, including Sunday School. In the afternoon, there are a second services at 3, for the children, and 4 which is split between the Etawi Fusr (young adults) and the adults. I usually go to the morning services but not the afternoon service. There are additional services on Wednesday, for the women only, and Friday. In addition, any community or government activity is started and ended by praying. Clothing for church is very strict, either mumus or dresses for the women and collared shirts and long pants for the men. Any activity that involves entering the church, including cleaning, requires church clothes.
While it may seem this amount of religion can be overwhelming, it really isn't that bad. As not a particularly religious individual, it did take some time to get used to the constant presence of religion, especially in school and meetings, but at this point it has become a normal part of daily life. It is impossible to separate church from Kosraean culture and at this point I wouldn't want to.
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