At Long Last, a Post

          First, I have to apologize for not posting since August, I promise I have a good explanation. Unfortunately, my computer died shortly before the end of training so I was unable to post about the LPI and swearing-in and I only just got the new one I ordered a few weeks ago. Also, I do not have internet access at my site and only have internet access when I spend a weekend at the hotel on the 'mainland'. This means that even though I now have a working computer again, I'll still only be able to update once a month at best, which is better than nothing.

          For those of you who have received any letter from me during the past few months, this post might be a bit dull and repetitive, so feel free to skip this one. I obviously passed my LPI (language-proficiency interview) and was sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. Swear-in was a bit of a blur between nerves (I was chosen by my fellow volunteers to deliver a speech from our cohort), exhaustion, and being rushed to our flight to Kosrae, the whole day seemed strangely surreal.

          I have been in Kosrae now for almost 6 months, and it seems simultaneously longer and shorter than that. My village, Walung, is very small, with only about 150 people, and extremely isolated from the rest of the island and is considered by Peace Corps to be an outer island post. The only reliable way to get to Walung is a 20-30 minute boat ride that is only possible at high tide, making it challenging to get to the 'main land.' There is a road from Utwe to Walung but it is unpaved, usually very muddy, and very steep, so few people drive. My village has no electricity, we rely on solar power and occasionally a generator, though we do have running water piped down from a river in the mountains for very cold showers. Adjusting to life without electricity has been significantly easier than I anticipated and has opened my eyes to how heavily we rely on electricity in the States and how much time we spend on the internet. Without electricity I go to bed much earlier than at home, usually between 7:30 and 8 as it gets dark by 6:30, and get up earlier as well, normally before 7. Much to my shock and likely the shock of my family, especially my dad, I am slowly becoming a morning person. 

          

          Living in such a small community has so far been a great experience and the people in Walung have welcomed me with open arms. There are not a lot of people around my age in Walung especially during the week as the high school and college students live with family on the 'main land' during the week but I enjoy spending time with my host family and my students. Most people in Walung are related in one way or another, almost 6 months in and I'm still figuring out family connections, and as a result the community is very close knit. I enjoy spending time with my students as it gives me a chance to practice my Kosraean, even though they like to laugh at me when I talk, and they're willing to go on walks for no purpose, or in Kosraean-forfor muhtahta. 

          My school has about 50 students, we received some transfer students during Christmas but also had at least one transfer out so I'm not sure of the actually number. I am teaching 4th, 5th and 6th grade Reading and 6th grade Writing and have 4, 5, and 7 students respectively. Teaching such small classes can be nice, especially for classroom management, but it does present some interesting challenges. I do think, though, that I would talk small classes with the challenges, over larger classes any day. My co-teachers are both very dedicated to our students and want them to do well but we're still working on co-teaching/co-planning consistently. There are aspects of co-teach/co-plan that I need to improve upon and readily take part of the blame for not co-teaching/co-planning as much as we should, but I am sure that we will figure it out eventually. 

         One of the highlights of my service so far has without doubt been my host family. Coming to the FSM, I was very worried about living with a foreign (in more ways than one) family for two years and I am very relieved that I worried needlessly. My host family is very large and can be confusing between various cousins, adopted siblings that don't live with us, and other unexplained relatives but I love them, confusion and all. I will keep to the basics for the purposes of this blog and will try to only introduce family members with whom I spend a lot of time. During the week, it is only my host parents and me in Walung, though I have an adopted brother, Arthy, in 8th grade, he lives with his biological family right now, as I said, it's confusing. My host mom is Ninac (mom) Lyn and my host dad is Pahpah (father/dad) Gloover and they are incredible. They take very good care of me and are always checking to make sure that I'm happy. One of my favorite things about Ninac Lyn and Pahpah Gloover is that they usually only speak to me in Kosraean, which forces me to practice, and only explain in English when I'm very confused. I have 7 host siblings (one of them is a sister-in-law), but only see 5 of them regularly. Nena is the oldest, he's 23 and works for the government, he's married to Mona, who is finishing classes at College of Micronesia and will be a teacher. Widmore is 21 and works a lot so I rarely see him in Walung. Ahok, real name Clinton, is 18 and a senior in high school, Shrue, 16 is a sophomore in high school and the only girl. In addition to Arthy, there's another adopted sibling but he's older and serving in the US Army and is stationed in the States. There are also two cousins, Titania, 17, and Brad, a freshman, who live with us in Walung usually every weekend. I love how big my host family is as well as how incredibly welcoming they've been to me. I truly feel like part of the family, even with the occasional language and cultural barriers.

          There is much more for me to tell about the past few months, but I don't want to make this post too long. I'll have internet access again in March, I'm hoping to get my scuba certification so I'll be in town twice that month, and I will post again then. I'll talk more about how I celebrated various holidays, Christmas deserves a post all its own, as well as more culture and my day-to-day life. 

          If you have any questions about what I've posted, please leave a comment and I'll try and answer as soon as I can. 

Model School + Joy Island = A PNB Post

The Peace Corps is, among many things, an organization that very much enjoys its acronyms. From PCV and PCT, PST, MST and COS to CD and PCMO, I don’t think there’s an event (Pre-Service Training, Mid-Service Training, and Close of Service) or person (Peace Corps Volunteer, Peace Corps Trainee, Country Director and Peace Corps Medical Officer) that Peace Corps hasn’t already assigned an acronym. Therefore its only fair that trainees and volunteers occasionally create acronyms of our own, hence PNB. I cannot claim credit for PNB, that, perhaps dubious, honor goes to Stephen, who used PNB even before arriving in Micronesia (and has plans for a PNB brewery). PNB stands for Pretty Not Bad and is used when a situation/event/person isn’t amazing but also isn’t terrible, it’s just sort of middling. It skews more towards the amazing end of the spectrum, at least when I use it, but the nice thing about PNB is that it can encompass a number of feelings, both good and bad, without sounding too negative or too positive. It’s PNB.

Now that I’ve, hopefully, adequately explained PNB, it’s time to move on to the point of this post which is to talk about Model School and my host family’s trip to Joy Island. In my last post, I introduced Model School and gave a brief explanation of what exactly it is. For those who didn’t read that post or may have forgotten since it was so long ago (my apologies) Model School was a two and half week mini summer school where we, the PCTs, alongside HCTs (look another acronym! Host Country Teachers) taught English to students for two hours everyday. Model School gave us the opportunity to put into practice all the skills that Peace Corps had taught has the previous few weeks, get comfortable in front of a class, and get used to working alongside a co-teacher when teaching and planning. Model School was definitely one of the most challenging aspects of training so far for a number of reasons.

I taught third grade with my co-teacher, since I likely be teaching third or fourth grade in Walung, which in and of itself was a challenge. Third grade is nominally when Pohnpeian schools are required to start teaching English but some schools start earlier and some students are exposed to English at home. This means that students enter third grade with varying levels of English experience, which, coupled with differences in learning styles and abilities, leads to very diverse classes. My co-teacher, who is an Early Childhood Education teacher, and I struggled with what to teach our students as well as what activities to do. Our students were raising third graders and came from several different schools so we had very little concrete information on what level of English they each had. In response, we took a more conservative route, in retrospect perhaps too conservative, and started with the assumption that the students had little English experience.

On our first day of school, which was just introductions and the alphabet, I was pleasantly surprised by how advanced my students were. We had vastly underestimated their abilities and were left scrambling to rework our plans for the rest of Model School. We decided not to teach anything too intense and to focus on getting the students talking as much as possible and excited about learning English. We taught them colors, spent a week on sports (Olympic themed!) and then a few days on food. There were definitely things I would have done differently and topics I wish we had taught instead, but I would feel that way no matter what I had taught.

Our goal was that our students would speak in English as much as they could and would enjoy coming to school every day and learning with us. There were certainly times I thought we were falling short of that goal, but then on our last day, when we were walking back to our class after playing outside, two of my students said they didn’t want to school to end. In addition, another one of my students asked if I was going to be back again next year. So, maybe not all of our lesson plans went exactly how we wanted them to, maybe my co-teacher and I underestimated our students in the beginning, and maybe our students didn’t always behave, but at the end of the day, I genuinely believe my students enjoyed coming to school and that they learned something and that’s what matters.

One of the other challenges of Model School was the constant state of exhaustion all of the trainees were in for the two and a half weeks. We had Model School in the morning and then three and a half hours of language in the afternoon. Most of us then had to go home and work on lesson plans or create activities for model school, in addition to studying our languages and the occasional language assignment. There were several days where I thought I was going to fall asleep in the middle of language because I was so exhausted and I even resorted to drinking coffee. I am sure there are some of you reading this thinking I’ve finally gone off the deep end since I hate coffee and am willingly drinking it, I promise I’m fine. In my defense, it’s instant coffee and probably two-thirds sugar and cream and one-third coffee and then is very watered down so it barely tastes like coffee. Now that Model School is over, language is in the morning again and we have regular training sessions in the afternoon, such as medical and safety and security, so I won’t be falling asleep in language anymore.

Training is slowly coming to an end, our swearing in is August 26^th, so we only have three more weeks of training. All that stands between us trainees and becoming official volunteers is our Mock Secondary Projects, several tests for our training sections (medical, safety and security etc.) and our LPI or Language Proficiency Interview which is next week to be precise. To say I’m worried would be a massive understatement. In order to be sworn in I have to reach Intermediate Low for the interview. Additionally, to be considered as a potential Resource Volunteer next year and come to training and help teach Kosraean, I have to have highest score among all the trainees learning Kosraean. I genuinely enjoying learning and speaking Kosraean, even if I sometimes throw in Chinese by accident, so I would very much like to come back and teach next year’s trainees. So, no pressure, right?

The Mock Secondary Projects are a chance to for us to practice putting together a secondary project and a mock grant proposal (a major part of my service as a TESL volunteer) with other volunteers so there’s less pressure on us individually. We were divided into groups based off of where we live, so I’ve been working with Aly, Stephen and Rebecca. After talking with our families, we decided to build a bus stop at Temwen Elementary, since the closest bus stop is close to an hour walk away and my dad has been trying to get the government to build one for years. Stephen’s host dad has construction experience and has been instrumental in getting this project up and running. We’ll hopefully start construction on the 13^th and finish it on the 20^th, the weekend before swearing in. We’ll be very busy with the project for the next two weekends but it will be worth it. I’ll make sure to post pictures of the finished project.

Since training is coming to an end and school starts soon, my host family decided to go to Joy Island this weekend. Joy Island is tiny island about the width of and a slightly less than the length of a soccer field. It was once part of the 90 or so islands that made up the Nan Madol complex and you can still see the basalt stones scattered throughout the island. You can only reach Joy Island by boat at high tide; at low tide it’s about a forty minute walk from Nan Madol. We left right after training on Friday from the causeway over the bay and took a 15-minute boat ride through mangroves and then to open water that was never deep enough to go over my head. The island was exactly what you picture when you think of a tiny tropical island: sand, palm trees, coconut trees, beaches and lots of hermit crabs. The island had a covered, raised sleeping and cooking area, a large open area for tents, a bucket shower area, and an outhouse that only had three walls and opened to beautiful views of the ocean. It poured Friday night and the tent I was supposed to sleep in with my host sister and her friend leaked so we all ended up sleeping on the covered sleeping platform. It definitely wasn’t one of my best nights of sleep but it was the quintessential Micronesian experience.

Luckily we woke up, at 6:30, to a gorgeous day on Saturday. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky most of the day, which also meant it was incredibly hot. The tide was out for most of the day and so the water was extremely low and large sand bars were exposed. I didn’t swim because it was low tide and I didn’t want to burn. Instead, I spent all day reading in the shade, I’m currently reading Hamilton by Ron Churnow and highly recommend it, moving my chair anytime I felt even the slightest bit of sun and staying as far from the water as I could. Most of my day was spent under the roof of the sleeping area. I still burned. Not badly but I burned. I’ve decided that if I even step foot outside here, I burn. My host mom jokingly said that I could be sitting inside and I would still burn. She’s probably right. Even with sunscreen, I’ve burned, so it’s quickly becoming a losing battle, for which I blame the Irish in me.

Even though I burned and didn’t get much sleep, the trip to Joy Island with my family, and what seemed like half the kids from Temwen, is already one of the highlights of training. It was nice to get away from everything for a while and spend time with my family, even if we did different things and there was a language barrier. I got to talk with my dad and heard more legends about the area and practice my Kosraean. I also got to play with and get laughed at by the kids from Temwen. So, burn notwithstanding, it was a great weekend. 

                                      I present to you Joy Island, with no filters.

I wanted to send a big thank you for the letters and care packages I’ve received, they are all very much appreciated! If you haven’t already received your thank you, it’s on its way.