Signing Off

WELCOME:

As I am leaving Kosrae in less than 3 hours, this will be my last blog in the blogosphere. (Tear).

Below, the full WorldTeach group:

I want to thank everyone for giving their input and support over the past year; it's been great to hear from most of you via email. Next picture: My pet lobster.

Yesterday was my last day of class and was one of my most memorable teaching days. My freshmen students drew pictures for me to take home. Below I am pictured as a mathematically enthused Howard Stern.

My Senior students came in during their free time and sang a song they had created to say goodbye.

Overall, this has been an amazing experience. Amazing because of the incredibly good and the occasionally bad. I apologize for not writing more about the Kosraean people/culture as some of you had hoped. I have many stories that would better explain my experience, but it would be extremely difficult to explain in writing the true Kosraean culture without being vulnerable to misinterpretation. Every volunteer has had a different experience on the island, and so ultimately, I would rather not leave my personal view as a permanent, public assessment of the people. Generally speaking though, the Kosraean people have shown incredible hospitality and gratitude towards us as volunteers. I can't thank them enough for allowing me this experience. Without a doubt, I will miss my students.

I don't have any definite plans about the future, but I am excited for the possibilities.

Here are some final pictures from the past few days. Enjoy!! See you soon!

Ty

Keslyn and Sayoleen:

Jorim and Arthur:

Floatie:

A Drought For The Ages

3/13: As I stand underneath a palm tree, fresh water pours over me for the first time in 7 days.

Let’s back up a little bit…

2/17: Water in my apartment is turned off indefinitely; the drought is official. Thanks El Nino. Nature: 1, Humans: 0. For consumption purposes, I purchase two 5 gallon jugs of drinking water, enough to ration for two weeks.

2/18: Before I board a flight to Australia, I take a basin full of crusty dishes out to the ocean and do my dishwashing in the shallows of the Pacific. The waves try to sink my basin constantly, and the current relentlessly pulls the vessel away from me; but human ability perseveres, I even the score with nature, and my dishes are quasi-cleaned.

2/19 - 3/04: Traveling the East Coast of Australia, I feel young again. I see new people, drink beer from a tap, drink water from the tap, shower at will, and do activities on Sundays. It’s a brand new world, and I love it.

My flexible itinerary takes me on tours through five different grocery stores during my two weeks in Australia. Initially, I enter these food stores thinking that maybe I’ll buy a sandwich for lunch, but eventually I just find myself staring at piles of avocados and blueberries and other fruit I haven’t seen in 8 months. Why isn’t everyone running around, grabbing what they can while it’s here? And then I remembered that the act of hoarding food in the developed world lost its popularity centuries ago.

3/05: Five flight connections later, I am back to my parched apartment. The ants and cockroaches have a big welcome home party for me, and then I spray them with a dubiously labeled product imported from Japan. Their party is over.

3/06: My drought-induced morning chores are very 18th century chic. At high tide, I wade out into the ocean to gather as much water as I can carry. The saltwater is trekked back and forth to fill my toilet daily, used for washing dishes, and used to bathe, leaving my body constantly caked in salt. Eating and flushing the toilet become micro-managed processes, not to be done recklessly.

3/07: Questions I commonly asked myself: Are you sure you want to eat some more dried fruit? Can you cook the eggs and frozen vegetables together, then toast the bread in the same pan? Do you really need to wash that tonight?

3/08: Water in the school urinal trough flows like a geyser. Why are they wasting it? Who turned this urinal on? I am frustrated. Then I see a long, skinny translucent worm squiggling through the urinal, and I am thankful for this water not being routed through my pipes.

3/09: I am starting to smell rather foul. I take my soap and shampoo into the ocean after school. Bathing in the ocean brings on my third bleaching experience (not of the 8th grade hair coloring variety) this year. Since the dentist on the island (a surfer from Oceanside, CA) was using hydrogen peroxide and still getting sick every time he scraped himself on the reef, he has recommended that we use straight bleach to scrub our wounds clean. So while a scrape on the reef might sting a little, it is more frustrating than anything, because you know you are looking at a good session with your spare toothbrush and a cup of poison. Leg bleeding, I finished rinsing the soap off my back and grunted back to shore.

3/10: I try the sink faucet before going to bed, and after the plumbing rumbles a bit, some water reluctantly gurgles into my hands. Excited, I make the split-second decision to use this time to shower. I quickly grab my towel, hop in the shower, and turn the nozzle. Nothing. Thinking maybe I can still wash my face, I go back to the sink. Nothing. Every minute is crucial.

3/11: Leaving my faucets on now, with a bread bowl under my sink and a basin underneath my shower, I try to catch the next water period. Around 6pm, I strike gold. I scoop the water and pour it over myself, but it is filthy. I cannot see through the water to the bottom of the basin. A sponge bath with opaque water only made me feel dirtier. Should I go back to saltwater for good?

3/12: No water. I research the long-term effects of bathing in saltwater.

3/13: Today, we received our first good rainfall -- maybe 4 hours worth of solid rain. At 6:45am, I awoke to the sound of water splashing into my precious basin. And after spying a palm tree in my front yard that was funneling rain quite efficiently, I decided to maximize this downpour of fresh water by donning my swim trunks for an outdoor shower.

And now…the water has been flowing through my plumbing for these past few hours, but it‘s still very brown, and as tadpoles and worms are known to be born from the tap, I am becoming a bigger and bigger fan of the water from the Pacific.

In other news:

5/07: Coming home…

See you soon!
Ty

Currently Eating: Cowboy Eggs
Currently Involved in the Following Personal Records: 8+ months without cutting hair, 23 days without shaving.

Seventh Inning

Pecos, the skipjack tuna pictured below, has been my main course for the past month.




Apologies for the delay -- here’s a bit of an update:

Last September I moved into a two bedroom apartment on the beach. When it is high tide, I pitch fastballs made of eggplant ends or banana peels into water. I go swimming nearly every day now. Since my surfboard sleeps in the other bedroom, I have this apartment to myself, as well as the entire ocean and beach -- nobody on the sand, no boats in the sea, no airplanes in the sky. The last time I saw an airplane was more than a month ago. I felt like shooting a flare overhead. Isolation, like most things, is only good in moderation.

A typical day at work lasts from 8am - 1:15pm and there is no traffic going to or from my job, though my commute is still about an hour each way. Several cars slow down every morning and afternoon to offer me rides, which I accept when it’s raining. My reason for walking is twofold: it is my exercise, and it provides a good place and time to think. Since most people on the island drive like they are in an emergency, as if The Chart House is about to give their reservation to someone else, it doesn't seem like a harsh rejection when I wave them off. But believe me, their rush is almost always exaggerated -- time is never of the essence here. 10 could mean 10:30 or 11, but it most definitely does not mean 10.

And despite the abundance of beachfront locations available, no, there is no Chart House in Micronesia.

My classroom is not air conditioned, it is open-air. And since it is always humid outside, it is always humid inside. Betel nut juice is spattered on the walls. Betel nut is as popular among young students as chewing tobacco was among your high school baseball team. Betel nut stains everything red, most notably teeth…just before it erodes them entirely. Metal grates are substituted for windows, and there is a rat that frequently scurries between my room and the one next door. Half of one of my four walls does not meet the ground, allowing Mr. Rat to travel at liberty throughout my lectures on the infamous quadratic equation. Imagine your workplace in this condition...

Coming from Los Angeles, one will notice there is an unfamiliar absence of smog here at all times. And although I have heard, and repeated myself many times, that the smog is what creates such beautiful colors in most of our sunsets in LA, I have found that such sunset-benefits should be expunged from the long list of smog “pros.” The sky here reminds me of the Sistine Chapel: nothing could make it better…not even smog.

My current diet consists of eggs, eggplant, okra, bananas, chile peppers, beer, tuna, beans, peanut butter sandwiches, and nuts. There is no sliced bread here, so I have learned to make my own. And without any measuring tools, whatever I pull from the oven always has some curious, negligible flaw. A week ago I forgot that I had some bread in the oven. Two hours later, I came back inside, rushing nervously to the oven, only to find that it had turned itself off. The dial was still turned to Roman numeral II (which is my self-made temperature mark for “anything”) but the oven was cold and dark. The bread crust was brown. Smart oven.

A few months ago, some worms decided to occupy my stomach. Round worms I was told. But said worms were no match for the doctor's orders: some chewable tablets along with beer. The doctor said that inebriated worms would provide easier targets for the tablets. Note taken, problem solved.

There is no such thing as fast food here, though the locals often cook up the equivalent: Spam and Turkey Tail.

Turkey tail is what it sounds like: the tail of a turkey. This tail consists of pure fat, but unlike foie gras (which, despite its price tag, is still gross), turkey tail comes to your table deep fried and wrapped in foil. I tried it once, but the chewiness of greasy bird bottom was just too much for a former Health Promotion Disease Prevention major. I have also eaten a Red Snapper’s eyeball here in Micronesia. This optical meal was hasty preparation for the SLP (see the October blogs). The eye provided a unique texture combo I would describe as “gunchy” -- both crunchy and gooey. Gunchy food is as appetizing as it sounds.

Anyways, I have been on this island now for seven months. I don’t miss LA, La Verne, or California though. (I slightly miss Vegas). What I really miss is having dinner with my family, grabbing a drink with friends, and eating a burrito with guacamole. Seven consecutive months is a long time to be away from everyone you care about. It will make it all the better when I see you all again though…which is soon!

Cheers,

Tyler

Current Best Deal on the Island (not applicable to me, but worth noting): Childbirth (Uninsured), $24
Currently Reading: “The Geography of Bliss” - Eric Weiner
Currently Listening to: 2Pac, Brand New, Garth Brooks

“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.” - Yann Martel