My P.E.O. sister, Merna, started her 2009 Christmas card to me with this question and then proceeded to ask many more questions to understand where I am and what I'm doing. I thought they were all such good questions that maybe all my friends and family would like to know the answers (and three months later am getting around to answering them), so here is Merna's interview:
- You are teaching teachers how to teach, right?
In theory, I am working with teachers to improve their instruction in English. In practice, there is always a shortage of teachers and so I don't always get to work with teachers, but often take over a class whose teacher is absent.
- Did your Pohnpeien co-teacher go to college?
Yes, she did, but when she started teaching about 30 years ago, she only had finished high school. Nowadays, college is required for a teaching certification.
- What is the weather like there? Rainy? Humid?
I am lucky to live up in the mountains; it's much cooler here than pretty much all of the other communities in Pohnpei which have migrated down out of the mountain jungles. It rains a LOT up here, but the whole region recently experienced nearly three months of drought. There was enough water, but it didn't flow freely from all of our taps anymore. We're back to lots of rain now. In fact, we had a "rain day" at school earlier this week. It rained so much that the students were soaked to the bone before classes even began and the principal called off classes at noon for fear the students would be swept away while crossing the low bridges which were already covered with several inches of water. Fortunately for me, I really like rain!
- What does Nahnsahu mean?
Nahnsahu is the title I was given by my host father's father, the chief of Salapwuk, and I believe it is the title that would be given to the son of my host father. Most men are born into their titles. Some unmarried women have titles, but it is less common. Most women get their titles through marriage; as I had no intention of getting a title that way, I was graciously given one anyway! J
- How many in your extended family?
Ha. I don't even know where to begin. My host father is the fifth of eleven children, and most of his siblings have nearly as many children, and some of their children have children. My host mother's family is about the same. And then Pohnpeians typically count their aunts and uncles as parents and their cousins as siblings. By the time you finish, I'm pretty much "related" to the whole island.
- You mentioned a couple you live with . . . no children?
I live with a wonderful couple who, very uncommonly for Pohnpeians, do not have any children of their own. But more commonly for Pohnpeians, they help their siblings raise their kids whenever necessary.
- What is your house like? I have a vision of a hut . . .
The house I sleep in is a very comfortable, two-room, concrete house with a tin roof and a big porch. But we don't spend a whole lot of time there. Most of our time is spent in the cookhouse which will fit your vision of a hut much more closely. It is a frame of local wood with a corrugated tin roof. It has no walls, but a part of it is a raised floor where we sit and eat our meals and rehash the day's events for hours. The other half is just a dirt floor where we build fires to cook. In most homes, mine included, the cookhouse is second only to the nahs in importance. The nahs is a local style house (wooden frame, usually thatch roof), open on all sides with a raised floor in a П -shape. At big feasts, the important people sit at the top of the П, and the men pound sakau (kava) inside it. In addition to these three buildings, we have several more small, local-style houses which are used to store endless numbers of things: a washing machine for which we have no electricity to run, old clothes, tools, etc. All of these buildings and a lot of jungle make up my home.
- Do you sleep on a regular bed?
Yes, I am one of the lucky ones to have a full size mattress (on the floor) in my room; it's Peace Corps policy in every country that volunteers have their own room and a bed, but what kind is not specified J
- School is in a regular building?
The school consists of two concrete buildings of two classrooms each and a small, corrugated tin building which serves as the office/library/toolshed. Because we don't have electricity, we rely on natural light through large windows covered in security wire screens. The fresh air is great, but the wind and rain often make it difficult to hang posters and display kids' work on the walls.
- We read an article in TFK last fall about school on a barge-like boat in Cambodia in a community close to or on a river that often floods. They had computers and books and "all" the teaching tools for modern teaching—do you also?
Well, we are lucky enough to have a lot of books for a school our size. We have a library with three full bookshelves (though it's a matter of the donators' interests what those shelves contain) and full sets of textbooks for most of the classes and subjects. One problem is that the textbooks are American, and therefore often irrelevant to Pohnpeians. As for computers, well, we don't have electricity, so we don't have computers. The grid has reached all the other communities in Pohnpei at this time, so we are just waiting for the powers-that-be to take enough of an interest in our little community to complete the grid (this is likely to happen around election time).
- What are the curriculum/goals for the grades you are concerned with?
The current education system here is based around the U.S. education system, so the curriculum standards seem pretty familiar to me, except that a major component of the language arts curriculum deals with learning English as a second language which is of course different than language arts in which the primary language used is the student's first language.
- How does one consider their isolation and world-wide experience? Teachable? Understanding?
Well, there certainly is an island perspective; the island is, after all, only about 60 miles in circumference, so life takes place in an area the size of one of Chicago's smaller suburbs, but far less populated. On the other hand, nearly all Pohnpeians have family living in the United States, and so they hear a good deal about life outside the island. There are interesting challenges in explaining foreign concepts to island students, but they seem eager to learn.
- Do they [Pohnpeians] know what we [Americans] have that they do not and is what we have/know important to their big picture? Or do we complicate their world of simplicity?
Excellent questions, and one I grapple with constantly. You see, life seems to have worked seamlessly here in Pohnpei before the entrance of foreigners, some three or four hundred years ago (that is, from the oral history that has been passed down in those many generations). Foreigners brought new diseases and unhealthy foods and behaviors (sound familiar?), but they also brought education, religion, and modern medicine. Yes, Pohnpei is much more complicated today than it was several hundred years ago, but such seems to be the case for any land you can think of. Yes, Pohnpeians are aware of the abundance of American life, and some of it is important to them, and some is not; but you can hardly blame them for wanting to use washing machines instead of scrubbing laundry on a stone by the river, or electric burners instead of smoky fires, or to escape into a Hollywood world for a few hours. It's modernity, no?
- Are they [Pohnpeians] happy existers? Or do they long for/ need the modern world for happiness?
Well, here in Salapwuk, the general consensus seems to be that they could be happy without modern conveniences, but as the modern conveniences have come to them, they cannot be ignored. Salapwuk might once have been self-governing, but it is a part of the Pohnpei State which is a part of the Federated States of Micronesia which has an American-based system of government, and so, the people of Salapwuk must move into the 21st century with everybody else. Pohnpeians are trying to figure out right now how to "not Westernize our culture, but modernize"; this is in fact the current theme of a state-wide essay and art contest at the moment. I think everyone is hoping the kids will have the answer to this question. And why not? The future is, after all, in their hands.
- Are you connected to the internet?
About once a week, sometimes once every two weeks, I go to Kolonia on the north side of the island where I can get mail and access the internet.
- Spiders? Snakes?
Yes, there are spiders—lots, but only one kind is vaguely dangerous, and I haven't come across any so far. Snakes, none, thank goodness! I can't get over my phobia of them. But honestly, there is nothing very dangerous on this island.
- Can you compare the U.S. to Pohnpei: schools, grocery stores, streets, homes, baby equipment, snacks, etc.?
Coming soon!
