Making the Most of My Last Few Months

This summer has been a perfect ending to my Peace Corps service: it started with the wonderful opportunity to help a fellow volunteer with some fantastic summer programs at the Pohnpei Public Library. First, there was the summer reading program once a week which highlighted stories from around the world with read-alouds, crafts, and a reading competition. During the first two weeks of July, we held library camp each day from 8am – noon. The first week was for students entering 1st-4th grade and we had activities which taught reading skills, library skills such as where to find a book in the library and how to alphabetize, and of course, crafts! (I was in charge of crafts ;-) ) The second week, with our older students, 5th-8th graders, we taught more indepth library skills like the Dewey Decimal system, analytical reading skills, crafts, a research project for the 8th graders, and reader’s theatre for the 7th graders. This was my second time doing theatre with kids in Pohnpei and it was just as magical, if not more so, than the first time. I was nervous on Monday with my group of 13 7th graders: they barely opened their mouths to answer a question. But after a few days of silly theatre tongue-twisters and other physical and vocal warm-ups, the group was the most enthusiastic and rambunctious of the bunch, and all the teachers were amazed by their turn in behavior. On Friday, they beautifully performed The Hidden One, a Native-American Cinderella story, and were very proud of themselves.

At the library with my favorite kids in Pohnpei!

After these fantastic library programs, I turned my attention to IREI and prepared to present IREI’s books and educational materials at an education conference for the whole Pacific region. The IREI team and I set up our table across from publishing giants Houghton Mifflin and McGraw Hill, and we held our own with our locally-developed, locally-relevant resources! People kept coming up to me and saying, “Oh, I remember IREI from ____ conference. You guys have great resources!” I think IREI has a bright future ahead. (Don’t forget to check us out: http://www.islandresearch.org/)!

As soon as the conference finished, it was full-speed ahead to Camp GLOW 2011, a week of health-themed activities for a new group of 8th grade girls. The highlight for me was yet another theatre-related activity where we used monologues from Eve Ensler’s I Am an Emotional Creature to get the girls to express their emotions in a healthy way, especially within a culture where emotional expression is too often repressed. We’d also been talking a lot about sexual health and making good choices, so I included a monologue entitled “Asking the Question,” which is a fantastic representation of a young girl’s inner monologue. I hoped the girls would read it, even if they did not feel comfortable getting up in front of their peers and reading it aloud, but I was so proud when one girl stood up on stage and loudly and clearly stated just one line from the piece:

“Would you please wear a condom?”

They get it! They totally get it! They’re not afraid to face the tough stuff, ask the tough questions, and we Peace Corps volunteers and the local women who put the camp together successfully created an environment where the girls felt safe enough to stand up in front of everyone and say the things that scare them. This is a culture where it is not usually easy to be female, and yet these girls, at one of the toughest stages in their lives, were able to share so openly. And let me add that this success is also due in large part to the fact that theatre is an invaluable form of expression. (So support the arts)!

I went straight from Camp GLOW to a friend’s boat to take my last opportunity to visit the atoll of Pakin, near Pohnpei. Atolls are amazing: they have everything you would expect from a tropical island—sandy beaches, crystal-clear ocean, hammocks on the beach, delicious seafood. Very different from the rainy, mountainous, mangrove-encircled island I’ve been enjoying for the last two years! ;-)
And while all of these activities were amazing, I saved the best part of my summer for last: the long-awaited addition to our school (for which I take no credit at all) was finally completed just in time for graduation this year, so I finally put my meticulous organization and labelling skills to good use and spent many happy hourse with the librarian discussing the application of the Dewey Decimal system in our library and labelling and cataloguing some 1300 books, of which our little country library now boasts. Two years ago, I think the number of usable books in our library was somewhere in the ballpark of 60, and now it is 1300! So, for all of you who donated books since my desperate plea back in 2009, THANK YOU! You all have done so much for the students of Salapwuk, and your generosity will be a gift that keeps on giving as the kids enjoy the library and become more literate and more productive citizens because of it.