Project Report

Please check out the report on Salapwuk's dam at: http://appropriateprojects.com/node/853.

For all you PCVs out there, do look over Water Charity's website: this initiative is designed especially for PCVs to be able to quickly and easily address clean water issues within their communities. If your community has need of such a project, I highly recommend applying for a grant from Water Charity. The application and reporting processes are intentionally very simple and straightforward so that your community can have access to clean water as quickly as possible.

For everyone, look around on Water Charity and consider donating to help another of these worthy projects, conducted by PCVs in communities around the world!

At Last . . .

Yesterday, almost two months into "RPCV"-hood, I got an email from Micronesia which brought me some excellent closure to my service. Two of my pet projects have been completed at last. And thanks to Facebook, I got to get a look at it all! First, the dam which brings water to the school and half the community was completed, after a prolonged hiatus:

Sihpw enjoys his community's new dam!

Second, the school library got some enormous shelves to store all those hundreds (thoudands!) of books that were donated over the last two years!

Check out the librarian's meticulous labeling!

I just couldn't be happier right now! Miracles really do happen everyday.

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

or, Things I Will Miss about Pohnpei and Things I Will NOT Miss!

Things I Will Miss:
· Speaking Pohnpeian
· The jungle
· The ocean
· The weather
· Island Time
· The rain
· Nights lit by stars and nothing else
· 27 varieties of banana
· 5,000 diffferent shades of green
· Dancing like no one is watching you at the Flamingo
· Amber’s cooking
· Kate’s kindness
· Heather’s stories
· Amanda’s wry humor
· Mollie’s spirit
· Ap’s seriousness
· Amber’s elbows
· My host father’s wicked jungle survival skills, superhuman strength, and broken English jokes
· A certain librarian
· Movie nights with “Merlin” and “Guin”
· The 75 students of Salapwuk School
· Drinking fresh coconuts
· Eating fish so fresh that it was alive hours before!
· Riding in the back of pick-up trucks

Things I will Definitely NOT miss:
· Roosters crowing at all hours of the day and night
· Pig-feeding time
· Ants, cockroaches, and giant moths
· Sakau
· Island Time
· The mud
· A diet consisting of two food groups: starches and meats
· People spitting beetlenut juice at my feet
· Pohnpeian “dating” practices
· Attack dogs
· My polyester wardrobe
· Indirect communication
· The Coconut Wireless (a.k.a. idle island gossip)
· Pohnpeian taxis
· Inertia
· Cold showers
· Washing laundry by hand
· Ramen and rice

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.

Pohnpei Princesses

Today I and eight of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers in Pohnpei joined the billions of other people around the world in watching the royal wedding, admiring Kate's beautiful dress, and believing that fairy tales do come true.

Of course, I don't have so much as electricity at my site, let alone cable television, but our director kindly allowed us to visit his much more modern home and celebrate the event that is captivating the world today.

What does a Pohnpei Princess party require? To start with, we all wore our fanciest local dresses. We cheered the royal couple on and toasted them with champagne. Though we were challenged by the limited resources of a small island, made even more limited by the tardiness of a supply ship, we attempted a British-themed menu, including tea, biscuits, and homemade scones. (After scouring all the usual grocery stores, I finally found the necessary ingredients for the scones--eggs, butter, and flour--at the gas station. Of course, why didn't I think of that first?) The wedding ceremony began for us at 9pm, and around midnight, CNN.com covered us watching the wedding coverage! http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-598685

My apologies for being away so long; I've many stories to share, but have been busy experiencing them! I hope to post more after school ends in this month!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

There are so many things I'm thankful for today I feel one day is not enough to say them all. I read a little history of the first thanksgiving to both my classes yesterday and made them write what they're thankful for--and many of them said me! That I was a good teacher and helped them understand things! It's so good to hear that because I know I often suck at classroom management and that there are far better teachers out there, but at least they're learning something! After school we had Performance Club; one of our plays is a Nigerian tall tale called "Master Man." I re-wrote the lyrics to "Nowhere Man" so it fit the play and the kids love it! (I'm doing three plays with them and all have an accompanying Beatles/member of the Beatles song--"The Hidden One," a Native American Cinderella story goes with "All You Need Is Love," and the Buddhist story, "How Violence Is Ended" goes perfectly with "Imagine") Anyway, yesterday, after a very encouraging rehearsal of "Master Man" in which I hardly had to remind the students of their blocking and one of my most struggling students was the first to be 100% off-book!, another of my students began to sing the chorus of "Master Man/Nowhere Man" with his own lyrics: "Miss Swanson, you're the greatest, you're the prettiest . . ."
That's where I cut him off and laughingly sent him home, but I sure am thankful for all of those moments yesterday.

I'm thankful for a nice RPCV who invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner, and I'm thankful to be sharing my grandma's corn casserole with my compatriots today.

I'm thankful for Skype allowing me to spend Thanksgiving with my family! And most of all I'm thankful for my friends and family.

Micronesia Up-dates: WAY Off-Loop Theatre

After an absolutely perfect visit home to Chicago, I’m back to this funny little island in the Pacific, and enjoying my students and my work twice as much as last year, now that I’m not on such a steep learning curve.

Today I started an after-school performance club with my 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students, and I have to say, I can hardly wait til next Wednesday! There is not much that you could call theatre here in Pohnpei, apart from one life-size puppet show public health produces to educate people about HIV/AIDS (though it is rather a good one). The culture is based on oral tradition, but stories are never so much as pantomimed, let alone acted in a full production. So I have the extreme pleasure of introducing acting to the students of Salapwuk.

We started with physical warm-ups, some basic stretching and an 8-count shake-out. They loved it. I mean, if you’ve ever seen a group of actors warm-up before a play, you’ll agree that it’s a pretty interesting sight; but imagine never having seen a play before, never hearing the resounding projection of a classically-trained actor or seeing the physical possibilities of a well-trained body. Then imagine a strange white lady asks you to shake your arms and legs out while counting to 8, and then pretend to chew a piece of bubble gum that grows bigger and bigger as you chew. Of course they loved it: we all looked ridiculous and no one minded a bit.
Vocal warm-ups were next: the rhythmic repetition of consonants—t, d, k, g, p, b, s, z (and because Pohnpeians have trouble with distinguishing these letters), f, v. And wrap it up with a tongue-twister: “When does the wristwatch strap shop shut? Does the wristwatch shop shut soon? Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches, since Swiss wristwatches work swell.” (with several explanations about the words wristwatch, strap, shop, Swiss, and swell).

But it was when I introduced a game of charades that I realized I had my work cut out for me. And I’m excited to turn these kids into actors! ;-) I had some actions written down on cards for them to try and act out for the rest of the group to guess. My first student hopped into the middle of the circle, ready to go then . . . nothing. He just stood there, not able to mime holding a hammer and driving a nail in. And that’s when I realized how very foreign the whole concept of acting is here. I got up with him, and together the group figured out that we were building a house. My co-teacher from last year was also in the room; she loves the idea of acting out stories, so she was a big help in getting the kids up and moving. The next few students did a little better, and I’m sure by the end of next week, they’ll be miming everything, probably even miming doing their homework!


I have another exciting opportunity this year to work part-time with Island Research and Education Initiative in producing culturally-relevant, bilingual educational resources and materials. Our first project is to create a set of story books based on local legends. There are social studies, environmental awareness, early phonics and reading skills materials also underway. Please visit our website islandresearch.org to learn more!