Promised comparison of U.S. to Pohnpei as requested by Merna: Can you compare the U.S. to Pohnpei: schools, grocery stores, streets, homes, baby equipment, snacks, etc
Schools | The Pohnpeian school system, started by European missionaries in the 18th or 19th century, has now been modeled after the American school system. It looks pretty similar to the American school system, but with extremely limited resources. And when teachers have professional development or training, they are given American educational research. Sometimes this is applicable here; sometimes not. There are also 'standardized' tests, but I don't think they've worked out all the kinks of those yet; the 3rd grade test was twice as long as the 7th grade test last year and half of it was in English, even though Pohnpeian is still the primary instructional language through 3rd grade.
The textbooks we use are mostly American, and pretty much irrelevant to Pohnpeian children. It tends to be kind of a craps shoot whether the textbooks you're given will be at all useful to you. I lucked out this year with a great reading textbook—selections from real books, not written-for-textbook selections—and geared toward ESL learners. Many schools have photocopiers, but they frequently don't work for one reason or another—they're out of ink, or, in our case, there's no electricity to start with (we do have a photocopier and a new overhead projector, but we're still waiting for the electricity to be connected).
The buildings themselves are concrete structures with tin roofs and open windows covered in wire screens. There are no hallways—my students don't even really know what a hallway is; the classrooms open out onto the sidewalk. The roofs slope far over the sidewalk to protect teachers and students from frequent downpours, although there is no way to block out the sonorous drumming of these tropical rains during lessons. |
Grocery stores | No one-stop shop; the selection is limited by what comes in on the plane—you can sometimes wait months for one item to come, while there is an abundance of something you really don't need; prices vary greatly from day to day and store to store. Some imports are incredibly expensive (Pohnpeians envy how cheap cereals are in America—I try to remind them how expensive papaya and mangoes are, but they're not interested), while some are relatively cheap compared to U.S. prices |
Streets | Only in Kolonia and the layout of the streets may make sense to someone from Boston, but to this Chicagoan, used to rectangular blocks and names that follow presidential history, Kolonia is a small, but confusing maze, and, unlike Boston where "you can't get there from here", every road seems to connect to everywhere else, so you just keep walking and you'll get there eventually. Apart from Kolonia, there is one road that encircles the island, and mostly gravel or dirt roads shoot off of it to the various communities. There are efforts to get some of these side roads paved. |
Homes | Homes are usually a group of structures: one for sleeping, one for cooking and eating, sometimes one for storage (many of the Pohnpeians I know are hoarders—but they really do re-use a lot), a nahs for sakau. The local style is a wooden structure, usually with a dirt floor and one or two sides with a raised platform about seat height where people sit, cook, store things, etc. Roofs are corrugated tin or thatch. Some people have concrete houses of one, two, or more rooms. Where I live we have both: a concrete, two-room sleeping house, a local-style cookhouse, and a mixed style nahs (concrete floor, wooden frame, corrugated tin roof). |
Baby equipment | Very little: strollers aren't much good on gravel and dirt roads, car seats exist, but not often used—mostly babies are held in the car; baby formula is getting big (but my aunts will be happy to know, there is a "Breast is Best" campaign); |
Snacks | Soda with twice the normal amount or sugar, really sugary candies, and artificially-flavored, highly processed not-food (I don't know how else to describe it—packing peanuts, maybe?) from Thailand and China; these are the favorite snacks of Pohnpeians. If that doesn't sound appealing to you, I'd suggest ripe papaya, mango, or any of the many varieties of banana spread with peanut butter; those are my personal favorites. You can also nibble on sugar cane, and for the true local spirit, try the breadfruit. ;-) |
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