I just got home from an exciting night with my host family. I had a few different experiences all in one night, at one birthday party. First of all, the food was amazing! I was expecting that, because Kosraeans know how to host a good party. There was a ton of food, and it was all extremely delicious. I'm sitting in my bed right now feeling like I'm going to explode. I couldn't stop eating, and my host mom, Almitta, is a terrible influence because every time I finish one thing she keeps telling me to go get more. Especially now that I'm not actually living with them, I'm really missing the local food, so I wanted to stuff in as much as I possibly could while it was all available. I had tons of crab, chicken, rice, breadfruit (with a sweet coconut milk sauce which was super yummy), sushi, usr (banana) tempura (basically just fried banana, AKA the greatest thing you've ever tasted), and they even roasted a whole pig! It was a family birthday party to celebrate a couple different people who have birthdays in September. I'll consider it a celebration for my dad back home too, since his is coming up this week. Happy early birthday daddy! They also had cake and fahfah, which is a local dish and I really have no idea what's in it but it's sort of a sweet glaze over these chewy little balls of deliciousness. I'll have to ask how they make it, but I think it's pretty involved, which is why they only make it for special occasions. It was really good to see all the family, including meeting new people that I haven't seen before because this family is so big.
One of the new guys I met, Willie, my host uncle, is a softball player and even played in the Micro games a couple months ago. He wants to get some girls together after school and have me come teach them softball. I was really excited to hear this, and obviously told him I would love to. He starting talking to all the guys in the family right away and said they're going to clean up the field this week so we can start. Apparently he's even going to call the governor to make sure it gets cleaned up. His words were something like "Kosraeans are lazy so we're going to call the governor". I'm not really sure what the governor is going to do, but I think he wanted to show me how excited he is about this and that he's serious about it. I'm not sure when this will all actually get going, but I'm going to tell all my students too so hopefully we can get a lot of girls to come out and play. They don't have any female coaches, so it would be awesome to provide these girls with a female role model and someone to show them they can grow up to be strong women. The culture here kind of puts women second; they don't get much of a say in anything as adults, and they aren't encouraged to speak their mind or be leaders, so hopefully I can not only show them softball, but how to be yourself and have a voice. I was lucky enough to be raised by wonderful parents and an amazing family all around who pushed me to do things even I wasn't sure I could do and always supported me in anything, encouraging me to find a way to be a leader in everything that I did. I would love to be able to share some of that with the girls here.
A perfect example to show the culture and opportunities here is the conversation I had tonight with one of the little girls in the family, Sasha. She's in second grade here, and has pretty good English skills for her age. I was tossing a softball with her tonight and we were just chatting, and I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. She told me she wants to be a store girl. She wants to work at Ace, the local grocery store (albeit with a limited range of items). I was half surprised to hear this and half not. Part of me was surprised because when you ask little kids in the US, you always get answers like doctor, lawyer, firefighter, policeman, teacher, etc. We have an engrained hierarchy of career path, and even as kids, we pick the jobs that are highest on the list. You never really hear kids say they want to work at a grocery store. This island is so small that there are limited types of jobs, regardless of your education or skill level. The kids here grow up differently than I did, and I have been here long enough that I already knew that, so her answer also didn't really surprise me that much. It was a moment where I paused and put it into the context of her culture instead of seeing it through my American perspective. It isn't a bad goal by any means, and she has seen so many family members work at Ace and live very happy and fulfilling lives with big families, so I can definitely understand why that seems like the ultimate goal to her, but there are also so many other opportunities out there in the world that kids here just don't even know exist because they don't exist in Kosrae. I don't want this to sound like I am putting her down or dismissing the workers here, because that is not what I'm trying to say. I don't see myself as better than anyone here; I just understand that we have differences and I want the girls here to understand that there are other things out there. I had a moment where I was forced to see the cultural differences, and it made me want to help my students and these young girls see that they can do more than work at a grocery store when they grow up. If they really want to work at a grocery store, that is awesome and they should do it, but I want to help them see that they can do a lot of other things too. There are some students in my classes who are extremely bright, and I really want to help them find their path to bigger things that just aren't available to them here. I love Kosrae, but the opportunities for the kids here are limited, and I am realizing the roles I can play, not just as a teacher, but as an educated, strong woman.
Overall, I had a great time at the birthday party, and I left thinking a little bit more about the reasons that I am here and the ways that I can make a difference outside the classroom. I have said this many times over the past year or so, but I figured out at some point during college that what makes me happy is to help people directly. I need to be face to face and build relationships with people. It gives me so much joy to see exactly the difference I am making, and I am starting to figure out how I can do that here, and I can't wait to get started. Even if I just help one girl have a little more confidence in herself, I will be very happy.
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