I haven't been keeping up with this blog very well recently, so I'll give a much overdue update of the past couple weeks.
Last Monday was Liberation Day! It was a lot of fun and I'm really glad we got to be part of the celebration. Each village has their own celebration, and we live in Lelu so we went to the Lelu celebration. Within Lelu, there are different areas and each area wears a different color, sort of like representing different teams. We were part of the "Sea Siders" team and wore green. We headed over around 9 in the morning and watched all the different areas walk in. It was held at the Lelu Elementary School, which is really close to our house. Each section sits together and there are a bunch of different games and activities. It is sort of a big field day, but pretty random and unorganized, and they give out very different prizes. Everything is a very friendly competition, all about having fun! At the very beginning of the day, when each group walked in, different middle aged ladies were all trying to pull each other's skirts off and running around like crazy people. It was hilarious! I knew right then that I was going to love Liberation Day. There are a series of different competitions, but they all kind of start haphazardly and everyone who participates gets a prize. The prizes were bags of sugar and bags of laundry detergent. Everyone could participate in every competition, and every person who participated got a prize for every competition. This resulted in Jesse, Aidan, and I collectively getting about 10 bags of sugar total and about 3 or 4 bags of laundry detergent each. The first race just started with a bunch of people running diagonal across the field in front of the school. There was no measured distance, no timing, just if you ran across the field you got a bag of sugar. It was awesome! There were a bunch of different things, like a water balloon toss, a tire rolling race, dizzy bat, and three-legged race. They even lined up all the kids in a big circle and did a race around the kids. Keep in mind everyone participates in all of these. Everyone as in all the adults and even the old ladies, which was hilarious to watch. They were so excited and into it! Some of the women even sat on little kids bikes and the kids were pushing them around on them really fast. It was actually pretty dangerous, but people here don't really worry about that kind of stuff; they just like to have a good time. It lasted until early afternoon, and there was a bunch of food for lunch too, which was awesome. There were a bunch of coconuts too. Have I mentioned my love for coconuts? Fresh coconuts are the greatest thing ever. The coconut water is so good, especially in certain coconuts it is a little fizzy, almost like it's carbonated. Then you can crack it open and eat all the meat out, which is equally as delicious. We eat a lot of coconuts at our house. We also cut up the meat and put it in our oatmeal for breakfast, and it is a delicious addition (especially with bananas too)! Basically the fruit here is amazing. I eat tons of bananas and coconuts and they are delicious. They also have these green tangerines here which are really easy to peel and they taste delicious! Island fruit is the way to go. Back to Liberation Day: it was a really fun day, but we were exhausted by the end. We tried to apply a lot of sunscreen and stay in the shade when we could, but we all still got at least a little burnt. The tops of my feet got absolutely roasted and are now peeling :( oh well, it was worth it.
Speaking of Liberation, like I said earlier, each village has their own celebration, and a couple villages had them on Friday of last week, so we had no school that day. Our principal also randomly decided that we wouldn't have school Thursday either, so we ended up only having a two-day school week last week (and two 4-day weekends in a row), which was sort of awesome, but also sort of sucked from a teaching standpoint. We're now only 2 weeks away from the end of the quarter, and we have only had 2 full weeks of school Monday through Friday. That's island life for ya... constantly adjusting and adapting. It made this week pretty difficult because we had to teach a full five days! Well sort of... we get out at 1:30 on Fridays because we have a short schedule. I guess I shouldn't complain since my workday here is nothing compared to the average one back home.
I have really gotten into the swing of things teaching. I have flushed out a few problems and made the system work better, so I'm feeling more organized and on top of things now. If you know me well, you know that I am much happier and relaxed when I am organized and have everything in order how I want it :) I also know almost all of my student's names, so that makes things a lot easier. I'm giving my first real exam next week, so hopefully my kids do well on it! I am excited about it because after that, I get to start teaching real science! My first unit has been all review and math stuff that you need to know for the rest of the class, so I am anxious to get into the real science that I like. The last couple days have been enjoyable for me though, so that is good. It makes the day go by so much faster when I enjoy the lesson that I'm teaching. I've been doing problem solving the past few days, and I really like that, so I have enjoyed teaching it. Since I have everything organized, I worry less about the actual teaching and can have fun with it. I'm starting to really like it. There is a lot of planning and grading and management behind the scenes, but the actual standing in front of a class and teaching kids science is really fun for me! I'm starting to get to know them and their personalities, so it makes class a little more fun because I can keep them interested a little bit more. And now that I know them better and know what to expect, I know when I can relax and make jokes and not worry that they're going to get off task.
Last week, I hung out with my host family a little bit more, and it was really nice to see them and spend time with them again. It's nice to get away from the teaching and just relax with the locals. They really have become a second family, so it's almost like going home when I go over there. I swam with some of the kids and someone else was there having a birthday party and had leftover pizza, so they gave some to us. We didn't know them at all, but that's just how everyone is here in Kosrae. It's such a community, so it doesn't matter if you know them or not, you can stop any stranger on the street and say hi, ask for help, or share your extra pizza. It's nice to be in a place where everyone is so generous, even though they might not have a lot to give. I talked with the dad of that family for a little bit, and he actually spent a while in the US in the military, so he knew a lot about it and we had a lot to talk about. It was really cool, but the coolest part is how often that kind of thing happens here. It's a pretty awesome place to be. I was a little worried before coming that it would be hard to break into the community, and there are definitely times that I feel like an outsider, but for the most part everyone is always welcoming and excited to talk to you about anything. They don't care that you aren't from here, they just want to say hi and share what they can. Back to my story about my host family; I went back to the house with the kids after swimming, and my host mom was waiting to give me dinner. She is selling hamburgers, so she gave me one and a pop and sent me home. I wasn't expecting anything from them, but she wanted to make sure I got something to eat. It was great! I am actually supposed to hang out with them tomorrow again, and I am excited! They are doing a birthday celebration for everyone in the family who has birthdays this month, so it should be really fun! I'm guessing there will be tons of food, which I am excited about because I have been missing out on the local dishes since I moved out of my host family's house.
Today was exciting too! After school, Jesse and I went snorkeling at a new place that I hadn't been before. Jesse wanted to try out the spear gun he is borrowing from someone who is off-island for the next few months. He didn't catch anything, but the snorkeling was awesome! I saw my first shark and an eagle ray! I've seen an eagle ray before, but this time it was really close to me! I got a video of it swimming, and it is really cool! I can't post it because the internet is too slow, but maybe I'll try to leave it for a while so it can post because it's pretty awesome. It swam right towards me and I followed it for a little while to get the picture. Eagle rays are pretty curious, which is great for tourists like me who like to see them. It was no more than 10 ft away from me, so I was really excited. The shark I was also really excited about, but it was kind of far from me. I got a picture of it, but you can barely see it because it's so far away. The only sharks around here are reef sharks, which apparently are not dangerous, and they don't get very big (usually 4-5ft). I don't know anything about sharks, but this is what I'm getting from what everyone has told me. According to Jesse, there was another shark really close to me, but I didn't see it. He saw it and was so surprised that he made a noise and the shark got scared and swam away really fast. When I heard him, I turned to look, but I turned the other way and by the time I looked, the shark had swam away. So basically what happened is I almost got attacked by a shark, but I fought it off. That's what I'm telling everyone anyway... In reality I'm really mad that I didn't see it since it was so close to me!
That's about it for now; hopefully I'll have some more cool stuff to post soon! Shoutout to my parents for sending me all kinds of awesome things that I can't get here. Best parents ever! I'll follow that up with a shameless plug for care packages full of chocolate and processed American snack food, which is actually pretty hard to come by here :)
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