I arrived in Pohnpei last Thursday after the long, rigorous journey to get here. I can't remember if I posted this last year, but the travel time to get to Micronesia is about 2 days. The first is spent traveling from New York to Honolulu, this year with a stop in Houston. After a brief overnight stay in Hawaii, the Island Hopper flight leaves promptly at 7am and takes about 12+ hours. This flight lands on major islands in the Marshalls and FSM - Majuro, Kwajalein, Kosrae, Pohnpei, Chuuk, and Guam. I was pretty exhausted by the time I finally reached the Jesuit residence in Kolonia, but it didn't stop me from going out to eat with Tom (from Xavier) and Greg (my uncle) to Cliff Rainbow restaurant where I had some interesting spaghetti - Micronesian style: with pieces of octopus and tuna.
Kolonia is one of the more major, populated towns on Pohnpei. There are markets, souvenir stores, tiny restaurants, and places of business. The roads are just as dusty as Chuuk's, though less cluttered with trash. Pohnpei is also MUCH more humid than Chuuk, getting a significantly higher amount of rainfall. Aside from general infrastructure though (such as better power and roads) I don't necessarily see too drastic a difference between Pohnpei and Chuuk. Western clothing is a bit more popular and accepted, but "cultural" wear such as long Pohnpeian skirts is still the norm. The same kinds of foods and materials are imported, and actually I think the tourism sector is even a little lacking compared to Chuuk, which tends to draw the bulk of the diving and WWII enthusiasts. There's television and radio, but not much, and I still see the majority of families are without adequate shelter and services such as clean water and sewage. The island of Pohnpei is much larger than Weno, though, and in my opinion much more naturally beautiful. There are cliffs, mountains, waterfalls, and valleys that are absolutely breathtaking; some of which I got to see up close this past week.
I also got introduced to the Micronesian Seminar building on Thursday afternoon. My "commute" to work consists of walking down stone steps from the Jesuit residence where I am living through the jungle/bush to MicSem down below near the water. It's a quick and beautiful walk - a great way to begin the morning (though it hasn't rained yet so we'll see how that goes). The building is 2 floors - the first is comprised of offices, a conference room, and a media room. The second is the library and archival office. I haven't been able to spend much time in the library yet, but from what I've already seen there are a TON of cool materials about Micronesia: National Geographics dating back to the 1950s, school yearbooks, journals, artifacts, maps, and books and books and books. On Friday, I started work (definitely a change from the more relaxed schedule at Xavier!) So far, I have mostly just done some preliminary research, letters, and outlines for two potential projects: one on cultural mapping (which IS as vague as it sounds), and the other on domestic violence in the FSM, which I'm a bit more interested in. We are still waiting for funding on both fronts. Other than that, I've been analoguing some German archives - primary sources (notes, obituaries, statistics, tables, graphs, reports, etc.) from the period of Spanish control of Micronesia though German control and maybe beyond. There are about 2,000 entries, so it will definitely take some time.
Friday night, Tom and I began a weekend stay at the Village, a hotel about 10 minutes outside of Kolonia. It's called the Village because rather than one building with a bunch of rooms to stay in, you rent a private bungalow which is arranged with other bungalows along little paths of gravel and jungle. The bungalow was a large thatched structure with two waterbeds covered by an airy, white mosquito netting. the windows opened towards a beautiful view of the jungle and out into the lagoon. The showers, while hot, were pretty primitive, and more often than not contained angry, hairy, tarantula-sized spiders. The thatched roof was slightly open, allowing for the entrance of some unwanted insects, and one particularly persistent cat who kept climbing onto the roof and jumping down on the beds from the rafters looking for food and a soft place to sleep. the food at the village was delicious. I ordered some kind of fish for practically every meal: curried scallops, shrimp sautee, etc. and enjoyed great island fruit like coconuts, starfruit, and sour sop which the bar made into a daquiri for me and is my new favorite local food =)
After lunch on Saturday, Tom and I took a 2 hour hike down the main road in Pohnpei searching for the Twin Falls. Along the way we saw some beautiful views, interesting people, and some local events: a little girls' birthday party, and, much less positive (for me at least), a pig killing, which was really just four Pohnpeian men standing over a brutally screeching pig with some kind of indiscernible but crude-looking weapon. They stopped when they saw us walking by staring, and we could tell from the chilling noises that they started up again as soon as we were out of sight. After a battle with certain heat stroke, ee got to the more shaded and less populated side road leading to the water, but kept going down the main stretch in search of phone cards from local stores so we could ring a taxi to take us back. A random cab driver we spotted after searching one market with no luck told us he would take us all the way to the waterfalls and then come back again to get us, but he ended up misunderstanding what waterfalls we were looking for
(and was also probably trying to get more money out of whom he assumed were unsuspecting tourists), and drove us in the opposite direction (SO frustrating after such a long and draining walk). When it seemed like we were really getting no where, we finally just asked to be let back off at the hotel to buy minutes and call a proper taxi, which ended up overcharging us but eventually got us there. The Liduduhniap Falls are located more inward on the island away from the coast, and are somewhat difficult to get to. You have to look for specific markers (one of which was a cool stone monument) and you are meant to pay the family whose land the falls are on, though no one seemed to be home when we went. After that, you take a suspicious looking path which leads into the bush and eventually down some steep, slippery, moss-covered steps. The falls are two-tiered; both enormous with a swimming pool at the bottom which we took advantage of. On our way home, the taxi driver told us about the six Palauans that died at the falls, which Tom already told me was due to a flash flood. The driver said that the Palauans were making a lot of noise swimming, and the landowners cautioned them to be quiet and told them it was a sacred space. The Palauans apparently didn't heed the warning, and their noise stirred up a flood. Tom also mentioned later that there are markers along the stone steps indicating the death of someone who jumped off the dangerous edge of the water fall. Since we were already soaking wet from swimming, Tom and I ventured to the Village's tiny, private beach at the bottom of the little man-made suburb and watched sunset from the quiet water of the Pohnpei lagoon. On Sunday morning after brunch, we checked out of the hotel and I drove one of the Jesuit vehicles to the Nan Madol ruins, which I visited last year too. The ruins are on the edge of the island ("Nan Madol" means "the spaces between"), and is located in and between a series of small canals leading out into the open ocean. Much like the Twin Falls, the landowner (in this case, a cultural leader known as the nahnmwarki) charges "admission," which is rarely a fixed price and is mostly dependent on who you are and how much money you might have. Different people tried to extort money from us along the way for a variety of reasons (giving or selling us directions, insisting that the nahnmwarki sent them, etc.) We fell for it only once when an old woman directed us down the tiny, hidden, unpaved path to the ruins, but wised up after that. The ruins are beautiful, and inspiring when you realize that the ancient city was originally built about 2,000 years ago under a dynasty which lasted until the 1500s or so. It's a strange feeling to be able to walk in and on these massive, mysterious stones, and the complete silence and isolation of the place only adds to its strangeness.
After work on Monday, Tom and I took a walk through Kolonia and ended up at Kapinga, a tiny souvenir shop where we bought some little things and I asked the owner to make some special jewelry for me. We had dinner at Surf Club, which from the website looked like a prominent hotel and marina bar, but was in reality a small and hard to find Japanese diner-type place. The food (and the sake!) was cheap and surprisingly really delicious, and the atmosphere really reminded me of one of the hole-in-the-wall yakitori/sushi places on St. Marks Place that I used to go to while at NYU. For Tom's last night we picked up some sakao from a man selling it by the side of the road in a cooler. Always a safe bet (ahem) the sakao looked pretty safe to drink but we were still pretty cautious about it. I think I've mentioned it also, but sakao is a traditional drink made from pounding a particular hibiscus plant, wetting it, and ringing it out. The mud-like product is a natural narcotic which numbs the body and has an anasthetic-type feel.
Today has been quiet, which is surprisingly kind of refreshing for me. Even though the amenities are better here, I find myself really missing Chuuk where I am familiar with the people, the language, and the environment. I miss my friends there, I miss my students, and the everything I loved to do. When I thought about coming back to Micronesia, I always envisioned life as it was on Chuuk even though Pohnpei is very different in many ways. But I'm sure at the end of three months, I'll feel just as strong of an attachment to my new home here.
No comments:
Post a Comment