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| rainy village walks. |
People keep asking me how I’ve adjusted to living in Yap. It is super apparent to me now that I’ve gotten used to life here, but only because two crazy gross things happened to me within a few hours of each other and my lack of reaction shed light on the way I have adapted to this island.
Friday night, I came home after a tiring week of school. It had been absolutely pouring rain all day and I wanted nothing more than to put on sweatpants, lay in bed, and watch New Girl and laugh my lungs out. So I set myself up, just like that, but as I hopped in bed, my foot rested in a disgusting, soggy puddle in the corner of my bed.
Rat urine.
On my BED.
Completely unfazed, I rolled my eyes, changed my sheets, washed my foot, and carried on.
The following morning as I was getting in the shower, I felt something on my back.
It was a roach. A big one. Like, it was on me. For many seconds.
I just flung it off of my shoulder and used the shower head to attack it with water until it basically drowned. I didn’t scream or nothin’.
Many of you might be thinking, “who is this chick and how does she keep it so cool and collected in these disgusting moments?”
I have no idea. I don’t know who I am anymore.
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| gray mornings. |
The other update requests I’m getting are those related to coaching basketball.
So, I’m coaching both varsity teams, but because of the incessant rain the girls have yet to have a practice.
But somehow, every Thursday afternoon, the clouds part and the sun beats down mercilessly and the men’s team has practice, or what I like to call, NBA Street 2k17. And just to briefly fill you in, 1) yes, I know what I’m doing, and 2) people are actually learning new things, so 3) it’s going very well! I make them run a lot, because CONDITIONING IS HALF THE GAME! Running drills immediately brings me back to the days of my 7th and 8th grade seasons, where I played with the same D2 team of girls who were just barely not good enough for D1 but totally killed it in the lower division, regardless of the fact that we always blared Paramore and Jonas Brothers songs through the speakers in the gym while we shot layups and ran suicides.
Side rant #1 - I’m just thinking about how we lost the DPL championship that one time to Good Shepherd and I almost fouled out because I kept throwing punches which resulted in getting called for reaching. And my dad would remember much better than I would, but I think the score at the end of the game was something stupid like 14-11.
Side rant #2 - I really miss DPL basketball, especially my brothers yelling at the refs and getting way too invested in games that did not matter. I miss concession stands and watching back to back to back to back SMS games and watching dad coach and my siblings dominate while I was average at best. Glory days.
Last weekend we had a faculty retreat in Rumung, a little island that is part of Yap proper and is juuuust barely detached from the northern coast. We took a little boat ride to get there and spent a lovely morning together.
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| rainbow over rumung. |
But the boat ride proved to be too much for my hair, which, by the way, isn’t even close to purple anymore. It’s a weirdo combination of blonde and gray and blue.
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| windswept. |
School has been great lately. I cannot believe it’s already February, though.
In history, we’ve been learning about the German and Japanese occupation of Yap. It’s so fascinating to me. It’s so funny to think back to how I felt when I found out that I would no longer be teaching earth science because I was shifted to Micronesian History I. I HATED that. I was so nervous and overwhelmed and I felt so incapable of teaching something I knew nothing about. But I am having so much fun with it. And I love that I know the history of this place now. The history of the whole FSM is very interesting, but Yap’s history in particular is so unique. I’ll have to share a few choice pieces of information sometime soon.
Last week, I split the freshmen into two groups - Pohnpeians and Germans - and had them reenact a rebellion that took place over a hundred years ago in a different state in the FSM. It was hilarious, to say the least, to watch them act this out, but it has been so cool to watch them really understand their nation’s history. It’s important. And they love it.
I wore my lavalava to school one day last week and it was a disaster. I used safety pins to hold it in place because I just don’t have the confidence to wear it without scaffolding because there is always the fear that it will fall off. A couple of senior girls asked if they could teach me the right way to wear it, so we had a little lesson.
With much laughter and confusion from all involved, the entire senior class - men and women - helped me with my wardrobe insecurities and taught me the local secrets. It was a major highlight of my week.
In homeroom one day, a couple of students drew this iconic image of a coconut tree with stone money leaning up against it. This is a common representation of the things most important to Yap. They labeled it with the Yapese words for each item in the drawing, so here’s a little lesson for all of you. My favorite of these words is ochuub (pronounced “oo - choo - b), which means “coconut”.
I know I talk about how much I love coconuts all the time, but I still don’t think I’ve given them enough credit. You know how when you learn about Native Americans you learn how they used every part of the buffalo? It’s the same deal with coconuts. People use every part for everything! Husks help create fertile soil, the water hydrates and cleanses like no other, milk and cream are so excellent for cooking, meat is good for eating, oil is good for frying food and moisturizing and rejuvenating skin and repairing split ends. So, everything. COCONUTS, MAN.
One last thing.
I’m reading the Harry Potter series now for the first time in my life.
I know. I’m 23. I lived through the hype and ignored it the whole time.
But I think there’s a reason I’m doing this now. And it’s the same reason why I read 1984 for the first time this year, too.
It’s all so relatable to the current political climate. I’m so stressed out about not being in the U.S. right now. I want so badly to be there, to be calling my congressmen and watching the news and going to rallies in Dallas and listening to people who need to be heard.
Mentally, I made several comparisons about Dolores Umbridge and her educational decrees to all of the executive orders that are being signed lately. I thought I was really cool and smart, and then I spent one second on Facebook and saw fifty posts about this same idea. So even though I’m not as original and creative as I believed myself to be, I still think it’s really cool that I’m relating to this book in a real way for the very first time at this exact point in time. So, I’ll leave you with this: read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix right now. You won’t regret it.
Also, there is so much music that is hitting my soul so hard right now and I can’t keep it to myself. So here.
- Moving On and Getting Over - John Mayer (new)
- Keep Going - The Revivalists
- Clouds - BØRNS
- Tear In My Heart - Twenty One Pilots x Mutemath
- Rhythm & Blues - The Head and The Heart
- Gale Song - The Lumineers
