zoo typhoon.

The past couple of weeks have been really eventful! So this is me. Bringing you an update. Live, from #typhoonday2k16. More on this later.

First, I have one word for you:

Lavalava.

My neighbor, Angie, is from one of the outer islands of Yap. She’s a total beast, I love her. She is part of a group of women who make lavalava (a traditional, rectangular piece of woven cloth that is worn as a skirt) and sell them to raise a pool of money that is used to pay for medical bills and other unexpected costs that come as a consequence of being a human being.

details of the thread used for my lavalava.

In order to support her (but also in a desperate attempt to look cool (because lavalava are sick)) I bought a lavalava from Angie last week. On Wednesday, I was so bold as to wear it to school. Angie had showed me how to tie it properly, and I felt like I was killin’ it. 

But am I ever killin’ anything? Nope.

After like eight seconds of being at school, I felt like Gob Bluth. “I’ve made a huge mistake.” 

A few people had reminded me that I needed to wear a belt to keep the lavalava in place all day, but of course I ignored every single one. I felt like the way I had fashioned it was beyond secure, but I soon realized that was only true while I was standing still. Once I started walking, it was all over. 

So guess what I did? I used binder clips (you read that correctly) to keep everything in place. It was either that or… no, there was no alternative. Lower-half nudity is no option here, though I could technically go topless whenever I want. 

A lot of the students seemed impressed that I wore a lavalava to school, though they probably weren’t impressed by the way I was wearing it. It was super obvious that I was doing it wrong, so I’ll have to try harder next time. Livelive and learnlearn.

insane.

So here’s a thing that we do. Every Thursday, we order cheeseburgers from this place called Fasmingo. It’s the best. Crystal, the woman who owns the place, knows that each week we order 6+ burgers and someone from school will grab them to bring them back to campus. We call it “Burg Thurs,” because abbreving is still as cool as it was in 2011 lol. It is such a highlight of my week, and the burgers are way good. If someone can name a time in the past 5 years I ate a burger in the states, I’ll mail you a dollar. I rarely eat burgs, but now I need my Thurs fix. “Oh, how the turn tables.”

Nick and me with our neighbors, Dafrad and Summer. Don't let that stank face fool you, Summer might be the happiest child alive.

The past two weekends, my girls have been participating in a volleyball tournament. And let me tell you, I have no coaching abilities. I’m probably exactly what all of you expect - there to look good, give moral support, shout things like “side out” and “good eye” and “nice serve” and “control your passes” and “call it!” … aaaaaand that’s about it. But I will also tell you that it’s been super enjoyable to watch these girls play. Though we haven’t won a game yet (woof), there has been real improvement. It is also nice to spend time with some of the students outside of the traditional school setting. They’re all so funny.

ship at the end of the rainbow.

On Friday, it was my co-worker Mike’s birthday. Mike is the best. I feel like everyone knows a Mike that’s just awesome, and this one is mine. He’s a Jesuit in formation, and he’s entirely wonderful. 

For his birthday, we all had dinner together and then we convinced him to come out with us after. And if you know me well enough, you know I don’t love bars and such. Even here, where there are like three places you can even buy a drink, I still don’t find my self being super into that scene. But Friday proved to be a wonderful night out. I don’t know. I think I just realized while I was out that I actually know a lot of locals and it was nice to hang out with them in a casual setting. It’s weird to be in a place where I’m like kind of old (almost 23 whaaaat) but also still making new friends. I don’t hate it.

left to right: Abby, Devi, Mike, Me, Nick, Sarah. 6/10 YCHS teachers.

Saturday was one of the best days since I’ve been here. It’s hard for me to motivate myself to get out and go do things sometimes because it can be difficult to find things to do here. But I ended up going on a really beautiful hike with Kyle, another expat on the island. The trail is well maintained, and the views were unbelievable. The pictures don’t even come close. Not even a little bit. 

you can't even tell how high up we are, but this is the view of the Pacific from the Western side of the island.

But yeah, the hike was great, and then afterwards we had coconuts, which are quickly becoming the most important thing in my life. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I can’t just climb a tree and chop down a coconut at the end of all of this.

falling in love with living in the jungle.

Okay, time for typhoon news. 

Did you guys ever play Zoo Tycoon? That was one of my favorite computer games growing up, only rivaled by Reading Blasters and Freddy Fish. Oh, and Oregon Trail (Catherine Brandt…you out there?). 

But anyway, Zoo Tycoon was the best. You could build your own zoo, take care of the animals, and make sure the visitors were happy. I have one really vivid memory of playing this game with my cousin, Matt once as a family party was dying down.

It was the first time I had ever played, so Matty kind of took the reigns. We opened a new zoo and he set up two pens. We used the cheapest fencing to make a large rectangle in the grass, and then divided it right down the middle. On one side, we put a bunch of dinosaur eggs and hired scientists to hatch them (#blessed that we had access to such resources in this CD-ROM world) and on the other side he put at least 100 chimpanzees. So we have a quiet front where eggs are incubating, and then an out-of-control barrel of monkeys. All we needed were some spectators, so in they came. But of course the story doesn’t end here.

Once the dinosaurs hatched and there were dozens of people looking at them, Matt removed the fence that segregated the two species just moments before. And since that wasn’t enough to entertain us, he also removed the surrounding fence altogether. So in an instant, humans and beasts were intermingling in the most terrifying way. 

This is not a joke, not even slightly exaggerated. The dinosaurs began picking up people in their mouths, shaking them around, and flinging their bodies across the screen. Chimps were attacking each other, the dinosaurs, and the people. EVERYONE was unhappy (and you get a notification each moment any person/animal/creature in the game is remotely uncomfortable, so there were unhappy red faces popping up all over the place). In my 9 year old existence, that was one of the funniest experiences of my life. 

Anyway, all that to say there was a typhoon this week. And typhoon sounds like tycoon. So here we are.

You’re annoyed that that’s the connection here. I know it.

But whatever, this is my blog so I get to call the shots. The typhoon brought lots (and lots and lots) of rain. And let me tell you, I loved it. More than probably anyone else on the island. I’m obsessed with storms, which we don’t get super often here. Sure, it rains all the time, but as of now I’ve only heard thunder once on this island and it was just the other night. It was so lovely.

I mean...

So over this past weekend, I had heard talk from various people about a typhoon or a tropical storm coming, but I honestly didn’t think much of it until I ran to the grocery store to pick up bread on Sunday morning.

Oh - let me interrupt myself quickly to make you all aware of one of my favorite weekly occurrences on Yap:

Each week on the Saturday night flight from Palau, a shipment of freshly baked goods arrives to be sold at one grocery store, Aces, on Sundays. Typically, everything is sold out by noon-ish, so you have to get there early enough to snag the goods. 

just one of several tables hosting the bread from Palau.

We always buy a few loaves of wheat bread for the house, but if we’re lucky, there are other things. Like DOUGHNUTS. 

This past Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised by the absolute HAUL that had come in the night before. And yes, they had doughnuts. I’m all about doughnuts. So of course I capitalized on the opportunity and brought some home. It was glorious.

But anyway, back to the typhoon. I realized that it might actually get bad because there were a billion people at the store (and there are only 8,000 on the island) and everyone was buying canned food. So I was like “wha-wha-wha-what dog?” and then literally went about the rest of my day as if the typhoon wasn’t coming. Didn’t think about it once.

Monday morning, I woke up suuuuper sleepy. It was an “I can’t, I’m sick. *cough, cough*” kind of morning. Sarah and I got ready at the apartment and drove up to the house to pick up the other teachers, like we always do. 

And that’s when it happened. 

Devi (what a saint), standing at the door to greet us happily, says, “Michael just called, we don’t have school because of the typhoon!” 

7:00 am excitement.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Okay, let me describe this feeling for you. My siblings, especially, should be able to relate. Though I know for a FACT Jennifer is the only one of you who reads this blog, so thanks a lot, Law School & JT.

Remember in our SMS days when we’d go to bed after watching the news and Pete Delkus would be like “hey, it might snow tonight, but don’t get too excited — it won’t stick!” and then while we were asleep mom would see on the news that school was in fact cancelled because of “snow” and she’d still wake us up at the normal time and say, “guess what, no school!” and in our sleepy excitement the boys would come into my room and the four of us would watch Freaky Friday or Kicking and Screaming or Cinderella Story or something of equal quality. Dang. Those were the days.

But that’s EXACTLY how I felt this morning at 7:10 when Devi told us there was no school. Except instead of watching a wholesome movie with my siblings in the dark before we went outside to play in one centimeter of ice, I watched Nick take a shot of rum before we went to make a lap around the lagoon and hit all of the grocery stores to buy things to help us survive if need be.

when you dress for comfort >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Of course we bought the essentials, like these chicken patties. And hold up, these deserve a shout out. If these chicken patties didn’t exist on the island, I can’t say with any level of certainty that I’d still be alive. So here’s to you, chicken p’s, for giving me life week after week. I love you with an appropriate portion of my heart (probably somewhere around 73%).

So #typhoonday2k16 turned out to be a bust here on Yap — it hardly rained at all on our day off until dinnertime, actually. But the storm did hit other islands pretty hard, so don’t forget to keep those people in your thoughts. The weather was probably the nicest it’s been in weeks, and the day was super fun as well. We cleaned the whole house during the morning, got burgs for lunch even though it’s not Thurs, watched The Purge (stupid), and then I took a nap on the floor, just for fun. 

Shout out to my genetic lineup for giving me the superhuman ability to sleep anywhere and everywhere. It is my greatest gift and my biggest curse.

But yeah, that should bring you all up to date.

Oh, and an extra shout out to all the people who read my last blog post and then took it upon themselves to start giving me either life advice or real suggestions about school/career paths that seem like a good fit for me. You guys are the best - it feels good to feel known in that way. I love you all and am grateful for your guidance.

That should do it until next week! Can’t believe I’ve been out here for over two months now. Thank you all for your continued support. I couldn’t do this without you, and I mean that very sincerely and very literally. Y’all are the best! Thanks for reading :)

ladies leave your man at home.

This week, Yap is hosting the Federated States of Micronesia’s National Women’s Conference. It’s pretty sweet - leaders from the four states of the FSM as well as leaders and ambassadors from various pacific nations have gathered here on this lil’ bitty island to talk about la-la-la ladies, ladies.

They’re hitting hot topics like human trafficking, gender equality, and females in the government. It’s pretty sweet, honestly. I’m really pumped that this is happening because these leaders, male and female, are having really open and honest conversations about how to move forward with women’s rights.

Traditionally, women cannot hold power in the FSM, in a family unit or in the government. They have strong voices and have a lot of influence in nearly every decision that is made both in their families and in politics, but they are never the ones who get to publicly stand up and share this voice. Everything must go through a man. It’s not an oppressive thing, it’s just cultural. But some aspects of this culture are a bit outdated. 

From what I’ve gathered in the short two months that I’ve been here, many people, especially the young people on the island, have very mixed feelings about the deterioration of the culture here. Each day, Yap is becoming more modernized. 

Examples: a Chinese company has allegedly bought private beachfront property from families who live on the northern end of the island so they can turn that area into a resort. Another company is set to install a fiber optic cable on the island sometime in the next year so that the internet service here will be better. Men and women are breaking out of some of their more traditional roles in daily life. People are choosing to dress in modern outfits rather than in their traditional clothing. A lot is changing - some of it is very good, very progressive, but sometimes this progression is negative. 

There are a lot of beautiful aspects of the culture here, and for the most part this is appreciated by the locals. I talk to my students about this frequently, especially in Micronesian history. They feel very torn. On one hand, they want to dress like people in the US, they want cell phones and Facebook pages, they want to dye their hair and wear makeup. But on the other hand, they want to participate in traditional dances and ceremonies with the people in their village, or go to taro patches with their mothers or fishing with their fathers on the weekends. Some crave an opportunity to get off of this island and stay off for good, while others want to get an education elsewhere and return to their home and sustain it and help it flourish. I see both sides. I feel torn as well, though I am only looking from the outside.

Sunday sunsets with some pals.

I love this culture. I love culture in general. I can’t get enough of it. I like all of the little things, like the quirky social guidelines. However foreign they may seem to me at times, I always appreciate them. It is important to have culture and to respect it, take pride in it.

Anyway, earlier this week, one village performed some of their traditional dances to kick off the week of Women’s Conference activities. Two of our students were part of this performance, so of course we went to watch. It was SO COOL. I really enjoyed it! It made me feel so proud of them for not feeling embarrassed about embracing their culture. I spoke to one of the students the next day during homeroom and she told me that sometimes it is hard to want to participate in such events because it’s not the “cool” thing to do. But I get it. When I was growing up and no one knew what hummus was, I was always embarrassed to explain what that weird tan stuff was in my school lunch. But look at hummus now! Someday soon, all of you will know how to do traditional dances from Yap. They’ll be trending, I know it.

I had a video of the dances to post here, but I'm having trouble uploading it. "Maybe next week?" she asks with just a faint twinge of hope in her voice.

Guess who was at the performance?! PETER CHRISTIAN! *cue fangirl screams* Ahhhh!!!!!! 

Don’t know who Peter Christian is? It’s cool, neither did I until like two weeks ago. 

He’s the President of the FSM! He’s the leader of a nation. A real deal President. And he just casually strolled into the community center with his first lady to watch this dance the other night. Sat in a metal folding chair with a piece of paper taped to it that said “President Christian” as we sat just behind him in the bleachers. I was hanging with a world leader, people. I probably think that’s way cooler than you do, but whatever.

This is me trying to play it cool in front of Prez Christian. He's on the far left, in the navy shirt, just being a boss.

Random thought of the week:

I don’t think I’ve fully adjusted to the cold shower thing yet. 

Each day when I take a shower, I literally stand in the bathroom just after I turn the water on and just stare at it with my arms crossed, like a five year old about to be put in a dentist’s chair. “You really expect me to do that? I’m not going in there.” I’m such a brat about it for like half a minute before I suck it up and just go for it.

I came up with a good strategy, though. Now, before I take a shower, I close the window in my room and turn off my fan and just stand in the sweatbox I’ve created for a few minutes until I can’t take it anymore and the thought of ice cold water hitting my body sounds better than jasmine rice from Med Sand Co. at 3 am or a coke icee or marrying Nick Jonas in 2009.

Might as well get real for a minute or two. (that’s a good segue, right?)

Want to know the truth about my life here? It’s hard. And I knew it would be, I think we all did. But seriously, guys, it’s so hard. 

I don’t say this so you’ll think, “Wow, she’s so strong. It’s hard but she hasn’t come home. She’s so great.” Nooooo no. No. Not at all. I say this because I want to be honest. I don’t want you to think it’s all sunshine and rainbows for me (though there’s a whole lot of sunshine and a whole lot of rain). 

I feel so weak sometimes. Real people live here, I’m just here for a few months. Why is it hard for me to be here? Why can’t I just deal with it? What, specifically, is it that’s challenging me so much? Why am I being such a baby?

I think the hardest thing for me right now is the fact that being so far away is forcing me to learn more about myself…and I’m not so sure I’m liking what I’m finding out. I’m learning that I don’t know what I want to do with my life. 

I know what you’re thinking — who actually does know what they want to do with their life when they’re almost 23? 

Seems like a lot of people know. Or at least kind of know. 

I don’t even know what I’m good at. Or what I like. Or what I’m passionate about.

I’d like to say I’m ambitious, but am I really? What am I working towards? What are my goals, long term or short term? 

Dude. I don’t know.

So my gut instinct is to start researching grad schools. Out west, of course. 

My thinking was that I would start looking at what programs are actually offered and some magical word will jump off the page and say, “Madeleine, THIS is what you were made for! You were made to get a master’s in ________! You finally found me, your destiny!”

Obviously that didn’t happen. Because this is real life.

I read list after list of programs offered at the top (and bottom…) schools in every state west of the Mississippi. And there was nothing. Not one single thing stood out. Nothing sounded good. Nothing sounded right for me. Nothing seemed interesting or cool or exciting. Nothing sparked my interest or aligned with my passions.

So I ranted to my fellow volunteers about this. “What are you good at?” they asked. 

I don’t know.

“Well, what are you passionate about?”

…I, uh… I don’t know. Well, like, I do know. But you can’t make a career out of loving people and traveling and music and food.

“Hmmm. Well, what do you like? Like what is something you could see yourself enjoying?”

GUYS, I DON’T KNOW.

So that’s where I am with that right now. Put a pin in it. But I’m thinking probably not with grad school 2k17.

Okay, okay. Time for good things.

About a week or two ago, a GINORMOUS cargo ship came to port in good ol’ Yap. And let me tell you, it was full of treasure. Two treasures, in particular.

The first treasure was pure gold. Cheddar, if you will.

That’s right people. Cheddar freaking cheese. On this island. 

You better believe I bought a very expensive block of the good stuff - Medium Cheddar, because mild’s for sissies and they didn’t have hard. But I’m not complaining. CHEDDAR CHEESE. 

I brought that sucker home and bit a huge bite right off the corner and just took a minute to praise the captain of that cargo ship for delivering the cheddar I didn’t know I needed. 

Just going for it.

The other good I was particularly fond of in this delivery is what’s called a UFO - unidentified frozen object. It tastes just like a moon pie, except there’s vanilla ice cream in the middle instead of whipped cream. It’s two oatmeal cookies with ice cream sandwiched between them, and then the whole thing is dipped in a chocolate shell. SO. GOOD. And so affordable. Nick and I went several days (in a row, but who’s keeping track) to pick one up and enjoy them quickly before they melt in this equatorial heat. 

We felt reassured after our Tuesday UFO venture, noticing a whole box full of UFOs just beneath the nearly empty box from which we grabbed our daily treat. So all day Wednesday, I kept thinking, “Yes! Today’s a mail day and then after the post office I’ll grab a UFO and then grade the 20 literature papers that I have to read in one night (woof).” So I got some mail (thanks peeps, I’ve been writing all of you back, don’t worry) and headed over to Blue Lagoon, my favorite grocer in town, where my hopes of grading papers in a blissful state post-ice cream indulgence were VIOLENTLY CRUSHED as I looked in the freezer and saw that there was not a single UFO left. Nick and I are opening a legitimate investigation to find out who bought the whole case. Shouldn’t be too hard to find the culprit, there aren’t that many people here.

Something cool/fun that I got invited to do this past weekend was go fishing. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but Sarah, the girl I share my apartment with, is so great. She’s so friendly and personable and she cares about every person she encounters. She’s really good at meeting new people and befriending them. So I owe most of my local friendships to her.

Anyway, she and two of the women that live in our building have become pretty good pals. These two ladies invited us to join them for a 5 am excursion to go fishing last Saturday, so of course we said yes! I’m always down to fish. 

We didn’t catch anything (surprise, surprise. I’m the worst luck to have around) but I saw an eel so that was pretty sweet. Later that day, after we went back to sleep and woke up again, they invited us over for lunch. It was really lovely to a) be invited somewhere and b) feel taken care of by a neighbor. Someone cooking for you is such a great and underrated act of love and care. I so appreciated their thoughtfulness and their company. It was a good day.

Last thing before I’m finished for the week - I have a shout out. 

Cheers to you, Rachel Failla, for mailing me a crisp Jackson and thus funding my next gallon of ice cream. I thought for two seconds about branching out for this second gallon and getting something fun, like cookies and cream (because there is usually only chocolate, vanilla, and a red flavor with a blue swirl, appropriately named “Superman” (who’s flavor is just as mysterious as a man with supernatural powers)) but NOPE I just got chocolate because it’s the best thing that ever happened to mankind - followed by democracy, live comedy shows, and corn (in that order). Thanks for being a real homie. I now have a spoonful of sugar to look forward to every day after school for the next month.

It's October. Go Rangers.

Sports Jeff, terrorizing St. Louis fans one season at a time.