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 :)