madness.

Saturdays in Maap.

Across the country, people are scratching teams off their NCAA brackets one by one as the upsets start rolling in.

It’s one of my favorite times of year - March Madness.

I love the excitement of watching college basketball. Especially in this tournament setting. It’s so emotional. Really, it’s just the best. Unfortunately, it’s just not possible for me to stream any of the games here so I’m pretty much out of the loop. But I filled out my bracket anyway. What the Butler.

coolest kids in all of Nimar.

Meanwhile, on this front, I’m dealing with a completely different type of madness.

Termites.

On Saturday, it poured all day. We’re in the dry season now, but what that really means is that it's just less rainy than the rainy season. It still rains frequently. The dry days are just brutally hot.

Sarah and I ventured into the monsoon to walk into town to get some lunch in the afternoon. Upon our return, I laid all of my clothes out around my room so they would dry. The rain jacket that the Spring Hill admissions office gave me as payment for being a tour guide was soaked all the way through. Talk about the most useless possession of all time: a low-quality rain jacket during an actual flood.

This morning when I woke up, all of the clothes were still completely drenched, and on schedule to start growing mold any second. So I went into my closet (which is just a hole in the wall in my room) to grab my hamper to wash whatever else was dirty. And that’s when I heard it.

A most unsettling noise.

I knew immediately there was something living in my closet. I was too disgusted to figure out exactly what was going on, but I also realized that if I ignored it, it might get worse.

Y’all know how I like to ignore things that need to be fixed. (see: last fall when I didn’t have a light for two months)

The floor of this closet is lined with boxes of things my sweet mother has shipped to me. One box was on the bottom of the stack, more precious than the rest.

It was filled with bags of veggie straws and belvita breakfast cookies - two of my favorite snacks - remaining hidden until the end of Lent because I gave up snacking.

But I soon discovered it was also filled with termites.

I cannot describe the noise that was coming out of that box. I cannot find the right words. But it was the WORST.

So I put the box outside, and later put it in a trash bag and drove it a couple of miles away to the island dump. That may have been a little dramatic, but it felt right. I needed that box to be far away from me, even though it contained some pretty wonderful things.

plumeria are easily the most beautiful flowers.

On this same note of madness, many of you have asked me lately how basketball is going.

I don’t currently have much to say, as we haven’t played a game or anything yet, but the practices have actually been completely awesome. We do lots of cool drills and I even hear some of the boys say things like “I like this one” when we do stuff I came up with, so I think it could definitely be worse.

I’m hoping we never have to play a real game, though, because running drills and blowing a whistle and watching scrimmages are things far different from calling plays and creating strategies and breaking presses and subbing players. 

some of our students at a school event last Friday.

The past two weeks have been pretty slow moving, but great all the same.

Last Saturday, we went to Maap for the day. Abby and I swam out to the reef and it was way cool. The water is unbelievable. I still haven’t gotten used to that, and I don’t think I ever will. I’ll miss it when I’m gone.

Maap is the real deal.

The following day, Nick and I had our final two open-water dives to complete our certification. We went to our usual ocean dive spot for the first one and then took the boat out way beyond the reef for the last dive.

I WAS SO EXCITED.

Beyond the reef! There’d be such cool things out there beneath the huge waves. Turtles, sharks, mantas, urchins, big fish - all kinds of stuff. 

*interjection*

Has anyone seen the movie Surf's Up? Easily the most underrated animated movie of ALL TIME.

It's a documentary about surfing and it's BRILLIANT. Seriously. Brilliant. Shia Labeouf is an ARTIST.

This one goes out to Big Z and the LA road trip participants of 2014:

"Stepped on me? Stepped on me?! Are you kidding? This guy was dancin' on me. Look at this. Broken, broken, gone, gone, broken, broken, broken-"

*end interjection*

I was psyched. And secretly hoping to see a dolphin. Y’all know how I feel about dolphins. I would’ve cried.

But something horrible happened. It’s called dry-heaving. And I thought post-grads weren’t supposed to do that (ba-dum-tiss).

Here’s the break down:

We were supposed to report to the boat at 8:30 AM, which was significantly earlier than any of our other lessons. So I forgot to eat breakfast, oops. Nick and I got straight on the boat. As the boat drove out to our first dive spot, we set up our tanks/gear. Dive for about an hour. Come up, re-orient ourselves, rest for an hour on the boat. Drive boat to new location. 

Once we anchored beyond the reef, we had to disassemble all of our gear and reassemble it with a new tank (you always have to use a full tank for a new dive), but standing on that boat and bending over and unscrewing parts and screwing them back together proved to be a lot for me while the boat was being rocked by big waves. 

Oh, oh, oh.

Also I ate SEVEN slices of banana bread during the break between dives (recall: no breakfast). So.

So then I doubled over the side of the boat, ready to spill my guts, but alas, nothing happened. Except the driver took us back within the reef where the water is calm and we dove there instead. 

Made me feel like a giant baby. Or one of those old-time ladies who wore corsets and fainted every ten minutes. Which is like my least favorite thing that ever happened in history because all the women were just feeble as hell and nobody wants that.

ANYWAY.

Despite my lame nausea (which was kind of worth it because the banana bread was BOMB), we still had a great dive. I saw a few sea turtles and was swimming right next to one of them. There were also starfish and a few clams that opened up and looked pretty sweet on the inside. Some of the fish were also very big.

That was a well-crafted sentence. “Some of the fish were also very big.” Wow.

Nick and I are going to do another dive soon with Laurel and Sana. We want to go to this spot called Vertigo where all the sharks are. I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures when we do that one.

the moon is always so big here.

This past Friday, we had a Prose and Poetry event at school. Our students had been practicing all semester and performed short monologues and skits. I helped a couple of groups each week with their preparation, and I knew they’d do an awesome job.

I was in charge of the bake sale, a continuous concession stand throughout the night of the performance, so I was unable to actually watch any of the performances. It was unfortunate to have to miss them, but I could hear lots of people laughing and saying great things about the students. They’re so talented, I know it was amazing.

sophomore girls helping with the bake sale.

But I actually had a total blast under the bake sale tent. The students who volunteered their evening to work with me were being so hilarious the entire time. It was so enjoyable. I wish I could convey some of the jokes that were made but I suppose they wouldn’t make any sense out of context. Just know that these Yapese kids have some of the wittiest, smartest humor I’ve ever been exposed to. It’s incredible.

cracking me up all night.

Sometimes I just think about how I’m on a literal speck of land in the middle of a huge ocean. Which is absolutely insane. How did I get here.

outrigger canoe in Maap.

But I’ve been trying to soak in this time here while I can. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I have to leave Yap eventually. In just over two months, actually. It is quite bittersweet. I know I will cry uncontrollably when I have to go, so I try not to think about it too much.

sunrise view from my house.

As I think about it realistically, though, I don’t know if or when I’ll ever be able to come back here. It is so far away and the flights are inconvenient and expensive. There’s also not much (or anything) to do here if you’re not working, so I don’t know that it would necessarily make sense to return without a significant purpose. 

Obviously I would love to come back and visit, but will it ever happen?

Who knows.

That freaks me out. So I’m trying to just get everything I can while I’m here. People keep saying “soak it in, soak it in,” but I’ve had to take some time to actually figure out what that means for me.

another sunrise from the house.

For me, it means taking drives down the main road of the island any chance I get. Seeing all of it - the trees, the hills, the flowers, the family stores on the side of the road. Waking up for sunrises, being outside for sunsets. Staying out late looking at the stars on clear nights. Taking walks with stray dogs, swimming in the ocean, listening to island reggae. 

I actually feel like I’m soaking it all in. It’s a bizarre feeling, but I don’t hate it.

It’s nothing like feeling as if termites are crawling all over your body, which is how I feel right now while I write this.

Anyway, I’m grateful for this time here. It’s just been really lovely lately, and I’m very happy.

Big thanks to all of you who have continued to write me letters and send messages. I know the time difference is lame and challenging but it means a lot that you’re reaching out anyway. You keep me sane. 

Another shout out to my family. My hardest weeks here are always the ones when all of my siblings are home, so thanks for taking a solid six hours out of your spring breaks to catch up with me. I know it wasn’t easy (Jeff).