Thursday, September 23, 2010

Settling in to Island Life

Another week has gone by and I have furthered my adaptation to the island lifestyle. Things have slowed down a bit and I have finally had a little time that isn’t consumed by Peace Corps lectures and overwhelming culture shock. I am beginning to feel comfortable with my surroundings and settle into my new life. I have made strong bonds with my family members and am blending into their daily routines. At first, I was constantly a source of entertainment and angst for them. They were constantly trying to please me and take care of every little need. They are still obsessive about making me happy and all try their hardest to do whatever possible in order to made my life easy and relaxing. They still vacate their chairs and offer me a seat when I arrive and coddle my every need, but it has lessened to a degree. Now it seems like they treat me like a respected elder rather than an elite foreigner. Ironically, I am neither.
Overall, I am very happy with my family and am quite lucky to have such a wonderful clan of people to help make my Pohnpeian experience the best it can be. The little kids have taken a special interest in me. When I return home each day; they scream my name, drop what they are doing and all come running towards me. I toss them around, throw them over my shoulders, and do all kinds of lil kid rough housing. The little three year old, OJ, is the cutest of the bunch and follows me wherever I go. His little face is looking through the cracks of my door as I go to sleep and his war cries often wake me in the morning. He is one of the only kids who doesn’t speak English, but he is learning a little while he climbs on back and sits on my lap during the evenings.
I have bonded with the older boys by doing manual labor around the household and playing basketball down at the school. I am never asked to do any work and am often discouraged, however I make an effort to try to assist with the daily chores to take care of the compound. Coconuts need to be husked and cut, wood needs to be chopped, pigs need to be fed, and a variety of other physical jobs need to be taken care of every day. I step in and lend a when I can, but I feel rather foolish because the 15 year old can adeptly do all of these tasks while I slowly putz my way learning the basics. I think they appreciate it, but I’m not sure.
Basketball has been a great source of fun and exercise for me so far. I have only played a few times, but it is exhausting in this heat and humidity. After just shooting around, I am dripping sweat and gasping for air. I clamor for a sip of water as the other Micronesians continue zipping around the court without the need for a break. I guess their bodies are a little better made to handle to stifling heat. Defense and passing have never been taught to these kids, but nonetheless they are very skilled at basketball. Every kid that picked up the ball could dribble and shoot with surprising skill. Micronesians are naturally strong and quick, so athletics come easily to them. Many are dribbling through the legs and draining threes. I honestly think that these Micronesian kids are on the whole better than American kids at basketball. Without any training, every one of them is able to show some skill on the court. Their athletic ability doesn’t just apply to basketball. Everyone is short, fast, strong and balanced. Until they get to about thirty years old; then most seem to become fat, sloppy and slow. Usually, basketball isn’t played in the traditional American style. Its more of like a shootaround 2.0. Guys will shoot and get change for made shots; but also drive into the lane and make lay-ups through groups of players or leap up for a tip in. This informal style works for the large groups of people and still provides adequate exercise and competitiveness.
However, on Sundays real games are organized. A local man brings whistles and organizes full-court games with different grades and skill levels of kids. I went down and played one day with the older group of guys and did pretty well. I knocked down some shots and showed them a thing or two about defense. I talked to the man and told him that I did a little bit of coaching back home and had a lot of basic basketball knowledge. He was overjoyed. He immediately handed me a whistle and had me referee the next few games of kids playing. So I hopped right in and regulated the slapdash play of a few games. A pretty sizeable crowd gathered around to watch me run around and act like I knew what I was talking about. Afterwards, the local man asked me to come back next week and run the kids through some drills to teach them some basketball fundamentals. So of course I showed up the next Sunday and tried to help. As I approached the court, the man blew his whistle, cleared the older guys off the court and gathered a big group of children around me. He handed me the whistle and let me go to work. I got the 30 or 40 kids organized into lines and got them running through a few drills. I stressed the importance of bounce passes, solid screens, and crisp cuts. I don’t think that the kids had ever gone through any kind of coaching like this, but they picked up on it really quick and they enthusiastically hustled through the different drills. The man really wanted me to show them defense, so I put them in the proper defensive stance and had them crouched and shuffling around the court in zig zags. At this point, dozens of people were gathered around and throngs of locals were laughing at the silly maneuvers of these young boys. One of my goals in the Peace Corps was the help kids learn basketball and I already got involved within the first couple weeks. I was quite happy to make this connection and establish a role for myself in the community. Now I have a reputation that goes beyond my proclivity to drink copious amounts of sakau.
Last Saturday, I also got the chance to get out on the water again. Peace Corps organized a water safety day and rented a couple of boats to take us out to the ocean. We were briefed on water safety tip and dangerous sea life to avoid and then shipped out to the clear blue waters. We went through some things about how to properly put on a life jacket in the water and attempt to hoist yourself back into a boat. However, only a couple other guys and I were able to pull ourselves onto the boat with our own strength. We then plopped in the water and spent a couple hours snorkeling around the reef. I saw many beautiful fish and leisurely enjoyed a pleasant swim along the reef shelf. One of the guides spotted a shark down in the depths and hollered at us to come check it out. Some people swam back towards the boat in fear, but I moseyed over the spot and tried to see the situation. They had talked to us extensively about sharks and assured us that the majority of sharks in this area are not aggressive and are actually more afraid of us than we are of them. There is joke in Pohnpei that Micronesian sharks are “vegetarians”. There are few dangerous types, but they all live outside the reef. Almost all the cases of shark attacks are accidental incidences when a person is carrying a recently speared bloody fish too close to their body and the shark gets a mouthful of human leg instead of a dying fish. So bottom line, there was no need to be scared. The only problem was that the shark was way down on the bottom. The guide and one other current Peace Corps volunteer could dive down deep enough and see the shark clearly, but it was no easy dive. A few other trainees tried to hold their breath and swim down towards the bottom to catch a glimpse, but it was too hard to get down so far. I got deeper than the rest of the trainees and saw the outline of the shark, but never got close enough to say hello. It made me realize that I seriously need to work on my deep-water breathing. The locals assured me that the skill will improve drastically with time and I just need to continue to practice. So hopefully I am placed near a beach and can get daily practice swimming with sharks.

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