Day Four on the Island

And then the rains came.

We experienced eight showers on the island today. Most of them lasted for only a few minutes, but they tend to appear out of nowhere so we are being continually caught off guard. One even occurred while the sun was shining. The cloud was passing by so quickly that it didn’t even have time to darken the sky. We had a series of one-hour interviews with various people on campus, and two of the showers occurred during one of those hour-long blocks. Apparently, it tends to rain every day between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. or so. The island has been experiencing drought lately—almost two months without rain—so the residents claim the island is typically lusher than it is now. Having come from California, I think it’s a matter of perspective. The drought in my home state is certainly more than just two months long.

By the way, the arrival of rain is supposed to be a good omen, so anyone who arrives just before a rainfall is considered a blessing. The fourth day in a row of rain makes all of the team a blessing for the island, or so we’ve been told multiple times.

A shower can catch you by surprise here, and it may end within seconds or minutes. I had another tremendous feeling of sense memory before one of the showers, though. I could smell the rain coming, and it was there within ten minutes.

I picked up a t-shirt and a couple of caps at the college’s bookstore today. Cash only. I’ve not decided which one The Boyfriend gets and which one is mine. I suppose that will be a debate for another day. The t-shirt is all mine, by the way. The mascot for the school is a shark, so I get to get back in touch with one of my childhood fascinations, sharks. Yes, that was partly due to Jaws, but that movie just meant that more information was suddenly available to learn more about these creatures.

The team, which really has bonded to the point that we do almost everything together, went to dinner at a beautiful Cliffside restaurant called Cupid’s. It is a very romantic spot, perfect for a wedding. The food was okay, but the views were spectacular. I got some amazing sunset photos here. We were almost devoured by bugs for a while until the restaurant staff turned on a fan that apparently dissuaded the bugs from coming into the patio area.

I got to sample some fried octopus, which was okay but not spectacular. For dinner, I had the shrimp sauté with potato wedges. By the time we got the dinner—after the appetizers and the salad—the shrimp were almost cold. The potato wedges were really more like sliced baked potatoes, well-cooked but a bit dry. The best part of the meal might have been the two glasses of wine. The place reminded me of a certain Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood (oh, how I’m missing Mexican food) where the food is pretty bad, but the more of the margaritas you drink, the less you care about the taste.

One of our team members did stay behind at the hotel to participate in the making of something called sakau. I wish I could describe it. A group of men gather and talk while one of their number uses shredded leaves to squeeze a dark liquid into a cup. There’s a lot of scooping and moving and twisting, none of which matters to the men, it seems. They’re just there for the sedative properties of the sakau. It acts as a narcotic and tends to mellow people out. I’ve not yet found out if our colleague partook of the drink or not, but I fear he might be in bad shape tomorrow.

By the way, one of the men participating in the making and drinking of sakau was the President of the Federated States of Micronesia himself. He apparently owns the hotel where we are staying, and whenever the police show up, that’s supposedly a sign that the president is in residence. Small world.

Another habit on the island is the chewing of betelnuts. It’s kind of like chewing tobacco or snuff except it leaves your teeth stained black and reddish-brown. And people spit it everywhere. There are numerous signs prohibiting the chewing (and especially the spitting) of betelnut juice. It’s not difficult to see why. It leaves a dark reddish-brown stain on whatever it hits. Apparently, the betelnut gives its chewers a bit of a buzz, kind of like a hit of caffeine.

On the way to the restaurant tonight, the roads were more crowded than usual. People walk almost everywhere, so after dark, there are sometimes hundreds of people crowding the narrow streets. We passed by a church tonight with a full congregation, and the chair of our team jumped out to take pictures. I was the only one to follow here. About 50-60 people, at least, were crowded into and under a thatched hut listening to a man using a loudspeaker. Naturally, I didn’t understand what he was saying, but the crowd certainly was listening intently. There are churches everywhere on the island, including three for the Latter Day Saints on the road to the college campus. Another Mormon church is under construction. I’m not certain why you’d need four different churches for the same religion on one stretch of road. Unless the culture of walking means that the church has to be within walking distance. Many of them do not have significant parking areas.

A full day of interviews and revisions takes a lot of energy, and the Wednesday of an accreditation visit (the middle day) takes even more effort. It’s usually the longest day, so tomorrow’s post might be even less eventful. I typically need to wind down a few minutes before going to sleep, but the television reception is so bad here that some nights you can’t watch the same channel from the night before because of the signal interference. Like internet access, television reception is quite hit-and-miss. Some nights, I’ve been able to watch Turner Classic Movies. Other nights, the image is so fuzzy that it’s tough to tell what you’re watching. 

Day Three on the Island

Dogs are everywhere on this island. They are not on leashes and have free reign to wander wherever they want. Most of them seem to be guard dogs, protecting homeowners from theft, apparently the most common form of crime on the island. So the dogs wander down the roads and always have right-of-way, apparently. I’ve yet to see a dog that’s been run over. Most drivers go very slowly, so the dogs have nothing to fear from cars. Most of them seem to be very well fed, and they only bark if you’re on someone’s property without permission. Or if another dog wanders into their territory. We were actually awakened by a dog fight in the early morning hours. It’s either the roosters in the area, who are early risers, believe me, or the dogs. Despite being a very rural isolated island, there can be a lot of noise here at night.

Today was our first day to visit the campus, so much of the afternoon was spent taking a tour of the various buildings and facilities, getting ourselves oriented to the place that will be our workspace for the next three days. We saw classrooms, labs, administration offices, residence halls, the bookstore, all kinds of locations. Most of the buildings are white with green roofs, and there are passageways connecting buildings so students do not get wet walking from building to building, class to class. The walkways also help a lot with the heat. It’s very humid here, and sitting under the sea almond trees or the huts at the front of the campus keeps the students from suffering from the oppressive heat.

By the way, it has rained at least once every day that we’ve been on the island. It rained twice today. I was the only one to bring an umbrella provided to us by the campus since my nose detected impending rain as soon as we got out of the car in the parking lot that fronts the school. It must be sense memory. I used to be able to smell rain coming when I lived in Mississippi. Maybe you never lose the skill.

The remaining three members of the team arrived early in the morning (about 3 a.m. or so), including the chair of our team. The rest of us had already bonded as a group, which is not all that surprising since we are the only people that we know on this isolated island. So we were all able to have breakfast and lunch together and get to know each other a little better. After the visit to the campus ended, we disembarked to one of the sketchiest looking restaurants we’ve encountered on the island so far.

The Rusty Anchor Pub & Grub is located in what was intended to be a hotel. The hotel was never finished, but downstairs in the building is a bar that offers brick-oven-baked pizza. You’d be surprised how good the pizza was here in the jungles of Pohnpei. We had four pies, two of them meat lovers, another a supreme, the final one called a Pohnpeian, featuring shrimp and pineapple. There was nothing left after we were through. The beers and wine helped, no doubt.

As far as atmosphere goes, though, the Rusty Anchor is kind of a mess. It has a balcony overlooking the lagoon and offering spectacular views. However, the rest of the joint is little more than a concrete bunker. There were a couple of pool tables, a large rectangular bar, and various nautical decorations, the most memorable of which was a series of tortoises and shells mounted on the wall. It was mostly just concrete, and the sense of un-completed-ness was palpable. Still, we had some of the best pizza I’ve had in a while. 

Day Two on the Island

After sleeping for almost twelve hours, I awoke to discover that my iPhone has finally gotten onto Micronesian time. I was no longer in the United States of America, and even my phone had to acknowledge this.

Internet access here is rather limited. At the moment, I’m only able to have access to contact with people back home through Facebook or Messenger or Line when I’m in the team room at the hotel. The college set us up with a Wi-Fi hotspot, and it’s pretty efficient, but it’s a huge shift in the ways you communicate when you’re 19 hours ahead of the people you’re trying to talk to and you only have a few moments each day to get a little bit of a sense of home.

We decided to go shopping this morning, only to discover that lots of places are closed on Sunday. The church—well, the churches, since there are many here—has a strong influence over people in the islands. We did manage to locate three different stores that were open, each of them offering a somewhat different experience. The first was ostensibly a grocery store. Almost everyone stocked upon water since we’ve been discouraged from drinking the water from the faucets (a different strain of E. coli to worry about, apparently). I also purchased a bar of soap to replace the ones provided by the hotel that happened to be covered with mold (no doubt from not being used for several months of humid weather) and, for good measure, some Filipino chocolate. The chocolate was pitched into a garbage can after a couple of tastes—just terrible. By the way, if you find yourself in a grocery store on an island in the South Pacific, be sure you check the expiration dates. Such dates seem to be more like suggestions here, and it took a while to find any chocolate that wasn’t at least three months beyond the “Best Before” date.

The next stop seemed to be another grocery store, except this time we had stumbled into a co-op that offered food, clothing, artwork (wooden carvings, mostly), and assorted other odds and ends. I picked up a couple of t-shirts (one for myself, one for The Boyfriend), and I took another shot at a snack, purchasing a package of milk arrowroot “biscuits” made in Fiji. The biscuits (cookies, really) were quite good. The t-shirts were okay, too.

Our final shopping experience occurred at what appeared to be a general store crammed to the ceiling with just about everything except food. If you’ve ever wondered about the ubiquity of American culture, go to a store like this one. Disney, World Wrestling Federation, Marvel—you name it, it was here. There was also a bin with DVDs and CDs, many of them used, including the soundtrack to To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, not a CD I would have expected to find in the Federated States of Micronesia. I didn’t purchase anything at this third store, but the rest of the team seemed fascinated by the rolling papers available here.

Lunch was at a lovely ramen place located on the edge of a river. The views were spectacular, of course, and we got to watch a rainstorm pass through the area. The owners are of Japanese and French descent, and the food was delicious. I had the miso ramen, and we all shared a couple of crepes, both with bananas (which are amazing here), one with chocolate, the other with honey. You wouldn’t perhaps expect a great ramen noodle shop on a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but it’s apparently a favorite of the locals as well. We even met one of the vice presidents of the college we’re visiting there. I took lots of pictures there; you could even climb onto the roof of the structure to get a better view.

I think what’s most noticeable about the island is the lushness of the landscape. Even though Pohnpei has been suffering from a drought, there’s green everywhere. Lots of banana plants and palm trees and so many, many flowering trees and shrubs—it’s quite beautiful. It’s my first experience with a truly tropical climate.

After a quick stop at the hotel, during which I washed my face again, we were off to our cruise. It was originally scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. but was moved up to 3 p.m. No one ever seemed to know why, but it turned out to be a good idea after all when the sun disappeared behind a cloud bank at about 5:30 p.m. After we arrived at the Pohnpei Surf Club, we were greeted by our captain, a Brazilian who has spent the past thirteen years living on the island, making a living taking people out on cruises like ours but also taking groups out for scuba diving and fishing. He seems to have a very simple, rather uncomplicated life, and he seemed like a very happy guy overall.

We took a spin around the lagoon leading into the Pacific Ocean, a lagoon of about 80 acres, by the way, so just a tiny little body of water. We anchored near a coral reef close to an island that had been occupied by the Japanese during World War II and which, apparently, still has some relics from that era. We didn’t go onto the island, of course, since the boat wouldn’t have been able to navigate through the reef and because most of the islands surrounding Pohnpei seem to be privately owned. Still, it was a lovely place to sit and relax and talk for a while and enjoy a beer or two. Our tour guide/captain also cracked open a series of chilled coconuts for us to enjoy the milk and the meat. He used a substantial machete to chop the top off of the coconut, a much simpler method than the one I tried back in California when I followed a YouTube tutorial to crack one open for The Boyfriend and me. The juice was delicious, and the coconut meat, while not as sweet as what you’re accustomed to in America, was nevertheless quite good.

 

There are sunken and half-sunken ships throughout the lagoon, and there are some ships that have been confiscated because they’ve been involved in illegal fishing. That’s rather peculiar since it’s seems like almost every kind of behavior on the island seems okay. We’ve been here two days, and I have yet to see a police officer. Getting back to the ships—many are just rusting in the lagoon. Some have been abandoned due to the death of the owner or some other reason. Now they just float or lie there with no one to claim them. It’s pretty disheartening to think that they will just become a part of the ecosystem, which doesn’t really need junk like this.

I asked our skipper about the name of his boat. He shrugged and said he just tells people that it’s the Pohnpei Surf Club pink boat. And that it is.

By the time we returned to shore, I had been sprayed with so much sea water that I could no longer feel dry, but I could still taste the salt. I had to have a shower when we got back to the hotel because the salt spray had started to make my skin itch. Before that happened, though, we had dinner at the Mangrove Bay Bar, which overlooks the lagoon and offers very large drinks for just $5. The bar is apparently famous for its sushi, and I did sample it (not bad, really), but I chose a grilled chicken salad from a neighboring restaurant that delivers to the bar for those patrons like myself and another member of the team who are not particularly sushi-eating types.

Back at the hotel, I posted a few pics on Facebook, texted The Boyfriend (who was probably asleep since it was after midnight back in California), and transferred more than 300 pictures to my laptop to make room for tomorrow’s photo opportunities.