Day Seven on the Island

Or, The Long Journey Back to the United States Begins

We had our last breakfast at the Cliff Rainbow Hotel in Pohnpei this morning. I had what has become my go-to meal: two eggs (scrambled) with bacon and hash browns and with a glass of pineapple juice. The eggs and hash browns could have been cooked just a little bit longer—as has been the trend this past week—but the restaurant for the hotel has provided solid food every day. And having our breakfast on the “porch” each day has been a delight.

 

Overall, the hotel has been nice, but it’s not what we’ve come to expect by Western standards of service. It cost roughly one hundred dollars each day, which is fine since I’m being reimbursed for my travel expenses anyway. However, for that amount of money back home, you’d expect more consistent towel service, for example. I had to ask on at least two days for a washcloth and hand towel. I got a washcloth one of those days, not on the other one, but I never got a hand towel when I asked for one. And, of course, there was mold on the soap in the bathroom that first night in my room, likely the result of the boxes sitting inactive for a long time in this jungle humidity. No matter, I put the moldy bars on top of the boxes, and the next day I had fresh (well, fresher) soap to use in washing my hands.

I did like one feature of the hotel that you don’t get in the United States. We were allowed to check out early but keep our room key until it was time to go to the airport. I’ve never had that opportunity before. A couple of the team members checked out the night before, actually, since processing a credit card charge takes considerably longer here. I waited to check out until about an hour before our shuttle was due to arrive, but I had time to spare and to relax.

We ended our time on the island with some shopping. One of the team members wanted some souvenirs and small gifts, and I tagged along to see what I might purchase as well. Our first stop was at a handicrafts place just a few blocks from the hotel (well, if there were such a thing as blocks here). I picked up a bunch of turtles and manta rays made from woven straw (just two dollars each) and a carved wooden shark (but not one with alleged real shark teeth embedded in its mouth). Then we had a return visit to the Palm Terrace, where I picked up another t-shirt, this one just for myself.

The next stop was referred to as the “banana store,” so dubbed because of the large number of bananas visible from the road. However, that was only about one-third of the store. Another section was devoted to freshly caught fish, perhaps the reason that the store was very crowded as everyone seemed to be interested in purchasing fish rather than anything else. There were lots of colorful fish, including some blue ones that we were told were parrot fish. In the back of the store were more handicrafts and carvings. I didn’t see much new here except for some lovely baskets. I coveted a couple of them, but I didn’t know how I would be able to get them back to Los Angeles, given how overstuffed my suitcases already were.

Our final stop was the A-One store, an upstairs spot next to a travel agency (which was not getting much traffic, honestly). We had tried the store earlier in the week, but it had been closed. I found a couple of additional straw items to purchase here: a larger turtle connected to a smaller one and a string of fish that I intend to put in my office at work. This place had some great wooden carvings, but again, I couldn’t figure out how to get them back to the mainland.

We got to the airport in Pohnpei and checked our bags—twelve people with lots of stuff to take home. No one in Micronesia asked about how much my suitcases weighed, which was good for me. I got a second stamp on my passport, and then we had a couple of hours to wait before we were allowed to get into the waiting room. The Stingrays Café next door offered air conditioning and ice cream, both necessary preparation for a plane ride that would last almost ten hours.

Our first stop on the way back to Hawaii was Kosrae, another of the islands in the Federated States of Micronesia. This time, we were allowed go get off the plane and hang out in the waiting area. I have to say that this small airport was depressingly bare, only a tiny snack bar window and a woman at a folding table selling more handicrafts and Ziploc bags full of banana chips. However, what we were able to see of the island itself was beautiful, perhaps even more rural than Pohnpei and somewhat more mountainous.

Kwajalein Atoll was up next. Again, given that this is a military base, we were not allowed to leave the plane. Only people who had tickets to Kwajalein disembarked while the rest of us waited for some new people to get on board. You’re not allowed to take pictures from the plane given that the atoll has ongoing and apparently vital military activity—which is strange given how many pictures of the base itself are accessible online with a simple Google search—but the other person in my row took pictures even though we were warned not to do so. He was not a native speaker of English, so he might not have understood the announcement, but I doubt that would keep him out of trouble if he had been caught.

The last stop before Hawaii was Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands. This was the only one of the islands I had “visited” on the way to Pohnpei, but I got out anyway so that I could take a few pictures. United Airlines gives you very little leg room—unless you pay extra for it—so there’s no way to feel truly comfortable. You get up whenever they tell you that you can stretch your legs for a while. Inside the waiting area, the woman selling crafts at a table was there again, and the small snack bar supplied cold beer to the military members and military contractors. I didn’t think drinking a lot of beer before sitting down for a six-hour journey on a plane was a particularly good idea, but if they wanted to run to the bathroom several times during the flight, I figured that was their issue.

You have to hope for quiet neighbors when you travel. Stephanie Miller jokes that she’s always booked on Screaming Baby Airlines, and I can certainly empathize. A lot of children got on board at Majuro, so I had to watch movies just to drown out the sound. I saw Our Brand Is Crisis for the first time (okay, but hardly revelatory) and three short films from the Tribeca Film Festival: Speed Dating, Ellis, and Warning Labels (the last one the best of the three, in my opinion). I also watched bits and pieces of two movies I’d already seen, The Great Gatsby (meh) and The Blind Side (only Sandra Bullock’s performance is worthy of attention here). I nodded off a couple of times and slept for a few minutes, but I didn’t get much rest. The woman who sat next to me was apparently into manspreading, so she kept bumping my leg and waking me. She also took over the arm rest from time to time, including one period where she rubbed my arm for a few minutes. She was asleep for almost all of the trip, by the way, as was her son, so at least I had to be thankful for that. However, if she’s capable of manspreading and elbow-rubbing in her sleep, I shudder to think what she would be like when awake.

We landed in Honolulu Airport early in the morning but later than originally anticipated. The airport was deserted, so we made it through the TSA/Homeland Security checkpoint quickly. I also got through customs and the agricultural inspection rapidly as well. Apparently, they’re only worried that you don’t bring food into the country, and since I didn’t bring any, not even snack bars this time, I was safe.

The shuttle got the four of us who were not going immediately back to the mainland pulled up to the Ala Moana Hotel Condominiums (how did I miss the part about condominiums the first time?) at about 4:30 a.m. I feel asleep almost as soon as I finished brushing my teeth.

Day One on the Island

It might have been more honest to title this blog post “Getting to the Island” since that’s how I spent most of the day. I was chosen last October to be on an accreditation site visit team to the College of Micronesia-FSM, which is located on a small, rather isolated island in the Pacific, somewhat closer to Australia and the Philippines than to the United States. Getting there takes some time, and there’s only one major airline that goes there, United. Nine members of the team were at the airport in Honolulu for a 7:25 a.m. departure, and everyone was sleepy. I’d managed to get some sleep the previous night in the hotel, but nothing could prepare me for the next ten hours on a plane. I watched Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens on the monitor on the back of the seat in front of me. I’d already seen it in theaters, of course, but the choices were somewhat limited. I’d also already seen Creed, the three short films from the Tribeca Film Festival didn’t take very much time, I had no interest at all in seeing Alvin and the Chipmunks: Road Chip (or whatever the actual title is), and most of the rest were either Japanese or Korean or Hong Kong films with subtitles and I wasn’t in the mood to read. I tried watching The Internship (the one with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson), but each time the plane landed, all of the movies would start over from the beginning and I never got past the scene with the Quidditch match. The first stop was the atoll of Majora, which seems to have a landing strip and little else. It’s the capital of the Marshall Islands, but there doesn’t seem to be much there to attract visitors. The airport was tiny, and the snack bar offered liquor from bottles that were already open and lined up like a low-rent bar shelf. It was the only one of the islands where we were allowed to depart the plane while the security check took place. We were joined by new people from Majora, and the plane was now fuller.

 

Next the plane landed at Kwajalein, another atoll. We weren’t allowed to get off the plane while the security check was underway. Apparently, the landing strip at Kwajalein is primarily used by the adjacent U.S. military base, and you’re not even allowed to take pictures of the atoll through the windows of the plane. I’m not certain that everyone complied with these restrictions, though, but since I couldn’t see anything from my seat, I was perfectly willing to let the opportunity pass. Enough people did get off the plane to allow some folks to move around a bit. I was not one of them, unfortunately. Our section of the plane was full for the entire trip. We reached the first of the islands in the Federated States of Micronesia, Kosrae, and encountered a quick rainstorm. Once again, we were asked to stay on the plane during the security check since we wouldn’t be able to do much during the 40 minutes or so that we would be on the ground. A tenth member of the team (who had been conducting a site visit on the campus there) joined us on the plane, as did a government official who seemed to know everyone and vice versa. He shook hands with almost everyone as he walked down the center of the plane. When we landed in Pohnpei, our final stop, we were greeted by the president and one of the vice presidents of the college we will be evaluating this week, and we received laurels of flowers to wear on our heads. It’s the equivalent to the lei in Hawaii, I suppose. The laurels were beautiful, quite colorful. I also received the first stamp in my passport during the customs process. You have to fill out forms that you aren’t bringing in anything like drugs or firearms or food to the country, so I was questioned about the snack bars in my backpack. Actually, I wasn’t really asked about the snack bars. I was really asked if I brought any other food into the country. I hadn’t, naturally, so I was allowed to enter the Federated States of Micronesia without further incident.

We drove through the countryside to our hotel, the Cliff Rainbow Hotel, and checked in. The college president and vice president offered to take us on a quick tour, and six of us took them up on the offer. As we drove through the villages and neighborhoods, the president (in whose car three of use rode) pointed out some restaurants we might want to try and some other areas of local interest. We got to see the college’s renovated track, its tennis courts, and the swimming pool, all of which had been used in the Micro Games of 2014, a sort of mini-Olympics for the islands. I immediately began thinking of the similarities between Pohnpei and my home state of Mississippi. There’s incredible poverty here too, and there are homes that look like they’ve been assembled from whatever material was available. Dogs seem to be everywhere, none of them on leashes, and people walk down roads that have no sidewalks. And the humidity was strength-sapping. It truly is like being back in the country of my youth.

 

By this point, I’d only had breakfast on the plane, a couple of in-flight drinks, one packet of almonds, and two of the snack bars I’d picked up in Honolulu. I was not the only one who was hungry, so we agreed to meet for dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. It’s a nice place to eat. I had a fish sandwich, which was pretty tasty, but it took us quite a while to get our food. Service is not particularly tourist-oriented here on the island, and you have to be very patient waiting for your food. Not everyone got served at the same time. In fact, the first group had already finished eating by the time the last two people got their food. It’s no matter, though, when you’re surrounded by people who are good conversationalists and with whom you have some common backgrounds in community college education. The dinner was good, but the plane trip had exhausted me. I guess it was my first real case of jet lag. I went upstairs to my room, not quite the lush accommodations of Hawaii but still quite serviceable as far as hotel rooms go, and unpacked everything in anticipation of needing to find stuff quickly the next morning. I turned on the television, but the service is horrible here and only CNN and ESPN are actually being broadcast “live.” The rest of the few available channels (fewer than ten) are mostly repackaged shows from American television. “Repackaged” means, of course, “reruns.” There’s also a delay in the audio signal, so the image and the sound are not quite in sync with each other. I read a few chapters in Rob Sheffield’s autobiographical book about his relationships and karaoke—it’s far more interesting than my description would suggest—and then fell asleep. It had been a long day, so even through it was only about 9 p.m., I was too exhausted to last any longer.