Let the Holidays Begin in Kosrae

Hello from Kosrae! Happy December! My days have been full of dreamy waterfalls, lots of banana paper, and all sorts of adventures. Each day brings new excitement and projects, it’s slightly overwhelming to decide where to start with this blog post. Some things are quite consistent though, like quinoa and veggies, 6am sunrise and 6pm sunset, and the lively factory during the week. The holiday season is off to a strong start, the trade winds are beginning, and the sunrise is eye candy in the morning. Matt welded a trailer and we’ve been out in the boat on surfing and sunset missions. There are endless projects at the factory everyday, and spiders weave prominent webs between banana leaves. The moon is full once again, and thus the tides are more intense now and crabs roam around at night. I have been here for nearly two and a half months now, and each week seems to fly by faster than the previous one. I am looking through my notebook for blog material, and there are just so many stories and whatnot to share.

I went to Walung, a village accessible only by boat, for a weekend with some locals. It was island-style camping. We stayed at a hut on the beach. A local led us on a hike through the jungle to the Walung waterfall. I will happily hike in the jungle again! At the pool at the base of the waterfall, Mitta sat in the water and tried to catch fish with a t-shirt. The whole scene was a great demonstration of local knowledge in catching, killing, and preparing fish.

One day one of the guys who came diving was a helicopter pilot on a commercial fishing boat that was unloading on Kosrae. He took us on a tour of the boat between dives. 750 tons of tuna were being unloaded to frozen shipping containers to be sent to China. Cranes picked up big nets full of fish from storage beneath the deck. The crane brought the fish to a conveyor belt from which guys packed container after container full of fish. The crew was approximately 40 Taiwanese guys. Doug, the pilot, told us that they fish all over the Pacific, even east of Hawaii. It was a very interesting glimpse into the fishing world. That one boat in a massive industry was unloading 750 tons of tuna on one day, one of many boats and days of harvesting fish.

At Yekela waterfall down the road, there’s a big banyan tree inviting climbers up. The tree grows lots of strong, small branches, so we essentially climbed up the inside of the tree. It was the most epic tree climbing I’ve ever done. At the top is the stream that feeds the waterfall. We followed the stream for a short while and came to a beautiful spot with a very small waterfall and nice pool to sit in.

A Peace Corps volunteer from a few years ago recently made a film about the relationship between Kosrae and the US, particularly regarding the military and the Compact Agreement of 1978. Island Soldier is an incredibly well made film, with each scene contributing to the powerful and educational film. It’s an intense documentary, focused on the issues of the lack of Veterans services in the FSM. But the military is desirable for many reasons including that high school teachers on the island earn a fraction of the military salary. Learn more about the film here.

Kosrae is a very religious island. Disease knocked out the population to 300 people in the late 1800s, and religious missionaries swooped in. The way I understand it is essentially that everyone is free to practice whatever religion they want, but the government is Protestant. The US Ambassador visited for a week and one evening sat at the next table over at Bully’s restaurant. When the server came to inquire about drinks, he said, “I have an open bottle of wine in the fridge.” She replied, “We can’t serve alcohol on Sundays. It’s against the law here.” “Oh, really, now I know.” Pretty different from Sunday football culture in the States. Additionally, a significant portion of the population are Seventh-Day Adventist and their day of worship is Saturday, but still everyone must abide by religious law on Sunday. Even tourists visiting for just a short time may not go fishing or swimming on Sunday. Mark at the dive resort took someone to finish her dive certification on a Sunday because it was the last opportunity before she left the island. When they came up from the dive, the sheriff was driving away with Mark’s boat. The police said it was illegal to dive on Sunday, Mark said there was no written law about it, and eventually he got his boat back. But the benefit to living right next to a church is that I can sit under the banana trees or on the beach and hear the piano and people singing. I’ve enjoyed reading with the piano and voices complementing the rolling waves and swaying trees.

The holiday season is happening now, and I hear it lasts a while. Festive lights are draped around houses, and we hear church-goers practice their songs in the evenings. Apparently there’s marching and singing on Christmas that people put serious of preparation into. We started off December with a Green Banana Paper Christmas party. The designers and printers made t-shirts for our volleyball teams. There was loads of food, volleyball games, jet ski rides, music, and at one point all of the Green Banana employees lined up for a mini march/dance and threw candy and whatnot to all of the families and kids.

For Thanksgiving, our crew of expats got together for a traditional Thanksgiving feast. Except instead of watching football after the meal, we stared in awe at a video about all the life in the Great Barrier Reef. And dessert was banana bread instead of apple pie. So traditional Thanksgiving with an island twang!

A few short notes—A boy who finished first in the Rock Hopper, a 10k race on a dirt road skirting the edge of the jungle, ran in flip flops! In classic island style, everyone received a coconut at the finish line. One note from November 17 just says, “STARS (new moon soon).” The sky is fascinating, sometimes it’s full of stars, and sometimes the moon illuminates the sky, reflecting off the ocean as well.

Some photos—

island style camping in Walung

hiking around the jungle for a while

the red lens really does make a difference

our newest office member

plates woven from coconut frond

paper masters take off on the jet ski

volleyball!

 

Green Banana staff

Tafunsak Gorge

working in the factory

Sitting down to write this is more challenging for me than I anticipated. I’ve been putting it off to read under the banana trees, explore waterfalls, or work on whatever project I’m currently engaged in. But after writing, I find myself thinking of friends and family whom I do not see daily, and imagining you reading this gives me inspiration to pause in this dream-like world and share a few snippets from my days here. So thank you for reading, and feel free to share a moment from your day or week if you’d like.