I Never Thought I'd Be So Excited To Go To Church

Well, another month’s past and all of a sudden it’s 2018! Happy New Year! The passage of time is a bit confusing to me because the seasonal weather changes are much more subtle than in New England. Seasons are essentially marked by the presence of trade winds from the east and quantity of rain, and the intensity of tides marks the lunar cycle. I noticed that I’ve started to pay more attention to the moon than the actual calendar date. The moon and tides seem more relevant to my daily life at the moment.

By far the most prominent event since my last blog post is Christmas. Christmas here is essentially a multi-month celebration that peaks on December 25 with singing and marching at each town’s church. I started my Christmas cultural experiences with a concert on Christmas Eve at the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. A significant portion of SDA people also work at Green Banana Paper, so I was in a pretty familiar crowd. Since they were all singing, I mostly quietly played with their young kids while different groups of people sang. The kids were really into taking pictures and videos of the performers.

I was surprised that nearly all of the SDA songs were in English. However, upon reflection, I do know that kids are only allowed to speak English at the SDA school. Many people want to learn English here because the relationship between the US and the Federated States of Micronesia make it simple for US citizens to live in the FSM and for FSM citizens to live or go to school in the US, granted one has the resources to do so. I’ve heard from multiple people that there are probably just as many Kosraean’s living in Hawaii/continental US as in Kosrae. Anyway, back to Christmas. After the concert there were, of course, desserts. There’s always food at a Kosraean event. It was the first time I really felt like it would’ve been rude to turn down food. Food is a very important element of the culture, and sharing food seems to be a way of showing appreciation for each other. And certain foods are always present at certain events. Anyways, another tangent. So while munching on some desserts, I made plans with a few people to go to the Tafunsak marching the next day.

The following morning one of the girls came over with a muumuu for me to wear to church. All of the women and girls wear muumuus to church, and sometimes just as daily attire as well. Something came up for the locals I planned to go with the night before, but I knew a few American’s were going too, so I went with them instead. We got there and were kind of confused about what was going on. It was pouring rain, there where chairs set up all around the outside of the church and across the driveway, and people were sitting scattered about and kids were running between the church and a smaller building that looked just like a smaller version of the big church. I stood under a tent for a minute to try to get a bearing on the scene, and the people sitting under the tent practically insisted that I get comfortable in a chair. Before I could though, Devin and Ashley both were under the mini church, so I went to join them. Then we were swarmed by kids running into the mini church, and eventually we made our way into the church. Not long after we sat down, a man came over and gifted us with cowrie shell necklaces. And then the marching started. A group of maybe 100 kids sang and marched…

The kids made two lines at the door and one kid was the leader with a bell. He rang the bell to a certain beat as everybody else sang, their voices just emanating off of the walls as they moved in certain formations. And they just kept on singing! I bet they sang and marched for a solid 30 minutes. At one point most everyone in the audience went up to make an offering to the church. The kids made an isle in the center and sang right at us as we walked up. They also all had candy or some kind of goodie to throw at other people. One kid placed a crown of bubble gum on my head. I crowned a smaller kid who wasn’t quite old enough yet to participate in the marching.

if the video doesn't load, this is a picture from Tafunsak

Tafunsak Church--the 2nd marching group

Tafunsak Church outside

Tafunsak--cooking in the back and cases of meat to be cooked

Unlike the SDA concert, there was not a lick of English and I was completely surrounded by new faces, granted the venue and crowd was much bigger. When the kids finished their singing and marching we went outside and were offered some soup and breadfruit and pork. We also learned that there were 13 different marching groups that day. The marching, soup tending, and barbecuing would go on all day. And this is just the town of Tafunsak.

Next up, Lelu. Well, more like enter Groundhog Day. After running to a few familiar faces in Tafunsak and chatting a while, Devin, Ashley, and I were still curious to go to Lelu. For all of us, this was our first Christmas in Kosrae. So we drove 10 minutes to the Lelu church. Seriously, it was like Groundhog Day. We got there and cars lined the streets, same food setup, and it probably didn’t help my brain that we sat in the same part of the church. When we got there a group of women were singing and marching. Each marching group has their own unique dress. Sewers can do good business around Christmas. One guy we talked to in Tafunsak said his wife was in eight groups so therefore she had eight different muumuus specifically made for that day. We did however, turn down the offer of food in Lelu because we had just come from Tafunsak and the three of us agreed that it felt a little disrespectful, but we really weren’t hungry at all.

Lelu Church

I just ran into one of my friends who is a teacher at the high school. There seems to be a bit of confusion regarding when the holiday break ends. The school calendar has school starting again on Friday, the principal announced that school starts tomorrow (Thursday), and the radio announcement said that school will start on the following Monday. Glenice went to school to ask the principal about this, but only the secretary was there and they didn’t know either. So goes island life. …I saw Glenice after writing most of this blog and she said that she confirmed with the principal that school starts on Monday.

Earlier this month we were blessed with a visit from Matt’s parents, Jeff and Jan. Janney further improved the weaving studio handwoven banana fiber products that originally stem from her weaving knowledge. We took many boat excursions, particularly for fishing and sunsets.

As I previously mentioned, to say that Christmas is a big deal would be a bit of an understatement. Utwe, the town out in the boondocks, was nicknamed Vegas for their Christmas lights this year. One evening we took a drive down there to see Utwe Vegas for ourselves, and sure enough the lights were the most elaborate Christmas lights I’ve ever seen. Some houses just had plain lights everywhere, some were flashing, some had various colors and shapes, and then there were projectors showing lights and designs onto the outside walls of houses. The church was completely decked out inside and outside and even had a sleigh on top.

Nightlife here is far from existent. But if it’s near a full moon then the crabs are out and about roaming the streets. Evenings are usually spent stargazing with the dogs, hanging out with friends and sometimes playing games, working on projects, or watching movies. We have spent many nights being fascinated by insane footage of animals in Planet Earth II, plus David Attenborough’s narration is wonderful. It’s on Netflix watch instantly, enough said.

Out of pure amusement and curiosity, I’ve decided to keep a tally of how many banana bunches are harvested from our little banana tree forest here, and also how many coconuts we get delivered (for 50 cents each). Today is January 3^rd, and the tally is one banana and zero coconuts. But we got a half a fridge worth of coconuts just before the new year, and our freezer is down to only 1/3 full of bananas.

Living way out on this tiny island, I’ve learned the mindset of import it or make it yourself. It’s surprisingly easy to import things, USPS mail is the same rate as in the states, it just takes a little longer. So mail is easy, no big deal. But for other reasons Matt and I wanted to make our own reef-safe sunscreen. He found a sunscreen made from just four natural ingredients. We knew that the zinc oxide was 25%, and then I spent a few days in our kitchen chemistry lab experimenting with oil to wax ratios and trying to make sunscreen. However, after figuring out the ratios and numbers, we learned that in order to fully mix in the zinc oxide, we would need a multi-thousand dollar homogenizing machine, and it can actually be potentially harmful to use sunscreen made with zinc oxide that isn’t fully mixed in—on a very small scale that we can’t achieve with everyday tools and appliances. So that project will have to be put on hold for now.

sunscreen day 1

One afternoon we loaded five people and paddleboards into the truck and headed off for Utwe. There is an entrance to a mangrove system which we paddled around for a few hours. I was pretty fascinated by how close we were to the ocean, but how different the environment of the mangroves are compared to the ocean. At one point we even reached freshwater.

The other evening when I went out to the beach with the dogs there were a bunch of kids playing in the water because a family was having a picnic nearby. Metbit, the girl who I played in my hammock and drew in the sand was among the kids. She came over with two other girls, Jenny and Chiara. I was pleasantly surprised that I could understand significantly more bits and pieces of what they said and actually communicate with them more through language. We played in the sand for a while, making shapes and whatnot. The girls ran back and forth into the ocean. Then Metbit made a ball of sand and chased me, laughing and trying to throw the ball of sand at me. Then all the kids were called to come and eat.

I've also been doing various writing projects for Green Banana Paper, most recently The Year The World Went Bananas.

More photos--