Beginning with my June 2008 post "It's Been Five Years," the following is the continuing story of my travels from the United States into Micronesia ~ Pohnpei, Guam and Saipan ~ and my life since June 2003.
Friday, August 22, 2003 (continued) ~ Pohnpei
I took this shot today. It's a Protestant church. Haven't been inside yet. It looks Spanish, which suggests it should be Catholic, but it isn't. It was re-built within the last 30 years or so, after some great storm. It was first built around 1905 by a Japanese architect and builder, paid for by Protestant missionaries, denomination unknown.
Lynn and I went to the hardware store(s) and bought a mop, a hose, some other supplies for the house and car. We're going to go visit Lyndsey, Lynn's uncle, actually Lynn's mom's cousin that owns the sakau bar on the part of the man-made beach that is the focus of the land dispute with his cousin. That's where my machete' is. He's a nice guy. We're bound to talk about his case, and I'm trying to prepare him to lose. As a general rule, I don't like to talk about other people's legal problems if they're not my clients. They want free legal advice, but don't follow it anyway, and technically I'm prohibited from dispensing legal assistance to anyone but the FSM government. But considering my relationship with Lynn, he's considered family now.
I've mentioned before about how these people want to be told what to do. I had another such encounter today, explaining my position on the tax case to the asst. secretary of customs and revenue, and how I think it should settled.
"Tell us what to do." I tell them we're here as lawyers to advise, and that the decisions ultimately have to come from them. In my not so humble opinion, the problem with the U.S. administration of the Trust Territories, and the subsequent 17 years since FSM, the Republic of Palau, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (CNMI), and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) became independent is that they've never been encouraged to have their own opinions. The truth is, they're not independent, but still very dependent on the U.S. for income to keep the place running. The U.S. doesn't consider this area a strategic location anymore, like it did in the Vietnam and post-WWII days. I've always felt very critical about the way the U.S. dealt with it's trusteeships, ever since my days as a teenager on Kwajalein. It's one of the reasons I've always been interested in coming back this way ~ a feeling of wanting to do right by America's dependents.
One of the things my boss is very happy about me is that I have no "agenda." I'm not here to tell these people how they should think and do things. But I do have an agenda: It is to encourage these people to make their own informed decisions. I'm much enjoying the law/advice side of what I'm doing here. They seem to like my direct and common sense approach, but it is very difficult getting someone to admit something negative about anything we might propose. It's just not the way. It's impolite. Rather than offend by disagreeing with something I might advise that they don't want to follow, they agree and then do what they think is best anyway. It is a trifle frustrating if not infuriating until you realize you have to modify the way you communicate to make sure you're not only understood, but that everyone is really on the same page.
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