Saturday, August 2, 2003 ~ PohnpeiBeginning 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.
It's been a week since I've written.
I realized the other day that dogs lie in the road because people walk or squat on it. Yesterday I had a revelation. People don't walk on the road. Cars drive on the sidewalk.
There's a rhythm to driving these two-lane winding roads through the jungle mountains, with people and dogs walking on it, and traffic coming at you sometimes where to continue driving on your side of the road you'd hit someone as cars pass you. You develop an instinct of where people might be, when to slow down on blind curves, when you can speed up on straightaways. There's a sort of courtesy about who has to stop to let others through a narrow pass or a bridge. I think I've caught on.
Lynn cooked the big fish we bought last a few days ago, that we'd put in the freezer. I don't have a grill or hibatchi yet. Will probably get one soon. It was a parrot fish. There are a lot of varieties of parrot fish. Each has its own name in each of the four states here. She took the scales/skin off by hand and gutted it in the sink. Then put it in tin foil with a mixture of soy, mayonaise, onions, pepper. Cooked it in the oven at around 400 degrees for about 1/2 and hour, maybe a little more. And we ate it "local style," sans utensils. Quite tasty. I like parrot fish. Looks like I'll be eating a lot of fish. Good for the cholesterol, eh? I'm looking forward to getting a hibatchi and/or grill. Probably will get both. Lynn wants to catch one of the roosters in my yard, but (a) I don't think I'm ready to watch her kill and gut it; (b) it probably belongs to someone else; and (c) we probably couldn't catch it anyway.
I don't have a garbage can. Lynn says I should get a dog to throw scraps to and to guard the house. I'm undecided about that. Anyway, I put foodstuff garbage in plastic bags and put them in the fridge until I can either take them to the office dumpster, or to the dump. No garbage pickup or mail delivery here.
I have a long list of items to buy for the house. Microwave, garbage can, container to keep a 20 lb. bag of rice in safe from rats, and lots of little things. I need a machete. We drove by a downed banana tree with a bunch of green bananas. At my house I have banana trees (no fruit on them yet), a pineapple, sugar cane, mango up the mountain behind me, coconut, and papaya (not ripe yet). Other than the papaya, I doubt I'll get to pick and eat anything. I suspect it'll get taken before I can get to it.
There's a local (Pohnpein) national police officer (one of ours, their office is downstairs) who is a second degree black belt in Hapkido, which is probably the most similar martial art to Kuk Sool. Hapkido is the Korean version of Aikido, which is what Steven Seagall does. We've been talking about working out at lunch time. They built a gym here and the equipment is quite good, and they have mats. We're both pretty excited about it, as we're probably the only trained people around. He's about ten years younger than me. I need to get back to it, so this'll be very good for me. I've been given permission to teach by my instructor back home. Students of the martial arts and Kuk Sool in particular know it is forbidden to teach without permission.
Lynn is teaching me Pohnpein words. I try and learn a new one or two every day. She's making a list for me. It's hard, because she's not writing it phonetically, and their spelling of words is nothing like it sounds. But it's intentional. She's teaching me how to read the words at the same time. The secretaries at the office really seem to like that I'm doing that, and are warming up to me nicely because of it. Today, instead of the usual Kasahlelie, which is "hello," I said "mae sung mwaoh" (ph), which is "good morning" in Pohnpein. One of the secretaries is trying to teach me a little each day too. But Lynn is a very good teacher. "Mehn laowh" (ph) is a familiar form of a word that means "please," "thank you," and "you're welcome." Pretty convenient language, I'd say. The formal for it is "Kahlangen."
Lynn's father's family came from Pingelap (he died when she was young), and she says she speaks with a Pingelapese dialect, not that I would know the difference, but sometimes I think I recognize the difference. Pingelap is a neighboring atoll island, population 300 or so. She's never been there.
It's very interesting. We have one Pohnpein lawyer (who keeps to himself a lot), four American including me (the AG has been learning a lot of the language himself), and three from Kosrae. None from Chuuk or Yap. The Kosraeans don't speak Pohnpein. English is the common language. Except for the AG, I've never once heard the two other American lawyers even try to speak any Pohnpein that I can remember. It's a pretty language. Musical to me. Lots of w's and rolled r's, certain nasal inflections that are difficult for me to reproduce without repeated practice. We just don't have that in English. And I've unintentionally picked up certain non-verbal things that Lynn does to express emotion. (She told me to stop.)
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