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.
Wednesday, July 23, 2003 ~ Pohnpei
Everything is so up and down here. It's been so bizarre. Everything so intensified, such intense beauty surrounding third world poverty. Modern cars and Mobil gas stations, huts and shacks, very little decent food choices, but good food if you like sashimi and fish and rice and a few other local staples (well, that's really about it). Every day as I adjust a little more, I'm faced with new contradictions. It's been very hard to cope with. Up and down, back and forth. And the people here just take it in stride. You can't help but revel in the beauty here, in the smiling faces of the local women and children, the simple happinesses they share. I don't think I've heard a single child cry, and there are many children out here. But the men and women get sad and morose, or maybe just contemplative, at night. And you don't know what to think. But it's hard to think anyway.
I came very close to coming home last week. Might still. The decision was made Thursday night. I had a plane date for early August. Having begun the process to go, two nights ago I asked if I could stay, but that's somewhat up in the air and I have to wait for the big boss to get back from D.C., where he's been the last couple of weeks talking to Congress. Part of the problem has been not having someone I can talk to at length other than in a partying situation. Well, there've been many adjustment problems, but that was a big one.
The reason I asked to stay is I've met someone. A local girl, just like Debby (my ex, not sister) feared would happen. Twenty-seven years old, no education beyond grade school, an occassional housekeeper, two kids I haven't met, not as pretty as many of the women out here, but also rather pretty in an island way. Her home, which I've not been to, doesn't even have power. Wonderfully and spontaneously affectionate when we're alone. She won't show affection to me on certain parts of the island where various members of her incredibly extended family live because it would be disrespectful to be that way with a white man, a "mehn why," and they think she should still consider herself married to the father of her two daughters, who does not live here, but is on Guam. But she's smart, and intuitive, and is showing me how to live here just by being with me. I've smiled more and been more happy being and talking with her these last four days than I have all month. We talk about everything. Nothing is off limits the way it is in the U.S. They're great talkers out here, and I just kick myself for not having made an effort to get to know her earlier. (I actually met her the first week I was here, but we didn't hook up until last Saturday.)
I had a great weekend, especially Sunday ~ teaching Lynn to drive, letting her drive me halfway around the island, swimming in a waterfall, showing some basic martial arts to some local young men there at the falls, and other adventures, including Lynn driving my car into a ditch in pitch black night on the way to some private lookout point in Sokehs, and men appearing from nowhere with flashlights to pick the car up and put it back onto the road.
And at some point, my internal thermometer, humidity and sweating problems seemed to have stopped. For the most part anyway. Didn't even run the air conditioner last night.
And so, after making arrangements to go home to the states, I decided I wanted to try to stay. They've said maybe....
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