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.
Monday, September 29, 2003 ~ Pohnpei
It's been a week since I last wrote anything. Just haven't been feeling very descriptive lately. Lynn will be 27 in November. We got back together (again) last night. The highs are so high. Too high. That much further to fall. Remembering Icarus. It's what happens when you fly too close to the sun.
No news on who is going to be the new AG. It'll be a few months, I'm sure.
My stuff from my house in Montgomery was supposed to arrive by ship yesterday. May be delivered to the house today, or tomorrow, or the next ....
I came home this evening and the front door was wide open. Must have been one of Lynn's girls, or maybe Lynn, who's usually very security conscious. We think we've heard people walking about on the front porch once or twice. I went outside with my boken, the wooden practice sword, which I'm comfortable with. Never saw anyone. I wasn't paying attention this morning to security. She must have been distracted, if it was Lynn. Nothing taken, not that there's much here other than clothes, a borrowed TV, a microwave, a small cheap CD/tape/radio player. My passport, a few other things. Amazing that nothing was taken.
I'm by myself tonight. I need some downtime from Micronesians and their children. There's only so much two and four year old intermittent crying and running around and fighting sleep I can take. The hydrocortizone I bought really seems to have worked on the oldest's bug bite scabs. She'd been on Guam and the food must have been different there, attracting the mosquitos in her village. I spoke to Lynn extensively on the phone tonight. Not even sure about what.
There was a soft knock on my side door shortly after I came home. (Micronesians knock (and talk) softly.) A boy around 11 years old, the son of a neighbor, said his father, Justino Gusto, asked if they could cut the sakau plant and some of the hibiscus tree, for sakau. (I've had his sakau, must be from here or hereabouts. Everyone claims the sakau on their property is better than elsewhere. But there's good sakau, and not so good sakau. His is good.) It was something to see the kid's older brother up in the hibiscus tree with a machete cutting off thinner branches. They strip and use the skin to wrap the pounded sakau, add water, and squeeze it out. Very interesting process I've described before. But to see this kid up a tree with a machete', so natural. My childhood Tarzan fantasy come to life.
Justino Gusto, also my former boss's landlord of a very nice house, runs a little store that sells cheap cigarettes, bottled water, soaps, betel nut, Ramen noodle soup (a staple, along with rice), Spam, canned tuna and salmon, a few other things. Actually, his 13-14 yr. old daughter runs it. And it's really just a convenience for his family and friends who live nearby. Many tiny little "convenience" stores like that, that only sell a few dozen items. Lynn may think I should keep the sakau plant for her family, don't know, will have to ask. (after talking to her, she said I did right) But these are my neighbors, and I always wave to the daughter on my way into the house. They were very kind to me my first or second night in this house, when I locked myself out of the house, wearing nothing but a pair of pants, and they let me use their phone and waited with me for a couple of hours until the landlord came with a set of keys.
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