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, November 26, 2003 ~ Pohnpei
It’s incredible. How these people live, Lynn’s family and her village, anyway. They sleep on the floor, they fish, they farm, they pick fruit off the trees, they grow taro, rice is cheap, and they have family land they are born and buried on, handed down from generation to generation. They have no visible source of income. Basically, all they have to buy is rice, betel nut, cigarettes, beer and sakau. They rent video tapes (very cheap, a lot of it bootleg). The older women in the family dominate the younger women and the men. Lynn orders her younger brothers and sister around, and they think nothing of it. Living in a matriarchal society is at odds with my egalitarian sensibilities.
I thought I could do some good out here, but this place will never change. They have been too dependent too long. They have been dominated by the Japanese, the Germans, the Spanish and dependent upon the United States too long. The legacy of four hundred years of colonialism is dependency. They can never become a truly sovereign and independent nation.
My parents and my sister are relieved to hear I am coming home.
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