The end of PST

As we get closer to the end of PST ( Peace Corps Training) everything is winding down. We are done with model school and now only have one week left t of training. We will continue with our language training.  The following week we will sware in as Peace Corps Voulnteers. Then I am off to Yap to begin my two year journey. I can only imagin how much i will grow in the next two years because I have already grown so much in the past 3 months. I will lose internet starting August 1st. And I won't get it back until I get to Yap, so if you don't hear from me, that is why. Just know I am always thinking about you all at home!! Also, if you want to brighten my day and send a letter, my new address in Yap will be: 

Jennifer Caquelin

Peace Corps Volunteer 

P.O. Box 190 

Colonia, Yap 

FSM 96943

The end of PST

As we get closer to the end of PST ( Peace Corps Training) everything is winding down. We are done with model school and now only have one week left t of training. We will continue with our language training.  The following week we will sware in as Peaceyiiiiynh Corps Voulnteers. Then I am off to Yap to begin my two year journey. I can only imagin how much i will grow in the next two years because I have already grown so much in the past 3 months. I will lose internet starting August 1st. And I won't get it back until I get to Yap, so if you don't hear from me, that is why. Just know I am always thinking about you all at home!! Also, if you want to brighten my day and send a letter, my new address in Yap will be: 

Jennifer Caquelin

Peace Corps Volunteer 

P.O. Box 190 

Colonia, Yap 

FSM 96943

Water falls

This week went super fast, with model school and both went great, except one of my students, who is 11, found me on Facebook, which is a little concerning. Two days this week we went to Kolonia to watch the Microgames. These are Micronesian Olympics. It was amazing, the first day we went we didn't have a lot of time so I didn't get to see a lot of sports, just track and field warm up. The 2nd day we went there I was able to watch a full volleyball game, Pohnpei Vs. The Marshal Islands. Pohnpei won! I also got a chance to talk to the volleyball team from Yap. This gave me a good opportunity to practice my Yappese and Network a little. It turns out that there is a huge sports complex right outside the village I will be living in Yap. I talked to some people about possibly coaching, refing or even playing in some of the volleyball, basketball, and soccer leagues. This made me so excited because watching the games really made me miss boxing and just sports in general. I am very excited to go to Yap. This weekend we were going to try to do The 6 waterfall hike, which is a huge hike here on Pohnpei for tourists. It's about a 6-7 hour hike up and down the mountains of Pohnpei. There are 6 waterfalls that make the shape of a heart. About 10 of us wanted to do the hike, so we found a ride and a guide, however they say if it is raining then you should not do the hike. Well it was pouring on Saturday morning when I woke up, so I just got ready as if we were going to go. We ended up not being able to do it because of the rain, so we are going to try again next weekend, but we did do a shorter "easier" hike to the Twin Waterfalls. Now, I haven't done a lot of hiking, so I really have no comparison. But I would be willing to bet this was a more advanced hike. There were points on the hike that we were walking through rivers, doing vertical climbs with a rope, while it was raining! It was a nice reminder on why I like to have muscles. These waterfalls were absolutly beautiful, unfortunatly I have no pictures because it was pouring rain, and we had to walk through a river, so I decided not to take any electrical devices. Mom, I know you will be upset, but I have mental pictures, and I am very willing to describe them :) also, mom, when you come visit, maybe we can make  a trip to Pohnpei and do the hike so you can see for yourself. I will say that although it was raining, the hike was awesome, but very very cold. This is the first time since I have been here that I have been this uncomfortably cold before. Once I was home I took a quick freezing cold bucket shower then got into the warmest clothes I brought. I ate lunch then spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping in the living room while the kids watched Disney movies. I spent my night drinking a bottle of wine instead of Sakaw. It was great because I got to be with my family, and also drink something I enjoy. It was a lovely day. On Sunday we were going to go back to the pretty place we went swimming last weekend, but surprise, it was raining again all day. I already finished my book, so I knew the day would be long. It actually went pretty fast. I went for a run down to where our training is so I could get some wifi, but then the power went out because it was raining so hard, so I only got wifi for about 30 min. I then ran home in the pouring rain. Once I was home I took a shower and just relaxed, I fell asleep watching Disney movies again with the kids. It was a very peaceful rainy Sunday. My host sister and cousin spent the afternoon braiding my hair, I now have 10 beautiful braids in my hair. The only problem I have about the day is that for breakfast, lunch and dinner I was served the exact same dish, brown rice with pork, very very fatty pork. I couldn't eat the pork so I ended up eating mostly just brown rice, I snacked on some peanut butter m&ms so I got a little protein :-). Off for another week, it's our last week of model school! Man time is flying! 

Winding down

Now that we have started Model School, time is going fast. I only have 2 more weekends with my host family. Because of this I am trying to spend as much time with them as possible. Friday night I drank Sakaw with them. My host sister and I had a great conversation on this night about relationships. Here on Pohnpei, relationship are kept behind closed doors until the couple is ready to get married. This means everything is done secretive behind their parents and siblings back, but this is seen as respectful. Very different from in the US. I love my host sister, I would consider her one of my best friends here. Yesterday, she, along with my 2 host cousins took me to a place to go swimming. We left in kind of a rush so I forgot my camera, which I am so upset about because it might have been one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. First, we had to walk down a very steep and muddy, hill. Once we got there we were completly surrounded by huge trees, we were In the middle of the jungle. The water area was small, maybe the size of a small swimming pool, but it was deep. Because of this we were able to jump of the clif into it. It was so much fun! They told me not to worry because we can come back next weekend and I can bring my camera. The only bad part about the day was I got water in both my ears. It was very painful and nothing I did seemed to help. Thankfully when I woke up the next day it was gone. Back to school tomorrow, my class is being observed, wish me luck! 

Change of pace

This week we started Model School. It has been great so far. I started out the week with a class of 15 8th grade students. On the first day, 6 of them came to class, and 3 of them were over 45 minutes late. But, I guess that is the island way. The first day we just introduced ourselves and came up with class room rules. The second day I started teaching. We had one English class for an hour and a half and one science class for 45 minutes. We start everyday at 8:30 and end class by 11. This gives us one hour to plan lessons for the next day, then we continue on to lunch then 4 hours of language class. I am still learning Yapese, but please don't ask me to say anything because it is very hard and confusing. It is said to be the most difficult of all the islands. I am amazed I have energy to even write at the end of the day. The days are long, but rewarding. My 8th grade students were so smart on the first day. Our writing activity was to have the students write a creative letter to someone they miss. Most of them wrote to their mothers, which I thought was cute. I gave them an example of a letter from my sister (Emily you are famous here). For science we talked about limited resources and the kids blew me away again. They had to come up with ways to conserve limited resources. My favorite was "We can use a machete to cut the grass instead of the lawn mower which uses gas."  Or "We can unplug the refrigerator.... When there is no food in it." Very smart ideas, probable for Pohnpei, but not so much for the United States haha. Needless to say, I fell in love with my students on day one. Then came the curve ball. There were too many 6th grade students, so they needed to break it up into two classes. So all my 8th grade students got split up and put into other 8th grade classes, and we took over the class of 21 6th grade students. I am sure I will fall in love with them as I did with the 8th grade, I just need to get used to them. 

Also, the family car broke down, so I have added a 3 mile walk on to my exercise list every day. Luckily in the morning it is down hill so when I get to class I am not too sweaty. However, in the evening when I get home from school, I am either drenched in sweat from walking or water from the heavy afternoon rain falls, both very uncomfortable. I am just going to take this as an opportunity to eat more cookies, because I know I will be walking them off by the end of the day. My host family is great and the closer I get to moving to Yap, the more I think about how much I will miss them. Well I will write about my 6th graders soon enough, 'till then, hope all is well with you all. 

Change of pace

This week we started Model School. It has been great so far. I started out the week with a class of 15 8th grade students. On the first day, 6 of them came to class, and 3 of them were over 45 minutes late. But, I guess that is the island way. The first day we just introduced ourselves and came up with class room rules. The second day I started teaching. We had one English class for an hour and a half and one science class for 45 minutes. We start everyday at 8:30 and end class by 11. This gives us one hour to plan lessons for the next day, then we continue on to lunch then 4 hours of language class. I am still learning Yapese, but please don't ask me to say anything because it is very hard and confusing. It is said to be the most difficult of all the islands. I am amazed I have energy to even write at the end of the day. The days are long, but rewarding. My 8th grade students were so smart on the first day. Our writing activity was to have the students write a creative letter to someone they miss. Most of them wrote to their mothers, which I thought was cute. I gave them an example of a letter from my sister (Emily you are famous here). For science we talked about limited resources and the kids blew me away again. They had to come up with ways to conserve limited resources. My favorite was "We can use a machete to cut the grass instead of the lawn mower which uses gas."  Or "We can unplug the refrigerator.... When there is no food in it." Very smart ideas, probable for Pohnpei, but not so much for the United States haha. Needless to say, I fell in love with my students on day one. Then came the curve ball. There were too many 6th grade students, so they needed to break it up into two classes. So all my 8th grade students got split up and put into other 8th grade classes, and we took over the class of 21 6th grade students. I am sure I will fall in love with them as I did with the 8th grade, I just need to get used to them. 

Also, the family car broke down, so I have added a 3 mile walk on to my exercise list every day. Luckily in the morning it is down hill so when I get to class I am not too sweaty. However, in the evening when I get home from school, I am either drenched in sweat from walking or water from the heavy afternoon rain falls, both very uncomfortable. I am just going to take this as an opportunity to eat more cookies, because I know I will be walking them off by the end of the day. My host family is great and the closer I get to moving to Yap, the more I think about how much I will miss them. Well I will write about my 6th graders soon enough, 'till then, hope all is well with you all. 

Week in review

This week of training was our last before we start Model School. Model School is very similar to student teaching. I got very luck and I have an amazing local co-teacher. She already has experience working with Peace Corps Voulnteers, so working together seems very natural. Although the weekends are long and boring I was very excited for this weekend to come. Training this week took a lot out of me. I was exhausted everyday after and was in bed every night by 9. I have a nice routine during the week, which is why they go by so fast. I am so drained by the end of the day I enjoy coming coming to my host family. I have gained some weight, which is frustrating, but I have started eating brown rice instead of the white rice and I have cut back on the sweets. Hopefully this will help. It is hard with all the carbs the locals eat on a daily bases. Today, Saturday, I woke up early to do laundry. I woke up and realized I didn't have any more clean underwear! Something so simple yet so necessary! I worked out and even boxed a little bit with my host cousins. I went to another volunteers house in the afternoon to watch a movie. It was a nice way to pass the time, but I do feel guilty leaving my host family, they call that Peace Corps Guilt. It must be normal since they have a name for it. I am anxious to start Model School. Me, my co-teacher, another volunteer and her co-teacher have an 8th grade class that we will switch off every other day teaching. Two English classes and either a math or science class. Their are 15 students in the class. We got to see our class room on Friday and do a little clean up and rearranging. We made our lesson plan for Monday, and let me just say, lesson planning is very time consuming and I think it is safe to say it could be the hardest part about being a teacher. I am excited to see how the first week will go. Of course I will let you all know. I am feeling better from last week, I just miss home. I am still adjusting and probably always will be adjusting to life here, but it is starting to feel more like home. That's all for now, miss you all! 

Boredom

Boredom consumes my weekends. Hours feel like days and one day feels longer than the whole week before. Maybe I am just bored because I am supposed to be camping right now with my host family, but things did not go as planned. Let me back up to this past week. All week we have been working with local teachers on lesson planning. I love my partner. She is very smart, and always brings good ideas to the table. I hope I am lucky enough to have co-teacher like her in Yap. During the week the days are long, but the week goes by very fast. This week I got over my heat rashes, have stopped having diarrhea, but I developed a UTI. It is my first UTI ever, and let me tell you, it's not fun having one in the middle of Pohnpei, Micronesia. Luckily our PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) is absolutly amazing. She started me on antibiotics the next day, and if am already feeling better. Yesterday was the 4th of July. This is one of my most favorite holidays. We went to the U.S. Embassy to celebrate with the other Americans living in Pohnpei. The ambassador spoke, along I with many other people. I am happy to say I participated in eating 2 hamburgers and a hot dog along with some yummy fruit and a delicious pasta salad, all topped off with a red, white, and blue cake! Over load on food for sure, but worth it! It was a great way to spend the 4th of July, but I must admit I am envious of my friends and family at home. The 4th of July isn't the same without a beer and some fireworks. And, although I am becoming quite close to the other volunteers, I miss you all back home. I know this is only the first of many holidays that I will spend here without you all, but I truly hope it gets easier. We had some free time in Kolonia, which is the main town on Pohnpei, and also where the embassy is located. I took this free time to go to the grocery store and buy some veggies and fruite. I also bought some brown rice for my family, so they could try it, and they loved it! But we will see if they buy it from now on or not. Today we had a nutrition day at school. In groups we all created a recipe with common found foods here in Micronesia. My group made veggie suey. It was good! The idea of today was to show us that we can have some control on what we eat here, it's a nice thought, but when I came home with a bag of veggies, fruite, and brown rice, my host family looked at me like I was crazy. Plus, who am I to come into their house and change up their diet. It is frustrating to say the least. I was supposed to go camping with my host sisters today, but they had to leave during high tide to get to the other  island, so by the time I got done with school, they were already gone. Very disappointing because I had my bags packed and I was ready to go. Just another miscommunication with me and my host family. My host mom is sick with a common cold, but shehas asthma, so my host dad took her to Kolonia to the hospital. So this means I had the whole afternoon with the house to myself with absolutly nothing to do. Not to mention, I live so far from the other volunteers there is no way I could meet up with any of them. So I worked out for a second time today, cleaned my room, this included the ant trail across my bed, took a nap and did some reading. It was a fine afternoon, just very boring, and I couldn't stop thinking about all the fun everyone was having back the the States for the 4th. I almost forgot to mention the newest member of my host family. A little kitten, who lives in the attic above my room. She nearly scared me to death when I first heard her. Now that I know it is her, I am relieved, hopefully she will eat all the spiders at try to get into my room. To bad she probably has fleas, I wouldn't mind a cuddling buddy. Lonelyness and boredom are the two things that makes it so hard to be a Peace Corps Volunteer. All the other things I can adapt to, but these two will take time and effort to get over. This weekend they are getting the best of me.  

On Sunday we went to the beach, it's not the sandy beach you are all familiar with it is more of a volcanic rock type of beach, but a beach no the less. We picnicked there. We had BBQ chicken and rice and fruit.  It was a lot of fun, but I got sunburned and I still felt lonely. Even though I was with my host family, they were all talking in Pohnpein and laughing and I had no idea what they were saying. Every now and then I would hear my name or Peace Corps, so I knew they were talking about me, but I had no idea what they were saying. Not a good feeling! Also, I got sunburned. The water was beautiful and it was a nice breezy day, but I couldn't get past the feeling of being alone. At least the day passed fast, back to school on Monday! 'Till next time! 

New Found Talents

I haven't blogged in a while, and honestly that is because not much has changed. My host sister was gone for about 5 days in the town, so I was extremly bored. She is really the only one I can talk to and she understands 100% what I say. I took this as an opportunity to explore new things. Last week I started doing yoga with a fellow volunteer. I love it, except I am not very good at it. I am not using it as a substitue for running, just an addition to keep me busy in the afternoons after training. Training has been good, I feel like we are finally doing things that could be useful. We started TESL training and meet with local teachers to help. In two weeks we will be conducting a model school, which will be like student teaching for us. We will be teaching summer school to the middle schoolers here. In the afternoon we do language training. Yapess is extremly hard, and I leave everyday with a head ach. We had fried chicken one night for dinner and I was so hungry that I ate it all, and so my host family took this as a hint to make it for me every night for dinner. It is tasty, but my stomach hates me! I am going to continue doing yoga and run, hopfully that will help my body out with all this fried food! Water ran out at our house yesterday, so i showered in the river, with an eel, creepy!  I think my host family might be getting sick of the fried chicken because tonight we had chicken soup. Very yummy, but very salty. M host dad went to the high school today and borrowed the boxing punching bag for the summer! So now I have yet another way to work off the fried chicken. I see new wild life everyday, yesterday I saw a frog in the outhouse, and today a chicken run into our classroom, totally disrupting class. Hilarious things that get us through the days. I am feeling much more at home with my host family as my personality is able to show more. I have developed a routine and I am sticking to it, which makes the days go by faster. I always have something to look forward to. My favorite time of my day is having morning coffee. It tastes so good here, maybe because my host mom puts 5 scoops of sugar in it. It always gives me a chance to look out side and think to myself. Sometimes I still can't believe I am here. Thats all for now, 'till next time!