Funny little things

, Well what an interesting day I had. Let me first start by saying that last night on our way home from paddling practice the truck broke down, so the team got an unexpected workout walking home. It was only about a 30 min. Walk, but of course it broke down on the day that I had a package from home, so I had extra baggage one would say. This morning I woke up to find that ants had found a new home around my food. Ants are everywhere here and I have grown to ignore most of them, or kill them with my bare hand. But them making a new home in my food drawer really started my day off bad. When I arrived at school the internet had turned off, something that happens often, but I have learned to deal with. Well this morning, weither it was my extra walk the night before, the ants, the internet or my premenstral state, I was quite irritated. After my first class I cooled down a little bit. I am so used to formality and order that going with the flow doesn't come easy for me. Being here I have learned to go with the flow, and it is mornings like this morning that it is really important to go with the flow. After school I went for a nice run and did a workout with my host brother. After that I felt 100% better. I ate dinner (tuna and taro). After that I helped the group that works with the youth on developing a radio skit to prevent underage drinking. It was fun and I might even get to be in the skit, then I will be on the radio here! I will be famous! At least Yap famous! I am really happy to get involved with this group, and drinking in general is a huge problem here in Yap. After this I took a shower. My host mom loves to talk, and I love to talk to her and listen, but she finds the oddest times to talk to me. Like tonight for instance, after my shower, while in my towel and soking wet she stops me to have a full on conversation. It is moments like this that I smile, because looking over my day, all the way to that moment, I had to just laugh and kept the conversation going. These are the funny little things in life that people live for. 

Busy Bee

Sorry I have not posted in a while, I have been a very busy bee! Like I said in my last post, I joined the paddling team so I have something to do almost every night of the week, which really make the weeks go by fast! I am told that being a busy peace corps volunteer is much better then being a bored one, so for that I am thankful, but sometimes I wish I could have a little break. I really like paddling, and we have 34 days until the canoe festival. That is where we will be competing against the other municipalities. This is only the second year that Gagil (my municipality) has had a team and last year they took third. At the festival there will also be swimming races and local sailing. They will also have shows with local dancing! I am very excited to see the festival and even more excited to be involved in it. Last weekend I was sick, and man did that suck! I had a bad cold and it made my busy schedule seem unattainable, but somehow i managed to get through it and the sickness only lasted for about four days. And lucky for me it waa over a weekend so it didnt effect school for me much. That weekend Gagil had a Walk-a-thon where the community wakes up at 5:30am on a Saturday walks to the beach(about two miles) plays games, watches the sunrise then on the walk back they pick up trash along the road. The kids loved it, and even though I was sick, I had a great time. My Sundays are completely full now. I wait for a phone call from my parents at 8:30am then go to church at 10am then leave for paddling practice at 12:30 and we dont normally come back until around 7-8pm! They are quite the days! My students are doing well in my classes, I still struggle sometimes with lesson planning and at what level my students are at, but overall it is going well. I really like my students. I am getting closer with they other teachers too, which is nice. My host family is great. I tried betelnut because it is part of the culture here, and the locals love it when I "have a chew" with them. have found that I actually like it, and I now limit myself to only a couple a week. This past weekend we got more books delivered to the library. At the end of the day the library is a mess. I used to get upset about it, but now it doesn't bother me, it means the students are actually looking at the books. I talked to the director of youth sports, we are going to aet up a boxing club, but we are going to wait until after the new year because that is when all the new equipment is going tobe  coming in. I am happy to announce that I will be coming hone for Christmas. I didn't announce this before becauseIwanted to surprise Emily( my sister) but my loving mother let the cat out of the bag, but it doesnt take any excitement away from me coming home, I still cant wait! October had been kind of a hard month for me because i love fall time in Colorado, and the weather is exactly the same here. I got really homesick. It would be nice to sleep one noght without worrying if a spider will crawl over my face, or have one meal without ants getting into my food. But, at the end of the day these are all minor things, i can get past them, but I do miss my family more than I was expecting, but being away really shows you who is important and what is important. With having the internet, it has been easier to stay in touch and I am very thankful for that. The internet at my school is off and on though, somedays it works, others it doesn't. I have noticed on the days it doesnt work, I get a lot of work done in the library, so there are pluses and minuses to every situation, the key to mental survival is finding the pluses and thinking only about them. I think I am very good at doing this and that is why I am having a good time through this experience. I have noticed that I am very adaptable. Also since my last post, my bed broke, so now the wooden frame is being held up by one of my suitcases, it actually works quite well! Who knew I could be so handy! I got a great care package from my mom today filled with yummy food. I will sleep good tonight because we spent the afternoon paddling and when I wake up let's pray the ants haven't gotten to all that yummy food! That's all for now! 'Till next time!

Getting the ball rolling

I finally feel like I am adjusting to my new life here in Yap, it has taken about a month but I feel like I am starting to feel like I am home. I have developed a plan for the year with where I want my students to be. Teaching is not easy! We just got internet at the school so I am able to do more research and stay in better touch with my family! I am getting used to the food,  I actually like taro now. My weekends are never boring. This past weekend I went on a fun boating/fishing trip. I was able to do great snorkling! There are so many beautiful fish in the sea! I joined the Gagil paddeling team! We practice every mon. Wed. Fri. And Sun. So I have a very busy schedule which is just how I like it! My principal wants me to work on getting a school year book started. Something I know very little about but I told him I would look into it. He also wants the kids to work on a school newspaper, another great idea, yet something I know very little about. Now that I have internet I will be able to look it up! Also we keep getting books donated to the library, which is great! Yet very exhausting! I have a great little office in the library and the set up is very nice! I am making friends, although I still feel like I can't be 100% me around them, I am sure that will come with time! Well thats all for now, till next time! 

The famous stone money that Yap is known for. 

First week with the kids

Well, teaching is not as easy as I thought, to all you teachers out there, way to go!! This first week was very exhasting yet rewarding too. My students need a lot of help, but I guess that is why I am here! I am having trouble with lesson planning, but every day gets a little easier. This weekend is my birthday weekend and my host mom is taking me to a cook out on the beach! I am very excited! I do wish my family at home could be there too. Miss you all! 

The work begins

I took my first week off to explore the island and after a couple of days I felt like I could find my way around easy enough. I was eager to meet my principal, he is going to be my boss for the next two years so I was anxious to meet him and talk about his expectations for the upcoming years. My host mom is sisters with my principal so she said that on Sunday after church we could go to his house and meet him. So Sunday morning I got up, we went to church, which was beautiful. The church overlooks a beach and the view of the ocean is breath taking. The preist is from Indonesia, so the mass was half in English and half in Yapese. After church we got ice cream and hung out at the little store so my host mom could show me off to all the people in the village. We then went to the pricipals house, and his wife informed me he had gone fishing for the day. UGH is all I could think! Why doesnt the principal want to meet me? So on Monday at 8:00am I went to the school, all of the teachers had to be there because registration was happening. I met all of the 8 teachers that work at my small school. I just waited and got to know them a little. Around 11 the principal came in! Yay! I finally get to meet him. He is very nice and is happy to have me. He gave me a key to the library and told me if I had time to clean it up. Well, let me tell you something about this library, it has awesome potential, but it hadnt been used for the past 5 years, the dust and spider webs were enough to send someone into a coma! There was a huge beautiful map on the back wall that was created by a former Peace Corps member... But no one could see it because there were shelves and books everywhere! Soo many books and no one was reading them! Now, I am not a huge reader myself, but what a shame! I immediately got to work! Hair up, basketball shorts on, dust pan in hand, i was determined to make this library run by the time school started, which was a little under a week away. I worked all day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. From 8:30-3 with a lunch break for about 20 min. I went home exhausted, and so dirty! But in those three days I turned a storage room into a beautiful library. School starts on Monday and I cant wait to show the kids it. I will also be running the library, which I dont know a lot about, but I am doing research. I also found our that I will be teaching 6,7 and 8th grade. My day will start at 8:30-10:00 with the 8th graders then I have a break from 10:00-11:00 where I will be fixing up the library or maybe I will start working on the computer lab ( they have 10 very nice computers that arent being used!!) then from 11:00-12:30 I will have my 7th grade students then lunch from 12:00-1:00. I will end the day with the 6th grade class from 1:00-2:30. Then I will have 2:30-4:00 to lesson plan for the next day. I think it will all work out. I am excited to start teaching, the first day is Monday! Oh, I almost forgot, there is no where in my village to use internet, so I have to go into town to use it, I will try to do this about once a week so you all can stay informed! I will say everything seems to be working out, but I cant shake the feeling of having no friends, I am still new and no one really talks to me. The other Peace Corps members live in town or far from me. I also feel like I am losing touch with my friends back home, leaving me feeling like I have no friends. Dont forget about me! I still miss you all so much! I talk to my host mom a lot, but sometimes I have no idea what she is saying to me. So we watch old episodes of desperate housewives and bond over that. Well thats all for now, next time I write I will have news about my first week of teaching!

First week in Yap

Well, as you all read, my last post was a little down, so I thought I should let you all know I am doing much better. Yesterday I caught the bus into town, which picks me up right in front of my house ( how nice is that) and it is only $1 to get into town. A taxi on the other hand is $5.75 one way. Because of this I am going to take the bus as much as I can into town. But, heres the catch, it only runs Mon.-Fri. 6:30 it picks up and 4:45 it takes you back to the village from town. So when school starts that could become harder to do. I spent my first day unpacking, because I am a nut when everything is cooped up in my bags! My room is very nice, I have a bed and a closet and a night stand. I bought a fan because there is no way I could sleep through the night without one, for one because it is so hot and for two I can't stand the sound of the bugs. My house is also very nice, there is a kitchen with a sink with water that is purified! So I now don't have to worry about boiling my water.(which I never worried about at my last house either because my host mom or sister would already have it boiled any time I needed water - I was their little princess, ugh! I miss them) We have an indoor shower, and although it doesnt have hot water it is very nice! We also have an indoor bathroom, but it doesn't work :(, so I have to use the one across the street at the laundry mat. Yeah! You hear right! We have a laundry mat across the street!! I did laundry today and it is the first time I have been able to dry my clothes since being here and man, that was nice! I am living with an older women (65) and her grandson (11). My host mom is very funny and nice, she loves to talk to me although comunication can be a little hard considering her english is not very good. But somehow through broken English and my broken Yapese we figure eachother out. On my second day here i walked to the very nice sports complex with Anderson (the 11 year old grandson) he doesn't talk much, but the silence was nice. It is about a 35 min. Walk to the sports complex from my house. Here they have a full court indoor basketball and volleyball court, a full outdoor track with a soccer feild in the middle, a baseball feild and a full weight room, with a boxing bag!! 😍 I met the guy who runs it and he is an ex peace corps who got married and stayed on the island. He is very nice and I told him I was willing to help in anyway possible. Hopefully later on I will be able to coach or even play some sports myself! The Yap games are going on now, which is a competition between all the villages in all of the youth sports, so later that night I walked back to the sports complex with Anderson and we watched girls volleyball all night long. We got a ride home from a women in our village who knew Anderson. She asked me if anyone had shown me around Gagil, which is the village I live in, and I said no. So she then said "tomorrow I will show you around" The next day, sure enough, she showed up at my house and we walked all morning. She took me to the beach where we watched her kids (she has two little girls ages 4 and 6) play in the ocean and we drank coconuts under the trees. It was really nice to have someone show me around who was around my age. She had a cell phone so we exchanged numbers. The next day I wanted to go explore Colonia, the town. I wanted to see how easy the bus was and find things like the bank and post office and where the grocery stores were. I was about to explore all of town in less then half a day. It is very very small. Infact the whole island of Yap is very small. I got grocerys, went to the public library got some lunch and some wifi at lunch. Which it turns out that there are not a lot of places that have internet except for the one resturant I ate lunch at. Good thing the food is good, I bet I will be back. I also met with one of our response team members and he introduced me to some other volunteers on the island. They are going to be teaching at the high school and are going through a program with their church. They all live together, there are 5 of them, but I only met 2, hopefully in the upcoming weeks I will be able to meet them all. I still have not met my principal, but he is my host moms brother, she has scheduled us to meet on Sunday after church.( my host mom found out I was catholic and was so happy, she can't wait to take me to church) school doesnt start untill Sept. 1st so I still have time to get adjusted. I am going back into town tomorrow to get some tape and meet with another Peace Corps Volunteer. I ate lobster for lunch! Thats right, lobster! The food here on Yap is much better, there are much more freah veggies and fruit ready to be eaten. I even found brown rice and wheat bread. I already feel healthier. I am feeling much better then I did before, but I am still adjusting.