oh hi!
i am here, i guess. and it is pretty incredible. i don't have internet access, really, for the next few weeks, but here is a brief update. kosrae exists. it is either a real thing, or nothing else is. it is pretty much exactly how you would imagine a 20 square mile tropical island in the middle of the south pacific. it is half rainforest and half coast. there are frogs everywhere. it rains everyday, and that is the drinking water. everyone is kind and knows everything about everyone, most people are happy, there are coconuts everywhere, the best way to open one is with a machete, papayas are in fact delicious, sharks don't bite, flowers are as big as your face, all stores carry spam, and there is one road.
school starts in two weeks, so until then it's learning how to teach and learning about the island. highlights have included a 4-hour barefoot hike (read: trudge through the mud) into tropical rainforest and snorkeling among coral and stingrays and more fish than could possibly exist. i haven't seen so many different forms of life since playing the animal planet computer game when i was six years old. woo, biodiversity.
send me your address and i will write you a letter and if you want a postcard then you get one of those too.
photos as soon as i can get internet on my computer.
thanks fo readin!
love,
sam
I thought you were firmly in the anti-papaya camp! Does this mean that there are good papayas out there?
ReplyDeleteoh hi!
ReplyDeletekosrae exists. your description is so vivid (and funny!). frogs everywhere--do they sing at night?--it rains everyday--how much?--how does the water taste (it sounds amazing, something like cloud water--
how do you know everyone knows everything about everyone? does that mean they know everything about themselves? Is that part of what makes them kind?
THE BEST WAY TO OPEN A COCONUT ISSSSS A MACHETE!! I wholeheartedly agree, though it's fun to try and break the outer shell by slamming it down on hard surfaces. oh, nature...
bleh! I still don't like papayas (though apparently they helps el estomago). I had them in costa rica, though, which is maybe just not Kosrae....
what color are the flowers?? what do they smell like? today I decided that wysteria (my favorite smelling flower) can really be described as smelly like sweet sweat, like of someone you really like, when they're not THAT dirty, but just sort of fresh--and the flower has a hint of citrus too
your sentence from (I'm treating it as one sentence, though you put periods, because it can read easily as one sentence!) "it is half rainforest" to "there is one road" is quite graceful.
I'm excited for you to experience teaching. I think you'll be really good
were you alone on the hike? that'd be pretty balsy!
!!! is all I can say to the picture of you snorkeling there. and I want to say "that's where she belongs!" with all those bright fish
sometime, not now, but sometime, i want to hear more about this computer game
yo' fo' welcome