salt air like a broadcast

7/28

Today I cleaved open a coconut using a machete and I kept all my fingers.

It's been close to two weeks and I think I have learned a lot -- about the language, history, etc., of Kosrae. But only a little about the culture. It is complicated and will take a while.
Even with 9 hour days of Orientation, there is a ridiculous amount of time. All the time I never had in college and high school was here all along. Here with all the frogs ever.

So it has been good so far. The start date of school has been pushed back to August 15, and I will teach geography and music to juniors and seniors. Ok. It still feels like high school was too recent for me to be teaching it, but maybe I will just grow old really quickly.

I miss friends and I miss Quesadilla Friday, but here is a good place to be. There is still so much that is surprising -- people eat their dogs, but not their chickens; everyone is into either Eminem or Elvis (but never both); coconuts from the sky; I have to dodge giant crabs while biking to school. It's something like a bizarre time warp, or a dream where things are just familiar enough to make the dreamstate ambiguous.
At some point, I will/should/hope to use all the aforementioned time for thinking. But for now I think I will just acknowledge and maybe even squander it.

8/1

I am now with home. My roommates Lizzy, Ben and I live in a converted motel fifty yards (fewer?) from the ocean. We have two coconut trees in our backyard and a dog named Saddam in the front. Saddam is a big bully who barks and barks when we go near, in, or out of the house, but he is a sucker for being petted and asked how much he likes the scratches.
I will be the first to get fleas.