no rain, no rainbows

Two months, and I've been getting used to all the new sounds here. Herons make a sound like something in between a gurgle and a meow. Geckos chirping sound like something in between a giggle a screech. Frogs sound like nothing until you step on one barefoot in the middle of the night while going outside to get drinking water from the catchment, and then they sound like squish.
It was bound to happen.

School is going well. The Department of Education here has a secret stash of ukuleles, which was exciting to discover. They have since migrated to my classroom. I've instituted a rule that my non-music students may play the instruments before class, so most mornings I get serenaded before the school day starts.

Last Thursday the island celebrated Liberation Day with church, food, games, and canoe racing. My big contribution was racing in a canoe without capsizing. The racing is an all-day event, where hundreds of people take turns racing in 5 6-person canoes. While the races are going on, everyone else sings (and sometimes dances). It is pretty awesome. There is so much music everywhere.

Recently, I've felt like things have just begun to become normal (i.e. I am becoming more acquainted and used to everything here) until they stop being so. For example, yesterday I tried out a new laundromat a little further away from our house, and while waiting for my clothes to dry decided to go read on the beach. Walking to the beach, I found myself thinking, "wow, this is a long walk to the beach. I wonder if it's worth it," then stopped to remind myself that this long walk takes approximately six minutes.
Or coming home to hear our three-year old neighbor calling "Sameeea, Sameeea!" the way she usually does when I walk in or out of the house, and turning to see her standing naked on top of a car.
Or meeting the woman in charge of ukuleles and learning that her name is Mona Lisa.

Ok, time to grab my big anti-dog stick and head to school!

there's the part you've braced yourself against

Last night I dreamed that I shoplifted a pizza.

Dreams have been on my mind a lot recently -- probably because I have been sleeping so much. During my first year of college I had a recurring dream that I had to go back and complete another year of high school. This feels a little like that. High school is high school everywhere, and Micronesia and Cairo are similar in many ways. I haven't had an identity crisis yet, but it is still a little bit unsettling at times. The reassuring thing, however, is that my students think that I was born in 1972.

Outside of school, things are still beautiful and peaceful. There is a vague effort on the part of the police department (all four members) to cull some of the more aggressive feral dogs -- this only sounds sad until you have been chased down by a pack of them. So now instead of swerving to avoid dogs in the road, drivers swerve to hit them. It is unclear whether this is any more dangerous than the status quo.

Liberation Week (next week) has been shortened to Liberation Thursday-and-Friday, so there are three extra (!) days of school this quarter. One of them will be a party, because I can decide things like that, because I am the teacher and I said so. Ha, power trip trumps identity crisis. Or maybe this is what happens when you don't know which mentality -- student or teacher -- to harbor. Or maybe parties are good things and that is all.

These are our three dogs: Saddam (front), Bobo (right) and the neighbor's puppy who answers to "oh hi!" That is our house in the background. If you look carefully you can see the "OPEN" sign in the far window, leftover from the glory days of motel-dom.



Happy Sunday/Saturday!