"This experience will be challenging but I will only grow stronger through it, it will be lonely but I will use the lonely times to grow closer to God, it will be exhausting but I will never use that as an excuse to stop being a witness, and it will be fun so I plan to live it up and learn as much as I can."
With that decided I got the first glimpses of the island I would spend the next ten months of my life and it is beautiful.
As we successfully made it through security and stepped foot outside the airport my first impression was simply that there were a lot of people everywhere who were doing nothing. The second was that I wasn't really being stared at. When I was in South Africa in 2009 that's what I remember, being stared at for being the only white and blonde person there. Men would make kissing faces at me, tell me I was beautiful, and inform me that I could take them back to America if I married them. Their wooing was in vain, and I am glad that I will not have to deal with this same thing.
The trip to the school should have taken us 10 minutes top but the roads are terrible. I have never seen pot holes this size. On the way there what I saw was worn down medal homes, small hut shops, wild dogs running everywhere, broken down rusted cars overtaken by weeds (these were everywhere), and more people standing around doing absolutely nothing. About 3/4 the way there Pastor John abruptly turns into a drive way entrance upon seeing a man with what looks like a rock up ahead. Drinking is a big problem in Chuuk and it is apparently common for drunk men to throw rocks at you or your car. There are cars scattered around the island with spider wed window shields. Turns out the man did not have a rock, but the fact that Pastor John reacted so seriously made me realize how real this problem is.
The school is cute. It doesn't have much open space because many classrooms are huddled on a small amount of property. What you see in the picture above is 1st and 2nd grade classrooms along with the office. Below is the high school classes where I will be teaching. The men in the picture are constructing two new classrooms that will be done in December. When we first arrived at the school, people took me into a room and promptly places a crown of flowers and a lai. They then had some younger kids perform a native dance for us. They gave us hugs as if they had known us forever and then took us up to Pastor John's apartment and fed us a HUGE meal. There are about 5 other Philippine female teachers and 2 male teachers here right now. We are expecting 3 more Friday. O and I tried fish for the first time, not sold on it yet.
After a long night of very needed sleep we made our way to the market the next day. Despite the huts that sell random goods on the side of the road there are a few impressive "grocery stores" here (some even have air conditioning). What makes grocery shopping here tricky is that although we have refrigerators in our apartment the power shuts off from 3 - 6 and then 10pm - 6am. So you want to get food that won't parish easily. Most things are very expensive and peanut butter is going to have to be a luxury. A loaf of Whole wheat bread runs around 7 dollars too. Once again I was impressed at how people didn't stare, although one drunk man informed me he would like to make me some whiskey sometime, I failed to inform him that I am not yet 21 :D. I was amazed to find out that none of the other SMs with me were interested in buying bananas, but they were kind enough to make a special stop for me to get some. I love bananas! I paid a dollar for 17 of them. This is one thing I can definitely get use to!
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