Two Months

Sorry to everyone for being offline for such a long time. It has been a whirlwind few weeks, and on top of being a new teacher, learning how to lesson plan, getting comfortable in a classroom, and grading endless assignments, the internet on most of the island has been so slow we can’t even get Google to load. The only phone/internet company in Chuuk, Telecom, was performing “upgrades” so we were basically without internet for a while. The upgrade is still going on, they said until probably mid-October, so we will see what happens from here. Regardless, sorry for the lack of communication!

Two months. It feels like we’ve been here for a year, and it also feels like I got here last week. Wow. We looked at the calendar, realized it was Sept. 26, and had a major WTF moment. This past week was spirit week, and I was one of the staff members on the team with half the senior class and half the freshman class. It was a ton of fun, and we capped it off with a picnic yesterday at one of the resorts on the island.

First off, let me tell you about my day-to-day life here in Chuuk. We’ve compared living here to riding a rollercoaster- you could say it’s an everyday thing, but it’s more like an “every 5 minutes” kind of thing. At one point, we could be on top of the world, a really good lesson, an awesome conversation with a student, anything, and then five minutes later, we could be in the pits for any number of reasons. One of the biggest things Chuuk has taught me is to get rid of all my expectations, because they will always be wrong. That being said, I have fallen into a slight routine during the school week.

6:30-wake up and get ready

7:30-finish breakfast and get coffee (most important part of the day!)

8:00-go to our office

8:30-school starts. I teach anywhere from 2-4 periods a day out of 6, with 3 different subjects. I teach one section of sophomore biology, two sections of junior literature, and one section of senior English skills.

3:00-school ends. We have 15 minutes for meetings before basketball (practice and games) begin

3:30-4:30ish-basketball

5:00-think about getting dinner. We go to the store by our house called Shigeto’s. My night to cook and clean dishes is Monday, and I cook and clean every third Thursday as well.

5:30-get an ice cream cone to celebrate a successful dinner shopping expedition

5:45-cook dinner

6:30-eat dinner

7:30 and after-grade and lesson plan for the next day

10:00-usually bedtime

There are a few nuances to our schedule. We have an assembly every Monday morning for announcements, and we start off the week singing the FSM National Anthem and the Saramen Chuuk Academy (SCA) song. Their singing is probably the best I’ve ever heard-for never studying music, our students can harmonize like it’s nobody’s business. It’s amazing! Tuesdays, we have a half hour for homeroom (I’m not a homeroom teacher, so I get a free half hour). Wednesdays, we have mass during the school day. Mac, Jason and I also have our community night on Wednesdays. We have spirituality nights on Thursdays. And on the weekends we just go with the flow. Sometimes, that’s going up to Xavier, or going to our host families, or hanging out at Saram. It just depends on our moods.

So far, life is really good here. Before I left, everyone I talked to said community living would be the hardest part of my time here, but I’ve found that to be the opposite. My community-mates are incredible; Jason and Mac are super fun and quirky, keep life interesting, and are incredibly supportive. We’ve definitely had our challenges, though. Out of our four pillars (community, simplicity, spirituality and social justice), social justice is by far the hardest. In the past two months, I’ve had to completely reframe how I think about social justice, and the issues I thought I would be facing. Hunger and poverty aren’t really big issues, at least not in my limited experience, but education is huge. I came in not really sure how education would play out as a social justice issue, and I’m still trying to figure it out, but I will never again doubt that it is one. Our students are amazing, bright and dedicated; they’ve just been given very few educational opportunities to date. Feel free to ask me more about all of this; I’m not going to write a lot about it publicly but I’m happy to share.

I know I can’t write everything that has happened in the last month or so, but this is a start. I miss home like hell, and I think about everyone a lot. Having letters to open every day from friends and family (thanks to my amazing sister, Jess!) has been a godsend and I can’t thank her enough for that. That is all from me right now. More to come a lot sooner than this came!