My First Week in Palau

August 02, 2008

I reached Palau late Saturday night, about two and a half days after I left home. From Harrisburg, Pennsylvania I flew to Cleveland, Ohio and then to Houston, Texas where my departing flight to Hawaii was delayed for a few hours. Almost one day was spent in Honolulu where I stayed with Tina Delumeau and her daughter Faith. Before we even got back to the house from the airport, Tina stopped to buy tons of food including sashimi and sushi (Mike... I know you're jealous). She was so excited when she found out I liked this type of food, haha.

Faith and I went to some look out spots the next morning and at one lookout we hopped over the wall and hiked closer to the water. Then we expored the tidal pools where we found sea urchins, crabs, anemones, fish, and an eel.

I ended up getting soaked by the waves crashing in and then we had to run back to the house to get my luggage... I just barely made my flight to Guam.

At the next airport I made some final calls to family members to say one last goodbye. My phone would no longer have service once I left Guam. When I reached Palau I used my Palauan passport for the first time rather than my U.S. passport and some of the locals tried to speak to me in Palauan but I had to admit that I had no clue what they were saying to me. At the last check I went through, the worker told me "Welcome home." I didn't know how to respond and it finally hit me that this is now my home for the next year. I no longer live in Pennsylvania!!! After living there for eighteen years it's difficult for me to imagine not calling it home.

As I write this I'm sitting in my room at Aunti Theo and Uncle Billy's house. I have a two-bedroom apartment all to myself upstairs for the time being but that will probably change next week when the rest of the teachers arrive. Ok, I really need to sleep. Tomorrow I'm going to a Palauan church for the first time. The second service is in English... so that's what I'll be going to, haha.


August 03, 2008

Today I attended the English service at the Palauan Evangelical Church located on Emmaus High School property. I really enjoyed it and recognized all of the songs which is definitely a plus. Afterwards I saw my cousin Jason for the first time in years and then I finally met Rhonda, my cousin who attended Taylor in Indiana.

While getting changed in the apartment after church I noticed what looked like star fruit growing from the tree right outside the back window... so I went outside and climbed up on the ledge around the second floor of the building. Then I climbed up on a small roof and pulled a star fruit off the tree... victory. I stepped on the edge of the roof to get back on the ledge only to find that nothing was supporting it and it gave way under my feet so I threw myself on the ledge and managed not to kill myself. Sheesh, I'll have to be more careful ;P

My Aunt Theo took me for a tour through the area... we drove past President Tommy Remengesau's house. Uncle Billy is the Pastor of the Palauan Evangelical Church and is the Chief of Staff under Remengesau. He is also the running mate for Surangel in the upcoming presidental election in November.

I played my first game of volleyball with Palauans today, haha. It was a lot of fun and I tried a couple spikes but didn't get much power behind them. Some of my sets were off, so I'll have to work on that too. They said they'll be back tomorrow to play :)

Aunt Theo and Uncle Billy talked to me about graduate programs. Apparently I have a decent chance of getting a scholarship to study in Australia, Japan or New Zealand. If accepted all costs would be covered and I would get to spend a few more years abroad... hmmm


August 04, 2008

I'm still having trouble adjusting my internal clock it seems... I keep waking up around 4 AM, so here I am trying to find something to occupy me. My throat is getting worse... thanks for the laryngitis Laura, haha, just kidding. I think the thing which has been most difficult for me to deal with is not being able to text or call friends and family whenever I feel like it or not being able to connect to the internet (and knowing it will be a long time before I can again). For once, I can only communicate with people face to face and half the time everyone around me is speaking in Palauan. It is also difficult to go anywhere because I don't know my way around. I feel confined... so I might as well view it as a challenge or opportunity.

Goals:
Make friends my own age
Start learning the Palauan language
Get my Palauan Drivers Liscence (that's right... Palau is big enough to need cars)
Wander around and get to know my surroundings
Find out how to get on the internet at least once in a while
Skype

There's a gecko chirping at me from the wall just above my bed :P

P.S. Cordy -I'm not home sick yet, really... but I miss our daily talks. I think of you every time I see a spider and I imagine you running around sceaming, haha.


August 05, 2008

Most of the teachers will not arrive until next week and the students won't get here until the 18th... so it's fairly quiet and slow right now at Emmaus. Yesterday, Aunt Theo showed me where my desk is in the teachers' office and gave me some of the text books I'll be working with. I went through the first few chapters of the Algebra book and planned out lessons and homework assignments for the first semester. Today I'll probably start working on English or General Science.

I went exploring again and found my classroom. I'm not sure but I think I might be teaching barefoot. When you enter a house or building you leave your shoes outside the door and it seems that might also be the case with classrooms. That's fine with me, haha.

Aunt Theo, Mrs. Lim, and I went out for lunch yesterday to a really nice restaurant with a great view of the ocean and many islands. I ordered large shrimp with chili sauce and ate the tails, but I was told that I forgot about the best part of the shrimp ... the heads. They had me chew on the heads (eyes and all) and it was actually pretty good.


August 06, 2008

Aunt Theo and I left Emmaus at 6 am and after an hour of driving we reached a house where I'm told my mother grew up. The actual house is no longer standing because it was destroyed in a tsunami long ago, but another house has been built since then. There were many people there (all of them related to me) and more kept coming throughout the morning. The elderly women all sat under one hut, many of them on a wooden platform, and some of them on wooden benches. On a large beam over their heads I saw paintings of Palauans in loin clothes and war canoes. The men sat under another hut and the children ran around on the beach. I wandered off and explored the beach, looking at shells and chasing ghost crabs.

The family is gathering today because of the death of a relative on papa's side. It's tradition that the family spends time together. Then four days after the burial there will be a great feast.

When it came time for lunch, the middle-aged women gathered in the house and prepared the food. They sat barefoot on the floor and passed around containers, dishing out portions and finally passing the containers to the young women (me included) to hand out. The elderly women were the first to receive food (it's a matriarchal society), then the elderly men, followed by the younger men and everyone else not involved in preparing lunch. Once we knew that everyone else had food, then we were allowed to eat. I told my cousin, Rhonda, (just graduated from Taylor University in Indiana) that I wanted to eat on the beach and pointed to the bench near the men's hut, but Rhonda told me that we aren't permitted to eat near the men so we went further down the beach and sat on some tree roots. We ate fish, fruit, taro, and some other things I can't name.

Most of the elderly women have lost their husbands. Some of them waved me over and spoke with me. One of them asked if I was still single... I hope they don't try to set me up with a distant cousin, haha. Rhonda told me that when you meet someone you want to date, you are supposed to tell your parents so that they can check if that person is related to you.
Another relative asked if I have a Palauan name, and I told her my name is Ngeriam. So she said this is what I will be called from now on.