Peliliu... a not so relaxing vacation

This story is from Thanksgiving break.

After a rough couple of weeks, I was ready for a nice relaxing vacation ... away from my misbehaving students. Jenny and Erin, two American friends teaching at Bethania, were going to the island of Peliliu for Thanksgiving break. I was invited along too so I jumped on the chance and was looking forward to some kayaking, swimming, exploring, and so on.

The boat ride to Peliliu was long but the view from the third story of the boat was beautiful. The only downfall was the close proximity to pot smoking teenagers... one of which took a long puff on a joint and looked up to see me staring him down. Alcapone, one of my sophomore students, started gagging as soon as he saw me and quickly retreated to a lower level. He was lucky. I was on vacation, and though I didn't approve, I wasn't planning on supervising. For these next few days I was considering myself a tourist, not a teacher. Jenny, Erin, and I were just three pasty white American tourists.

We stayed at Storyboard Beach Resort in a cute little cabin along the beach. It even had hot water... you have no idea how wonderful the thought of a hot shower was. But it turned out that a group of students from the girls' school were staying in the cabin next to us and the parents had requested that we watch them. Babysitting. Just great. And they specifically said no drinking or smoking weed. We had no idea what a challenge this would be.

That night, we were woken from sleep by a loud banging sound. I jumped out of bed and looked out the window to see two teenage boys trying to kick in the door of the girls' cabin. We went running outside and chased the boys off, but they came back ten minutes later to try again. These boys were obviously high and maybe drunk, and they were definitely stubborn. When we came out yelling, they would run away like scared little girls. But it wouldn't be long before we'd see them sneaking back through the trees. We gave up trying to sleep and started patrolling the area around the cabin.

At some point we noticed that there were seven pairs of flipflops sitting on the porch... but there were only five girls. The two extra pairs were also way too big to be for girls. So we pounded on the door until they opened up and the questioning began. Here's what we were told:
1. They were all hanging out until a fight broke out.
2. A large group of boys ganged up on two boys (cousins of one of the girls) and wanted to fight.
3. It wasn't a fair fight so the girls were hiding the two boys in their cabin.
4. The other boys were trying to break into the cabin to get to them.

Well, we weren't going to let this happen. I grabbed some flashlights and we split up. The boys kept coming back and they definitely outnumber us, but we chased them off each time. So they resorted to throwing coconuts and that just made me angry, especially when one came very close to hitting me. They started throwing other things and when I spotted one boy in the woods pick something up and throw it at me, I threw it right back at him as he ran away screaming. I was starting to enjoy this.

At some point I checked under the cabin and saw someone jabbing a stick up through the floor boards. I yelled at him to get out, but he just froze... as if I could only see him if he was moving. I told him again to get out but he didn't move. So I did. I dove under the cabin and yelled that if I got my hands on him I was going to break him. He jumped up, smacked his head on the floor boards, and started running. I chased him off the resort, down the beach, then up through someone's yard and started chasing him down a road. He stopped at one point where there were some trees behind him and turned to face me. I couldn't see his face; he had a hat on and his hoody over that. He was far enough away that he could have easily escaped. I'll admit it, I'm out of shape. Why was he waiting for me?

It hit me that I had to make a decision at this point. I had now run far away from my friends. It was dark. I didn't know where I was and he might have some of his own friends hiding and ready to jump me. I breathed deeply and slowly walked right up to him and asked him what his problem was. He kept his face down so I couldn't see who he was. He said he didn't have a problem with me, but just wanted to talk to the boys hiding in the cabin. I told him he could wait until morning, and I continued to question him to try to figure out exactly what was going on. He stopped answering my questions and started asking for my name and to shake my hand. I didn't trust him so I didn't tell him and I definitely didn't want to give him an opportunity to try something. But he became insistant. I told him my Palauan name, Ngerium, and made him promise to leave for the night. If he still wanted to talk to the boys, he could come back in the morning.

We finally got to bed at 4:30 AM and we were exhausted. At 6:00 AM we were woken up again, this time to a party going on in the girls' cabin and a fog of smoke from weed between our cabins. We were pissed. Jenny went over to talk to the girls and made the boys leave. They were obviously high and there were bottles of alcohol all over the floor. The boys were back ten minutes later. Nothing we did made them leave for good and we didn't get any sleep.

We told the girls that they couldn't have any boys in their cabin after 6PM the next night, but we spent the entire night trying to keep them out. Jenny kept going back to the cabin and searching for the boys, sometimes finding them hiding in the beds and kicked them out. But they always came back.

Day three... same thing, and we were angry. So Angry. And sick, all three of us. We were running on very little sleep and were exhausted and now sick. We left Peliliu and decided never to be anywhere near students when leaving for vacation again.

So much for a relaxing break. At least we had the chance to explore the island before we left. We ran into a large pig walking down the road, and did some hitch hiking... Erin managed to fall off the back of the pickup truck (Don't worry, she was ok). Hopefully, we'll have the chance to return and see the swimming hole one day.