Christmas in the Tropics

The locals here told me that it would get a lot cooler during the winter months. Seeing that I am sitting here writing this blog when it is 83 degrees at 10 pm determined that was a lie. In fact, the weather seems to have gotten more humid recently. My sister would love to trade places with me right now! While I was not made for the tropics, Laura definitely was!

A few of the amazing people I got to spend Christmas with!

We have finished our first week of Christmas break. I feel like it’s going by way to fast! I’ve been going to the high school basketball games in Palikir and doing grades for report cards. Other than that, it’s been a pretty chill break. My roommate went home for Christmas at the last minute, so I have my room all to myself. I miss her though! Christmas Eve, we had dinner at the Edward house. The house was decorated and had a beautiful fake tree in the living room with lights and ornaments, but I really didn’t feel like it was Christmas.

On Christmas day, Kim got very bored and decided that we needed a tin can telephone from the girls’ apartments to the boys’. After a lot of work, (mostly Kim doing the labor) we got two big tin cans with a string set up between the two apartments. The telephone unfortunately, did not work as we had hoped. Yelling across the yard proved to be a lot more effective.

Setting up our "phone line."

My mom had sent a gingerbread house kit that I decided to put together that afternoon. Unfortunately, the roof of the house had broken during its 6,000 mile journey to Pohnpei. I decided to try to put it together anyway but soon realized that it was so hot, the frosting was melting and couldn’t hold anything together. Kim decided to try her hand at it and soon started to build what we like to call, an abstract house. We covered it in frosting and put candy and sprinkles all over it. It took it outside and it soon collapsed on itself. But I must say, Kim was quite the architect! J

Tonight, we had vespers/communion in the school gym with all 3 churches. After foot washing, we all sat at tables with candles burning in the middle of each table with a plate of fruit, the communion bread, and the grape juice. We were invited to eat the fruit while we talked and listened to the pastor give a talk. Later, after we had eaten the bread and drunk the grape juice, we each got a paper and pen and we wrote down what we were struggling with.

Abstract house! 

We were then instructed to burn the paper with the flame from the candle. I really don’t think the pastor had thought this through because after out table had burned 2 papers, we noticed that the Styrofoam plate underneath the candle was starting to melt and was starting to melt the plastic tablecloth underneath. Tony lifted up the plate that was lit ablaze and put it on a stack of Styrofoam plates on the table. Those plates started to melt as well and Sheila, a hilarious lady that goes to my church in Kitti grabbed the plates and put them on the gym floor underneath the table. Immediately, we felt a huge heat wave on our legs as the fire burned underneath the table. Sheila looks at Tony and said, “Why would you put the fire on the plates?? You were supposed to put it on the live plant here on the table!” We were all laughing so hard and of course, disrupting the peace of the service. Needless to say, it’s a communion that I will never forget.

I have also finally received my Pohnpeian driver’s license! It took forever, but I finally have it! The couldn’t fit my whole last name on one line, so it took up two, and they put me as 20 pounds lighter than I really am. I will definitely have to take a picture of it to show you all how simple it is! I hope you all had a good Christmas wherever you may have been, and hope you all have a happy new year as well! 

Christmas Parades and Tikars.

 I can’t even express how happy I am to be on break! Getting my kids ready for the Christmas program, and planning the class Christmas party has worn me out! The Christmas program was very good and ran quite smoothly. My kids sang Joy to the World with pre-K and 1^st grade. All Thursday afternoon, I wrapped gifts for my kids. My mom, and members of my church and high school sent me some wonderful gifts! I spoiled my kids a lot with how many gifts they got! On Wednesday, I told them that if they could say their memory verse, they could pick a stuffed animal. They were SO excited! They loved them so much some even brought them upstage when we went to perform our song.

Some of the vehicles for our parade

Friday morning, the long awaited day, finally arrived. I only had one kid, (my favorite student who is only 4) until 8:45! So we spent time in the 2^nd grade room until more kids came. I had to send one of my boys home because his mom brought him to school with some major pink eye. I felt bad since it was the Christmas party but it’s really not a good idea to bring your kid to school with something so contagious! She brought him to school with a high fever before too because he really wanted to come. The kids were crazy and hyper from so much sugar and excitement but it was fun! I received 2 beautiful Pohnpeian skirts from two of my students! I now own 4 of them!

After school, a bunch of high schoolers got into some trucks and cars and we went around town throwing candy to people on the sides of the road. They had a microphone and amplifier in one of the trucks and with all the ruckus we were making people could hear us far ahead of time coming down the roads. It was a lot of fun!

Danny’s 7^th graders, who I teach Romanian to once a week were quite disappointed when I could not teach them this last week. So they made me something in class using my last name (Using their spelling):

Cute

Oh too lovely

Nice

Singer

Top best lady girl

Angel

National teacher

Teacher

Important to the students

Not available

Eternal

Short hare     

Cudley

Unlikely to be bad

Not available and unlikely to be bad are probably my favorites because they just crack me up!

My favorite student Summer, was sitting on my lap during recess one day and I asked her what she wanted for Christmas.
“A tikar.”

“A what?”

“A tikar!”

“Do you mean a guitar?”

Staff Christmas party! Love these girls. :)

She puts her hands on her hips and nods with a cute smirk on her face. Goodness I love her! She just brightens up my day everyday! During our dress rehersal with all the kids from pre-k to 8^th in the gym, we had to keep our young kids quietly entertained. Karyn had Jen had given each of us teachers a pipe cleaner and we made headset “mics” out of them and the kids loved them! So when we gave them each a pipe cleaner to keep busy, they of course all made headsets like us. Sometime in the chaos of recess, Summer lost her headset and came crying to me. I gave her mine and she happily went on her way again.

I can’t believe I’ve been here for almost 5 months already! This year is going by SO fast! I love being here so much, yet sometimes, I wish I were at home. I’m sure there will be tears at Christmas time for me but I’ve been getting a lot of love from friends and family back home, which has been amazing!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas, please hurry up!

 “Ms. C! Ms. C!”

Alyanna and Haylee!

I look up from my lesson plan book that I am working on. JT is in front of me pointing across the gym.

“What is it JT?”

“Haylee cry!”

Does the crying ever stop?

I sigh, put down my notebook and walk over to Haylee who is hunched on the ground crying. After instructing the other kids to go play else where, I sit next to Haylee.

“Haylee what’s wrong?”

She doesn’t answer for a few seconds, but then points to Alain.

“Alain told me ew!”

“Did you try to kiss him again?”

She looks sheepishly at me and nods her head yes, trying to hold back a smile.

Jeroleen, soon to be at WWU with me!

“I don’t think he really likes that so maybe we should keep our lips to ourselves okay?”

“Oh Ms. C, you’re so funny!” she giggles and runs off to play.

My children never cease to amaze and amuse me. J Having to deal with kissing in Kindergarten definitely reminds me of when I chased boys around the playground!

 I still have at least one crier a day. One girl set a record of crying 5 times in one day! And I only have them from 8-noon! One of my girls, Yuree, has a harder time understanding and speaking English and is Philippino so she doesn’t speak Pohnpeian either. She is also not the easiest person to play with, but she is getting bullied a lot. It makes me sad how mean kids can be!

Christmas break is almost here! 5 more school days! J Prayers are needed as sickness is once again being passed around the SMs.

Kim shared a beautiful verse with us found in Psalms 61:1-2 MSG

“God, the one and only—
    I’ll wait as long as he says.
Everything I need comes from him,
    so why not?
He’s solid rock under my feet,
    breathing room for my soul,
An impregnable castle:
    I’m set for life.”

Hope you are having a joyful and snowy holiday season! I am quite jealous of the cold weather you are having. While you sit by fireplaces with blankets, I am sitting in front of a fan with shorts and a tank top. I can't believe it's this humid in winter! 

 Sorry for the terrible updates! Hopefully more exciting things will happen over break. J

Oh! Sunday is my first scuba diving lesson in the ocean! I am super excited but nervous at the same time! 

'Tis the Season!

Ah Christmas is in the air. Despite the lack of cold weather and snow, it still feels like Christmas time. We are playing lots of holiday music in the apartment and in my classroom and on Tuesday, Karyn and I spent part of the night transforming our apartment living room and kitchen into a winter wonderland. Friday, Karyn and I had cut stars, paper chains, and snowflakes galore. When Jen, Kim, and Denise had finally gone to bed, Karyn and I started to decorate the apartment. Karyn had made most of the decorations because she is really artsy so I was mostly the labor. J We hung paper snowflakes from the ceiling and stuck them to the cabinets, and put up other various decorations we either found in the closet or my mom had sent me. I had also received an 18” tree from Amazon that we decorated and put on the table. We were up until 1:00am, but it was totally worth it! Jen, Kim, and Denise were all surprised and it just put everyone in a more Christmasy mood!

Karyn made a portrait of each of us in the apartment!

I decorated my classroom on the 1^st of December to surprise my students. Oh they loved it! The snowflakes, and other glittery decorations surrounding the classroom had them staring for a long time. One of my students, Alyanna, is transferring to Guam on Wednesday. I’m really sad about that, but I think the class will do well without her. She’s the smartest in the class and she knows it! Everything that she does, everyone else wants to do. It’s really kind of annoying sometimes because I need the kids to be more independent.

I can’t believe it’s already December 7! Time is flying by! Two of the volunteers from PUC are leaving on the 18^th! I couldn’t even imagine leaving now. I love being here too much! Despite my hate for the humidity, I found that I am really enjoying myself here. Although teaching is still not something I really enjoy, I love being with my kids. They have become a lot more loving toward me the last couple of weeks. I get lots of hugs, lots of I love you’s, and lots of pictures drawn for me. One of my favorite students, the youngest in the class at the age of 4, loves to sit on my lap at recess and before class starts in the mornings. My high school kids have also taken a place in my heart. Jeroleen, Demi, and Reyonna made me Thanksgiving cards telling me how they were so thankful that I had come to Pohnpei and that I was a great teacher/best friend. J It made me really happy to read those cards! I keep them by my mirror along with all the other cards and letters my friends and family send me.

This girl right here, just makes my day everyday. :)
I wish she would come to WWU!

I love Fridays because they’re short, and I only have my Kindergartners for about two hours. Danny teaches my kids for half an hour on Fridays and I go to teach his 7^th graders Romanian during that time. I always have one or two kids crying when I leave for that time or for when I go to teach my high school classes. A lot of my kids have started crying a lot lately which is really starting to get frustrating. They cry for no reason and so recently I decided to stop giving them as much sympathy. I tell them that they’re fine, give them a hug, and give them something to do. It  seems to work pretty well so far! But today, Danny stops by my classroom at the end of the day, before we go out to the playground and all the kids run up to give him high fives because they were excited to see him. Seeing that he had disrupted my class, Danny says, “Okay kids! Let’s all go back to our seats!” and starts counting down from 5. But Yuree and Haylee somehow got caught together while running and both hit the concrete ground. They both started crying hysterically and just could not stop for a while. Finally I got them to calm down and we all went out to recess until school was out. Poor Danny felt so bad! We had Power Hour, the elementary vespers here at school tonight. It’s always fun singing songs with the kids and coloring with them. At 6:30, there were still two high school boys waiting to be picked up by their parents. I asked Jade if they wanted some granola bars that my mom had just sent me. He said, “Sure Miss! I don’t know what that is but yes please!” So I get them some granola bars and Jade asks, “Miss, why are you so nice??” I give away candy and snacks to kids who stay for a long time after school on Fridays because I have a lot and they’re hungry! And somehow Jade is always there to receive the snacks. J Haha! After Power Hour, the PUC volunteers came up to our apartment and we had cake and hot chocolate. Today, I had homemade pumpkin chocolate chip muffins sent to me all the way from College Place by Carolyn! They were so good! I feel so loved! J

Our lovely class Christmas tree! 

My sister sent me a mini Christmas tree with little ornaments and the kids had fun decorating it in class today. I ask them,

“Class is it ok to touch the tree?”

“NO MS. C!”

“But you can look at it! Kapeesh?”

“KAPEESH!”

I definitely taught my kids to reply with kapeesh and the hand sign. It’s different than what other classes do and they always respond to it.

We found out that Riley is not coming back to Pohnpei because he is not recovering quickly enough. Please keep praying for him! I also ask that you keep me in your prayers. My wisdom teeth are coming in and giving me many headaches and my knee has also been very swollen the past couple of days and makes standing quite painful as well. I feel like I’m falling apart!

Sabbath Mwahu! (Happy Sabbath!)