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!