I am a little tired today. It was a good weekend. Rainy, but good.
Last week, it rained all day almost everyday. Normally, even though it's boring, this wouldn't really bother me. However, my study has me leaning toward clear days because they favor higher measurements of air pollution. A solid week of nonstop rain not only means that I am stuck indoors most of the time, it means that I won't get very much data. Today is sunny and clear, the first nice day in a while.
I wanted to share the view from "my" office, so below is one picture of the main road on a rainy day.
Also, the view when it is nice out. I have a great view of Pohnpei's own Wall Mart, named so after the neighboring Spanish Wall, a landmark here at the top of the main street, just out of
view of my office windows.
My cushy government desk:
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Enough about the rain and last week. This weekend, I had a lazy Saturday that ended in a housewarming party for a friend of Lois, with a huge potluck dinner and little kids running around everywhere. Met some nice people, ate a lot. Some of the foods were unrecognizable and I wasn't feeling entirely brave, so I left those for Rupesh and Laura to try. Reef grouper is delicious, however. And there were some local fruits that I tried that were very different than anything I have tasted: Mountain apple is soft and bland, but with a little sweetness; Wild Apple is a tiny pink fruit that's also soft and a little tangy. There was some star fruit and also some American oranges. Oh, and lots of grape kool-aid. But, no digital pictures. Not for Sunday either, sorry.
On Sunday, I hit the ocean with some native Pohnpeians. Maria is the ex-wife of Bob Spegal, who has helped me greatly since I arrived. She is from a part of Pohnpei that is lush and sparsely inhabited, and many of her family members still live there. When she heard that I was looking at a couple of the cheap resorts at the south end of the island (with the prospect of, yes, a sandy beach! no mangroves!), she offered to take me out for the day to save me some money.
She loves to fish and goes every weekend, often out trolling for tuna in the deep water outside the reefs. Yesterday, she took me and Rupesh along with her and a couple nephews and her niece and we traveled around one side of the island in her boat.
It was a cloudy day, with some rain sprinkling down here and there, but it was worth it just to get outside after all of these recent massive downpours. I noticed that many small trees had been blown over by the previous night's storm, but the weather remained calm for us during the day.
The boat ride was fun. Interesting. We bounced over some large swells as we went by Palikir Pass, a notorious surfing site when the season's right. As I bumped up and down in the boat, my eyes kept returning to the rusty machete by my right foot. And then to the flying fish that would jump out of the water and sail on a breeze for a few seconds before disappearing back into the sea. They would spray out from both sides of the boat suddenly, sometimes a school of ten or so, sometimes one at a time. We eventually stopped at a large reef, the boat only feet over some purple and yellow corals, and the water only waist deep.
We swam around in the cloudy water, looking at the fish and trying not to scratch our knees on the coral below us. I wavered in my desire to venture over to the coral wall, where the water drops to a much greater depth, but where therefore it is easier to swim. In the shallow reef we saw sea cucumbers, colorful fish, blue starfish, and a giant clam. Maria grabbed the clam and took it with her to the boat. Her two nephews had swam out into the water to spear reef
fish, and were quite successful. Basically, they spear fish with a pointy metal spike attached to an old broom handle (more or less), nothing formal, and then keep the caught fish on a line trailing behind them as they continue their hunt.
Maria held up the line once they had put it in the boat, and it had about ten fish of different colors and sizes. They looked delicious.
Rupesh and I finally made it out to the wall. It was pretty deep below us, still lots of coral down there, and we swam around at the edge of the coral, looking down. That's when i always get spooked. Looking one way, you can see the height of the reef, the nooks and crannies full of crazy little fish. and you can see out over the shallows with many more tropical fish swimming and dodging. It's when I look the other way that my breathing gets shorter and I find it harder to move. The water, cloudy because of all the rain, was difficult to see through more than 20 feet. I couldn't see very far out into the open water, and my imagination runs wild. I hung out near the wall for a few more minutes, and then felt suddenly tired and waterlogged. I found a place to stand and jump back into the boat, where I almost landed on a sea turtle on its back, in the boat, right near the motor. It hissed and labored for breath, and there was a spear hole in its neck. I said nothing, but felt secretly sickened.
You all know me. You probably know that I am a softie for animals. Especially ones that have been recent topic of endangered species lists. In Brazil, I was faced with this same problem, people love to eat turtle. I know when to keep my mouth shut. So here I was in a boat with a sea turtle that had been stabbed in the neck and was watching it die. I said nothing.
I sat myself next to a pile of reef fish and watched Maria start cleaning them with the same rusty machete that had bounced around my feet on the ride out. Then she started slicing into the side of one of the fish, and pulled of a chunk of meat, squirted lime on it, and handed it to me. "You like sashimi?"
I visibly recoiled and the Pohnpeians had a good laugh at me. I shied away from their offers and answered their questions about what food I like with as little information as possible. Yes, I've tried sashime. No, not reef fish sashimi, just yellowfin. No, I don't eat it very often. No, I'm not sure I want to try it today. Eventually the pressure of the situation was too much.
So, I broke every rule in the food safety handbook. I took a tiny bite of a freshly caught reef fish's raw flesh. I figured that the dangers associated with raw fish are usually from improper storage, and these hadn't even made it that far. So far today, I am ok.
It was kind of tasteless, not impressive and not worth risking my health for. I abstained from the rest of the feast, except to eat a banana...and a donut. I watched Maria and her family pick the bones of a couple of the fish they had just caught, throwing the heads and fins and guts over the side of the boat. Cool. Gross, almost. Primitive.
