Back in Oz

Well, it's been a couple of months since our Pohnpei adventure wound up. Jo and I are back in Canberra, Australia, for the next little while...

What have we been doing?

Joey has been looking cute...

I have been indulging my sporting side


Seeing the sights of Canberra in winter


Camelias are blooming

I went to Bega and Merimbula for a week with my students

Saw an oyster farm and factory

There are a mum and baby seal on those rocks in Twofold Bay, Eden

Kangaroos to help with the laundry


Spring

Bega Valley

Our new dog Jock! (boy)
Our other new dog Purdie (girl)

The farmers are happy. More canola than you can poke a stick at on the way to Orange NSW

Fun. More to come...

randoms

I just love tropical flowers.


Pretty


Pretty


Mmm. Fruit plate at the Village

Gods

I have developed a minor obsession with the island of Nukuoro and its gods (pre missionary, naturally. I will spare you my thoughts on missionaries).

Nukuoro is a little atoll near Pohnpei (relatively speaking). It is very different to Pohnpei cultrually, as its inhabitants are polynesian, not micronesian. (There is another polynesian island in Pohnpei state, called Kapingamarangi).

Anyway, the people of Nukuoro, as well as growing exceptionally gorgeous black pearls, have a little known set of gods. They look to me like aliens, and seem to be proof that we were indeed visited by strange beings from out space.

Maybe that's how nan madol got built.......

and if anyone has seen the new Indiana Jones film, you will know this is probably true and I could be onto something big. I would just like to point out that I bought my gods WAY BEFORE HE THOUGHT OF IT.

These are my babies:


There is a man god, called Iagausema, and a powerful female god called Kave.

Cool, eh?

Chuuk

Ben and I spent a week in Chuuk before he went back to Australia. It was wonderful. For a while, we were the only guests at the resort. Then 3 more people arrived during the week and really cramped our style...... it was a bit strange, actually, rattling around a huge place like the blue lagoon, eating in an empty restaraunt. But we had a wonderful time.

The lagoon itself is called Truk Lagoon. The whole state used to be called Truk, but I have no idea why, as it is pronounced chewk. They changed the name of the state to Chuuk a few years back, but the lagoon is so famous amoung divers they didn't want to lose the tourists, so it's the Truk Lagoon in the state of Chuuk. Clear? Good.

We did some diving, the wrecks in the lagoon are amazing. Here are some photos.


Ooh! A bottle! That's really old!


A bridgey- shipey thing. Anyway, it's really pretty


A urinal.... hee hee!


Lots of fisheys


Yep, we went in the wrecks! Indiana Jones, eat your heart out.


Aw, such a cutie.


A plaque commenorating one of the wrecks


Creepy looking gas mask. Reminds me of that new Dr Who episode.


A Mitsubishi Zero Fighter



Surface break


Snorkel and Fin. Terribly arty.


Sunset of the Truk Lagoon. The ships are the live aboard dive boats that operate in the lagoon.

Sakau

A while back, the fourth regular session of the fifteenth Congress opened. To celebrate this, and to celebrate the Speaker moving into his new residence, we had a party. It was a typical Pohnpein feast, with all the food served on long tables and in amazing abundance. It was a very special work party though, because there was sakau. Sakau (pronounced sak-cow) is similar to kava, but apparently much stronger. I hadn't had more than a few sips prior to this, but decided to go for the full experience.



Speaker opening the Congress


Sakau is made from the root of a plant from the pepper family. The roots are cut up and washed. Despite the washing, some liver parasites can remain on the plant (and once consumed, the drinker doesn't have much fun for a while). You gotta take risks in life.



The plant as dug up from the ground. This is a very old and expensive plant.


To prepare the sakau, the roots are pounded on a stone. There is a very formal ceremony for pounding sakau. Once pounded to a desirable consistency (with some added water), the mush is put into some hibiscus bark and squeezed through the bark into a cup. The bark gives a delightful snotty consistency to the muddy root water. Mmmm. This is my cup beign squeezed.


Sakau takes like snotty dirt. Not that I have actually ever tasted snotty dirt. One must use one's imagination at times. This sakau was very strong. It was awesome. After a few cups, a sense of enormous wellbeing comes over you, nothing matters and everything is serene and delightful.


The finished sakau, with the pounding rocks, wrapped in the hibiscus bark. Pretty.


Before the sakau came the feast. Here are some random food shots.

Breadfruit balls


Pig. It aint a party without a pig.


Remains of pig


Bananas. One of 32 different kinds grown here.


Mmm. My favourite drink.


Do you think there will be enough food? I was a bit worried, but was reassured there was as much again inside the house, just in case.




Now THAT is how you pile a plate.


Taro. Or yam. I never know.


It was great fun. I am going to miss all this.

Jo

bye bye

Well, I'm still having real trouble posting photos. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It is an apt metaphor for living here.

Lots of things have happened since the last post. First, Ben got a great job in Australia and has already left Pohnpei to commence a new life as a lecturer. We had a month of farewell party after farewell party after farewell party that left our livers bruised and battered, our bodies pudgy and wobbly and our immune systems a little depressed.

Then we had a glorious week in Chuuk, staying at the Blue Lagoon, diving the wrecks from WWII. When I can post some photos I'll put them up. We spent the entire time at the resort (but don't go thinking all Club Med or those cool thactched bungalows with the glass floors - a resort in Chuuk is like an early 1980s Holiday Inn). As a backpacker, this seemed so indulgently NAUGHTY. I mean, we just stayed there! And we relaxed! But we needed to. You know, 5 parties a week for an extended period are probably too many - especially if you commit wholeheartedly to every one, as I am wont to do - but I am glad to have performed this experiment as a social service and spare anyone else the physical side effects of going through it themselves.

Anywho, the diving was great, we had a wonderful time, and on Friday I departed to Pohnpei and as a one off 'just to bugger him up' parting gift from Continental, they changed their schedule only for that day which meant Ben left on a Friday too to go to Guam. The planes here have a very set schedule (except when they are running late, and do crazy fun things like strand passengers in a tiny room on a US Militray base for 13 hours like I was fortunate enough to experience). Monday, Wednesday and Friday the island hopper goes from Guam to Pohnpei and continues through to Hawaii. There are 6 delightful stops along the way. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, it flies the other direction. And there is a special late Sunday night flight just between Guam, Chuuk and Pohnpei. This is very definate. There are no exceptions. So the fact than Ben and I departed Chuuk on the same day and WENT IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS was very creepy. And it meant Ben couldn't catch the only weekly connection to Australia. Personally think he loved his time alone in Guam, writing his masters assignment and being sick all over the place.

Yes, our poor battered bodies did simultaneously collapse after Chuuk. I'm pretty impressed with myself, becasue Ben never goets sick, and if he got sick, it meant there was superbug at play. But it wasn't pretty.

I am now back at work, back on the ol internet (my how I missed it!) and trying to get myself home mid July. I, too, am leaving. It's really sad, because this is such a beautiful place, and I have made many wonderful friends and had a truly amazing time. But it is time to go.

Continental is the only airline that serves this region, so the choice of who to fly with was taken care of. Despite the fact that Continental is a crap airline, charging triple what they should because they are a monopoly and serving food that even the local dogs wouldn't touch, they do have wonderful staff on Pohnpei. So wonderful it's actually quicker, easier and better to call them rather than book through a travel agent or do it online. So when I rang to book my ticket back I had the utmost confidence in them, and when the lady informed me that all the flights for the entire time I wanted to leave were fully booked, and I was wait listed in a complex and mystifying procedure, I got a bit scared. I had visions of me, aged 85, still here in my red sarong, swinging from the trees with grey matted dreadlocks and cackling maniacally. Or being turfed out of my place because I no longer have a job and the lease is up and taking to the trees, like the swiss family robinson, but without the family. Or maybe just swimming off out of the lagoon in a desperate attempt to savour a wide variety of fresh vegetables once more. But after a slightly panicked afternoon, my newly cultivated 'don't believe a thing you hear on the island' sense kicked in, and I checked online. I booked a ticket in 5 mintutes. So I guess I really am leaving.

Plane crash on Pohnpei

On Friday afternoon I was at home, and the roar of the tuna plane engines as it was landing was louder than usual, but I thought nothing of it....

...until that evening the word was spreading that it had crashed off the end of the runway upon landing!

No-one was hurt, but it is usually carrying a lot of very valuable tuna (some of the best sashimi tuna sell for $20,000 a fish). I haven't seen any of it in the local market yet, hopefully they will be selling it off cheap rather than letting it get all smelly in the plane. We went and had a look, and there it is, a plane in the lagoon. Looks just like a big toy someone has left lying around.

There is only one runway here, and all the flights have been canceled until they investigate the crash and move the plane. How on earth they are going to do that is yet to be seen. There is no plane-moving equipment just lying around the island. The last time there was a crash it was ON the runway, and they could just drag it away, to the rubbish tip next to the runway, where it greets all arrivals to Pohnpei. Nice.

There was word that the passenger jet would be landing on Monday regardless. Not sure I would want to be on that flight...

Hawai'i

I went to Hawai'i for work a couple of weeks ago. For me, it was a very last minute trip due to a change in staffing. This made it far more exciting, nothing like having to learn entire chapters of Code on the plane. I have never been to Hawai'i (or North America for that matter) so it was pretty interesting. Of course I had to go to all the shops - the fact they are open til 9pm every night made that easy. Wal-Mart, Macy's, Sears, Neiman Marcus... well, I have to say that it didn't bring about any epiphanies. In fact, living on a small island has made me very averse to crowds, traffic lights and shopping malls. The Ala Moana mall is so big I got lost more than once. I felt like encino man, or the characters from Bill and Teds' excellent adventure.... I can't say it was a good thing, although it probably had more to do with having a developing world salary and a travel allowance that barely covered the cost of accomodation. Mind you, I was over it AFTER I spent all my money and filled up a whole suitcase with things you can't get on Pohnpei, so I am a total hypocrite.

We also had meetings on the Big Island, so I got to go to Kona and Hilo. We were there on the weekend, so on Saturday we went to see the Volcano park. I love volcanoes. They are so cool. Half the park was closed when we were there due to dangerous level of noxious gas, but we still managaed to see the 'park highlights'.

Big crater. In the eighties, this was full of molten lava. Cool, eh?


On Hawai'ian culture, the volcano is a goddess.


With the floor leader


oooh, sulphur dioxide....


I also managed to find time to climb up the Diamond head crater in Honolulu. I'm not a fan of waikiki at all, it's like the gold coast with a tiny yukky beach, but the walk to the crater got better and better as I went along. The houses and flora reminded me a bit of Sydney's eastern suburbs...



There are amazing fig trees all over... I love them


The nicest photo I could take of waikiki - and this is the "Hilton Lagoon"!!