An Early Ending

It's funny how things work out sometimes. As it turns out, we are headed back to Denver sooner than expected, and this may be our last post from Yap. Matt is already home, and KC is finishing up work and following soon.

We have had a wonderful experience here, and wouldn't trade it for anything. Yap is a beautiful, magical place. A place where tradition and family and communal ties are still strong. A place that hasn't given in to the all of the temptations of Western material culture. We have learned so much here about living in cultures different from our own, and even more about ourselves. We will leave something of ourselves in the islands, and we hope, in exchange, the islands will send a piece of their spirit with us. It's been a blast. Thanks for reading.

Yap Canoe Festival

We are exhausted today after the conclusion of the First Annual Yap Canoe Festival, which finished up last night. The festival was a three-day celebration of Yap's traditional sailing and navigation culture, which the Traditional Navigation Society is working hard to keep alive. The festival included everything from traditional dances to totang (tin roof canoe) races. Matt participated in the International Paddling races with his team, the Colonia Canoe Club. The most exciting race of the weekend was the 500m final. CCC placed third, but all 4 finalists finished within 4 seconds of one another. The months of training did pay off in the long-distance race. The team finished the 5-mile course with the fastest time: just over 40 minutes.

Enjoy the pictures, and if you are interested check out this great article that the BBC posted this weekend: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8322725.stm

Pocket Change

Outside of the Pacific, Yap is known primarily for two things: manta rays and stone money.  We've spotted manta rays while snorkeling and diving.  Stone money requires less equipment to find, and has an interesting history that is entirely unique to Yapese culture.  

 

In its heyday, stone money ("rai" in Yapese) was quarried in Palau and ferried back to Yap on rafts towed by large sailing canoes.  Rai varies in size, but size doesn't necessarily correlate with value.  Value is instead associated more closely with the difficulties associated with quarrying and transporting each individual stone. 

Stones that cost lives to transport are worth more than those that arrived here easily, as are stones quarried with shell and stone tools, before iron and steel were introduced to the islands. 

The stone money banking system had advantages and disadvantages.  It's not easy to carry rai here and there, so when the money changed hands -- most commonly for land purchases or to settle grievances -- it usually remained where it was. 

Although inconvenient, the size of the stones also has the happy consequence of making them very difficult to steal.  In our estimation, Yapese stone money banks must be the among the most secure in the world. 

 

Despite these advantages, a lack of regulation led to Yap's own inflationary troubles during the late 19th century. 

They began when an enterprising Irishman named David O'Keefe was shipwrecked near Yap and found himself washed ashore in the early 1870s.  Observing the prevalence of stone money throughout the islands, he came up with the bright idea of creating a cash economy.  Using steamships and modern tools, O'Keefe quarried his own rai and exchanged it for copra, which he then sold to traders in Hong Kong and points west.  This influx of stone money soon drove its value down; today, pieces quarried with modern tools and transported by steamer hold far less value than those that were gathered in a more traditional manner.  

 

A New Grove

We are in for another big change . . . .
We'd like to announce that we are expecting our first child on April 10, 2009.  Above is a copy of an ultrasound taken last Thursday.  All is going well and according to schedule.  That's enough news for the week!

SCUBA

Matt’s 36-hour layover in Guam left us too bedazzled to write last week. With the bright lights of the world’s largest K-Mart (extra parking on the roof!!) still burned into his retinas – and after spending untold amounts on cheese for KC – he made the trip back to Yap and flopped down on the couch for the rest of the week.


The weekend saw the continuation of Matt’s scuba certification classes.



After a shallow start in the pool, the classes moved into the ocean this week.

Although they sustained damage from supertyphoon Sudal in 2004, Yap’s reefs are among the most diverse on the planet. Water temperatures are in the mid-80s year-round, and visibility on a clear day can exceed 200 feet. Needless to say, learning to dive here beats thrashing around in a murky 50-degree Colorado lake. Here are a few photos from Matt’s first real dive.

Pohnpei

This week Matt found himself in Pohnpei, home to the FSM federal government and the commercial center of the FSM. The trip was for business, but he was happy to find enough downtime for exploring the island. After spending seven months on Yap, Matt was prepared for some culture shock. Kolonia Town, Pohnpei State's capitol city, is not exactly a metropolis, but it is a bustling, busy place. Streets are paved -- fairly well, actually -- and there is actually traffic at rush hour. It is still the FSM, however, so the vehicles remain as creative as ever.


More than anything, Matt was struck by Pohnpei's sheer size. At about 140 square miles, it is nearly 4 times the size of Yap, and it seemed much bigger than that. The island is volcanic in origin, and its interior is impressively rugged.



It is also one of the wettest places on earth, with some areas in the central highlands receiving 400 inches of rain annually. The rain feeds the rivers, and the steep terrain makes for spectacular waterfalls throughout the island.

Matt had hoped to make an excursion to some of the waterfalls, but couldn't find time for it. Instead, he made two interesting trips to some of Pohnpei's historical sites. The first was Sokeh's Ridge, a bluff that towers over the Kolonia Harbor.


Aside from providing a commanding view, the ridge provides a great spot for an artillery emplacement. The top of the ridge has at least two sets of big Japanese guns, along with tunnels and caves galore.

Pohnpei was occupied by the Japanese but was skipped by the Allies in their march across the Pacific, so these guns may have never been fired in anger. Nonetheless, the place had a spooky feel to it.

Pohnpei is also home to Nan Madol, sometimes referred to as the "Venice of the Pacific." Nan Madol is an ancient stone city covering an 11-acre site made of artificial islets in the shallows on the eastern side of the island. Construction is of entirely of basalt, a volcanic rock mined from the Sokeh's Ridge area, a number of miles away from Nan Madol itself. The basalt logs are massive, weighing up to five tons. How they were transported remains a mystery, although local legend claims that they were flown to the site by a Pohnpeian magician.



All in all, a very nice week for sightseeing in Pohnpei. Next time, there will be waterfalls! Thanks for reading.

YAP-GUM-TRK-PNI

Would someone care to explain exactly how it got to be September? Summer is endless in the tropics, but we still feel like we missed out on what always feels like the shortest of seasons (except for what Colorado calls “spring,” which lasts approximately 37 minutes). Truth be told, the lack of seasonality is somewhat disconcerting for folks like us. Matt feels like he should be dusting off the skis and diving into the college soccer season. KC should be peaking for one or more races this month and next. We’re of course content to let those things wait for awhile longer, but it does make for an adjustment in lifestyle.

Speaking of lifestyle adjustments, Matt writes today from the Guam airport, where he is preparing for a conference while suffering through a fourteen(!!) hour layover on his way to Pohnpei, seat of the FSM’s national government.


Considering that incoming planes pass – deafeningly – perhaps 500 feet directly over the top of our house on their landing runs, we are often grateful for Yap’s sparse flight schedule. What we gain in sleep under normal circumstances can, however, be more than offset when travel does have to happen. On his way back next week, Matt will experience Guam in all its glory for a full 36 hours. That layover will warrant a hotel and a rental car. Local scenery will of course be a priority, as will a trip to one of Guam’s other signature attractions: the world’s biggest K-Mart. Considering neither of us has seen a stoplight, much less a superhighway, since February, the culture shock will be an interesting experience. Even sitting in the airport here has been a little bit strange. It is surprisingly empty most of the time, but at times during the day has been overrun by fascinatingly coiffed and expensively dressed Japanese tourists waging full scale assaults on the ubiquitous duty-free shops.


It certainly feels out of the ordinary to be in a place where everyone seems to be wearing a shirt, but Matt’s feelings of loneliness have been assuaged by the airport’s Friendly and Reassuring security announcements which, every five minutes or so, remind him in both English and Japanese not to leave his bags unattended or his car parked at the curb. Let’s see – one announcement every 5 minutes equals 12 per hour…times fourteen hours…that’s 168 Friendly and Reassuring announcements! No loneliness here, except he does miss KC.


Pohnpei is more densely populated than Yap, and as the seat of the FSM government supposedly has better infrastructure. It is also, by all accounts, quite scenic, so Matt is looking forward to some exploring during his downtime. Stay tuned for an update next weekend. Thanks for reading.

Sports in Yap

By now you may be asking yourself: "Self, how is it that folks in Yap stay healthy, what with all that Spam and canned mackerel?"  That's a good question, and there is no doubt that the introduction of Western (read "unhealthy") foods has had a negative effect on public health here.  Combine the often-oppressive heat with a bad diet, and the result is that the population of the FSM, like much of the Pacific, suffers from alarming rates of obesity and type II diabetes. 

 

Yap devotes substantial governmental resources to combating these problems; the island's surprising number of organized sports leagues provides locals with opportunities to compete and stay in shape.  Aside from aquatic activities, volleyball and basketball rule.  And, just as in the U.S., allegiances to certain superior collegiate basketball programs are instilled at an early age. 

 

 

While dragging himself back into basketball shape, Matt has rediscovered the unhappy fact that he jumps like an old white guy.  This is nothing new.  Matt has jumped like an old white guy since he was 12.  Here's hoping that athletic genes run in KC's family!

 

 

On land, fast-pitch softball takes a close third in popularity.  We haven't played, but have gone out to a few games to snap some pictures.

 

 

Wrestling and weightlifting are also popular, and this weekend we watched some of the action at a Greco-Roman wrestling clinic hosted by the sports council.

 

 

For us the real fun is in the water.  We joined the Colonia Canoe Club a few months ago, and head out on outrigger paddle canoes a couple of times a week, for fun and in preparation for the canoe races to be held at the first annual Yap Canoe Festival, scheduled for October of this year.  The paddling canoe races are set for distances of 500 meters, 1500 meters, and (gasp) 7 miles.  The canoes are surprisingly quick, but we're guessing that the 7-mile race will still take a little over an hour to complete.

 

 

Spending time underwater, of course, is even better than canoeing and kayaking.  Yap is famous for its resident population of manta rays, but it also has fabulous coral reefs.  The water is so clear that we didn't feel like diving would add all that much to the experience at first, but Matt has been talked into getting certified and plans to begin classes this week.  He's looking forward to seeing things like this from the bottom of the pool, rather than the surface.

 

Summer Break

We're taking a week off from posting, and hope to be back with more adventures soon!

Friends, Romans, Countrymen...

Company picnics are a time-honored tradition in America, and this weekend we learned that they are not solely an American phenomenon. 

Yap's Office of the Attorney General consists of Matt's office, the police department, and Yap's only fire station.  This weekend, the OAG hosted a barbeque to celebrate the appointment of the new police chief and the commissioning of a class of officers just graduated from cadet school. 

 

In a seemingly unrelated turn of events, Matt's boss left the island on Saturday to attend a two-week conference in Guam, leaving Matt as acting Attorney General in his absence.  Matt appreciates the vote of confidence, but was not expecting to have to make any public appearances on behalf of the office this time around.  Imagine our surprise when we found out that Matt was on the VIP guest list, and more importantly the list of speakers at the event.

 

Matt was honored and gratified to be asked to speak, and had two things going for him: A supportive wife and an audience too hungry to expect a lengthy declamation. 

Matt's address made the Gettysburg address seem lengthy by comparison, and soon after we all settled down to some Yapese vittles.

 

By vittles, we mean turtle, tapioca, sashimi, breadfruit, and turkey tail. 

After hearing about the evils of turkey tail at Law Day, KC made herself a promise that she would never try it.  The only problem with this was that she had no idea what it looked like until today.  As it turns out, fried turkey tail can be mistaken for a dumpling by an unaware buffet grazer.  This time – particularly after tasting it – KC fully intends to abide by her promise.

 

In addition to all of this fun it was a beautiful blue-sky day, and we took the opportunity to take a few pictures of a part of the island that we'd not yet had a chance to visit.

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Bringing Home the Bacon. Sort of.

There are few things more manly than killing your own food. Here in Yap, the most common way to bring home the (figurative) bacon is to fish for it, and on Sunday Matt went fishing in its most primal form. With a spear made of steel and a will made of iron, real men stab their meals and toss them onto the boat still wriggling, before the circling sharks get a whiff of blood in the water. Bait and tackle be damned: want a 50-pound tuna? Reef shark? White whale? No problem, just be prepared to work for it.

All right, so maybe it wasn’t quite that dramatic, but Matt did have a great time in the water. Spearfishing combines fishing and hunting, with the added thrill of spotting an occasional shark. A gig is sometimes used in shallower water, but on Sunday we went out with spear guns, which work sort of like a slingshot that fires a steel harpoon at the target.

Fish are certainly plentiful here, and Matt learned the reason for that quickly. They’re wily!

Spearfishing has a steep learning curve, and many people come back empty on their first trip. The sea floor on our fishing grounds had a mixture of sandy bottom and hard and soft corals. With some instruction from the more experienced members of the group, Matt learned not to thrash around wildly, and to wait patiently above the soft corals for the fish to get used to his presence. After a lot of frustration, Matt ended up spearing a couple of nice fish.

They sure didn’t look as big on land as they did in the water, but they were tasty nonetheless.

Spearfishing does have its downsides, of course. Matt has a part of him that would prefer taking pictures of the fish to killing them. Game fish like tuna are one thing, but Matt’s softer side led him to pass up a few shots on some of the more colorful and interesting fish that he spotted. Not that he would have hit them.

Another downside is that fishing is for men only in these parts, and Matt felt kind of bad that KC couldn’t participate. He also felt bad that she didn’t come along to share in the spoils. The fish we caught made for a delicious lunch, but they don’t travel well without a cooler, so we had to eat them on the spot. Maybe we’ll plan better next time. Thanks for reading.