Teaching in Pohnpei; Story #1

In May, before leaving for Micronesia, two of the WorldTeach volunteers had sent four boxes filled with teaching curriculum to use in Micronesia.  Two months had passed with no signs of the boxes and they were becoming increasingly anxious that the boxes may never come.  Erin, to help with her frustration, changed her expectations to a December arrival time.

During lunch one afternoon I went to do the routine mail-run and to my surprise, Erin and Andy's boxes had arrived!  I was so excited to give Erin the news that I decided to try and take as many boxes as possible back to our office.  The man working behind the desk carried two boxes for me to sign for and without testing their weight, I happily signed.  I picked them up and thought, "Wow.  These are really damn heavy...but you know what, it's only 800 meters, I can do it."  It's unfortunate that I'm an optimist and that I made that decision with only five steps into my trek, because after 10 steps I was absolutely exhausted!  The boxes combined weight must have been over 60lbs and the temperature was hovering around 100 degrees.  Halfway through I was almost in tears, so I decided to purposely over-exaggerate my exhaustion hoping that someone would notice my obvious struggle and give me a ride.  I plopped my foot down, sighed obnoxiously, wobbled and pushed one more step forward.  The sequence repeated. Plop, sigh, wobble, push, plop, sigh, wobble, push. Finally, I arrived back to campus and was already five minutes late to my own class. I looked in the mirror and gasped at what I saw.  I was completely drenched in sweat, I smelled like ass and my hair was one big frizz ball.  Now, in the states if a teacher arrived looking as I did it would raise at least a little concern, but in Pohnnpei no one seemed to notice or care!  I taught an 85 minute class looking as though I just ran a marathon in a skirt and a dress shirt...