Tuesday, November 29, 2011

masamawhu



I never knew how big the sky was. Yes, I've been to Montana. But you haven't seen anything like Ant. Standing at the edge of the island. With a wrap around view of the ocean, and a sky with nothing blocking it's horizon. On and on and on and on and .... Every two seconds the entire sky changed colors. It was almost like an emotional roller coaster. Saturday night we had a closing vespers put on my all the boys. It was kind of impromptu (boys are experts at this) but watching them all standing in front of the sun, each minute getting darker and darker silhouettes. Beauty. Masamawhu. Masamawhu. It's the kind of thing you want to take 1,000 pictures and videos of, record the image in your mind. But you can't. I don't think you're meant to! I wish I saw that kind of beauty every day. I know I do, but I'm not aware of it. I'm too distracted.

What a weekend. Sleeping in my hammock like a baby. Savagely going to the bathroom in the jungle (ha). Swimming in the salty water for hours and hours with Danielle like I was 10 years old again in my Grandma's pool. Singing songs for church on the beach with Nicki. Forgetting most of the words. The guys making traps like the Swiss-Family Robinson for all the SMs who were unfortunate enough to fall for the camouflage. Walking on the beach by myself in the morning. Cutting coconuts and drinking them for a morning snack with Zach. Feeling like the moon couldn't get bigger if it wanted too.

I'm going to stop talking about it. I can't describe it to you. I'll stop trying. I had a crappy day. But that's a good thing. When I have a crappy day I always end up in a good mood. I force myself. Today I had parents get upset at me for things I can't control. Student's getting kicked out of school. Teacher's getting sick. Hurt. Everyone getting discouraged. But I'm sitting in our Christmas decorated (as much as we could manage) apartment, listening to my roommates babble about random things. Making cookies. Bickering. Normal stuff on a weekday :) Life is good. Thinking about Ant makes me feel better too.


Sunday, November 20, 2011

I want you more than I want to live another day


There's distance in the air and I cannot make it leave
I wave my arms' round about me and blow with all my might
I cannot sense you close, though I know you're always here
But the comfort of you near is what i long for


When I can't feel you, I have learned to reach out just the same
When I can't hear you, I know you still hear every word I pray
And i want you more than i want to live another day
And as I wait for you maybe I'm made more faithful

All the folly of the past, though I know it is undone
I still feel the guilty one, still trying to make it right
So I whisper soft your name, let it roll around my tounge,
knowing you're the only one who knows me
You know me


Show me how I should live this
Show me where I should walk
I count this world as loss to me
You are all I want


When I can't feel you, I have learned to reach out just the same
When I can't hear you, I know you still hear every word I pray
And i want you more than i want to live another day
And as I wait for you maybe I'm made more faithful


Faithful by Brooke Fraser



Friday, November 18, 2011

My Kids




I want you to meet some of my favorite people in Pohnpei. One class at a time...because I have lots of students :)


This is my first class, world history. I have three sections of world history. On a normal day I crawl out of bed around 7am, and sometimes manage to take a shower before quickly grabbing something to eat and going to staff worship. Sometimes I don't make it to staff worship. .. It's always nice though, we sing a few songs and us teachers take turn giving a little talk or devotional for the day. Then we have announcements and go our separate ways. On Mondays we have flag-raising. We all gather around the flag and sing the Micronesian anthem (read about it- it's very interesting). Then after singing the song, which always starts off to high no one can sing it, we do the Micronesian pledge. Guess what! You all know this already. Give you a hint...it starts off..."I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the (Federated States of Micronesia), and to the republic.... etc." My kids in US History didn't even know that it's really our National anthem, haha. I always sneak in "United States of America" under my breath. Don't want to be traitorous or anything. After all this I head off to my classroom.


Meet my first class. In this picture you can see Latrisha and Bill up front, Then Risa and Abraham, Darney and Jayme in the back. On the left there's Jade and Yuta.

Risa and Latrisha are my smarty pants girls. They study together, compete for the best grades. I always get nervous grading their work, because I know they religiously scan every mistake and compare each others papers :) They are so sweet and always "seem" interested in everything I say, haha. I'm very proud of them. Jade is so funny. He's the kind of student who walks in talking about how he never studies, never does any of the work...but he secretly studies and completes every assignment on time. But I won't reveal his secret! Bill is such a class clown too. He always tells me riddles, gives me puzzles to solve, makes me laugh every day. I love these guys. They tolerate long history lectures at 8 in the morning! They never (almost never) fall asleep! They're the ones who get my devotional talk in the morning. Last Thursday Jade got up and asked me if he could read the devotional. At first he was joking but I convinced him to go ahead and do it! Jade was suspended last week for the usual pohnpei offense...(beetle nut!) but he's such a nice kid. He read this short devotional about resisting temptation, and then asked if he could give prayer. He always gives such nice short sweet prayers. Jade is a special kid.






You thought Oneonta was hard...

Sabbath Mwahu! I'm sitting in my apartment at our table, which is actually some piece of lawn furniture, but it's one of the nicest pieces of furniture we have. We love plastic things here, they are easy to clean, don't rust or get all moldy as fast as other things. It also isn't infested with termites! We have a problem currently in our apartment with termites. Our termites come out in holes at night and sprout their wings. They are attracted to anything bright - computer screens, blinking oven lights, light bulbs, anything. We have started trying to trap from coming out, but since I ran out of duct tape we've been using band-aids. It looks like our kitchen has a lot of owies. This is a problem. Cockroaches don't seem to be much of a problem right now, I traded 3 cups of chocolate chips to get 10 cockroach traps from Carl that he got in the mail. They seem to be working! I keep finding cockroach wings on the floor and little shriveled up legs in the corners....victory? I don't want to speak too soon. They might hear me and get inspired.

I feel as though it is necessary to backtrack my records. Before all that hospital stuff, sickness, and general yuckiness, we went on one adventure that I am sure never to forgot (actually, I probably will forget - so obviously that's why I'm writing this down).


Most of the other teachers got smart and decided not to go on this adventure, because they would be too physically and mentally exhausted to be effective teachers the next day. True. But...whatever. I wanted to go! We woke up early, and it was raining. We met a few other people from around the world (Lebanon, Sweden, Australia, and us - America!), and we jumped in the back of the truck and departed from Wall-Mart (yes that's right, Wall Mart). It was a long windy bumpy drive into Kitti (pronounced, Kitchie). We all got out and after a quick bathroom break in the jungle (Carley and Kelsey's first time! Haha) we started our trek on the ...6 WATERFALL HIKE..... Now, I knew it was going to be muddy and exhausting, but I didn't realize it would be mainly due to all the balancing maneuvers. Walking on slippery mud and rocks down huge cliffs and then up again demands a lot of your cerebellum. It's like walking next to a river, on all those tiny little rocks, for miles and miles. But it's all worth it. Every mile or so or sometimes all at once you'll see huge, amazing waterfalls. As you may have guessed, six waterfalls. To get to the sixth watefall, you literally have to swim there. I also almost slipped and died at one point on this hike, I lost my grip and almost fell off this tiny cliff with lots of nice sharp rocks perfect for slicing my head open. David heard me yelping and grabbed my arms and just pulled me up. I took a wrong turn, haha. On this hike you don't want to get badly injured- Think how long it would take to actually get help. You'd be so dead.


David fell, hurt his knee with a bad cut. Carley, otherwise known as "mud-butt," fell, and then fell, and fell again. I only had one particularly embarrassing fall. Because I fell two feet and then into a big pool of water. One waterfall had a cave behind it, the other had a shoe covered in moss. Each was breathtaking. Trekking through that jungle it really feels like you're some kind of world-explorer, Indiana Jones type adventurer, about to see something in the wild that no one has ever seen before. Well, except this is a pretty popular hike for Micronesian tourists. But that's the thing, there's not that many Micronesian tourists- ha.

Our group made it back first, of course. We waited around at the truck for hours (...15 minutes?) for the rest of the group to get there. What an exhausting, ridiculous, insane hike. Even though it's was humid, hot, and covered in tropical plants, the hike reminded me so much of home. I'm a world class-northwest-waterfall hiker. Columbia-Gorge is my specialty. Being surrounded by green, looking up at these huge beautiful cascading waterfalls. I could close my eyes and almost pretend I was looking up at Horsetail, Ramona, or even Multnomah, with my Dad right next to me eating some trail mix.

I'm so insanely blessed to have seen so much beauty in my life. I just want to see more and more.

Also, I also might have gotten the virus that landed me in the hospital while on this hike. Maybe I should have stayed home ;)

Friday, November 4, 2011

The Kelsey Disease





Dear God, my little boat and I
are on your open sea.
Please guide us safely through the waves
my little boat and me.



Starting Tuesday, I was feeling odd. I lost my appetite and had a slight headache all day while teaching. Wednesday was the same. Thursday I decided to sleep it off and called in sick while another SM taught my classes. I felt better that night, and even made lesson plans for the next day. But that night I developed a fever that wouldn't go away until Monday. I slept horribly, woke up and felt worse. My fever got up to 103.5 F that night and my head was on fire. I hadn't eaten much, and could only handle graham crackers or saltine crackers. So, Saturday morning our SM Coordinator, Joy, took me to Genesis hospital (right next to Pohnpei State Hospital). It's a huge pink hospital that is semi-clean with air conditioning and nice rooms. The medical care, in comparison to the states, leaves muuuuchhh to be desired :) The doctor examined me, took a blood test and UA and decided I had a Kidney Infection. She gave me cotrimoxazole antibiotic and sent me home.

Well, on Friday night when I was up around 3am talking to my brother on Skype my roommate Kelsey Hebard came out of her bedroom telling me her body ached and she had the chills. Oh no. What is going on!? I took my antibiotics and fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up I wanted to die. The left side of my back (assuming my left kidney) was so sore I couldn't move. My fever was hovering around 103 F the whole time, and I was throwing up everything. Even a small sip of water sent me to the toilet. I couldn't keep any of my medication down and I was in terrible pain. I knew I was in trouble. I was dehydrated, with barely any food in me for the past four days, with a kidney infection. That was when I was checked into the hospital. The first day was miserable, my fever spiking and the pain increasing. They put me on IV fluids, and pain medication but didn't put me on IV antibiotics immediately. I got worse. The only nice thing was that my big pink room had a tiny TV that was playing The Fugitive when I walked in - one of my favorite sunday "watch with dad" movies. Silly, I know, but it made me feel closer to home. People came in and checked on me and stayed with me, including Maureen - the Principal's wife. She slept next to me in the bench and when my fever spiked and my body was flailing around from severe chills she rubbed me down with cold towels (including her daughters dress) trying to help me stop. She held my hair back as I threw up more water, and made sure the nurses were paying attention to me. Finally they put me on IV antibiotics, and I think that's when I started to feel better. Carley came to visit and brought her laptop full of Friends episodes.. She laid next to me as we watched five episodes. I don't really remember this, but I'm so glad she was there.

Just as I woke up, Johnson, the school's accountant, walked in to tell us that Kelsey Hebard was downstairs getting admitted. She also had a Kidney infection and was dehydrated/couldn't keep her medication down. We were both moved into a big room so we could suffer then next two days together. What an experience we had in that funny pink room.

The first night, both of our fevers slowly went down. We were so out of it, we didn't say a word to each other. I just remember nurses coming in and fixing us up, taking our temp, "102...101....100....99" finally our fever was 99 F and we both slept through the night...mostly.

The next day I woke up with a hand swollen up two times its normal size, thanks to bad IV management. They poked several more holes trying to find a good vein. It was so sketchy.



But we were starting to feel better. Drinking so much water, going to the bathroom every 10 minutes. Cold towels all over our head and neck. Making sure the nurses were helping us, checking on us, trying to keep our family informed even though we had no internet, no phone, and sometimes no way of getting a message home,



People like Carley, Joy, Maureen, Stacey, all helped us during our stay. Slept the night with us, helped us wobble around, got things from the nurses, filled our water bottles. Held our hand as they poked us many, many times!


My view. I wish she'd never gotten sick of course but It was so funny and comforting having someone else going through the same hurts and worries.

The second day there we had so many funny moments throughout the painful ones. Wheeling our IV hangers around, hers was awful and she basically had to carry it everywhere. Watching our IV's fill with blood, complaining about our nurses and complimenting the ones we liked. Making jokes about how much we had to pee, or agonizing over annoying wet towels or changing our shirts with the IV. Our heads hurt, we were so hot, so worried about what we actually had and whether or not it would get worse. But we worried and laughed together :)

Sometimes the nurses didn't do anything, sometimes they were very good. Sometimes I had to fill up our waters, take Kelsey's temperature, and put cold towels on her head, when they wouldn't do anything for us. Haha, but most of the time we had lovely helpers!



Marcus came by and gave me an origami Tie-Fighter!! As you notice, we had to supply our own sheet/towels/blankets,etc. I used all my sheets up during the stay, so I had to use Carley's extra sheets, and that's not even my blanket - that's Lisa's! Haha.

The second day we felt better, but the Doctor was still concerned and we needed to make sure the antibiotics were actually working and our fevers would stay down. Also, we needed to make sure our nausea/vomiting was better otherwise we wouldn't be able to keep any medication down and would just have to be re-admitted.

Tuesday I was discharged in the morning with a temp of 99.4 F, but Kelsey had a temp of 100 F, so she had to stay until 3pm haha. I just stayed with her and we watched Sherlock Holmes on my laptop. It was a funny. The Doctor finally said we could both go, and we were picked up by Mr. V in the yellow dump truck. At home these past couple days my head has been burning, and I have absolutely no energy. That first night Kelsey and I just slept and slept like logs. I think our Kidney infection is getting better, and everything else has gotten better. I had more energy today, as did Kelsey. It's just scary, not really knowing what we had. Leptospirosis has been going around, and that's what many think we had. (Get it from water next to pig farms, which is basically every water area here in Pohnpei). I'm not sure, it's possible. We are both on Penicillin and today my lip swelled up - I'm hoping it's just a funky reaction and not a bad allergy. Oh gosh it never ends does it!

I just pray with my whole heart that no one else gets sick like that, and we don't have to go back to the hospital. It was just too stressful for everyone here, for us, and especially our families back home. It's when you're shaking, scared, and sick in a strange hospital that you realize..."what have I gotten myself into?!" But God was with us the whole time, and He'll help us out even if we need to go back. But please- I'm DONE being sick!!!

Please pray for us. For continued -whole body- healing.




Gen sent me this shirt. When I got back from the hospital I had literally gone through every single shirt I have except this new one in her package. Thanks for the shirt Gen :) Even though I get completely destroyed with teasing when I put it on.

Also. To Louisa, Nana Joan, Auntie Jean and Uncle Ken, and letters from Drea and Julie and Kayla and everyone else - oh my! I got so much mail this past week at the absolute most perfect time. Julie and Kindra, I got your letter from another teacher when I was laying in my hospital bed and read it with such joy. You all sent exactly perfect things. I am incredibly grateful and I feels like I don't need to go grocery shopping until I get back from Hawaii - haha. You are a blessing! I am SO blessed! To have so many people loving and supporting me all around the world. Know you are needed, and loved so much by this girl.