LYNN'S ACCOUNT OF LIVING ON KOSRAE IN MICRONESIA, 1969-1975, p.7
Living in a more traditional village with more day-to-day contact with the local villagers, we also had much more local food than when we had had in the Peace Corps years. Although we still often ate canned meats or fish, we obtained gifts of food almost everyday—if only the ubiquitous bananas. On a less regular basis we had fish, crab, breadfruit, taro, sugar cane, papaya, and an occasional fresh pineapple or some pork or chicken.
As I said before, we were pretty much caught up in the rhythm of the high school when we were in the Peace Corps. But this time, we created our own rhythm and were much more part of the village. The daily schedule pretty much was that Philip would be out all day collecting data and visiting. I would spend time keeping house and taking care of Marisa. For the first four months of our stay on Kosrae, Marisa and I were joined at the hip. I found it rather claustrophobic at first but decided that because she was in such a different environment that I would just tough it out and let her venture out at her own pace and as she felt comfortable. I remember that it took her from September until January or so until she felt comfortable to leave my side and wander a bit into the next-door compound. She was a welcome visitor at this compound and would often come home with food. That’s no doubt why she came home with roundworms! Of course, her comfort level rose as she learned the language. By the time we left, she was fluent.
The first time we were out there, we were quite young, just having graduated from college. Yes, we were married, which immediately conferred on us some status—as married people were considered more adult than unmarried people. But at the time, we had no children—being parents confers even more status. And this second time we were parents. And since Kosraeans love children, they made quite a fuss over Marisa.
The church is a very important part of Kosraean life. As I mentioned, people don’t do any work on Sunday—which is why we always got a bowl of breadfruit soup on Saturday. We did not go to church on Sundays in Tafunsak, our Peace Corps village. But we often went with Marisa in Utwe. And Christmas is a big deal on Kosrae. The Kosraeans spend months practicing their singing and marching so as to be ready for the big Christmas festival. In Tafunsak, I did not participate at all, but in Utwe I did. This meant not only being part of the festival at Christmas but also spending time in rehearsal in the months before. The villages also competed against each other. According to the church, dancing was forbidden, but this ritualized marching/singing was permitted. It is difficult to understand the importance of this custom, but suffice to say that I felt more part of village for having participated, and I think the Kosraeans thought so, too. At least, I hope so.
Christmas Marching (Lynn is 3rd from front in the 1st row on left--partially hidden)
We made one trip off-island in July 1975, taking a ship to Ebeye in the Marshall Islands. This allowed Philip to gather information on the Kosraeans living there. Ebeye is a very crowded, desolate, small islet in the Kwajalein Atoll. Kwajalein is the site of a large American missile tracking and testing station. Micronesians would flock there for the relatively high paying jobs, but were not allowed to remain on Kwajalein Islet over night, which was reserved for the military and employees from the U.S. A few Kosraeans married to Americans lived on Kwajalein Islet, which resembled American suburbia, with lawns, well-stocked stores and ranch-style houses. But most Micronesians lived in crowded, often unsanitary conditions on Ebeye and commuted by boat to Kwajalein in the morning and back to Ebeye each evening. When we first arrived, we were directed to a “motel” that apparently was a front for a Japanese-run house of prostitution. The owners reluctantly put us up, but had to move the regular inhabitant of our room. We were kept awake by a drunken American who stood outside our door loudly wondering why his regular consort was not available in our room. The next day we found a real motel, where we were only kept awake by the loud sound-track from a movie house downstairs.
From Ebeye we flew to Pohnpei and then Guam and Saipan, where Philip also did research on Kosraeans living off-island. By then Guam had become more developed, with high rise hotels and American fast food outlets. We were able to restock our supply of variety flour and other “exotic” food, while enjoying a bit of a "vacation" in what now seemed like civilization.
We left Kosrae for good in the Fall of 1975 going to Pohnpei and then back to Ebeye. This time we had arranged in advance to stay with some friendly Kosraeans instead of taking pot luck. Next we went to Majuro, also in the Marshall Islands, before continuing home via Hawaii. Marisa soon discovered that her third cousins in Hawaii would not respond when she spoke Kosraean to them, so she soon reverted to being a monolingual English speaker. The last time she spontaneously used Kosraean was when she got separated from us in a variety store in Honolulu and started shouting the word for mommy (nnah) loudly in Kosraean. We certainly found her quickly.
Departing
Kosrae
At the Pohnpei Airport 1975
Conclusion
This document took a long time to write. I started it before you left, but between one thing and another, the months just flew by. Perhaps it will give you a flavor for our Peace Corps experience. It was certainly an interesting experience for me to write it up. It will also serve to elucidate our daughters on experiences which either came before them or when they were too young to remember in Marisa’s case. So it was not only for you that we wrote this—but your going was certainly the motivating factor.
Looking forward so much to seeing you and having you show us what your Peace Corps life is like. We are very proud that you have chosen to follow this path, not so much because we did it, but because it is a caring way to give back some of what most of us have received from our middle class upbringing. In the end, we found that our lives were much enriched for having gone through both these experiences—far more than we enriched the lives of those we touched, I’m sure.
With love,
Aunty Lynn and Uncle Philip