Top 10 Things to Get Used To

       Firstly, I do not plan on updating this blog as frequently as I will during these first few weeks on the island of Yap.  We currently have a great chunk of free time that we have primarily been spending on fixing up our humble house into a lovable home – painting, installing shelves, fixing chairs, acquiring chairs, cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning, random assortment of home repairs, and anything else you could possibly do to make a house a home.  We also spend a lot of time reading, writing, and venturing into “downtown” to get acquainted with the area, the people, and to get ourselves situated with the bank, the communications department, the stores, and the post office.  Things are very different here on Yap, and I don’t want to bore you all with a 300 page novel on my first six days here (don’t worry, the time will come when I will highlight the oh so fascinating adventures that have occurred so far, but we have a whole year for that!)  So I have comprised this list of the “Top 10 Things to Get Used To” on Yap, some of which I have already accepted as normal, and others that it may take the entire year to adjust to. 

10. Being woken up at 4:00 AM every morning by the army of roosters that apparently surround our house.  Oh, and then continuing to hear said roosters everywhere on the island non-stop until about 5:00 PM.  Whoever said that roosters only crow at sunrise clearly has not been to Micronesia – these roosters like to make sure you are awake all day long.  Also, “cock-a-doodle-doo” is about the farthest sound possible from what these things actually sound like.

9. Taking showers with salamanders.  These little guys are everywhere – but they are fun to watch jump around and for the most part mind their own business.

8. Waking up cuddling with spiders.  Let’s just say that they grow them BIG here.  Good news there are no poisonous spiders on Yap – bad news, the centipedes apparently are poisonous, and painful.  (Calm down, Mom, they aren’t big enough to kill me, just to make my body swell up uncontrollably)

7. Cold showers.  Surprisingly, I have already adjusted to this fairly well.  I love myself a long, hot shower to relax and think, but here the cold showers are refreshing and cool you down after a day in the heat and humidity.

6. Seeing our neighbor, Mary, who is somewhere between 55-75 years old, walk casually by my window carrying her machete over her shoulder as she heads to her “garden” and outdoor kitchen to harvest fruit and coconuts.

5. The wide assortment of smells on the island.  My nostrils have definitely experienced a whole new pallet of sensations – some good, some bad, some indescribable.

4. The much, much, much slower pace of things.  At times, it is incredibly relaxing, at other times incredibly frustrating.

3.  The food selection.  We have a much larger variety of food than I had anticipated – but    things are quite a bit more expensive if they are imported (which is almost everything), and we definitely will need to be creative in what we cook.

2.  Being barefoot for a majority of the day.  Everyone wears sandals or flip flops around the island – but, it is custom to remove your shoes before you enter any building.  I enjoy this, but the bottom of my feet may be permanently dirty – and I’m talking worse than Scranton blackfoot.

1.  And last but not least… the native clothing of the Outer Islanders.  The men wear colorful loin cloth type things called “thus”, and the women wear these intricate grass skirts… and that’s it.  I am still working on adjusting to this one… however, I am extremely excited to get my own thu.. they look comfortable and incredibly cool in this heat.