Canoe Festival

            Yap takes great pride in preserving its traditional heritage and culture while adapting alongside the modern age.  Very few places in the world have been able to maintain this fragile balance between tradition and modernization.  The people of Yap still follow and respect many of the customs of their ancestors and despite bringing in modern technology and improvements, they have still managed to ensure that their beautiful culture remains pure.  One important aspect of this preservation is the annual Yap Canoe Festival.

            The festival lasts three days and is focused around the traditional navigational skills of the Yapese people.  There are canoe carving demonstrations, paddling races between villages, swimming races for the children, sailing canoe rides and demos, lots and lots of local all food, music, and more.  Canoe Festival is one of the largest events and celebrations of the year – and while in comparison to the United States it may resemble a church fair or bizarre – it was an absolutely wonderful weekend full of fun, feasting, and friends.

            One highlight of my weekend was being able to experience my first traditional dances.  The two that I witnessed were done by all men and I had no idea what to anticipate.  My friend, Martin, led the first dancers in holding up a piece of shell money, which in accordance with tradition, must be presented to the village that is hosting the dance.  Once the shell money has been exchanged, the men form a straight line all wearing their traditional attire – which consists of nu-nus (leis made of flowers and leaves that can be worn on the head as a crown or around the neck), thus (the loin-cloth type garment), hibiscus (wrapped around the waste and thighs), and a covering of some type of yellow oil that I cannot remember the exact name.  The men also ranged in age from probably 5-70.  The older, more experienced men stood in the middle of the line, and the youngest stood on the outside.

            Then the dance would begin.  Clapping, chanting, yelling, thigh slapping, very controlled movements of the hands and arms, and then slowly adding in leg movements.  The dances tell a story – they have been passed down for generations to preserve the stories of their ancestors.  You could see in the men’s eyes how proud they were to be performing this beautiful dance – how passionate they were about this great honor.  The dance sped up faster and faster as it proceeded until there was a whirl of pelvic thrusts and slapping (in most dances there is always some sexual aspect to the story apparently – or so it would seem).  And then with one final yell and bicep double slap, the dance was complete.  Everyone went wild for these dancers – it was one of the most AWESOME (no other word could possibly describe it) experiences I have had on Yap.

            The second dance I was able to see ended up being perfectly timed with a typical Yap downpour, so after chilling in the traditional Community House for almost an hour, we all ran through the rain to the big pavilion type Community Center to watch the men’s dance.  Martin was performing in this one as well as a few other guys I know, including one who I play volleyball with.  It was mesmerizing.  So controlled – so in sync – so passionate – so rhythmic.  Simply amazing.

            Today – we decided to take a day off from the festival and went for some unbelievable dives.  I will keep it short and simple (I will post more dive stories soon) – I was a foot away from GIANT manta rays… I saw a bizarre lion fish… a small black fish decided to  go wild protecting its reef and was biting at my hair… I looked down into the endless depths of the ocean in crystal clear blue water … I swam with many, many reef sharks today – like with them with them. 

            Yap still continues to surprise me and amaze me each and every day.  

A new day – a new adventure.

Traditional Sailing Canoe

Men's Dance 

Men's Dance

Martin and I before his dance

“Life is either a great adventure or nothing.” 

                                                     – Helen Keller

The Hospital...

After four months on Yap, it has finally happened.  My body finally gave in to the relentless swarm of unknown pathogens and viruses that swirl around me in this tropical environment that between a mixture of high humidity and intense heat creates a perfect breeding ground for all of the organisms I experienced in Microbiology… except this time, they decided to infest my body rather than stay nice and calm, cool, and collected in the petri dish under the microscope.  Unfortunately, I could not simply sterilize my body like my inoculation loop (that was the super fancy word we used that meant putting a metal wire bent into a circle into a Bunsen burner flame to clean it.. in other words: burning all of the bad germs to death)… so I made my first daring adventure to the …..(dramatic pause) ….. Yap State Memorial Hospital.

Now, I had heard some horror stories about the hospital here on Yap… the type of stories that you tell around a camp fire when you are 10 years old and even though they are utterly ridiculous, you still end up squeezing 8 people into a 2-person tent and you refuse to go to the bathroom in the woods by yourself.  These terrifying stories of the apparent torture that occurs at the hospital had me keep my distance through a few painful episodes.  I have now made it through two nights that had me waking up in a cold sweat with unbearable stomach cramps that allows me to spend the rest of the evening getting incredibly well acquainted with the bowl of our toilet – we had some pleasant “conversations” from both ends.  Yes, I just said what you think I said… it is my blog… it was my odd food poisoning or some other bizarre stomach bug, and I choose to present it here.

Anyway, back to my main story… I despise having to go to the hospital, some innate superhero-complex that I can fight whatever it is inside me and I don’t need any help (once led me to crawling around on the floor of my office at Camp Minsi with a 103 degree fever during staff week because I refused to stop working and get checked out… thanks Bubba for carrying me to emergency room for my meds J).  But, alas, I was discovering that the multiple slashes, gashes, scrapes and bruises I had accumulated on my legs from volleyball and casual machete-ing (I need to find out the gerund form of machete.. or invent it) were beginning to turn an odd whitish-red color and smelled that oh so indescribable smell that can only mean one thing: infection.  I sucked up my pride and went to the hospital where I made the initial conclusion that it was not nearly as dirty or terrifying as the stories had made it seem.  I checked in, waited about 30 minutes to process my new patient paperwork – which by the way includes no insurance whatsoever… here on Yap, all medical expenses other than prescriptions are covered by the government.  The very kind nurse, Noah, took me in to see the doctor, who told me that infections are incredibly common in this type of environment and that they had plenty of the medication I would need in stock.  She filled out my prescription, I asked if they could give my wounds a thorough cleaning, which Noah did so perfectly.  This also allowed me the time to learn oodles of information about the Yap medical care system and where the doctor and nurse got their education and training.

I left the hospital singing to myself after picking up my meds for the low cost of $7.  It turned out to be a fantastic adventure as I met a few wonderful new people on Yap as well as saved my legs from the villain that took the form of some staphylococcal bacteria. 

Tune in next time as Yapman will live to fight another day.  Same Yap time.  Same Yap channel.

Yap State Memorial Hospital

My Meds and some free gauze rolls
 (Oh... I may have forgotten to mention my hospital name is now "Micheal" , minor detail)

Not so graphic picture of a couple of my machete cuts post cleaning/ antibiotic

“Live in the moment.  Live for the moment.  This is the moment.”  -Unknown

Love is Here

Back in Scranton, the Search retreat is taking place at Chapman Lake.  This entire week, I struggled with being away from the unbelievable support system of hugs, laughter, and tears that always come with this weekend.  Search brought me together with some of my best friends... life long friends that I could not imagine my life without.  As Andrew Kelly and I put it: we will be at each other's weddings.  A large portion of my greatest friendships, memories, and challenges came through retreats at Chapman Lake.  From FIRST, to Search and so many others - I would not be where I am today... I would not be who I am today without those indescribable weekends at the lake house.

Search weekends have always been a source of rejuvenation for me.  They remind me to remember what is truly important in life.  They remind me to not just talk about changing the world, but to fully live each day making a difference, making people smile, living the way we were meant to live.  Loving the way we were meant to love.

Sometimes, when the Search retreatants return to campus, they are so enveloped in the powerful emotions and connections of the weekend that those who did not go on the retreat develop a negative feeling towards the retreat, seeing it as "cultish" or cliquey.  Unfortunately, this is a side effect of having a spiritually ground breaking weekend and experiencing whirlwind of emotions and transformation with others - there will be an inevitable bond that you will want to just embrace... and then you will literally want to run around embracing everyone who you shared the experience with and sing your songs, and do your secret high fives, and laugh and be joyous and merry.  But one thing I have always focused on during Search weekend was to make sure that the love, the support, the results of the retreat were being spread to everyone.  Search is not about becoming best friends with the 50 people at the lake house that weekend, yes, it may happen, but that is not the main result.  The true meaning, the undying truth, the undeniable secret of Search is that we are loved... all of us.  And we are called to bask in that love, to realize just how special we are... and then we begin to recognize just how much we love everyone else in our lives - we see how special they are... we genuinely appreciate their presence in our lives.  We learn to love like Jesus... to love like there are no limits... to give pure, beautiful, passionate agape.

At first, I felt like I was going to dread this weekend.  I would become one of the outsiders looking in at this Search clique that was having the time of their lives together and I wasn't invited.  Then I realized just how ridiculous this feeling of jealousy was... I had forgotten the true meaning of Search.  I had forgotten that it was not about the physical presence of being there... it is about the love... it is about that indescribable, uncontrollable, unbelievable sense of appreciation for the goodness in each and every person.  No, I may not be there to hug, to cry, to sing, to dance, to talk, to celebrate, to do any other bizarre things that may occur this weekend in or out of the retreat.... but these are just results of agape... results of God's friendship in my life.  I now have new, unique results of agape in my life here on Yap - I have been able to write a whole slew of letters to my family at the Community Outreach Office, I was able to have some fantastic talks with my siblings, I was able to have a bro chat with one of my best friends about so many things going on in my head and in my life, I was able to skype with the love of my life and just talk about the big things, the little things, the important things, the everyday things, I was able to take a night hike to the radio tower and just fall in love with the star-filled sky.  I was able to feel the love of my friends, the love of my family, the love of God in a whole new way.

That is what agape is all about... loving unconditionally... loving fully... loving as if our lives depended on it.

You are in my thoughts and prayers, Search 68.  You are in my thoughts and prayers, Entire Search Family.  You are in my thoughts and prayers, Scranton.  You are in my thoughts and prayers, World.   

Agape Always.

"Shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel."

- James Taylor

School, and Volleyball, and Diving - Oh My!

The past couple of weeks seemed to have flown by with an overwhelming slew of emotions and contemplations.  The second quarter has kicked off swimmingly as I have started to mix up my teaching strategies in order to liven things up not just for the students but for me as well.  In Geometry, I have found great pride in the small victories - as we grappled through proofs, there were about 20 urgggggggghghghghhghg moments to every 1 AHA! moment, but those AHA!'s made every frustrating challenge completely worthwhile.  My freshmen religion class just finished Part I of their Parable projects, where each group acted out a parable from the Gospels - they absolutely blew me away with how creative, hilarious, and comprehensive they were.  I cannot wait for Part II of the project where they will adapt their parables to modern day stories about their lives on Yap (Thanks, Cathy!).  In Chemistry, we are learning about the quantum mechanic model of the atomic structure and the juniors are dominating it as we head into electron configurations.  Who knew balloons could be so fun, practical, and educational all at once when teaching about sublevels and orbitals?!  My juniors are working so hard to understand these complicated concepts and I could not be more proud.

My volleyball season on the Maap team came to an end on Halloween.  I played for the "Little Boys" team consisting of everyone under 25.  My teammates spoke rapid fire Yapese and a few are students at the public high school.  It was fantastic not just to get to play some competitve volleyball (despite my body losing about 3 quarts of water in sweat each game due to the humidity causing my hands to become incapable of setting a ball), but also to get to meet so many incredible people.  I became a self-proclaimed expert at riding the bus to Gagil - which is actually quite a challenge since it seems that every day the bus number changes and the "5:00 PM Bus" could show up anywhere between 4:35 and 5:10 PM.  Everyone I was able to interact with through this experience was absolutely straight up Jesus.  My one friend, Marbey, even has offered to take me spearfishing one weekend.

Finally, today I officially became a certified open water scuba diver.  Caitlin, Rosemary, and I have been taking the course for the past 3 weeks with the epitome of perfection instructor, Jan.  We did a few days of pool exercises with the equipment and now have gone on four dives in the ocean.  The whole experience is so surreal.  At one point when I was 40 feet underwater I just looked up and watched my air bubbles slowly rise to the surface where I could just barely make out the sun through the turbulent surface.  The coral reef here is breath taking and I have seen more fish than I could possibly describe, touched an octopus, saw a shark (more a shadow because it was so far away), was about 15 feet away from a whole school of barracuda, and about 928 other unbelievable things.  It is like seeing a completely different world that takes up a majority of the life on Earth.  Indescribable.

A View of Yap from the Diving Boat

My Freshmen on Parable Day

Headed to the Dive Site

"Sometimes the little things in life are the big things."

                                                                                                     - Unknown

Setting the Stress on Fire

ANNOUNCEMENT:  In an effort to reduce my usage of facebook, I will periodically post some "Stealth Posts" (Grogan, 2012) in which you will just have to occasionally check up on the blog to catch.  These will come every so often and will usually include some of the fun little story updates on my life on Yap.  Kamagar.       

As my first quarter of teaching comes to a close, I am shocked by just how much work there has been to do.  Between creating final tests, grading said tests, closing out old lesson plans, creating new lesson plans, continuing to teach the new material, and calculating quarter grades as well as making personal comments for each student... it can be easy to forget to take some time to just relax.  To top it all off - my computer decided to take a little break from that whole operating thing I expect it to do... luckily - my friend, Doug, worked his magic and I am almost back to normal - and soon it will be better than ever - but still, worst timing ever.

          Rather than slow me down, my lack of computer actually made me at least three times more productive because I felt I needed to make up for lost time.  The result was being completely finished with my quarter grades and comments two days early and being way ahead in terms of lessons.

           I also found the time to make it to my first volleyball game up north in Gagil at the Yap Sports Complex.  I play for the village of Maap on the "Little Boys" team which is anyone under the age of 25.  We lost our first match to Gagil, but our "Older Boys" team won their first match.  It was a whirlwind of high fives, random Yapese screaming sprinkled with English volleyball terms, and overall an amazing amount of fun.  Once again I am overwhelmed by the freely given generosity of the people of Yap - first, some of my students made sure to get me on the correct bus (the public busing system consists of a few school buses that follow a VERY loose schedule, and if you miss your bus, you're out of luck) and about 5 other people chatted me up as I waited for the bus and my local friend, Martin, and I had a great conversation on the 25 minute ride through the bumpy, dusty dirt roads.  To top it all off, one man on my team, Marbey, happens to live near my village and always offers me a ride home - our talks on the rides to and from volleyball are always very insightful and deep and full of laughter.

          Currently, I am cooking some homemade veggie burgers for World Food Day to represent America.  Martin asked me a few weeks ago and I was flattered, so now I sit here concocting whatever I can to make a delicious dish for the celebration.  Mom - you'd be so surprised and/or shocked.

Finally, amidst all of this excitement, schoolwork, and business - I reached a point at school that I could just not pick up the red pen for one more minute.  Luckily, Mickey (our principal) decided he didn't feel like doing paperwork either during the last period of the day, so we both headed to the lakeside to burn all of the wood, cancun, vines, and debris that we had collected during our last work day.  We had a huge bonfire going with huge amounts of smoke that still has that incomparable campfire smell stuck in my pores.  Sometimes the best thing to do is just forget about all of the stress in our lives, and set a big pile of whatever on fire.

Manuella and Dolorlyn showing off their handstands (Just a fun picture of an average lunch period)

Mickey feeding the fire

Some of the freshmen joining us in fire building after school

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” 
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Just Keep Swimming

On the First Friday of every month, YCHS has a half day of classes – how do we spend the other half of the day you may ask… Why doing manual labor on our campus, of course, to continue making it even more beautiful.  Last Friday – after a very long week – I signed my group up to work on clearing out the area behind the classrooms buildings.  The super secret side mission of this group was to attempt to pull the thousands of cancun vines from the lake.  These vines appeared to just be floating on the water and we could just simply pull them out with our ingenius device of long sticks with screws in the ends of them to hook the cancun.  We quickly discovered our master plan was foiled by the stubbornness of these vines as they had incredibly strong roots embedded in the bottom of the lake.

I slowly began to wade into the dirty lake (I am talking certain parts of the Muck Hike dirty…. The clean parts though!) to try to get a better grip – as I did this I realized what a wonderful opportunity this would be to spend the first semi-sunny day we had in 8 days swimming in this dirty cancun lake.  So, I did a quick little surface dive – thank-you LBD teams and Ryan Lilly for giving me some sort of lifeguarding skills – and began to work my way into the middle of the lake, which was probably around 8 feet deep.

I pulled out most of the loose cancun, but the vines were putting up a good fight – just as I was about to call it a day and swim back with my small armfuls of cancun (which I could float on and elementary backstroke my way in) – my reinforcements decided to jump right on in.  A few of the junior and sophomore boys dove right on in, and soon a few of the girls joined us as well as we took a couple “sepos” (machetes) out into the murky water with us and would take turns going under the water to cut the vines in order to harvest the cancun.  We spent a few hours doing this exhausting but exhilirating work.

When we were done for the day, we were hosed off and deemed “The Wolf Pack” by Fr. Rich.  Needless to say – I am ecstatic to have found a Wolf Pack here on Yap.  

The moral of this story is… well, I guess it’s okay to just have a nice blog post about my adventures without any lessons, reflections, or revelations…. And in truth – that is the lesson!  Sometimes, we need to stop searching for the deeper meaning, the epiphanies, the revelations – and we just need to let go, dive into a dirty cancun covered lake, and let the world teach us in that unique, special way that only it knows how to do.

Casually pulling in some cancun

About to submerge

Break between swimming sessions

"The Wolf Pack" swimmers

“Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure.”
                                                                                               -Charles Dudley Warner 

Lights Out

Warning:  You always know there is something up when I leave a warning at the beginning of a blog post, as if it could be harmful to your health if you continue reading.  I do not think it could possibly hurt you, not physically at least – but I do feel the need to alert you that this blog seems to have taken the direction of more of a public journal or diary that not only outlines my adventures in Yap, but also navigates the inner thoughts, the indescribable feelings and emotions that I am encountering.  We shall see where this goes – for as Peter Pan so wisely said, “to live would be an awfully big adventure”, and I would hate to miss out on it over something as silly as being embarrassed to share what I am truly experiencing.

            The past week or so has brought with it some of the most frustrating, trying, challenging experiences I have ever faced.  My classes seemed to hit a wall.  My Geometry class floundered at the most basic concepts which I thought we had mastered – which led to my almost losing it during a class period that changed from a 5 minute review on bisectors to a full fledged re-teaching of the lesson completely changing my language choice and approach.  The students could sense my frustration and many even apologized to me after the class.  I felt terrible for almost completely losing my patience – a virtue that I usually pride myself on after 6 years of handling every possible problem from every possible age group during my years on camp staff – I felt even more horrible for letting my frustration show to my students, the ones who I truly am directly here to help along their path of education to help improve the overall living conditions of Yap.  I am not used to failing – in fact, I refuse to fail… and I used to think that this meant that no matter what, I needed to do all in my power to achieve success.  I now see – that our failures are what make us human – and how we react to these failures is what defines our character – what makes us role models – what sets us apart – what makes us heroes.

            In my Junior year of high school, I gave a talk during the Kairos XIX retreat about Piety.  My favorite quote from this talk is “It doesn’t matter how many times we fall down, what matters is that we always get back up.”  For most of my life, I persevered, I dug deep, I thought I was forcing myself with my own will to get back up.  After reaching a new level of frustration, a level of apparent failure – I am once again “back up” on my feet– but I would still be struggling in the dirt if I was not lifted up by the love of others – and most importantly, by the love of God.

            Things seemed to be getting worse at first - I had that terrible pit in my stomach that comes with homesickness (I have a GREAT story… well many stories relating to my experiences with homesickness – that is for another day),  I was feeling unmotivated to work on planning my lessons – to giving my all to helping these students to achieve their dreams, I was looking at my cold showers as painful trials from the depths of some horribly twisted icy hell, I was losing focus on what is truly important in life – of why I am here on the island of Yap. 

I thought that a quaint Skype date with my “more-lovely-than-words-can-describe” girlfriend would help to raise me out of this lull.  After an hour of working through the lack of video and what was a great conversation – we both realized that the online phone chat actually just made us seem that much further apart.  It put me further into my funk as I spent the rest of the day wondering if I should just hop on a plane to run back to Keri just to hold her in my arms… That thought quickly receded when I realized I would have to wait until Tuesday night anyway, and it was only Sunday.  But – I ended up realizing how excited I was to be with her when I return home, and even though we are 9,000 miles apart – I feel that our relationship has only grown stronger.  Sorry, boys, even though I am on the other side of the world in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – she is still all mine – and she is even more perfect than ever.

            Still – I was left feeling lonely, having some serious cases of FOMO, and missing all of the wonderful people back home on top of my frustrations with school.  To make things worse in the most dramatic way possible, a huge tropical storm has been swirling around the island for the past 3 days with no sign of stopping anytime soon.  Our power periodically goes out for hours at a time – Yap literally experiences island wide black outs.  Being thrust into the forced darkness seemed to be mirroring my inner frustrations that I just could not seem to shake.  And then – out of the blue (meaning we get mail on Mondays and Wednesdays – and today is Tuesday) – Fr. Rich brings a package to me during the last period of the day smiling cheerily as he says, “Well, it looks like someone loves you.”  As I looked at the package, my eyes were immediately drawn to the return address label that I recognized so well as I read off the address of The Community Outreach Office of The University of Scranton.  I could not stop beaming – but I practiced my self-restraint and decided to wait until I was home to open it. 

Of course, I was welcomed home by yet another power outage as the storm swirled around us – so I took my package and cuddled up with it in my cozy, sweaty twin bed.  My second family at the Community Outreach Office had sent me toilet paper, chapstick, pens, games, tootsie rolls, crazy straws, a waterproof camera, a yo-yo – all of the necessities one needs on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean.  And while all of these gifts certainly raised my spirits – it was the other items in the package that lifted me back up onto my feet.  I was at my lowest of lows (as one of my greatest mentors has repeatedly told me – My free spirit brings me to the highest of highs, but when I hit a low – I hit the lowest of lows, I have no middle ground) – I had fallen into the deepest cavern I have ever experienced, I accepted that I could not pick myself back up on my own – I surrendered myself to God, telling him that I needed his help to pull me back up to the top of the mountain, to bring me back up to the highest of highs – and he responded with a simple package – with a Community Outreach cup that changes colors when it’s cold, with a FIRST T-shirt that I am already wearing, with a Center for Service and Social Justice (new office name.. impossible to answer the phone with I imagine) bag that already has my school books in it, with a few flyers outlining what the Community Outreach Office is up to now this year – and what truly helped me not just simply back onto my feet – but what sent me soaring back up to the sky – a bundle of letters from my second family. 

            I sat in my room – with all of the lights out due to the black out – reading the letters with a flashlight – laughing hysterically as I read Lauren’s adventures of bread delivery and Peter’s note written in giant smelly highlighters and Kerry’s absolutely inappropriate, but oh so perfect for us letter, smiling to myself as I read Francesca’s note written on a rubber ducky and Michelle’s adorable animal puns.  I could not stop the tears as I read Ellen’s note describing life in the office, Lori’s beautiful words of encouragement, Cathy’s letter that seemed to find me right where I was at.  And then the sobbing began as I read Pat’s letter – a letter that reminded me that my experiences in Scranton, in the Community Outreach Office did not have a four year expiration date – these relationships will last for a lifetime. 

            I fell.   I fell hard.  I fell deep.   I gave up.  I realized I could not make it on my own.  I turned to God – I told him I needed him.  He answered me.  He sent me the encouragement, the strength, the motivation I needed.  He picked me back up with the hands of my friends, my mentors, my role models, my family.  He saved me.

      “When you love you should not say ‘God is in my heart,’ but rather,

 “I am in the heart of God.”             

                                                                        -The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran