Sorcha in Micronesia

When you live on an island that is 5 degrees north of the equator this is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean it’s important that you have a plan incase of typhoons, tsunamis, earthquakes, and fires. During my 8 months on island there have been 3 tsunami alerts, flooding, and extremely high tides that damaged properties. Luckily no one was hurt during these events but it goes to show how important it is to prepare for natural disasters. Recently I have been working with a counterpart from my school to update the school’s natural disaster preparedness plan. The previous plan was out of date and did not have protocols such as rosters and evacuation maps. The plan was also in English, which is a big problem as, statewide; students do not begin to learn English until the 3rd grade. The first thing we wanted to do was to create a roster that each teacher would have in their classroom. This roster would have a list of students in their grade sorted by grade level. As the schools records had...

The 4th prompt for blogging abroad is On the Road. I decided that I would write about a unusual experience that I’ve had in Kosrae. One day I was staying at home to do some background research for a project I wanted to do with my students. My host family was out visiting their family members in another area of the island. One of my host uncles came around to the house and he looked really guilty when I answered the door. He asked me in Kosraean where my host family was. I responded that they were out of the house. I saw that he was holding a pot and asked him if he wanted me to give it my host family.  My Uncle looks down at the pot, up at me, and then back down at the pot. He slowly hands it to me. At this point I look down and see a cooked dog’s head, with eyes, tongue, and teeth still inside it, on top of a plate of breadfruit. He looks me straight in the eyes, says I’m so so so so so sorry, and walks away. *If anyone would like to see a picture of it shoot me a message...