We're still kicking...

Well then….nearly 3 months later, as you can imagine, a lot has happened. It’s hard to describe all the experience that can go into what 3 months can entail. It’s really been a whirlwind in so many ways, emotionally, work stuff, Peace Corps stuff, anything and everything really. I think we can say though, that things are starting to ‘settle down’ a bit and we’re finding our groove a bit more each day. We have our first ‘In-Service Training’ next week. All the new volunteers head into Kolonia on Thursday for 3 days of meetings and such to more-or-less ‘check-in’ on how things are going. We’re looking forward to the chance to just take a step back, take a deep breath and relax for a few days.

Well, the last time we wrote, we were nearly sworn-in. That weekend we moved into our little house next door. We posted some pictures on Flickr for you all to check out (I’m hoping to post more in the next few days as well). It’s been nice. Around late November,, early December, we greeting with great big welcoming arms the arrival of the trade winds. What a difference it has made! We’re extra fortunate, being as how we live on the eastern side of the island, which is the first to really reach out and grab that wind. It’s kept things remarkably more tolerable. Especially in it’s ability to keep things more dried out, clothes, beds, everything. Mold spontaneously appears on our clothes a bit less. There are moments when I actually stop sweating. It’s great. We’re actually getting nervous because sometimes we feel like we’ve dramatically acclimated only to remind ourselves that in a few months, those winds will cease, and we will again be engulfed in a heat sent forth directly from the innermost circle of hell. We’ll let you know how that goes.

Some of our (surprisingly) most favorite things here are as follows:

-Bleach. An absolute necessity in every load of laundry to help rid the moldiness.
-Peanut Butter. Some days I think its flowing through my veins.
-Hotdogs. We consumed an entire package in 1 day. Yep. Lunch and Dinner. By choice.
-Mosquito Coils. I think they secretly grind up sleeping pills in them. Light one and you’re out.
-Baby Powder. Not that surprising really. Needs no further explanation.
-Ketchup. Normally, I hate it. Here it’s like nectar from the gods (May have some connection to the amount of hotdogs we consume).

Local foods we really love (see photos on Flickr):
-Soursap. As juicy as watermelon, tastes like tropical Skittles….don’t laugh. I’m dead serious. Its awesome. Though kind of harder to find. Super amazing if you put it in the freezer, let it get kind of slushy and cold.
-Mangrove Crab. One day a neighbor sold us 3 giant crabs for $6. Yum. Yum. Yum. We just haven’t found a reliable, regular source.
-TUNA! Also harder to get regularly out where we live, but sold super cheap in town at the local market.

Alright, Tuna deserves it’s own sub-section. The photos on Flickr are of a small Skipjack tuna we bought out of the back of a guy’s truck for $3. He was just driving around trying to get rid of them. It weighed at least 3 lbs. We ate it for days. Locals eat a lot of the fish sashimi, raw. It’s really pretty good that way by mixing it in local lime juice and soy sauce. Skipjack is not our favorite for sashimi, has a little bit stronger flavor than Yellowfin, so we tend to cook it, at least partially. The Yellowfin is amazing here. You can get it from pretty much any restaurant for a couple bucks or sometimes you can buy a piece from market. Sashimi is the only way to go with it.

The tuna industry has a huge presence here. Not necessarily on the island itself, but in the region. Apparently, this is one of the last relatively profitable areas for large-scale commercial tuna fishing left in the world. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing for the fish. From what we’ve heard it’s getting fished pretty hard. The global demand for fish consumption has been increasing dramatically, especially high-grade tuna (blue fin and yellowfin) used for really upscale sushi in Japan and the US. Continental is the only airline that regularly flies here, that is, unless there has been an exceptional catch. Then it’s not uncommon for Japanese Airlines to fly a 737 cargo plane down, load it up quick with fresh tuna then turn around and bee-line straight back to Tokyo. Something I witnessed about two weeks ago. I heard the plane take off (which normally happens only 1 time a day) and was surprised to see a green plane with a JAL logo on the side. We also ran into a young helicopter pilot from New Zealand who was on island for a couple days waiting for one of the big tuna boats to come in. His chopper (these are big boats, complete with helipads on board) would be based on that boat for about a month. He was hired by them specifically to fly around with an expert from the boat and scout out the schools from the air so the boat could catch more efficiently. Gives you a little bit of an idea of the scale of the fishing and the value of this resource. Not entirely sure how well its being managed. My hunch is not well, but I don’t really know for sure. It’s an industry I’m hoping to learn more about as we spend more time here.

Anyway. Hope everyone’s doing well. We’re going to try and do better about updating more frequently. Peace out.