Island of the Sleeping Lady

Today we worked out of the public health offices. The room we were assigned was definitely bigger but keep in mind the examination bed was not placed there intentionally. This side of the hospital had more air conditioning units. We saw a lot of patients today referred for heart murmurs that were heard either previously by someone or during the recent routine school physical exam (they knew a pediatric cardiologist was coming so they tried to include everyone).

After work, we embarked on a “Sunset Cruise.” I wasn’t sure what to expect. But before we even began, it was a journey just finding the marina. We were giving directions based on landmarks that weren’t even visible. “Go down that way, make a right where there is storage, and go to the end.” What? We turned right down some road that turned into a residential area, then we circled back and drove along the road closest to the water which turned into a dirt road. It may not sound significant, but you try driving a foreign car with balding tires on a dirt road with rain coming down. When we saw pigs, we figured we went too far. We went back to the hotel and asked for directions again. “By the white building, dirt road, go down and you there.” We drove by a giant clam farm and found a road that resembled dirt. It looked more like brown concrete with humongous pot holes.

We decided to park an in open area that was not in front of someone’s house. We saw two non-indigenous people stepping onto a boat. As we approached closer, they welcomed us with cans of beer. I didn’t care if we had found the Sunset Cruise or not, we were going to hang out with these people. Turns out it was the Sunset Cruise. The two Caucasian people we saw were originally from San Diego, but now He is a consultant at the FSM’s court house and She runs a preschool out of their home on Kosrae (a married couple). They were accompanied by another female who hails from Massachusetts. She is on a service with her “World Teach” program (I think that’s what it was) and is on month 2 of 12.

The company was superb but the views were equally breathtaking. Serene water front with lush green land and low hanging clouds all with no rain and perfect visibility. It was like a scene from a movie. At first, everyone was simply watching. Though this married couple has been living here for a few months, they still expressed how much Kosrae amazes them. After we came to our destination (a boat in the middle of the atoll), more beer came out along with fish. Funny story about the fish: it was caught earlier in the day. Funny story about me eating fish: I don’t. But this sushi was AMAZING! Who knows, I may end up eating more fish after this trip. 

The boat owner also owns a hotel resort (one we’re not staying at, doh!), and his wife is from Italy. They made all of the food from scratch and, just as I just stated, catch or grow all their products. Inside the boat was a stereo system and out came the iPod. Granted, the songs on the iPod were not as up to date, it was still nice hearing music for the first time since I left Hawaii (which seems like ages ago but it has only been 3 days). There is only 1 radio station in all of Kosrae and it plays really really really old country music (yes, like cowboys and bull riding and stuff). Oh and random fact that just popped into my head as I am typing, the married couple bought a pretty sweet car for 2500 (including importing it to Kosrae). Cars are hard to come by on the island and no one knows how to maintain cars let alone fix one.

Kosrae has a nickname, “sleeping lady.” The island takes formation of a lady whom is sleeping.  I tried to capture the lady but this picture does no justice. If you look at this picture, the sleeping lady is supine with her head on the right. As you work your way down you will see her two breasts and below that you see another peak. Supposedly, she has her legs in a “butterfly” position and the location between this area is full of red clay (hence the locals state she is constantly menstruating). Sounds kinda gross but the surrounding land is the most fertile of the entire island. I thought that was a pretty interesting fact. Anywho, see the picture below for a close up of the sleeping lady’s head.