2-2-14
Hello
all!!! We did it! We made it to Kayangel! So Saturday we spent the day packing
and prepping for leaving, as well as working with the youth a the Evangelical
Church for a bit. Sunday was spent
traveling to Kayangel. It was a 3-4 hour
boat ride, and the last half we battled some rougher seas, …that was an
adventure I wasn’t too fond of. But
after that we landed safely and spent the day setting up and talking to a few
people. At the dock leaving Koror we met
two wandering travelers named Mary (from Quebec, Canada) and Andreas (from
Italy and Costa Rica) who were also headed to Kayangel with us. I can’t give you a step by step view of this
week, because I didn’t really journal at all (which means I have no memory, my
journal is my brain! Haha, its only partially true, but still), but I’ll tell
you what all I do remember.
It was a
pretty laid back week to be honest. We
knew we would be helping with the typhoon relief, we just weren’t sure how that
would play out. What we ended up doing
was helping with the deconstruction of the elementary school. We spend the first couple days taking off
what was left of the wooden supports of the roof, and saving all the long,
reusable pieces of wood we found. We
burned all of the rest of the wood that we couldn’t save. The next day the only
thing we did on the school was to take all the unbroken pieces of glass out of
the windows, to save them as well. The
last thing we did on the school, over the last couple of days was to take all
the books, and what was left of the bookshelves and a few desks out of the main
classroom. All of the books were ruined,
most were soaked through so thoroughly that they were unable to open, and
weighed twice as much as they were supposed to.
To dispose of them we tried to burn as many as possible (we felt like
Nazi’s until we got used to it), but quite a few were so wet that we could not
burn them. Due to that, we spent the
last day simply pushing the rest of the rubbish outside and clearing the
floors. They were going to be bulldozing
the rest of what was left, and through the support and funding from other
countries they were going to get a completely new school. We got to work with 6 Palauans every day,
making things seem to pass quickly and efficiently.
But working
definitely did not take up all of our time.
We spend quite a lot of time hanging out with and get to know the guys
we were working with, and managed to succeed with the 3 guys closest to our
ages… we think Nolan is somewhere around 25, Bob is 22, and Kan-Lee is 21. We tried as often as possible to get them to
swim with us, and we played many games of ping-pong with them. (All three of
them were impressed with how good I was at ping-pong… so thank you Danny and
Dustin J
haha). We also were able to watch a movie or two with them in the evenings (we
only had electricity from 6pm to 6am-ish).
We also spent many hours with Mary and Andreas, who after their beach
camp got ruined by the wind, came and lived with us in the community center,
allowing us lots of time to spend with them, which we all thoroughly enjoyed.
(And Andreas was a bit of a chef and so we had some FANTASTIC meals there!)
I have to
say it was a very interesting week, looking back on it I see it as a great
week, but at the time I wasn’t so sure.
The rugged living bothered me less than I thought it would, but at the
end of the week I described it to myself as a dry week. My favorite times where when I was hanging
out with Bob and Nolan (and Kan-Lee, but he was quieter and harder to interact
with). My body was doing weird things
half the week too, making the days difficult, whether it was an upset stomach,
itchy infected bug bites, or a headache I always managed to feel the worse when
we were trying to work on the school. I managed to sleep well most of the
nights, but it never felt like quite enough.
But no more complaining…
Someday I
would love to be able to go back to Kayangel and see it as it was. The destruction was not as bad as we had
pictured in our heads, but it was enough to make you look twice. There were more trees standing than we
expected, but the palm trees had no coconuts on them, and the non-palm trees
were mostly stripped of their leaves.
The underbrush was full of fallen limbs, branches, and even full trees
sometimes. But the brush was beginning
to grow again. And there were plenty of new growth throughout the brush. Most of the buildings were pretty well
devastated. There are only about 20 people
living on the island, but to me they held the most scars from the typhoon. Most
of them were living in one or twos trying to working on rebuilding. There were few women and only one child on
the whole island. I remember listening
to Nolan talk about how things have been for him, and it made my heart
ache. He described how they miss people
and how they were so excited and glad to have us because we were outsiders, we
were new people to interact with, and we cared.
He told us how there were many visitors who wanted to see the “island
destroyed by the typhoon” and how they would come for a day and leave, not
staying for more than a few hours. They
appreciated that we were different and we not only came, and stayed for a few
days, but that we came to help and get to know them. Nolan also told us how bored and frustrated
they are. They say they try to work, but
there’s not much to do, and how they don’t have the supplies and funding (its
been promised) to actually do anything, and so many days they sit around
because they cannot do anything yet. He
said it has been that way for the past two months, and that they seem to just
sit and wait, sit and wait, and wait some more.
He works for the state government of Kayangel and so he is required to
stay there, but from what he said it seemed like he is going nuts. Most of them
also are separated from their families who have stayed in Koror (like Nolan has
three kids who live in Koror without him).
I think the night that Nolan was telling us all of this was the night my
eyes were really opened. It was then
that I saw the island with new eyes and saw what was really going on,
unfortunately it was on our last night there.
We had
originally planned on leaving Friday morning, but the water was too rough
(there had been a LOT of wind the whole week we were there). So we were told we would be leaving Saturday
instead, and Friday turned out to be the best day we had there. Brandon, Alicia, Colton, and I took advantage
of the low tide in the morning to walk to the next island (there are
technically 4 islands of Kayangel, only two are really big enough to really
live on). It was a great adventure, the
water never got more than chest deep there or back, and all 4 of us loved the
trek, and even thought the sunburns were worth it. In the afternoon we did a bit more work on
the school (pushing all the rubbish out), before spending the rest of the time
swimming, playing volleyball, ping-pong, and watching a movie with the
guys. The night was the clearest and
most beautiful as well, I have rarely had the opportunity to see the night sky
so big, beautiful, and starlit.
We left
early Saturday morning, had an incredibly smooth, calm boat trip back, and then
found we were gonna be helping with another church youth retreat that afternoon
and night. So we went back to Fuana’s,
got repacked for the night, and actually took real showers (which felt SOOO
good! Haha) before heading to the church.
We spend that afternoon exhausting ourselves even more than we already
were by playing games, doing skits, teaching, and hanging out with these young
people. We were to spend the night with
them at the church, and I think all the kids thought we were crazy because all
5 of us went to bed before any of them haha.
(Alicia and I slept in an air conditioned room, right under the AC… and
we froze! Shows how we’ve adapted lol).
Sunday we were woken up at 5 with all the kids, and we did the morning
devotional for them and then hung out until church time. After church was volleyball again. The evening we had Mary and Andreas over to
cook dinner for/with us (they came back from Kayangel with us to head to
another island for a few weeks before they leave to go to their next adventure
spot, which is Australia). We were
blessed to have not only the 5 of us, and Mary and Andreas, but also to be
joined by Fuana and Linda (another Palauan YWAMer who we met in Kona before we
left) for the amazing dinner of tapas that Andreas and Mary fixed for us.
So yea, I
think that gets you guys all caught up, doesn’t it? We aren’t exactly sure what
this week is gonna look like, but God always seems to provide something so we
are excited to see what He will give us.
I can hardly believe that we only have two more weeks in Palau and only
three weeks until I will be home. I
realized this morning that I’m finally used to being here… and that going home
might actually be a little weird. Not to say I’m not excited to go home! …but
it will be a little weird… I definitely feel that it’s time though, I've
started dreaming of home and people from back home almost every night for the
past couple days… I’m ready, I think haha.
It will be interesting to be back home, I feel like outreach has changed
me much more than lecture phase did. Not
just “outreach” though… Palau, and the amazing people I have met here. Yup.
That all came out of no where haha, but now you all know exactly what
I’m thinking I guess. I really didn’t mean to write that much, but oh well.
I miss you all so very much, and
even if I do love it here, I’m counting down the days until I get to see you
all! Talk to you soon, and take luck! J
No comments:
Post a Comment