Hey guys! I know its been a while since I posted, but for one of my writing assignments for my Art and Craft of Writing class I did a creative nonfiction piece on my week in Kayangel, and thought I'd like to share it with you guys! Sorry about the weird and random formatting, but here it is, as well as a picture that shows the islands well.
10 December 2014
Less
Means More
After being back
in America for ten months I find it interesting to reflect on my time in
Kayangel. My mind often drifts back to
that week without any deliberate thought.
I miss the simple life I found there.
America is full of racing cars, busy cities, blaring music, TV shows,
and smartphones. I do have to admit
that I have gone back to spending a good amount of my time in front of TV’s, my
laptop, and especially on my phone. But I find that I do not care for these
things as much as I once did. They can
no longer excite me more than as a distraction to pass time. I have left my
phone at home on accident several times since my trip to Palau, something that
would have never happened before my trip. I have also found that I do not like
texting as much, or even phone calls. I
would so much rather spend time with people face to face. When we step away from our technology we
find out that it is very possible to live without it. Remembering my week in Kayangel reminds me of this. I miss Nolan, Bob, and Kan-Lee. I wish that
there was some way I could find out how they are doing.
The sun and heat in Palau always seemed overbearing,
but I would love to get back to that, even if it was to work in a soggy ruined
school house. The work always seemed so
fulfilling. We were doing something that mattered and we could feel it. I keep
telling people that I don’t really have the desire to go back to Palau, but if
someone asked me if I wanted to go back to Kayangel I couldn’t help but say
yes. I fell in love with those four
little islands, and their incredible people.
~
The boat reached the top of the wave and then
started the decent down the steep side. We held on tightly, feeling the spray
of the water and feeling our hearts pounding in our ears along with the roar of
the ocean and waves. The sky was
foreboding, gloomy and dark. The
turbulent water churned around our little open sided boat, thrusting it up and
down over and over again. The islands
we were headed towards were nowhere in sight.
At the top of the waves all we could see was endless dark water and
countless waves to come, and at the bottom of the valleys were only walls of
water. We held on for what felt like
our dear lives. The shiny steel
railings were cold and slippery, but in my fear I managed to keep a solid grip
on them while praying for safety and the islands to come into sight. Adrenaline coursed through me, not just from
the fear, but from the wonder of this crazy experience. The waves were taller than the boat and the
ride felt like a roller-coaster. My
eyes burned from the salt water spraying them. But even through the salt spray and my own salty tears, I
couldn’t help but keep my eyes open and watching. The power of the waves was strong, and the heights and plunging
depths were thrilling. The crazy blue
swirls with their foamy white caps were hypnotic, and demanded that I keep my
gaze upon them. I don’t remember where
the roaring sound was coming from, but I remember that conversation was
impossible. Instead, we simply looked at each other, sharing our fear and awe only
through our eyes.
We had waited almost two months to be able to visit
the islands of Kayangel. Our entire trip
had been a precursor to that week.
Every week we thought we were going, and then plans changed and we
wouldn’t be allowed to. But now it was
finally our chance to go. All we knew
about the week was that we were going to be helping with hurricane relief. The typhoon had hit the islands in November,
but no one was able to tell us how bad the devastation actually was, the
reports were varied and vague.
The waves slowly calmed down as we entered the giant
lagoon sheltered from the windward waves by the crescent shaped arc of four
islands. They pulled the boat up to the pier of the largest island and we hopped
off. We unloaded our bags from the boat and then peeled them out of their waterproof
covers, which were garbage bags, while shaking off the drips of lingering salt
water. The clouds had thinned out and I
only remember sun and light wind. At
first glance, I did not think there was much destruction. Quite a few palms had kept their leafy tops
waving up to the sky. But the closer I
looked, the more damage I saw. There were
toppled trees all over. The few palms
that were in the air were just that, a few.
The fallen trees were so thick that we could only take a few steps
before encountering an obstacle of fallen, rotten, broken trees and plants. The fallen trees surrounded a cleared
community area. The long solid concrete
pier connected to a road that went by a pavilion of sorts. There was a building of some kind, I think
they used it for storage, but attached were tarps to create a sheltered seating
area. An area between the tarps had an actual roof, and the tables were larger
than the others and closer to the ground. We used them more as seats than as
tables.
We bounded over to the place where we were going to
be staying, hauling our meager amount of luggage with us. The community center
was on the other side of the road and a ways back from the beach. The building was a faded light blue, and up
on stilts to keep it away from the damp ground. They had giant tree stumps in front of all six doors, one on each
end and two on each of the longer sides. As we climbed up, we were surprised by
the inside of the building. The other
community centers we had stayed in had been barren, nothing but empty tile floors. This one was different. In the center was a
bookshelf built into the middle of the floor and going long ways through the
entire building. The bookshelves were
loaded, from top to bottom, filled with words to read. We unlaced our bags and strung
out our mosquito nets, tying the four stringed corners to the books on the
shelf and to the slatted windows.
We hurried back outside to see off the boat that had
brought us to the island, and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening
unpacking and getting acquainted with the community area. Over by the full building there were two
toilets that were still somewhat operational, a men’s and a woman’s each just
one stall, with no doors. They
explained the toilets to us, there were buckets filled with rain water outside
of the bathrooms, and you would take a bucket into the bathroom with you and
pour the water in after you were done as a way to flush it. That was the closest thing to running water
left on the island. They also helped us
find the water catchment tank next to our building and the outhouse, and what
was supposed to be the shower.
We worked hard the next day starting our hurricane
relief on the elementary school of Kayangel.
We walked to the building first thing in the morning. It was a short
brisk walk through a cleared path of rubbish that had us sweating even so early
in the day. Most of the Palauans who
were working with us were there when we arrived, and they had already
begun. The building had almost no
windows left intact and no roof. That
first day we spent dragging what was left of the roof supports outside, saving
what we could of the wood, and burning what couldn’t be saved. The wood was wet, soaked through, dark, and
heavy. We would drag the beams over the
warped slippery, slimy, and dank tiles out to the short stubby grass outside
the white washed walls. There we pinned
the boards to the ground, sitting on them, standing on them, anything to hold
them down and pull the rebellious nails out of the harsh wood.
The Palauan’s worked faster than my little team.
They rushed about like buzzing bees, bustling back and forth. They worked quickly and efficiently, hauling
wood, pulling nails, laughing, chatting, and working constantly. They are beautiful people. I remember Nolan
with his bright red shirt whistling and singing as he practically danced around
the rubbish. He had his black afro hair
held back with a black elastic into a thick ponytail. His smile was quick coming and his cheer made the day pass
quickly. Bob and Kan-Lee were also
dressed in bright colors, green and blue.
Bob had a shy smile, he would pass us quietly, with a swift glance, a
slight smile, and then be on his way past you to continue what he was working
on. He used his camo fisherman’s hat to duck his eyes behind. Kan-Lee was even shyer, he would glance up
with a smile flickering in his eyes, and barely touching his lips before
slipping past. His hair was shorter than Nolan’s and was held back with a
headband. Nolan and Kan-Lee looked very
similar. They had the same caramel chocolate toned brown skin with distinct
islander features of round faces, flat foreheads, and flashing dark eyes. Bob had slightly darker skin, and a more
oval face, his eyes were darker, like a shadowed cave. The rest of the Palauans were a mix of the
three in looks as well as personality.
Most were friendly but didn’t speak that good of English so they used
what English they had, along with gestures and smiles to communicate. They were all men and all, except Nolan, Bob,
and Kan-Lee, were over 30 years old. In
total, we had about ten or twelve people working on the school.
After that first day of working with the wood, we
began to work with the other half of the building. The first half was the cafeteria side with a small classroom. The
side we worked on the rest of the week was a bigger side, which looked like it
used to be one large room classroom.
When we first started to work on that side, it looked like it hadn’t
been touched since the typhoon had hit it.
Bookshelves had fallen at crazy angles, desks were overturned, and
rotted books lay everywhere. You almost
couldn’t walk across the floor. The
books were disgusting. They were water
logged, soaked all the way through, with pages bonded together, and they
weighed three times more than they should have. They smelled even worse than
they looked, rotting pages still dripping with rancid water. But they smelled
even worse when we began to burn them.
The smoke drifting off the piles billowed thick and black. We felt like Nazi’s for burning so many
books, but there was no other option.
The books were ruined, and we had no way to dry them out, and even if we
could they still wouldn’t really be usable. The school contained a variety of
books. We found textbooks, fiction children’s books, and we each found at least
one book that we had loved as a child.
But to pick up a book and have it be so slimy and slippery that you have
to grasp it tightly and feel the moisture oozing out of it was horrific. So we
tossed book after book upon the flickering fighting flames, as they crackled
and popped, consuming the multitude of sopping pages. I’m pretty sure I shed a few tears for all of the knowledge we
were burning.
The sun was hot on those days, and combined with the
heat floating off of the multiple giant bonfires, we were sweating more than we
ever thought we could. Our sweat would catch the dirt and grime we worked with
and we were left with our entire bodies feeling gritty, dusty, and sticky. When we finished the work on the school for
the day we would walk or ride in the bed of their tiny white work pick-up back
to the community area. At the community
area we would then proceed to rinse off the layer of grime that coated us.
Once we reached the end of the road, the fun began. We would glance at each other out of the
corner of our eyes, slyly watching. And then we would take off, running down
the stretched pier, racing to beat the others to the end, kicking off our
flip-flops in our haste. Once we reached the end, clothes and all, we would
jump, flip, dive, or soar, anything to get ourselves into the refreshing
crystal waters of the ocean. The water
was incredibly clear. From the pier on
a sunny day you could easily see the bottom, even if it was a good 25 feet away
at high tide. It was warm too, the temperature
barely cooler than the air around us, but that didn’t make it any less
refreshing. While in the water we would scrub down our arms, legs, and heads,
trying to get as much dirt off as we could.
After our scrub, we would swim back towards the pier, our shorts and
t-shirts swirling and constricting around our paddling limbs. The concrete steps carved into the side of
the pier were slippery and wet from splashing waves, and we would carefully
climb our way back up them. At the top
we would find ourselves on the pier again with the concrete burning the bottoms
of our feet with heat soaked up from the scalding sun. To soothe our feet, we would hustle back to
the edge, only to launch ourselves back into the water again. We played this game over and over again,
multiple times a day, it was our favorite pass time. The best was when we could convince Nolan, Kan-Lee, and Bob to
join us. The eight of us would take
turns jumping off, doing whatever crazy stunts we could think of. Our Palauan friends were fearless, they
would try anything, and most the time execute whatever they chose to do
well. They belong to the race of
natural athletes and had the advantage of growing up next to the ocean and
playing in it their entire lives. In the air they were as graceful as soaring
birds, and during their dives and flips they looked as smooth as dolphins. They made our game way more fun, and those
are my favorite memories from that week.
After our pier adventures we would head back to the
community building to shower, or maybe I should say, to rinse the salt water
off. The shower was simply a
stall. Three sides were paneled with what
looked to be tin roof material, up to about shoulder height with a wooden
floor. From shoulder height, to the
slightly sloped tin roof, was a wide-squared metal mesh. This could be very
awkward, since you could see out of the stall while you were rinsing off. The fourth side of the stall was open. We used a random board to cover the bottom half
of the opening, which was enough for the guys, and then my girl teammate and I
would drape our towels across what was left of the opening, sticking the ends
of the towel through the mesh to get it to hang where we needed it to. A bucket sat on the floor which we would
fill with a hose connected to the rain catchment tank. In the other corner was
a single plastic yellow chair. That was
the only dry place in the shower and even there I found it difficult to keep my
clean clothes dry while trying to get myself clean. There was a smaller cup in the bucket on the floor and using that
we tried to wash off the best we could, which never really seemed to work very
well. We had soap, but it didn’t seem
to help us feel any cleaner, and my hair never did feel right because we didn’t
have any shampoo. Between our dirty work situation, our bucket showers, and
salt water washes we always felt a little bit nasty. I was amazed at how easy it was to forget how gross we felt when
we were occupied with other things. We
spent the week this way, living in rugged simple conditions, but finding ourselves
enjoying it.
On the last day we were there the sun beat down hot,
blinding, and as strong as ever. From the beach was a light breeze wafting up
to us and cooling our sweaty bodies. The palm trees swayed around us, but none
of that mattered that day. Watch for the ball, hit the ball, pass the ball.
Focus. The faces around me danced with smiles and flashed with laughter. Dark
faces with white smiles, tanned skin with bright eyes. We still felt gross, but
we ignored it completely. It was our last night on the island and we were going
to celebrate the work we had done and the friendships we had built. Starting with this volleyball game. They had
set up the net next to the community pavilion, blocking the road that connected
to the long concrete pier. There were no more boats coming in for the day and
access to the pier was no longer needed.
Our teams trickled in, Palauans versus everyone else… no, my team verses
everyone else… no, mix it up and let’s begin. My team of five, with three
Palauans, and two other foreigners began to play in the heat of the afternoon.
As we played I
remember looking around, at the broken trees, at the scarred land and the
rubbish. I couldn’t even imagine how
beautiful it must have been before the fury of the typhoon. The ocean still
provided a sweet smell, floating around the island, perfuming every part of
this broken place. The sun was hot,
beating down, making sweat drip off our faces, but its warmth was comforting,
assurance of clear skies and a reminder of a productive week. The few standing
palms contrasted beautifully with the bright blue sky. The aquamarine water lit
up the white sand, reflecting the heat and the light of the sun back to
us. The island was stunning, even in
its destruction.
In the morning we
would roll our sleeping bags into cocoons, fold up our mosquito nets into
notebook sizes and then be ready to leave bright and early. The island and its people, especially Nolan,
Bob, and Kan-Lee, had left their mark on us.
Never had I been to a place that revolved so strongly around simplicity.
Our shared meals with the community, the ping-pong games, boat trips, and
swimming with Nolan, Bob, and Kan-Lee, the time sitting by the crackling fire
looking at the sparkles in the night sky, all seemed to mean so much more than
anything else we did. We had been
ripped away from our phones, the internet, TV, even electricity, and forgot to
notice their absence. With the simplicity we found joy in our work and in our
friends. I can only remember seeing Nolan without a smile once, and Bob and
Kan-Lee, even in their shyness, always had smiles lurking in their eyes. The strength, beauty, and continuous hope of
these islanders who had lost everything amazed me.
It was not a week
of rest for us, but it almost seemed that way when my team got back to our host
home the next week. We felt rejuvenated by the people we had come to help, who
helped us more. They had nothing left,
their houses were waterlogged and torn apart, their fields were ruined by the
salt water, their beautiful island destroyed, and yet they were the ones who
taught us what it meant to be content.
They worked hard, played hard, loved fiercely, but lived meagerly. During
our work on the school I was amazed at the skill and intensity the Palauans
worked with. Nolan was the ring leader, of his own friends, of my team, and even
the other Palauans seemed to take their cues from him. Nolan, Bob and Kan-lee seemed to be the best
general representation of the Palauan population. They were adventurous and daring, smart and bold, caring and
withdrawn. Not only were they the first
to get to work, but they were the first to make work fun, the first to call it
a day, and the first to jump off of the pier.
They cared deeply for everyone around them, which showed in the ways
they managed to help the rest of the people on the island. They loved life and loved to share it. They
were the reason our week was so wonderful.
They made the grimy work at the school worth it. They made the lack of
running water worth it. They even made the lack of real showers worth it. It
was they who really brought out the beauty in the scarred island.
The volleyball
game seemed to be the climax of everything from that week of work and all we
had learned from Nolan, Bob and Kan-Lee. We all played like our lives depended
on it. Volley after volley, fighting back and forth, over and over, getting
more intense by the minute. Then the
ball would fall, or someone would miss, and we would all laugh, pick it up and
keep going. The game was like their lives, even in simplicity they made it fun,
laughed at their failures, fought through the pain, and kept pushing on. The
people of the devastated island of Kayangel, Palau taught me so much about
simplicity and love in one week, that I will remember it for the rest of my
life.
