Redefining My Possible: You are Yapesse

Diane: "you smell yapesse, your arms look yapesse, you swim yapesse, you must be yapesse."

This was the quote I recieved this afternoon after an amazing swim in the mangroves just outside gagil village. This sabbath needed to be different for me. I was tired of just staying in our apartment all sabbath afternoon so Pam and I decided to go on an adventure and solicited the help of her adopted island parents to get us a boat. I asked Thomas if we could borrow a boat without a motor to go out and anchor in the inlet and go for a swim sabbath afternoon. We had planned to bring sandwiches and have lunch but after a failed skype meeting for me it ended up being already 2pm so we just grabbed our stuff and ran out to the car. It ended up being 4 of us going:) (Pam, her "mom", sister and myself) We went to Thomas's village to get the boat but he wasn't home. We asked some of the local kids sitting on the porch of the small village church if they knew where Thomas was and they lead us to his daughter and wife in a far off hut. His wife is hilarious (Diane) and is such a joyous individual, laughing about everything with the smile of a child. She was excited and wanted to come with us, saying that her husband would paddle us out and we would be fine. Walking through the village was exactly how I pictured my SM year all along. Yet not until now, 6 months later, had I begun to actually feel "local". The locals were of course staring at the "white girls" lol and we really stuck out as a sore thumb in this small village. Walking along small dirt paths between huts made of scrap metal and whatever else is avaliable really made me begin to think about everything I had, even as an SM as far as worldly possessions. The cooking smoke pouring from the mesh sidings, little naked kids running around, playing with broken CDs, dirty soccer balls and dragging around cans on a string. We walked down to the man groves and were expecting to find a small canoe or something small boat that we would captain out to the ocean but instead Thomas pushed this HUGE orange and blue boat out of the trees and handed us two giant bamboo paddles. We looked at eachother and laughed and accepted the paddles with a sense of adventure. All four of us hopped in and started off manouvering our way through the mangroves with Diane laughing and joking everytime we would run into the tress. The passages were narrow but we finally made it out into more open water out by the school dock. It was pretty muddy so we moved back into the channel to have deeper water. I had to go in with flair so I flipped into the water off the side of the boat and all the local kids that had gathered by now were cheering wildly. The kids of course swim....very free....yes, naked. They don't care about social inuendos. The boys were wearing what they call "thues" which is basically a simple fabric wrapped strategically around their bottoms...but not nessisarily covering very much lol. The girls are often without tops in the villages but mainly outter islanders. It was so refreshing to be out there since it was another scourcher of a day. Not much breeze so the air is thick with humidity and its hard to breathe. We returned to the village and got many supper invitations but had to decline and head back to the school. I graciously accepted the small wrapped food offering from one of the small kids that was swimming in the mangroves with us. It was a palm branch wrapped around a ball of white rice. He offered it to me with two hands, bowing his head to me graciously, the way they show respect to someone that is older. But before we could leave they insisted we take a "yapesse" shower. This "yapesse shower" consists of grabbing a container out of HUGE barrel of rain water and proceeding to dump it over your head. They follow their showers with an application of their "local oil" on the skin to prevent sunburn or peeling. They use local medicine for EVERYTHING here. It's basically a mixture of coconut oil and island herbs. Apparently it gets rid of sun spots so I must get a hold of some of that soon since I have REALLY bad sun spots on both my shoulders from this blazin island SUN! When I first arrived here in Yap and smelled the local coconut oil for the first time I gaged big time. Actually I am still getting use to the smell. But I politely took the small bottle and applied it to my arms. This was when I was given the quote from Diane at the beginning of this blog...

"you must now be yapese."

I chuckled with her.
I love to hear their accent here. They actually go up in volume in the middle of their sentence kind of like a question...you have to hear it to understand it....

Before leaving I was taught how to put in a local yapese comb to hold up my hair. I have seen all the girls in school using this thing called the "yapesse comb" and it really intreguied me as I would watch them gracefully twirl their hair in a tight bun and slide thsi comb into place. There is no need to hari elastics and you always have a comb handy. It is amazing how they do it and now as I sit here and write I have one holding up my ocean soaked locks :)

After a night of intense dutch blitz rounds in the principals apartment and a feast of phillipeno food I prepare myself to fly off to Hawaii with Andrea to get surgery on her ankle. There are no predictable days here and as I get ready to leave, I leave this school in God's hands. Hoping and praying that I can return in a week to everyone still in tack and in good health. We have not yet had a fully working staff list since I arrived at the school 5 months ago. There has ALWAYS been someone sick or injured, or leaving the island for surgery or recovery. Pam for apendicitis, Andrea of Dengue Fever, I have been sick with the flu a few times.....The devil is working so hard to get us all discouraged.