3 posts from 2006

"Your job now is to get settled in," boomed the Speaker from his wheelchair.  I  just spent the morning trying to tie up loose ends with my housing arrangement, calling from department to department.  Sitting on the leather sofa in outside of the Speaker's office, I listened to him speaking to my new landlord in Palauan.  The only word I could make out was may name.  Note to self - must. learn. palauan.

This morning, Linda informed me that I needed to change my contract to reflect the security deposit for housing, otherwise, they couldn't give me any money from finance.  So, I amended my own contract to talk about housing and brought it down to the Speaker, who wasn't there.  "It must be done this morning," Imelda had warned me on the phone.

"The Speaker doesn't like the arrangement," Linda informed me through a mouthful of betelnut. I felt a knot in my stomach.  You know, the knot when you get frustrated and annoyed and tired and have no recourse but to smile and keep going through the system like a little rat looking for cheese.  Speaking of cheese, I haven't seen anything here but kraft singles and shredded crackerbarrel.  This is starting to distress me.  But, I digress.

So, we look for alternate housing because I simply must be out of the hotel this weekend.  I am okay with staying there, but it's getting costly for the government and it would be nice to be able to cook my own food for once. Looking for housing in Palau is quite different than in the United States.  There is no sunny sickly-sweet real estate agent with a power blonde bob and a fistful of keys. 

"Look...it's nice!" Linda proclaims, standing on her tiptoes and peering through a Senator's window.  Pua is making her way around the back to check out the beach.

"Linda!" I hiss,"That's not the side that's for rent and you know it!"  In Palau, word of mouth travels faster than the phone lines, and that's how you get your property advertised.  Linda called the Speaker's assistant, who called a friend who called the Senator, who has a place, but isn't home, so why don't we just poke around?  And, next Linda's cousin has a place with two floors, so...

"Ay, curtain-es.  Maybe," Linda trails off as we try to peer around the back of her cousin's house from the second floor.  The railing split off and the back of the house only has a ledge on the second floor that seems to be crumbling away. We both look down.  Maybe not.

And so we returned to the capitol, where I sat down with the Speaker, who was already on the phone, getting my money all set for my new place in Melekeok.  It's supposed to be here by 4:30.  However, given my morning, I am not holding my breath.

Lessons learned: 1) The grapevine is the most effective means for communication in Palau, though unreliable and often malicious.  Use with great caution.  2) Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING happens as it is supposed to or when it is supposed to.  The proper reaction to this lesson is to sit back and smile, because you really can't do much about it anyway.  It all comes out in the wash.

"It is so HOT out here," Rhea said, covering herself with a sarong to shield her skin from the sun.  I could feel the sun burning through my carefully applied SPF 55 with Helioplex.  Apparently Neutrogena didn't consider the Pacific Islands when testing their products. 

Christmas Day.  For me, those two words usually conjure up images of ripping open piles of presents with my family after eating a huge meal and watching the snow drift by the windows outside. And on this Christmas Day, that's all that was - an image.

On this Christmas Day, I met up with David, Garth and Rhea to head out to the Rock Islands, the postcard Palau that I had yet to see.  They assured me that I would not be disappointed.  As we sped through the crystal blue water, surrounded by tiny islands of coral jutting out of the sea, bursting with wild green plant life, I can assure you that I wasn't.

I met David at the end of my first week at the office.  He was the first American I'd met, and I had begun to wonder if any of these American or ex-pat lawyers existed in Palau.  That weekend, I had my first visit to Kramer's, which I am sure will reappear more than once in this blog as my year progresses.

"It's like Cheers, except on an island," Renee, the owner of Kramer's informs me as we watch people slowly filter in and out of the bar.  Renee is from Germany originally, doing stints in California and various other worldly locations before ending up in Palau.  His wife, Jane, helps to run the bar, dishing out advice as she winks at me over the counter.  "Don't trust any of these guys!" she yells playfully, sliding a beer to a customer.

Despite the wet blanket of heat that had settled over my shoulders and the blaring Christmas music streaming through the speakers, I had a great time meeting the local Haule population of Palau.  I'm sure I've messed up the spelling, but Haule essentially means "white person."  You can interpret that however you want, but it's not always said in the nicest of ways here.  In the circle of people who frequent Kramer's, Haules use the term to affectionately classify themselves in an amusing way.

And so Christmas rolled around and we boarded the boat for a nice sunny day of relaxation.  I wish I could go into greater detail about the scenes of the Rock Islands, but my words can't compare to the pictures.  There are only so many times you can say "crystal clear" or "impossibly beautiful."  I had to put my camera down at one point for fear it would become attached to my head.  And that's what it looks like.  An impossibly beautiful, crystal clear blue ocean, speckled with tiny eruptions of rock and lush green foliage and white sand beaches shaded by palm trees, surrounding you, no matter where you look. 

We settled on a deserted little island for a lunch break after David and Garth decided our first choice was too crowded.  Two families had anchored there.  "See, there are so many islands here, if one person's there already, it's crowded," Garth said as David turned the boat around.

On the island, I dug my feet into the sand and listened to the advice of the more seasoned attorneys.  "Everyone in Palau is here for a reason.  Some of them are good reasons, some of them are not so good.  You'll see for yourself in time."  I'm certain I will. 

As we made our way back to the "marina" area (loosely described - some boats tethered to concrete), the Rock Islands slowly disappeared and we were faced with nothing but ocean that seemed to go on forever, stopping at the horizon point and flowing off of the side of the earth.  As I propped my feet up on the cooler in front of me and leaned back into my seat, letting the wind cool my sunburned skin, I realized that on this Christmas, there really was nowhere else I'd rather be. 

"Have you heard of Fall Out Boy?" Russel asks me, fidgeting with the Phillip's MP3 player.  I think of Sage in her back brace, screaming along to "Dance, Dance" at the Loft a few months ago and smile.  "Yeah," I reply as Russel turns the music up.  I gaze outside at the hillside as we speed along the dirt road at a neck-breaking 35 miles per hour.  The hillside is saturated in the kind of greens you don't get in New England, bursting with subtle glossy yellow undertones.  Beyond every hill there is ocean, bright blue and clear, the beaches littered with tiny colorful houses and stores.  This is the best drive to work I've ever had.

Russel follows my gaze out the window to a small plot of land covered in short plants with Jurassic Park style leaves.  "Taro," he says,"the brown ones have the biggest leaves."  Taro is this starchy potato type of vegetable that can be brownish yellow or purple.  It's a Palauan staple and when I announced that it would be good with truffle oil the other day at lunch my coworkers just looked at me blankly.

We stop at a tiny market that is practically falling into the ocean behind it.  A woman and her little girl point out the obvious - "fried banana" and the not so obvious, "betelnut."  I buy some lunch and take a picture of a sign and get back into the car.  Betelnut is a local custom.  I can only liken it to dipping tobacco.  Locals take betelnut, mash it with a line of white coal and place it in a leaf, sometimes with tobacco, and press it to their gums for a little pick-me-up, the result of which is a bright red saliva.  Linda, the secretary in the office, always has a betelnut in her mouth and sometimes I can't understand her. 

About a mile further we encounter three ladies standing over the hood of a smoking car.  Russel gets out and helps the ladies to pour water into the radiator as they all chat in Palauan.  I read before I came here that English was "widely spoken."  In government documents.  Palauan reigns here, as it should, a melodic language of k's prounounced as soft g's and combinations of Ng that confuse the hell out of me.  Russel pops back into the car. "Cousins," he says, matter-of-factly.  Everyone here is related in some manner.  It's not incestuous, though - in order to marry, you must look through lineage to determine whether your future spouse is related to you even through tens of generations. 

We take the most circuituous route to work so that Russel can show me the sites.  He used to work for the Palau Visitor's Authority.  As we ride along, he tells me stories of the great warriors and the Breadfruit Tree, Palauan divorce customs and funeral services.  It's a lot to take in. I'm trying also to absorb as much as I can about the language.  Certain words are easy - Alii means hello.  Oy means yes.  The rest, not so much.  I try to repeat Imelda, my boss, as she prounounces the name of a fried banana bread ball (so good!). She just laughs.  I guess in time I'll get better.

As I write this, I can hear laughter in the hallway.  The people in the office go beyond congenial.  They are warm, fun-loving and rich with pride for their country.  Life rules over work.  Family rules over money.  Storytelling is still a rich tradition and gathering to share meals is an important part of each day.  I know that over the coming year, I'm going to have trying times, picturing my friends partying together in Aspen or my family at dinner with my Grandma.  I know I'm going to get frustrated with my lack of knowledge of the Palauan language or cravings for the elusive latte (evaporated milk, ma'am?).  But, overall, I think that I can learn so many beautiful things about this country, and about myself while I'm here.