Looking Back

It has come to my attention that I have been very bad a blogging the last 3 months. Dear Alex has been so good at pointing out that since I am back in the states I should have the time to keep things up to date. This being said I have started the slow process of remembering all that has happened since my last blog (that being the tour of Pohnpei). There are no pictures at this time however because my laptop is in disrepair and can't be used at the present moment. Things might be slightly out of order...but I am sure that you will indeed survive. :)

I do believe that 7 years is going to be too long. It has been nearly 3 months since I left beautiful Pohnpei; I have had time to reflect about my adventures, tell my stories and laugh about those not so pleasant experiences. I catch myself constantly referring to my students as “my kids” which at times is greeted with a curious eyebrow raise or a cautious comment about my age and who the father of MY KIDS might be.

I miss the island of Pohnpei, given the chance I would talk about Pohnpei all day long, but I know that my friends would certainly tire of it. On the last day of school I told my children that I would be back in 7 years; they would be graduating from 8th grade and I would be their proud 1st grade teacher who would be able to point them out and say “Oh there is Wolfgang, I taught him how to read.” On the other hand my aid wants me to come back when I am married, for she would like to meet my husband. I informed her that it would certainly be a long wait, since when one is single it is very hard to set a year on when you are going to return to a place if you are suppose to be married when you do in fact return. Seven years sounds about right, surely by then even someone as picky as I might actually be married.

The last day of school was filled with laughter, tears, and good-byes. My students came in bearing food and gifts. The gifts I received from my students I will keep forever. Chad got a hold of my camera early on; he enjoyed snapping random pictures that actually turned out rather well…digital is a wonderful thing. We played musical chairs and then I shooed them outside for our group picture. On the stairs sat 15 little 1st graders in little white shirts (I was missing 3 of my kids) decorated in their own fashion and their teacher proudly wearing a shirt with special drawings on the front and 17 little hand prints on the back. Picture taking of course took a little bit of time, as any of you can guess; small kids are very unwilling to sit for long periods of time and usually smiling without making any type of hand signal is totally out of the question. But in the end we did get a somewhat descent picture.

The two 1st grade classrooms joined and while Miss Silva organized a game of Red Rover, little Arianne took my hand and requested that I push her on the swings. Knowing that this was quite possibly the last time I had the privilege to push this little angel on the swings I willingly obliged. Arianne is by far one of the cutest sweetest little girls that I have ever met. Whenever teacher was having a bad day I would find a little paper heart, cut out of note book paper, with a little inscription scrawled in the very best 1st grade handwriting “Miss Ford I love you” at which point in the words of Felicia all I could say was “Oh Buh!”

At the end of our school day I gave each one of my students a kiss, hugged them tight, told them to behave the next year, and handed them a small goody bag. With that they left and I cleaned up our disastrous classroom.

The end

Our last week is Pohnpei was full of preparation, there were goodbyes to be said, an apartment to be cleaned and a very dirty and disorganized classroom cleaned and otherwise organized in every way possible. On Monday we said good-bye to the McGuire’s, I wasn’t particularly sad to see them leave…but I knew that I should at least see them off at the air port.

Tuesday found me in my classroom. I organized my desk, took down all decorations my kids had given me, washed the chalk board, packed away flash cards, books, workbooks, and teachers editions; I bleached all 20 small desks, swept away the cobwebs that had taken up residents in the windows and up on the ceiling. Near the end of the day my aid showed up (she had been working outside), with her help we attacked our very dirty floor with two stiff brooms. Finishing with the cleaning bit, I wrote a note for the next 1st grade teacher and left it in the top drawer of my desk. Then I walked out of my classroom and locked the door. The rest of the week was such a rush that I didn’t stop by to take one last look.

On Wednesday the first wave of SMs left. With 13 gone, the other half of us felt rather incomplete. We said good-bye and cried a good deal, promising each other that we would keep in touch and suddenly they were gone. Back at the apartment we continued to pack, knowing that Friday was coming soon and there was still so much to do.

We found ourselves at the airport on Thursday waving good-bye to Rusty and Alex. I never particularly liked either of them all that much, but after 10 months I suppose their rudeness and lack of communication had grown on me enough to see them off at the airport. Becky was in a mischievous mood and went around hugging everyone who was there to see the boys off and left little smiley stickers on their backs for them to find later. Marla and I joined in on the fun and soon had everyone sticking stickers on everyone else. That night the remaining 11 SMs had a potluck and we had a grand time…that is until we remembered that there was still packing to be done.

Friday I was up well before everyone else. Becky was still unconscious in our room and her stuff was scattered all over the living room. Early on we had decided to leave 2 days later because Becky insisted that she needed more time to pack. But in reality Becky is one of those people who pack the day of and still somehow make it to the airport with time to spare. Marla, Eric and I left around 10:30 for the airport. We needed to get our luggage checked and well we didn’t want to miss our flight and figured that Becky would show up hopefully before the final boarding call. It was first feared that our bags would be overweight, but as it turned out, if the security check dude could lift the bags with one arm…we were in the clear.
Marla and I nervously waited for Becky to arrive. Eric and Joan had returned and we all started to wonder if Becky would indeed make it in time. Suddenly I saw the yellow truck pull up next to the curb; a surf board was protruding out of the back. Becky appeared a short time later and was able to check in with time to spare. I was amazed.
As the time drew near to go through security we began to say good-bye to the remaining SMs and the other staff. Marla was crying and it was all that I could do to not cry. I knew that there was a chance that I would never see these wonderful people again and it just about broke my heart to think that for the next 7 years or so I wouldn’t be able to see any of them. I said good-bye, walked into security and looked back with tears welding up in my eyes. My life as a teacher was ending, sighing I walked into the waiting room and sat down next to an elderly couple. Surprisingly they were missionaries as well, I can’t remember what denomination they were from, but we had a very nice conversation sitting there waiting for our plane to arrive. I introduced my traveling companions to them and we talked for a good 30 minutes.
As we boarded our plane I took one more look at beautiful Pohnpei. I stared at Sokeh’s Rock, realizing how much I was going to miss that large hunk of rock. It was my favorite place on the island, once on top you could see for miles all around. I found my seat near the front of the plane, sitting down I looked out the window for a few minutes. The excitement inside me mounted as the plane raced down the runway 20 minutes later. Peering out the window I watched the outer reef grow smaller and smaller, deep blue ocean lay below us, whitecaps could be seen here and there…within a few minutes my island home of 10 months was gone, leaning back in my seat I thought to myself that perhaps one day I would be back and the first things to greet me from my airplane window would be the outer reef, blue clear water and Sokeh’s Rock.