Bad Volunteer HOME

EXCERPTS
Foreword
The Dinner Party
Spaz Attack

Outline

About the Author

Music From Micronesia

CONTACT INFO:
Mary Flannery
309 Fourth Street, SE #2
Washington, DC 20003
202.546.0536 (home)
202.270.3696 (cell)
MaryLFlannery@hotmail.com

Yellowcat Productions Website

EXCERPTS
from The Bad Volunteer

a book by Mary Flannery

FLOUNDERING IN TRUK LAGOON

O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!
--William Shakespeare, The Tempest

I sit alone on my foam rubber mattress, pieces of my Micro wardrobe, hippie skirts and moomoos, hang on a line strung from the wall behind me to the louvered windows looking onto the Pacific Ocean. I am without compass, calendar, or mirror. How long have I been gone now? Almost two weeks? Already it seems like forever.

Descending onto the little runway on Moen, the capital of Truk, jerking and ducking in and out of big billowy clouds, we could see lush volcanic isles rise jaggedly or in graceful mossy mounds out of the sparkling turquoise sea. From a distance Truk is every bit as beautiful as I had imagined.

Closer up, the island of Moen is a tropical mountain, with a bunch of shanty villages strung along the bottom by the shore. Dirty old pick-up trucks filled with passengers and rice sacks bump and rattle along the main road. Pedestrians meander, ignoring the splatters of dust and mud kicked up from the backs of their flip-flops. There are no sidewalks to speak of.

Domingko, the Peace Corps director of Truk, shepherded us all around town--seven trainees, plus Waneen the Training Director, and our three Trukese trainers. They took us shopping, and to the bank so we could open up checking accounts. We learned about ten Trukese words. We met some government big wigs with whom we drank Mountain Dew while waiting for the Governor, who never showed up.

Shopping in FSM is like China at its worst--totally drab, with no attempt at enticing displays or colorful arrangements. Profit doesn't appear to be the motive. The big supermarket in town, Truk Trading Company (TTC), is stocked with canned goods from America, Australia and Japan. A few restaurants serve instant coffee, eggs, rice and adobo, a kind of Filipino shake 'n bake. We are not allowed to patronize the illegal liquor stores or discos until we become full fledged volunteers. Drinking is a criminal offense in Truk, and if any trainees are caught, they will be shipped home post-haste.

We met the current Peace Corps Volunteers. They only have eight months to go. Veronica, the one woman among them, says that in Truk hardly any female volunteers last the full two years. She blames it on the ultra-macho attitude of Micronesian men. Culturally they have little respect for lone females with no family ties. Nor do they appreciate women advising them in matters of economic development or health. I wonder how she has managed to hang on this long. I think it's because she has a boyfriend, Rick, another volunteer. I wonder how long I will last.

After two days on Moen we were ferried out to the nearby island of Fefan, where we will remain for eight weeks of training. Once a week we'll go into Moen to buy supplies, get money, go to the post office, and hopefully get bundles of mail from home.

Upon our arrival on Fefan, we were taken to the training site for a feast. Everyone sat on palm fronds under a big thatched canopy, a place which I believe usually serves as a men's club. We were each served a cafeteria tray heaped with bananas, fish, fried chicken, pineapple, watermelon, coconut juice, and breadfruit, which is basically a giant sticky yellowish leaden starch that grows on trees. We ate with our hands, the other trainees and I spilling all over ourselves. Domingko gave a speech. The Magistrate of Fefan gave a speech. Then we were assigned to our families.

When they introduced my father I was busy trying to figure out what to do with my sticky fingers, and looking around for the coconut that I kept knocking over. Next thing I know I've got a mwaramwar, a lei, draped around my neck and there, standing above me, is my new father, Rafael Gatlin, in his Hawaiian shirt. He's clean shaven, curly haired, and not as heavy as most Micronesians past the age of 25. He was smiling as he stepped back from bestowing my mwaramwar. "Kirisou chapur," I muttered. Thank you very much. After the feast, the Peace Corps pick-up truck dropped the volunteers off one by one at our respective houses.

The Gatlin house consists of a kitchen, a filthy little bathroom with minimal amenities, and a bedroom, which is all mine. They have a pool hall attached to a shop, which is attached to the house. No sooner had I hauled in my giant backpacks and duffel bags, and dumped them in my private bedroom, than a group of boisterous buxom women clad in short shorts and midriff tops came over to play pool with the guys. I was shocked.

We've already talked quite a bit with our trainers about proper female behavior around here. It's fundamental to the whole culture. If you don't abide by the rules, you'll never get any respect. Thighs must always be covered. A woman can't even walk in front of a man if he is sitting on the ground, because it's like parading your crotch right in front of his eyes. The proper thing to do is drop to your knees and crawl on by. According to everything I've been taught, these pool hall chicks were way out of line.

They told me to come down the road at three o'clock to Bill's house, where they were going to give a dance performance. Bill is another trainee. I wanted to see what kind of family arrangement he has, and I figured he might have some insights regarding the strange dress code and casual demeanor of the hot pants girls. Besides, there wasn't anything else to do. Anchi and Sawako, two of the little Gatlin children, took me over.

We arrived to find Bill, big fat and greasy, lolling on a beat-up old couch, chowing down another trayful of food, surrounded by the scantily clad dancing girls. Grease and rice dripped down his chin, onto his wilted lei.

The performance was delayed when the girls discovered their boombox was broken. I offered my Toshiba, and Bill went with me to fetch it. I couldn't wait to ask him what was going on. What were these young women doing, exposing their thighs so shamelessly? "Are they prostitutes or what?" I wailed. He took immediate offense and told me not to speak rudely of his family. He said they're half Palauan or something, and live on Moen. Like that's supposed to explain anything.

When we got back to Bill's, all the neighbors had gathered on pandanus mats in front of the house, and the show began. The girls performed a potpourri of dances: Hawaiian, Palauan, Tahitian, and a disco number to the strains of "Little Red Corvette" by Prince. They changed into a different skimpy costume for each dance.

At home after the concert I made some Jiffy Pop on the kerosene stove. Popcorn and granola bars and tea are all available in Truk, at least in the main lagoon. All those specialty items I brought as gifts aren't the exotic treats I'd hoped they'd be. Still, they had never seen Jiffy Pop, and they got a minor charge out of watching me do my kitchen magic with the smashed up old foil pan that I had dragged all the way across the Pacific for their benefit.

Anna and Rafael are my new parents. They both speak English pretty well. Rafael is a math teacher at the elementary school across the street from our house. During the summer he's taking Education courses on Moen. Anna has a full-time job in the Government Finance Office. She was there the day we toured the offices with our Mountain Dews. They have six children. The oldest son is nine years old. He lives with relatives on Moen. The oldest one here is Ellen, age seven. Half her head is bald and I don't know why. Dennis, the baby, is ten months old.

Besides the Gatlins, a few dozen relatives and neighbors are always hanging out, and thoroughly confusing my sense of order or recognition. As a female, I should lower my eyes and generally retreat from the presence of men. So how am I supposed to connect those faces, which I can't really study, to names, which I can't remember, and then figure out how everyone is related?

I feel pretty useless as far as helping out around the house. I make Dennis cry. I take an hour in the shower, which they call doodoo, trying to get clean with one bucket while keeping my lavalava tied around me in case night crawlers come peeping around, which is customary I guess. I'm supposed to keep my underpants on, under my lavalava, while I'm doodooing, but I haven't mastered that one yet. I don't think anyone uses the bathroom but me. I wonder where they all go.

Our house is right on the Japanese dock. It's made of plywood, with a layer of linoleum covering the cement floor. The furniture consists of one low table for eating and a slice of foam rubber which is my bed. The side yard leading out to the dock is strewn with coconut husks and rusty old refrigerators. Pigs snarf and snuffle through the refuse. My bedroom is in the back of the house facing the ocean. Mangroves brush against the windows. I think I've displaced the whole family, and they're now forced to sleep on the floor of their roadside popstand, woe is me.

Last night I hung out with Muria across the street. She is a seamstress, the daughter of Rafael's sister. She speaks English pretty well, and I'm thinking maybe she and I will become friends. I sat around with her and her mom, leafing through about ten huge books of faded family photographs by the kerosene lamp. Everyone looks the same. They served me canned pears.

This morning before church, the old man who lives next door came over , and spoke Japanese with me. Mine was pretty rusty, but it was the only way we could communicate. He mostly tried to explain who was related to whom and how. I've really got to learn how to banter in Trukese. Until then I am a lost soul.

The church is a one-room stone building up on a hill overlooking the sea. I went with Anna and the kids. I know it's Protestant, but I don't know if it's any specific denomination. Rafael is Catholic, so he went elsewhere. The service was very casual, sitting on the floor, men on one side of the room, women on the other. Most of the time is spent singing, their voices rising up in loud and perfect harmony under the corrugated tin roof.

This afternoon everyone was busy with "field day" practice next to the Gatlins' house. I probably should've hung out and watched, but it was nice and quiet inside. I wrote letters.

The sea by the sea by the beautiful sea. The water invites me, but I hesitate to enter, not being savvy to the habits of jellyfish which I saw floating around the dock when our boat landed here yesterday. Also, I don't much feel like donning my ridiculous swimming gear--knee-length yellow culottes and Elton John style prescription mask--and giving the Trukese the laugh of their lives.

I flounder pretty badly, tripping and falling over strange terrain, slowly responding to greetings, trying to remember, is it afternoon or evening? Is it a man? Then somehow I should respond curtly and turn away, but still somehow be polite. Comforts are few and far between, especially when you have to sit so funny. You're supposed to sit with legs kind of off to the side, which I find practically impossible after about five minutes. The heat never lets up, nor do the bugs.

Patient as I try to be, I feel faith in myself eking out. Listlessness and lack of any kind of drive to join the human race seem to take over. I wonder when all this will cease to feel like I've come, at the end of my marriageless youth, to rot on the outer edges of the planet. Tomorrow is my first official day of training. It will be good to get back together with my fellow trainees again. In a couple of months I won't even have them.