danaleeling

Kousapw Dolihner celebrated Rahn en Tiahk with a day of food, dancing, racing, and whole lot of fun at the Pohnpei state track and field. The kousapw divided into three sections, white, red (radio station), and blue. First section dances with enthusiasm. Seeing the kousapw out and celebrating as a community was reassuring. Kousapw Dolihner at times appears to be a land unit comprised primarily of transient mehnwai. That there is still an active and vibrant traditional presence in the kousapw is a credit to the traditional leadership including forces such as Estanis Suldan and Augustine Damarlane. Section three dancing with vigor. Section two radio station. Racing included all age groups. Here the youngest female athletes compete, with everyone winning a prize. My youngest toes the line in her age group. Despite the inside lane, she was unable to pull off a win. Just as well, I did not want to have to do the perfunctory parental dance in the middle of the track on behalf of my absent wi...

Pohlauli lingen en Pein Soaratail : A celebration of and pride in our unique identity. In attendance were the Nahnmwarki of U and Iso Nahnken Nett, along with their wives. Recitations, songs, and dances were performed by early childhood education center children, the present appellation for kindergarten on the island of Pohnpei. Presenting sakau to the traditional leadership. The Microsorum scolopendria mwarmwar provides traditional protection for the dancer when dancing outside of their kousapw .  Getting ready to perform a dokia dance. A group of youth from Wone in Kitti perform their traditional dance form.

Dinner at Arnold's new restaurant. As a wrap up to a couple weeks of single parenting, I took the kids out to a new restaurant on island as a thank-you for all their assistance during the previous two weeks. Although the menu is broader than pizza, pizza is what they wanted.

The College of Micronesias-FSM celebrated founding day on 30 March 2010. On even years, the college celebrates founding day with sport events. Preceding the actual founding day, the students compete in volleyball, basketball, and softball. On the founding day the college gathers at the Pohnpei state track for races and field events. This year the 200 meter race was run on the "back" 200 meters of the track due to the poor condition of the first 100 meters of the "front" 200 meters. The east side of the track has large folds in the surface. Above the men compete in the 200 meter race. The women's 200 meter race.  Rounding the corner. Sack race action. Other events included the easy dizzy relay, coconut husking, and a tug-of -war. Sack race, team green having difficulties in the transition.

These days I am more often running as the sun sets, but once in a while I still slip out for an evening of pounded roots. As the sun drops below the ridge line in Dien and warm, yellow sunlight fills the sky overhead, there are few happier places one can be.  Upon hearing that the sakau was Oaulik's own stock, I arrived early ahead of the crowd.  Oaulik en Dien, Soumas en kousapw.  Sabodan.  Luke snags a picture of a mehnwai who still occasionally haunts the markets of Dien. Sunset in Dien, sakau in hand. All is good.

The first birthday of a first child and a first grandson was celebrated on Wednesday evening with a gathering of both extended families. Schoolmates, early in the evening before the free-for-all wrestling match on the good green grass of childhood. Classmates. The one on the right is now an aunt to the baby at the center of the celebration. The father's side of the family including dad. Mother and a niece-in-law. Very happy grandparents. Eunice Anson Salvador with Grandma Yamada. Paul Salvador.

As noted in the previous blog , two evenings ago I exceeded an average of 400 cumulative minutes of running over a seven day period for three month period of time. The use of seven day cumulative time was based on the parallelism I saw in a pedometer versus weekly time chart back in November 2008. By early 2009 I was focused only on the seven day cumulative time and on obtaining 200 minutes per seven days in that metric. This focus proved myopic and in December 2009 I sought to move beyond the 200 minute focus and reverse a downward trend in my running during 2009.  I survived my own exuberance which saw me hit 500 minutes in the first seven days after 21 December. At that point I had badly broken the " 10% rule " and was sure I would bonk or injure myself. And I may yet do so. Three months later, however, and no parts have fallen off of me as yet. My goal is not to necessarily maintain this level of running, just to run an hour a day every possible day. There is no inten...

The first fund raiser for the Dr. Eliuel K. Pretrick Memorial Scholarship was a 5K walk/run this morning at Palm Terrace. On his way to 39:28 finish. Last year, Penny Weilbacher, Iris Falcam, Moses Pretrick, Lore Nena and Jim Tobin formed the Dr. Eliuel K. Pretrick Memorial Scholarship committee and have recently become a certified FSM NGO with the FSM Government. Penny is the chair and Jim Tobin is the secretary/treasurer with Moses and Lore as board members. Lore, Penny, Jazmin, and Sue.    A side-stitch slowed her to a 41:31 finish. The goal is to award one $10,000 scholarship annually to an FSM citizen who wishes to attend a four year university with a goal to receive a bachelor’s degree in physical education or a sport related field.  The scholarship is for a 3 rd or 4 th year student.  The hope is to award the first scholarship in 2010. First place and inaugural winner of the 5k. I joggled to a 27:15 finish, a respectable time for me. I had not ta...

On the 17th and 9th of March the spring 2010 ethnobotany class did individual presentations on material culture. Fritzgerald reports on the many uses of dipnihd , coconut husk fiber. Yorida presented a mwarmwar made of seirenwai . Marcia presents a Kosraean pahl . Iumileen presents a traditional basket, kopwou . Jeffrey presents a ngarangar . When filled with sakau the cup is called a kohwa. The cup shown belongs to his grandfather and Jeffrey needed explicit permission to remove the cup from his home. Sweeter and Jessica also show off their family ngarangar . Lolyn displays an image of a Marshallese navigation chart.

Marekeiso is the term used when putting/applying coconut oil on the Nahnmwariki’s body only. For everyone else, Pohnpeians use the word kei . Leh is oil, the generic phrase for coconut oil. Kei refers to oil applied to a human body. Lehn kalangi is the name of the first leh or oil and/or the initial oiling of the Nahnmwariki’s body right after the 4th serving (cup/ ngarangar ) of the first sakau ( ahmwadang ) is presented. The second time oil is called for and applied the oil is referred to as marekeiso . Lehn kalangi and marekeiso are employed only with the presence of the Nahnmwariki. To use the terms lehn kalangi or marekeiso in other contexts is culturally improper. When the menindei calls " ansouhn lehn kalangi ," he is calling for first oiling of the king. Put another way, if one calls coconut oil " marekeiso " and then applies that oil to a person, one is effectively acknowledging that the person is their...

Laboratory ten  in physical science explored the mathematical relationships for reflection from a plane mirror and apparent depth of an object under water. Jessica and Syd-Lee measure the actual depth of a coin in water. Nancyleen uses her finger to find the apparent depth of a coin in water, Cecelia and Irving assist. Brigida, Melojane, and Marla consider their calculations. Madlene works on the relationship between the object and image distance for a plane mirror. Mayleen measures the apparent depth of a coin. Eliander and Steward measure the actual depth of the coin in the graduated cylinder. Joan and Lorry-Ann working on the apparent depth due to refraction. Rosthom and Charlie measure the object and image distance from a mirror. Kesusa records data as Nick makes measurements.

Two experts on art done with crayons were recruited to help evaluate the cloud drawings done by the students in physical science laboratory eight . Here the judges are sorting the images by overall quality of the cloud image, a rank ordering system. Once ordered, the rubric was applied to reach a final mark for each cloud drawing.