Learning Our Way Around the Island

We have now spent a couple of weeks getting used to this island. It has been rather fascinating to learn how things work here and to take a lot of pictures of the beautiful green landscapes. There is one major road that goes from the northern part of the island by the airport down to the southern part of the island. It is paved until you reach the southern side of the island and then it turns into a dirt road that is pretty rough and hard to drive on. We went on it to meet one of the member families and we were only able to go about 4 mph because of all the chuck holes. We were actually going up the mountain and not along the seashore. Luckily they only lived a couple of miles up this road. There is a village about 8 more miles along this road, but you are not able to take a vehicle to get there. Only about 200 people live in this village and it is very primitive. They have no power or other amenities.  The entire western side of the island which only has two very small villages can only be gotten to by boat.  This road is only wide enough for one car and the further you go on it the narrower it gets and the more chuck holes it has.

The branch in Utwe is much smaller than the one in Lelu.  We have really enjoyed getting to know some of the members in this branch.  Their building has a chapel with three very small classrooms and one office for the Branch President.  There is no air conditioning here, but the windows are louvred and they have six ceiling fans.  Every Sunday they open the windows and a nice breeze comes in and with the ceiling fans going it is rather pleasant.  At least a lot better than we thought it would be.  Sunday School, Priesthood and Relief Society are held outside under two tiki huts.  When it rains you are pretty much protected because of the tin roofs.  The only problem that you might have is walking through the puddles and mud when you leave.  Our first Sunday here we were presented with some shell necklaces by one of the members.

Our first keyboarding class in Utwe

One of the sisters in this branch wanted to know if I would teach keyboarding to them.  The senior couple before us were able to get some keyboards donated from the Church.  I believe that there are 15 keyboards on the island.  I have a couple at our house and I know some of them have been given to individual people who were learning how to play them.  Most of these were given to the seminary and institute age students, but there are some other members who also have them.  I said "sure,  I could do that" and so we have started a keyboard class with some of the Relief Society sisters in this branch.  I go on Tuesday mornings to give lessons.  They are just in the basic beginning stages of keyboarding so I am able to do this, but if they get very good, I might be in trouble.  It is hard to know how many will show up as it varys from week to week and as long as someone comes I am happy to be there teaching.  I have also started working with one of the Utwe seminary students who had lessons before and she is pretty good so I try to help her out every Wednesday after we have scripture mastery class.  I am hoping she will be able to do some accompanying in Sacrament meeting soon.  I am really enjoying doing this.

This is the seminary building that we use in Utwe.  Whoever it belongs to lets the Church use it free of charge.  It does have some power in it and we put up a fan to circulate the air.  By 3:00 in the afternoon it can get pretty warm in there.  All of the windows are just screens so it lets the air come in and if there is a breeze it helps, but there is not always a breeze.  I am really impressed with the students who have come to scripture mastery class.  They know all 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants scriptures with the verse and key words.  Our biggest problem in this area is transportation and keeping the teachers committed to hold their classes.  They are a little more spread out.  We are working on trying to help them have better attendance.

Getting gas on the island is a little different from how we do it at home.  There are no gas pumps, but they do have these gallon containers filled with gas. This station is a little bigger (at least 2 cars can pull up at the same time) and is located at an important area of the island where you can either go to Lelu Island or to Tofol, which is the capital of Kosrae.  They put this long funnel into your tank and then pour from the gallon jugs into the car.  Just like the days gone bye where they do the filling and you sit in the car.  You can also find some smaller type places around the island if you need gas somewhere else.   We have to just estimate how much gas you might need.  It is $4.25 per gallon no matter where you get it.  We are not sure of the octane but it is all we can get.

Rust is a major problem here on the island.  I guess that anything that has metal in it will rust.  With the moisture and salt air it just makes everything rusty sooner or later.  We have a number of things in our home where the rust has taken over.  Our dryer, freezer, refrigerator, and floor fans all have varying degrees of rust.  It seems to only get on the outside of appliances, but so far the inside seems to be all right.  Hinges and switches also have some trouble with the rust.  We are trying to all we can to slow it down but that remains to be seen if it will work.  One of the things we have seen on the island is many abandoned cars because they don't work and the rust and the undergrowth has totally taken them over.  We enjoy taking pictures of all these types of vehicles that we find just left in their yards or wherever.

Vines and plants have taken over this abandoned truck.

Do you think they walked away from this one?