Bone Dry

Shades of tattered blue. Azure bandanas. Cerulean sweats. Turquoise tank tops. Carolina spray paint up and down legs and arms. Cobalt shorts saved especially for the one day of the year that the exception is made for showing skin above the knees. While for most teams, the concept of a uniform is nothing more than varying hues of a designated primary color, Ichkumi stormed the field with a more unified front. Though it bore no meaning for any of the hundreds of athletes or onlookers, I couldn’t help but notice the smile escaping from my lips - born of nothing more than the pride of seeing that glorious combination of 6 letters screen printed on the chest. Racer back singlets with LOYOLA scripted across the front. Loyola T-shirts that boast of the foreign school’s athletic prowess, and old spikes whose holes and battered laces now hold bilingual secrets of battles fought and races won.

The inner edge of the track was outlined by the remains of freshly whacked bushes and the outer edge of the dirt oval was subjectively created by the crowds of multi-colored clad fans. Grown men barreling around what may or may not have been a 200 meter track, so fast that they turn the corners running sideways because of the way the momentum propels them. The rhythm of pounding feet guided by the chorus of encouragement from the sidelines. Young women, whose field consisted of no one older than 14, circling the ring with rosaries around the neck, cross in the mouth. Noisemakers created by the raucous melody of hundreds of hands banging empty water bottles together. Stems of coconut leaves became official relay batons. Speaking of official, while the day was filled with heated competition, it was all as official as the idea of me officiating the finish line!

The weekend away at Fefan, especially in the midst of turmoil going on at Xavier was wonderful, but perhaps even more exciting than the day itself was the trek from the “kuranto” or the dirt ring the Chuukese like to call a field, to the church to stay with my host family. The track meet ended around 5:30 with the arrest, restraint and removal of a drunk guy who had wandered onto the field. In typical Chuukese style, we waited….waited…waited at the dock until about 7:30 when the motor boat finally came back to take a few of us part of the 5 miles stretch back to the church before taking the rest of the boatful back to Weno. Squished in between two ideally round Chuukese ladies, neither of whom I knew, I found myself comfortably enjoying the tranquility of the evening on the water and the contemplation such peacefulness evokes. Gradually however, the gentle splash of saltwater started tasting less and less salty until the once forgiving night sky turned angry and deluged a passionate fury. My behind, which was so comfortable just seconds earlier, now sat in a pool of water up to my waist, and as my clothes soaked through, I think for the first time since I’ve been here, I heard my teeth chatter. As we docked, the boat operator handed me my bags – one with my remaining supply of dry clothes and the other containing the stacks of grading that I had to do – neither of which I could really afford to get wet. Though I had taken the precaution of wrapping them in garbage bags, I was certain that they were just as, if not more soaked than I currently was.

So about 8:30, we began to make the 2 mile journey home, and I don’t think that the situation would have been quite as bad if it hadn’t been pouring rain, or if we had a flashlight to navigate the pitch black. Fortunately, the feeling of each of the steps that followed was a more than perfect metaphorical representation of the reality of these past 2 weeks, and though at the time it was terrifying, I suppose it was worth it to be able to encapsulate and articulate my sentiments.

There was definitely a path we were following, but by path I mean what my feet identified as broken concrete which became slick as ice when the sheer layer of moss covering it got wet, jagged rocks, deep puddles, slippery leaves, downed branches, flash flood streams, sink holes that sneak up on you and water pipes fit for hurdling. If I wanted to make it “home”, I had to keep moving forward – I didn’t have a choice. The best I could do was pray that wherever I put my next step was secure. One blind step at a time, and a good hour and a half later, we made it and believe it or not, when I changed out of my drenched clothing and opened up my endless pile of grading, I found the contents of both bags were bone dry.

I returned home to Xavier the next day to learn the heartbreaking news that two of the major offenders of the incident on the previously blogged CSP had been expelled, and had packed and left before I even got to say goodbye. When I speak of the Xavier community, I am referring to a group of incredibly diverse people who have gotten so close to each other that the mood Sunday night and all day Monday was like that of a funeral. The Orions had lost two of it’s finest, the school lost two of it’s loudest and most loved…

You would think that a 4 day week with a faculty retreat awaiting us at the end of the road would be a breeze to get through. The aftermath of the aforementioned situation served to create for all of us, the longest 4 days we had yet to spend at Xavier. Tuesday morning I found myself amidst a student staged mutiny, wondering where we went wrong and what I could possibly do to amend the situation. Perhaps the hardest part was as a mother-like figure to all of them – wanting and working for what I thought was best, but in the end losing that status, and questioning if there was any point where I did anything right through the whole mess. The bonds I thought we had created seemed to dissolve in the face of adversity and instead of finding purpose in my struggles, I found the stark realization that I am nothing more than an expendable volunteer.

The whole faculty, whether affected or not by the actions of the Junior class were all dealing with internal battles of their own and were in desperate need of the relaxation, hiatus and reflection of the upcoming weekend…a weekend whose perfection far surpassed everyone’s expectations. Hospitality is a word that insults the way the Tolese people treated us…Before we had even dropped our bags, the little girls picked up our hands and clutched them for all of the 4 miles around their home that we walked…only to return to an unreasonably elaborate spread of food and a catechist apologizing for not being able to give us more. While our days were spent swimming, snorkeling and sipping coconuts, our evenings were spend singing, dancing and playing adult-only games of duck-duck goose. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. I haven’t smiled that big in a long time. I haven’t felt that peacefully at ease in a long time, and though I’ve spend the past few weeks questioning my true purpose here – for one night – I felt as though I was supposed to sit and laugh and smile and dance so that this village would have someone to absorb their light as they simply let it shine. As one of the deacons there so eloquently put it “All of you people coming here from Australia, America, Indonesia, Japan, Weno, Yap & Pohnpei – you have shown us that there are so many good people all over the world….there are Christians all over the world who believe the same things that we do, and strive to live lives of love as we do.” And as Dali so beautifully summarized, “If Jesus came to this island today, what he found here would make him very happy…”

As hard as the past few weeks have been on all of us, and as hard as it is going to be to step back into the fire, the beauty and radiance of this weekend made it worth it. There is really no feeling that parallels laughing so hard you cry and crying so hard your tear wells become bone dry.