My new Home.

My room

The Evil Rooster

Hi All!  Well I finally moved into my new home last week with my host Maria and her 12-year-old grandson Maidesile.  Both are very kind, and the place is across from the presidents house so if I need any sugar I am sure he can help.  Maria and her grandson are gone on the weekends at their family property in the North, so I get the place to myself a lot.  When they are around we cook dinner together sometimes and watch cartoons.  Maidesile knows all the words to all the cartoons on cartoon network, very impressive.  My first morning there I woke up to a very horrible sound and it took me a minute to realize it was a rooster outside my window.  The evil creature kept letting me fall back asleep and then would sneak back under my window and crow again.  Unfortunately Mr. rooster did not realize that he was dealing with a professional sleeper and I am now happy to report that I have accomplished the task of sleeping through his morning shouts.  I have also taken to throwing things at him whenever he is near my window to try to deter him from hanging around.  The other fun find of my new house are the cockroaches.  I hadn't seen any the first few days I was there and then I went into the kitchen late at night and flipped on the light to find 6 roaches staring at me.  They didn't scurry away or anything, they just sat there.  I think they were a bit confused why I was infringing on their allotted time in the kitchen, which apparently is after dark.  I have since learned to avoid the kitchen at night or bang a few times on the wall before I turn on the lights.

Me and my amazing new bicycle

I got a bike last week, so I am not mobile.  No one rides bikes here for some reason (maybe because It's horribly hot all the time and rains constantly) so the used bike market is pretty nonexistent.  I managed to find this gem, an old american mountain bike with working breaks and shocks and decent tires.  Only down side is it doesn't really shift on it's own so I have to pick a gear before I head out based on how many hills I will be encountering.  I have spruced it up by adding some "fenders".  They don't sell them here so I had to improvise.  After much internet research (well really not much, just small amounts of very slow internet research which made it feel like much) I zip-tied various sizes of plastic bottles onto my bike.  Now not only am I the weird white girl on a bike (a strange enough sight), but I have bottles all over it to boot.

Yummy Palauan lunch

 My first task on my new bike was to head to the local fish market.  I had been meaning to go, but it just seemed so far by foot.  I had no idea what I wanted and the guy just kept opening up coolers and taking out really huge fish.  We finally got to the small size bracket and I ended up telling him I wanted something for sashimi (raw fish eaten with lemon and soy sauce) so he would pick the freshest fish.  Whatever I was given was amazing!  I am going to get them to write down the name next time so I can try all the different fish and see which I like best.

cops patrolling at the boat races just in case things get crazy.

Nice view from the top of the bridge watching the boat races.

October 1st was Palauan Independence day so we had the day off work to celebrate.  The main attraction of the day are boat races and eating.  How can you go wrong?  The boats raced by engine categorize so it started with souped up fishing boats and ended with the richest of Palau showing off some fancy and expensive toys.  Most of the drivers wore life jackets, some wore helmets and all of them were borderline crazy.  My favorite was the guy who flew out of his boat when he hit a wave too fast and then managed to swim back to it and hopped back in before the rescue boat could show up.  He finished the race, going even faster then before trying to catch up even though he had no chance at all.  He was awarded the most cheers from the crowed however, who only got excited when people flew out of their boats or looked like they might roll their boats.  As he did both he was definitely the winner in the crowds eyes.  The other highlight was a race between the two richest families in Palau who between them own just about everything here.  One has a red boat and one has a blue boat so they call them Superman and Batman and people talk about it the whole next year.  Superman won this year and people seemed pretty excited, I think he's the favorite.

spectator at the boat races

superman vs. batman

RAIN!!!!!

That's pretty much all the exciting news I have.  It's been raining like crazy.  This morning while I was having breakfast I was pretty convinced a coconut tree was going to fall on our house.  It didn't, but there's always tomorrow!  I keep telling myself it can't last forever, but we are going on week 3 now. Sometimes it seems like it's going to be a nice day and then I leave my rain coat at home and it turns on me.  If it does ever clear I am going to be so appreciative of the good weather!  Hope all of your Octobers are off to a good start and you all remembered to say rabbit rabbit!

love Katharine