I’m surrounded by jungle and ocean. The people and the weather are welcoming like a warm coat. When I first moved to the beach back on mainland U.S., I knew it was where I belong. And every day of every year I loved it so much that every time I came home I felt like “lucky me, I live at the beach, where I always belonged and now it is my home”. Massive tourist crowds and greedy/rich people could be blurred as the fresh air/ocean/bay soothed the insane vibe from the awed visitors to the moderate to even more hopeless, low level, general psychopathy of the giant megalopolis up to the shore.
Miraculously I coped without going completely insane, though not ignorant of the fact that it all took it’s tolls. And I am a product of the many layers of lunacy. But now, I am free to be me. Very recently realizing that I don’t need to tell people the careers I have done and the schools I’ve been to. I’m in the capital of the northern Island chain, now 6000 miles from where I lived all my life. But now, I’m in the largest village of about 2400 people. 80% Filipino and Asian, 15% Pacific Islanders. I rarely see a Caucasian looking person and the last one I talked with was from Chuuk FSM (an island in the Federated States of Micronesia). Wait I talked with a Caucasian main-lander today at a market. Said he was on island one day after I said “I’m new here so you tell me” in the initial traveler talk.
I’m heading to my more permanent village soon, and it’s high time since the vibe here is slightly ambivalent being the main tourist town and all. All rather amazing and indescribable from the perspective I came from on the mainland. It’s sad that a considerable percentage of people polled would like to leave since their is decades long multi-pronged economic hardship after back to back typhoons this year. I see lots of people with little kids though, and island people can be at the end of their rope for a long time since what I’ve learned from decades of studying island cultures around the world; they are resilient, fiercely loyal and generally will be very straight with you, despite some people saying that some Asian cultures are more nuanced and get-to-know-you first.
This gallery sucks because on my machine you have to right click a pic and open in a new tab to see it larger…
This blog restarts again. “Things come and go” like a favorite blogger on the Island of Guam says. I’m an open book, free and not slumming for clicks, so I serve it up hot and half baked – Chef Cracked Pot