I am in a much different spot now than I was two weeks ago - today's air travel enables anyone to change seasons, topography, and culture in a few hours. What would my ancestors have thought of today's technology? Two weeks ago, I was on a very warm Yap, and now I am in very snowy New Hampshire.

Our flight from Honolulu to Boston was quick - however, the flight from Chicago to Boston had me, for the first time, place an airsick bag in a convenient place - the ride was that turbulent. Little did we know that we were traveling through a storm on Wednesday 12/22 that just hit the Northeast today.

Hanging out with Frank's family near Atkinson, New Hampshire is always fun - the house is comfortable, festive, inviting, and relaxed. This is my third annual Winter trip - I was looking forward to it for months.

I couldn't ask for a better set of in-laws, nieces, and nephews.

I've been accepted into their family, warts and all. 

I met a number of people while on Yap - one of them was the outgoing Assistant Attorney General Joe Sinisi.

Joe's a great guy - below is an article he wrote about Yap in the Denver Post on Thursday 24 November 2004.

Yap continues to intrigue me as I plan on how and when I can return to continue my work there.

Paradise: "Pay" spelled backward Micronesia's isolated Yap island rich in culture, exotic diversions

Yap, Federated States of Micronesia - The world has no shortage of tropical places where you can scuba dive and snorkel among kaleidoscopic-colored coral reefs in aquamarine waters.

But how about swimming among manta rays in 84-degree, crystal-clear sea waters? Or, hiking along ancient stone paths through lush rainforest? Or watching a traditional dance of topless men and women chanting and gyrating in front of huge discs of stone money?

You can do all this in a former U.S. trust territory where dollars are the currency, everyone speaks English, and visitors aren't hassled by vendors or hawkers.

Most Americans never have heard of this tiny Western Pacific island that lies southwest of Guam, east of the Philippines and just north of the equator. Yap and its 20 or so inhabited outer islands are on no major trade or tourist routes, but this isolation is just what allows Yap to be so exotic and unique. You won't find fast-food chains, golf courses and strip malls on Yap, but you will find a place that has maintained its ancient heritage.

From the moment you get off the plane and a young woman welcomes you to Yap by placing a nunu (flower headband) on your head, you realize you have come to a very special place indeed.

Yap is one of the four states of the relatively new nation of the Federated States of Micronesia. In addition to having a climate that averages 86 degrees year-round, Yap perhaps is the place in the Pacific that best preserves the ancient culture and traditions of Micronesia. Yap and its islands have no more than 14,000 inhabitants, yet at least four distinct language groups thrive, along with traditional dress, architecture, weaving and carving.

Yap has been inhabited by Micronesians (a race and culture distinct from Polynesians and Melanesians) for at least 3,000 years and almost was

untouched by foreign incursion until the 1860s. Not having whales or mineral deposits, Yap was spared the usual calamities of colonization and religious conversion that befell most Pacific islands in the 1800s.

Since Yap's independence from the United States in 1986, vestiges of the modern world inevitably have incurred, thus making Yap a land of contrasts. Men from Yap's outer islands still wear their traditional loincloths to work in air-conditioned offices and women clad only in brightly colored lava-lava skirts drive Japanese sedans on Yap's roads utterly free of traffic lights.

Yap's 38 square miles are dotted with majestic pebays, open-air meeting houses with huge palm thatch-covered sloping roofs and intricate carved beams fastened with woven coconut fiber rope. Many people still live in traditional thatched-roof dwellings, eschewing the concrete and corrugated tin structures that litter most of the Pacific today.

No meeting house would be complete without its stone money bank.

Yap calls itself the "Island of Stone Money," an appropriate moniker for a small island that has more than 7,000 discs of crystallized limestone carved in quarries in the Palau islands 250 miles away and brought to Yap by outrigger canoe. The discs always have a hole in them like a doughnut and can range in diameter from 2 to 10 feet. To this day Yapese use the stone money as a type of currency that is exchanged only in special ceremonies.

The largest piece of stone money rests in the forbidden island of Rumung, the northernmost island in Yap that has isolated itself from modernity and allows no electricity, phones, vehicles or visitors without tough-to-get permission. No one is allowed to photograph the largest piece of stone money, said to be 13 feet wide. On the other islands of Yap, visitors may take pictures as long as they ask the nearest Yapese person for permission, which always is granted.

Yap also is known as a scuba- diving mecca. With pristine reefs and clear waters that feature some of the best intact marine ecosystems in the world.

Manta rays, graceful creatures with 12-foot wingspans that resemble spaceships, glide over coral "cleaning stations." At the stations small fish called wrasses enter the mantas' mouths and gills and eat away parasites and bacteria.

Besides mantas, other aquatic creatures include sea turtles, harmless reef sharks, giant clams, barracudas, giant bumphead parrot fish, octopuses, moray eels and sting rays. Inside the panoply of multicolored coral you might spot the tiny paisley pastel Mandarin fish, bizarre but beautiful.

You don't have to be a scuba diver to enjoy Yap's magical underwater gardens. A snorkeler can observe and touch vividly colored coral and fish in waters no deeper than 5 feet. If you don't want to get completely wet, a peaceful kayak paddle though the mazes of lush mangroves is an unforgettable experience in the wetlands.

For those who prefer land exploration, Yap is covered with rain forestd and has tropical flowers in bloom year round. From sweet-smelling plumeria to vivid red and pink hibiscus to delicate spider lilies, Yap is a botanical treasure-trove. Before roads and vehicles, Yapese traversed their island on well- maintained stone paths through the jungles, many of which still exist.

Visitors will feel like they have entered the Jurassic Period as they encounter lush fern plants and trees.

Most Yapese, from the governor down to the banana seller, carry a traditional basket woven from palm tree fronds. Inside is their precious cache of betel nuts and the chewing accouterments of powdered lime and pepper vine leaf. Chewing the mildly narcotic betel nut is a national tradition and obsession. The green nuts, about the size of a small walnut, grow freely on thin betel nut palm trees. These days, more often than not, their baskets also will contain a cellphone.

James Lukan, director of the Yap Historic Preservation Office, is working on constructing a museum of Yapese art and culture. "Yapese people," he says in between spits of red betel nut juice, "have always been willing to adapt to the modern world in our own way. We know we have a culture worth saving."

The myths and legends of Yap are most beautifully depicted in "storyboards," carvings made from mahogany. Men traditionally are the wood carvers while women create intricate weavings of clothing and baskets.

Some Denverites have discovered Yap. On his dental office wall in Cherry Creek, Dr. Carl Brownd has an enlarged photo of a manta ray that he took in Yapese waters. Brownd dives the Caymans, as well as the Solomon and Galapagos islands in the Pacific. But he likes Yap for its abundance of manta rays "with more off Yap than anywhere else in the world," he said. "The Caymans have great diving, and so does Yap. But Yap has more charm because, there, you get undiluted Micronesia."

During an island tour, he visited a traditional meeting house, lined with wheels of stone money, Brownd recalled. "We chewed some betel nut, and my wife and I both got a nice buzz."

Ceremonial dances help Yapese maintain their traditions. The dances feature men and women wearing only grass skirts or loin cloths, festooned with flowers and palm fronds, their bodies rubbed with golden turmeric. No two dances are alike. The bamboo stick dances are the most exciting to watch, but the tranquil sitting dances also have a haunting beauty of their own. Many dances tell ancient stories of navigational feats in almost forgotten words no longer used in modern Yapese speech. Some dances recount newer tales such as the suffering inflicted on the Yapese during Japanese occupation of 1914-45.

The highlight of the dancing season occurs during Yap Day, an annual three-day festival near March 1. More than a dozen villages present their dances and other traditional arts, such as coconut husking, spear throwing, juggling and weaving.

Yap doesn't have a lot of nightlife, Yapese generally enjoy quiet evenings in their villages with their families.

O'Keefe's Canteen is a nice period-piece bar built in memory of "His Majesty" David

O'Keefe, an American trader who first came to Yap in 1871 and made a fortune bringing stone money to Yap from Palau.

Even though Yap has few bars and clubs to offer nocturnal diversions, all you have to do is look up at the brilliant night sky for all the entertainment you could want. With no island lights or smog, Yap's night skies offer unparalleled views of stars and constellations city dwellers never get to see. Here you can see both the North Star and the Southern Cross. More than 1,000 years ago Yapese men used these same stars to navigate their outrigger canoes as far as the Philippines and Japan.

Yap has a few adequate restaurants where diners can find local fish, lobster and crab. If you want to catch your own dinner, try fishing for tuna, wahoo and mahi mahi by trolling in a boat across the coastal waters that glow every hue between turquoise and azure.

Watching a sunset over the silvery-blue waters of the Philippine sea while sipping a chilled coconut and eating the freshest tuna sashimi a Coloradan ever will taste is an experience that should not be missed. And if you really want to get into the local culture, chew yourself a betel nut for dessert.

Denverite Joe Sinisi Jr. worked in Yap as the assistant attorney general for the past two years.

My flight from Yap to Guam, and later Honolulu was comfortable - even though I was up at 0600 on Saturday morning (Yap time) and didn't get to sleep until Sunday night (Yap time) though back in Honolulu, all in all, I was doing pretty well.

I have some new information regarding Typhoon Nanmadol's damage to the Philippines - previous information I had reported about NanMadol's casualties in the Philippines was incorrect.

An earlier tropical storm in Luzon on 29 November 29 killed 689 people, with an additional 715 others missing. When Nanmadol struck the Philippines three days later (it hit us on Yap on 30 November with no casualities) it killed an additional 51 people and 39 more went missing in Luzon province. I originally reported that Nanmadol itself killed over a thousand, but that was incorrect. Still, it Nanmadol killed a lot more people in Luzon than on Yap. I'm still in awe of that storm - it was one part of a very exciting trip.

Oddly, I listened to a lot of Laura Nyro on this trip. Laura's music is "bubbly and soul-searching; commercial and experimental; jazzy and bluesy, with a touch of soul and doo-wop" [http://lauranyro.net/enigma.html]  the album "Essential Masters" is a must have for Laura's admirers. Laura died of ovarian cancer in 1997, but her music still lives on, and I was grateful to have it on my laptop. I also listened to Rageb Alameh and Warda, both Lebanese singers. [I would estimate less than 20 percent of my music collection is in English].

More later.

The time is growing near for my return to Honolulu. I leave Sunday morning at 0315 Yap time, and arrive in Honolulu at 1800 Saturday night - so much for Hermione's time turner!

I thought I had escaped the rats, BUT

last night I was lying down, and heard a big commotion at the window, and I felt something slide down the wall and run underneath the bed. I was quasi-asleep, and fighting a sore throat and a growing cold (just a cold, not the flu). I couldn't get back to sleep, nor could I move and risk running into whatever it was that popped through the window. I eventually drifted off, thinking that I'm sure the buggers have been in here when I've been here. I don't think rats go crawling on the bed, though my German neighbors tell me that they sleep on the floor in a tent, and rats do run around the tent occasionally. Oh how I rationalize when I am exhausted.

Oh, well!

I've been saying goodbye to the people here who have helped make this first research expedition a good one: James and Peter from the Historic Preservation Office; my consultants Ann, Joe, Lorenzo, and Floren; the Peace Corps Volunteers Thea, Sarah, Stephanie, and Neil (Neil is asssigned to Ulithi and I had a chance to talk to him about life there - he's the only PCV stationed on Ulithi at the moment); Gilbert, Danka and Ron, Stephanie, and Maria, oh, and Andre too.  I've met a lot of people here. Okay--I'm a schmooze, alright? .

This will be my last post from Yap - we are 20 hours ahead of Hawaii, and I am writing this at 1349 on Friday December 10 - I won't have access to the Web after this post.

Thanks to all of you who have sent me messages of support - this blog has been an interesting experiment in communicating ideas and pictures instantaneously throughout the world rather than fill up everyone's email box with yet one more message. I know people have viewed this blog from Australia, Israel, New Hampshire, San Francisco, Hawaii, and even here on Yap.

Aloha to my new friends on Yap, and a pending aloha to my friends on O'ahu. Frank, it will be good to be home and eat a big salad and eat crunchy bread. And, Phil and Linda back in Atkinson, New Hampshire, I can't wait to sit with you around a blazing fire and take a walk in the snowy woods in a few more days - best to Liz, Jacey, and Allie too! 

Be well, all!

A quick post - this is a picture of me on the beach at Bechiyal (the furthest north part of Yap) with the Isle of Rumung in the background.

This was the first time since my arrival that I left Colonia (except my snorkeling expedition to Mi'il Channel two weeks ago).

It was nice to get out on a beach again, and hear the roar of a distant surf - the waves were quite big out about 1-2 miles at the reef, and the sound really carried to shore.

Rumung is not receptive to tourists or outsiders - similar to Ni'ihau in Hawai'i, but no one family owns Rumung - it reportedly has the largest piece of stone money in Yap - I believe it is four tons.

When I arrived on the beach, I saw a mysterious fire - one of the most incredibly built men I have ever seen, a Yapese fellow, tended it, and when I looked away, he disappeared!

I have been on Yap for 26 days. It seems like a long time, and yet, it also feels like I just got here. It takes time to adjust to a new place, and I am now feeling a sort of separation anxiety in that I will soon be wrenched from a place that has accepted me, inserted into a metal flying tube with rarified air and no legroom, and 10 hours later, will be deposited back on O'ahu. What do I have to show for all of this work? Wonderful conversations - illuminating ones, descriptive ones. And, I have remembered many of them, as they each provided a new perspective, a view of how others view the world. I came as an observer - an impartial observer, one would hope. I have tried to report things as I have observed them. I feel fortunate in that I do not have to provide a detailed report of the culture here, as an anthropologist would have to do - s/he tries to capture a melange of cultural snapshots, interviews, and through them attempts to provide as comprehensive as possible desecription of whatr s/he sees. And anyone who has read Margaret Mead, and later, her detractors, cultural anthropology, especially today with widening Western influence, is something I would not want to do anywhere, especially here. I have collected words, sentences, and stories, and through them I hope to distill a work that will be of use to both the academic world and the Satawalese people themselves. I have made friends with people here - one may ask, where does the observation part stop and the friendship begin? When does  a person put the pen down, turn off the tape recorder, and just listen? There are times here when I should have recorded some things, when I shouldn't have recorded others [everyone always knew when my recorder was playing - but there were times that the record was not useful] and those times when the recording worked out just fine. Sometimes I would worry when I heard a story and I wasn't recording it or writing it down (my handwriting has gotten so bad over the past few years!) that I wouldn't remember it, but to my surprise, I have. Sometimes names of people came up, and as an ethical person, I blanked out the name, or tossed that part of the story away.

Is it a /g/ or is it a /k/?

One of my objectives on this trip is to collect a clean phonemic inventory of Satawalese - the sounds that Satawalese speakers use everyday in their language. Other scholars who have worked with Trukic languages have attempted to do this, and to an extent, have determined the major phonemes of Satawalese. It doesn't hurt to verify this information once again. Since the works of Frederick Jackson (1983) and Edward and Hiroko Quackenbush (1968 and 1970, respectively) had a much larger foci - historical comparisons of the region's languages, using the sound systems, vocabulary, and other linguistic features, to offer suggestions as to when these languages 'broke off' from one another and began to develop on their own - I have chosen to concentrate strictly on the documentation of Satawalese, as a related, yet independent language of the Trukic Group. My main objective is to find out how this language differs from its sister languages in the region. Jackson and the Quackenbushes were working with data from a number of these languages (one has to admire how they all could have kept their data organized without personal computers!). Each made references to Satawalese here and there and all elicited data directly from Satawalese speakers, rather than relying on written accounts from others.

To complicate matters, I suspect Jackson et.al.  worked with Satawalese speakers who were proficient in a few of the region's other languages - Woleaian, Ulithian, Yapese, and Chuukese - and the speakers could have understandably provided the wrong information about words or phrases. Since these speakers are polyglots in languages that are similar to one another, it's understandable if there is some confusion regarding a particular form, as in some cases, these forms may be identical, somewhat similiar, similiar or different enough to be unintelligible to one another completely. I am finding this the biggest challenge of working in the middle of a "dialect continuum" - the attempt to distill a 'pure' Satawalese dialect/language - does it really exist, and if so, can I really do it? In a language continuum, where does one 'language' or 'dialect' stop, and the other begin? Are the differences phonetic (sounds), morphological (word formation), syntactic (word order), semantic (word meaning), or all of this? Even those who are not linguists might correctly guess this answer - it's ALL OF THESE!!!

Some of you may wonder what the difference is between a language and a dialect. First you might want to know the difference between a language and a dialect. I won't go there with you, because I'm not sure myself. Other linguists are hesitant to define it. Sometimes political borders make the distinction, as in Scandanavia. Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish are not that far apart in intelligibility but all three are politically independent, and hence, each has determined that the languages they speak are distinct and should be treated as such.   Here is what Terralingua says on this matter.

I recently purchased a new laptop and noticed that the Microsoft Windows platform allows English speakers to configure their machines to the following "Englishes" : Australia, Belize, Canada, Caribbean, Ireland, Jamaica, New Zealand, Philippines, Trinidad, United Kingdom, United States, and Zimbabwe? I suspect that some of this configuration might instruct a computer to set its clock according to where one is in the world, but what else is different in a computer operating system that would prompt Microsoft to create 12 configurable divisions of the English language? Are there spearate nomenclatures for things, such as UK's car 'boot' is a US 'trunk?' That a US 'parking lot' is a UK 'car park'? Is a 'computer mouse' the same in the English of Belize and the English of Trinidad? The Microsoft people must have some compelling evidence to make these distinctions available to computer users. Is it only to recognize them as politically distinct, maybe, and bolster their egos? Think of all of those people in tiny Trinidad who have an Windows XP English configuration all to themselves! And Belize is not that far away. If anyone can clarify this, please do so and I will post it.] I will eventually research this on my own, because I'm curious.  

As we all know, English spoken around the world can be very different - in fact, Linguist Steven Weinberger has an excellent site that he and his students have been developing for quite some time - they collect samples of English spoken all over the world. I've contributed a few samples to his collection, and you can too! Check out his site here.

Back to topic. In an earlier post, I talked about the importance of collecting an inventory of a language's distinct sounds to better understand it. A linguist tries to collect samples of the language that clearly show that sounds are distinctive from one another, and this is usually done by attempting to get pairs of word that differ in the one sound you're trying to determine are variants of one sound, or two distinctive sounds. For example, in English, the words 'pin' and 'bin' mean different things - the English language makes a phonemic distinction between the a voiceless bialabial /p/, and a voiced bilabial /bp/. The two are articulated the same way, except one does not use the voice, and one does. Securing two nearly identical words where the sounds in question are in identical positions can help determine distinct sounds.

In Satawalese,  /p/ and /pw/, for example, are considered two completely distinctive sounds - to my ears, they're identical, but when I watch them say the words, I can detect more rounded lips when they say /pw/ - in fast speech, I cannot tell the difference, but THEY can! The 'w' following the 'p' indicates that this particular sound is more rounded, and they have chosen these two letters to represent the sound in their written language. We do not make a /p/ and /pw/ distinction in English. The world's languages are full of examples of this. Remember before I cited some other examples that some of you may be familiar with - /p/ and /f/ in Tagalog (Filipino), /l/ and /r/ in Japanese, and one I forgot to mention - /b/ and /p/ in Arabic - the pairs of sounds in each of those three languages is not distinctive, so speakers can use either sound for words and their listeners will understand them. [I remember riding in a cab in Amman once, and the driver was commenting on all of the bink [pink] houses in the neighborhood he lived in.]

Native English speakers might also be familiar with difficulty in the vowels of some European languages. Some European languages have a lot of vowel distinctions that are very difficult for Americans to learn, as we do not have these very minute vowel distinctions in English. For example  toe-may-toe [American English] and toe-mah-toe [UK English] are readily understood. We as English speakers don't make a distinction between these two vowels in any words I can think of, but other languages do.

Back to topic - does Satawalese have a /g/, or a /k/, or both, or what? I'm still trying to conclusively determine that - once I have tracked down these evasive sounds, and pull off their masks to determine their true identify(ies), you'll hear it here first.

Jochen and Nicole are two German nationals who have been living on Yap and Fais for the past several months - Johan is an anthropology PhD student, and Nicole has been visiting from Germany for the past three months. She returns to her flight attendant job with Lufthansa in two weeks. She has an enviable schedule - three months on and three months off, when she attends university and can make trips here to visit Jochen.

We've had some very enlightening discussions. Jochen's work is 'observing the observer.' He is an anthropologist who, through his photography, is documenting how anthropologists observe the world. He is taking still shots with a reflex camera, and is developing his own film here on Yap - no mean feat, as there are no photography developing stores. All film must be sent to Guam. Both are from Heidelberg, and their descriptions of it sound wonderful. Heidelberg was one of the few cities in Germany that was spared in the bombings of World War II. It sounds quaint, intellectual, and a place I have now put on my list to visit.

World War II had a profound affect on Micronesia. Lorenzo came over this afternoon, we tipped a few wines, and talked about it. Yap was controlled by the Japanese at one point, who were not kind to the Yapese. Once supplies to Japanese soldiers on Yap were cut off, the tables turned, and the Yapese and Americans were not kind to the Japanese. Of course, 50 years later, we can talk about this over wine - life goes on.  

Later, Jochen and Nicole came over, and the talked turned to the dogs of Micronesia. First, there is very little canine genetic diversity - all the dogs seem to be related to one another. Dogs are not pets here - no one seems to own them, and noone gets cute with them. They are occasionally, dinner. Dogs eat with different houses - whatever house has the most food scraps they're willing to give up 'go to the dogs.'

Dogs roam around, but Nicole and I concur that dogs here 'seem to have a purpose as they walk down the street.' They'll make eye contact with you, some of them with their tongues out and a doggy smile, but they'll move on as if they have an appointment up the street, and won't stop to beg from you. All look like they've had hard lives - females bear young every year, and males look like they get into frequent fights.

J&N related a remarkable story that happened just outside our doors several weeks ago. They were sitting on Jesse-from-Fais' porch, when they noticed a group of dogs, perhaps 15 of them, walking along the road in single file. The dogs turned into a small open field across the road, formed a circle, and two dogs went at it for about 5-10 minutes - a dogfight. The loser ran yelping into the bush, and the victor turned, exited, followed by the line of dogs that acoompanied him there. A most peculiar event, and one that I'm sorry I missed! Not that I'm a dogfight fan, but the story sounds so fanciful as to not be believed.  but often I have heard such stories, only later to experience them myself, so I believe this story.  One wonders how much doggie loot exchanged paws hidden from human eyes.

Dogs are well-mannered here. I have not been awakened in the middle of the night by a barking dog. I have walked by many houses with dogs, and each dog has let me pass without barking at me or rushing up and lunging at me, which is the case in Hawaii, especially the Kapahulu nighborhood - ugh. I hate dogs when their owners make them like this. I have not stepped in any dog-doo here. For a culture who does not treat dogs as pets, and in many cases, Americans would be shocked to see how they are treated, the dogs are much more well-behaved than in America, where Americans make them neurotic by treating them too much like human beings.

There is no veterinarian here on a full-time basis. One American friend of mine who does have a dog must keep her dog  inside during her estrus until a vet comes and the dog can be fixed.  

I was saddened to hear that Typhoon Nanmadol, the same typhoon that hit Yap last Tuesday night, killed over 1,000 in the Philippines.

We've recovered from the typhoon and for the first time in three weeks, I 've been almost comfortable in that the weather has been less humid and more breezy.

Joel Bradshaw made the following account available on his web log about super-Typhoon Sudal and its impact on Yap on 8 April 2004.

Cheryl's house thankfully, is in several pieces - one extremely large one, and several smaller ones. She lost bars holding up her storm window coverings (which incidentally, have never been functional) but everything else seemed alright.

A LOT of mud.

Inside was different - there was a lot of mud that had been washed in from the rain. I suspected that she would get a fair amount of rain, because she warned me where it would come in if a storm hit, and I noticed a puddle in her bedroom before I left the previous day.

I was so disgusted with the mud that I didn't even take the time to take photographs - I just got to work. I found a mop and started with the bad parts - naturally, the mop head snapped from the stick. In seconds, I was on the floor mopping by hand through some pretty stinky mud. I had to move all of the furiture from one room to another to ensure I got all of the floor. The water had returned, and the pressure was good, so I filled bucket after bucket of water and washed with water. Clean water is such a blessing. There are so many places in the world where clean water is hard to find, some people have to walk far for it, and stand in line with a bucket. Not the case here. I was indeed blessed.           

Today I will use some cleaner in the water and wash everything once again. I am always concerned with sanitation, and want to maintain a clean environment.

More later.