Last In-Country Blog

This will be my last blog I will write from Chuuk. The next, and probably last one, will be a reflection of how things are going in the States. Before I enter in my final thoughts, some things you need to know:

I will not be going to Yap. Therefore, I will not be staying longer this summer. Basically, the debate win technically went to the other school. It was an incredibly hard few days for me after I wrote the last blog, mostly because we were dealing with complaints from others about the scoring, but we also had to decide how to deal with the ridiculous judging. We ended up simply pulling out because I thought it would be too difficult and sensitive to fight, and it was the honorable thing to do. It is nice to give the two students from Berea Christian High School a chance to go to another state and represent Chuuk. My two debaters agreed with this course of action, they knew in their hearts that they truly won, and they will be off to bigger and better things in their future.

To keep this short – because I have spent a lot of emotional energy on this – the judges were either extremely incompetent or extremely biased. There is huge amount of indication that they are truly biased because they did not like the fact that two Pohnpeian students (both of our debaters were from Pohnpei) would represent Chuuk State in the National debate. Secondly, even though the Chuuk community praises the presence of Xavier, they usually have it out for us, and try to cheat us out of competitive events. I have heard this from many sources, and apparently this has been going on for a long time. But that’s the reality of things here.

And that’s why it’s a sensitive issue to fight. Filing an official complaint (something I didn’t want to do, but Fr. Arthur now has me doing) does not just touch upon the issue of faulty judging in that particular instance. To address that issue is to address the very broad injustices that are a reality in this state. It would point out, indirectly of course, that the serious lack of quality education is pervasive in all aspects of the society here, and many decades of neglect have produced adults who are either incompetent, inexperienced, or legitimately corrupt. It’s a very sad reality, but that’s how things are here. For example: one of the judges is from the College of Micronesia (COM), but most of these administrators cannot do their jobs; a student from another school took the entrance test a few weeks ago, and his test got sent to two different administrators who grade the test. The result? One test was 20 points higher than the other, even though it was the same test, graded by two different people apparently working for the same school. Such discrepancies, which seriously affect individuals, are an indication that the people in charge are not qualified. Most government officials here do not have high school diplomas!

This is ranting, yes, mostly because I need to explain how very talented, hardworking students cannot win something as simple as a debate. However, I bring this up because this is the end of my stay here, and this reality basically is the reason why people like me are here. The social injustices here in Micronesia – whether caused by the consequences of colonialism, neglect from the U.S., the difficulty of a transitioning culture, or just internal problems like corruption or straight up apathy – are sad and hard to deal with, but it has opened my eyes. My eyes are now wide open to injustices of impoverished education.

And now here I am, at the end of two of the most wonderful years of my life. I say this sentence immediately after the previous paragraphs of my ranting of the problems here on purpose. This experience was not JUST getting down and dirty in the social troubles of this place; this experience was also not JUST about the beautiful screen-saver-esque geography, the amazing and incredibly unique culture, or the friendly, loving and generous people of Chuuk. It was also not JUST about the values of simple living, community, spirituality and social justice that JVI stands for. Finally, even though about 90% of my life dealt with this, my past two years were not JUST about being a teacher here at Xavier High School. My past two years, obviously, were a mix of all of these things. And it WAS wonderful because I (think) I grew.

We had our end of the year JVI retreat on Pisar (heaven) last week, and it was very relaxing and important. The sessions were intense but I definitely got a lot out of it. The ones for Jackie, Chris and I were very intense. I had a feeling there was going to be reverse culture shock (probably the theme of my next blog), but they went in depth with the stages of reverse culture shock. So for those of you that encounter me when I first get home, please bear with me.

Other than that, graduation, the baccalaureate mass and other end of the year parties were very good. No need to get into those. Saying goodbye, and realizing that my work here is finished (even though I’ve been busy with organizing and cleaning and wrapping things up constantly since school has been completed) is pretty hectic. A bit emotional, too. I’m sure it will hit me HARD later on.

I’m not sure what else I can say. I will be home very soon. I have 35 gigabytes of pictures and videos for all to see. I will have many stories and things to say, but I’m sure I will not know how to say it. They told us at the retreat that when people ask you how your “trip” was, you respond with either the 30 second version or the 30 minute version. I’ll try to keep it reasonable.

Thank you all faithful readers and package-senders and letter-senders and email-corresponders. It has helped me more than you know. Now you just have to visit me at home, or let me sleep on your couch.

Peace.

Debate Again

So yesterday (Saturday May 12th) was the Chuuk State Debate…

Before I go on with what happened, let me fill you in with some background details. Last year I was in charge of organizing the whole thing. Things fell apart, it was kind of a mess, and it was the first time I really had a look into the state of things here on Chuuk. Last year, I used words like “ridiculous” and “incompetent”, and it is unfortunate that most events or general matters are not sufficiently, efficiently, or properly run/organized/dealt with. Basically, it showed me how band aids are constantly used here: they ask a 2 year American volunteer to run this Chuuk State debate which SHOULD be run by the department of Justice (just like how the other JVs run the Interscholastic events for basketball, volleyball and track and field).

As for this year, I was in charge. BUT the guy at the Supreme Court (it’s his job I’m basically taking over) agreed to get the judges and arrange communication between schools; two things that I (or anyone else up at Xavier) can not feasibly do. So, unlike last year, things were more organized. Yesterday, after driving down my team to the court, I helped get the court ready, and everything really fell into place: the judges actually arrived (on time!) and ALL the schools (4 of them, including us) arrived (on time!)! We actually started at 9:00 AM, like we agreed, not island time (30 minutes to 2 hours later).

Long story short, Xavier beat Saramen (the school that won last year), then Chuuk High and Berea Christian High (two schools that are not, unfortunately, up to the standards of Xavier or Saramen) faced off, with Berea winning. It was not the prettiest form of debate I have seen, but I am immensely proud that these two schools are participating and learning. Usually, in the past, it was JUST Xavier and Saramen, but it is wonderful to see more schools participate. Then for the final round, we faced off with Berea. Everyone knew before we would win, and during the debate, it was very evident that Xavier was stronger and Berea, trying their best, could not compete.

However, according to the judges, Xavier lost.

I will not spend the rest of this blog elaborating WHY Xavier obviously did not lose. But it is the opinion of everyone that the judges were either:

1) completely incompetent in the ways of debate, even though they are adults (with rather important positions in the Chuukese community, by the way), AND they had the rules for judging in front of them;

or 2) the judges felt sorry for Berea, OR they discriminated against Xavier because both of the debaters are Pohnpeian (as opposed to being Chuukese).

No matter what the reason was for the obviously ridiculous ruling, everyone was shocked. Everyone. No one was happy – students, teachers, people working for the court, people not affiliated with Xavier high school – no one.

BUT, we had to count up the points from BOTH of the debates held that day, and Xavier ended up winning the whole debate.

So my team came in first place. My students won, and I am very, very proud of them.

Needless to say, I am emotionally exhausted now: drained from moderating this huge event all morning, incredibly proud of my students for winning, absolutely fuming over this poor, poor decision by the judges (which hurts the credibility of the event, and also does not give fair due to both the Xavier and Berea students – AND something like this honestly feels like a nightmare that it will haunt me for a while), and lastly I am very relieved that this last of my big responsibilities here is over with.

So here is some big news:

The winners from each FSM state go to the National Debate in Yap in the beginning of July. All expenses are paid for the two debaters and the coach. Well, since I am the coach, I would like to go, so right now I am in the process of seeing if I can change my plane ticket and leave from here one month later. So all of you that were expecting me home in June, there is a good chance that I may be home by the end of July. It is a bit sad knowing that I will delay seeing everyone, but this will be an opportunity that I will not want to miss. And what is one more month? It’s not like I have a job to go back to.

Debate is finished! I have hundreds of pages of grading to look forward to this week. Then my work is really done.

Almost there.