Today my mom and I latched on to another group so she could help and I could document a different child. We visited two- year- old Beloved who has CP. Her house was hard to get to.. Our expert van driver had drive drop us off a ways away from the house in order to turn it around. We walked for about a quarter of a mile, passing little houses tucked away and hidden behind mountain apple trees and tall weeds. Wide- eyed children peeked over windowsills and whispered hello as we passed. Beloved’s house was tiny and dirty with siblings, cousins, and neighbors crowded around to watch the RSAs. Her mother had dressed her in the most adorable white lace dress for the occasion and sat making mar mars in a corner of the room. Mar mars are essentially haku leis made with ylang ylang for the scent and pretty flowers. It’s polite in Micronesia to give one to a first time guest of your house. Little girls immediately rushed over to place them on our heads, so sweet. Beloved is the last of twelve children, sadly only six of which are alive today. My mom and students practiced range of motion on Beloved and also discovered that she has very poor eyesight. She can see large objects, but nothing too far away from her face. She’s a happy little girl though and was very responsive and tolerant of everything we did. One of the students even got her to move her legs in a walking motion, with help.
My favorite part of home visits is bonding with the other little kids in the room. There are always lots of them. I’m usually automatically the coolest kid in the room because of my camera and video camera, so they tend to crowd around to look over my shoulder. This particular young one (a neighbor I think) sat next to me the entire time and followed me around the room. He was very serious and only smiled when he just absolutely couldn’t help it. He loved the camera and every time I put it down for a minute he would put his hand on my knee as if asking for more. At one point he wrapped his little hand around my big toe (kind of gross if you ask me, but incredibly endearing) as he watched the screen in rapture. This is the best one of him:
MeghanAlana,
ReplyDeleteJust a note of info for you. In a previous post you mentioned the 'lime' that's chewed with the betel nut. It's actually calcium hydroxide produced by burning coral. It's added to make it possible for the active alkaloid in the betel nut to be absorbed into the body. The same thing is used by the South American's who chew coca leaves.
Is Shigeto's market still open there? How about the Truk Trading Company (TTC)? They should be good sources of decent healthy food for you.
ReplyDeleteIn Chuukese culture it's very impolite to not acknowledge another person. Everyone will ordinarily greet you or at least nod, it's appropriate for you to nod or say hello too. Ran anim is a phrase you've probably learned. Ifausum (e/fau/soom) should be part of your Chuukese vocabulary now too.