The Line

One Toke Over the Line

        Michael Brewer, Tom Shipley

The Line

“Do you want some advice,” Chuck asked. “No, better yet, let me just give you a piece of advice.”

Chuck was a couple years older than I, and he had been around the islands a couple years longer than I had. We had become friends in Palau when I’d arrived to start my Peace Corps in-country training. He was in an earlier group, maybe Micro V or VI; mine was Micro VIII. The Micro part was short for Micronesia so all the Volunteers who had served across all the island groups of the US Trust Territory were “Micro-“. Each group was then assigned a number; all the PCVs in a given year had the same number. Groups differentiated from another by the region it was assigned to. My group was Micro VIII-Palau, US Trust Territory of the Western Caroline Islands.

After his initial two-year commitment to the Peace Corps, Chuck had re-upped. He’d volunteered for another 2 years. By the time we met, he was working as a contractor with the territorial government. He had returned home between his stints as a volunteer. He also knew scores of PCVs, as we were known, old and new, come and gone, from the years he’d lived in Palau. He’d become a good friend, my ‘cholei’, my good friend. Maybe “chudelei” was a better word, my wise old friend, as he was wise in the ways of different worlds.

My two years were coming to a close. At the moment, we were sitting in the Boom Boom Room having a couple beers.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll take whatever you have to offer. Ngarang?” (What?)

“Nobody’s gonna give a shit.” That was blunt. “Nobody will care. Nobody will ask you. So don’t expect anybody to.”

“Whoa, cholei,” I reacted. “What are you talking about? Who’s not going to care about what?”

And with that, he went on to explain that he knew that I’d had a wonderful, powerful, life-changing experience living there on those tiny islands. He knew that I would never be the same kid I had been just two years earlier. He also knew that I wrestled with the prospect – the opportunity, actually – of remaining in Palau for another two years. But no one else would care. No one would ask. No one would, as he said, give a shit.

I asked why he was telling me this. I had never thought about it before, but now it was in my face and in my head. Two things were in my face and head right then, actually. One was the wonderful experiences I had had. The other was now being told I would not be able to share those experiences when I got home.

“I am telling you this so you won’t be disappointed, so you won’t get angry. I am telling you this so that you can prepare your heart and be able to tell folks the story they want to hear.”

Yes, Chuck was a wise young man.

He went on to explain in a bit more depth. It was clear that what he was sharing was what he had experienced, and what others had also experienced and shared with him.

“There’s a line you will cross. Maybe the Date Line. Maybe international boundaries. Maybe when you get back into the States. Maybe just some night when you are out with friends – andhave one too many brews. But there is a line, and when you come to it, you’ll know. You’ll have to cross it. There’ll be no choice, and no turning back. Life has to go on, and you have to live yours. The difference is that you will be able to look back and remember. You can take what you’ve learned and use it. Just know that there is a line.”

We talked a little longer. Chuck predicted that I’d most likely be asked about the food and what I’d eaten. About ‘island fever’ and living on a really small rock in the middle of the ocean. Maybe the weather. And almost surely, there would be questions about those bare-breasted island ladies. Especially the bare-breasted island ladies. He suggested that I have some stock answers ready to feed ‘em back. I thought about that.

“Oh, and one more thing,” he added as our conversation was coming to an end. “You’ve changed, but back home a lot of things have probably changed, too. Things you’ll discover in time. But there will also be a lot of stuff which hasn’t changed. Same old, same old, no matter what. Be prepared.  Also – don’t be surprised if someday, you forget about all of us.”

I thanked him for the advice, but I also worried a bit.

Before too much longer, I was on my way home. I was leaving the beautiful islands I had come to think of as home and was heading back to where I’d been raised. It was a 14,000 mile trip broken up by prearranged stops in a couple of the other island groups in Micronesia, finally changing planes in Hawaii before flying to the east coast. We crossed the International Date Line and lost a day; we crossed international boundaries and landed in Honolulu. By the end of the next leg of the trip, I’d be home.

It was late-middle June when I got back. I’d left in early June two years before. Getting back, I noticed that not much had changed; most everything seemed to have remained the same. I thought about what Chuck had said and figured the changes would show up in time.

My family was thrilled that I was home. My mother, brother, and cousins had planned a big homecoming get together at one cousin’s house. It was a hot, humid day in late June. So many relatives and friends showed up that I was a little overwhelmed, but genuinely happy to see everybody. We grilled hamburgers and hotdogs on the barbeque, ate potato salad and baked beans, and of course we drank lots of cold beer. For dessert, there was a big welcome home cake. A great catch-up time!

I got a lot of questions about my previous two years. How was it? What did I do while I was there? Did I like it? It was great! I taught and worked with teachers. I sure did!

Going a little deeper, what was the food like? How hot was it? How did I get so tan?

We ate a lot of fish and rice. It was hella hot and humid! Well, I was out in the sun almost all the time – on an island in the middle of the Pacific. We’d go into the water and it was so warm that we’d have to come out to cool off. I was ready to expand the answers, to go deeper. But that was about as deep as it got on that first day with all those people.

Then one recurring question was asked for the first time. “What did you like best?” Wow! That was a harder question to answer than I thought. I liked learning a new language. I loved my family. I loved the beautiful setting. It was great being immersed in a totally new and different culture. My list of “bests” went on and on. My challenge was finding a starting point, a place to jump into telling my stories. But it became obvious pretty fast that short answers were better than in-depth ones. “Say something in Palauan,” someone would say. The first thing that came to mind was to speak the lyrics of the kid song, Tal Morael. Someone would say. “What does it mean?” So I told them that it was a sort of kid song about how fish swim. Cute! End of conversation. Today, I sing that song to my grandbabies as a lullaby.

“Who’s your family?” This question was asked as if to suggest that I had abandoned my family at home. I wanted to say that my first family was “ar chad era Markup” – the people of Markup – in Ngarenlengui. I lived with them during our weeks of PC training. They taught me a lot; I was lucky to have had them as my adopted family. Later, in Koror, I lived with Malomis and Yashiro Ngiraialild and their kids, relatives of Markup’s wife, Matilitae.  I wanted to say more about the family and family life, but with the polite nods, I saw that that conversation was over.

And so it went. Although I was back home and among family and friends I had known all my life, there was a sense of estrangement, of being alone, like I was a stranger among those I loved and who loved me. I knew that no one was trying to be uncaring or unwilling to hear about many of the things I had experienced. They were just happy to have me home, busy, and continuing to move on with their own lives.

I saw Chuck’s line. I was approaching it.  I was crossing it.

Occasionally, usually after a few beers with the boys, I’d get the bare-breasted-island-girls question. “Sorry, guys. Nope. That’s not the way it was.” They were disappointed. The closest it ever came to that was during a ngaseche, the ceremony that takes place a month after the birth of a child. The baby is introduced to the community, and the mother is welcomed back into public life. It was a big celebration, mom all oiled up, wearing a grass skirt and shell beads, feet not touching the ground, baby held high.  But that wasn’t the story my buddies wanted to hear.

One Friday evening, a bunch of old friends were planning to get together. We’d have dinner at a favorite Italian restaurant, maybe see a movie and go out to a bar after that. I was really tired, but I said OK, knowing full well that I had no intention of joining them. They would wonder where I was when I didn’t show. But I had said OK. That’s when I found myself saying, “Lak o melingmess!” to myself. There’s no real English translation or American equivalent to what I was doing. Basically, it means something akin to being polite by saying what you think somebody wants to hear. A kind of a white lie to be kind. In Palau, friends would have understood, but I was not there anymore. I was crossing the line. So I went to meet my friends.

At the restaurant, we ordered pizza with everything on it. The only thing I asked to not be on it was anchovies. I do not like anchovies. “What! You don’t like fish? It’s Friday. We gotta have a little fish for old times sake.” they teased. In fact, I loved fish. Back in the day, before meatless Fridays disappeared, Friday was the day when we had to eat fish, or mac-n-cheese. Maybe we’d have tuna salad, tuna noodle casserole, maybe fish sticks. Only on Fridays. Rarely did anybody eat real, heads and scales fish. In our little town, there was no sashimi or sushi, and actual fish was not in our food repertoire. Anyway, even in the old days, I never liked anchovies. “Actually, I love fish,” I retorted. “In Palau, we ate fish every day, three times a day. Fish and rice. Unless, your family was a taro family. Then it was fish and taro. Or maybe there was no fish that day, and we just ate rice with soy sauce and sugar.” 

That got one hell of a reaction. “That’s a whole lot of cans of tuna, Bro! Three times a day! Didn’t you get sick of it?” I explained that it wasn’t canned tuna; it was always fresh fish. I also explained that there were so many kinds, textures, colors and flavors of fish in the ocean that we never got sick of it. Most families had their favorite variety, but even then it would be cooked in lots of different ways. “Think about beef,” I suggested. “How many different kinds and ways can you think of to cook beef?” “Yeah, right.” And I knew that I’d lost them.

“But didn’t you ever have meat?”

“Oh sure. For special times, we might have chicken. And on really special times, once in a while we might even have turtle, or crocodile. Turtle is killer good!” That always got a rise.  Once in a while, I’d tell my Spam story, too. There were times when I really craved meat. I’d stop by the little store and buy a can of Spam. I’d open it and eat it straight out of the can as I walked home. Since most of my friends had never eaten Spam, but had heard horror stories, their reaction was one step shy of disgust. (Actually, although the story is true, my reaction to that memory is also one of near disgust even today.)

Once home, over time, my tan faded. It was a gradual process taking about 2 full weeks toward the end of summer. I have never been as tan again as I was when I came home. There was a fading remnant of a tan line as fall set in. With no more constant sunshine and no reflected sunlight off the sea and sand, there was no way to keep that glow. I hadn’t been fully aware of how deep my tan was until it left. Being a fair-skinned Irish kid, it was burn, blister and brown a bit as I grew up. Two years on an island hadn’t changed the past, but somehow, the burn and blister part got passed by, and the brown became deep bronze. I missed the tan. All I had left were fading lines.

“What did you do all day?” was a fairly common question. “Didn’t you get bored? Ever have island fever?”  Hell no! There was no time to get bored. We did our work during the regular work week. Teaching and training teachers to teach English to Paluan kids took time and energy. That’s a whole other set of stories to tell. After work and on weekends, though, there was an ocean to play in, friends to play with, and rock islands to explore. There were many stories to tell if anyone was interested.

One of my favorite stories happened in the middle of the ocean, miles from any land at all. My friend Craig and I were out on a Fisheries Department boat which he’d borrowed for the weekend. We were snorkeling out on a far portion of a reef away from any islands. Snorkeling in the waters around Palau was amazing, but on that day, as we were in the water, a storm was brewing miles away. When we surfaced, we could see if off in the distance, but we also saw a rainbow. In fact, as we looked, we realized that we were square in the middle of that rainbow. The bright colors reflected off the blue water. The reflection started on one side of our boat, spread for miles across the surface of the sea, went up into its beautiful arch. It came down, reflecting back again from the point where it hit the water, across the surface to our boat. Even Craig, who spent all of his life on and under the water, had never seen a sight like that. It was spectacular. I learned that I could tell the story, but it was all but impossible to capture its impact.

There were cultural experiences, personal experiences and a slew of other things I’d like to be able to tell. Most are on the far side of the line but every once in a while, they just pop up unexpectedly. Remember my tan. I loved it. As a pale chad re nebard (Amercan), nobody paid any attention. It taught me an important cultural reality. A good friend of mine was a young man named Harper. He was a teacher and one of our students in our language teaching classes. He was a good teacher, very funny, and a good friend. Harper had a sister who was exceptionally beautiful. She, too, was in some of our classes. Although it was a little awkward, my Peace Corps friends and I commented to Harp on how attractive his sister was. He was surprised. Not just because he was her brother and didn’t look at her that way. He was surprised that we thought she was pretty because her skin was so dark. That had never crossed our minds. Culturally, lighter was better than darker. And heavier was better than lighter, as well. Lighter skin and heavier weight correlated to prosperity. They translated into less time to work in the sun and more food on the table.

Some historical events took place while I was in Palau. It was during our training period in Ngaremlengui when John Glen stepped onto the surface of the moon. The anniversary of that event brings back the memory of where I was at that very moment – stranded during a typhoon in a Quonset medical dispensary in the village of Ngchesar on the opposite side of Babeldaob. I have told the story over the years, but my retelling doesn’t capture it very well at all. The reaction is usually a smile and a comment like, “Neat.” 

There is still so much to tell. Things still come up on this side of the line which are new to me – things which happened or started while I was in Palau which I didn’t know about at the time. I knew of weddings of family and friends, and of important historical events. Even today, every now and then, a song will come on the radio or be played on the 70s channel of Pandora which I have never heard before.

There have been many times when I’ve remembered my conversation with Chuck over the years. He was right; I was not the same person coming home as I was when I left. I crossed the line. I am not disappointed, and not angry that others have not been able to understand all that my Peace Corps friends and I had experienced. Much of that, I am sure, can be chalked up to my lack of ability to tell good stories. I was able to prepare my head and my heart.  Many changes have stayed with me; many, I hope, have made me a better person. A better husband and father.

Chuck was a wise young man. I am ever grateful that he prepared me to cross the line.