First week at Saipan

First week here at Oleai Elementary was truly amazing. I was, naturally, nervous before my first day. But, once I took a single step inside school, I instantly realized I will be fine. I was greeted by numerous people, teachers and children. They were delighted to have Roy and me there. Teachers and interpreters and children excitedly talked to us to get to know us more. Deaf children were shy at first but after few minutes, they were enthusiastic and asked me many many and many questions! They proudly told me many facts about themselves. The children are great! Interpreters and teachers are very friendly as well and very generous.

As week progressed, Roy and I primarily work with four 5th graders. There are two kindergarten and a 1st grader student here at Oleai Elementary. The students are really sweet and do know signs. However, their English is not strong. That is why I brought SRP (Shared Reading Program), which is a bunch of educational books of various levels of reading, all way from Kendall School to Oleai Elementary so they could take a book along with a DVD and bring them home to practice reading. Also, their parents could watch the DVD to learn how to tell the story in ASL. That way, parents could sit down and be able to read the book to their deaf children. I am looking forward to see how much SRP could help Deaf students to understand English better!

Culturally, I also learned so much about the daily lives of Saipan people. Oleai Elementary is in area where most people who live there are either Chamorro or Carolinian. Truthfully, it does feel a little strange being a minority since I am white. No matter anyways because people here are so friendly toward me. Food, a huge part of culture here, is a mixture of Chamorro, Carolinian, Filipino, Asian, and some American. Some non-American food is already familiar to me since I went to Hawaii. Other food is entirely new to me! Melisha is my guide for Chamorro food. Roy is my guide for Filipino food, since he was from Filipino. For an instance, yesterday I tried pulutan, which is beef with pig blood. It doesn't taste so bad! I am still figuring out which is my favorite meals and trying to memorize names for various food. Nice thing is that, since food here is generally inexpensive compared to the US mainland, I could buy and sample various food without killing my wallet!

One thing that I had to get used to was that people here do not show as much skin as mainland US does. I cannot wear "regular" shorts since here at Saipan they consider it to be too short. I have to wear shorts that reach almost to my knees, sometimes even pants. I have to wear shirts that have sleeves; no tank tops. I also cannot wear bikinis. I have to wear one-piece suit. At first, I wasn't comfortable since it is very hot here, usually in mid-80s everyday and 70s at night. I got sweaty easily. Gradually, I am able to wear pants without being bothered too much. An interpreter here told me about how she visited to NYC during springtime and had to wear numerous layers of clothes, plus winter coat, plus ear muffins, plus mittens, etc. She complained that she saw some people wearing merely sweatshirt and pants. I laughed and told her that I sometimes wear flip-flop even when there's snow. She thought I am extremely insane. I told her, "eh, my family is from Canada!"

Below is a picture of us all, except one student who was sick that day. We were celebrating Bobbie's birthday.

Front row: Daveanna, Melisha, me, Bobbie, Bryan, Joaqisha

Back row: Connie, Roy, Malou, Mystica, audiologist, and Ymhil