Saturday, April 26, 2008

Missing Tinian, and Terri

There is a saying: absence makes the heart grow fonder...all those who have left home, or left someone they love know how true this adage is!

We often get so focused on the day-to-day issues and problems in our lives, we can't see the love and joy that surrounds us. It is only when we leave our structured lives that we are forced to consider what we have left behind, and how that life compares with our new experiences. History clearly shows that most people find their greatest joy is found when they are surrounded by their family, and at home. Unfortunately, that joy often gets obscured by the daily problems of life that occur to all of us. It is only when we must face the world without the 'back-up system' of our family we come to realize how cruel and cold the world can be, and how warm and loving our family really is.

All of our children have experienced this 'transformation' because they left home to go on church missions or college, and all returned changed by the experience. All of the 'problems' they once saw within the family, and even rebelled against, suddenly became strengths or non-issues. They returned focused and happier, with a much more mature attitude about life. All because they had the opportunity to leave home--to go on their own and experience life on their own.

I seem to remember a saying from Jesus... something about the need of men and women to leave their parents... I don't think the saying was just about marriage and starting a new family, it is also so that people can leave home and experience this 'fondness' that comes from the absence of friends and family. Leaving home and facing the world on our own crystallizes in our minds what is true and what is false, it helps us to make a decision as to how to live our lives.

Anyway, I truly am missing my life on Tinian...and of course my reason for being there--Terri.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Musings of a Solitary Woman

Kevan has left me . . . but just to return to Utah to perform maintenance on our home there as we are in between renters. He will be off island (look at me, I'm a native!) for an entire month. We have not been apart for this long in 14 years. What's even worse is the fact that since I started school in 2005, I have not attended any domestic duties . . . not one! I haven't cooked, laundered clothes, gone grocery shopping, paid bills, or cleaned the house. Even more startling is the fact that I know nothing about the day-to-day operation of our life here in Tinian. I go to the hospital in the morning, come home for lunch, return to the hospital, return for dinner, and then count the minutes until I am called back to the hospital for an emergency. That is my life. I have no idea what food is available here, except for Zhing who sells me fantastic fresh produce at the hospital. Now that rainy season is over, the vegetables are growing great and there is a much greater variety. I do know where Kevan does the laundry, but have only helped with that task once. I pay my own student loans but nothing else. Until Kevan left two days ago, I did not know the pin number to our bank account.

What is most interesting is the fact that when Kevan and I got married 32 years ago today (yes, it's our anniversary and Kevan is in Utah and I'm on Tinian), we made the deal that Kevan would work while I stayed home and raised our family and then once that was complete, he could pursue his passion for writing and I would enter the work force to support us. Never did I imagine at that time that my dream of being a medical provider (spelled "physician assistant") would ever be fulfilled, but here I am. Well the dream came true and so did the transition. For someone who was the quintessential stay-at-home Mom who was able to manage 5 kids who were a total of 6 years apart and all that goes with managing a home as well as staying sane, the transition of swapping roles is complete. Kevan is now the total stay-at-home manager while I go to work only to return home exhausted while he takes care of me. I mean I am totally a house slug . . . I come home simply to collapse on the couch and stare. Never do I lift a finger to help my poor caretaker. I do try to be loving and attentive and compliment him and appreciate him, but I don't even do "my" part and take out the trash.

So I'm alone. Kevan left me food in the fridge, a bit of cash for essentials, and a list of things to do. He even did laundry so that I might be able to last until he returns home. I get up and eat cereal, eat a peanut butter sandwich for lunch and peanut butter and soup for dinner. Last night I did have leftovers and a salad that he left for me in the fridge.

The first night he was gone I ended up spending most of the night in the hospital with an emergency and then the next day struggling to stay alert and awake at work. I am very lucky to have magnificently talented nurses who have my back. They are always there to remind me quietly that "you might not want to do that." I'm not often THAT tired at work, so when I realized I wasn't much good at the hospital during clinic hours I came home and took a nap.

So here I am on my own and off I went on my scooter to see a patient this evening. I didn't know it was raining, so I was soaked by the time I got there. The throttle got stuck on my scooter and I almost ran into the building and to top it off, I ran out of gas on the way home and had to push/scoot my way home. Guess that's why they're called scooters. Okay, so I'm totally humiliated and completely useless as anything other than a physician assistant these days.

So to my dear sweet long-suffering husband, Happy Anniversary. Thirty-two years is a pretty long time, and I wouldn't trade any of it for all the "tea in China." Of course these days, isn't it rice and corn that are as precious as gold?

The one thing I am good at these days is being a physician assistant. I am feeling good about what I'm doing these days. There's nothing better than looking at an EKG and seeing a patient in heart block, being able to identify it and sending them off for definitive care. Or to have a patient come in and realize they are in thyrotoxicosis (a highly overactive thyroid) who is actually psychotic and sit with them and treat them medically until the psychosis resolves. Or treating a 14-year-old lovely young girl whose face is absolutely decimated by atopic dermatitis and in 5 days make it all go away and see her wonderful, beautiful smile. (More on this in another blog entry. This young lady has given me permission to share her story and pictures on this blog as she wants other young teenagers to know that there is always hope with treatment). I always joke with my family that I had to expunge my brain of all my homemaker mind in order to fill it with all this new information, so perhaps that explains my inability to do home-management tasks while I can now treat patients. If so, I suppose the tradeoff is worth it.

The other news is that I will soon be having PA students here on Tinian. I have been asked by two PA programs to precept their students. The details are not yet complete but I will hopefully be done with all the paperwork soon. I am quite looking forward to this new challenge. There is no better medicine anywhere, so I believe students will be well served in their rotations here.

The good news is that after 3 days I'm still alive and it's almost the weekend - oh, never mind, I'm on call for the next 8 days, so I guess the weekend doesn't exist. I have, though, been invited to both a wedding and a baby christening on Saturday but both are at 11 AM. Not certain how I'm going to attend both, but I'll try to get pictures since Kevan's gone and our readers are going to wonder what's going on! I'll try to fill some of the void, although forgive me for not being as prolific as he.

For now, good night all and Happy Anniversary my sweet Kevan. It's been a fabulous 32 years and I look forward to the next 32.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

The Royal Court of Mariana 2008

Last night Terri and I attended a 'ceremony' at the Grace Christian Academy on Tinian, where they choose a group of children who complete to become the 'Royal Court', including King and Queen, of the island. The children were 4-6 years old, dressed up in gowns and finery--they even had the 'royal wave' down as they walked around and waved to the crowd!

They sang songs, and even had a small dance number (to the James Taylor song, How Sweet it is), choreographed expertly by Sister Ellis, the Pastor Reid's wife.

After the two children were chosen to be king and queen, they had a fireworks display from the top of the Grace Christian school building (the school and church are the same building).

The 'theme' for this year was "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved"--there is no greater feeling than to love and be loved.

At the close, they had a raffle. The evening was the completion, and celebration, of Grace Christian's fundraising campaign.

The Queen was: Victoria Nicole Sablan; the Princesses were: Ryana Diaz, Sire Aliyah Fernandez, and Kayla Manglona

The King was: Victor Nicholas Sablan; the Prince was: John Eric Barcinas

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Contruction update











The beautiful house up on Marpo Heights with the green roof is already being remodeled! Someone forgot to install some pipes. This is a big issue in a concrete house, because it means that the concrete has to be cut out to correct the problem. This is the one great benefit of a stick-framed home--it is easy to make changes.
All the homes on Marpo Heights are making progress, and will be great additions to the Tinian landscape.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Flower lady?






One of the homes I passed on my last walk had a very interesting array of flowers and flower containers. As I was taking pictures, I met a young man who lived there, who explained that his mother was wonderful at growing flowers, and often sold them to people--easy to imagine!

His name was Jon Arri0la (when I asked him how he spelled his last name, he just held out his arm and showed me his tattoo...).

I always admire people who can grow things, and many on the island have green thumbs!

Making Mando (dumplings)



I had a second cooking lesson from Mrs. Shin (Hilda) and her son Jarhoon. They taught me how to make Korean dumplings. It was a great privilege, as they usually only make them at special occasions, because they take a long time to make.

The first step is to make the filling for the dumplings (what you will put inside the dough). Today, this was :

ground pork with green onion, salt and pepper, and pre-cooked

tofu--this is a hard tofu that must be boiled for a while to soften it, then put in linen to squeeze out the excess water.

green sprouts--like bean sprouts that are eaten just after the seeds have sprouted--that are boiled and then have the water removed like the tofu

chopped cabbage, lightly fryed (until soft) with salt and pepper

leeks--diced (these are not the leeks of the US that are similar to onions, they are more like green onions--or grass)

clear Korean noodles (made from potato starch)--cook like regular noodles, then chop-up

dough--just flour and water--for the dumplings

All of the above was already prepared when I arrived (so I don't know how long it took them)

The next step is to mix all of the above ingredients, mixing with sesame oil, salt to taste, and a few eggs to add consistency and bind the ingredients together. After mixing the ingredients in a large bowl, you are ready to make the dumplings.

-Tear off small meatball sized pieces of dough and rolling them out into larger, thin, circles

-Take some of the filling and place in the center of the circle

-Fold the dough over and press together, enclosing the filling with the dough (like a small taco)

- Then you twist the two ends together to make a round, finished, dumpling (see picture)

This process of making the filling and the dumplings is usually done by the whole family on special occasions, making the work go quicker. Because it is so labor intensive, a lot of dumplings are made, to divide among the group, or to freeze for use later.

Once the dumplings are made, there are three ways to cook them:

1. boiling: usually done as part of a soup meal. Today, they had made beef broth by boiling a beef bone in water for a while to get a broth. Then they add salt to taste, chopped garlic, chopped green onions, pepper, and eggs (beaten, and dropped into the water, like won-ton soup). As this is cooking, they then drop in the dumplings. The dumplings are fully cooked and ready to eat when they float easily and the skin becomes clear.

They are served with the soup. You can add salt or soy-sauce. They told me that most of the time they add more hot spices to the dumplings for flavoring.

2. Steaming: using a steam-pot, put in a clean linen to cover the bottom so that the dumplings don't stick (they break easily, as the dough is thin). Just steam them for a few minutes until done.

They are eaten with soy-sauce.

3. Deep fry: deep fry the dumplings TWICE. First, fry the dumpling until about 90% done, and remove. Drain the oil off the dumpling. Once dried for a few minutes, fry again. This makes the dumpling crispy, and actually makes it less oily.

After making our dumplings, we sat together and ate. Then it was my turn! I showed them a family favorite that is readily available on island: cherry jello salad.

cherry jello (four boxes)
one can crushed pineapple
one can cherry pie filling

1. boil four cups water (one for each box of jello)

2. put cherry jello into a large pan that can be put in the fridge

3. pour the boiling water into the jello

4. this is where the change comes--usually when making jello, you would now put in four cups of cold water (each box of jello takes one cup of boiling water and one cup cold water). However, instead of putting cold water into the pan, you put a can of crushed pineapple (equal to two cups of water), and a can of cherry pie filling (equal to two cups of water).

5. once all this is mixed together, simply put it in the fridge overnight to set-up

Very easy, and very, very, good.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Finally, the upper Carolinas!









































Finally made it up to the upper Carolinas. What a hike! The road leading to the small subdivision is incredibly steep. I walk up the hill to the Airport quite easily now, but walking up this steep road, I had to stop and catch my breath two or three times.

The homes here are generally much nicer, and larger, than the ones in the lower valley--nothing much changes about that kind of thing, even here on Tinian...

There is a water tower at the highest point above the subdivision. I was surprised that, even here in a well developed subdivision, there were few homes for the amount of land available. Many of the nice paved streets were empty except for a few homes--just empty lots waiting for someone to build on.

I must say, though, there were some very nice homes up on this hill overlooking the Marpo Valley! many have breathtaking views of the village, the valley, Marpo Heights, and, of course, the ocean. The only downside is the time and distance to get up there.

With springtime here, the island is alive with flowers and beautiful plants and trees. Hard to believe it can become more beautiful, but there you are!



It was quite a long hike--over 5 miles, and I was quite spent when I got home.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

The Carolina jungle

















I finished exploring the lower Carolinas today--a road that was more like a jungle than a road. Like the other areas of lower Carolinas, there were no homes, just roads, lined with electrical poles and ready for lots and houses to be built--but no one there.

The climb up to even the lower part of the Carolinas is like walking up 'the hill' to the airport twice! I keep thinking there must be a road or trail to the top of the Carolinas (as there are some radio towers there), but so far I have not been able to find them. Considering how quickly the jungle retakes the land here, it wouldn't take long for any road or trail to disappear.
Most of the road was very thick with brush. I definitely needed my spider stick today! Whenever the brush is this thick, the spiders spin webs across the trail...I'm sure that I had my share of spiders attached to me, but, as long as they were just along for the ride, and not to feast, I don't notice at all.

My next walk will be up to the subdivision on Carolinas. I have been up there once (it is just below the water tower), but it is a tough climb. The last time I ventured there it took me a couple of days to recoup.
There is continued construction at the new park near the Dynasty Casino. They are building an amphitheater and additional picnic areas.