And So It Begins!

First official picture of our blog...sending in our signed contracts to CNMI PSS (Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Public School System)!!

After taking a journey that lasted almost 40 hours (with flight time, delays, and change in time), we finally landed at the Saipan airport. Three girls traveled with us all the way from Atlanta.  They are members of the JROTC at Saipan Southern High School.  We chatted with them a bit in the Houston Airport.  They were adorable!   At baggage claim, we met was Rita.  We chatted away about how excited we were to be here as new teachers and how our friend Daniel Stafford recruited us to move to Saipan.  "Oh, yes, I know Daniel.  We've worked together on Mock Trial."  Nice lady, we thought, and what a small world.  When we went through Customs, the agent (with bettlenut in his mouth--like chewing tobacco only redder!) asked us where we were staying.  "Facey Farms," we said.  "Oh, yes.  Jerry Facey.  Good guy!"  We felt like we were at the Wal-Mart in the Sham--everybody knows everybody here!!!  Daniel and Amanda met us at the airport with fresh leis and a welcome poster.  We told Daniel about meeting Rita, and he said, "You know she's the Commissioner of Education, right?  She's the one who signed your contracts."  Of course, we would meet the Dr. Forbes of Saipan right when we landed!

We have been here for almost two weeks.  In some moments, it feels like we have been here forever, and at other moments, the time has flown by.  We certainly miss our dogs, family, and friends.  Wendell and Ellie are being fostered by the Elgers, and Jan, or should I say Wendell and Ellie, send us almost daily updates, including pictures!  This has definitely helped.

Thank God for Daniel Stafford.  PTL as his mother and I used to say.  Our first day on the island involved a boat trip out to Managaha Island with Daniel and his friends.  Managaha has no inhabitants, only day visitors.  We grilled out, went snorkeling and saw the most amazing creatures, and just enjoyed the awesome beauty of our new surroundings!

 Our newest friends.  From left to right...Daniel, Joey, me, Lacey (teacher from Montana who knows our friend Lindsay Hopkins Jacobsen), Jen (attorney from Idaho), Jen's Mom (here visiting for two weeks and giver of fabulous Mom-hugs!), Jordan (attorney from Nevada), Liz (local news broadcaster from Connecticut and Jordan's girlfriend), and QuynhChi (attorney from California).  Amanda is taking the picture. We capped off our evening with a dinner at the Spicy Thai Restaurant, where our favorite Pad Thai is only $8!  Yum, yum!!

Our next day consisted of running errands including getting a cell phone (our number is 670.287.0793), shopping for a car (UGH!), and buying necessities for our home (See TIS section below).  On Tuesday, we had a Teacher Tea and met all the newbie teachers to the island.  Made some great friends and got a better understanding of how things work when it comes to schools on this island.  Very different than the Sham!  Very different!  (See TIS section.)  We took a tour of the northern part of the island, which is breath-takingly beautiful!  On Tuesday night, we officially joined the Mellow Yellow Co-ed Soccer Team.  Great competition and fantastic people.  Korean BBQ followed.  Our first experience and loved it!  Only $6 per person for a delicious and amazing meal.  Wednesday began pre-planning.  We were greeted with a new principal.  He transferred from Saipan Southern.  The one who recruited us retired for medical reasons.  We met with our Departments.  Very interesting!  World History here starts with the 1500s, where Joey had always started with Greece, Rome, you know, all the BC stuff.  Elizabeth learned that there is one Algebra II teacher with a completely different book than the other teachers.  In terms of "Curriculum Map" for our subjects, let's just say they're still in process!  We also met the "Athletic Director" per say, and we expressed our interest in coaching.  He's a great guy, and we're both excited about getting involved in coaching some MHS Dolphins!

Thursday night, we met friends at the Street Market.  Local food vendors set up booths, and it is good for the taking!  Again, super cheap prices on absolutely mouth-watering food!  We also go to see some cultural dancing, which was really cool.  Pictures didn't turn out so well.  We went out for drinks with friends at the famed "Godfather's" Bar afterwards and met some new friends, Colleen and Bryan.  Colleen is a fellow red-head who teaches at Kagman High School (the third public high school on the island), and Bryan is an attorney. They're from Wisconsin and Nebraska, respectively, and are becoming fast friends!  We left around ten, and soon after Karl Rove came in with some RNC friends.  Small world!!!

On Friday, we started off the day by having coffee at Uncle Jerry's house (our landlord).  He's the Facey of Facey Farms.  He's a combination of both of our father's, and his home is absolutely incredible.  He has a whole room dedicated to the Marianas Islands--really cool collection of items.  His wife is originally from Palau, and they have three grown children.  We are so lucky to be a part of the Facey Family!

We had "Professional Development"on Saturday for three hours and went to lunch afterwards with Maria, a teacher at Marianas and Mellow Yellow teammate.  She concurred our first impressions of most of our colleagues.  Eating $1.50 tacos and drinking Coronas by the beach certainly helped us feel better after "working" on a Saturday morning.  Saturday  night, we went out to dinner at the Hyatt with Colleen and Bryan.  One of the "things to do" in Saipan is become "members" at the local hotels.  You get discounts on food and access to all their amenities.  We had delicious Italian food and stayed out the latest we have so far...10:30!  On the way to the hotel and back home, we went through two different Sobriety Checkpoints.  The Marianas Police are trying to crack down on drunk driving, and the hap-hazard way they do it at these checkpoints is pretty interesting!

On Sunday, we had our first "we really miss home day."  We didn't go out until late, and we stayed inside all day reading and napping.  Taking naps isn't what is used to be without our dogs cuddled up with us.  We also didn't get any calls from friends to do anything, so we felt really disconnected.  Turns out, our phone is way messed up, and they were trying to call us all day long!  Our spirits were lifted, however, every time we looked out our windows...

On Labor Day, we woke up to find that Gony, the guy who fixes things at Facey Farms, left us fruit (star fruit, tangerines, limes, and some sort of melon) on our porch.  We had ran into him on Sunday and asked what fruit was in season.  I guess he took that as a request to bring us some of the goodness that grows at Facey.  We LOVE Gony.  I want to adopt him and bring him home as a surrogate uncle!!

We ran other errands and went to the school to work on our classroom.  Elizabeth's classroom had some demotion work done on Friday and was being painted on Saturday.  It was equipped with old tables, so we moved some newer ones over from the conference room.  The room still smelled of fresh paint, but at least it had three working air conditioners---a premium around these parts.  Joey found out he wouldn't be a floater and actually had a classroom.  It's a brand, spankin' new one in the lobby of the gym.  New carpet, new tables and chairs, and new paint.  Very clean!  Elizabeth pouted and tried to convince Joey and the principal that she needed the new classroom instead of her older, dirtier one.  It didn't work!  We went home and showered and headed to Daniel's house for Jen's birthday party.  We met some other new friends and enjoyed eating burgers and celebrating Jen's birthday.  Fun night!

Tuesday was our first day with students, and yes, Joey is wearing shorts to school.  This is considered "professional dress" here.  Where do we even begin with our students?!  We are in LOVE with the kids at this high school.  Picture a room filled with Juan Vargas, Rogelio Navarette, and Cristian Zavala times twenty--just good, hard-working, the most respectful, and precious, precious kids!  All of our students speak English as their second language, and we do teach children who are served by Special Education.  However, every single one of them wants to learn as much as they can.  We were overwhelmed by our first day!  Neither one of us teach "white" children.  All of our students are from some sort of ethnic minority, and many of them represent several cultures in their households (Chimoro, Phillippino, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Carolinian, etc.).  All of them have tanned skin and gorgeous dark eyes and value like education like we have NEVER seen.  We are truly enamored.  We stayed at work late on Tuesday, went home to re-fresh, and then went to Spicy Thai for dinner.  We shared a plate of Pad Thai and then went home and crashed.

Wednesday was another wonderful school day!  Part of us thought that maybe our kids were just being good for the first day, but no, it just gets better and better!  We had a faculty meeting after school, where we learned that our principal is changing our schedules on Monday.  Instead of teaching three classes, we will be teaching four, which means smaller class sizes.  Great news for us and the kids!  It also means that about 10-15 teachers will no longer be needed at MHS.  We find out who will be re-assigned on Friday.  It might be us, but we are hoping not!  After the meeting, we rushed off to our soccer game.  We tied, 3-3.  On our way home, we stopped by the Ebisuya Bakery.  Wednesday is $1 bread day, so we loaded up on breakfast, lunch, and snack items for the week.  We also bought some random items just to try.  We found one dish that tastes like sweet BBQ from home.  DEEE-licious!

Thursday proved to be another fabulous and amazing school day with our kids.  When we discussed the new schedule with them and informed them we might be leaving, they assured us they would protest.  "We want you to stay with us, Miss.  We are learning, and we like it!"  Did I mention how precious all these kids are?!  We ran some errands after school (turning in our insurance forms and bank information so we could get paid!) and went home to relax.  We met up with Colleen and Bryan at the Street Market and enjoyed tasty goodness yet again.  Over the past few days, Joey's back has been hurting, so we think we may be buying a new mattress this weekend.  Good thing we have Amanda's car while she is out of town.  Speaking of cars...

Daniel has been letting us borrow a car since we've been here.  We affectionately call it the Blue Stallion. She is an old Grand Am with tinted windows (standard on the island), a few non-working windows, and no Air Conditioner.  This poses a slight problem given the humidity and taking into consideration it's rainy season.  So, whenever we park the car, we have to put a trash bag over the driver's window to make sure if it rains, water won't get inside.  Amanda left for the states last Friday, and she was letting us borrow her Four Runner.  We were so excited to have a car with high ground clearance because of where we live and definitely excited about the AC.  We took her to the airport and were taking both cars home when all of a sudden the Stallion broke her front left leg.

Cars on this island are worthy of a blog entry all on their own.  They are a premium here!  Had we had it to do over again, we would have had Joey's car shipped out here.  We would have been better off, but lessons learned.  We thought we were going to buy a used Four Runner, but that hasn't worked out.  The seller got laid off from the government and is not planning on buying the new car he wanted.  The market was flooded when we arrived, and all of the cheap (and I do mean cheap) have been gobbled up.  We debated on buying a cheap, island car, but basically, you end up spending as much or more in repairs than the purchase price.  Since we don't own a car in the states, we have decided that we would like to buy a decent car here and either re-sell it when we leave or have it shipped back to Georgia.  So, we are back in the hunt.  Amanda comes home on Sunday, so we will be back in the saddle until we can get another horse!

We had another amazing day at school on Friday.  Joey's students discussed the difference in being loyal to the state and loyal to their culture.  They also are creating constitutions for the school.  Elizabeth's students had "Brain Buster" activities where they thought outside the box (I used activities given to me by Mrs. Heindel and Mrs. Cantrell).  I was so amazed at how fast they came up with solutions.  "More, more, Miss.  We want more!"  I kept throwing brain teasers at them, and they were soaking it all up!  Did we mention the kids here are amazing?!!!

We are learning about all the idiosincracies and beauties of our new home.  In Africa this summer, we said the phrase a great deal, "TIA," which stands for "This is Africa!"  This was used to explain random occurences that really don't have a logical explanation.  We've modified that for Saipan.  For example, teachers clean their own classrooms.  There is no janitorial staff.  TIS!  I have several nails just laying on the floor of my classroom.  TIS!  The internet just comes and goes when it feels like it.  We've been working on this blog post for about four days, but it depends on the time of day whether we can actually log on to update the post, or see the post, or even post the post!  TIS!  We cut our hot water heater on to take a shower and then cut it off afterwards to save electricity.  It's located in a shed outside of our house.  TIS!  What we thought was "furnished" isn't the Saipan definition of "furnished."  We arrived to a home with an amazing view with no dishes, no sheets, no towels... TIS!  Water and power are huge issues here.  We've lost power a few times at our home, and to allay that problem, people join hotels here.  If power goes out for extended periods of time, they just go check-in at the Hyatt.  TIS!  Toilets don't always flush here, so most bathrooms are equipped with a large trashcan full of water and a container to pour the water from the trashcan into the toilet.  This helps things flush when there are issues.  TIS!  Contracts were being prepared and signed on Tuesday at the Teacher Tea.  Teachers were told not to report to pre-planning until they had officially signed their contract.  We thought getting our contract one week out from school was cutting it close.  TIS!  They were supposed to hire 40 new teachers this year, but we've heard that there are actually 90 new hires.  Oops!  TIS!

As our friend Daniel told us in an email shortly before we arrived...Don't think of this as a third world part of America; think of it as a first world part of the Philippines.  It certainly is NOT "America on an island."  It is Saipan, a totally unique place that is now our new home.  We want as many of you to come visit from home as possible, but you'll need to understand what you're getting into.  Air conditioning is a luxury, not a given.  Water and power are sketchy; the roads are bad, dogs are all in the streets....Yes, it has MANY issues, and we are certain we will experience many more "opportunities" (as my Mom would say) as the year progresses.  But, we are in love with our students, our new friends, and our surroundings.

Please feel free to email us or post comments on the blog.  Our email addresses are:
Elizabeth    elizabethelger@gmail.com
Joey           joeymelger@gmail.com
We LOVE getting snail mail too, and it only requires normal US postage!  It gets here in usually about a week.  Our mailing address is:
Joey and Elizabeth Elger
PMB 231, Box 10003
Saipan, MP  96950

Loads of hugs, kisses, misses, and love to everyone!