Off The Verandah

Malinowski, the ‘father of social anthropology,’ studied cultures through participant observation.  His field work led him through Melanesia including Papua New Guinea and the Trobriand Islands.  He emphasized the concept of coming down 'off the verandah,' departing from the Western comforts to join indigenous peoples.  To live with them and live like them in order to learn about them.  This ethnographic approach stresses the importance of observation, limiting one’s influence onto the local peoples.  In college we watched beautiful black-and-white documentaries of Malinowski in the field, and I wanted badly to immerse myself in such a raw culture and create brilliant ethnographies.

When I was little, Mummie used to tell me stories of her childhood in Ethiopia and Kenya.  Her father was a professor of law at The University of Virginia and also worked in the Foreign Service writing legal codes for new and developing countries in Africa and Eastern Europe.  She and her siblings spent their formative years in these countries.  In the stories, they lived in the Embassy compound and had local servants (which today would be called landscapers and chefs and handymen).  Against her parents’ wishes, Mummie befriended the help and spent her playtime with them and they taught her Swahili.  She remembered all their names and spoke about them fondly.  She had, in fact, come down off the verandah.  In some deep subconscious place, these stories brought me to where I am, in a way I didn’t even realize until now.

So here I am.  In my country.  Excited to contribute useful public health information, not to impart Western medicine, and to soak up all the local cultural information available.  Yet I am increasingly aware of how my experience here is confused; somehow straddling two worlds.  In my role as epidemiology researcher, essentially contracted by the World Health Organization, I live alone in a beautiful house, with a gorgeous view, with modern appliances, with a car, with an office, with a purpose.  This is all wonderful until I stand on my deck, cooking fresh fish on the grill, drinking an ice cold beer, bathing in the ocean view, when I realize…that I am On The Verandah!  Looking down.  Not interacting with the local indigenous peoples, but separated by a manicured landscape.

I try to eat local fresh foods, but I’m not eating local dishes.  I’m not experiencing the culture.  I’m not immersed in the language.  I’m not compromising any of my Western comforts.  This is made even more apparent by my friend Mollie.

Mollie is a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) from California who went to Harvard and studied English Literature but fears that she got the wrong Harvard degree.  “So, is being pretentious, white, and wearing turtlenecks, and walking around with really good posture a New England thing or just an English Lit thing?”  I laugh and tell her that I was too busy buried in science labs and too stressed-out over-achieving to notice what anyone else was up to. 

So Mollie and I are fast friends.  She lives with a host family on the other side of the island in Medolemnihnw [med-doe-lem-EEN].  After almost two years, her Pohnpeian is fluent and she is well adjusted to local Pohnpeian life.  She teaches me how to dress and how to make sukasuka a piyaya (pounded coconut food).  I visit Mollie’s home and her host family and her church.  And I am pleasantly culture shocked.  Life outside of town is beautiful and simple and foreign.  Our friendship works because we both indulge in the other’s lifestyle.  Mollie comes and stays the weekends in my guest room and takes hot showers and eats my best Southern California cooking and does her laundry in my washing machine and dryer.  I make fish tacos.  I make fajitas and margaritas for Cinco de Mayo.  Last Saturday morning we sat on my deck eating breakfast burritos and sipping mimosas.  I go to her host family to see the home, to pet the pigs, to join a Pohnpeian church service, to drink fresh coconut, to sit with the family in the open Nas, and to smile as I realize that I’m the only one who doesn’t speak/understand Pohnpeian.

I’m disappointed in my own situation that lacks cultural integrity.  At the same time I feel ashamed that I don’t appreciate the fortunate situation that I’ve adopted.  It’s a struggle between worlds.  I feel guilty because I can choose to access the local Pohnpeian way when it’s convenient for me.  Mollie doesn’t have that choice.  She’s immersed/stuck.  We both want what the other has. 

Yesterday was FSM Constitution Day.  I asked Boris what that meant and he said to take the day off.  He invited me for board games and beers at his neighbor’s house in the embassy compound.  We play Civilization on polished furniture and eat foods prepared from ingredients that simply aren’t available here.  Everyone is American and under the age of 35.  In fact, the guy who is issued the house is from Jamestown, Rhode Island and is only a year older.  We all joke and laugh and check facebook on game breaks.  From the house and the furniture and the Pacific Ocean view, you could easily confuse your surroundings with Malibu or Santa Cruz.  Through the kitchen window I watch a dark-skinned Micronesian tend the garden.  He looks so out of place in the Caucasian compound.  In an instant I am brought back to Mummie’s stories unexpectedly, and she is playing with the gardener outside.  I imagine the garden in Kenya while I stand inside the kitchen with ice cubes clanging in my drink in my air-conditioned comfort. 

Luckily, I’m losing badly at the board game and bow out early.  Thankfully, I can leave the other players to squabble over territory, population expansion, and hostile takeovers. Another rough day in Pohnpei.