Micronesia is losing its young people, and it has about half the population it had only 15 years ago. It’s a patriarchal society, and for us to visit, our captain needed to meet the chief.
and the church.
the communal kitchen
We were then allowed to come ashore and be introduced to him. He invited us to tour the village with guides. We went to the school,
the backstrap weaving display,
the solar array and generator (the island doesn’t use much electricity), the cemetery (the covered graves at the back are older),
the end of the island,
and the church.
the communal kitchen
I went back to the weavers and asked them about the lava lava cloth they used to weave from banana fibre (they were weaving with cotton). They told me it wasn’t for sale, but as I just wanted to look, they found some, and brought it out. They explained that this was a mixture of cotton and banana fibre, and would be places in the mother’s coffin to show she was an important person.
In the afternoon we snorkelled at a spot the chief had allowed us to use.
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