Arrival in Yap

So when we flew in there were about a hundred people gathered around to see who came off the plane. After going through the small customs booth the Yapese girl put a lei type thing around my neck but it was not like a necklace. It was more in the style of graduation cords. It was braded leaves with flowers along it; very beautiful. Then teh principal's wife gave each of us a head wreeth made of the same sort of thing. The Yapese girl was in the traditional dress with the large grass skirt and a grass decoration around the neck. We were introduced to several people and I even got to meet a futre student. He seemed happy to meet me which is a good sign. When he smiled I could see the red staining in his teeth from the beetle nut which his common here. It is in some ways similar to chewing tobacco. I hope I don't have many issues with that during class. I need to come up with a way of discouraging it's use in class.

We then got into this reckety old van and drove on a pot hole covered road to the school. That was the longest 7 kilometers ever! I thought it would never end. At the school us 5 girls moved into our apartment and chose rooms. I am in the green room with Kirsten. I made curtains out of the airplane blankets. It looks very homey. One more girl will be coming later. Since we came in at night it was hard to really get a good look at things. Tere were a lot of stray dogs runing around.