"Student, did you do your homework?" *eyebrow shrug* (easily unnoticed)
"Are you married?" *eyebrow shrug* (easily misinterpreted)
While there are these communication barriers I'm still learning to cross (including trying to learn Pohnpeian), the most impactful lesson I've learned so far is the value of nonverbal communication.
A couple of weeks after school started, we had a Freshmen Welcome Celebration in which each class performed a few dances. As a lifelong lover of dance, when my Sophomore homeroom asked if I would join one of their dances, I immediately said, "Yes!" (complete with eyebrow shrug).
This was a reply that I was deeply regretting the next day when we began practice. I said that I would join some of the girls in a hula. I don't know what I was expecting, but seeing the girls move their hips with such rhythm and ease, I became very aware of my own limitations. Years of ballet and upper-middle-class suburban life seemed to have made me, what I believed to be, the worst hula dancer of all time. The thought of trying to shake my hips in front of the entire school made me sit out of most of the practices.
However, that Tuesday at spirituality night, we discussed the idea of companionship, just being with others. I realized that I wasn't seeing the big picture. My students didn't want me to dance with them because I was a good dancer. They just wanted to share that experience with me. They wanted me to dance beside them as they too built up the courage to be in front of the entire school.
So, that Friday, with my hair done and a belt made of leaves around my hips, I giggled nervously with my students as we waited for the music to begin and smiled with them as the school cheered us on. Sure, at this point I was still struggling to remember everybody's name, and much of practice was spoken in Pohnpeian, but I was with them, and that's all that mattered.
Perhaps the biggest communication challenge came during my first weekend here, which I spent with my host family. A member of my host family is a girl my age who is deaf. In theory, this is an impossible relationship. I don't know sign language. She can write, but doesn't know English well. Yet, somehow, I made one of the closest bonds with her. We were patient with each other. We understood each other's made up signs. When we didn't, we laughed and would continue to sit beside each other, not moving or speaking. That first weekend, she was a comfort for me. She accepted me and my naivety and appreciated my presence. My last night there, we stayed up late "chatting," like I would with any girl friend my age. It turns out, she did know a little English. She wrote in my journal "I love you."
So, while I may not be any closer to knowing Pohnpeian than I was a year ago, I'm finding out how to bond with people in other ways. For some reason, the foundations of these relationships seem so much stronger than those made of hours of small talk. Sure, I may not know a person's name or age, but if we shared a smile as we waited for the rain to pass under a store's overhang, well, that's more than enough.
