differance between american kids and pohnpei kid's

today we were playing dodge ball, and man, its quite intense! lol i mean, i got to be honest with you, american kids throw harder (thats america 1 pohnpei 0, but because of were i am going i am stopping keeping count now) but! the kids here... man.. they are definitely know how to play. i cant tell you how many times kids (girls included) got hit square in the face, everyone laughed at him/her, and he/she would laugh too, harder than the others were. i mean fall on the floor laughing. i mean, its so funny how the mentality is here. we use the old school big red (in our case yellow) dodge balls. in america, you have to get foam balls and the kids cry when they get hit in the face. but the thing is, is girls here, they legit are just as good or better than alot of the guys. its so even, they catch well, they take hits well, i mean no one really throws well (yea! we beat them on that) but still. i mean its so funny. i mean i think the reason why kdis here laugh when they get hit in the face/head is because here when your head gets touched its super disrespectful, but with a ball... its funny? idk... but lol just a strange observation

conversation with my students

me:daniel, come here daniel: what mister? me: your in trouble, you own me a chicken daniel:nooooo mister, why? me: cause i dont have one daniel:WHAT? why not mister? me:i just dont.. Daniel:just get one when you go back to the states me: i cant daniel:why? me:its not easy to get chickens there daniel :yes it is me: no its not daniel: YES it is! me: no it isnt daniel, why do you say it is? daniel: cause you can get anything in the states me: laughs out loud, no, not really

me:cody! cody: yes mister me: your in trouble, you owe me a chicken cody : no me : yes cody: but i only have 3 me: can i have one? cody : you want rooster? me: no i want a hen cody: why? me: cause i want to eat it Micheal: no mister, you want rooster me: why? micheal: for cock fight me : nooooo, they do that here? cody, micheal, daniel: YES! me: you go to them? cody, micheal, daniel: ALL THE TIME me: is it fun? micheal: not for the roosters cody: mister, you should catch a rooster and do cock fighting me: i cant catch a chicken cody: why? me: cause i dont know how! daniel cody micheal:WHATTTT!!! me: i dont, you teach me? cody: oh mister its easy daniel: yea, they sleep in a tree, while they sleep you catch cody:but be careful they scratch your eye daniel:when they poop it wakes them up, that's how you know their awake

traveling

I like to travel. i like to see new places. i like to experiance new culture. so when people ask me "danny, if you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go? i usually have a good response. "Ireland! Japan! VENICE!" those are my usual top three.

today though, i experienced something i haven't before. someone asked me "danny, if you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?" i lurched toward my usual response, but it lurched back like trying to go in reverse with the E brake on. I tried again, and again, and i stalled. i dont really want to go to ireland. i don't really want to be in japan, or in venice. not now. not today. I want to be in my jeep, with a Wendy's 1/4 pound burger in my hand, burger juice on my face, coke coke in the console, third eye blind blaring on my cd player, wind in my hair, sun glasses tinting the gorgeous Tennesee rays, and an open country road. the one i drive to get the property. man... its funny how you crave the every day mundane perfections

(p.s. if stevie or dad are reading this, i challenge you to do that and tell me that wasnt the best day you've had in months. thats a bet ill win)

The Pohnpei Stink

so there is someone that works at the school, who will remain nameless. this person is super nice and we all love this person! one issue. this person wreaks to high heavens! i mean dang buddy, take a shower or something!
at first whiff i smile to myself and say "i will never get that way" i kind of pride myself on smelling good. now im not the master like my brother is with his 7 different scent-o-steve displayed on his sink. but still.
so i wash my clothes, and go to put my nice clean shirt on this morning and WHAT THE HECK! I SMELL LIKE CRAP! i dont know what it is, but its nasty! i am slowly running out of deodterant, i my shirt smells gross... i just dont know what to do about this.. its becoming far to much

today, savor the scent of non-jank! maybe put a little extra sprintz on for me or somethin... this is bad...

the end in mind

you know whats super strange? ever since i got here I've been thinking about the end. not the end of time. not a post apocalyptic future, but coming home. now this may not be that strange. "oh danny must be homesick" i mean miss certain things about home. i miss mom's mac and cheese, i miss the biggest thing to worry about was not driving on the lawn as i back out in the morning, i miss not feeling sun burned, i miss the luxury of a coke and cheese burger, i miss Steve waking me up on Sabbath morning to drums, i miss chris coming over randomly, but i'm not dying over here, i'm just gone for a few months.
 but i have this strange idea that i wanna come back as a missionary. i mean obviously i will but i mean i wanna come back with crazy hair, scraggly beard, machete strapped to my back, so tan that i could be a different nationality, maybe not bigger muscles but definitely more toned. i kinda want to come back looking like life tried to beat the crap out of me but i won. maybe a couple scares, some strange pieces of advice. the thing is i don't know why i'm worrying about this. why am i? lol i mean i have this really we're idea, and pictures thought that i will come off this small old rickety plane, look like crocodile dundee with one of my old shirts but that has tears, mends, and faded colors, and i will be not a hero, but someone who came out on the other end.

the funny thing is, is i'm not going to come back like that. i mean my shirts may be a little worn out, and my hair a little over grown, and maybe ill speak a little differently and have some strange stories but that idea prolly wont come true. but you know what idea will come true? the idea that i am going to stay home as long as i possibly can! WHO NEEDS TO COOK FOR THEMSELVES! who needs this whole "im gonna buy my own groceries"??? not this guy, i was originally planning on spending one year living at home after college, mom and dad, get used to 15 years, cause i may be 40 before i ever move out. might even have my wife and kids in my bed room, who needs my own place!

lol what ever i'm just joking



















kinda

bouncey whatevahs

today was so strange. i learned many things today. one thing, that i dont think i can handle so many different emotions. there was like 50 of them bounceing around hittin me in the face, i think one hit my dannys apple, bouncin everywhere. it was super crazy, i was haveing a hard time handleing them. then the moment i thought i could handle them i realized a second thing

that i can handle all the emotions if i take them and tuck them behind my ear. Varuca salt did it with gum(dont do it with gum, a third grade danny did it once and couldnt get it off) and then i got some stuff done. but what i very quickly leanred afterwards was that

putting it behind your ear doesnt mean its gone away. you also need to know when to hold em' and when to fold em'. so as thought i had everything, and people back home were going to bed, i decided i should to, so i went and took a nap. I woke up to people laughing talking, and the stuff behind my ear slowly comming off and pegin me in the face (i still cant get the little peice out from the top of my right eye) so i came out of my room as everyone was leaveing, sat down and attempted to begin again. as i sit down my internet wont work, nothing is getting together, the stuff now resorted to hitting me everywhere rather than in just my face, and suddenly God allow my spodify to work, and the song "all these things that i've done-the killers" turned on, and washed everything away, 

bye bouncey whatevahs!

the hummus among us

favorite snack chips and salsa or hummus and pita bread. so good right? why is it so good yet healthy for you? i dont know why, but i perferr them over chips, or vegitables or little debbies. (that comparison makes sense in my head but i dont think it does anywhere else)

here in pohnpei there is no hummus, but there is pita chips. (thats like makeing a tooth paste without any tooth brushes... so dumb!) buttt they have chick peas! so i found some excellent recepies, all of which contain completely different ingredients where most of them cant be found on the island (what the heck is tahini anyways?) so what did i do? i got all the ingredients i could from the 4 different recipes i found, and combined them!

we dont have canned garbonzo beanse, so i had to actually soake them over night.

we have a blender that only works half the time. so i am mixing and tasting and trying to help it along with a spoon. the thing keeps jamming, so i keep helping it along with a spoon. i cant tell you how many times the blade hit the spoon, but a little extra iorn never hurt anyone right? (say that to all the tetanus victims) this isnt a super funny story i realized, but imagine a flustered un-wellequiped danny bouncin round a  kitchen squirtin lemon juice in his eyes, and trying to un jamm it. if your brave you should give it a shot, it honestly was fun, and i think is something we're gonna try doing, and it cost me like3 bucks to make (the bagged garbonzo beans were like a buck 50 or somethin)

i call it jank humus. its delicious though for real. 30 oz of chickpeas, 1/2 cup of cucumbers (mhhm i dont know why either) paprika (about 3-4 shakes, add to taste) 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 teaspoons of ground cumin(add to taste), and 3-100 cloves of garlic (never have enough garlic) and 2 table spoons of vegetable oil (olive oil is like 10 bucks here! no way jose!) 2 lemons, and a splash of olive juice from a can we had (the recipe called for pickle juice, but i didnt have any!)

erin stevie, chris, jordan, seriously guys, give this a shot, i dont think you'll be disapointed. if i can do it without any idea, so can you

use the force luke (warm)

last night, my pupils dialated and adreneline pumped through my veins. as i continued to wash the dishes, the cool water from the sink jumped to luke warm. in a frenzy like hurry, i stumbled and scampered to the bath room. with all my might i fliped the shower on as quick as humanly possible and low and behold, the water, was luke warm

i know what your thinking, why would you care if the water is warm? you live in the hottest place on earth, why would you want hot water. YA KNOW WHAT???? ... you make a good point. lol but cold water isnt great when you are already moderatly cool. like when you wake up, or when you wind down at night. its FANTASTIC when you just got done working out, but first think in the morning, thurr be goose bumps errverrrwherrr.

i couldnt have taken off my clothes any faster last night (seariously, no possible way) and man did i flurish in that luke warm goodness. it was like a dog jumpin in a lake, passed out man who has heat stroak... ook maybe not that one.. lol but still

ahhh... mannnnn

so, God has such a sense of humor. I say this because last night we were being adopted by our pohnpei families/churches. so this is the part of the show were we have a family that we eat food with once a week and a church that is our main church we help out with.

we have five guys living in the fab shack. Toney, Caleb, Roy, Riley, and me. the three most rediculous are roy riley and me, by far. We are constantly cracking jokes, kinda dont have our heads on straight, and jst enjoying life with a little more sillyness.

so we were going through the churches, and there wasnt any guys picked... and we were a little thrown off. then i was picked, then a girl, then roy, then riley... lol we all started kinda freaking out. We're all excited about being apart of the same church... but id be lyin if we didnt send up some prayers for that poor church.. lol i dont know if God is wanting to be funny, or if he has something genious up his sleeve... i dont know... lol

slow and steady... we sing the hymns

lol so last night was so interesting
everyone here is on island time
so naturally they tell everyone the actual time it starts to be far sooner than the actual time.
last night we are at vespers, and they don't like to start without everyone being there (which i think is dumb, if you start on time, and then people come in and its almost over, wouldn't that entice them to show up on time? idk.. i feel like we just cater to it.. whatever, not my place to try to change the machine lol) so how do they cater to people coming late? we sing hymns. not 1 hymn, not our 2 favorite verses but 15 hymns, and all the verses! lol its so funny, because so many of these hymns are strongly southern-ly influence, and there is all of these islanders singing these southern songs.. it just seems funny to me. but they love their hyms, and honestly, HYMS RULE! lol they're pretty sweet. they are kind of creative, and different. very cleche' but really good. i found myself really enjoying them. there was a man bangin them out of an out of tune acoustic, and doing them in strange keys. they were all played soooooooooo slow. it was like trying to sing "semi charmed life" to the tick of clock... lol i actually love it here so far. i know all these things i find interesting, weird, and that i love, ill hate it soon probably, but for now, its kinda fun. i was just thinkin, when i get back, next time i do a worship service i am gonna do all hymns, cause NO ONE KNOWS THEM, but we all should. i didn't know the melody line or the words to any of them, but they are sincerely really good. next time you get a chance, flip through a hymn, its pretty sweet

The toilet paper chronicals

things you take for granted is toilet paper.
so we have a new rule, that we have to be limited to like 2 or 3 squares... have you ever done that? its a little gross and ridiculous. it becomes and are, it has to cover everything, you cant press too hard or it will rip, not to light or you don't accomplish anything... lol its like so weird, forreal. so something that i've begun doing, is when we go out, i take a little extra toilet  paper from the local bathrooms. Not a lot, i'm not out stealing tp rolls, thats just messed up. I can hear the police call right now "umm... yea we have a missionary stealing toilet paper... maybe we should start scanning these people before we let them over here..." but i mean, i take about 5 squares. is this totally wrong? lol Feel free to leave some feed back, i'm kinda on uncharted waters, but at 2 bucks a roll, things bout to get creative.

So i'm here in pohnipei. lol its kind of crazy because it hasn't really hit me yet, even though I'm sitting in my living room, just chillin. (its 8 oclock in the morning...) Anyways, so when we first arrived, i looked out at the amazing ocean and thought, so this is home now. It's a little ridiculous to wrap my mind around. we load our bags, and drive to the school. When  i arrived on the island, we drove to the school. The island is pretty much completely poverty. I'll try to go into more detail later.
we get to the school and they show us our living quarters
lol then we found the fab shack. lol, Prolly the sweetest jank-est place ever. no ace, no windows, no hot water, just right? lol idk but we call it home for now.
after wards we went to a water fall that was pretty amazing, and we went shopping...

ok, so shopping was potentially the most terrifying experience ever. we had no idea what to get, and EVERYTHING is so expensive. one roll of toilet paper is 1.80. ONE! We bought a 20 pac for 30 bucks... i mean come on. I just wish there was a guide book to this, but we'll get the hang of it. I want to write a shopping list for the past sm's so when they get here it isn't chaos like it was here. Talk about massive panic. We are men who love to eat, with no idea how to make food... lol
as you can see i shaved... it needed to happen, i think the locals respect it more or something. I don't really know. We're just going to have to wait and see.

All and all this is now home. so we're going to have to make a way for us to look forward to it.