Ka Forest Cathedral and Women's Day

Last week I got to go back to the Ka Forest, this time with Lanson Alik!  Our boat driver was Jackson.  Lanson is an elder (former President) of the YELA family association; Alice and I toured with him last year and were impressed by his walking the whole way barefooted.  He has deep knowledge of the forest, the politics around the NTC Easement and the ever present threat of the Kosrae government building a new circumferential road cutting through the forest (YIKES!). 

Arriving at the YELA Educational Center through the mangroves.  Walking on the cement walkway through the mangroves.  Lanson carried his machete which came in handy when we encountered a downed tree.  He hacked a way through underneath it, and we were on our way.

 

Ka tree (Terminalia carolinensis) trees and canopy.  As the tree grows, it puts out branches all at one level, then the stem elongates, old branches are dropped and new ones make new canopy.  Experiencing the forest feels like being in a cathedral.  The monolayer canopy is a green ceiling.  For me it's also remarkable how the leaves space-fill, sharing the canopy and not shading each other.

The forest is full of ferns!  This first one is a tree fern!  Next is a bird's nest fern on the ground, mostly they grow up in the trees, often where the old branches had fallen off the Ka stems.

Lanson, like so many Kosraeans, has a light and fun sense of humor.  He started musing about Alice, enjoying her company last year.  He mimed Alice, with a little jump and began laughing.  Then he explained to me he remembered how much she liked seeing the frogs on the forest floor.  They are as big as your fist, and plentiful!

I learned from this trip that my reasons for coming back to Kosrae, with the USFS grant in my pocket, are indeed valid.  YELA needs to hire an assistant, and a curriculum director.  Lanson can't do it all anymore (as he said, he is old), and Tholman really wants to engage young Kosraeans in educating others about the values of conservation.  (3 months might not be enough for me to get this going, but I will try!)

  

Friday was International Womens' Day, happily celebrated on this island with an all-island gathering in the Lelu gym.  Women from each of the five villages wore dresses color coded (Lelu and Walung together in yellow, Malem in green, Tafunsak in blue, and Utwe in red).  There were probably 100+ women in each group, and in turn they danced their way to the front of the gym, danced a story about traditional womens' roles (sweeping, cooking, all acted out with wry smiles) and then pitched all sorts of gifts to the audience: towels, fans, gumballs, swatches of fabric, laundry soap, etc.  A lovely woman sitting next to me offered to translate for me, and at one point got me up to join the dancing and then swiped a fan for me.  Arising from the seats, and swiping gifts before they are pitched out seems to be part of the fun.  So much laughing and hilarity, and fun voluptuous dancing!

Marta greeted me at the door, had our picture taken as she and I work together in the Records office and are friends.  She had them adorn my head with plumerias, smelled so good!

There is a little boy in the photo who was having a grand time running interference with the dancers.  This sweet little girl was mesmerized by the glitter blown out of an air gun.

The celebration lasted 3 hours, in a hot/still sweltering gym.  As it came to a close, box lunches were handed out with bottles of water, for taking home.  Local fish soups were available outside.  Later I found out that parties lasted all day and afternoon and evening and into the early morning!  Our leader for the Invasive Species field trip on Saturday admitted to staying up past midnight ... more on that in the next post.