Things that Happen in the Rain

It doesn't happen very often, but once in a while we get a couple hours of non-stop rain. It happened yesterday morning.

The rain doesn't effect things too much. People walk down the streets pretty much as usual. Some people pick a huge leaf and hold it over their head and many of the guys take off their shirts, but that's about it. If you want to see a satelite map of Micronesia, I've included the link (just click on the title at the top of this posting).

Driving is a tad bit treacherous, because banana trees tend to fall over in the rain, and they seem to prefer falling into the road. Did you know that banana "trees" aren't technically trees? They are herbs. I guess that is why their stalks are so weak and they often fall down in the rain.

Amid the rain, I went to Pohnpei Catholic School to perform a piano duet concert at noon with Patty Kelly and Kimie Minami. It was the first time I had played a real piano in more than a year!

It was so fun to be with children again. The audience was about 7-12 years old, and there were about 25 of them. We did a sing-along and they belted it out! I asked them to count the number of times they heard the theme in the 4th movement of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusic and their answers were right on the money! (I counted about 38 times, and their guesses were between 30 and 45, impressive!) We also performed to Hungarian Dances by Brahms and some light polka, square dance and boogie type songs - a half hour total.

Then I went to Motor Vehicles to get a new registration certificate because mine was stolen out of my car(!). That turned into a bigger ordeal than I anticipated. They don't use computers, so they had to track down my registration in these HUGE books in which they hand-write every registration. The books are not written alphabetically, but in order of registration. Since I didn't know the exact day I had registered my car, he had to look through the books for quite a while. But it got done in the end.

Friday evening my friend Helen walked over to our house. She just arrived back from some meetings in Hawai'i and had brought us chocolate. What a luxury!