randy_byers | A Yapese barbecue

Part of the curse of living in interesting times is that there are too damned many things to chew over. My mind is all over the place, moving this way and that, never quite getting to Here and Now. Before it gets lost in the constant stream of one damned thing after another, I want to write a bit about the barbecue I went to on Saturday. I'm not going to explain the history of the Yapese connection, but some of you will have read about it in articles I've written for fanzines.

My brother and his family came up from Oregon Saturday afternoon, and I met them in Federal Way at the apartment where our Yapese friends, Theo and Antonia, are living right now. Their daughter has been living there for a few years, and she just had a baby. Theo and Antonia came over a few months ago to help her out. This story has taken on interesting developments, however. Theo is talking about finding a job and staying here for a couple of years.

Theo is a fascinating character. He's a great story-teller, and he can reel off tale after tale for hours. Any subject you bring up will trigger a story, and he loves to talk about Yapese politics and economics, meteorology, the natural history of ocean, reef, and jungle, fishing, house-building, drunken misadventures of friends and foes ... well, you name it. He's got a very inventive mind and a can-do attitude. He's a bit of a know-it-all. There isn't a problem that he doesn't think he can solve. Now he's facing the puzzle of how to find a job in the US.

Because of the Compact of Free Association between the US and the Federated States of Micronesia (of which Yap is a state), Micronesians are allowed to live and work in the US. Lots of them do, including Antonia's brother, Baldwin, who was also at the barbecue. In fact, the problem for Micronesia is that there isn't enough work there for the growing population. Theo lost his job managing a state-owned fishing supply company when there was a change in the government two years ago. There was a horrific typhoon last year and he has kept busy rebuilding the village sea wall and community house, but he has a mortgage to pay, too. The typhoon also caused the school system to shut down, meaning that Antonia, a teacher, has also been out of work.

When we visited them in Federal Way right after Theo got here a couple of months ago, the story was that they were going to try to talk their daughter into moving back to Yap, where they could help raise the baby. Now the idea is that they will stay here for "a couple of years" -- with the implication that after another election, maybe Theo will get his old job back. But is it possible that Theo will find a job here that will pay more than he can ever expect to earn on Yap, and that they'll never go back? That seems to be what has happened to Baldwin. In a way, he can't afford to go home.

Meanwhile, it has been fascinating to see the Yapese way at work in my own backyard, as it were. At the barbecue, the men all stood outside and cooked the meat and drank beer, while the woman were inside cooking corn and rice and making salad and drinking vodka and fruit juice. The younger women did most of the work, while the older women (including my sister-in-law) watched the baby. When the food was ready, Lonnie, his two boys, and I (as the male guests) were served first. The women ate after that, along with Jack -- a Ulithian guy who seems to be the boyfriend of a woman whose relation to the group I'm unsure of -- and then Baldwin ate. Theo never did, while we were there.

The food was excellent: steak, chicken, and sausage barbecued in a secret special Yapese sauce, ribs that my brother barbecued in a secret special Oregonian sauce, fresh corn out of his garden, and a cucumber and shrimp salad that the Yapese made that was out of this world. In our sex-segregated groups, we chewed the fat for hours, with Jack chiming in with shark stories from Ulithi. I even drank a couple of Bud Lights in honor of the occasion, while Theo doubtfully tried a microbrew. Baldwin and Jack were impressed by our knowledge of Yap, and I once again got a good laugh from the observation that the Yapese word for "please sit down" sounds sort of like "park your butt". Baldwin kept telling me that I have a Yapese sense of humor.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how things go. It's fun to see Theo and Antonia experiencing a temperate climate (they're already freezing their asses off) and a new ecosystem (Theo asked for various tree identifications), and I hope to take them down to Oregon one of these days to see my folks. And it's good, too, to have a vibrant piece of Yap nearby, reminding me of another home I have in the world. Theo has set aside a piece of property on the southern tip of the island for Lonnie, and he hopes that maybe we'll all retire out there and spend our old age under the coconut trees.

It's a pleasant dream.