Hafa Adai!
Another great adventure/experience to tell you all about here in Saipan. Who would have thought I'd have all these great experiences in my first three weeks on the island? But before I get to the latest adventure I just want to comment on my new and old friends I've met here. I got to see my waitress pals from Coffee Care, the lady who helped me last time I was here with setting up my phone at IT&E which is their version of Verizon, some of the teacher friends of Audra's too. I've also met new teacher friends, Audra and I now have our own personal banker at her bank who takes care of her account stuff since our purses were stolen and now the post office box owners look out for our stuff. The vet is way nice to us and the police have been very helpful as well. Since this is such a small place you pretty much get to meet everyone at least twice. The people are just very friendly wherever we go and you know how hard it is for me to talk to people........NOT!
Which brings me around to our latest adventure. Last Thursday evening we were headed out the door for dinner and here was this gooey reddish puddle mess by her neighbors door with drops leading out of the door and a plastic bag with something in it. It was disgusting looking. Amazingly I did not take a picture of it....good for all of you:)
So I started making up all these stories about Audra's new neighbors and what was going on in their apartment. We covered everything from rituals to mayhem, to sacrifices, religious rites, etc........you get the idea. We laughed and laughed over all the stories I kept coming up with (you know how my imagination is).
When we got home the mess was still there. It remained in that spot all day Friday as well. I peeked in the plastic bag and it was filled with towels. Yuck!
Saturday morning when we woke up there was all kinds of activity going on in the neighbor's apartment. A lady was cleaning in there like mad. I was watching through the peep hole in our door because their door was wide open. The lady was putting all kinds of bloody tissues into a garbage can and then she broke out the mop and was busy mopping everything up. I told Audra they were trying to get rid of the evidence. Thankfully the mess in the hallway was cleaned up too.
Sunday night there was a knock at the door. I opened it up wearing my flower shorts and white tee shirt (you can kind of see through it) that I wear just around the apartment and there was the neighbor girl asking me if I could help them figure out their air con (air conditioner to us on the mainland). So, not remembering what I had on I went marching into their apartment and started fooling around with their remote controller (then I remembered what I had on and knew it was too late to do anything about it so just went with the flow).
Audra and I think both of them (the guy and the girl) are from Palau, an Island close to here. The guy is very dark and huge like giant size and very big but not fat. She is very tall and big as well. Very exotic looking.
Then I noticed a car seat sitting by the wall so I asked if they had a baby and she said yes and she was sleeping on the bed and told me to go have a look. I asked how old the baby was and she said "THREE DAYS OLD".........she delivered it in the bathroom and had to be rushed to the hospital via ambulance (which we must have missed). Audra said it is very common on the island for women to birth their babies at home rather than the hospital.
So the mystery was solved. No murder, no sacrifice, no religious rite, no brutality.................just a sweet little baby girl was born!
This is their first child and new mom said everything started happening really quick and she was terrified. She and the baby had to stay at the hospital a couple days (the baby is jaundiced) but they are slowly settling into life with baby in their apartment.
We haven't heard a peep from the baby yet either. I told mom if she needed anything to feel free to come over and let me know. Another neighbor-lady came while I was there and was offering her all kinds of advice about putting the baby on a schedule, what she should eat and on and on and on. I left at that point.
I want to go tell her to just take a deep breath and relax and not get all stressed out. I found out these babies can take quite a bit and aren't as fragile as they appear. So maybe I'll get to add another baby to my list to babysit while I'm here:)
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