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| No more lab! |
Thursday night the owners of the place where we stay made us
a fantastic dinner of traditional Palauan food. It was amazing. Coconut crab,
milkfish, beef, taro, salad, corn, rice, macaroni salad, and more. Plus the
desserts were incredible. It was so generous of them to do. Living at LEHNs has
been a great experience; they’re so hospitable and good to us. After the meal,
the owner gave a speech on the history and politics of Palau. It was really
meaningful.
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| LEHNS and our favorite vehicle, the Big Red Beast |
Friday we worked to finish up other things in lab, mostly
packing all of the material to be shipped back to the US. It’s a ridiculous
amount of stuff. But it’s great—hopefully we’ll be able to learn a lot from the
material we’ve collected. Sunday we took our final exam. Then we were done with
program stuff.
This week we visited the Belau National Museum and the Etpison
Museum. They were both really interesting and informative. I’ve learned so much
about this small country.
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| Carved dugongs in the Etpison Museum |
It really is a small world, and traveling all the way to
Palau made me realize it even more. One of the guys on the trip and I were in
the same Forensic Entomology class last semester, which we didn’t realize until
we came on this trip. We also figured out that we lived in the same
neighborhood in Charlotte, NC when we were born until early elementary school.
So that was a little weird. But we met two Americans here in Palau, staying in
the same apartment place as us. They’re here working on water conversation
research, and one of them is a forensic entomologist. He’s from Ohio, but he
worked with the grad student that taught my forensic entomology class at NC
State last semester. Small world.
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| Unrelated picture of me diving. Thanks to Sean! |
Our group has been leaving a few at a time. All of the
flights leave out of Palau around 2am, so people have been leaving every night
for the last few nights. I’m not ready to leave, but I am ready to be home. I’m
heading out the Wednesday the 27th at 2am (Palau time). I fly Palau to Guam, Guam
to Hawaii, Hawaii to DC, then DC to Raleigh. It’ll be about 26 hours of
traveling, so shorter than coming out here. I should be in Raleigh by 2pm on
Wednesday.
This trip has been incredible. This is a once in a lifetime
opportunity and I realize how fortunate I am to have been a part of it. So a
big thanks to the amazing group here; it wouldn’t have been as fun with anyone
else. And to the staff here, who did a wonderful job in the wake of unfortunate
circumstances. And Calvin and Sunny, the Palauans we worked with. And to my family and friends and amazing boyfriend for putting
up with me being gone for so long. And especially thanks to my parents for
helping me fund this trip and for letting me go on crazy adventures on the
other side of the world. It’s been a fantastic experience.
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| Love you guys! |
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