Chuuk, Micronesia (America's Compact Countries Part 3/4) 4K

Juke previously known as truck is in the Central Pacific part of the FSM and that's part of the US compact of free association like the rest of the compact countries the Japanese controlled the island after World War one and during World War two it was considered the most formidable of all their Pacific strongholds known to the Allies as the Gibraltar of the Pacific the Japanese had built trenches bunkers caves air strips and communication centers which were protected by coastal defense guns but the u.s. launched an early morning naval air attack against the Japanese on February 17 1944 the attack called operation hailstone or Japan's Pearl Harbor was successful ending truck as a threat to the Allies and giving the u.s. a new platform to help them advance further toward Japan as a result of operation hailstone Chuuk Lagoon became the biggest graveyard of naval ships in the world today we went snorkeling in the truck Lagoon right off from the island of wana which is in the federated states of micronesia while we were snorkeling we saw many sunken Japanese ships that were sunk during World War two these ships were sank in the year 1944 and operation hailstone in which the United States bombed the Japanese fleet here over a two-day period and sank sixty ships and in the brief amount of time we were snorkeling today we saw actually quite a number of these sunken ships in being here on the island Awana into Truk Lagoon it means a lot to me because I know my father was stationed on truck during World War two it is possible because my father was a corsair pilot who was in the Marines in World War two that he did participate in operation hailstone which was over a two-day period like a lot of people who returned from the war he didn't really talk about so but it still means a lot to me to have been you know here where he was many many years ago Chuck legen is now a divers and adventurers paradise this tiny island in the middle of the lagoon is available for rent for those who want to be totally isolated yes I am a local Jew born and raised here in Juba well yes of course there's no place like home typically if you're outside you have to pay for a lot of you know higher rental payment for housing and all that however if you live here you live on your own land and you have the two East's lonesome money build your house we have that loan and the house is there for you so you don't have to pay for it all you have to do is pay for electricity and sometimes with the water a lot of people are now using government water supply but yet a lot of people are still using water catchment from rainwater so you actually don't have to pay for water utility bills things like that of course the fishing is one of the best delicacy - people call in to fishing octopus lobsters crabs of course tuna fish reef fish back then in the old days a lobster is something very handy with the mail so technically what the melt does during the day they will feed scarf their own what they call the love stick the woman will be walking around during the days looking at the men carving their love sticks man will poke in the laughs stick into where the girl is sleeping and then this is when the girl of course it's dark because they don't have anything lights and it used to be back then so the girl will touch the love stick by just feeling the way the shape of it by remembering which men she actually wanted through the day when she was walking on this men were grabbing elastic so if you see thinks that this is the right person that Cisco accept she will pull it off stick in to the natural and meaning to the outside person to mail out say that yes I do accept you otherwise if she rejects him she will push it back up so that's how the last it came about like in it back in the days they use those love stick to yeah but now that we have cell phones meet me here somewhere up in the mountains with the advent of concrete homes and cell phones the love stick is no longer in use replaced by text message and secret rendezvous but many of the traditional roles still exist today my cousin up there she's a girl she saw me driving and she sat down by the road my it's a hard culture that if a man is tending and his sister is coming by the man has to stand up or the girl has to sit down I move I went to school in Oregon for 11 years high school there now most people go out there for for school but then they end up working and just live there from yes they stay in their lifter stead of going to school and they just work that's what I keep telling people that want to move out there is a you go out there you won't save anything any money because it just goes to bills here you if you have a job then you can at least save some because the fool you just pick from the tree and go out in the water the compact country citizens have the right to live and work in the US mainland but are not residents or citizens of the US yet choke is one of the poorest countries in the Far Pacific having a reputation for crime and violence tourists are told to be vigilant and never go out after dark alcohol it's the main problem here in truth because even if happy people drink because we they don't know how to drink people here to know how to turn like they don't know how to control their alcohol once they're drunk and they come out on the street start yelling for no reason so they get me yeah Jesus crate fighting girl come on people maybe it's all brothers [Music] ruckus here our guy drove us deep into the country first stopping at the old lighthouse which was completed by the Japanese in 1940 and was still in use until being attacked by the u.s. in World War 2 and finally we drove on to one of the best high schools in the entire Central Pacific Savior high school most of the leaders here in the FSM graduated from Xavier the president of the nation graduated from Xavier High School as you enter the campus you see the school motto which is in Latin with omnes una inte which is to say that all maybe one that's from John's Gospel chapter 17 verse 21 and obviously that's got a message for Christians and for the whole world but specifically for micronesia it's about bringing all the island groups together across their own cultural and language diversity into a place where they can study but also beyond that into their building of a region that's more cohesive the boys dormitory dates to 1987 it's always been a boarding school for boys girls live in the neighborhoods with families where they stay as guests and spawn and sponsor families this building was originally built as a chapel but now it's the Student Center it was refurbished with some money from the Chinese government some years ago and the back half of it just over last summer became a new computer center which the Australian government funded and that's a huge step forward for the school to have a room with 28 computers all networked and linked and secured the emigration out of Micronesia is bigger than the very high birthrate so the population here is declining despite the high birthrate and that leaves a question of you know what happens in these islands in the future whether our great our own graduates come back and serve here or stay abroad there's a significant question for us in terms of our own mission and what we want to encourage we certainly would like more of them to come back to teach here for starters we have a few students who've graduated and going on to the u.s. Naval Academy or the US Coast Guard Academy we have a few students studying on full scholarship at Sofia University in Japan another Jesuit school and this is our wall of gates scholars fill in Melinda Gates Foundation ran a big scholarship program for 20,000 students that ended just two years ago and over the course of the years it ran we had quite a few you know you'd be surprised how much they read that we read you know there there was a big project recently about Anne Frank Diary of Anne Frank you have the heart of darkness here lots of familiar things from our days might be brave new world how many kids total we have a hundred and seventy five students about a hundred boys and seventy five girls we've got Chuck here we've got Carillo we've got ghost ride home pay well everybody seems really happy here that must be good there do you guys like you guys like this school or my name is Chloe Arnold the mission of Xavier High School is to educate students to become competent conscientious and compassionate leader whose lives are guided by the Christian colors there and what does that mean to you it means to be men and women for others you know what's right my first year here I had a hard time speaking it because I didn't know how to I my first language was to shine and I think my first time learning it learning English was coming here yeah it's like it's also one reason why I love this place the academics it's really the goal here is to help them go somewhere if you will with their life but to do it with a purposeful way in a way that's unselfish that benefits not only their only families and their own countries but the whole region miss Maria Moreno is our teacher from Mexico this year she's teaching the science department and is the person who introduced salsa into cultural days Mexico City Oh rap in Cuernavaca that was born in Mexico City mm-hmm and I've been teaching at Savior for one year now I've been teaching science physics and biology and I will be teaching next year as well I just love to be here get to know the culture of these Pacific Islands so much culture so much so many traditions that we don't even know about so exploring really draws me into being here and saying and working with the students for one more year Road from town up to the school is notoriously bad it's notoriously bumpy the weather frequently washes out any repairs that have been made and our buses have paid the toll this year three of our four school buses are no longer functioning at this point three-quarters of the way through the school year so we're in the middle of a big fundraising campaign to try to replace some of them in the meantime kids are going and pickup trucks and in one flatbed that we call the Pigpen that kids ride in every day and if it's raining sometimes they get pretty wet by the time they get to school sadly it was time for us to leave this warm place and the island of Chuuk the most unique of all our destinations and head to our final compact country Palau you [Music]

Channel: La Mancha Media

Views: 320,024

Keywords: chuuk, truk, operation hailstone, sunken ships, xavier high school, weno

Id: 0iEBSWWKv3M

Length: 13min 40sec (820 seconds)

Published: Thu May 24 2018