This week marks the end of quarter 1. Students are quietly completing their English final assignments lost in a swirl of thoughts, and scribbling madly in transcribing them to readable form.
I am in the front of my classroom, thinking about what is for lunch while the students are working. Everything is going swimmingly, but then another student peeps his head inside my classroom and mutters something in Kosrean, their native tongue. Immediately, pencils are dropped and backpacks are gathered, and my students are literally fleeing the classroom. I peer outside the classroom, and my students have apparently joined in on a mass exodus as they leap onto the departing buses. Half finished final assignments lay about the room; some have already been blown onto the floor by the slight breeze.
By this point, I am no longer angry, but confused. Finally, I hear the English translation of what is going on:
“TSUNAMI WARNING!! TSUNAMI WARNING!! RUN FOR THE HILLS!!”
There WOULD be a tsunami warning on Kosrae during finals. Some places have snow days, we have tsunami days, where everyone makes a break for higher ground and prays that the huge moving water mass (started from an earthquake around neighboring islands) does not reach Kosrae and engulf the beach front homes. Lunch looks like a no go. Like the last time this happened, I start contemplating what to bring for my own clamor up the hill.
