The College of Micronesia, National Campus

During December last year I had a chance to snap a few pictures of COM. I took these as we walked from the faculty offices to the staff Christmas Party.

The two large builidings pictured below are the main classroom buildings. Each building has 10 classrooms. They are simply titled A and B. The building on the right is the faculty building...



The building on the right in the below picture is the administration building the one on the left is one of the two large classroom buildings...


The below picture was taken in the opposite direction of the one above. On the left is a dorm building and on the right the bookstore. The large building in the distance is the gymnasium...


This picture was taken 90 degrees to the left of the above picture. The building on the right is the chow hall.


That concludes our tour.

Random comment:
One funny cultural thing about Pohnpeians is how they conduct themselves at a large gathering that includes food. We have witnessed this at church and also at work gatherings where there is a buffet style meal. Here is how it usually goes. The first people to eat are always men, with the eldest going first. Each man takes quite a bit of food but probably not more that he can eat. Then the women and children get their food. By the time all the women have gone through the line there is no more food. The table is completely empty. At the Christmas party I took very small portions of a lot of different foods because a lot of it looked mysterious. After I had finished I decided what I like so I went to get some more. Here is what the table looked like...



What we learned is that if you go to a large gathering you bring a lot of food and then you take a lot of food home. When the women go they are actually getting food for their entire family for the next few days, maybe even a week. Personally I think this is great way to do things because I'd rather bring a varitey of food home then one large portion of whatever I brought that didn't get eaten. However it is funny to watch and also a funny thing to get used to.

I snapped this picture after I went back for seconds. You can see the large boxes of food and the double plates of food...