![\"micronesia\"](\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/micronesia-300x100.jpg\")
Growing up on the 38 square mile island of Yap, Sinclair Community College student Joseph Bandag said he never saw a Taco Bell or felt what it\u2019s like to be cold until he came to the United States of America.<\/p>\nGrowing up on the 38 square mile island of Yap, Sinclair Community College student Joseph Bandag said he never saw a Taco Bell or felt what it\u2019s like to be cold until he came to the United States of America.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was young I heard there were other countries around the world and that Earth was a big round planet,\u201d Bandag said. \u201cBut I had never been anywhere besides Yap, so I thought they made some mistake and that Earth was just a flat thing that just goes and never ends. I thought that there was just Yap, the ocean and that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yap is located in the Western Pacific Ocean, northeast of New Guinea, and is a member of the Federated States of Micronesia. Bandag said he\u2019d still be there if it wasn\u2019t for complications with his wife\u2019s pregnancy.<\/p>\n
Pregnancy and preterm labor<\/strong><\/p>\n Bandag met his wife, Molly, in 2003 when she was a volunteer for the United States Peace Corps.<\/p>\n Bandag said he didn\u2019t start dating his eventual wife until after he graduated high school and started attending classes at the College of Micronesia, which consists of three buildings, none more than two stories tall. Bandag said they tried for three years to have a baby before she finally became pregnant.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was 35 and her clock was ticking,\u201d Bandag said. \u201cShe wanted to get pregnant before it was too late.\u201d<\/p>\n Bandag said they left the island last fall when the hospitals in Yap couldn\u2019t provide his wife the treatment she needed for her preterm labor, that begins more than three weeks before a woman is expected to deliver her baby.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen she was in preterm labor and having pains every few minutes, (the hospital in Yap) was giving her some kind of morphine to ease her pain, but a day later they were out of stock,\u201d Bandag said. \u201cThat\u2019s when we had to call her mom and she booked us a flight (to the USA).\u201d<\/p>\n Bandag said the only time he left the island previously was to visit his wife\u2019s family in America last summer. He described the four-daylong plane trip as horrible.<\/p>\n He said that because Yap stays around 80 degrees year round, he had no winter clothes when he came to America.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still trying to get used to this cold weather,\u201d Bandag said. \u201cMy skin is always dried up (and) my lips crust up. I got to put lotion on all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cI don\u2019t mind getting cold so long as I can see the snow. But being cold when there is no snow, I\u2019m like pissed off. I\u2019m like \u2018Where\u2019s the freaking snow at,\u2019 he said while laughing.<\/p>\n Despite his distaste for the weather, Joseph said he likes America because his wife got the treatment she needed to give birth to a healthy baby girl via Cesarean section on Dec. 22.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a very difficult birthing process,\u201d he said. If we were back on the island I might have lost both of them.<\/p>\n He added, \u201cI guess it\u2019s a big responsibility (being a father), but things still feel the same for me. I have six sisters and three of them already have kids, so I\u2019ve been taking care of babies all my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Adjusting to the United States<\/strong><\/p>\n Because the Federated States of Micronesia is a sovereign state in free association with the United States, all Bandag had to do to transfer his Yapese driver\u2019s license was take the written portion of the Ohio driving test. He said the first time he saw a street with more than two lanes was in America.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t like going on the highway,\u201d he said. \u201cOn the island you can\u2019t drive more than 40 mph. You drive more than that and your car is going to roll over because there\u2019s turns every 50 feet.\u201d<\/p>\n Another difference between Yap and the United States is the type of currency they use. Bandag said in Yap, they use large circular rocks called Rai Stones to show their wealth. He said the stones were brought to Yap from other neighboring islands by his ancestors and that some of the stones are more than six feet tall. The stones are used to buy land and are displayed in of front houses.<\/p>\n Bandag said some of Yap\u2019s foods are bananas, coconuts, fish and imported turkey tail.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know when you get turkey there is no tail? The tail is being shipped back to Yap,\u201d he said \u201cYou don\u2019t see turkey in (Yapese) stores. There\u2019s chicken and stuff, but no turkey, just turkey tails.\u201d<\/p>\n Bandag said that because coffee is not available in Yap, most people chew betel nuts instead.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople go out to the ocean and take corals, grind it up into powder, put it on the betel nut and wrap it in a peppery leaf,\u201d he said. \u201cIt keeps you awake. Just one chew of that is like five cups of coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n Bandag said a side effect of chewing betel nuts is that it discolors your teeth.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been chewing since I was eight so when we went to the dentist it took four hours (to get my teeth cleaned),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n When Bandag isn\u2019t in class or watching his daughter, he said one of his favorite activities is playing video games. He owned a Playstation 2 in Yap, but said the selection of games to choose from was limited. He said his sister, who is in the Army, bought him a Playstation 3 when she came to visit.<\/p>\n \u201cI like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was hard until I found out all the cheats.\u201d<\/p>\n Future<\/strong><\/p>\n After Bandag gets his degree in American Sign Language from Sinclair, he plans on moving back to Yap. He said his wife has a friend that may help set him up with an online job interpreting for the deaf.<\/p>\n \u201cI miss my family and friends back in Yap,\u201d he said \u201cBut I don\u2019t miss the island.\u201d<\/p>\n Joseph said he hopes to come back to America for vacations after he leaves.<\/p>\n Growing up on the 38 square mile island of Yap, Sinclair Community College student Joseph Bandag said he never saw a Taco Bell or felt what it\u2019s like to be cold until he came to the United States of America. \u201cWhen I was young I heard there were other countries around the world and that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[677,764,717,985,1402],"class_list":["post-4124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-baby","tag-diversity","tag-international","tag-malasia","tag-samuel-huist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-14w","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4124"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15520,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4124\/revisions\/15520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Molly](\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Molly-n-Joeseph-198x300.jpg\")
\u201cShe fell in love with the island when she was there, so when she was finished in the Peace Corps she came back to the island and started teaching,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was my biology teacher and that\u2019s how we got to know each other.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"manhouse\"](\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/manhouse-300x201.jpg\")
Bandag, Sinclair\u2019s only Yapese student, said lifestyles in America and Yap are both similar and different.<\/p>\n![\"joesphbw\"](\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/joesphbw-195x300.jpg\")
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