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Introducing Mystery Class #6 Melekeok, Palau 7.5008 N, 134.6242 E   Welcome to Palau! We are the Melekeok Suns. Our teacher is Lorraine Tellei. Our School  Greetings to all Mystery Class participants. My name is Lorraine Tellei, and I am a teacher at the Melekeok Elementary School, in Melekeok, Palau. We are located on a group of tropical islands in the north Pacific Ocean, southeast of the Phillipines. From California, we're only about 10,000 miles west! The photo below is the view from our classroom. Yes, that is the ocean that you see! The volleyball field floods after heavy rain. The two-lane concrete road runs between the planter and the beach with coconut trees. Waves break on the reef between the deep blue Pacific and the shallow lagoon. View from our classroom Our school has less than forty total students from grades one to eight. Each grade has its own teacher, but the principal teaches sixth grade. The special ed. classroom, computer lab, library and office are air-conditioned. The Head Start Center is on another corner of the same property, and it is for children age three to five. Thursday afternoons the upper grades work in the school farm in the back yard with the fifth grade teacher. They grow bananas, cucumbers, sugarcane, onions, avocado, soursop and tapioca. Seventh period on Tuesday I play guitar for music class and we all sing. Four days a week students wear a school uniform of white shirts and dark blue or black pants or skirts. Boys’ hair must be short. Girls like braids.The upper four grades usually have Physical Education on Friday afternoon and wear their PE uniforms. They prefer to play baseball but are learning soccer. Lower grades’ PE is Thursday. We all played together for the soccer workshop in January. I am an American that came to Palau 25 years ago with the Peace Corps and married a local man, but the other teachers are all Palauan. The principal is my sister-in-law. The third and seventh grade teachers are also her sisters-in-law. Since half of the teachers could be called "Mrs. Tellei," we all use first names. The fifth grade teacher is the brother of the seventh grade teacher. We are all related. Students are at most third cousins. There are only a few hundred people in Melekeok state. Our school, Melekeok Elementary. Japanese concrete posts from before WW II flank the entrance. Here is my favorite after school snack recipe. Sometimes I take muffins on field trips or to school for prizes for review games. Notice only the bananas and coconut are local food; most food consumed by Palauans is imported. Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins Makes about 5 dozen muffins Ingredients: 1 C peeled, ripe bananas. Mix well to smash. 1 t salt 1 T ground cinnamon 1 pound (2 C) (one bag) brown sugar 1 C shortening Mix well 6 eggs. Mix well 3 C brown (whole wheat) flour 1 T baking powder. Mix well 2 C dry oatmeal (instant or old-fashioned) 12 oz bag of chocolate chips 1 C grated coconut (optional) Mix well Spoon batter into greased baking cups. Bake at 350 °F for 12 minutes until golden brown Cool 5 minutes before removing from pan Key: C = cup T = tablespoon t = teaspoon Our City Melekeok is the capital of Palau. It replaced the former capital city, Koror, which was the capital city up until October 2006. Here is a photo of the capitol building in Melekeok Melekeok has a very small population of about 250 people. Because of the small number of residents in Melekeok, it it said that Melekeok is the smallest national capital in the world by population. Our city of Melekeok is located along the east coast of the island of Babeldaob, the largest island in Palau. That means "up out of the ocean." Unlike other islands in Palau, our island of Babeldoab is mountainous, and it has our country’s highest point, the 242 meter tall Mount Ngerchelchuus. Babeldoab is also our country’s largest island. Babelboab is connected to the former capital, Koror, by the bridge called the Japan-Palau Friendship Bridge. This bridge was built after the prior bridge collapsed, and it is called the Japan-Palau Friendship Bridge because Japanese funding helped us to build this new bridge. Click map to enlarge Our Country Our country of Palau is comprised of a group of islands in the North Pacific Ocean, southeast of the Philippines. There are about 20,000 people in our country. Palau is divided into sixteen "states" , but they are small and years ago they were called "municipalities." Our city of Melekeok itself is one of the sixteen "states". And combined with the other states on the island of Babeldaob, a total of 10 of Palau's 16 states are on the island of Babeldaob. We speak Palauan and English here. Palauan Money is glass or ceramic beads used for weddings, first child ceremonies or funerals, but we use United States currency daily. We are located near the equator. The climate here is tropical all year around. It never snows. Twice a year the sun is overhead at noon: April and September. In summer the sun is in the north. Because of our location, we have great star gazing. If we walk out on the stone dock at our star gazing class, we can see the North Star, the Southern cross, and sometimes the near galaxies: Clouds of Magellan. Would You Like to Write to Us? If you would like to keep in touch you can write to me and I will answer. All the students have email addresses at the school, but the internet is so slow there that it is hard to use. It can take half an hour to load a single web page. You can also send snail mail to me at P. O. Box 1396; Koror, PW 96940. Yes, that is a US Zip code, so domestic rates apply. If you want to write to students, mail or email to me and we can set up pen pals. They can continue writing over summer vacation. (There is no rural mail delivery. We drive 30 miles on asphalt road to the post office in Koror Island to check the mail.) Or you could always come and visit Palau! It is only 10,000 miles from California, and has the best dive sites in the world!