My community loves to dance. We salsa, we swing, we meringue, we bhangrah, we Irish step dance, we Mortlockese stick dance, we (attempt to learn) hula. You can find us dancing in our apartment late into the night-clearing space by moving couches, turning up the music, and sweating in the heat. I have never been much of a dancer myself but Lincoln knows swing and taught it in college, Jessie has taken dance classes and done lots of club salsa, and Marcos’ meringue is in his Mexican blood.
Through all of our challenges this year, we have danced. This began very early in the year when Jessie convinced the four of us to learn a dance for the JVI staff members who arrived in Chuuk in November to evaluate our work sites. Our dance was performed in the middle of the Chuuk international airport in order to welcome our guests. We practiced in our apartment to Indian bhangrah music until our quads burned. On the day of Meghan and Chris’ arrival, we brought our music and matching outfits to the airport. When arriving in Chuuk by plane, after you pass through customs, there is a large glass window that allows those welcoming friends and family to awkwardly observe the newly arrived as they wait impatiently for their bags. This was our moment. While the staff watched from the other side of the glass, we cleared a space in front, turned on the music and danced through our laughter. A crowd of surprised and clearly confused Chuukese people gathered around as the Xavier JVs attempted to run and hide pretending not to be associated with us. Our airport dancing was hilarious and ridiculous, and I blame Jessie for all of it.
As the year went by our dancing continued. After dinner some nights the meringue would turn on and Marcos and Jessie would dance as Lincoln and I washed dishes. There was Irish step dancing for St. Patrick’s Day, Lincoln taught us the Charleston to hip hop music, Jessie and I convinced Nai Nai, our Chuukese teacher, to show us some hula after language lessons on Tuesdays. Then came the Philipino events; a strong Philipino community exists in Chuuk, and as fellow outsiders to Chuukese culture, we have become friends. The Philipinos put on entertainment events for their community to supplement the lack of social events happening in Chuuk. As they observed our tendency for dancing, they would call our apartment and ask us to come and dance for them at their next dinner party or dance night. Unable to resist this opportunity for apparent absurdity, our community agreed to create a salsa-swing fusion dance to perform for the Philipino dance night. Jessie and Lincoln co-choreographed, and we sacrificed sleep and shin-splints to prepare.
Our dancing represents something much larger than the simple exercise of movement. Part of the focus of JVI is to build community. Jesuit Volunteers live in what we call “community.” Physically, for us in Chuuk, this is just an apartment of four volunteers, two men downstairs, two women upstairs, some cement, furniture, bathrooms, and a kitchen. But really a community calls for a relationship, one deeper than that of typical roommates. Culturally in Chuuk, only relatives live together, so our surrounding Chuukese community understands our relationship as that of a family. We introduce each other to students and Chuukese friends as brothers and sisters.
Taking queues from our Chuukese hosts, that familial relationship has been what we are attempting to cultivate among the four of us, a kind of unconditional love. For us, it has not been all singing and dancing this year, though there has been much of that. Some days it can seem like all of Chuuk is working against you; bringing that feeling home to your mates can be alienating at the very least. Our relationships have been forged over long conversations on the balcony, the willingness to get up before breakfast to talk to a community-mate before leaving for work, intentionally getting involved in each others’ lives, taking care of one another when we are sick or sleep-deprived, sharing tears over struggles back home or great joy over the success of our students.
For me, dancing with my community signifies the joy, the struggle, the surprises, and the silliness of the past year in Chuuk. It has been our unique way of building community and being present to one another. Our dancing often resulted in hysterical laughter, sometimes injury, and the trust that your partner won’t drop you on the linoleum. It has been one of the greatest gifts I have received this year in Chuuk.
