Aware

Today, Friday 12th April, I used my last few hours in Palau to visit a museum, hike up to some mobile phone antennas for about 2 hours to take (more) pictures of the Rock Islands and get beaten up in the form of a Chinese massage.
I'm glad I visited the Episton Museum, for it showed me how wrong I was thinking that there was little of the traditional culture left. Up until now, I could only see the bento boxes, the weak coffee, the chopsticks and baseball bats -I couldn't see beyond them.
The Episton (a former president) is some sort of ethnographic museum of the people's of Palau, the other Carolines and the rest of Micronesia. The displays (bead, turtle conch and stone money, costumes and woven fabrics, rather recent pictures of local dances and ceremonies) allowed me to see that the local traditions and believes are still alive. They are not on display for passing-by tourists and their untrained, unaware eyes.
After the hike (happy I took it, in spite of the probable sunburn), while having a very nice lunch, I could notice several women wearing bead money necklaces, showing their rank and status (in Palau, women are the depositary of personal and communal wealth). Not that I consider my eyes trained, maybe just a tad more aware.
In these 7 days, Palau has slowly opened up a little to me. The not so good first impressions, as I arrived tired and jetlagged, have vanished in the warm and humid thick air. Following a much wiser friend's advice, I've stopped looking for the reasons that took me here. I'm just happy I came.
To the Rock Islands: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j__OhNPutzA