Bad Volunteer HOME
MaryFlannery.com

EXCERPTS
Foreword
Floundering In Truk Lagoon
The Dinner Party
Spaz Attack

About the Author

Music From Micronesia

CONTACT INFO:
MaryLFlannery@hotmail.com

OUTLINE
of The Bad Volunteer

a book by Mary Flannery

i. Foreword: A brief history of Micronesia and how I happened to go there.

ii. Prelude

Mary describes her pre-service conference--what she has learned about FSM, and the experiences she might expect. She ponders the United States' history with Micronesia (e.g. H-bombing Bikini atoll) and the pros and cons of trotting out there as an emissary of the U.S. government.

iii. Short poem

I. FEFAN: Training

The author goes through eight weeks of training in Truk Lagoon with six other volunteers. She lives with a family, and quickly becomes disenchanted with her host father's abuses of alcohol and his wife. She learns the basics of Trukese language, has an affair with a fellow volunteer, breaks up, and prepares for the ultimate journey.

II. ONEOP: The First Year

Mary travels 165 miles south of Moen, the capital of Truk, to live on the small island of Oneop. She moves in with Kalwin, his wife Enita, and a swarm of children, and optimistically tries to adapt to the ways of the island. It all starts going downhill at school--she has one hell of a time with her students, and the Principal drives her right around the bend. Then her host parents go to Moen, and come back with "a gas powered electric generator; a lightbulb; a TV and VCR; numerous Kung-fu, pro-wrestling, Ninja, and Jimmy Swaggart videotapes; a rustly little refridge; and a washing machine." She has one of the worst dinners of her life with the German Missionaries (The Herr and The Frau). For a month, the author takes care of Matthew, a six-year old American who wanders unexpectedly into the picture. She begins to feel like Jane Goodall. By the end of her first year, she finds love and even God.

III. MOEN: Mid-Term

The author is stuck in a dinky motel-style apartment with fellow volunteers while they await their mid-term conference in Guam.

IV. ONEOP: The Second Year

Mary continues to do battle with her students and the Principal. She learns how to pound taro. A typhoon hits Truk, and although Oneop is spared, a boatload of USDA canned foods is sent to the island. Mary tries to quit the Peace Corps, but a ship never comes. She loses God, writes the great Trukese Jesus Musiciale, and is finally set free.

V. MOEN: The Last Days

Mary accompanies a group from Oneop who comes to Moen to perform the expanded Jesus Musicale at a Micronesian pan-island jubilee. The author feels lost and confused as she tries to plan for life after Truk.

VI. Afterword

The author recounts her departure from Truk, and gives a brief summary of her post Peace Corps wanderings. Contact with Oneop dwindles down to nothing; her island days are just a memory she keeps to herself. Until one day she decides to write the Great American Novel. After edition number three of The Bad Volunteer, Mary puts up a web site, which in turn generates a small response. Among those who e-mail her is a native of Oneop, living in Ponape. He tells her the fate of the island. Oneop is all but deserted now. Almost everyone, young and old has emigrated to Guam and Hawaii.

Glossary--definitions of all Trukese & Mortlockese terms that are used in the book.