Meeting Key Leaders in Pohnpei (including the Governor!)
Our official visit to Pohnpei started with calls on key education leaders. The Federated States of Micronesia has its capital on Pohnpei (it's one of four states in the FSM), so we met with both leaders from the federal FSM government as well as from Pohnpei State. Our main host was Carlina Henry, who was terrific. She met us at the airport, took us to see Nan Madol on Sunday, and then arranged the great majority of our meetings during the five days we were on Pohnpei. Every time we came up with a new brainstorm, Carlina knew who to call and make it happen. We learned a lot about the situation around special education in the FSM. Pohnpei State includes the island of Pingelap, which has 10% of their students with a hereditary condition called achromatopsia. This is a complete colorblindness that results in students being low vision. We were surprised to frequently meet people with the condition on Pohnpei, because many Pingelapese have migrated to Pohnpei main island. One of o...