As a child Jodean Remengesau often took the beauty of her home country for granted. Walking by mangroves and crystal blue seawater each day on the way to school felt totally normal for a young girl living on the pacific island of Palau, in Micronesia.
“Observing that biodiversity every day – the fish, birds, lizards – you’re so close to nature. These days everyone talks about being more organic, but that’s what we were surrounded by on the island.”
Remengesau also recalls how schoolchildren were taught to welcome with a smile and a wave the crowds of tourists who visited her small island nation. “They actually had a campaign for schools called Wave, which stood for ‘welcome all visitors enthusiastically’, so we’d be waving all the time.”
Remengesau spoke Palauan with her family and basic Japanese with her grandparents, who had been educated through the language when Palau was under Japanese rule. She also learned English from an early age through school, from watching TV and from foreign childminders. She was fascinated by the outside world, particularly when she met visitors through her mother’s job as a museum curator.
“We all knew we were part of a bigger landscape, but because you don’t travel to those places you still feel very removed. But I aspired to be like the Americans I saw on TV. You’re a sponge at that age and think, That’s the way life should be.”
This dream of visiting the United States became reality when Remengesau turned 12 and learned that her parents were sending her to the small town of Petaluma, in northern California, to live with her godparents and attend middle school and high school. She later discovered her parents felt their daughter would benefit from living with relatives because their marriage was breaking down.
“I was just so excited to get off the island and be free; I didn’t have time to be homesick. I had so many hopes and dreams and felt anything could happen in California. But then my uncle was diagnosed with cancer. They didn’t want to send me back, because I’d started school, so my parents reached out to my brother and his family in Kansas.”
Remengesau spent the next few years babysitting for her brother’s children while working her way through the American school system. She made friends quickly but missed life in California, so when her uncle recovered from his illness she returned west for her final year of high school.
After graduation she returned to Palau to study at a community college before securing a scholarship to study for a degree in agribusiness in Taiwan in 2012. Despite already speaking three languages, she struggled to learn Mandarin. “I really hit a brick wall with that language. Our professor told us we needed to stop thinking in English and literally translating it over. It was very difficult.”
Remengesau spent four years studying in Taiwan before securing a position with the United Nations’ Junior Professional Officer programme after spotting a tweet about the role from Palau’s ambassador to the UN. The following year she moved to Italy, a country she had never imagined visiting.
“It felt so unreal being in Rome. I always had my eyes on Australia and New Zealand. Europe just felt so distant. Why would I go all that way? But when I got there I met a small network of Pacific Islanders, and they became my second family.”
Remengesau spent two years working in Rome and, by chance, left for Palau the weekend news emerged of Italy’s first Covid-19 case. Palau, which like most other countries went into lockdown, did not record its first Covid case until August 2021. “It was strange being out of work. I was living off my savings, but we suddenly didn’t have any tourists, and that opened up lots of destinations on the island that would otherwise be crowded with tourists. It kind of felt like the island was being returned to its rightful owners, who could rediscover and learn to relove the place.”
In 2021 Remengesau was selected, through the same UN ambassador who had advertised the United Nations job, to travel to Ireland on a master’s scholarship. She was chosen to study at University College Cork as part of Ireland’s Fellows Programme, which had only recently been extended to applicants from small-island developing states as part of Ireland’s commitment to addressing the climate crisis.
Remengesau arrived in a country tentatively easing its lockdown restrictions. “It was a bit sobering arriving at that time of year and not being able to socialise. We had our classes in UCC, but everyone was wearing masks and very careful about meeting up.”
Remengesau lived with other scholarship students, sharing an apartment with two women from Laos and Palestine, and “creating our own little family” with students from South Africa, Ethiopia and Malawi.
At first she was conscious of standing out in Cork and felt people sometimes actively avoided her group of friends when they walked down the street. “It was strange. It felt like people moved out of the way for us. Maybe it was Covid and because we were foreign and unfamiliar. But that was just the initial days. We don’t notice that now at all.”
Remengesau admits feeling a lot more optimistic about life in Ireland since the weather got brighter and the days longer. She also started working at the city’s Quay Co-op as part of her master’s programme in co-operatives, agrifood and sustainable development.
“I really enjoy that you can actually taste the quality of the ingredients in the food here; it’s all really fresh. Back in Palau we import more than 90 per cent of our food; the country doesn’t produce enough. But I now fully understand why getting food locally is so important. It’s great to know your food came from Ballincollig or Bantry, and I’ve learned a lot about the dairy co-operatives. I hope to bring that information with me in my work when I go back to Palau.”
Working in the Quay Co-op, which Remengesau says is inspiring, gives her hope for the future of sustainable food production. “Our generation all know about climate-change challenges, so we’re demanding more environmentally friendly approaches to food. And the Quay Co-op is that; if you’re going for healthier options, cutting down plastic pollution or supporting local farmers, they have everything.”
Under the agreement of her scholarship, Remengesau must return to Palau once she completes her master’s studies, later this summer; she has already secured a job with one of the country’s first food-processing centres.
Her year in Ireland has changed “so many aspects of my life”, from her dietary habits to building knowledge about sustainable food systems. She started drinking less while living in Cork and feels her time in the city has exposed her to many other cultures.
“It’s helped heal and nurture my inner child that was hurt for so long having to grow up in a tumultuous household and looked to the world for unsustainable, instant gratification. I can now make room for more blessings in better relationships that I now know I deserve.”
We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish
