January 22, 2021

“He would always try to get me to understand what
Pohnpei was in my life and who I am in relevance to
the island and everything that we did there”

Carolann Carl perches on a plastic folding chair resting her hands on a weather-worn table.  Rays of sunlight comb through her hair, creating a halo of highlights and shadows as she speaks passionately about her homeland, Pohnpei Island in the Federated States of Micronesia.

Carolann has been an advocate at KKV for several months and has gradually transitioned to the grants department where she collects and documents stories for youth programming. 

She’s a gifted poet and storyteller and attributes her inspiration to her culture, her family especially her grandfather.  “He would always try to get me to understand what Pohnpei was in my life and who I am in relevance to the island and everything that we did there,” she says.

Carolann grew up in Hawaiʻi, but would spend her summers in Pohnpei on her family’s land. Many stories were shared with her as a young child.  As she grew older, her family and mentors believed that she was “capable of holding that magic.” Carolann was entrusted to be the keeper of traditional origin stories, which she shares through her writings.

“The writing part and the poetry part came as a Western medium to do these things that we would never do in Pohnpei because you usually don't write these things down, but because I wanted to incorporate that type of weaving both the past and the present and the future, I created a blog to share these stories because I knew our people were hungry for it.”

Carolann dreams of one day being able to return to Pohnpei.  She dreams of being able to reconnect with her community, to the land, and to the ocean.  

In Pohnpeian culture, “You become an extension of that land.  You are connecting yourself not just to this island but to the ocean and to everything that lives in that ocean.  That’s how voyaging societies always envision themselves – as a global community because it’s the ocean that bridges everyone together.”