Rare Earth

A very short season in Jordan begins here, from a vacation day in the Dead Sea with a bit of a throwaway episode. I thought it might be a nice palate cleanser before we head into the refugee camps that were my real destination in the country. If you ever get a chance to float on a salt lake, I'd recommend taking it. Just keep an eye out for floating rocks of hydrocarbon.

Fajar asked us to make this video. It was more important to him than even a piano. I hope you can feel through the screen a little of what it meant to us to be able to make this, even from such a distance. I cannot express in words the thanks I give to the entire staff of We Love Reading (but most especially Lina and Mays), to my sister, to the government of Jordan and to every family who let us into their homes and allowed us to see their truth. We will never forget it.

I don't know if Mr. Beast will ever see this, but I made a promise to a friend. And this is me fulfilling it.

Today's episode is the first in our Micronesian series (Chuuk/Pohnpei/Kosrae), which in my opinion will be one of our best yet. Crazy stories, crazy adventures, and mediocre footage. Classic Rare Earth.

It's virtually impossible to find accurate and trustworthy information about Micronesia on the internet. But on the plus side, that meant Kata and I were able to read virtually every single bit of university-level documentation about Chuuk that currently exists online today. Today's episode stems from perhaps the most grotesquely human story we've ever found in all our years of research. Although there was scant information from the anthropologist who recorded it all those years ago, what did exist painted a picture in my mind worthy of repeating.

In an alternate universe I named this episode 'the morbid microbial oil morgue'.

After I got home, I realize that most of the episodes that came out of Kosrae were about expats/foreigners, which for us feels rather unusual. Normally when filming, for the most part, we do our best to avoid non-locals. But in Kosrae, nobody can be avoided. Film the island for three days and cars full of strangers will already honk their way by and scream out your name in greeting. A couple thousand people and only one road. Lovely place. But what's more, of the 8 or so foreigners living here, every single one was worth knowing. Every foreigner who has come to make Kosrae their home who I met was a unique, interesting, and weird (in the most positive sense of the term) person. And I believe I met every single one living on the island at that time. Friendly, helpful, skilled and imperfect. My favourite type of people. Frankly each one deserves their story to be told over a beer. So here's the first toast. To Josh. To the Nautilus.

There are a few clams we call the giant, but the Tridacna Gigas is king of them all. It is likely the most important animal in the history of the Pacific, and unfortunately, in much of its historical habitat it happens to be functionally extinct. But here in Kosrae island Martin Selch and his team at the Kosrae National Aquatic Center are aiming to save it. And that's not an idle boast. After a successful spawning in 2020, just this month they've begun reintroduction of the Gigas to the Kosraean reef. The exact first steps towards rewilding back from extinction.

I made this episode because I sat down with two men over dinner and grilled them about some local xenophobic rumours I'd been hearing about them. Now we're mangrove brothers. Although I'm not sure they know that. This one is a bit of a breather episode. If you know anything about me, you'll know that means to brace yourself for what's coming.

This video was inspired by a restaurant that was named after a man I'd never heard of. A man who it turns out is Kosrae's most famous historical figure. A man who the more I learned about the more I began to wonder if we should remember him at all. But I suppose that's the thing about fame. It makes a man out of a monster.

We had covid the entire last month and a half, that's why we've been away. It sucked. Sorry for that. Hope we can make up for it with this small island gossip.

Ah, coming home after being enslaved since your late teens only to have your own society condemn you as satanic for what they did to you and then be forced to headline a traveling freakshow until you died. No matter where you go, the tattoos always speak first. This is the (self-told, probably exaggerated for circus reasons) story of P.T. Barnum's original freak success story. James O'Connell, America's first tattooed man.

The answer is pretty simple really: Have your grandparents marry someone in line for a throne in Micronesia and then act responsibly towards Pohnpeian culture your entire life. But stick with me here, because this story is deeper than the clickbait implies. (just a reminder that this is the first half of a two parter - and I'm extremely excited to tell you the second)

I live a weird life. Meeting a down to earth king, being personally driven to his private island for the night, all so that I can say thank you to an organization most of you will have never heard of before. So that maybe you might even think about someday how you might want to bring your conservation skills to Micronesia and donate your time and experience to a Rohsa just trying to do the right thing. If you'd like to help by sending an email (or donating) to OneReef, you have my sincere thanks: info@onereef.org If you'd like to take it a step further and visit Ant the hard way (have a genuine desire and plan to help) - let me know. I'll be sure to push you in the Rohsa's direction.