Category: Educational

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…

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…

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. I am just now noticing there’s an extra p in the end credits. Like in the word swimming pool. Your support keeps us…

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…

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…

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…

After I got home, I realized 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…

In an alternate universe I named this episode ‘the morbid microbial oil morgue’. Your support keeps us going: https://www.patreon.com/rareearth and https://ko-fi.com/rareearth Follow our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rareinsta/ Follow my twitter: https://twitter.com/Evan_Hadfield Also – sign up for curiosity stream, a service I actually like, and they’ll throw in a subscription to Nebula as well, a place where I…

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…

Back in action after what feels like an eternity with many new seasons to share. Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Austria, Japan and Peru, plus a few others along the way. Enough for over a year and a half uninterrupted, I think. Today’s episode is the first in our Micronesian series (Chuuk/Pohnpei/Kosrae), which in my opinion will…