Looking back: My first odyssey to Saipan was quite a trip

Maila! Again, I feel Saipan calling me. Maila! Come.

Whenever I mention that I was an exchange student to Saipan, the first question is predictable: Where is that?
I respond: Do you know where Guam is located? If the answer is yes, "where" is easy to address. If not, I fall back on references to Japan and the Philippines.

Often, the next question is: Why did you decide to go there?Easy answer: I didn't. Someone else, someone I've never met, made that decision.

While preparing to return again the island, I can't help but think back to my first odyssey decades ago.

I'd always been an explorer by nature, curious, wanting to see new, unfamiliar places, but, by age 16, I hadn't had opportunities to reach that far. That all began to change when posters beckoning students to apply for the AFS Americans Abroad Program grabbed my attention.

So I applied, not expecting it to actually lead anywhere, but, to my amazement, it did. Within a week or so after turning 17, I received notice that I was guaranteed a placement for the coming summer.

Wondering where weighed on my mind for the next several months. The biggest distraction during this waiting period was working on my high school's spring musical, "South Pacific," about American service people (I played a sailor called The Professor) on tropical Pacific islands. In hindsight, perhaps that was an omen.

In mid-May (a month before departure), the official word came. I was going to the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands ... Micronesia ... Saipan, Mariana Islands.

In those pre-Internet, pre-Google, pre-Wikipedia Dark Ages, information about such far-off places was tough to come by. I came across an article in an old National Geographic at the public library and a tourism guide to the South Pacific. Not much else.

When D-Day arrived that June, I embarked on my first commercial airplane trip, by myself, headed for orientation in Los Angeles.

The hotel was filled with teen-ager -- AFSers headed to Australia, Japan, Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. I soon learned that only three students -- Pam from Kansas, Susan from Virginia and me -- were going to Micronesia. And my two comrades were headed for Palau, while I alone was Saipan-bound.

In Los Angeles, I picked up another piece of information: We three were the very first American AFS students sent to Micronesia. We were pioneers -- in my mind, like the Apollo 11 astronauts landing on the moon for the first time.

To further heighten the adventure anxiety factor, we learned upon landing on Guam about a communications mix-up regarding our arrival date (a miscalculation involving the international dateline). Our arrival had been expected two days earlier. Original plans called for a one-day orientation on Guam, then heading to our host islands -- yesterday.

So plans had changed: The girls would have a day on Guam, awaiting the next flight to Palau. I was to depart for Saipan just a few hours after arriving on Guam -- barely enough time to freshen up and catch my breath.

Before the last leg of this journey, I learned that, because of the mix-up, I might not be met at the airport, and would have to locate a phone and call a four-digit number to get picked up.

So, yes, I was feeling rather anxious as the jet sped toward Saipan.

Then, I got my first glimpse of the island. I felt awed and overwhelmed.

But when the plane touched down on the jungle-shrouded runway, that feeling turned to terror. What I had gotten myself into?The "terminal" at Kobler Field ... a wood-frame, open-air structure ... looked nothing like the major airports I'd seen along the way.

Dazed and confused, I ambled behind other passengers toward the gate, completed my immigration forms, then stepped out into the unknown.

Fortunately, my fears of not being met didn't materialize. Getting a warm welcome and meeting my host father immediately eased my anxiety -- although I still felt dazed and confused.

My journey to Saipan had come to a successful conclusion, and the real adventure began.

Now, I'm ready for the next chapter in my Saipan saga to unfold. It's no longer a journey into the exotic unknown, but it's a homecoming, a renewal.