This is a story about two men who lived in caves on the same island but on the opposite side of each other. They never saw each other and never crossed passed and so each thought that they were alone. One was named Beriber and he was a fisherman and the other man was Emaredong who collected sap or nectar and made honey. Each morning they would wake up and go out to work and would come home at night when it was dark so they never saw each other. One day Beriber decided to expand the cave that he lives in and so he started to dig. Emaredong on the opposite side of the island had also decided to expand his cave and so he began to dig as well. Suddenly the wall broke startling Beriber, he looked up and saw Emaredong and exclaimed, "You live on the other side and here I am thinking that I live by myself so I've been throwing soup away." As he said that Emaredong said, "And I thought I was by myself so I've been throwing away honey." After this, they started being and acting like real neighbors visiting each other and sharing food with each other.

So the moral of the story is pretty much just like the "love your neighbor" in the bible, you visit each other and help each other out when one is in need of help, you share whatever you have with them a vice versa. 

I am not sure how other cultures and other people are with their neighbors but back home in Palau, this is what we do. We visit each other and we help each other out, we clean each other yards, borrow your car, ask for salt or fish or taro, we babysit their kids, and vice versa. It is more than just being a good neighbor because most of the time they are family and that doesn't always mean blood. This was one of those things that when I first moved to Hawaii was an adjustment for me because back home all my neighbor are actually family and so that meant friends, help, fun, I don't like the food in my house I can go to my neighbor's house and see what they're having fr lunch or dinner and you're not worried if you get turned down or shot and killed. But I also understand that it is not the same everywhere.

Ngeleked Budel literally translates "our outer child or skin child" or the child that we don't really care much about

Ngeleked Chelsel or Metechelsel literally translates "inner child" or the favorite child

So this is a lesson for women and married people who choose to adopt children from their brothers that you should love that child more than the child who came from you're womb.

There is a saying in Palauan cultures that goes, "If and when you adopt a child, you should love that child more than your biological children because you have no idea how much pain and effort and everything that went into bringing that child into this world."

This story is about a young woman who turned into a Dugong. She and her mother lived in Kerdeu in Ngerielb, a hamlet in Koror and they were very poor; way back then in Palau it was very taboo for an unmarried woman to become pregnant or have a child out of wedlock but somehow the young woman fell pregnant. Her mother was so sad upon learning about her daughter's pregnancy because they were already very poor as it is, and so she reminded her daughter that she had to take very good care of her health and pregnancy because there would be no one to take care of them or help them if they ever got sick. So the young woman obeyed her mother's advice and had a healthy pregnancy and delivery; she gave birth to a baby girl. After she gave birth her mother warned her not to eat "keam" (Tahitian Chestnut) because it was not good for a woman who had just given birth as it causes bloating but "keam" was one of her favorites. Still, she obeyed her mother's advice until one day when her mother went out to the taro patches to get taro for their family and her daughter just could not contain her cravings anymore and so she figured that she would just eat one and her mother won't know about it. She took a "keam" and she cut it in half and as she started to eat it she was startled by her mother, and upon seeing her mother she immediately put her down he daughter and just walked out of the house leaving both her mother and her daughter. The mother then picked up the baby and started to follow her daughter trying to call her name and trying to get her to stop and go back home but the daughter just kept on going not stopping, and when she reached the dock she jumped straight into the water. Her mother stood at the dock cradling the baby and saying to her daughter, "My daughter, you never listened to what I said, and now you're leaving. Do you not have pity on us?" When the daughter surfaced she had turned into a Dugong and so the mother said her final words to her, " You won't listen to what I say and now you're leaving so now you will be bought for a dollar which will be a marriage payment to a wife's family." Way back then Palauans used to hunt Dugongs not only because they were good food but because their vertebrae were used to be made into a bracelet for the children of the royal family. So when you hunt a Dugong and talk about killing them in their face they would cry and shed tears and so Palauan back they believed that Dugongs were human once that is why they feel emotions and shed tears.

The moral of the story is that we should always listen to our parents because they know what they're talking about, they have been in our shoes at some point in their lives. They remind and teach us because they care about us and they love us so they don't want us to get hurt or get in trouble. Most of the time when we want something so much we are blinded by our wants and desires that we don't realize that we could hurt ourselves as well as others.