Mari's Samoa

P.S.

2006-12-27T23:39:00.000-08:00

Andy and I have our new website up and running, so if you want to know what's going on in our lives and check out our crazy puppy come visit at:

www.thelansfords.com

The End

2006-11-14T19:22:00.000-08:00

Andrew and I arrived back in Samoa after a brief extension to the initial length of our California visit due to some fun oral surgery on my agenda and jumped right into finishing up our grades for the term at NUS. We have also decided, as a result of a great deal of thought and weight on our various options and their positives and negatives, that we will not stay in Samoa for the coming year. Rather than teaching at NUS for the 2007 school year as originally planned, we are wrapping up our responsibilities from this year and then will be heading back to California where we are planning on settling, near our families, and beginning our new life together. There are many reasons that have contributed to this decision. Most importantly, we feel that getting married means making a choice to create a new life with your partner, and the more we thought about remaining in Samoa for another year the more it felt as though that would be putting our ability to build and change our relationship in its new form on hold. The last thing that we wanted was to live here in Samoa for a year resenting the feeling that perhaps it might be holding us back in terms of our growth as a couple and as a family. And while no, I am NOT pregnant at the moment, we also felt the need to consider the fact that being a Peace Corps volunteer means that this would not be an option for us, and the truth is that it isn’t something we want to be an impossibility for the next 13 months. We also realize that one doesn’t want to just up and start having children with no job and nowhere to live, which would push the possibility of having children back far beyond our official end of service no matter when that was. Our choice gives us more time to prepare and become comfortable with a stable situation back home so that we can head down that path when we decide we are ready. There are other reasons, as well, but the main point that it comes down to is that it feels like the right thing to do, for us as a couple, at this point in life. I personally joined the Peace Corps hoping that I would come out the other end with a direction, an idea of what I wanted from my life, and finding Andrew and creating a life together was more than I ever could have imagined in that respect, and I am so grateful for this. It is always saddening in life when one is confronted with a decision that necessitates giving up certain things that are important on behalf of others. We have both valued our time and experiences in Samoa more than words could express, and it has been a huge part of our lives, as it always will be. Making the decision to leave, however, enables us to begin an entirely new and very exciting chapter in our lives both as individuals and as the family that we have become. We are thrilled with all of the possibilities now open to us and cannot wait to explore and fall into many new adventures together as we take this next large step (steps, more accurately).

This site, which is now coming to an end, has been such a great outlet for me to share all of my experiences and help to bring to life for people back home what I have been going through. It has also been a wonderful therapeutic tool for me and I hope a useful resource for others in all different walks of life, from family to strangers, who came upon it for a myriad of reasons. So thanks, blogger, I owe ya one. Although now that I’ve married a computer geek who can create a site for me I have to say your utility wanes… :) Once Andrew and I move home we will create a new website, together, through which you can continue to be a part of the journey of our life. So, for now… Tofa Soifua!

Montage

2006-11-06T10:38:00.000-08:00

We just found out that the photographer created a great photo montage (video clip) of some of the photos from the wedding for everyone to check out. If you're interested go to: www.jimkennedyphotography.com/movielansford
Any photos that are taken are orderable by anyone through the photographer's sites. I think the photos will stay up for about six months.

Official Wedding Photos

2006-11-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

Everyone has been sending us all kinds of great pictures that they took at the wedding and it's been wonderful getting so many different perspectives on the day. The "official" photographer has uploaded hers to her website so I wanted to post those links here. There are two sets- the photos that were taken on the day of the wedding and an engagement photo shoot the week before (more casual and, um, wet).

To see our wedding day photos go to www.stephaniebrockman.com enter the site, click on "view proofs" and select "Bennett & Lansford Wedding". The username is "brockman" and the password is "mari" (all lower case)

To see our engagement photos go to www.jimkennedyphotography.com enter the site, click on "view proofs" and select "Bennett & Lansford Engagement" (scroll down about a page to find it). The username is "kennedy" and the password is "mari" (again, lower case)

A highly recommended activity for a day when one is trying to kill time or has little else to do as there are TONS of photos on the sites.

Wedding Pictures

2006-10-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

So, needless to say, I've been a bit busy what with the whole getting married thing. but despite my current lack of presence here I thought I would try to post some of the pictures that people have taken and sent us to alleviate some of the suspense as to what the whole affair looked like. I promise I will add something more verbally profound about the whole experience at a later date. And for those still in doubt/question, yes my mother-in-law DID make my dress :)

My sister posted a whole bunch more wedding pictures on their website if you want to check those out as well: www.jakegodwin.blogspot.com

Course Evaluations

2006-09-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

So I am officially finished with teaching for the semester. Yesterday was our last day of class before my students go out for four weeks of teaching practice in local schools, which I will not be able to oversee since I’ll be back home for that whole wedding thing. This term was really difficult and TONS of work but it was really great and so rewarding and fulfilling. I asked for some feedback from my students so that I could try to improve my methods for next year and got some fun responses. My favorite suggestion was regarding the fact that I had the same students for 4 hours straight once a week and it drove us all nuts:

"I hope that the time of this course will change because after this double followed by the other double hour, man I'm tired of sitting on the same chair!"

Overall they were really positive and seemed to really like me, even if I do talk too fast and use overly complicated language. I learned a lot and hopefully they learned at least a bit as well and it feels really great to have a sense of completion about it all, especially since we're going home in just over a week and there's a ton of packing and shopping and general craziness to take care of first, so it's nice to be able to start focusing fully on that since it is only 3 WEEKS until the wedding. Wow.

Point of View

2006-09-12T16:02:00.000-07:00

Robin, who works in the same department as my parents, sent me the following:

"About you teaching college... Maybe you remember this, but years back we were at an Eco Evo department retreat in the mountains. Mountain X. I skipped out of the endless boring talks to play basketball with Drew. He was pretty little, not sick yet. He asked me if I did the same kind of work as his mom and dad. I said yes. He said GOD! YUK! How can you STAND IT!!!! So I asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up. He said he wanted to do something fun, like work at Del Taco."

Everyone has their own perspective. I can only imagine how disappointed he'd be at what a "boring" adult I've become :D Although I bet he'd think selling funnel cakes was pretty cool, especially for such a steep profit!

Funnel Cake Fundraising

2006-09-11T23:59:00.000-07:00

So, in case my teaching job didn't take up enough of my time I decided a couple of months ago to become the president of a local non-governmental organization called Avanoa Tutusa. This translates roughly into "Equal Opportunities" and was started by a group of Peace Corps volunteers about 6 years ago targeted at providing opportunities for women and children in Samoa. The organization is comprised mainly of Peace Corps volunteers although we would really like to make it more locally sustainable, particularly since our terms of service here are of such a temporary nature. At this point all of our programs are focused on children- we do a big career day each year at the beginning of the school year (I wrote about it last February). We hold one in Upolu, this island, and one on the other island, Savaii. We also provide grants for art supplies for preschools in rural areas where there is no access to consumable supplies. We are working hard to expand the organization and become involved in more events on a regular basis. As part of this we have decided to develop a new program of doing craft and sports days where we bring a whole bunch of equipment and supplies out into rural villages to have a big fun day with all of the children. We had one a few months back and it was amazingly successful so we are looking forward to making it a more regular occurence. We're also looking to get involved in a youth camp that is put on by the Ministry of Youth here and hopefully this will happen in the coming year. The long and the short is that we're trying to be able to provide resources without actually having an income of our own, so we survive mainly off of fundraising. So this past week was the annual Samoan cultural celebration, the Teuila Festival. This consists of lots of parades, singing and dancing competitions, and tons of booths with food and handicrafts and anything one could want to find in this country. So Avanoa Tutusa held a booth where we sold funnel cakes to make money to support our programs. The Samoans totally loved them and we were cooking nonstop from early monday morning until late friday afternoon. We sold well over 1000 funnel cakes and ended up making a really great amount of money that we can use for a bunch of upcoming projects. It was tiring work but really fun and a great break and change from teaching for the week (NUS was on mid-semester break). I have to say I'm not interested in looking at another funnel cake for a long long time but fortunately for me we seem to be the only funnel cake vendors in the country which leaves me safe until next year.

Miracle of Miracles

2006-09-07T00:50:00.000-07:00

After months of empty promises and evasions on behalf of NUS, we came home yesterday to find the house in total disarray, two chairs broken, wall panels in the living room removed and replaced, and... A NEW HOT WATER HEATER!!! After we figured out how they managed to screw up our electricity and undid the damage, we kicked back to wait for our little wonder machine to do its thing. And then we took hot showers. It was one of the strangest sensations I have experienced in this country. I've showered in hot water here, but only on very rare occasions- namely when mom and dad or Andy's parents come and stay at some place where they're paying enough for the hotel to provide hot water. I can't describe how bizarre it is to step into your own shower, where your standard operating procedure usually involves evading the actual stream of water as much as possible whenever not absolutely necessary for rinsing purposes, and standing there feeling uncomfortably warm (after all, it is 85 degrees with 90% humidity here and hot showers are often a silly concept) being drenched by hot water. We both got out of the shower and were making dinner and turned to each other and realized that we were sweating 20 minutes later, from the novelty that our bodies have grown so unaccustomed to. We did agree, however, that it is an adjustment we are both willing to put the energy into working towards. In my own little Peace Corps development world my life just jumped from the stone to the iron age and I can't even begin to describe how shiny the metal is!

Success

2006-08-30T16:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a student say to me (and this is a direct quote): "We like the way you teach." Bestill my heart. Affirmation of my very existence. What more could I possibly hope for in life?

P.S. In news related to everything else going on in my life I am good. Things have been very busy with mom and dad coming to visit for the past couple of weeks and the housesitting before that. I've also been preparing for the Teuila Festival which is coming up next week- I'll post more once I know what that's actually like. Otherwise, just your average chicken with her head cut off involved in more than I have time for but enjoying it all.

Perspective

2006-08-08T13:03:00.000-07:00

When you live somewhere for long enough, it eventually feels like home. We've just been realizing recently that we finally feel settled here and that Samoa is our home, which takes a fair amount of time given the displacement one goes through during Peace Corps training and the time following it, plus for me the additional move in May. It's a really nice feeling to have things settle in a routine and to be able to appreciate the small familiarities that you get when you're living in "your" environment. And overall I must say we definitely got the plush end of the stick in terms of Peace Corps placement that's about as upscale as one could imagine. We live quite comfortably with walls and running water, electricity and a refrigerator, an oven, a laptop with a decent stash of movies, and proximity to town. I'd almost say our life is luxurious compared to what I was expecting when I enlisted myself for this adventure. I think this is aided by the fact that it's been almost a year since I experienced anything remotely different. This week we are housesitting for a couple that is from New Zealand and works here with a regional insurance agency. They live... like we might live if we were back home in America. And it's amazing how different it feels. So-called everyday appliances like warm water, a washing machine and dryer, a dish washer, a tv with satellite reception, a microwave, a dog (not so much an appliance, but a staple of any truly meaningful existence in my opinion)- these all seem like such fabulous luxuries to us coming from our humble home. They even have a ping pong table and a swimming pool! It's very wierd thinking about all of the components of their completely normal home as these extravagant curiosities that are completely and totally beyond reality to us living here. I think it's an interesting first taste of the strangeness that will accompany returning home to the states next year, where all of these things that you grew up with as regular parts of your daily life are now viewed through a completely different lens. (How much power is that dryer using? We only get 60 tala worth a month...) Needless to say we are quite enjoying our brief respite in the lap of luxury and western civilization. Yesterday I got home from work and jumped in the pool to refresh and wind down from the day. I could definitely get used to this kind of living. Too bad my Peace Corps "salary" amounts to under $350 US a month :) Ah well, dreams for the future...

Happy

2006-08-02T18:47:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted any photos in a while and was recently sifting in detail through every picture both Andy and I have taken since moving to Samoa so thought I would share these two. Last month during semester break we took a little mini-vacation to a tiny island off the east coast of Samoa called Namu'a- they have about a half dozen open fales on the beach on a tiny strip of the island that has some sand. Other than that it's a great place to snorkel, and you can walk all the way around the island at low tide (although the coral is perilous and we both ended up a bit battered). You can also hike over the center of the island which is quite high given its small size. Anyhoo, we had a great time and I thought these pictures were cute and wanted to share them. Thats all :)

Irony

2006-07-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

I am now officially the one thing that I swore to my family I would never become- namely, what they are. (Not that there's anything wrong with it, of course.) Needless to say, everyone was delighted to see me eat my words as I shared the news that I was going to become a lecturer at the National University of Samoa after having grown up wanting to be "anything BUT a college professor." A week and a half into the term I am now officially working. Lecturing, getting on students' butts about not showing up on time, inhaling chalk dust by the pound, and asking the kinds of questions that I used to hate as a student, those annoying ones that require them to think. I am teaching four courses that meet twice a week for two hour sessions. The courses are all in special needs education. One is on the individualized education program, one on assessment techniques and teaching strategies for individuals with special needs, one on barriers to learning, and the last on the situation of special needs here in Samoa. It takes up basically all of my time and I hardly have a free moment to get ready from one course to the next, including a schedule that is so confusing I'm never quite sure exactly which class I'm supposed to be teaching until I start, but it's really great to be busy and working all the time. I find with my (slightly) compulsive personality I do much better with too much on my plate than not enough so this has been good for me in that it keeps me totally engaged all of the time. The timing of the term works out perfectly because in the education department the last four weeks of the semester are teaching practice for the students rather than lecture so my courses end the week before we leave to go home to get married. I have a feeling it will be quite intense for the next couple of months working full time and also planning everything but hey at least I won't be bored :)

Home

2006-07-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of the house. There should be pics of the outside on Andy's website somewhere. It's definitely got an institutional feel but we've done our best to make it as homey as possible. Thanks to Jake for sending me so many great letters and pictures with which to decorate the walls :)

Starting Over

2006-07-06T19:27:00.000-07:00

So... Monday was the first day of enrollment for the 2nd term at the National University of Samoa. It also marked my first day in my new position here. I have joined the faculty of education and taken over the special needs courses so that the professor that developed the program can work overseas towards getting an advanced degree in education. It looks as though I will be teaching an extremely full course-load targeted at familiarizing future teachers with the important components of special needs education that will help to prepare them for the general mainstreaming and inclusion movement currently underway in Samoa. This, obviously, means that I am no longer working at FiaMalamalama. There were a variety of personal and professional reasons, one of the greatest being my impending marriage, that led to this transition. I am excited and optimistic that my new position will be a positive on both fronts, as it has definitely proved to be thus far. It was a very difficult decision to leave my initial placement that wasn't made lightly, but I am still looking forward to the rest of my time here in country and fulfilling my service at the university. I am swamped with work currently in preparation for courses which start in a week but other than that things are going very well. My tattoo has finally healed completely, no more bruising or peeling, and I am quite happy with it. Andy told me he thinks it would look REALLY good if I got the other thigh done to match (tattoos are usually symetrical here, not only on one side). I told him as soon as he gets another boat tattooed on his chest I'll think about it.

Bruised

2006-06-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a shot that shows a degree of the bruising my tattoo caused. This was day 2 after the swelling had gone down. The bruise has continued to morph and is now all yellow and makes me look ill. It's really interesting. Did I mention I'm not getting another tattoo? Ever. Although I do quite like it. Now that the pain is in the past.

Tatau

2006-06-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

I have officially survived my experience with the traditional Samoan tattoo! Andy and I got up nice and early on this beautiful rainy morning and treked out to the locally renowned tattoo artist with an appointment for permanent body-altering. Andy got a tattoo of a Samoan boat, part of the traditional men's full body tattoo, across his shoulders. I got a band and part of the traditional women's tattoo around my right thigh. I have to say it was one of the most excruciatingly painful experiences I could have chosen to have inflicted upon myself. About five minutes in I started to wonder what the heck I was thinking knowing I had close to two hours of exactly the same in front of me. We took tons of pictures- I think there are as many of my face in agony as of my leg, thanks to Andy- check them out in the photo album labeled "My Tattoo". It was really a great experience, and SO made me appreciate what a good portion of Samoans go through as a part of their rite of passage towards their position of authority within the village (the tattoos are traditionally associated with one's being given a matai title)- the men who get the pe'a, which extends from above the waste to the knees, have to go back every day for at least a week to have it done in increments, each of which are significantly larger than what I had done today. I have to say I'm really glad to have done it but even more glad that it's in the past :) I'm headed for home to lift my leg up and try to ease some of the swelling as I lay around and recuperate for the next couple of days.

Reflection

2006-06-14T22:37:00.000-07:00

We had a new group of future volunteers join us in country early wednesday morning- Peace Corps Samoa Group 76. We were called "trainees" during our first few months in country but it has been decided that this terminology has a childish connotation to it so their official label is "development professionals in training." Shockingly, however, they still seem to get referred to as... "trainees." I guess old habits die hard. It's been really interesting because this is the first new group to join us in country and go through what we went through upon our initial arrival. I've found that it's brought back a lot of reflection on what that time was like for me and how far I've come since then, and how much the experiences that I've been living have changed me. I came to Samoa in October- I've been here for over 8 months and feel it narrowing in on a year as time seems to roll by. The thing that I wanted most out of joining the Peace Corps was to have it lead me towards some sort of direction or larger plan for my life, something I didn't really have prior to this endeavor. Somewhat surprisingly to me becoming a volunteer led me to Andrew and in that sense the most concrete direction I could possibly find for my life. I think it's pretty impressive that one of my main desires for my service was filled so swiftly and totally. Regarding other aspects of my service I, like many volunteers, have had fluctuating experiences ranging from amazingly positive to frustrating and disappointing. I think that this is imperative as a component of the journey through one's time as a volunteer and is a huge part of what makes a volunteer grow so much during the tenure of their service. At this point, deep enough in my service to have a real idea of what is happening and what works (and doesn't work) for me yet with enough time left for substantial growth, I am focusing my energy on trying to restructure myself and my role here so that I feel that I am giving the most of myself and receiving the most personally for my efforts. Reflecting on where I came from and where I've been, I'm looking forward towards the rest of my service through very different lenses and am excited and curious to see how it all unfolds before me.

Independence Day

2006-06-03T00:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Independence Day here in Samoa. Well, actually, Samoa gained its independence from New Zealand sometime in late January, but it was officially decided that that is a crummy time of year to celebrate independence since it’s often rainy and cycloney, so celebration of independence was reassigned to June 1st. We went into town to check out the festivities which included long distance rowing races that ended in Apia harbor, marching girls, band performances and traditional Samoan dancing, along with substantial quantities of BBQ and other food items. It was quite fun checking everything out and squeezing through the hordes to get a peak at the boats as they were coming by. Albeit a bit sunburnt, it was definitely a fun way to spend an afternoon and interesting to see how Samoa celebrates their independence.

High Intensity Conferring

2006-06-03T00:12:00.000-07:00

We’ve officially hit our 6-month point since swearing in, which places us at the milestone for our early service group re-coagulation. Last week we went out to stay at a very nice beach fale resort called Boomerang Creek for our High Intensity Language Training/ Early Service Conference. We spent five very relaxing days by the water reviewing language formation structures, holding hands and talking about how we feel, and reflecting. And playing cards. A LOT. It was a really nice week, although the term “high intensity” might be a tad of an exaggeration. Regardless, I found it a great opportunity to sit down and think about where I am and where I want to go and what I want to get out of my time here in Samoa, which is about 1/3 finished at this point, weirdly enough. It was also interesting being back as a group and sort of a flashback to training in a way- you kind of forget what it’s like to be living on top of everyone else in your group after you disburse post-training. Plus we had frequent bouts with neither electricity or running water which was fun because we’re so spoiled in our actual placements where amenities are very rarely an issue. “Roughing it” for the week validates that, somehow :)

Savaii Samoa

2006-05-20T20:01:00.000-07:00

We had exciting visitors this week to our school- the Savaii Samoa rugby team came on Thursday to spend some time with the students and perform some songs and dances for them. The kids spent all day Wednesday rehearsing songs and dances like mad to perform for the team and they did a wonderful job. It was great seeing how excited they were and how much they enjoyed having an audience to perform for. After our school's performance the rugby team responded in form and sang some great children's songs for the students. It was a lovely day and a great way to end up the first term of the school year. Everyone had a lovely time and enjoyed it thoroughly. Plus the team gave us some money for a special treat so yesterday we had a cake and ice cream party as well, which was almost equally thrilling for the kids! Now we're on break for two weeks and then school will resume for second term.

The Ambassadors

2006-05-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

This week the new ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa came to visit and he spent an evening with the Peace Corps. One volunteer from each sector of work prepared a presentation to give an overview of the kinds of work that we are undertaking here in country. There only being 2 special needs education volunteers in our program, I had the 50 percent chance of being asked to present, which I was. So the 8 chosen volunteers made up our power point presentations and we practiced our traditional Samoan dances that we learned in training so that we could perform those as well. It was a nice evening, and was kind of exciting to present what's going on here to someone "official"- plus it was neat hearing about other peoples' projects as well. This was actually the second time that we've had a representative from the government come and we've held a presentation session for them which is kind of nice- we're quite used to being ambassadors of the American way of life with Samoans, but it's neat to get to be an ambassador of Samoan life to Americans as well.

55K

2006-05-16T01:28:00.000-07:00

Happy mother's day! I know yesterday was technically mother's day, but here in Samoa we get the day after mother's day off so today sort of felt more the holiday than yesterday in many ways. In either event, mother's day is a very big deal here so a bunch of volunteers from our group returned to Falevao to visit their families for the weekend. Most of us, in fact, rode our bikes. There are some members of our group who have extensive biking experience and have been riding around a ton since they've been here. I definitely use my bike to get around town and for convenience's sake, but had yet to endeavor a long-distance trek for leisure. So yesterday was my inaugural attempt. The ride is just over 27 kilometers in each direction. We got up nice and early and noticed a big rain cloud in the distance. After about a nanosecond of pondering it became clear that we aren't capable of riding faster than the wind, so we realized we were bound to be joined on our journey by water. We took off anyways and actually the rain turned out not to be torrential, so it provided some cooling and cloud cover along the way without making the ride miserable. It took about an hour and 20 minutes to get to Falevao where I for one spent the large portion of the day resting and laying around being as lazy as possible. Late afternoon rolled around and we hopped on our bikes for the return journey. I must say, we stopped to take a break about the halfway point back and I was thoroughly finished with all that lovely fresh air. Mostly, actually, it was just that I hadn't felt my butt in about an hour and I kind of missed the sensation. Despite my desire to stop early and camp on the side of the road, however, we made it back in one piece and flopped down to a pizza that someone else made for dinner. Overall we biked about 55 kilometers yesterday which I was quite proud of since I don't even know the longest distance I've biked before, having never been a serious biker. I'm sure it's paltry to anyone who rides regularly, but hey, I'm a runner not a cyclist. And I only got chased by one pack of dogs the entire time. Quite impressive. And I'm not even sore today, more suprisingly (other than the residual numbness in my behind).

Antsy Pants

2006-05-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

I’ve been a bit antsy lately. I think I’ve decided that seven months is my maximum limit for being on a 50 square mile island before I start doing the pee-pee dance in my brain. Unfortunately for my island fever, I do not have plans to leave Samoa until October 9th. So in an attempt to come up with ways to restore equilibrium to my psyche, Andy and I decided to take the weekend off and go be tourists at the beach. (Did I mention that we live on a beautiful island where you can go stay in a small hut on the beach for the weekend?) We packed our backpacks and jumped on an insanely overcrowded bus, that happens to be driven by my Samoan brother (small country), and headed east for Lalomanu. We spent the weekend eating ridiculous amounts of food that other people cooked for us, laying around and reading, snorkeling, and napping. We actually even sprung to go out on a boat for a snorkel trip which is way out of our price range but was really cool- we got to snorkel around the edge of an underwater volcanic crater and see turtles and eagle rays and all kinds of stuff that we don’t usually see when we snorkel off the coast. Plus we got to be on a boat. (You’d think, living on an island, that boats would be rampant here, but in fact unless you count the ferry to and from Savaii it’s quite difficult to manage to land yourself on one.) And then on Sunday in the pouring rain we jumped back on the bus and two hours of butt-bumping on uber-comfy wooden bench seats later, we were home and ready to start our week. It was great. We were gone for something like 48 hours but it was quite revitalizing. It was also kind of fun to play tourist, since everyone assumed we don’t live here. And just as a souvenir, to make sure I remembered our little vacation long after it was over, I brought back fleas with me that are now happily cohabitating my bed :)

Tsunami Day

2006-05-03T23:44:00.000-07:00

At 4:30 this morning I was jolted awake by movement. Before I even knew what was happening I was up and in the doorway- apparently those endless drills in elementary school really paid off on the old subconscious. The earthquake lasted for about 30 seconds (I think, I really have no idea) during which I pondered whether there are actually any places in my house that have “structural integrity” in the true meaning of getting some place safe in case stuff starts to collapse, which I believe to be quite within the realm of the possible. The shaking was minor, though, and I went back to sleep after the adrenaline wore off. At about 7:00 this morning my phone started ringing off the hook. Indignant that people were attempting to encroach on my sleeping time when school doesn’t start until 8:30, I tried my hardest to ignore the phone for about an hour. Finally I gave in and admitted that there was no way to sleep through the incessant ringing anyways so I got up and spoke to a parent who was curious whether there would be school today. The bus had left already so I told him yes, thinking it odd for him to query why this day was different from all other days, and went about my way getting ready. The bus returned a few minutes later with no students. I yelled after the principal and bus driver to find out what was going on and they said that the prime minister had cancelled school for the day because of the earthquake. I gotta say, my first impression was “Whoa. This beats the heck out of rain cancellation. I feel like I’m seriously missing something here.” Then the Peace Corps called and it turned out that there had been tsunami warnings all over the south pacific because the earthquake, which had originated in Tonga, was like a 7.8 there and created quite a stir. Turns out the tsunami was relatively minor (like 20-30 centimeters high) and not particularly damaging as far as I know. So anyways I got a free day to hang out and read and watch Grease. It sounds quite dramatic and exciting, though- school cancelled for impending tsunami!

Exciting News!

2006-04-18T20:12:00.000-07:00

This seems a slightly strange forum for this but since it’s currently my primary form of communication and the easiest way to mass-disseminate information, I have some news… I’m engaged! Andrew, my fiancé, is a member of the same Peace Corps group that I came to Samoa with, and he is working here at the National University of Samoa teaching computer programming. He and I met in LA during staging to come here, started going out within the first week, and things have continued along to the point where we have decided we want our second year in country to be as a married couple. We’re planning on coming back to California in October for a couple of weeks and getting married there so that family and friends can be a part of our celebration and then we’ll return here and probably live in my house next year. It’s quite funny actually that we both grew up in southern California, probably a 45 minute drive apart, but we had to come halfway around the world to find each other here. We’re both really happy and excited to attempt to plan a wedding from a distance- should be an interesting challenge if nothing else. Fortunately family has proved willing to help us along stateside in the endeavor. We’re thrilled to be able to share our news with everyone and can’t express how excited we are to be coming home in six months for this occasion!

My Ring

2006-04-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of photos of the ring Andy bought me for our engagement. People here traditionally wear pearl jewelry so we liked the idea of having a ring that represents the place that brought us together. Plus it's purty :)

Vacation

2006-04-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

Since my mom was visiting and she isn’t paid in Samoan tala, we decided to take a vacation for the weekend while she was here and go stay at a posh resort on the south side of the island called Coconuts. It was absolutely beautiful and so much fun. We stayed in a cute little fale right on the beach with the most amazing shower I have ever seen in my entire life- it was all lava rocks and the water came spurting out of them like a fountain. It felt like you were standing under your own mini waterfall. There was also an adorable swimming pool shaped like a pili (gecko) overlooking the ocean. We could walk into the water from our house and go snorkeling and play with the starfish. We were also right near a mangrove that we rented kayaks and paddled around in. It was wonderful. We ate huge quantities of delicious food and hung out and played scrabble and relaxed a whole lot. It was quite fun seeing Samoa from the tourist/traveler perspective since it’s totally different from the experiences one has living here from day to day. It was also of course wonderful to have my mom here for a visit. It was much too short and makes me quite conscious of how far away I am from everyone. I love it here but I definitely miss everyone back home very much.

Alu Kele!

2006-04-05T20:02:00.000-07:00

My mom was here visiting me this past week. It was so wonderful getting to see her and being able to show her what my life is like here. I try really hard to describe for everyone back home but some things defy explanation, so it’s nice to have her experience more than just tales of the Fa’aSamoa. On Thursday we went out to visit my family in Falevao so she could see the island and where our training took place and so that she could meet my surrogate Samoan family. The second we got there my grandmother scolded us for bringing cake and whipped out her sewing machine to shower both my mom and myself with all forms of fabric and clothing. We hung out for a while and then I decided to show my mom around the village. One of my little sisters in the village is very sick from infected boils on her legs and cannot walk right now so we decided we would drive through Falevao in our rental car so that she could accompany us since she’s been bed-ridden for quite some time. I carried her into the car and five of my other little siblings poured out of the woodwork and jumped in as well. We crammed into the car and drove through the village at about 2 miles per hour with all the kids jumping and screaming and pointing to people and places they knew and wanted to go. We drove past the far end of town and up the mountain where they were quite chagrined when we turned around and they insisted that we take another detour to the nearest village from the other end of town, which we did. Meanwhile in the backseat the kids are chanting at the top of their lungs “alu kele, alu kele, alu kele, ALU KELE!” Which directly translates into “go a lot.” They were having a blast and didn’t care where we went as long as we just kept going! We finally had to bribe them with coke and lollies to make them willing to return home. It was a great visit and a fabulous way to show mom around town.

Utility

2006-03-23T19:41:00.000-08:00

When I was first living with my family in Falevao back in October I noticed something that seemed strange to me at the time. My family would present me with an ie (pronounced ee-ay, also called lavalava, the fabric worn by both men and women around their lower halves of their bodies) that my grandmother had sewn up for me and I’d put it on and walk around to find that my new clothing matched curtains in one house, a tablecloth in another, pillowcases on pillows strewn about… pretty much anything that could be made from fabric. It’s not so common to walk around in the states in clothing that happens to match household items so I let it amuse me and chalked it up to cross-cultural experiences that I didn’t fully understand. Since becoming a volunteer I have been spending a good deal of time sewing because a) it’s the easiest way to get most things like pillowcases and clothing (since most families sew their own fabric items there are limited quantities for sale) and b) because it keeps me busy and gives me projects, which are always important things to have. I decided that the cushion covers on my chairs desperately needed replacement so I went into town and bought a bright green jungly fabric that entertained me and took it home and made 8 covers out of it. Upon outfitting my living room in its new décor I realized I still had a significant portion of fabric left. So I asked Andrew how he’d feel about a nice new green shirt. Upon my completion of the shirt I had about a yard and a half of fabric left so I cut it in half and made a couple of pillowcases (multiple sets are imperative as washing is done by hand and laundry left to hang dry, so one can never guarantee the return of pillowcase to pillow before bedtime). I was so proud of myself- I had managed to be resourceful and not waste any of the fabric I purchased, turning it into all kinds of useful items! Then it dawned on me that in fact it wasn’t strange at all what I had experienced in the village- my family just understood the value of utility in the way I have now come to. Laura Ashley has cornered the market on the infamous “mommy and me” outfits, but I think I might just have to write them and ask if they’ve ever considered “mommy and window dressing” combos :)

Playtime!

2006-03-17T19:11:00.000-08:00

I took some pictures the other day of the students at my school playing on our new playground equipment so I thought I would post them for people to see. The equipment was purchased with a grant received from the Australian High Commission at the end of last school year. Hooray for generous organizations! :)

Without a Hitch

2006-03-13T19:02:00.000-08:00

Friday was the Savaii installation of our career day hosted by Avanoa Tutusa (“Equal Opportunities”). Last weekend we were talking with some of the volunteers that live on Savaii when they mentioned that there was a massive secondary school-wide sports day to be held on the same day that we had alerted principals two months ago was to be the day for our career day. After spending the beginning of the week debating on how many students might show up and whether it was worth holding the event, or canceling it, or postponing it, we finally decided to go ahead with things as planned and hope for the best. On Wednesday, our president called to confirm the venue to find out that they could no longer host us- the prime minister would be staying there at the time and he and the other ministers needed the space, so we were out. Two days to go and so far no place to have the event, and perhaps no students… Thursday morning we prepared to take off and the treasurer signed a check for the organization so that we could cash it to pay for everything once we got over to Savaii. The bank decided one signature wasn’t enough so Pete, our president, chased her down at her work across town and had her sign it a second time to return to the bank. Unfortunately, however, the signatures were not quite similar enough for the bank, and they refused to cash the check. So he returned to our treasurer who gave him her personal ATM card and a couple of pin number options. We went to the bank to withdraw money from her account but unfortunately Pete guessed wrong and the bank ate her card. No money, no venue, no students. Off we go to the boat! We arrived in Savaii mid-day and split up to conquer our rapidly developing crises. The Savaii branch of the bank was more than willing to cash the check (thankfully) and even commented that in the future we need not sign the checks twice, once would be just fine. We managed with the help of some friends over in Savaii to find a women’s committee building on a church compound directly across the street from the original venue that would work quite well for our event, plus the bonus of location. The pastor was nowhere to be found, which we found a little strange since he was to be leading prayer the following morning at career day, but his wife showed up and we explained that we were peace corps volunteers and having a career day the following day and needed somewhere to do it and she said we could use the space. We went back to the hotel where we had booked two rooms to find that actually the hotel was a little overfull due to a wheelchair repair conference, but they would do their best to find us a place to sleep, which ended up being across the street at the fale of our friend’s very generous aunt who let us take over their house for the evening camping out on the floor. The village vaita’ele (spring-water pool) happened to be right outside of the outdoor area we were sleeping in, which was quite nice and we enjoyed an evening swim there. We returned to the hotel to eat dinner when one of our members alerted us all to the fact that, with 12 hours to go, we no longer had a faife’au (preacher) or our keynote speaker, due to emergencies that had come up. Money and venue, no preacher, no speaker, and still possibly no students. So we begged her uncle from America who happens to be a preacher to get up and say a prayer for us and went in search of someone to give a keynote address. We were unable to find anyone so we decided we would try to ask one of the exhibitors in the morning and spent the rest of the evening relaxing and praying that things would somehow come together instead of continuing to disintegrate. In the morning we went to go pick up the breakfast we had ordered for the exhibitors to find that the man who was planning on making our meat pies had fallen ill and instead of the 30 we were hoping for we had 6. so we grabbed some pankeke (fried dough balls- they seem like they shouldn’t be appealing but man do those things grow on you!) and made some tea and helped everyone set up. The chief of police agreed to be our keynote speaker and suddenly out of the blue everything began going perfectly and the next few hours were amazing. It turned out that because we had to change venues to a smaller place at the last minute the sports day was perfect because we could never have fit more students into the hall than showed up. It was a truly impressive thing to live through... no money, no venue, no students, no preacher, no speaker, no hotel room... no problem. Things just somehow seem to work out here. Although I must say I had entertained thoughts of staying in Savaii for the weekend to relax and have a little mini-vacation, but by the time everything was over I couldn't get to the boat and back home soon enough. On saturday I slept until 3. It was perfect.

Field Trip!

2006-03-09T12:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday our school went on a field trip to the nutrition center. Part of the goal of the school is to get the students involved in activities that develop functional independent living skills. We have an area in the yard that is designated as our garden, but in the recent past it has been taken over by creeping sweet potato vines at the expense of everything else, so we decided to remove the existing items and start over. The nutrition center is very generous in providing and arranging free tours for students and free clippings and seeds of plants that can be brought back and planted. So yesterday we loaded up in our school bus and went across town where despite a bit of rain we explored the garden and learned about all of the different types of plants available for consumption. The students had a great time and we came back with bags full of cuttings to transfer to our own little garden. Everyone worked together to plant everything upon our return. I went down to check on things this morning and all of the plants look a bit wilted because in our flurry of action we forgot to water the plants yesterday after they were placed in the ground (oops). Hopefully that will be remedied by a bit of care today and down the road we can look forward to all kinds of exciting new vegetables appearing in the school lunches. The nutrition center mission is quite important as vegetables, particularly leafy greens, are used quite minimally in the Samoan diet which tends to be high in starchy carbohydrates, fat and meat. Many Samoans are suffering from an extremely high national rate of diabetes and obesity and the nutrition center is striving to create awareness of a healthy and well-balanced diet that includes the intake of a much higher quantity of fruits and vegetables. Hopefully their work will continue to educate and inform the community in ways that will lead to the inclusion of vegetables in many more Samoan dishes and eventually changes towards healthier eating lifestyles will begin to manifest themselves country-wide. And on a smaller and more immediate scale, these changes would be a welcome addition to the diets of the students right here at Aoga Fiamalamalama. Not to mention the fact that having a constant supply of fresh basil downstairs could hardly help but drastically increase my quality of life :)

Weekend Diversion

2006-03-01T22:21:00.000-08:00

This weekend we finally made it up to Robert Louis Stevenson’s tomb. Being THE palagi of his time here in Samoa he lived the concluding chapter of his life (while brief) in quite the lap of luxury in a small village a couple of kilometers inland called Vailima (incidentally this is also the name of the only Samoan brewed beer- don’t ask me to analyze that one). The greater Apia area is bisected by a mountain- Mt. Vaea- that runs right up to the middle about a kilometer in from the ocean. The suburban sprawl, as it were, extends back along both sides of the mountain. Where I live is a couple of kilometers inland on the western side, where Robert Louis Stevenson used to reside is on the east side. When RLS started to realize that Samoa would probably be his final resting place (he was sick and weak from the start of his time here) he decided he had better find an ideal location in which to spend eternity. He settled on Mt. Vaea, smack dab in the middle of everything, with a full-scale panorama ocean view to boot. Unfortunately for his eternal soul foliage has hampered a significant portion of the oceanscape in the past century, but it’s still an amazing location with quite the spectacular view. There’s a great trail leading up the mountain from behind his house that makes a large loop up to the tomb through beautiful forest that takes maybe an hour and a half to hike in full. That of course doesn't count lounging about enjoying the view once you're at the top :) The intention had been to head up there and get a bit of movement in as well as taking in one of Samoa’s more infamous monuments, right before the torrential rainy season that has only recently abated. After multiple weekends of planning on attempting our venture and succumbing to inclement weather, this Sunday was sunny and beautiful and we decided it was an ideal way to pass the afternoon. We also got to check out his house which is relatively impressive in that colonial imperialist style, if you’re into that kind of thing… complete with lion-skin rugs and safari regalia just to prove the point. At any rate, it was lots of fun to get outside and get some blisters and a bit sunburnt and even a mild workout (or a significant one, depending on one's lung capacity).

I’ve posted pictures of our hike… Also, there are new albums with photos from both the Apolima Craft Day and Career Day. They took a gazillion years to upload so check them out :)

Peace Corps Week Fun

2006-02-27T23:40:00.000-08:00

The Peace Corps first began on March 1^st, 1961. Each year at the beginning of March the Peace Corps celebrates its anniversary by having Peace Corps week. During this week volunteers usually find extra projects or ways to get out and perform services within the community. On Saturday, in honor of the occasion, a group of about 15 volunteers went out to a village on the south-west side of the island to hold a children’s arts and crafts day for the village that one of our volunteers lives in. We showed up with craft supplies to make masks and puppets and collages and stencil colorings and fingerpaint and playdough and clay and facepaints and all kinds of stuff. We got there about an hour before the event was supposed to start in order to set up and by about fifteen minutes after we had arrived a huge slew of small children were already eagerly awaiting our permission to enter and join in the festivities. The 200 or so children that showed up spent the morning going around to the different stations and engaging in all sorts of projects. I spent the morning painting the faces of a never-ending slew of children waiting patiently for their chance to be covered in paint and glitter. Then everyone sat down and had egg salad sandwiches together and all of the older children were taken off to play a game of flag football led by a couple of the volunteers- we have a set of football supplies that was generously donated to the Peace Corps by the Chicago Bears and it was great fun getting a chance to bring it out into the community and use it. While the older kids were playing football we organized games with the younger children and sang songs and just had a great time making lots of new friends. The day was really great and it was so much fun getting out in the community and spending time with a new group of faces that were so thrilled to have us there and engaged with them. Plus my face-painting abilities and ingenuity drastically increased as a result of all of the practice I got.

Upolu Career Day

2006-02-27T23:30:00.000-08:00

One of the organizations that I have become involved in outside of my school is an NGO called Avanoa Tutusa, which is aimed at creating programs and opportunities to benefit women and children in the Samoan community. One of the annual projects sponsored and held by Avanoa Tutusa is a career day put on for all of the secondary school students in the country. Exhibitors are solicited from many of the businesses and governmental ministries in the country to set up booths and provide information about possible career opportunities to the students as they come around to explore. On Friday the Upolu Career Day went off with smashing success. Some of the volunteers showed up at 6 in the morning to set things up and get breakfast out. We made about ten gallons of tea in the largest pot known to man and helped set up exhibitions. Hundreds of students from schools all over the island started showing up at about 8 in the morning. There was a faife’au (preacher) there to lead a morning prayer and a motivational speaker to talk with all of the students about being committed towards exploring their options for the future. And then the students all got up and wandered around to peruse each booth and talk with the representatives that had come to present information. There were well over 500 students from 15-20 schools in attendance and it was really wonderful watching the event unfold as all of the students really became interested in exploring and finding out more about each organization. One company that works with automobiles actually brought a car frame into the building to show the students. (Even if the car itself was mostly for flash it was well worth it, being extremely entertaining to watch them struggle to get it through the doorway!) The Animal Protection Society brought in a puppy for the students to play with and talk about that I had to restrain myself from dognapping. The police department came with a full-on hour long presentation on being a policeman in Samoa. The event ran all day and was a huge success. It was really great to be a part of everything and to see what a wonderful and novel experience it was for all of the students. By the end of the day the volunteers that ran everything could barely stand but it was great knowing that all of our hard work really paid off. There will be a second Career Day in Savaii for all of the secondary students out there in a week and a half and I hope that it goes as successfully as this one did. And that next time the food gets there on time :)

Week One

2006-02-18T16:57:00.000-08:00

After a false start monday when the bus driver showed up to find that the schoolbus battery was in fact dead, cancelling school for yet another day, things finally got underway on tuesday and school began- very exciting! I almost didn't realize how much I was craving having a set schedule and a place that I'm supposed to be and things I'm supposed to be doing after being a vagabond for the past two months (although I promise I did my best to enjoy the time, knowing I'd look back longingly at my extended vacation once I was fully entrenched in work). It's been a bit of a slow start, as I'm told is par for the course- we had thirteen students show up this week, but it's still a start. The school attendance is quite small to begin with but there are definitely at least a handful of students that were around last year that are still in the process of easing their way back into the school year and hopefully will show up next week. The kids at my school are great- they're so much fun and so friendly and welcoming. From day one I had kids walking around with me holding my hand and blowing me kisses. My favorite part of the day is when everyone (students and teachers) piles into the bus to go home and I stand there and they all wave to me and shout goodbye out the windows as the bus pulls away. Every day one of the girls asks me if I'm going to come on the bus with them and I explain to her that I live at the school so I don't need a ride home :) Friday was dedicated to cleaning the school which is a process here that the kids are involved with, so they all come sans uniform, don a straw hat and start hacking away at plants and weeding and scrubbing desks down. It's definitely something to get used to having built into the schedule but the kids seem to really enjoy it and get value out of the experience and it's certainly a useful and practical skill for them to have (far be it for me to deny the opportunity for hygeine), so it seems like it works pretty well. I've also introduced the practice of having one of the classes each day spend their morning cooking the lunch for the school, since cooking is an important component of a functional skills curriculum, and it's been going great- the kids seem to really enjoy being part of the process and are very proud to share with their peers the food that they themselves cooked. For a while it's mostly going to be getting settled in and getting to know the students and the teachers and feeling out what direction seems best to guide things in, but it's really great to finally be on that track and officially working.

**You may have noticed that I haven't been posting photos recently. My camera has decided that it is charging the flash all the time and therefore won't let me take pictures. So it survives in a state of limbo where it's not quite dead but not in the least functional for the purpose of actually taking photos. It still does a great job of eating batteries, but that's about it. The deterioration of this final gadget completes the systematic destruction of my entire catalog of electronic items brought to this country by humidity. It really is quite impressive what a little extra water in the air can do. Anyways, I will hopefully have a working camera at some point down the road but until then you're just going to have to do with using your imagination... my apologies

Understanding

2006-02-12T19:19:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow marks the beginning (finally!) of the 2006 school year at Aoga Fia Malamalama. Actually, technically, last monday marked the beginning of the school year. But in case you've been completely zoned out when reading my last couple of posts, it has been raining a lot here. Before arriving in Samoa I had heard of cancelling school for snow. And even cancelling school for ice. And for mudslides and fires. But not until I witnessed the unfathomable quantity of rain that is really capable of pouring out of the sky did it ever occur to me that school would be cancelled for rain. It does make sense though, when all roads and the entire capital city where everyone has to pass through and switch busses to get to work is under a foot or so of water at the least. I digress a bit, but the point is that the start of school was delayed a week because of all the flooding. But now it's upon me and that being the case I figure perhaps it's a good time to share a bit about my school and what my purpose is in being a part of it. The school is called Aoga Fia Malamalama which translates to School of Wanting Understanding which is a way cooler name, in my opinion, than ps169m (no offense to the New York City public school system). The school is primarily an institution of education for individuals with cognitive delays but the students range from individuals with Down syndrome to Cerebral Palsy to learning disabilities. They are anywhere from 5 to 35 years old. The ideal aim, as with any program for individuals with exceptionalities, is to help develop independent skills and abilities to the highest level possible for each student. This should include basic educational skills focused on a practical application method (ex: math means being able to count money or tell time), and also vocational programs that help the students prepare to integrate as working members into the community. My role at the school is to function as a teacher trainer to help develop curricular programs in these directions and to support the staff in obtaining new techniques for approaching special needs education based on my experience in the field back in the states. The goal of Peace Corps placements is to provide sustainable development that will continue to be carried on after the volunteer returns to the states, which is the motivation behind my being there to support the current teachers rather than my taking on the role of teacher myself. I will also be working on projects related to individual students and their needs and abilities, and hopefully in conjunction with their families outside of the school environment as well. So... there's my little summary of what I will be doing more or less over the course of the next two years. Hopefully it paints at least something of a vague picture, which is pretty much all that I have of it myself at this point. But I'm very happy to have things finally kicking into gear and having the ability to get started on figuring out more concretely what I can do to help create change over the next two years.

Rain Rain Go Away

2006-02-07T22:18:00.000-08:00

Rain makes things wet. Constant rain makes things never get dry. Things that never get dry make really great breeding grounds for mold. All kinds of mold! I have mold that likes to grow on sheets, mold that likes to grow on clothes and shoes, mold that likes to grow on electronics, mold that likes to grow out of chairs, mold that likes to grow on walls and ceilings, mold that likes to grow on my stove, yellow mold, white mold, brown mold, black mold, green mold, orange mold, mold that grows in small little clumps, mold that grows in circular ring-worm formation, mold that likes to grow big and hairy, mold that likes to stay small and try to escape notice… and my personal favorite: mold that likes to grow on lizard poop. Since the start of school has been delayed a couple of days due to the torrential downpours of rain, I have been waging full-time war against my new biggest enemy. Armed with my spray-bottle of bleach and water and my trusty mold removing sponge I wander around my house, afraid to sit on any item of furniture because I am 100% positive that it is covered in mold, spraying things at random in the hopes of extricating some small fraction of the spores that I am slightly concerned are on the verge of eating my house alive. I’m starting to have freaky dreams about waking up to find huge 10 foot tall mold spores sprouting every which way out of my ceiling, walls and floor.

To quote Raffi:
Oh Mr. sun, sun, Mr. golden sun won’t you PLEASE shine down on me!

Caulk the Wagon and Float

2006-02-03T17:00:00.000-08:00

It rains a lot in Samoa. A LOT lot. Apparently here the year is divided into two seasons rather than the standard four I was used to back in the states: there's cyclone season and non-cyclone season. I have a feeling it rains a lot year round. But it rains especially a lot during cyclone season, which is from December-ish to May-ish. So needless to say, it's been wet. It's really fun for me after growing up in southern California where it rained maybe five days a year to being in week-long storms that sometimes make you feel like they're strong enough to knock your house down. I honestly haven't seen the sun in over a week because it's been pretty much constant. I'm enjoying it, although it does mean that laundry basically doesn't EVER dry which poses a problem especially with my mold issues... :) Anyways on Thursday I was planning on meeting a friend in town for dinner and all afternoon it was pouring like crazy and I was thinking maybe I should just take the bus instead of riding my bike and take a cab home, and then all of a sudden right before I was going to leave the rain finally stopped. So I figured great, I can ride my bike into town now! So I hop on and go. About 100 yards into the ride I start to realize that the prevalence of potholes in the road out to my house and the general being-up-on-a-hill-ness of my school means that when it rains a lot the road floods. I notice this both visually and sensorily as my entire back is rapidly soaked from water spraying up behind my bike. So I figure what the heck, I'm already wet, might as well just go for it, and keep pedaling. Now, in Samoa the road-river intersection is slightly different than back home. Here, rather than building a road that goes over the river (some might call this a "bridge"), they just build roads that the rivers flow over. Standardly this means that there might be a few inches of water gently running over the road as you drive/ride through it. In periods of heavy rainfall, however, the quantity of water and the speed at which it travels drastically increases. There is one such river/road crossing between my residence and Apia. As I'm riding my bike I approach this spot and notice that the water is above the bottom of the body of the car that's driving through it and start to think maybe my plan is a little off kilter. But I'm a trooper, I'll just go for it and see what happens. Pedal down the hill and off we go... About one and a half rotations into the water I notice that my bike is rapidly titling out from under me and I will soon be pedaling horizontally as I'm swept down the river. So I jump off my bike and quickly pick it up above the level of the water. Being about five feet into the river I logically decide to pursue my journey and continue pressing onward. So I begin to ford the river which is well above knee height carrying my bike and trying desperately to cling to my flip-flops with my toes so that they're not swept away downstream. As I get to around the middle I realize that yes, the strength of the water and its depth only increase as I'm continuing along, and perhaps my brilliant adventurer stance is not all the brilliant. But heck, I'm halfway through so it's six of one at this point, and man it would be a bummer to have gone through all this to be stuck back out at my house hungry. Plus, I've figured out how to angle my feet upstream so that my flip-flops are being jammed into my toes which is the only way they're staying on, and turning around with that plus the whole bike dragging in the water factor is pretty much guaranteed to spell disaster. So with dozens of Samoans who (understandably) hang out by the river when it's high to see what entertainment it will provide watching me and cheering me on, I ford the river in one piece, hop back on my bike like it was all in the game plan, and cruise on into town to soak in my river-water drenched clothing through dinner. It was a darn good fishburger. And I feel just a bit more like a warrior these days. Although I gotta admit next time I might just go the long way.

Resurrection?

2006-01-23T00:23:00.000-08:00

It appears that my computer has come back from the dead. This morning I was about to take the hard drive out to hand it over to someone more likely to pull important info off it than I and I figured what the heck, might as well just push the on button one last time, can hardly hurt to beat the dead horse... and the Dell startup screen appeared. I have to say I'm a little wary of this whole situation as it reeks of something supernatural and lacking in explanation and I have no idea if this is a permanent visit from the great beyond or only a temporary one. But even just for the day it's pretty exciting to have it in functional mode again, as much as I was excited about my new paperweight. Work officially starts here at school tomorrow as the teachers are planning to come back and get things set up. The students should be arriving in a couple of weeks so it's time to start thinking about the school year starting :) In other exciting news, my house and the whole school compound has been without water since last tuesday- apparently the main pipe broke. I finally decided I wasn't that rugged and called a plumber today after an exciting episode that involved Andrew and I attempting to patch the leak ourselves with some saran wrap and duct tape and then having the whole thing explode as soon as we turned the water back on. Maybe I'm not as handy as I thought I was. I'll stick to making clothing and curtains.

Mold

2006-01-16T17:08:00.000-08:00

Let me start out by saying that I love my house. I really do. It's really cute and perfect for me and I couldn't be happier. Unfortunately for my personal belongings, however, mold loves my house as much as I do. It seems to be the perfect breeding ground and happy home for all sorts of little fuzzies of various colors that enjoy making their meals off of my unsuspecting imported items. My computer is officially dead, in case anyone was waiting with baited breath on that front. As is my ipod most likely. Silly me bringing electronic items to a tropical country. I expected they might not last the whole two years but I was hoping for a bit more than three months. Sigh... At any rate I found out yesterday that the fact that my closets are actually not inside my house at all but more these boxes that stick out randomly from the walls outside of the building proper means that they are extremely susceptible to rain leakage, say, in tropical cyclone-type weather. Probably just in regular old tropical weather as well. Result: all of my skirts and dresses and shoes have become covered in... mold. La la la. So yeah I spent a good few hours bleaching the clothes I thought might be salvageable yesterday. It looks like I will probably manage to save some stuff as long as I don't mind the little black spots, but it means I probably can't store anything in the only storage space my apartment contains which poses a bit of a conundrum. Perhaps I should just pile everything up in the living room in the middle of the floor as far away from all windows and leaky walls as possible? Oh well. I didn't come here to be materialistic, right? Perhaps this was some greater way of my being told to let go a bit more. I'm working on it... :)

Rebellion

2006-01-13T22:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I’ve spent the past week or so away from home. I figured I would take advantage of my vacation time right now to not be tied down to the place I know I’ll have to be all the time in the future. I came home today hoping my happy little house would be thrilled at my return. But I guess while I was away my inanimate objects got a bit restless. I walked in to find that about half my living room floor was under a thin layer of water. This wasn’t hugely surprising since it has been raining torrentially here for the past week or so. It was a little strange that the puddle didn’t actually extend to any of the windows but whatever, I’m no hydrologist and don’t pretend to understand water flow patterns. I cleaned it up and went about my merry way. Upon opening the back door and preparing to go downstairs to do laundry another interesting discovery of unrest was made, possibly a justification of the first- a huge breadfruit tree from my neighbor’s yard had apparently decided to fall over into my yard, heavily compromising my laundry line (lying on top of it, rather). It’s a pretty impressive sight. Makes me wonder if perhaps in it’s throes of crashing down it somehow thrust large quantities of water through my windows and onto my living room floor? Perhaps a mystery that shall never be solved. Oh well. So then I went to go open up my computer to type up some emails and to upload my pictures of the disaster in my backyard. Opening it up, I notice a very strange sight. A sight one is NOT supposed to see on a computer, and most definitely a first in my lifetime. My computer is actually growing mold. Computers really aren’t supposed to be fuzzy. So, needless to say, I am currently one functioning computer short of my old house inventory. I have no idea if it will be reviveable at a later date- right now it’s hanging out inside a ziploc bag with my little dehumidifier who is hopefully working really hard towards the advancement of my cause. Ah, and apparently the right burner on my little two-burner stove has decided it doesn't like to work in the rain either. Hmmm... I have to say I’m a little afraid to further pursue the items in my house for fear of additional incident that I’m not yet psychologically strong enough to face. But hey... at least my phone line is working for a change :)

Keeping Busy...ish

2006-01-08T19:03:00.000-08:00

For the past few weeks the country has pretty much been shut down for the holiday season. From right before Christmas until a couple of days ago a large portion of shops and general things going on were… not. It’s been quiet even right in town and has been a really nice low-key time. I’ve been doing a lot of resting up and relaxing and just getting settled in to life here, even if it’s not necessarily indicative of the life I will be leading since school won’t start for another couple of weeks yet so at the moment I’m a free agent. Since I have all this time on my hands to do with as I like I decided I would come up with some projects for myself. One of my favorite things to do when I’ve nothing better to distract me is to bake cookies- I think I made three batches last week. Fortunately there are many willing volunteers eager to help me with their disposal once I make them :) In my house itself there is no oven, only a little two burner propane stove, so when I bake there I make the food upstairs and then I carry it downstairs to bake it in the oven. It’s fun to try to maneuver the food in the rain! (This is “cyclone season,” which means it pretty much rains every day.) I also decided this would be a good time to approach some of the other domestic projects I had for myself- namely, sewing a whole bunch of stuff. I really wanted to make new curtains for my house to try and cheer it up a bit and make it look more like my own. I also have a bunch of clothing that has been made for me or given to me since I’ve been here that I would like to alter so that it fits me a bit better. So I spent all day Wednesday at the machine making forty yards of curtains (my house has a LOT of windows) and hemming up a bunch of stuff. I have a feeling the coming week holds much more of the same. It’s been entertaining and a good use of my down time, makes me feel nice and productive like I’m accomplishing stuff and so on. I basically haven’t written much because things have been pretty mellow, which has been really nice but I assume the minutia of my daily life isn’t overwhelmingly thrilling to the world at large, so I keep it to myself. Here’s a fun one though- last week I was in my house ready to go to bed and I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and glanced up at the wall to find the largest spider I have ever seen in my life (as in, not a tarantula but significantly bigger than one) with an egg sac that’s just opening up and releasing its babies out all over my wall. She was seriously one of the most impressive creatures I’ve ever seen in my life, although I must say looking at the babies starting to pour out of her sac I had visions of thousands and thousands of 4-5 inch spiders scurrying all over my house and was less than enamored with the image. It took about 15 minutes for two full-grown human beings to catch her under a bowl and transport her and her egg sac outside so that they could continue to live but in an environment other than, say, my bed. I was a little disappointed in our lack of prowess with the situation but at least we got them out without harm inflicted on any of the parties involved. Then a few days later I was hanging my new curtains and what did I see laying there on the floor in my spare-oom?
An empty egg sac.

White Christmas

2005-12-26T22:35:00.000-08:00

Okay, so there’s not exactly snow on the ground. But traditionally Samoans all wear white to church every Sunday. So at least there was a prevalence of white this holiday season, albeit in a different form. (Sitting here sweating in my tanktop and shorts I have to say I’m fantasizing a bit about “winter” at the moment.) Myself and a few others from the group returned to Falevao this weekend to spend Christmas with our families there. Almost all Samoans are observant Christians since missionaries brought western religion to the islands in the 1830’s. (Needless to say I was not able to dig up a menorah anywhere yesterday. I briefly contemplated fashioning one out of coconuts, but I’ll be traveling all over the country for the next week and it would hardly be portable.) When I arrived on Saturday morning we went to a service at the church where there was dancing and individual members of the village came up and gave little prayers or sermons (my Samoan is good enough to know that the general gist was thanking god and everyone else for life in general and Christmas and referring to bible verses and the like)- it was a nice occasion in that it was an opportunity for members of the community that don’t usually speak at public gatherings since they’re not matai’s to share their gratitude and feelings. Then we went to a big fiafia across the street where there were about four hours of dancing and singing and eating. I was quite excited because my favorite Samoan food was made and served- fa’ausi. It’s taro that’s been boiled in coconut cream and sugar. It rocks. There were also church services all day yesterday on Christmas which was the main activity for the holiday. (I guess when Christmas doesn’t fall on a Sunday people often take afternoon trips places, but the rule of Sunday here is that you’re not supposed to do anything except go to church and rest and eat, so things were pretty low key.) After morning lotu (prayer), we went back to our houses and had the traditional Sunday “to’ona’i” brunch meal where they cook tons of food in the umu and you stuff yourself at 11 in the morning to the point where you can’t eat again until after sundown. Then you’re so over-full you have to nap to attempt to sleep enough of it off that your brain can function again :) Mainly the weekend consisted of a great deal of tafafao (hanging out). It was really refreshing after spending the week prior to it running around doing errands and cleaning up the house and getting moved in and generally being high-strung. (who me? high-strung?) It was really nice to see my family again and spend time with them and also use my fa’aSamoa that I had hardly gotten a chance to in the past week and a half. It makes me realize that especially during the times when school is not in session so I won’t automatically get time to use it everyday I want to make a real effort to make sure to use the language and not let it sort of drift to the storage lockers in the back of my brain. That’s pretty much it. I came back home this morning and spent about two hours doing my laundry since I’ve been letting it pile up. Doing laundry here consists of filling a bucket with water and some detergent, adding a few items and pounding them around in the soap for a while and then adding more water and continuing to mash them around until soap stops coming out of the clothing when you beat them around. Then you hang them and pray it doesn’t rain until they’re dry. It’s quite the aerobic activity. Given how much I ate in the village this weekend I could probably have stood to do a couple dozen more loads :) Happy holidays!!!

Fun With Bikes

2005-12-19T17:25:00.000-08:00

So we got our new Peace Corps bikes last week when we swore in. They're really great bikes and we've been having lots of fun feeling free exploring around town at our own pace on them. Yesterday, being Sunday, there were no buses at all running so it was especially nice to have the bikes and be able to explore around town. Andrew and I decided that we were going to go check our email at the Peace Corps office. We locked his bike up and then attached mine to his with the snazzy new bike locks we picked up at the local hardware store. My lock key had been giving me some trouble all day but we were managing to make it work eventually... we went to unlock the bikes when we were done and "someone" decided that the key was bent and that was the problem, so they attempted to unbend it... while it was in the lock. So, the key broke in half making the lock unopenable. Fortunately we were super-smart by locking our bikes TOGETHER with my lock so that we couldn't use his to go attempt to find a tool to cut through my lock with :) So somehow someone managed to dig up a hacksaw in the Peace Corps office and Andrew sawed through the lock. We decided we had had enough fun and were ready to head home, so we hopped on our bikes to try to beat the setting sun. I'm not sure I've yet mentioned the dog situation here in Samoa. Let me just start this by saying, in case you don't know me, that I absolutely love dogs and think they're the best companions ever. At home. Here, dogs are this whole other breed of terrifying monsters whose sole mission seems to be ganging up on poor unsuspecting pedestrians and ESPECIALLY bikers in an attempt to race them down and bite them mercilessly. I kid you not it's dangerous to bike around without a stick or some other defense implement at arm's reach. I had heard many horror stories from other volunteers including the beginnings of stories from people in our group as well, and was not overly enthusiastic aboutmy first encounter (or any of the subsequent ones, for that matter) with the dog attack. I've heard that the best thing you can do if they chase you is to get off your bike and use it as a defense by putting it between you and the dog. So yesterday la-de-da we're riding down the road heading home and all of a sudden a pack of three dogs runs at me on my bike barking and intending to do harm. Thinking I've got my head on straight I slam on my breaks to jump off my bike and put it between us. Andrew's strategy, however, was to speed up really quickly to "come to my rescue," and he was not expecting me to stop suddenly. So... I didn't get bitten by a dog. But I did get run into and knocked over by him :) A little bit battered and bruised from the incident we have realized we should probably develop both tandem and independent strategies for dealing with this situation, as it is quite likely to occur on a relatively frequent basis. I'm not sure if the bike gods were trying to send us a message yesterday or if this was just a realistic day in the life of a biker here in Samoa, but it sure made for an eventful afternoon. I'm hoping for a little less excitement on today's journey home :)

Home Sweet Home

2005-12-19T17:07:00.000-08:00

I am finally officially living in one location! I moved into my house on Thursday morning and have been spending the past few days getting settled in and cleaning up and trying to make it feel like home. It's such a great feeling to have a place of my own after living out of my bags for the past two months! My family in Falevao and the Peace Corps made the experience as pleasant and comfortable as possible, but it's still really nice to have my own home and get started on the settling-in process and really developing a more permanent feel to where I am. I am living on the compound of the school where I will be working. The school consists of a one-story building with two classrooms and a two story building with a classroom on the ground floor and my house on the second (see the picture above). I actually enter my house through the classroom below (there's a back entrance as well but the stairs are relatively precarious and I don't want to test them too much by making it my regular route). The place itself is really cute- it has two separate bedrooms, a bathroom, and a general living area with a kitchen space and a hang-out space, but even though it's split up it kinda has the feel of all being one room because the walls don't go all the way to the ceiling. It's got a lot of charm and I totally dig it- it feels like I'm living in a treehouse :)

Becoming Official

2005-12-14T16:30:00.000-08:00

This morning the fourteen trainees of Peace Corps Group 75 officially became Peace Corps volunteers. We all gathered together with our family members from Falevao and the Peace Corps staff and current volunteers for a very touching ceremony where we committed ourselves and were sworn in as volunteers. It's pretty incredible to look back at the past two months and how far we have come, how much we have learned, how much we have grown as individuals and as a group on our journey to becoming prepared for this moment. And now here it is and this part of our Peace Corps journey is at a close. The funny little things like receiving our ID cards, our medical kits and our bikes really cement the upcoming transformation in our roles. We have our one last day together at the hotel in Apia and then in the morning we will each be taken to our new homes to begin our lives as volunteers. Yesterday we began drafting our 90 day work plans with our local counterparts and really started to think about the direction our first few months as volunteers would be taking. It's very exciting and really makes one realize how much the past two months have been about laying the groundwork from which to proceed into the real volunteer experience that we will be immersing ourselves in. I am so excited to be moving tomorrow to my new home and beginning my new life here! It will of course be bittersweet as it means saying goodbye and leaving behind a lot of what we have come to know and rely on for support with constantly being together as a group and having the trainers and Peace Corps staff there with us constantly for guidance and support. I feel like I've just graduated and am ready to go out in the world on my own and see what I can do... and I'm so ready for the challenge and the opportunity it presents!

*i just posted some photos from the drop-off a while back so you can check them out if you're interested. as well as photos from today, of course :)

Farewell Falevao

2005-12-10T13:17:00.000-08:00

This morning group 75 hugged their families goodbye and got in the Peace Corps van one last time to return to Apia from Falevao- our village stay is officially over. Yesterday afternoon the village matai (titled men, kinda like chiefs) held a farewell ava ceremony for us. During the ceremony the village trickled in bit by bit until pretty much everyone we knew was at my house surrounding the fale where we were sitting. Some of the young men in the village got up and danced for us and then we performed our fiafia for everyone. This mainly consisted of us attempting to replicate traditional Samoan siva (dance) in its various forms- hopefully not too much was lost in translation. We also put on a play in Samoan to show our gratitude to the village. Then everyone went home to spend the evenings having private farewells with their families. I hung out with my sisters goofing around teaching each other different sivas, and with my family talking about our time together and my trying to convince them not to be too sad, that I'll be back in only two weeks for Christmas. Even so it was a very emotional experience- it's a little overwhelming to realize how long we really lived there and it has been the one place we've been able to call home the whole time we've been in Samoa, and now that chapter is at a close and we have to say goodbye and leave it behind us. This morning we were supposed to meet at 7 and the entire village seemed to gather as we all said our farewells and it was time to go. It was really heartwarming to experience the outpouring of love and kindness that everyone has shown for us over the past two months and really feel it this morning on our way out. It is exciting to be moving on to the next step in this process but it is hard to know that in order to go down that path I have to say goodbye to my family here... at least temporarily.

Proficiency

2005-12-08T14:06:00.000-08:00

Today we all came into Apia for the day to have our language proficiency exams to make sure we've retained enough of what we've been immersed in for the past two months to get by when we move to our individual sites next week and become independent entities for the first time since we've been here. It was a 20 minute interview with a woman we've never met- a little intimidating sounding when you think how long we've been using the language for but I think everyone will do great and pass without a problem. I finished mine a couple of hours ago and even though I wasn't worried I must say it's a nice weight to have off my shoulders- leaping that hurdle makes it feel that much closer to the reality of training ending in the coming week. WE'll spend the day here in town shopping for gifts for our host family and then go back in the evening for our last full day in the village tomorrow. We have a couple of training sessions in the morning and then a farewell ava ceremony with the village in the afternoon where we will be performing the traditional Samoan dances that we have been practicing for the past few weeks. Then we return to Apia on Satruday morning for our last few days here as a group before we disperse. I can't believe it's been two whole months already... or that it's only been two months for that matter :)

Mealofa ("Thing of Love" aka Gift)

2005-12-08T13:45:00.000-08:00

Tonight the women’s committee of Falevao held a gift-giving ceremony for all the Peace Corps volunteers as we’re nearing the conclusion of our stay here. The entire village gathered on the steps in front of the church as the pastor led a brief service and prayer on our behalf. At its conclusion the women of the village began singing and one by one started stepping forward and laying gifts at our feet. They piled ie (lavalava) after ie in front of us, as well as many other items, including fine mats for all of the trainers that have been living with us and working full time to help us integrate into the culture and the language. There is no way that I could possibly do justice in words to the beauty of this ceremony that was held in our honor. The women’s committee had gone to Apia to purchase fabric to make matching outfits for our entire group- the girls were all given puletasi’s out of the material and the boys all had shirts from it with matching black ie faitagas (men’s dress ie’s, with pockets). It was so touching to see the entire village gather to be a part of the ceremony and their singing was so touching. (The Samoan people are AMAZING at harmonizing and their music is absolutely fantastic. I actually get excited about lotu, the prayer time every evening at sundown, because my family all gathers together to sing and the songs are so beautiful.) After the presentation of the mealofa there was, of course, food. Here’s a new one- spaghetti sandwiches. I had never even dreamed up the possibility of the existence of such an item before tonight, but apparently they’re quite popular here. They consist of chef-boyardee style spaghetti between slices of bread. And I gotta say... not half bad. I’ve been cultivating all sorts of interesting new food tastes since I’ve been here, but I gotta say I surprised even myself with taking to this one. All of the trainees performed a dance we have been learning and practicing in a traditional Samoan style for the village in order to show our appreciation called a sasa, where you sit together with folded legs and perform a series of motions that mostly involve slapping your legs and various other parts of your body in ways that are symbolic of parts of Samoan culture (somehow I have a feeling that was one of those explanations that confuses more than clarifies, sorry). The village found us hysterical as I’m sure we’re significantly less than adept at their forms of dance, but a good time was had by all. It was really a great evening, and again felt like such an honor to be a part of. It’s amazing to think that we’ve been living here for more than a month and that our time really is coming to a close. I think that many of us are getting ready to move on to the next step of our Peace Corps journey but it will still be bittersweet to say goodbye to the village that has welcomed us with open arms as strangers to this country upon our arrival.

International Disabilities Day

2005-12-08T13:39:00.000-08:00

Samoa is an archipelago made up of two large islands and various other scattered small ones. I will be based on the island of Upolu, the smaller of the two substantially sized islands, and thus far all of my training and experience has been confined to the exploration of this island alone. I just returned this evening from my first excursion to the largest island in Samoa, Savai’i. December 3^rd is International Disabilities Day and every year in Samoa the special needs community organizes an event to honor and recognize Samoans with exceptionalities. This year the event was held in Savai’i and I was allowed to attend. I met up yesterday afternoon with a current Peace Corps Volunteer who works with one of the few special education schools here to head over together with her students. Altogether we were a group of about 40-50 people including students from all of the special needs schools on Upolu, teachers and parents. We took the one and a half hour ferry ride to Savai’i, passing by some of the other small islands that make up the country. We arrived and went straight to the methodist center in one of the villages near the wharf that had offered to put us up for the night. They were incredibly gracious and welcomed us with open arms as we descended upon them en masse. They greeted us in traditional Samoan style which involves everyone sitting together in an open fale while orators express their gratitude to each other through traditional proverbial language (ava is often involved in this process as well, although in this instance it wasn’t). We were served a huge meal and then the school for the blind entertained us by performing- they are a choir and their singing is phenomenal. When it came to bedtime, a bunch of sleeping mats were laid out across the floor of the open fale and dozens of pillows were brought in. Everybody lay down together rows to sleep- it felt like a huge slumber party! It was my first night sleeping outside in an open fale and it was really nice- I have to say I completely understand why Samoans tend to prefer outdoor fale’s to fale palagi’s- in the heat here it’s MUCH cooler to sleep out in the open where you get to feel the breeze during the night. There were a couple of times during the night when the kids decided it was time to wake up and started large scale conversations, so it wasn’t exactly the most restful night of sleep I’ve ever enjoyed, but it was so much fun to feel like a kid at a sleepover party again and by 5:30 everyone was up and ready to start the day. I went down to the water (across the street) and watched the sun rise behind Upolu in the distance. It was great, a sight I don’t often see although I think my total number of sunrises in Samoa has already overtaken my previous life-time total. Then we all had breakfast and gathered for the morning activities. All of the schools and organizations lined up with banners and marched down the main road in town, singing, to the location of the event. Members of the special needs community, the minister of health, and representatives from the various schools and organizations all spoke on behalf of the event. Each school had prepared a performance that they presented to the group as well. It was a really beautiful event and I felt very honored to be able to be a part of it, and so welcomed by the community that will be my future work environment here. After the ceremony was finished we all had lunch (did I mention there is a LOT of eating here in Samoa? You’ll probably notice its effects in my progressive size increase through photos...) and went back to the wharf to return to Upolu. It was a quick trip and I didn’t get to see much of the island other than the villages right by the wharf in Savai’i, but it was so much fun and so exciting and I feel incredibly honored to have been a part of it. Happy International Disabilities Day!

Dropped Off

2005-11-29T14:11:00.000-08:00

This morning we awoke before the sun, packed our bags with enough food to last us the day, and jumped into the peace corps cars. We were then blindfolded and driven around in circles for the sake of disorientation. The cars stopped in the middle of nowhere and let us out in pairs- our task was to find a specific village within the area to go interview people in, and then to find our way back to Falevao by the late afternoon. Andrew and I were dropped in the road and told to find a village called "Tiavea Tai"- tai means on the water so we started down the road towards the direction of the ocean, figuring we were being quite logical about the whole thing. Fortunately we decided to check with a passing Samoan about a quarter of a mile down, who told us that actually the road to Tiavea Tai shot off to the right from the main road further inland than we were dropped off. So good thing we asked :) We then hiked down that "road" for about 45 minutes to an absolutely beautiful little beach with a tiny village right on the water: Tiavea Tai. The little village on the water is made up of eleven families and a church. No cars. No phones. No televisions. No fale'oloa (small convenience store). Even the mayor of the town lives up the hill in the sister village, Tiavea Uta (uta=inland). Within five minutes of our being there half the families had come out to say hello, and one in particular insisted that we come in to their fale and have tea. They welcomed us with open arms into their home and served us food and told us the story of the creation of the village and how it got its name... tia means man and vea means woman and a man and woman came to bathe in their stream and fell in love with the place and decided to stay there and that's how the village started. We got the story in both English and Samoan and it was more extensive and interesting than my portrayal but there's the basic point for you. The family invited us to spend the day and actually tried to get us to stay there and spend the night in the village. We told them we were extremely appreciative of their hospitality, unfortunately we couldn't stay as we were expected back in Falevao, but that we promise to come again and visit when we are able to stay. It was such an incredible experience- people are so friendly and kind and just open up and offer you everything without even knowing you. They welcomed us into their homes and treated us with such honor, it was truly humbling. We hiked back up the mountain in the sun (let me just say, going down is a fair bit easier... we were both soaked by the time we got to the top) and then started walking along the road towards town. We were told the next bus wasn't until noon so we were kind of banking on a car coming by and helping us out. (Hitchhiking is totally par for the course here and people are super friendly and kind about it- they actually thank YOU for hitching a ride from them!) The first car that drove by stopped for us and happened to be going to Apia and we were welcomed into the car by a couple of pastor's wives who were coming into town to get petrol for the sightseeing boat they operate. So we rolled into town with more ease than could possibly be imagined and now here we are. We'll take a bus back to Falevao from the market this afternoon. I have to say I am amazed by how easy it was to find our way when we had no idea where we are, and how much of that was due to the overwhleming kindness and helpfulness of everyone we met on our journey. I am so greatful to be in such a welcoming country with such warm and open people! Lucky lucky lucky.

Fai se Umu (Making the Oven)

2005-11-29T14:03:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Today was a hard day to be away from home but Peace Corps did a great job of making the best of the situation and it was a really great day. Instead of being in classes all day today like we usually are during the week, we had a cooking day where we were taught how to make a traditional Samoan umu (an open outdoor oven made by heating up rocks and placing food amongst them, all of which is covered by large leaves to cook). At 8 in the morning all the trainees and members of their families gathered out behind my house, many with live chickens in tow, to get working at the hard and laborious task of making a traditional meal. First, large logs are brought in and placed on top of rocks and then lit on fire. This is left to burn so that the rocks can get hot while the food is being prepared. The villagers had set up a sort of a station deal for us so that we could experience all the different components of cooking the meal. There were taro roots to scrape clean with the end of a tin can. (Taro, an extremely starchy root vegetable is THE staple food of Samoa. It is eaten with absolutely everything, used more or less like a utensil to scoop up whatever else happens to be on the plate. The roots are cooked whole and then people break off chunks of them to use when eating.) There were also fa’i (look like green bananas, taste like plantains- we’re big into starch here) to peel and cook in the umu. There was a large pile of popo (ripe coconuts) to turn into coconut cream for making palusami. This is one of the most laborious processes one could imagine in order to obtain food. First, you have to find a coconut, which just might involve climbing up a tree. Then you need to husk it, which is no easy task, even when mashing it against a pole stuck in the ground (check out my particularly flattering photos of some of the guys in our group at this fun task). After it’s husked, you whack it open with a machete (this is actually easier and much less scary than it sounds). You then take the two halves and scrape the meat out by grinding it against a blade attached to the end of a bench. Once the coconut has been grated, you take some sort of fiber stuff and start scooping up handfuls of the coconut which you then ring out in the fibers in order to extract the cream in liquid form, dumping the dry shreds to the side. It takes a LONG time and a fair amount of muscle to turn a huge bowl of coconut into cream. To make the palusami, which I might have mentioned in an earlier posting, you pour some of the cream into a cupped stack of young taro leaves, which you then wrap up first in a banana leaf then a breadfruit leaf before cooking. A traditional umu also always contains... a pig. Those of you who know me can only imagine how ecstatic I was at the thought of watching my family and friends pull a pig out of the pen in our back yard, suffocate it to death, singe all its hair off, pull its innards out and stuff it with hot rocks, and cook it whole. Let’s just say I spent a lot of time grating coconut and try really hard to look in the other direction and try not to think about it. There was also the killing of the chickens, also by suffocation. Various members of our crew were quite excited to kill the chickens that their family members had given them to bring, and I again tried really hard to be oblivious to the process. Once all the food was prepared, the rocks were spread out, and the taro, fa’i, pua’a (pig) and pipi (two turkeys the Peace Corps staff purchased to make the volunteers feel at home for the holiday) were placed on top of them. Another layer of rocks was placed on top of this and then the palusami went on top. Everything was then covered by giant banana leaves and left to cook. We all went to weave the baskets that are used for carrying the food, and about a half hour later all the food was cooked (maybe Americans should take a hint from the Samoans- their umu managed to cook a whole turkey in about a tenth the time of a conventional oven). We then served the food in traditional fashion to the village matai (titled men). After the meal was over we packed up what was left and the trainers drove us out to a beautiful beach on the south side of the island called Vavau where we had a Thanksgiving picnic and spent the afternoon playing in the water. Not a bad way to pass the day, if I do say so myself.

Hunting for Palolo

2005-11-29T14:01:00.000-08:00

Twice a year, in the Spring (Fall up there in the states), just following the full moon, there is a momentous occasion here in Samoa: the palolo rising. Palolo are actually the reproductive sections of worms that live within the coral just offshore of the islands. On only these two nights, for a period of time just before sunrise that lasts maybe an hour, the coral is apparently attempting to spawn and all of these tiny blue slightly wormy things rise to the surface of the water and spread across it. At the appearance of the sun, we’ve been told, the palolo “melt,” or disappear. I’m not sure if this is true and has some scientific explanation or if it is a myth, but at any rate it leaves a narrow window of an hour or so in which these small elusive creatures are exposed to the world at large. For reasons under-appreciated by myself, palolo are a highly prized delicacy to the Samoan people, and are worth significantly more than their weight in tala (the local currency). As I stated previously, they are worms. Very tiny worms (maybe a centimeter in length and a millimeter or less in diameter). And they’re blue. They are usually wadded up into a fist-sized ball which sells for an exorbitant amount of money and served as a treat of honor. I must say that I abstained at my opportunity to taste them the first time that I was in the village. I have heard that they taste like... salt water. Unless you rinse them out after catching them with fresh water. Then I hear they taste like... water. At any rate, Samoans get very excited about them and the nights of the palolo rising are a HUGE deal here, so needless to say we were all excited at least by proxy about this momentous event occurring during our training time in the village. The trainers arranged for our entire group to go out with the men of our village to spend the night at the beach and join in the palolo hunt. We all met at 10 pm and drove out to the beach where we spent a beautiful night hanging out in open fale’s (traditional Samoan houses, in this case more like a raised floor with a thatched roof) on the beach, staring at the stars, and enjoying the peace. At about 4 in the morning we all picked up the nets our families had so lovingly made for us and started wading into the water. We had been told that we were supposed to dress up for the palolo in order to attract them to us, so some were bedecked in full puletasi’s as they waded into the water. We walked out maybe 200 meters over relatively shallow coral. (Let me take this opportunity to state that coral is not easy to walk on in the dark. Not to mention that as a diver who is trained NEVER to touch the coral, I had to go against all my moral stances to tromp through it murdering precious living creatures in my wake. But it was all in the spirit of experiencing the fa’aSamoa, so we were down for whatever that brought with it.) We then stood out on the coral for the next hour or so scooping our nets through the water pretending to be attempting to catch palolo, of which I personally saw none. The main focus of at least my personal energy was to brace myself against the waves that kept coming and trying incredibly persistently to knock me over into the coral. I tried. I swear I tried. Do the palolo really exist? As a group of fourteen, let’s just say the total for the night- 7 palolo. Not quite enough to coat the fingernail on my pinky. Maybe we just weren’t dressed nicely enough. Who knows. When I returned home my family asked me where my palolo were, as they had eagerly been anticipating reaping the fruits of my labor. I hung my head in shame and had to tell them “leai sa’u palolo” (direct translation: “no my palolo”, basically meaning “I don’t have any palolo. I failed ya”). Fortunately they were amused at my ineptitude as a Samoan fisherman. So no palolo for Mari. Won’t quit my day job. But it was a great experience, and I must say one of the funnier nights of my life. Next year I think I just might stay at home and sleep :)

Last Lap

2005-11-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

This afternoon we are packing up our bags yet again and heading back to Falevao for our last stretch in the village. We still have three more weeks of training but it definitely feels like things are winding down as we realize that coming back to Apia next time will mean that training is basically complete. We have spent a couple of relatively hectic days here- yesterday was the annual all-volunteer conference where everyone from the volunteers who are leaving this month through us showed up for a day full of presentations and activites and all around appreciation and acknowledgement of what's been going on. It was a fun and very interesting day. We ate about six meals and got lots of fun statistics on random things. This afternoon before we take off there is a Peace Corps Thanksgiving feast since everyone is in town for the conference, so we're going to go there and celebrate our American holiday before immersing ourselves in the Samoan way of life back in the village. Next thurday, on the actual day of thanksgiving, we will have a Samoan cooking day where we are taught all of the traditional recipes and cooking procedures used here. It will be a nice Thanksgiving activity but I must also say I'm looking forward to some slightly more westernized Thanksgiving items this afternoon. Not too much to report, I'm mainly focusing on looking forward to the time coming up in the village. I'm excited to use the time to really immerse myself in the language and trying to practice using Samoan as much as possible and becoming as fluent as I can in the little time I have left in such an ideal learning and practicing environment. I won't be able to get to a computer while I'm out there over the next few weeks but I'll try to type stuff up out there so at least when I come back it gives an idea of what we've been up to. In the mean time try not to miss me and hearing from me too much (I know it'll be hard). Off we go...

A Vacation From My Vacation

2005-11-16T13:18:00.000-08:00

Just got back to Apia from my three day volunteer visit. I went out to the Southeastern tip of the island to an area called Aleipata that is famous for its spectacular beaches (pity me, it was a rough few days). I spent my time with a volunteer named Monica who arrived with the village based development group that came to Samoa in June. Her post there is in a sector called Inter-Coastal Management and she teaches marine biology and has been working to attempt to integrate environmental action and awareness into the local community. Right now her students are in exams so she actually had no teaching to do on Monday or Tuesday which meant that we were basically flexible to explore the area. On Monday we went for a long walk on the beach which is absolutely beautiful and ended up hiking up over a rather substantial and rather treacherous patch of jungle to get out to a point called turtle rock. The hike was really fun although quite muddy and slippery- there were some stretched where you were walking along a muddy path about eight inches wide with nothing between you and the ocean but a nice 100+ foot drop of cliffside covered in foliage. As most places that are perlious tend to be, it was spectacular. When we got out of the trees we were standing on a rock that jutted out about 50 feet above the ocean where waves were crashing into its base and spraying water up high enough to hit us. Amazing. Apparently you can frequently see sea turtles at the point and we were looking but didn't find any. There is a Samoan song that you're supposed to sing to make them come out but of course since we're both palagi's we didn't know it so maybe that's why they didn't oblige us with their presence. Even so I have no complaints. We scrambled down the side of the rocks to a beautiful little beach alcove where Monica hung out in the shade of the palm trees while I hung out in the water for a while. Turns out her plan was infinitely more intelligent than mine because I got a beautiful new lobster makeover from my morning in the sun. Even the backs of my hands got sunburnt, a place it had never occured to me it was possible to be that sensitive. Even though I'm still in a significant amount of pain a few days later it was a great day- it was wonderful getting to spend time at the beach and in the sun and felt so relaxing. And she taught me all kinds of Samoan words for all of the creatures that she's been learning and teaching about at her job. Then yesterday (Tuesday) we decided we had gotten enough sun and outdoors so we made it a cooking day. I obviously haven't gotten a chance to cook in the past month because I haven't spent any time anywhere where there has been a kitchen (other than in my village, but my family doesn't really let me help out much there because I'm their guest)- I hadn't realized how much I missed cooking! We made papaya bread and muffins to bring back to the others in my group, and we baked a pumpkin and made pumpkin pie for the Peace Corps thanksgiving party that will be on Saturday afternoon. I've never made pumpkin pie starting with an actual pumpkin- it was lots of fun but also lots and lots of work. We also roasted the pumpkin seeds which was so yummy- can't remember the last time I had homemade pumpkin seeds. Then we made a nice big salad and spaghetti with tomato sauce with lots of fresh veggies in it and garlic bread for dinner. It was a huge feast and her Samoan family loved trying it all and thinking we were crazy for eating things like the seeds of the pumpkin and the raw greens in the salad. They were really eager to try everything though and it was extremely successful. It was really fun to just spend the day hanging out and making lots of food. I think I could probably not eat for a week now and be okay :) The village where Monica lives is actually the village that her group was in during their training time this summer. It is much smaller than Falevao and all of the houses are around one circle. It is right along the ocean and has a beautiful freshwater spring pool that actually mixes with the ocean when the tide comes up that is heavenly to swim and hang out in. It's a spectacular village and the people were extremely welcoming and friendly- they tried to adopt me and convince me to come back there instead of to Falevao! Now I'm back in Apia where we'll have a day and a half of classes. Then on Friday there is an all-Peace Corps conference at one of the schools near where I will be living and working. It should be fun to get to spend some more time getting to know the current volunteers. I'm not sure yet what the day will hold but I'm up for anything. Then on Saturday we will have a Thanksgiving meal and then go back to Falevao for our three week stint. After that training is pretty much over... Wierd to think we're more than halfway done already. Obviously the time in Falevao ahead of us is a substaintial chunk but it also seems so short when I think that after that language training and all the other classes will be over. I must say, though, I am eagerly anticipating not having to live out of a bag anymore and actually having a place to call home. I'm going to go see if I can track down some aloe vera to relieve my poor back and shoulders. I will try to get back here again before we take off for our long haul in the village.

Fun With Parasites (The Return of The Village)

2005-11-13T12:50:00.000-08:00

Week two in the village: we went back to our village host families last Saturday for our second week-long stint. That afternoon I took an amazing hike along the road that winds inland up into the mountains with Ofisa, my father. We hiked probably halfway up the mountain (in the sun in 85 degree heat and humidity it felt as though we might as well have been trekking Everest) and when we turned around to look down we could see the most amazing sight. You see all of the valley area where our village Falevao is located covered in lush green foliage, (there is a bit of a monochrome theme going on in Samoa... fortunately for me my favorite color happens to be green so I'm in heaven with it!) the mountains on all sides of you, and off in the distance a couple of miles the ocean. It is breathtaking, both physiologically to climb there and psychologically once you're there. It was one of those moments (of which I have been fortunate enough to have many since arriving here) where I stood in amazement and said "Holy cow. I actually live here. This is my home." The next day I got up early and raced Andrew's brother to the ocean- he kept me honest, which is scary because he was going for our morning run BAREFOOT. Americans are SO not hardcore compared to Samoans. When we got back I got to help my family make the umu (outdoor oven where they cook food on hot rocks covered by banana leaves) for the big sunday meal. I learned how to weave a basket out of a palm frond to carry the food in, and I even got to make the palusami (my favorite Samoan food). Then we went to church and came home and ate all the food we made and hung out being lazy the rest of the day. We went back to class on Monday and got back into the swing of language study which I had felt like it was hard to be focused on when we were back in Apia. I have taken to being more adventurous and asking my family if I can try different foods when they have them since they tend to serve me pretty much the same thing at every meal. On monday evening this strategy came back to bite me in the butt when I unknowingly asked to try something that had not been cooked called miti made from cocount cream and salt water with onions. A couple of hours later I got quite sick and spent a fun night and next couple of days with a very high fever. We think what might have happened is I got an infection from something that got into the food that wasn"t boiled away. Oops. So the majority of the rest of my week in the village was spent kind of out of it and I had to miss a few days of classes. I felt back to myself by thursday or friday in time for our family day to work at the plantation on friday. I asked Ofisa on friday morning if we were going to the plantation and he told me it was too hot so we ended up just hanging around tafaoing (to relax or hang out). In the afternoon there was a big fiafia (party) at the house of one of the villagers because it was his fiftieth birthday so we went and ate a lot of food and danced a lot and had a good time. Then on saturday morning we had classes and came back into Apia for the night. So there was my week. I must say there are large portions of it I don"t particularly remember clearly but the parts that I wasn"t sick I enjoyed a good deal. And now I can say I have had my first of what I am sure will be many bouts with foreign bacteria in my system over the next two years. Hooray for my weak American immune system!

Self-Evaluation

2005-11-05T15:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon we had our first meetings with the Peace Corps staff to discuss what we think and what they think of our progress in training thus far. We filled out an extensive checklist about how we think we’re doing in terms of the language and the culture and integrating and everything that goes along with that, and the trainers filled out the same survey regarding their opinions of our progress. It was a nice check-in point. The trainers were really positive and encouraging and I think they’re pretty pleased with our group as a whole- they’ve told us many times that they’re impressed and happy with us. Of course it could just be that part of their job is to be positive and motivating to keep us optimistic about the whole situation! It was very cute though- when we met yesterday, the head trainer told me he thought I had bribed the trainers because they marked “always” for everything… I could have sworn I was being subtle about the cookies I was slipping them, but apparently not :) The meeting was helpful- it was good for me to think about what I’m happy with in terms of my progress and what I feel like I could put more into. Being the type of person who holds herself to ridiculously high standards, I’ve been feeling a little frustrated by feeling like there just aren’t enough hours in each day for me to spend as much time learning the language as I want to, as much time learning the culture as I want to, as much time exploring the community as I want to (especially in the village), etc. I keep telling myself that if I spend more time studying the language outside of class I would be able to be learning it much faster. But when I do that then I feel like I’m missing out on the hanging-out-with-my-family-in-the-village time. And the hanging-out-with-other-volunteers time. And then there’s the possibility of maybe even occasionally taking five minutes for myself to write in my journal or read or even just sit and think (perish the thought). So I’ve been feeling mildly perturbed by wanting to do so much more than I can realistically expect myself to do in a day with a mere 24 hours. The self-reflection survey and the meeting was really good to help me stand back and be able to look at the situation through a more objective perspective- I’ve only been here for THREE WEEKS! (That’s pretty crazy to think.) And I’ve learned TONS! And done tons! And given how short a time I’ve been here for, my grasp of the language is pretty decent. Scary to think it probably took about a year and a half of Spanish classes to get to the level I’m at in less than a month here. Although I think that probably says a lot more about foreign language education back home than anything else. But it was nice to reflect on how much I’ve accomplished in so little time. And to focus on not being to hard on myself about the fact that I haven’t learned or done more in the brief time I’ve had. It’s easy to lose perspective of the bigger picture sometimes, and to realize that there’s also life after training. Quite a lot of it in fact. And if I’m not fluent in the language and totally immersed in the culture by December 14^th… it’s not like that learning process stops and I won’t get the chance anymore. So that’s where I want to work on being a little more realistic with myself. Ah, goals :) Anywho, this afternoon we’re heading back out to the village for another week. It has felt like the time in Apia this week has flown by in a flash. I’m excited to get the chance to spend more time with my family and immersing myself in the language and getting to study and focus on that and the culture again (it’s pretty hard to do that in Apia living in the hotel here- you get really easily distracted by flashy things like computers and other Americans and air conditioning). Then we come back to Apia for the night next Saturday from which we take off on Sunday for a three day volunteer visit where we get to go stay with a current volunteer elsewhere in the country and follow them around and see what their day-to-day lives are like and what their work is. I’m really hoping that I get sent to stay with a volunteer on the other (less populated) island, Savai’i, because it’s supposed to be absolutely stunning there and it would be really cool to get a chance to see it. I’m sure wherever I go will be interesting though and very fun to get a perspective from someone who’s been here for a while. Okey doke, time to go pack and change back into my lavalava!

The Homefront

2005-11-01T15:27:00.000-08:00

I’ve seen my home! And my school! I got to spend two days this week and two days last week visiting and observing the place that is going to be the focus of my life and all of my work and energy during my Peace Corps service over the course of the next two years. It’s funny because training is so overwhelming and all-encompassing that it’s really easy to lose sight of the big picture and forget that this is just a mini little intro-part to the actual experience that I’m going to remember. It was amazing to me when I first showed up at the school last week. The second I saw the students there, and started getting to know them, it made me realize how much I’ve missed my students in New York even though I’ve been so overloaded with all the other excitement and changes in my life that I haven’t done the feelings much justice. It was a wonderful being there though because that morning when everyone was going around introducing themselves to me, I really truly felt like I was home, where I was meant to be. I knew at that moment how right the place is going to be for me, and it made me really excited for the next and eventually more substantial part of this extremely multi-faceted adventure. The school is TINY… there are only about fifteen students on any given day and they are broken down into three small classrooms. A very large percentage of the students at the school have Down syndrome, which of course I’m thrilled about since it coincides with my personal experience and expertise. It’s so funny how they tell you with the Peace Corps to expect and be willing to go anywhere and do anything, and be prepared for what you do to not necessarily correlate with your personal prior experiences or training. So I psych myself up for whatever it is I might be doing, even if it’s something totally new for me, and then I end up working in a school to aid on teaching strategies and curriculum development for the exact population with which I’ve been working and developing my own strategies and curriculum for the past few years. Funny. So the place that I will be living for the next couple of years is actually on the school grounds… one of the three classrooms there has a second story which is a really cute two bedroom apartment that will be my new home. It is really cute and quite spacious… I’m not sure exactly what I plan on doing with four beds all to myself, but I’m hardly complaining. Maybe I can make up a rotation schedule and move around taking turns sleeping in each one to keep things interesting :) It’s a great location and setup because by being on the second floor it’s at the level of the foliage of all the trees outside so when you look out the many very large windows (it’s really open feeling which is great) you see the trees and hear all the birds chattering away in them. The current volunteer who lives there said her mom told her it felt like she lives in a treehouse. I liked that a lot and I thought it was a very apt description. The location is really nice because it’s in a really quiet neighborhoody area a few kilometers out of town. There’s nothing commercial in the area and you get the feeling that the traffic around there is exclusive to people who live in the area or attend the various local schools, which is a nice feeling. It’s only like a ten or fifteen minute bus ride into the center of Apia though, or probably a 15 to 20 minute bike ride, so it’s definitely close enough to not feel isolated. There will also be five of the other group 75 volunteers within a kilometer or two of me in that part of town or suburbia or whatever you want to call it, so that will be nice as well. Anyways, there’s the update regarding all that jazz… we’re going to be heading back out to the village on Saturday afternoon so I will try to check in again before I leave to tell all about the ten hours of language we’re going to be having each day between now and then. Woohoo!

The Village (the non-horror movie version)

2005-10-30T17:38:00.000-08:00

Wow, a little overwhelmed by the task of trying to sum up the experiences of the past week in one sitting. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that I have found it an amazing experience and am still in awe of this country and the people here. Maybe it’s the chlorine they put in the tap water to make it potable, but it seems to have the effect of making my glass appear half full these days. I’m just gonna go with it… Last Friday we arrived to be welcomed to our new home with an ‘ava ceremony followed by a huge meal. It was our first encounter with true village food. Including the ever-popular pig cross section (aka, every part of a pig, from the hair to the bone). I abstained from this particular delicacy due to my personal aversion to eating things that used to be cute and cuddly, or ugly and not at all cuddly but walking around of their own accord nonetheless. There was however a fabulous item called palusami which is made from wrapping up coconut cream in taro leaves and cooking it. You use taro to eat it and it’s awesome. It’s pretty universally regarded as one of the best Samoan delicacies and everyone seems psyched every time it shows up at meal time. After massive meal number one we were parceled off to our respective families who took us away to our new homes. I was a little confused at first since my mother took me across the street to the fale (house) that had been designated as the Peace Corps school area. She brought me into the big open structure (a roof held up by poles) with my hiking backpack on my back, nodded at me and sort of walked away. Eventually I realized that all of the houses around this area were part of the family’s communal living area, and there was a fale palangi (white-person style house) next door that would be my home. Double bonus: 1) Mari is never EVER going to be late for class and 2) Mari lives with the trainers, and the medical kits, and the purified water, so has all the resources at her fingertips. I didn’t realize how stoked I was with this situation until a couple days later when I took a walk to the end of town and saw that some of the trainees live a good 40 minute walk down the road. Let me tell you, a mile and a half walk in 90 degree humidity while wearing a puletasi… There are more exciting ways I can think of to torture myself. Within about an hour of being in my new home I was fed another huge meal by my family. I don’t think I went more than a couple of hours all week without eating. My Samoan father kept telling me that I needed to eat more so that I could get fat, because that is the fa’aSamoa (the Samoan way). My family was a little confusing to me at first because there was my mother, and my father, who is actually my mother’s son, which made me a little generationally confused, and then about seventeen children, mostly under the age of ten. I eventually figured out that the reason they were referred to as my mother and father was because they are the only adults who live there full-time, not because I was missing some obscure family tree linkage. All of the children there are grandchildren of my mother but many of their parents actually live abroad in American Samoa or New Zealand, and they have grown up being raised by their grandmother and their uncle. In Samoa, family is family and there is a lot more emphasis on being related to someone than on the specific relationship- raising children is much more a communal activity, and a lot of it is actually done by the older children in the family as well. All of the kids in my family are great. Our first afternoon together consisted of a lot of pointing at the chickens and saying “moa. chicken.” And then laughing because, well, that was about all we had to talk about. But they put me instantly at ease with the inherent awkwardness of such a situation, and we spent the rest of the day playing catch with a koosh ball I brought and having me teach them a bunch of American kids games like London Bridge and Ring Around the Rosy. They especially liked the “you put your backside in” verse of the Hokey Pokey and made me repeat it while shaking my butt at nauseum. We became immediately attached, and many of them never left my side all week. (Literally. Read: children following me into the bathroom, having to be picked up and carried outside so that I could pee alone.) Everyone in the village is super friendly and of course totally intrigued and curious about all of us wacky palagi’s that like to do silly things like go for walks just because, and eat vegetables, and write in journals. We truly are a funny breed, but they tolerate us quite well and are endlessly amused by us- it’s a good thing we can all laugh at ourselves J One of the great things about being in the village was how much more natural the whole language learning process became. All of a sudden we were there and using the language and immersed in the culture and it just seemed to click and come so much more logically. It made me realize how weird it feels to be sitting in a hotel with a bunch of other Americans trying to learn a language that we then turn around and don’t speak with each other outside of class. Being in the village makes it so much easier, and you really start to pick things up a lot more naturally. Especially when you have very patient small children glued to your side who are more than willing to repeat the same word five to twenty times if necessary. I feel a lot more at ease with the little bit of Samoan that I now speak in that at least I feel like I understand what and why I’m saying things, and how to do so, rather than feeling like I’m regurgitating token phrases I’ve been parroting in language class with my peers. There’s obviously a huge distance still to go, but it’s a nice start. I also feel like we got a chance to learn so much about the culture and the Samoan way of life. People are so open and good-natured here (at least after living in Manhattan)- once you get over the paranoia that big city American living fosters in you, it’s pretty incredible. We came back into Apia this morning and we’ll be here for the rest of the week. Tomorrow (Monday) and Tuesday we will all be going on job site visits to spend the days at the schools we will be working at to get an idea what it’s like. We actually went for two days last week to our sites as well but I will wait to write more about that until I post again specifically about my school and home because this is already ridiculously long, and I’m ready for bed.

I didn’t bring my camera to the village this week but I definitely will next time. Andrew and Marques both brought theirs so you can check their sites and maybe they’ll post some photos. Otherwise I’ll have some in a couple of weeks.

Antici...pation

2005-10-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the Apia Central Hotel. The past few days have been mostly full of language, language, and language. With a little language thrown in for good measure. We are heading off for our first week-long stay in the village tomorrow and I think the goal is to get us to the point where we can at least ask people what their names are and say “I don’t understand” (the #1 most useful phrase at this point in my opinion) by the time we get there. I know at least for myself it’s very exciting and a little nerve-wracking. I’ve been anticipating getting my first exposure to actually integrating into the Samoan way of life for so long and now it’s finally here. The past week has been really great and really intense and completely full of constant exposure to a gamut of new experiences, but at the end of the day we’re really kind of a bunch of palagi’s (foreigners, white people) staying in a hotel here and hanging out with each other. Only once we have to sink or swim in a fully Samoan environment will we be able to get our first taste of what life here is really like. I’m enjoying the language and getting to learn it, although my biggest frustration is that it feels a bit overwhelming to be trying to process everything that is so new and different that’s going on simultaneously, and learning a language is not a minor component in that. I wish that I had more time and resources to donate to being a geek and making myself flashcards and drilling myself and cementing it all in my brain, but I keep trying to tell myself that I can be patient, because I will get there eventually. My guess is this first week is going to involve a lot of grunting and pointing and interesting misunderstandings. I can’t wait! It amuses me how excited I am about being completely incapable of communicating with those around me, but there you have it. In other news, I am very proud of myself- two days ago I did my first ever load of bucket laundry. All my clothes are kinda stiff and probably still dirty but it was my milestone inaugural experience and it’s still exciting to me. Yesterday we went out to the ocean to do our water safety training and we were supposed to go out on a boat but apparently the boat decided it had other plans so we ended up snorkeling around on the edge of a really beautiful reef instead at the Palolo Deep marine preserve. Some of the current volunteers are working on fisheries projects there and they have set up pens where there are giant clams growing that are unbelievable… I’m not sure I have ever seen them in the ocean before in any of the places I have gone snorkeling or diving. Absolutely spectacular. It was a nice break and a change up from the couple of days before it where we were in training here at the hotel all day. Today we have a block of time off this afternoon to prepare for our departure tomorrow. What does one bring to go live in an entirely different manner that is completely foreign to them for eight days? All of the women in our group decided to get traditional dresses (called puletasi: a shirt and a wrap-around skirt, aka lavalava, that are made out of the same fabric) made so that we can wear them to our village. We are expected to dress much more conservatively in the village than in Apia, where we are expected to dress much more conservatively than in the US. We are picking them up this afternoon and are all very excited about our first Samoan formal attire. So this afternoon the plan is to figure out how little I need to throw in a bag for the next week and then all of the rest of the stuff will be stored at the Peace Corps office here in Apia. Tonight we are meeting with current female volunteers while the men meet with current male volunteers for our boy/girl talks. Should be a good forum for getting to bring up obscure female questions like how do you shower from a bucket while wearing a lavalava… And then tomorrow we’re off! I won’t be able to type while in the village but we will be coming back to Apia next weekend for another week here so my guess is you will hear from me then. Try not to pee your pants with the suspense.

Matagofie

2005-10-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

In fa’aSamoa (the Samoan language) my new favorite word is matagofie. It means that something is beautiful, and it keeps running through my head like a broken record. I know it has only been four days that we have been here but it feels like so much longer, and there are so many things that keep taking my breath away on a regular basis. The town of Apia is set in on a harbor and wraps around the coast, extending inland and trickling up into the hills that are covered in lush tropical foliage. There is an elevated path along the water so that you can walk the line between the ocean on one side and the town and mountain on the other. There is so much beauty here in everything. I haven’t been able to leave my hotel without carrying my camera because I’ve noticed that I impulsively feel the need to document a visual memory so that I never forget what I’m witnessing, what I’m part of. Yesterday afternoon my fellow trainee Andrew and I wandered up into the mountain that bisects the town. You are walking along winding roads up through lush vegetation with beautiful flowering and fruiting trees, and then all of a sudden you turn around and look back down and there is Apia, the whole harbor and the Pacific ocean, laid out beneath you. Maybe it’s just the rose-colored glasses I seem to be sporting twenty four hours a day here but everything just feels so amazing and beautiful and perfect and it’s such an awesome feeling to get the privilege of viewing and being a part of it all. It’s hard to explain the feeling that being here gives me- kind of like everything is right, everything is just as it should be. That pretty much sums up my emotional state at the moment, and you probably think I’m a cheeseball for it. So with that I will end the sappy reflection and try to give a bit of an idea what I’ve been doing besides mooning over my newfound love with this island. We spend most of the day during the week in training, sessions all morning and afternoon on topics like safety and security, cross-cultural exchange, medical training, life and work, and of course language. So far we have mainly been doing “introduction to ___”, and talking about our expectations for what we can learn from training and on how to work ourselves into the Samoan way of life. On Friday afternoon we started our first language lessons and I am so excited! I love learning language in general and the Samoan language is very beautiful and it’s also just so great to be finally getting into the real work of acquiring the skills I have only speculated about for the past year in anticipation of this moment. I’m so excited because I feel like there is nothing more thrilling than spending the next two months learning to understand and communicate in the language here, and lucky me that’s exactly what we will be doing! We also get time during the day at lunch and in the evenings to wander around and explore Apia and all it has to offer. Last night the current volunteers held a huge fiafia (party) for the trainees as a welcome ceremony where they performed traditional Samoan dances, sang songs in Samoan, and there was even a traditional Samoan fire knife dancer (fire knife dancing is, indeed, what it sounds like it would be, and is quite impressive). Then we had a huge feast with tables and tables full of traditional Samoan food cooked for us by the current volunteers and staff that was really good- I even tried octopus. Although I gotta say the whole tentacle-y thing is not really my style. There is the best fresh tuna sashimi here that I have ever had and all kinds of other fish as well as some really amazing food where lots of coconut cream is used in preparation. The evening was really fun and it was great getting to talk to all of the volunteers who have been here and in this for some time ranging from a couple of months to two years. I’m so excited to be a part of it all and just so overwhelmed by everything but in a really good way. Today is Sunday which means no classes so we went on a “cultural exploration” to the beach. It was tons of fun, everybody’s sunburnt and apparently the little fish here are aggressive and territorial because we all got bitten by them when we were in the water. But it was wonderful snorkeling, and especially getting to be there when some of the trainees experienced coral and marine wildlife for the first time in their lives! I have uploaded photos of our time at the beach, the fiafia, and just hanging and wandering around Apia and into the hills. That’s all for the moment- I hope that I don’t sound too much like some starry-eyed sap and have actually given a bit of an idea what the past few days were like.

The First 24 Hours

2005-10-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

After stumbling off the airplane at 3 in the morning in the rain (might as well get a realistic view of the weather from the first moment on) and being greeted by a host of current volunteers, we got on a beautiful brightly painted bus and bounced our way into Apia. When we finally arrived at our hotel and got our massive quantities of luggage to our rooms it was already five in the morning and the roosters were crowing. Speared on by a portion of us that had actually gotten five minutes or more of sleep on the plane, we decided to watch the sunrise and stay awake rather than napping a bit before our morning activities began. We all wandered into “downtown” Apia at least a bit, just to check it out. The water in the harbor is pretty much all surrounded by large lava rocks and there is a beautiful boardwalk that you can traverse from one end of town to the other with the ocean on your one side and a view of the town with the mountain looming in the background on the other. All along the water are planted huge banyan trees that are not only breath-taking but provide a much-appreciated respite from the heat of the direct sunlight. As we were wandering around town we kept nudging each other and saying “guess what? We LIVE here…” It was an amazing feeling. I think within a couple of hours we all felt so comfortable and excited and in a weird way at home, even if we are living out of duffle bags with what basically amount to complete strangers. At 10 we convened in the outdoor courtyard area of the hotel to be debriefed on the ‘ava (kava in some other Polynesian countries) ceremony that was to be held in our honor by the Peace Corps staff and current volunteers. We then loaded into vans and went, all fourteen of us desperately stumbling over the five word Samoan phrase they told us we were to say when we were offered the ‘ava which is of course still relatively gibberish to us all since we have not begun language training. We arrived at an open fale (houses and buildings here, particularly outside of Apia, are called fale’s and are basically large oval structures with no walls that are thatched roofs held up by large pillars. They’re beautiful because it gives you the sense of being inside while still being completely a part of your surroundings. We all sat in a large circle and all of the important individuals gave speeches in Samoan about how glad they were to have us and how excited everyone is. Then one of the current volunteers made the ‘ava by rinsing and ringing out root fibers in this large wooden bowl with tiny legs all around the base. A small coconut shell was dipped into it and in an order that I’m sure made sense although I couldn’t quite figure out what was driving it, each new trainee was offered a cup of ‘ava. We did our best to regurgitate the phrase we had been running through our heads of the past hour, poured a little out for respect and drank some. I have heard many things about ‘ava, from it looking and tasting like dirty dish water to it making your whole face go numb when you tasted it. Maybe it was the 36 hours without sleep that I was running on, or my overall adrenaline, or the fact that most of it made it on my shirt (those of you who know about my drinking issues will of course have seen this one coming) , but other than it being vaguely particulate and crunchy tasting I didn’t get much of a sense of what it was like. The ceremony as a whole, however, was an amazing experience. Every time I looked out the fale to the left, there was the huge mountain that divides Apia in two looming at the end of an open field. At one point a huge mass of clouds swept over the top and we watched them descend down the mountain towards us. In the middle of the ceremony it began to rain and all around you could see the water coming down all around. We came back here for lunch where we drank cold fresh young coconut milk straight out of the fruit, which was the most refreshing thing I have ever tasted (this impression possibly fueled by the streams of sweat that were by then rolling down my back). After lunch we had a brief common expression language lesson and hopped in vans to be taken on a driving tour around town. I must admit that eating lunch was the kiss of death that turned my exhaustion into full-fledged delirium and I spent the majority of the rest of the afternoon having a psychological war with myself over the fact that I had to stay awake whether or not my brain was capable of functioning. I wish I had been more coherent when we were driving around but we definitely got a little bit of a sense of the area if nothing else, and were taken to a place where we could actually walk into the water and get our feet wet in the local ocean for the first time, which was cool. In the evening the whole group of trainees went out to dinner together at a little seafood grill place where I think at least half of us ordered fish and chips. They said they had a vegetarian burger on the menu. All of a sudden my mind is racing a mile a minute conjuring up images of black bean burgers and soy protein, but when pursued it turned out this meant egg, cheese, lettuce, tomato and pineapple, so I figured I would pass. We all ate quickly and realized we were absolutely exhausted and in no mood to socialize so we walked back here and retired to our respective rooms to crash. I woke up at five o’clock this morning (yes, Mari really woke up before the sun), only 24 hours after first arriving in this amazing place, feeling a little congested and a lot in awe and amazement that our time here so far has been so brief yet so rich and powerful. This is truly a magical place and an extraordinary opportunity and I feel blessed (yes, my non-religious self is choosing that term) with the honor of being a part of it all.

CLICK ON THE PHOTO LINK AT THE LEFT TO SEE ALL OF MY PICTURES OF STAGING AND OUR FIRST DAY HERE!!!!!

Are We There Yet?

2005-10-12T16:19:00.000-07:00

722 kilometers to Apia. We have been on this plane for about five years now, give or take. Someday I am going to learn how to sleep on airplanes and ten hour red-eye flights will stop being so delightfully eventful. Unfortunately, today was not destined to be that day. The big screen at the front of the cabin claims there is one hour and one minute left until we arrive. It’s absolutely surreal to think that I met all of the people sitting around me less than 48 hours ago. The past two days have felt more like an eternity (notice a theme here)- so much has gone on psychologically, and it is so intense to be meeting and getting to know people and preparing to leave together. Despite the fact that I have now spent my entire life doing this, somehow, we’re still not quite there yet. Where are we? Where have we been? We spent Monday and Tuesday (today? yesterday? unclear at this point…) in workshops going over basic protocol and getting a general overview of the kinds of information we will be processing during training. And, more importantly, getting to know and be comfortable with each other. Peace Corps Samoa group 75 consists of 14 individuals. Shockingly, we are skewed on the gender ratio with 8 men and 6 women (average PC percentages are more like 60-40 women-men). There are a half a dozen individuals doing information technology (otherwise known as computers), about the same number with a variety of educational positions (vocational skills through university teaching), two social workers, and of course the one special needs volunteer. I am, incidentally, also the one vegetarian in the crew (doing my part to make for a more diverse group of individuals). Speaking of vegetarianism, somehow Air New Zealand did not hear that I don’t like beef for dinner and turkey for breakfast even though I swear I made sure to alert them in advance. Fortunately the stewardesses (one of whom was a former PC volunteer… break out into chorus of “It’s a Small World”) and my seatmate were willing to offer up whatever non-muscular scraps they could find, so I was okay. I’m sure you’re all breathing a long-awaited sigh of relief at that comforting news. Anyways, the plan is now to land and stumble our lethargic selves through customs and get to Apia which is actually about a 45 minute drive away (when they call the airport “Apia” it is basically a euphemism for “somewhere on the same island as Apia”). Then we get a few hours to recuperate in the hotel that will be our home for the next ten days before we head off in the morning for welcome ceremonies and the beginning of our ten week careers as Peace Corps Trainees. It sounds like after the time in Apia we head out to a village about a 45 minute drive east of Apia where we will be living and training for the following five weeks. That’s pretty much all I know since, obviously, we still haven’t managed to get off the plane. But hey, it only says 374 kilometers now. If I weren’t so tired that my entire body was numb I would swear I could taste it!

P.S. I obviously wrote this while I was in the air, but rest assured, I had to land to actually post it, meaning I am also in one piece safe and sound.

On Your Marks, Get Set...

2005-10-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

Goodbye! I’m off to meet my staging group in Los Angeles today. I can’t believe that the time has actually come. Or that all my stuff actually fits into my bags. Carrying them is a whole separate issue, of course. The minor detail they forget to mention about having one hundred pounds of luggage is… well, I myself don’t weigh ALL that much more than that. And I don’t usually walk around carrying an entire human being draped on me. But it builds character, right? At least that’s what I’ve been attempting to tell myself as I stagger around under it all. Anyways, back to the whole leaving thing. I will try to check in if I can once I arrive in Samoa but I’m not sure what my access will be like there yet. So I thought I would wish myself bon voyage on your behalves and say goodbye en masse, in the least personal way possible. Keep in touch, and I will do my very best to do the same. Love to everyone (even those of you I don’t know- I’m in a charitable mood these days)! Here we go…

Commencing Countdown, Engines On

2005-09-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

I personally have been counting down to my approaching departure on a roughly bi-daily basis for the past month or so, but luckily for anyone who actually feels obliged to read everything I write here I decided not to update the site quite as regularly. I can imagine there may be people who are curious about what my experience in Samoa is like, but substantially fewer clinging to news of my pre-departure psychoses. Although my mom has sent me very supportive and encouraging emails about all of my posts so far. Thanks mom, my self-esteem appreciates your substantiation :) That being said, it is officially two weeks before my staging commences, which I feel is monumental enough to share. In NYC public school terms, it’s a “chain-worthy” countdown period. So staging. What is staging? On October 10^th, all of the volunteers in my cohort (group 75 for anyone curious as to how many training sections the Peace Corps has sent over to Samoa since its first program there in 1967) will be meeting at a hotel near LAX for a 36 hour period of registration paperwork, opening workshops, and hopefully some really stellar ice-breaker name games. Then we’ll all head over to the airport where we will get to take a 9 hour flight directly from Los Angeles to Samoa. I’m quite sincere about “getting to”- there is only one of these flights a week, and a common alternate route if one doesn’t happen to depart on the right day is through Aukland, New Zealand. I don’t have flying phobias, but overshooting my destination by 2000 miles isn’t my ideal flight path either. So the plan is to arrive in Apia (the capital of Samoa, and also incidentally where my placement will be) sometime in the middle of the night on Tuesday/Wednesday and begin training the next morning. The first ten weeks that I am in Samoa I will actually be a Trainee, not officially a volunteer yet. My group and I will undergo intensive language, cultural and job training to prepare us for our individual placements. During this fall we will spend some of the time living with families in a village for language and cultural immersion, I believe some time shadowing other volunteers for job skill training, and also some time in Apia. I have ascertained this from what I have read so it is obviously subject to alteration but gives a general idea of the kind of stuff I’ll be up to. After the ten week training period there is an official swearing-in ceremony where our acronym changes from PCT to PCV. Then volunteers are dispersed to their individual placements for the commencement of their 2 year appointments. I have, at least tentatively, been assigned to work as a teacher trainer at a small Special Education school in Apia to assist with curriculum development and assessment protocol, etc. More on that once I have a further developed notion myself. So… needless to say I am quite excited and am glad that my anticipation doesn’t have to hold out for all that much longer at this point! I have all of the million things I decided I “couldn’t live without” for the next two years strewn across my bedroom floor. In the next week or so I’m going to perform an amazing magic trick where I make them all fit inside my duffel bag and frame pack and weigh less than 80 pounds combined once everything’s in. Short of Mary Poppins landing on my front door step in the next few days I’m not sure how in the world I expect to be able to pull this feat off, but there it is. Feel free to start sending me mail at any time- I’ve heard it takes about three weeks for a letter to make the journey from the states. I’ve already sent myself a couple of things just to ensure that I don’t feel like a total loser, but it’s always nice to get mail from “other” people as well. Mailing address is to the left. I’ve even included general postage to make sure it’s super easy. HINT. And there’s also an ultra-convenient link on this page to the USPS postage rate charts for Samoa that some incredibly thoughtful (and charming) young lady created so that if you felt the overwhelming urge to send her packages you’d have easy access to the information regarding that as well!

Overly-Annotated Bibliography

2005-09-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

you may ask yourself… what the heck has mari been doing all summer? (most likely you haven’t asked yourself this at all, but just pretend for the sake of preserving my hook sentence.) well, since you’re so curious, i’ll tell you! i have been doing a lot of reading. (i know it’s difficult to imagine i could fit this into my schedule in addition to all of the sleeping and eating, but what can i say, i’ve got talent.) what have you been reading mari? we’re dying to know! well, in that case, i will tell you. i’ve been reading a lot about the history of the peace corps, and peoples’ experiences, as well as trying to get my hands on every book i can related to samoa. my mom even picked up a book and a video on samoan tattoo artistry from the university library. i wish i could have been there to see the look on the face of the student who checked her out trying to figure out what exactly fostered this interest in the assistant dean… but i’m digressing. my point was, i figured in case anyone else out there ended up with three months to kill and an insatiable appetite for peace corps and samoa related literature, i would provide a nice starting point for them. so here’s what i have read…

Peace Corps Reading List

So You Want to Join the Peace Corps by Dillon Banerjee
*question and answer format collection of very useful perspectives from a former volunteer
What You Can Do For Your Country by Karen Schwarz
*history of the peace corps and its development over the course of time (unfortunately it was written during the administration of bush senior so there’s nothing about more recent p.c. history… can you say sequel?)
From The Center of the Earth edited by Geraldine Kennedy
Going Up Country edited by John Coyne
*these two are collections of essays written by former volunteers
Nine Hills to Nambonkaha by Sarah Erdman
The Ponds of Kalambayi by Mike Tidwell
*these last two are individual chronicles of p.c. experiences in africa. don’t worry, i am aware that i’m not going to africa (although i’ve been coming to realize that a shocking number of people assume samoa is in africa), but there wasn’t a book about someone’s pc experience in samoa, so i figured i’d check them out. they were really interesting and well written and gave a good sense of what life was like as a pcv (i’m hoping this is a self-explanatory acronym). so, yeah, recommend ’em.

Samoa Reading List

My Samoan Chief by Fay Calkins
*very entertaining examination of the journey an american woman made into understanding and appreciation of a culture quite different from her own
Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead
*significantly more readable than i had anticipated… however little that says
His Best Pacific Writings by Robert Louis Stevenson
*significantly less readable than i had anticipated… win some lose some i guess
Where We Once Belonged by Sia Figiel
*very beautifully written, by a samoan woman
Samoan Word Book by Aumua Simanu and Luafata Simanu-Klutz
*my first chance to hear fa’asamoa spoken! my dad immediately decided the most important words for him to learn were fruit bat (pe’a) and lizard (pili). i’m sure they’ll get him real far when he comes to visit.
Samoan Dictionary by G.B. Milner
*hope you have friends in new zealand if you want to get your hands on a copy

plus some even more obscure anthropology on language acquisition. but i think the chances of anyone pursuing that vein are minute. e-mail me if that kinda thing does it for ya.

*apparently my highly developed internet technology skills are not quite as highly developed as i would have liked to hope. i couldn't figure out how to indent my annotations. thus the alluring shade of violet. hope it was aesthetically appealing.

Application Deliberation

2005-08-29T13:43:00.000-07:00

the application process is exactly that... a process. the peace corps tells you to give yourself a year, and they mean it. a lot of people seem curious as to the general timeline and all of the components and whatnot. (myself included- i think my first full night of sleep in the year 2005 was in august!) the experience obviously varies from person to person but here is a rundown of how it played out for me:

1/24/05 submitted application and health review online
3/7/05 peace corps finally received all of my letters of recommendation!
3/11/05 interviewed at new york headquarters
3/22/05 nominated for special education program in pacific departing oct
*at this point my file was forwarded to d.c. for remainder of process
4/1/05 received medical kit in mail
5/2/05 submitted medical kit
6/6/05 medically cleared (it took a lot of pee but i finally got there!)
8/2/05 received invitation for special needs placement in apia, samoa
projected staging date 10/10/05, projected departure date 10/12/05

so now i'm waiting for my staging kit, which i was told to expect about a month before departure. it's an incredible feeling to be sitting on the edge of such a powerfully transformative life experience. i feel that i finally understand what adults mean when you're graduating college and they tell you that you have your whole life ahead of you and you can do whatever you want to do and be whatever you want to be. (what they don't realize is that at the time you're pretty incapable of processing this because you're mostly dealing with attempts to face the reality that never in your life have you been anything other than a student and all of a sudden you're expected to turn into an adult overnight. in my case i was given six days, but i think the point maintains its salience.) despite my tangential meanderings and wordiness (bad writing habits), i guess my point is that i'm extremely glad that i waited to undergo this journey for a time when i could really appreciate its magnitude and significance. and so here i am. appreciating :)

Standardized Testing

2005-08-26T23:25:00.000-07:00

six and a half week countdown!! i'm getting so antsy that i'm already trying to occupy my time by creating this account to document an experience i'm not yet having. when they say not to quit your job until you're placed... there's some logic to that. i've already been "unemployed" for two months and as nice as all this sleep is, there is only so much reading and eating a person can do. i'm attempting to stretch the limits but i am only human. although i haven't yet gotten bored enough to actually unpack my boxes from moving so i guess i haven't hit total desperation :) anyways, hopefully this will actually work. i can't believe there are programs logical enough for people as web-illiterate as myself to actually post to. i'm even going to be rash and attempt to attach a photo just to truly test the limits of my powers. bold. (thanks to tasha for her consent to have her photo published on the web so i don't have to be a geek posting pictures of myself alone)