It's a Samoan pub.

A Note About Rat Poison (or A Nonsensical Entry That I Created At 1:30 In The Morning When I Found Myself Alone In The Office And The Internet Was On)

2008-04-15T01:26:00.005-11:00

The price of rat poison has gone up. There are times when it disappears off the market all together. I have, in the past, waited over a month for the next shipment of rat poison, calling or visiting all the major suppliers in the capital once or twice a week to check if it had arrived yet. I like to regularly disperse rat poison in my house as it keeps them at bay.

There are those that say rat poison is cruel. I'm not exactly sure who they are but there are definitely those out there who make big deals about animals and there must be plenty that stand up for the rat. However, I contest that rat poison is a necessity.

Rat poison basically breaks down a rats organs and tissues so that they eventually collapse and bleed to death internally. A rat cannot vomit. Therefore, once the poison is ingested, there really is no turning back. As I do not have pets or babies wandering around my house and since it is highly unlikely that I will accidentally eat a pellet of rat poison, all of my animosity is assuredly vented on only rats.

The rats that inhabit my general vicinity are, as I believe I have mentioned before, rather large and once they find a place they believe is a solid source of food, they tend to stay. Now, faced with kitten-sized rodents who steal my soap (yes, my soap), sneak on top of my kitchen table at night, or waltz straight through the house at midday completely oblivious to anything thrown at their head, I am compelled to act. I tried traps. Many traps. My rats are not stupid. The geckos, yes, they are quite dim but not the rats. They see all around my attempted trickery and turn the traps upside down.

Therefore, I resort to good old-fashioned, cold-blooded poison and hope against hope that the final resting place of my victims is not somewhere within my walls or inside my roof.

The Aha Moment

2008-03-14T12:56:00.001-11:00

It’s a beautiful thing for everyone involved. Once in a great while (I’m sure more often than that for more capable teachers) you can actually see comprehension. Sometimes you can even feel it. It’s like electricity has just shot through the room. You look into the eyes of your student and realize they suddenly understand exactly what you are trying so hard to teach.

I like to keep jigsaw puzzles in my classroom for my students to do during free periods (study halls). It’s one of the ways I try to trick them into learning logic. Last year it was a huge hit; they took to it immediately. They only thing I needed to do was start the edge and they took it from there. Once they finished the puzzle they just took it apart so they could do it again. This year though, I have years 9 - 13 instead of just 12 and 13. (The upside of having all the levels is I get to teach many different lessons everyday. The downside, I have to teach many different lessons ever day.) The younger kids have trouble with the puzzles (they’ve never seen one before). Often I’ll find random pieces just jammed together and no matter how many times I’ve explained that the puzzles are a work in progress, when my back is turned the puzzles still gets taken apart and heaped in a pile at least once a day. They think they are tiding the room.

One afternoon, I sat with a few Year 10 girls who were ‘working’ on the puzzle. I tried so hard to explain by example (I wanted them to figure the concept out themselves just like the older kids had) but I was getting nowhere. I was having trouble seeing the box so I propped the cover up with the bottom and looked from the piece I was working on to the box and back again. All of a sudden the girls’ eyes grew wide. They gaped at the cover picture and then stared down at the pieces in my hands. Almost as one they looked at the box again and then looked down at the pieces in front of them. And there it was, (I felt chills) the bolt of lightening.

January Trip

2008-02-29T16:26:00.000-11:00

Three countries. Thirteen days.

Samoa

On Wednesday, January 16, my parents arrived in Samoa. It had been fifteen months since the last time that I saw them but once they got off the plane and we hopped into a taxi, it was as though no time had passed at all.

The first day was spent settling down. We checked into Aggie Grey’s, rented a car, visited the Peace Corps office, and most important of all, I got to open the presents my parents brought. Oh the food, and the new clothes, and the numerous other little things that make life so much more pleasant. My favorite of which was, of course, my new laptop. Thank you so much Varun and thank you Chris for all the cool stuff you loaded onto it and thanks to all you guys that helped to get it to me.

We also had to organize the mountain of mealofa (gifts) that my parents brought for my two host families (the one I have now and the one I stayed with during training). In Samoa, when you come to visit or come back from a trip it’s considered very rude to not bring mealofa. My parents brought heaps of things: bubblegum, handmade soaps, tootsie rolls, hand towels, children’s books, instant lemonade, and tons of other stuff I can’t even remember. There was even a three disk set of Clint Eastwood movies for my host father who has been asking me to find him cowboy movies for the past four months.

The room we stayed in at Aggie’s was awesome. It was a bungalow, with this beautiful traditionally carved ceiling. I, however, only had eyes for the enclosed shower with hot water. The wonderful thing about traveling with my mother is that she always brings all of her hygiene products with her: shampoos, conditioners, lotions, body wash… I came out of that shower cleaner than I had been in over a year. To further the point, we volunteers tend to get used to our clothes that we’ve ripped and ruined with bleach and the fact that we never really look our best here. So when I had donned some of my new clothes and we headed over the Peace Corps Office, my friends were in awe of my sparkling skin and clean attire.

That night was the Aggie Grey’s fiafia. A fiafia is basically a Samoan celebration. It’s used to welcome new comers or to celebrate big occasions. Most of the big hotels in Samoa have a fiafia once a week to show their guests what it’s like. The hotel staff all dress traditionally and sing and dance. And then the whole thing is followed by a Samoan buffet (well, there is Samoan food there but mostly the buffet consists of tourist food like salads, ham, cheese platters, and so on).

It was during this first day that mom and dad experienced what I mean when I say it’s hot here. One of the most common questions I get is ‘What is the weather like?’ to which I always reply, ‘Well, it’s hot.’ Hot doesn’t quite cover it though. We live by the equator and right now it’s the wet season. Most days the heat is intense, sticky, and oppressive. Luckily both the room and the car had air conditioning so there was some haven for them.

The following day we took the car around the east half of the island so that I could show them all the places I usually go. Laura tagged along for most of the trip but that was mainly to score a free ride (it’s kind of an unwritten law that if you have yourself a vehicle, you check to see who needs a ride). We stopped first at Ming & Hana’s to grab a few things to bring for lunch at my house.

Ming & Hana’s came to Samoa in June of 2007. Every single volunteer remembers the first time they ever shopped there. The place is a mecca, an oasis, there are even those that call it heaven. It sells more American food than all the other stores in the country combined. You can find taco shells, green olives, Cadbury chocolate, soy beans, whole grain pasta, an entire half isle of cereal, even (though insanely overpriced) Starbucks coffee beans. We were blindsided by the place when it first opened and even now end up spending far more then we should on the extravagances we find there. It’s quite lovely to come to such a place with your parents especially when they are making up for all the time they haven’t been able to feed you. We filled a cart and then headed to the Cross-Island Road that would take us up and over the mountains to the opposite side of the island.

While we were at my house, Mom was giving out candy to the little kids who come and play at the back my host family’s store. Some of the guys who hang out in front of the store saw the kids with candy and assumed that I was back there with some. One of them ran to the back holding out his hand, “Meka, Meka!” When he rounded the corner he encountered a strange red-headed palagi (outsider). He gasped and backtracked faster than I have ever seen a Samoan man run.

He wasn’t the first person scared by the strange new white people wandering around. Whenever Mom would start talking to Baby Dan, he would stop whatever he was doing and walk away in the opposite direction. He was perfectly terrified of Dad who did nothing to help the situation and continued to jump at Dan until the poor kid was reduced to tears.

After we made a huge lunch of tuna sandwiches (of course we had been to Ming & Hana’s so they were not just plain tuna sandwiches: tuna full of spices, onions, and mixed with grey poupon, topped with artichoke hearts, pickles, and cheese on herb pita bread) we saw my school, and then headed down the south side of the island stopping at the water fall in Togitogiga National Park, the beach in Tafatafa (where we dropped off Laura), and then made our way towards my training village in Maasina.

My host sister in Maasina had already called me at least fifteen times that day (if you think I’m being sarcastic ask anyone who was around me that day). It got to the point where I would just ignore the calls because they all consisted of the same conversation: “Where are you? Are you still coming? What time are you coming? Do you need me to come pick you up? Are you all spending the night here? Why won’t you spend the night here?” As the day progressed I was becoming more and more reluctant about this part of our trip.

Well, we got there and my parents met everyone, presented their gifts, and were given vai tipolo (homemade lime-ade). Everything was going well until my host sister said “Alright, now we’ll go in for dinner.” Dinner?! It was only five, dinner wasn’t usually until seven. I had actually planned our drive knowing that fact. I began to have horrible visions of my parents being forced to eat canned corned beef (no matter how much you may like corned beef, canned corned beef is pretty heinous) and taro (which is great, if you’re used to it). I literally held my breath as we walked to the kitchen. And then, it seemed as though clouds had parted and rays from heaven were shinning down, my host family that had pushed me so hard in training to be Samoan, actually made palagi food for my parents. There was of course taro on the table but they had made three different types of chicken (fried, boiled, and curry) for them to choose from. I was speechless.

On Wednesday we headed out the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum up on the mountain which was pretty cool if you like houses. The three of us like houses and so it was nice. In the evening my parents took all the 77 girls (Laura, Molly, Sally, and I) out to dinner. We had many, many pitchers of margaritas and a lovely time. Then Mom, Dad, and I headed to the airport.

Something really must be said about Mom’s last few hours in Samoa.

First there was the taxi to the airport or as she called it, “the cab ride from hell.” Apparently she did not seem to remember that the taxi that brought us from the airport on Wednesday didn’t have seatbelts either and spent the beginning of the ride, firstly trying to find them and then sourly commenting on their absence. The Samoan Airport isn’t actually in the capital, Apia. It’s not even that close to it. It’s on the North-Western edge of the island, so it’s quite a ways to get there. However, Samoan taxi drivers are not exactly known for their slow, cautious speeds. Mom spent the ride clutching fiercely to the seat in front of her. I’m not exactly sure how this happened but when we finally got out she was so frazzled that half of her hair had come out of the clip and was sticking out off the side of her head. It was all I could do to not take a picture of her in that moment and believe me when I tell you that I still regret not doing so. Instead, like the kindly daughter I am most of the time, I asked her if perhaps she would like to accompany to the bathroom and she stood back until she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She started laughing so hard she had to hold on to the counter to keep from falling over.

Secondly there was Mom’s experience with Samoan compliance. After you’ve lived here long enough you begin to realize that people say ‘yes’ to anything you ask. They are basically lying to you just to make you happy in the moment with no thought to how disappointed or frustrated you will be in the future. I’ve learned to phrase my questions so they don’t have a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Mom, however, didn’t really believe me or didn’t remember or something and I wasn’t with her to catch it. She asked the woman at the Samoan duty free shop if alcohol bought in Samoa could be brought to our layover in New Zealand and then on to Australia. ‘Yes.’ So she bought me a beautiful bottle of vodka to take home with me when I get back from my trip. In New Zealand, when the bottle was inevitably confiscated when we were getting on our flight to Australia, she learned a valuable lesson.

Australia

Our flight from New Zealand to Australia was on a 777. I have never flown on a 777 before so I was quite overjoyed to find that even in coach class they have little monitors on the backs of all the seats and you can pick what movie you want to watch. Spider Pig, Spider Pig, does whatever a Spider Pig can.

We got in on Sunday, rented a car, checked into our hotel and went to the Aldi down the street buy some food for our room. We got blackberries. I stopped paying attention to the other food after that. Blackberries were all that mattered.

Then we headed downtown to see the Opera House at night. On the way we grabbed some coffee at a McCafe. If you have never been to a McCafe before, like in Europe or wherever, it’s McDonald’s’ version of a coffee shop and actually looks quite classy but is usually connected to an actual McDonald’s which brings the classy points down a few notches. They even have muffins and pastries and the coffee is not bad.

We got down to the Opera House which truly is beautiful. It’s one of those things that you can see in pictures thousands of times but never really see until you’re standing in front of it.

One thing that struck me about Sydney was how clean everything was. The odd thing about this is that it is damn near impossible to find a trash can (or rubbish bin). In contrast, New York City has trash cans on every corner and there’s still tons of trash that finds its way onto the sidewalks and into the streets. It seems that the Sydney Siders (as they are called) just make a concerted effort to properly dispose of their rubbish.

The hotel we were staying in had a beautiful view over the harbor and was extremely nice but freezing the whole trip. I never thought that my father would be one to turn down a thermostat that low but it must have had something to do with the fact that we were in a hotel room instead of the house. I was so cold at night that I wanted to die.

To get in and out of central Sydney, we used the subway which has split level trains so they can cram more people on them. Those Australians are so smart (it almost makes up for the fact that there are too few stations and you have to walk blocks and blocks to find one). I had kind of forgotten the imaginary bubble of personal space that palagis need to feel secure. After over a year of riding on Samoan buses (where everyone is crammed in with everyone else, arms on each other, sitting on one another’s’ laps) and not being able to have that bubble, your body kind of forgets it ever existed. My arm brushed up against the arm of the lady sitting next to me on the subway and I was fascinated by her instant recoil reaction.

Anyone who’s ever seen the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet knows that Australia seems to be a haven for the dangerous and bizarre. I couldn’t leave the country without having seen some of the more popular of the Australian wildlife. On my list: the kangaroo, the duckbill platypus, and the deadly Sydney funnel web spider. I’m not picky and was okay with not seeing them in the wild (especially as two are poisonous and one could kick the shit out of me). And so on Monday morning Mom and I dragged Dad to Sydney’s Wildlife World and Aquarium.

From the outside both of them seem on the small side but there are tons of animals crammed inside. We kind of joked with each other about how they would be filled with ‘exotic’ animals like the American buffalo and black bears. Luckily, the Australians are insanely proud of their country and rather fond of their animals so we encountered only Australian fauna.

At the aquarium we definitely reached the point where we had seen enough fish but there were so many other remarkable things. There were sharks, moray eels, manta rays, and crayfish the size of my head. One of Mom’s favorites was the weedy sea dragon. My top five :

5. the saltwater crocodile
4. duck-billed platypuses
3. the preserved box jellyfish
2. the blue ring octopus
and decidedly the favorite for all three of us, 1. moon jellyfish. They were just so beautiful and they were in a dark tank lit only by a black light that made them fluorescent. It was like watching a dream.

For lunch, we went the Lindt Chocolat Café. Good god. They had actual food there as well, so we got some sandwiches and then obviously got desert. I got a hot chocolat sundae that came with three scoops of Lindt ice cream and four different types of chocolate on top. Glorious.

Afterwards we went to Wildlife World. The animals were very cool indeed. Sleeping koala bears look like curled up teddy bears stuck in trees and are quite possibly the cutest thing in existence. I eagerly waited to see the funnel web but when we finally got to his case he had burrowed so far in that I couldn’t see him. I was a tad disappointed but figured it was meant to be.

On Tuesday we wondered around downtown. Visited The Rocks and the Opera House and had lunch in this really old bar (where I was reminded why I despise the beer in Samoa).

I don’t like heights. It’s like my one thing. Give me spiders, snakes, whatever and I’ll be fascinated but I would prefer not to hang perilously from a great height or even stand safely at a great height. So we did the Bridge Climb on Wednesday. I snapped on a brave smile and actually did it. The Bridge Climb is this organization that set up a climb to the top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge (which, if you are interested, is twice as tall as the Sydney Opera House). Tour guides take up groups, you all get walkie talkies and head sets and these cool climbing suits (they’re not really cool and if you were ever outside the tour you would be mortified to be caught in it).

You are completely safe the whole time, walking up stairs with railings on both sides and snapped into a harness that’s connected to a continuous rail that runs up and back. There would have to be some serious effort made on your part for you to fall off. This however does not stop any images you might have of yourself falling off. It was terrifying but exhilarating and I was so happy that I did it (especially after we were back on the ground). We celebrated our grand achievement by going out for beer and pizza (at Zia Pina Pizzeria) and ice cream (at Royal Copenhagen, where I had a scope of Royal Copenhagen: honey comb and butterscotch ice cream with such a ridiculous level of sugar that my stomach ached for hours).

On Thursday, we decided to get into our rental car and actually leave Sydney. It took a little bit to figure out exactly how to this but we all worked together as a cohesive unit and soon found ourselves on our way. We first stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park in Doonside because we heard they had kangaroos.

It’s kind of odd to be traveling with people who aren’t in the Peace Corps. Even though my parents tried to do the things I wanted to do (and succeeded very well) there were little things I wanted to comment on, that I just couldn’t explain. Like, how ridiculous the idea of a pet store is or how wonderful it is to be able to listen to the radio (and actually hear songs I know and like at a volume that’s agreeable).

Featherdale has many of the same things that the Wildlife World but it was definitely worth it to see them both as they each have some things that the other does not. Featherdale did indeed have kangaroos, as well as a Tasmanian Devil, dingoes, and an open habitat where you can feed wallabies. I had had no idea how gigantic wombats are. I’d seen pictures of them before and assumed that they were like guinea pigs or something. They’re bigger than a dog and are more like ROUSs!

Upon entering the quite cleverly named Reptilian Pavilion I had one goal in mind: see the funnel web. I rushed past the lizards and snakes until I reached the spiders. There was the spindly legged, deadly red back spider (relative to the American black widow). There too was the furry fearsome wolf spider. And finally, pushed up against the glass, there was a fat black funnel web spider, the most venomous spider in the world. True, after the development of the funnel web antivenom no one has died from a funnel web bite but it’s the idea that it could kill me.

Starving we pulled off the highway in a town called Penrith and found a hotel restaurant where we could have lunch (and were practically force fed garlic bread). As we left Penrith, we were stopped at a light when from the front of the car I hear “Meghan!” I glanced around to see what my mom was excited about when I saw it. Right next to us was a Target delivery truck. A Target delivery truck in a residential area means that there must be a Target somewhere nearby. It was agreed upon (Dad with some reluctance) that we would return after the Blue Mountains and find this Target.

The Blue Mountains were beautiful. It was like being at the Grand Canyon if the Grand Canyon was filled with trees. We drove around most of the afternoon checking out different views and waterfalls and things.

On the way back, we began our search for the fabled Target of Penrith. There was a point when we passed the Arnott’s factory and I tried to excitedly explain that that’s where Timtam were made! Mom and Dad of course had no idea what I was talking about and so I tried to explain the delicious chocolaty goodness that is a Timtam cookie. It’s chocolate crème sandwiched between two chocolate cookies and then the entire thing is dipped in chocolate fudge. I’d never had one before I came to Samoa but they’re all over the South Pacific. It wasn’t until later on in our trip that I remembered to buy them some so they could taste them.

Back to the Target hunt: We really had no idea where we were going and by some miracle we turned a corner and saw the huge red glowing sign. Not only was it a Target, it was a Target in a shopping mall. It was already quarter to eight and pretty much all of the stores were closed. In fact, every night of the week Target closes with the rest of the mall at five. Every night, that is, except Thursdays (when it stays open until 9). I therefore decided that I was fated to shop at this store.

It had been over a year since I had the chance to buy myself a large quantity of new clothes. Almost everything I had was stained or ruined and smelled slightly off (mold festers everywhere). The tragedy of the situation was that we only had an hour to shop. So with Mom and I scouring sales racks and Dad guarding the cart we dashed through the women’s section as fast as we could. With half an hour to go, I ran to the changing room and, even with the detrimental 5 garment limit, managed to try it all on and figure out what I would be keeping with a few minutes to spare. With that time I raced through the rest of the store trying to decide what else I needed. It was like being a contestant on Super Market Sweep. I ignored the first three announcements, only heading to the checkout counter after the final ‘Get the hell out of our store’ came over the intercom.

On Friday we all went to the mall across the street from our hotel (It was cleverly hidden underground and the only reason we found it was because during the week Dad and I entered some office building lobby looking for an ATM and discovered that it wasn’t an office building lobby, it was a mall. A mall with a food court and a produce market). Dad wandered off somewhere while Mom and I roamed among the stores. Though I found some things I wanted, the shopping experience in no way compared to being in the Target even with the free radical smoothie and falafel wrap I had for lunch. That night, completely exhausted, I opted to stay in the hotel while Mom and Dad went back out into the city. It was quite lovely, I ordered Pay Per View (Michael Clayton, incredible) and feasted on the last of the food we had in the room.

Our last day in Australia, we went downtown before going to the airport. It was Australia Day and downtown was crazy. There was live music everywhere, free drinks, jets flying overhead, and everyone, everyone, was dressed up. We went to The Rocks were the celebrations were combined with the Saturday open market and got completely overwhelmed by Australia before we had to leave.

New Zealand (Part Two)

We got in very late Saturday night and my flight back to Samoa was early Monday morning so I pretty much only spent one day in New Zealand this time (Mom and Dad were staying slightly longer) and I never left Auckland. One of the things I hadn’t done last time I was there was visit a vineyard.

We got on a ferry downtown to Waiheke Island which is packed with vineyards. Instead on going on the bus wine tour and rushing all over the island we decided that we should pick one and just hang out there. We chose Stonyridge, beautiful views and slightly more pretentious than expected but the wine was pretty good and the platter of food we had with it (oysters, brie, artichoke hearts, olives, sun dried tomatoes …) was amazing.

For my last night of vacation we went to an Irish pub called Danny Doolan’s, ordered a few beers (I got to have my Radler again) and proceeded to consume more food than I thought physically possible (but it was so good). If that wasn’t enough we went down the street to a coffee shop and all got cake. The whole time I was devouring the delicious coffee cheesecake my stomach was furiously berating me.

It was time to go back. They are my parents and I love them but it was time to go back. I needed to be in my house with my routine and such. The next morning I left for the airport at six am at Dad’s insistence. I got through security and then proceeded to spend the next two and a half hours milling around the duty free shops looking for last minute mealofa for the people in my village.

New Computer Lab

2008-02-16T12:36:00.001-11:00

Before coming to Palalaua College I was told that the school had a brand new computer lab. I was a bit excited, to say the least, that my job would be so much easier. That was until I actually saw the lab, which was brand new… in 2005. There were six broken computers in the school library.

Well, given few other options, I did everything in my power to figure out how to fix them (using the Internet, calling other computer volunteers, reading books on hardware, even cajoling my friend Aaron into coming over to look at them). For a while all six worked and life was good. But slowly, over the course of the year they began to die one by one. Some of them could be revived for a time but by the end of the year there were only two working. This can be a problem for a class of about thirty students. Somehow, though, we made it through and people actually passed their national exam.

Now, in the beginning of last year once I was aware that there were only six computers, I arranged a meeting with two volunteers: Amos and Sone. They were working on a project to bring computers to primary schools all over the country. The project would donate the computers for free. I was unsure whether I would be able to get any but it was worth a shot. There was also the issue of donation. Schools in Samoa have gIn the beginning of August I got a call from Amos explaining that my ten computers were arriving in a month and that I needed to arrange a pick up.

Not having heard from the guys about the project in months, I hadn’t really expected the call. I had spent the previous eight months trying to get my school to raise money computers to no avail. Not that they weren’t motivated. They installed an air conditioning unit in the library and gave me 750 tala to repair our existing computers (which did work for a bit as a result). When I presented the computers to the school they immediately sprung into action. One of the older rooms was completely overhauled. The holes in the walls were fixed, desks and tables were built by the shop class, it was repainted, and then fitted with electrical outlets and an air conditioning unit. At graduation, the finished lab was presented to the pastors and matai of the village and I was given my very own set of keys (major moment).

Note on Sustainable Development: Most of Samoa has gotten used to living off of remittances from overseas. Family members who work overseas are always sending home money and various ‘necessities’ (cars, stereos, tvs, phones…). There are also the aid agencies and donations from the US, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan (the Japanese are constantly giving heaps of things to Samoa like schools and vehicles but don’t even get me started on that). The problem with relying on outside help is that people aren’t often motivated to raise money to buy things. Why buy anything if you can get it for free eventually by just waiting around for it? I want to leave knowing that the school is invested in their computers and won’t just let the program fall to the wayside. Even though they didn’t buy them themselves they put enough time and energy into the lab to make me feel that I’ve done something that has the potential to be sustainable.

Book List (so far)

2008-02-09T09:54:00.001-11:00

Peace Corps volunteers work very hard and there are constant demands on our time and ability. However, the truth of the matter is that we spend much of our time in our houses alone and in need of entertainment. Luckily many volunteers are very fond of reading and we all share books with each other. So here is the list of all the books I’ve read since I’ve been here (the only ones that I had read before Peace Corps were the first six Harry Potter books which I reread in anticipation of the 7th and Sideways Stories which I love too much to pass up). Some good, some bad, some amazing and some even terrible but I read them all:

1. Death Do Us Part
2. The Tao of Pooh
3. The Giver
4. The Handmaiden’s Tail
5. The Professor and the Madman
6. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
7. Into the Wild
8. Jane Eyre
9. The Lovely Bones
10. When I Was Gone
11. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
12. Sideways Stories from Wayside School
13. The Hatchet
14. About a Boy
15. Deadly!
16. Are you there God? It’s Me Margaret.
17. The Bell Jar
18. The Sex Lives of Cannibals
19. Twisters: Stories of the Sinister and Macabre
20. A Wrinkle in Time
21. The Wizard of Oz
22. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
23. Ella Minnow Pea
24. A Book of Bees
25. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
26. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
27. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
28. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
29. Bartlet and the Ice Voyage
30. The Kite Runner
31. The Secret of Platform 13
32. Which Witch
33. High Fidelity
34. Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood
35. My Uncle Oswald
36. Freakonomics
37. The Hound of the Baskervilles
38. Wicked
39. Nine Hills to Nambokaha
40. A Walk in the Woods
41. The Rescue
42. A Spot of Bother
43. The Gunslinger
44. Neither Here Nor There
45. Blink
46. A Child Called “It”
47. Getting Stoned with Savages
48. Five Quarters of the Orange
49. How We Die
50. In Harm’s Way
51. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
52. The Alchemist
53. Ender’s Game
54. The Bridge to Teribithia
55. Perfume
56. Under the Banner of Heaven
57. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
58. Tears of the Giraffe
59. The Six Pack II
60. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
61. The Celestine Prophecy
62. State of Fear
63. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
64. Braniac
65. Snow Falling on Cedars
66. Artemis Fowl
67. Sphere
68. On the Beach
69. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
70. Middlesex
71. Fast Food Nation
72. Ishmael
73. Atonement
74. Band of Brothers
75. As I Lay Dying
76. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
77. Life of Pi
78. In a Sunburned Country
79. French Women Don’t Get Fat
80. The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
81. Emergency Sex
82. Northern Lights

The Internet Field Trip

2008-02-09T09:48:00.001-11:00

I wasn’t able to set up an Internet connection for my school this year (that’s one of my major projects for next school year) but I couldn’t send my Year 13 out into the world without any idea of what the Internet was. The solution: an Internet Field Trip.

I started in town, talking to a few Internet cafés about my idea. I proposed that they give my students cheap Internet time and in return they have free publicity (as my students would tend towards their café and tell all their friends about it).

In the end, I met with a wonderful woman by the name of Tanuli who is the Manager of Sales for CSL (major Samoan Internet provider). She offered my students an hour for free at the CSL Internet Café and agreed to open the café before business hours so we could have it all to ourselves.

With a firm plan, I broached the subject to my principal who thought it was a great idea. The only problem would be transportation since we couldn’t depend on the school committee for money to rent anything. Luckily the students were looking forward to the trip so much that they agreed to talk to their parents about transportation. My host father could take the half of the class that lived in or around Siumu but there are students who live a good forty minutes away from school and needed to figure out other means of transport.

We waited to have the trip after the national exams when they have two weeks of nothing but prepping for prize giving and graduation (more on that later). A week before the trip I met with my Year 13 to discuss logistics and lecture them on the basics of the Internet and how to set up an email account. I told them our trip was going to be early in the morning (we had café time from 7:00am until 8:00am). “Miss, what about breakfast?” I told them that if they were able to work out rides, I would make them all breakfast. Somehow they heard “I will buy you breakfast at McDonalds” and I had to laugh each time one of my students approached me over the next week to ask about it. No, I will not buy you McDonalds; I actually don’t have any money.

Aside: McDonalds is one of the more upscale restaurants here and for me to buy each of my 16 students something to eat would cost me more money than I make in a week.

Instead I bought a dozen eggs, some chicken sausage, cheese and sliced white bread and made a batch of breakfast sandwiches which the boys wolfed down in minutes leaving a few of the girls with no breakfast at all. Samoa is a sharing culture especially when it comes to food but in retrospect, I should have known better than to leave a teenage boy in charge of the sandwich bag.

The trip was a huge success. Eleven out of the sixteen showed up and with all things considered that’s incredible. I had been afraid that I would only get two to come. The boys who lived on the far side of the island had been able to get a ride, they all were dressed in their school uniforms (something I had forgotten to tell them to do), and behaved themselves the entire trip.

One of their favorite parts was the fact that they each had their own computer. All year they had been forced to share the only ones that were working so for the most part they had to take turns on only two computers.

They all understood search engines, having played for hours with Encarta. Once they knew a few web addresses they were able to look up sports, music videos and games without any trouble at all. By the end all of them had set up email accounts (with the exception of one but I helped her set one up at a later date) and were emailing each other, signing out and then signing back in later to check what their classmates had written back.

Afterwards, the café staff took pictures of all of them. It appears that they were just as excited about the whole thing as we were. We had a brief talk about what to do when they came to the café by themselves then gathered our things and left just as the day’s first café users started wandering in.

We all got into my host father’s van and headed back to school with one stop by the side of the road so they could pick up snacks. I got them all back to school completely intact without incident and they even gave money (which I had told them to do, but come on, I didn’t have my hopes up) to help pay for petrol.

The best part comes one week later when I’m back in Apia running errands. I round the corner at the Internet café on my way to the bank and run into about five of my students coming out.

Samoan Wedding

2008-02-09T09:44:00.000-11:00

I’d never been to a Samoan wedding before but I had been to enough fa’alavelave (important events, like funerals and matai ceremonies) to know that it would probably be at least nine hours long. On top of the normal ceremony and celebration there would be the exchange of tinned fish, fine mats, and pigs, accompanied by many long matai (chief) speeches. It happens at all major events. And so, with this in mind, Laura and I headed over to the Mormon Church in Tafatafa at about 11:00am.

Tafatafa is Laura’s village. We visit each other so often that people in Siumu all know her and the people in Tafatafa all know me. Laura found out that one of her village friends, Tina, was getting married and when I congratulated her, I was inevitably invited to attend as well.

Alright, so back to the fact that we were planning on being at this wedding all day. Laura and I have lived here for a year but we are definitely not fluent in Samoan. Laura needs to speak it much more often so her Samoan is more advanced than mine but still, neither of us was going to understand the ceremony. So we were looking forward to hours of a ceremony we wouldn’t understand in a Mormon Church. Mormon ceremony = no alcohol. The Later Day Saints don’t drink, ever. Not even for wedding receptions. There was much time spent on trying to figure out how we could get our own supply in but there’s no drinking anything inside the church, not even water, so that wasn’t going to happen.

We got to the church and the ceremony seemed surprisingly fast. Upon reflection I realized that this was because it was just the ceremony. There was no service or lighting of candles or anything. Basically do you want to marry this woman, do you want to marry this man and then it’s over.

After the ceremony was the reception. Now, for Samoan receptions everyone in the village can come but only specific people get to sit at the tables, everyone else sits around outside the fale (open building). And it’s not like you get to pick who sits at your reception either. All the matai sit at the tables and the other important members of the village. Only the important members of your family will sit (the rest usually help serve). Everyone gets fed something but the good food is reserved for the people at the tables and wedding cake is not split amongst guests. It is divided amongst important people at the wedding and given out as a gift from the wedding family. A high chief might get an entire layer of the cake which gets wrapped up for him to take home. Dancing as well is done a certain way. Long tables are set up around the edges of the room so the floor in the center is open. It isn’t just everyone just dancing with each other. Certain people get called up to dance or people perform items for the bride and groom. Most of the people (who are sitting around the outside) just watch the entire time.

Since sitting at the tables is taken so seriously, you can imagine the overwhelming joy Laura and I felt when we were told that we were supposed to sit inside! Laura had been to a Samoan wedding before and hadn’t been allowed so we concluded that two Peace Corps combined must equal a chief and feeling very important indeed we took our seats.
When it came time for the dancing to begin first the bride came out and did a taupo (princess) dance. Then the groom did a dance. And it preceded from there with an announcer calling up each group of people that were to go up for each song (the bride’s family, the groom’s family, the maid of honor, …). Laura and I were so wrapped up in taking pictures and talking to the people around us that when the dancing floor was suddenly empty we were taken by surprise. It wasn’t until a few people next to Laura started to push us to get up that we realized that our names had been called out for this song.

Now, Laura and I have a bit of a reputation in Tafatafa. Laura herself is always quite outlandish at the dancing functions in her village but when I’m there as well we can usually bring down the house. At the last event we were at together we started a conga line (or at least tried until one very unpleasant matai put an end to it).

So the two of us got up, strutted to the center of the dance floor, and tangoed around the room to insane delight of everyone in attendance.

At the end of the reception there was the expected gifting of mealofa to all the important people. Pigs were given out, along with baskets of food and requisite tins of fish. Laura and I watched enviously as the cake was slowly divided amongst the matai. And then, suddenly, there was half of one of the smaller layers being presented to the two of us! Score!

We slipped out after most of the mealofa had been given out and people had begun milling around. All in all, the whole wedding was only three and a half hours. We practically skipped back to Laura’s house feeling as though we had won something. We spent the rest of the night celebrating our good fortune by mixing up some drinks and devouring most of our wedding cake.

The Catching of Palolo

2007-11-08T10:05:00.000-11:00

Eat 'em raw, eat 'em baked, eat 'em fried. So, what exactly are palolo? They look like worms but the actual palolo worm stays down in the coral. Once a year, about a week after the full moon at the end of October, they mate and all the reproductive material floats to the surface. Sound appetizing? Well that's why every year boatloads of Samoans are out in the water to catch them.

Last week my host father asked me if I would like to go catch the palolo. They would go out early in the morning for three days to try to catch them.

I had heard of this event before but last year around this time I was still in training and remarkably, given the partial oblivion I live in even now, I was less aware of my surroundings then, so hadn’t gone. I really had no idea what to expect I just knew that I wanted to go.

Day One

They told me to be ready to leave at three. I decided to wake up at two, just to be safe. At 2:20am they had the truck pulled out in front of my house and they were knocking on the door. I dumped my cup of coffee into my water bottle, grabbed my bag, and headed out.

I piled into the truck with my host father, a couple of the fishermen that usually rent my host family’s fishing boat, and one of the married couples from across the street that my host parents hang out with. We got down to the beach (about a two minute drive) and waded out to the metal fishing boat. My host family’s blue canoe was lashed to the side.

No one else was on the water as we motored our way towards the coral on the inside of the reef. As I was sitting there, the fact that it was three in the morning began to hit my body. I laid down on the deck with my head on my bag, fully prepared to go to sleep.

“Meka, what is wrong?” I had concerned Rosalia (the married woman who lives across the street). I explained that I was fine, just a little tired. As I closed my eyes, I marveled at the fact that none of them appeared tired and they were all up later than I was.

I woke up about half an hour later to find nearly everyone else on the boat passed out. My host father, it appeared, had just woken up momentarily to check the water with his flashlight. Nothing yet. We all went back to sleep. It continued that way for the next few hours. At one point I woke up to find our boat surrounded by about thirty canoes. Everyone else had shown up but there still was no sign of the palolo.

At about 5:30, the sun started to come up and still we had found nothing. It was decided that there would be no palolo today and we would have to try our luck again tomorrow. Great, there are no palolo when the palagi (“foreigner”) comes along. I figured this wouldn’t bode well and when I sadly recounted that morning with my friend and coworker, Lineta, she explained that my white face must have scared the palolo away. I anxiously began to wonder what would happen if the palolo failed to appear on the second night. Would I be deemed ‘cursed’ and not allowed to come out again?

Day Two

The next morning there were more people in the truck. Another couple from across the street and my host mother had joined us. When I got on the boat this time, Rosalia pointed out the bundle of jackets she had brought along for me to use as a pillow. Nice.

Same as the night before, we all napped, waking up periodically to check for the palolo. At around four, they finally showed up. My host father, untethered the canoe, grabbed a bucket, a flashlight and a net and took off. The rest of us stood around the edges of the fishing boat with our nets to scoop the palolo out of the water.

Quickly let’s go over basic palolo gear:
1. Net: the nets have a wooden frame that resembles a tennis racket
2. Bucket/Basket: these all had cloth in them to hold the palolo and to allow the excess water to run into the bottom
3. Flashlight: on the second night the sky was cloudy and it was hard to see if there was actually anything in the nets so we used flashlights. I had my headlamp that Laura gave me and found that to be ideal for catching.

The palolo look like broken strands of blue and yellow angel hair pasta. Upon closer inspection they look like something that could be a parasite if it really wanted. I kind of imagined heaps of them rising to the surface that we would just shovel out but they are much more intermittent than that and have to be caught.

Before I knew it the water was filled with canoes. The people who passed close to my side of the fishing boat all laughed and shouted, “Malo Meka!” (“Good Job Meghan!”).

There I was, standing in a fishing boat, covered in sea water, netting worms out of the ocean, surrounded by my village. Peace Corps moment. The rest of the day, I was so tired I had to fight to keep my eyes open but I had garnered a certain respect.

Day Three

I decided not to go out on the third day and used the time to sleep instead. Later I was told that there had been no palolo and without missing a beat I explained that there were no palolo because I was not there. This was very well received.

Sweet As

2007-10-21T16:38:00.000-11:00

Alright, so it’s been quite some time since I was in New Zealand but it wasn’t until the school year started to wind down that I had time to write all this up. Sorry for the delay.

On August 31st, at some ungodly time my friend Molly and I grabbed our packs and piled into the cab that would take us to the vegetable market. We needed to catch the bus that would take us to the airport.

The sun was just rising as we took off at about 6:30am. I sat in my comfortable seat, ate my fabulous New Zealand Air warm breakfast option (you may think that this is being said with sarcasm but funnily enough, it’s not), and watched Shrek the Third while sipping complementary mimosas.

And so, we left Samoa and entered a land of hobbits, kiwis, and All Blacks or more importantly, a land of good beer, hot showers, and chai tea lattes.

Auckland

There were many moments on this trip when Molly and I would revel in something small and insignificant that over the past year we had long forgotten that we even missed. My first moment occurred on the plane when I realized that I could wash my hands in hot water. Hot water! Why waste such a refinement on transportation?

We landed four hours later on the 1st of August (Samoa and New Zealand are on opposite sides of the International Date Line but when it’s 10am in New Zealand it’s 11am here, so there is no jet lag) and caught a van to our hostel. When Molly and I stepped into the elevator we bust into giggles. It had been awhile. We dropped our packs off, grabbed our books, and walked across the street to Starbucks. We definitely had our priorities.

When we were planning this trip, the overall goal was to relax. There was no desire to bungee jump or sky dive, we definitely were not going on the Lord of the Rings tours (yes, we are dorks but there are limits), and since we wanted to spend a few days in each of the places we visited we restricted our trip to only the North Island. This was not to the South Island’s discredit in any way; it’s supposedly quite breathtakingly beautiful. We simply wanted this vacation to be a vacation. Our major interests: coffee shops, book stores, restaurants, and pubs.

Staying in New Zealand Hostels was like college dorm life all over again. You meet the people in your room and tell your life stories, everyone shares a kitchen downstairs, and there are places to watch movies, use internet, or share books. Most important of all, there were laundry facilities and hot showers.

Outside of Apia, the only way to wash your clothes is in a bucket and clothes don’t exactly come out smelling Tide fresh. The weather is humid all year round and mold grows with vengeance so my clothes are not exactly at their best. After a few days of hot showers and freshly laundered clothes, I felt like a new person.

Back to our first day: After our Starbucks fix we wandered around town, visiting a few open air markets and ending up at the Borders. It was so wonderful to be in a book store again but books in New Zealand are ridiculously priced. A book you could get in the states for about fifteen bucks would be somewhere between 50 and 60 NZD (even if you do the conversion, it’s a stupidly high price). So, without books, we headed back to our hostel where we met up with another Peace Corps friend, Derek, who had just completed his service. We spent the night in a pub playing, or rather attempting to play, pool and trying different beers until a group of guys politely relieved us of the pool table and we decided to go to bed. The day after we arrived in Auckland we caught a bus heading South to Rotorua.

We had reserved backpacker bus passes before leaving Samoa. It was like a tour bus but much cooler. Its only purpose was to take us from city to city. Once we got where we were going, everyone was dropped off at separate hostels and toured the area on their own. The people we met on the bus were from all over the world but we were all about the same age. The bus company runs on constant circuits so you can stay in any place as long as you want then hop on the bus when you’re ready to leave.

Before leaving Auckland, the bus brought us up Mt. Eden, a long extinct volcano that overlooked the city. It had a deep, grass covered crater and provided a view that looked far down North Island.

Waitomo

On our way down to Rotorua, the bus stopped in Waitomo (water entering a hole in the ground) for a few hours so we could visit the Glowworm Caves.

So what are glowworms? The adult glowworms look like large mosquitoes. Their only function is to reproduce. They don’t even have mouths and only live for a few days. About twenty days after the eggs are laid, larvae hatch and this is when the glowworm gets interesting. The larvae, only about three millimeters in length, build nests and put down longs sticky feeding lines to trap insects. When an insect is caught, the larvae will draw up the line and devour it. To attract the insects in the dark, the larvae emit a faint glow. With thousands of larvae nestled in the craggy roof of the cave, the ceiling looks like a clear night sky full of stars.

The tour that we took was just the basic cave tour and the first half looked very much like every other cave tour I’ve ever been on (yeah Crystal Caves) but once we reached the water level of the cave we all got into this metal boat and followed the water out of the cave. Our guide stood up in the boat and pulled it along by raised guide wires. The trip was surreal and silent, the only thing you could see were the tiny pin pricks of light.

Rotorua

In late afternoon we got to Rotorua and arrived in the worst hostel of our stay. It had a few perks. Well, one perk. The pool in the center was a hot spring and that was rather nice but apart from that... If you guys at YHA Rotorua are reading this I would just like to say that your rooms are sorely out of date, you are much to far out of town and depriving your nonmember guests of sheets only further aggravates them.

That night Molly and I decided to head into town for a real dinner. And we found it at the Pig & Whistle (an old police station turned restaurant): A beautiful, thick pumpkin soup with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, followed by cheese cake. Does life get any better than that?

Let me take the time out to say that New Zealand is chilly this time of year. It’s right near the end of their winter season. We were coming from a year on a tropical island so while it was like late fall during the day, at night there were times that we were freezing. It was wonderful to feel cold again.

The next morning we took a walk through the small geothermal park that sits on the edge of the city. There were paths that wound around small bubbling pools and there was steam everywhere. For breakfast we ate at the highly recommended Fat Dog Café (hot chocolate and an egg, ham, and tomato muffin, I know that most of you might not care so much what we ate during this trip but to me all the food was incredible and I can still remember the taste in my mouth). We walked around Rotorua to look at all the shops, stopped at Zippy’s for another coffee/tea break (eight ball: shot of espresso and a scope of ice cream) and for dinner went out to Amazing Thai (if I ever owned a Thai restaurant that is probably what it would be called).

That night we decided to try out the hot spring pool and lacking bathing suits (for God knows what reason, but neither of us packed them) we went swimming in our underwear when we thought everyone else was asleep. As it turns out, not everyone was asleep...

We left Rotorua the next day and on the bus radio, much to our great delight, we heard Samoan rap sensation, King Kapisi’s song “Screams from the Old Plantation.” Go Samoa Go.

Driving around New Zealand was breathtaking. The landscape is diverse and rich. We passed through open plains, dense forests, mountain ranges (oh look there’s Mt. Doom; no look over there, that’s Mt. Doom; no up ahead, that has to be Mt. Doom), and long stretches of bright green hills. I had kind of heard of the quantity of sheep before I came but I was completely unaware of the sheer volume. There are sheep everywhere. The rolling hills are all covered in fluffy dots of white.

Taupo

We got to Taupo on Wednesday afternoon and decided that we should start making food at the hostel instead of going out for every meal. We went to the grocery store and loaded up on the foods we had been missing (whole grain bread, lunch meat, feta cheese, fruit, good red wine, and so on). I also found mixed M&Ms (plain, peanut, and crunch all in one bag) which is a brilliant idea and a shame that they aren’t sold in the States.

This was the day that Molly finally bought sneakers. She hadn’t brought any to Samoa and so spent the past four days wearing her flip-flops (while wearing pants, two shirts, a coat, a hat, and gloves). Some might think this is ridiculous behavior but if you knew Molly you would also know that this is completely typical.

That night we decided to go out. On our way to this pub called Mulligan’s, we ran into some of the other people on our bus heading home for the night. As it was only eleven, we scoffed and went in for a beer. After a couple drinks, we headed down the street to Holy Cow, recommended by our Lonely Planet guide. At first it seemed to be too early. There weren’t many people but Molly and I grabbed some drinks and went out on the dance floor anyway. After a bit we acquired a following and before we knew it there were about fourteen New Zealand guys who were definitely intrigued by the American Peace Corps girls. The music was awesome and we were completely relaxed (there’s no way anyone in my village was going to find out). I hadn’t had such a fun night in awhile.

On Thursday we packed lunches and walked along the edge of Lake Taupo and up one of the hills to the Botanical Garden. It wasn’t so much a botanical garden as it was just paths through the woods but we had a lovely lunch even though halfway back to our hostel we gave in and called a cab to take us the rest of the way. For dinner we ate at Hell Pizza where we got a Wrath (Pepperoni, Onions, Peppers, Tomatoes, Chili) and an Envy (Salami, Ham, Bacon, Onions, Mushrooms, Pineapple). These were only two of the twenty-four different varieties that they have.

We caught the bus to Wellington the next day.

Wellington

We spent about three days in Wellington and they were spent in much the same manner that the rest of our trip had been: coffee shops, second hand bookshops, browsing local stores, listening to street musicians, and so on. We went to Te Papa which is the fabulous Wellington New Zealand and saw exhibitions on local wildlife, modern art, and Maori history. One of the nights we were there we tried a restaurant called Kai (Maori for food), which Lonely Planet must have mentioned at least five times. It was a Maori fusion restaurant. I had the Heihei (chicken) with sweet potatoes and sparkling wine. I was pretty sure that the only part of the meal that was ‘Maori’ was the fact that chicken was involved but I enjoyed the meal nonetheless. After dinner we went to see a play. A real play. As in theater and culture and whatnot. It was called The Winslow Boy and was based on a true story that took place in New Zealand during the fight for women’s suffrage.

I got to meet up with my middle school friend Rebecca, who is going to school in Wellington. It was like we’d never been separated. We hadn’t had a full conversation since we were about fourteen but we talked on and on and it was wonderful. That night, Molly, Rebecca, and I hit a couple of Irish pubs (Murphy’s and Molly Malones), tried the infamous Kiwi Burger, and got to listen to live music (it’s been a while since either Molly or I have seen a live band).

Napier

On Sunday we headed to Napier for the night. We didn’t end up seeing much of the city but we got to spend the night at the prison. The old Napier Prison had been refurbished as a hostel. Parts of it had the same foreboding appearance but some of it gave off the disquieting impression of an Auntie Muriel’s living room with little couch cushions, hand knitted blankets, and a giant, lazy cat.

The bathrooms were very clean but they were still the outside ones. When Molly and I checked in with the three guys from our bus, the manager pulled us aside and said he wanted to apologize to the ladies for the rest room facilities (poor dear had no idea to whom he was speaking, the bathrooms were nicer than the one in my house).

Mt. Maunganui

We didn’t have much time in Mount Maunganui, it was near dusk when we got there. The staff at Pacific Coast Backpackers was delightful. They work a lot with our bus line so when we arrived they had laid out tea, cakes, and snacks for us to eat while we took turns checking in. We also noticed that as part of their outside landscaping they had planted taro (one of the food staples of Samoa) and decided that might be just ridiculous enough to be cool.

The city has a large bay to the West, the Pacific Ocean to the East, and looming on the North end is the mountain. After we got our room we headed back out to watch the sun set over Pilot Bay. As we walked through the streets we realized we might not make it in time and started to hurry up. We cut through a field and began to jog down the streets to make it to the docks. By the time we broke through the tree line we were running. We dashed down the wharf and stood in awe of the last twenty seconds of sunset.

The next morning we woke up around five and scrambled down to the beach. We were much more successful this time and got to see the sunrise over the Pacific (not that we don’t see that often enough but it was still beautiful). Once we got back to the hostel it was almost time to leave once again, this time heading back to Auckland.

The Return Home

We got back to Auckland on Tuesday the 11th and spent the day buying last minute mealofa (gifts) for our coworkers and my host family. On our last night we went out for pizza and beer and ended up doing a small bar crawl around Central Auckland with a couple of the friends we had made on the bus. New Zealand makes one brand of soda (the rest is imported) called L&P. It’s a strong, lemony drink that I had tried but was not very fond of. Rumor on the bus had it that it was fantastic, though, with Southern Comfort. At the last bar we went to we were determined to see if this was true. The four of us sauntered up to the bar man and ordered our drinks. Tragedy! They were out of L&P. He saw the desperation in our faces and told us that if we went to the dairy (convenience store) down the street and got some, he would only charge us for the SoCo. I must say, that SoCo certainly did wonders. The floor-cleaner taste of the L&P was completely glazed over and the drink was delicious.

The next morning we left our hostel and caught the airport shuttle.

So, after our twelve day tour of the North Island, we were finally back at the airport about to head home. Of course, before leaving there was a stop at the duty free shops (passengers traveling from New Zealand to Samoa are allowed 1 liter of alcohol). We got to our terminal and found ourselves among Samoans. When the plane arrived fifty minutes late I felt like I was already back in country again.

As we were landing, the flight attendants began to distribute the declaration forms. They only had the versions in Samoan and asked who would like one (the rest of the passengers would have to fill it out once we landed). Molly and I proudly raised our hands (excuse me stewardess, I speak jive). Even though we fumbled our way through the forms, we looked damn cool in the process.

New Zealand Favorites

Drinks: premixed Jim Beam & Coke, Monteith’s Radler
Animal: the morepork (‘cause seriously, what an awesome name)
City: Wellington
Coffee Shop: Pandoro Panetteria

*sweet as is common New Zealand slang and is kind of like sweet or cool in the American vernacular.

The New Addition

2007-08-10T16:03:00.000-11:00

When I first moved into my house in late January my host family and about five of their relatives poured into the house and listed all of the improvements that they planned to make: a new paint job, curtains, a table, a desk, a cabinet for my dishes, and a new bathroom. Most of which were obtained with the disappointing exception of the bathroom.

After about two months, I began to accept that a bathroom was never going to happen when one day some men came and dug a six foot deep hole behind my house. My proud host parents explained that they were starting to build the bathroom. I was ecstatic. In my enthusiasm I bragged of my bathroom to my Peace Corps neighbors. I excitedly told the news to my family back in the states. If there is such a thing as Karma, it exists in concentrated quantities in the Peace Corps. It seemed as though my mere excitement had jinxed the operation. Construction stopped immediately.

Over the months I got used to my system of getting water. Showers were taken on the other side of the compound. The pipes in our village very rarely work and when they do, there’s not enough water pressure for the shower pipe to work. So, I honed my skills at taking bucket showers. I would grab all my soaps, my towel, my clothes, and a bucket. Then I would tramp to the other side of the compound, fill up my bucket from the pipe or, if the pipe wasn’t working, from a large barrel of collected rain water. I could shut myself in the concrete shower and have my bucket shower there. It’s not really the bucket shower that I minded. It was more the time that needed to be invested.

When I needed to do dishes I filled up my bucket with dishes, carried it over to the pipe and washed them outside. On days when the pipe wasn’t working and I had to use the rain water it took me twice as long.

I used the toilet that was in the family’s main house (which thankfully was hooked up to a water tank and so always had water). This was mostly a problem at night. I can’t go outside in just my shorts and t-shirt so I would need to get up, find a lavalava, grab my flashlight, and a roll of toilet paper. I locked my house behind me and headed over to the main house.

Now, I don’t want you to think I’m complaining about this. My family does these things every day and I was quite capable of doing them myself. The only cause for discomfort was the idea of my own bathroom nagging in the back of my mind. If I ever forgot there was the ginormous hole behind my house to remind me.

It wasn’t until much later that I learned of all the village red tape that was holding up the construction of my bathroom. It seems that within the School Committee (the village group that funds my housing) there was a disagreement among the matai (village chiefs). Village politics are nearly completely controlled by the matai so if they don’t want something done, it doesn’t get done. Again I resigned myself to not having a bathroom.

It was like going through the stages of grief. I was infuriated, saddened, and frustrated by the fight in the school committee but over time I came to accept the reality of my situation. I could do this. I could spend the rest of my service using the family’s water sources. In all reality it wasn’t that big of a deal. What ever doesn’t kill you, right?

I pretty much had my system down and was falling into regular patterns when I came home one day to find the hole had been filled in with concrete. What did this mean? I couldn’t even let the idea formulate. That would be too good to be true and I didn’t want to set myself up for disappointment again. I decided to wait it out.

I would like to point out how little I am aware of the goings-on here.

Suddenly men were coming every day and hammering things, pouring concrete and it looked like they were actually building something. My host family told me that it was my new bathroom but after a few preliminary questions I didn’t push the matter further. What if something happened and they couldn’t finish? I felt like telling anyone would jinx it. I watched as they connected the bathroom to my front room. I watched as they built a water tank so that I wouldn’t run out of water (water tanks collect rain water so as long as it rains every once in a while, I will have water and I don’t have to rely on our village pipes). It wasn’t until they were actually tiling the finished shower that I began to speak of it but, even then, only in a whisper. After it was finished, I used it a few times before proclaiming that it was complete. I even waited a few weeks to post anything in the off chance that that whole section of my house spontaneously combusted.

Now it is finished, a shower and toilet of my very own. I can get water for my filter and wash my dishes in the shower. I don’t have to go out in the rain or in the middle of the night. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to make this post. I don’t think I’ve ever fully appreciated anything like I do this.

Samoan Respect

2007-05-21T16:54:00.000-11:00

Just as America has its own set of faux-pas and cultural standards, there are a few aspects of Samoan culture that needed to be learned when we first got here so we would avoid offending. Though we still sometimes offend by accident, people see that we’re trying and will forgive us. A few of the major things to always keep in mind:

1. Do not wear shoes into a house or open fale. Leave them at the door.

2. Never stand up while you are talking to someone who is sitting. Enter the room, sit down, and then begin to speak.

3. There are many occasions where you will be sitting on the floor with people. Never point your feet towards them. Always sit either cross legged or tuck your feet to the side. After meetings and prayers people are often told that they can relax, in other words, stretch out their feet. In such cases, feet should be pointed away from everyone.

4. When walking between two people talking to each other bow your head and say “Tulou.” Pronounced “Too-Low.”

5. When eating a meal with a family or at work, a prayer is always said first before eating.

6. Do not stand while eating or drinking.

Culture Day

2007-05-07T16:18:00.000-11:00

For the past month the students at my school have been preparing for Culture Day, a competition and all day celebration of Samoan culture. The school is split into four houses: red, yellow, blue, and green. Each of these houses has students from each year (year 9 – year 13) and is assigned a few of the teachers. My house was the red house.

Everyone had a specific uniform for the day. House leaders went to Apia and chose a fabric design in the house color. Each student needed to purchase some of this material and have an i’e (for boys) or a puletasi (for girls) made. We teachers had our own design in brown. The female teachers all had puletasi and the males had traditional shirts made and wore plain brown i’e faitaga with them. After I got my fabric, my host mother sewed my puletasi for me.

The parents and the school committee all come to watch the performances. The school committee (all Matai) was served both breakfast and lunch. The food was excellent and since the teachers spent most of the day behind the scenes, we got to eat the leftovers.

There were numerous portions of the competition:

Fa’alavelave
The groups had to perform a ceremonial fa’alavelave. This type of ceremony is used during large events such as funerals, weddings, and births. One family will come before the family hosting the event and there is an exchange of gifts. The houses took it in turns so that each house paid respect once and received respect once.

Handcrafts
Two representatives from each house came forward and had to weave a mat from palm leaves. They were judged on their technique.

Umu
Each house had to prepare a traditional Samoan meal. They were each given an area on the school property to build their umu (traditional cooking pit built with stones) and cook their food. They made chicken, soups, pigs, palusami, and taro.

Legends
Each house chose a different Samoan legend and had to act it out. They made props (my house made a small mountain out of leaves and branches) and costumes. They told the stories through song, dance, and dialogue. The Green house had an excellently staged fight and the Yellow house actually used fire.

The Red house told the story of Vaia. This is the story, as it was translated to me:
Vaia fell in love with a beautiful woman who had four brothers. When she became pregnant the brothers wanted to bring her home for the birth. Vaia said he would wait for her and stood stoically on a hill long after her brothers had taken her away in their canoe. Once the child was born, the four brothers devoured it, leaving only the head for the woman to take back to Vaia. Distraught, she returned but Vaia had waited so long he had turned into a mountain. The woman’s tears became the river that runs along side the mountain.

Dancing
The last part of the competition was the dances. Each house had a Sasa, a Taupo, and a normal Siva. Some of the boys serve as drummers and all the students sing. One of the girls from each house serves as the leader. She gets her own costume and is adorned with beads and colorful feathers. She introduces her house, explains the legend, and acts almost like a conducter, keeping the beat and directing the singing

The Sasa is a dance done while sitting down. Most of the moves used pantomime daily activities: rowing a canoe, collecting coconuts, weaving a mat, etc.

The Taupo (word for princess) is a traditional dance that was done by the village princess. Each house chose about four students to be their Taupo, they are dressed traditionally and dance in the front of the group while village boys dance in a half circle behind them. The boys are never to touch the Taupo.

The normal Siva (word for dance) is the regular Samoan dance (conducted while standing).

The winners of Culture Day 2007: Yellow House. Talofai Red House (means That’s too bad Red House).

Samoan Wildlife

2007-04-20T16:29:00.001-11:00

Almost all mammals were brought to Samoa, with the exception of three different species of bat. There are no parrots or monkeys, a fact which still remains a major disappointment. There are, of course, cows, pigs, and chickens. There are also horses but they are only used as work horses to help carry crops and wood from the plantation (The families that live out in the village nearly all have a plantation. The word plantation probably brings up visions of cotton fields when in actuality it’s pretty much a piece of jungle. There are coconut trees, banana trees, taro plants, sugar cane, etc grow in large wild masses in back of the property. Girls typically never go to work in the plantation.) or bring materials to the next village. There are numerous species of birds, cats, fish, octopus, eels, lobster, giant clams, and so on. We’re lucky in that we don’t have many sharks or jelly fish and there are no poisonous spiders and no snakes.

So let’s discuss the interaction I have with animals (barring food) on a daily basis.

Wild Dogs

Though we have wild cats, it’s the wild dogs that are by far more impressive. The run around in motley packs claiming territory and fighting off other packs. In some places the dogs are pretty bad and we have to carry rocks with us. We also have to be careful biking past them when we’re riding bikes. I haven’t really been attacked by strange dogs yet but other people have.

My Dogs

Though it’s rare to ‘have pets’, many people keep dogs on the property and feed them. They are excellent for protection and I’ve even seen some that have been trained (trained/allowed) to herd the cattle. My host family has two dogs: Tiger, a dark sandy colored female, and Blackie, a long black haired male. They love it when I come out of my house at night (that’s usually when they’re awake) and they follow me around the compound.

Household Creepy Crawlies

Centipedes
Centipede bites hurt. Luckily I have not yet received one but I hear that they hurt. A lot. For days. The centipedes grow to about a foot in length and like to get into things like sheets and clothes lying on the floor. I once picked up my bag and one fell out. I very calmly and deftly smashed it into bits with my hammer. After leaving it on the floor for a good twenty minutes to make sure that it was indeed dead, I threw the pieces outside.

African Snails
An invasive species brought over on boats forever ago. The snails look awesome. Like everything else, they’re much larger than they should be. However, I’ve heard that they can carry meningitis and so decided that they must be killed. Never having tried the salt on the snail trick as a child, I thought, why not? and found it to be ideal (if you can get over the shrill sizzling noises that sounds awfully close to a miniscule scream). The snails curl up into their shells and die and you avoid the mess that would result from smashing them.

Bedbugs
Yes, real bedbugs; tiny little bugs that bite you in your sleep. Can be taken care of by periodically leaving the mattress outside in the sun (harder to do in the rainy season) and spraying it down with bug spray.

Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes are everywhere. We wear bug repellent all the time and sleep either under a mosquito net or with a mosquito coil burning. Though there is no malaria in Samoa, there is dengue fever. You won’t die but it still sucks.

Spiders and Geckos
These two are always welcome in my house. Geckos poop everywhere and the spiders can be as large as my hand but they eat the mosquitoes.

Ants
Ants are pretty much ever present and if you leave any food out they will get into it. However, they don’t carry disease so they’re easy to live with. I usually spray around the house every so often to keep them in check.

Mice
The only things I really have issue with are the mice. And by mice I probably mean rats because these things are huge. I saw a picture of a Polynesian rat and it looks very similar to what I have but I shall call them mice because saying I have mice in my house is one thing, saying I have rats only seems to compound the problem. Sooner or later the mice will learn that you keep food in your house and will make attempts to move in. I have found it a constant battle. Luckily my host mother and I have joined forces in the fight to eradicate mice from the compound. We have been using poison and have recently expanded our tactics to include glue traps. For some time I’ve been frustrated because all of the poison was getting eaten and I was not seeing any of the fruits of my labor (though the fact that my house is not full of dead mice is probably a good thing). I’m sure the intruders had met their doom somewhere out in the plantation but there had been no confirmed kills. However, just this week, I came across a twitching mouse in the hallway of the main house. I couldn’t contain my excitement. I ran outside to tell my host mother: “Fiasiumu, we got one!” She quickly came around to the back of the house. I swept or rather used a broom to roll the mouse out behind the car port where she promptly threw a rock at its head. Sweet, sweet victory.

Easter

2007-04-09T09:04:00.000-11:00

Service was supposed to start at nine so it was a good thing that Molly and I showed up at 7:30 because the service actually started at 8. Unsurprisingly Easter is a pretty big deal in Samoa (if you weren’t aware, it is a very Christian nation). I go to the Pentecostal church with my host brother every Sunday. For Easter, parishioners from each of the Pentecostal churches in Samoa all come together for five days of worship. I decided to go for Easter Sunday and Molly decided to come with me.

We showed up in Vaitele and were directed behind the church where about three hundred people (not everyone from every church could make it) were having breakfast. We got fed and then we all headed in and sat down for what proved to be a four hour service (completely in Samoan). It was great though, singing, dancing, and a communion of blessed sugar cookies and shots of kool-aid. The people from my village were ecstatic that I had showed up.

After the morning services was lunch. It is traditional on Sundays to have a large lunch and oh my, the amount of food: fried chicken, egg salad, seafood salad, beef salad, taro, yams, cake, cookies, and countless liters of ice cream. It must be awesome to be a kid on Easter, they got to run around with all their friends eating more ice cream and cookies than one would think physically possible. Afterwards there was a three hour break before evening mass.

It seemed that each congregation was being hosted by a family in the area. My congregation was all staying with a family in Vailoa so we made our way back via a few round trips of the Pastor’s van. When Molly and I arrived, there was my church, changed out of their morning church things into more comfortable clothes all sitting in and around a traditional fale [fa-lay] (open Samoan house) singing songs, taking naps, eating lunch leftovers. Their bags and things they had brought for the weekend were neatly piled against the inner sides and clothes were drying from lines in and out of the house. They all greeted us and drew us into the fale giving us pillows to sleep on. I have belonged to one church or another for eighteen years of my life but I have never felt the sense of community that I did in that moment.

At three thirty we headed back to Vaitele. Evening mass was another three hours with more singing, more dancing, presentations from different churches (they sang songs or danced traditional Samoan dances to represent their church), and emotional confessions/blessings. Afterwards was more food: fried chicken, pork, boiled bananas, sausage, beef salad, and niu. By this time Molly and I were exhausted, so my church brought us back to Vailoa and put us in a cab so we could go back to Molly’s place. They all waved and said goodnight, making sure that we had enjoyed ourselves and giving us a heap of left-over food to take with us in case we got hungry.

Of Late

2007-04-07T17:15:00.000-11:00

I know that I post so rarely and for that I’m sorry guys. Things happen so quickly and it’s easy to get swept up in it. Thanks for those of you who check often! So here are a few things that have been taking over my life recently:

School Cs:

The Samoan School Certificates (SSC) are country wide exams for the Year 12 students. They try to get one for each of their subjects and need a certain amount to continue on to Year 13. They can only get into university if they get through the PSSC (region wide certificates) in Year 13 so if they don’t make it to Year 13 at all there is really no chance for them to get any higher education.

Let me take a minute to discuss this. Like many other countries, the number of universities in Samoa is extremely limited. There are two. Our school program is not as demanding as, say China or India, so these kids don’t really have opportunity elsewhere unless their families can afford to educate them early on overseas. There’s a lot of training programs (for secretarial work, the tourism industry, etc) so it’s not always either university or working on the family plantation for the rest of your life but still, I want these kids to succeed.

Alright, back to School Cs. Each SSC isn’t just an exam but consists of Internal Assessments that are taken throughout the year as well. For most subjects teachers get an IA outline that gives them a little leeway when it comes to selecting specifics. For Computer Studies (my subject) this is how it works: Throughout the year the Ministry of Education, Sports, and Culture (yeah, I know) sends me four different CATs (Common Assessment Tasks). Each one is an activity the kids must complete on the computer (on file management, word processing, spreadsheets, and databases). I receive the CAT in the mail, I administer it, I save the results of all my kids onto a single CD and then I send the CD and my marking sheets back to the MESC to get approved. The activity is basically a sheet of tasks (make a new folder, open notepad and type the following). In the third term, there is a final project. The teachers are allowed to select the project as long as it follows certain guidelines and is approved by the MESC. My proposal is going through the ministry right now. Some of the project examples are brochures, posters, invitations, anything really that allows them to combine text and graphics. The projects are collected and evaluated in the same way as the CATs. All four CATs and the major project are all International Assessment and make up most of the final SSC grade. The last part of the grade comes from the exam at the end of the year (external assessment). This is a written exam that covers everything from common errors to hardware functions.

As a first year teacher, this whole process is actually a bit daunting, especially considering:
1. I had no real idea how the School Cs worked beforehand and it has taken me until very recently to really understand the process. There is so much that people assume you know.
2. My kids have never touched a computer before they had my class and only know about them from TV and movies. Now they're expected to understand the interplay between the RAM, the CPU, and the hard drive that occurs when a document is being saved in word. Just imagine that you didn't have your lifetime of experience and were suddenly expected to learn EVERYTHING within the span of a school year when you only have a few hours a week if you're lucky.

They just sat the CAT1 on file management and what an adventure it was. Twenty-eight Year 12 students, five computers. The ministry suggests that each student be given around forty minutes to complete the task and that they all take it the same day so that they're all on equal ground. On the days I have my Year 12, I have them for an hour and forty minutes. I decide this can be done, we'll just spill into after school if we need to (I have them the last two periods of the day) and take turns. Oh wait, let's throw in a faulty computer that keeps freezing on the kids (that brings us down to four) and half-way through the exam, for kicks, let the power go out. Well, it all worked out in the end, sort of, and I dropped the stuff off at the ministry. File management (creating new folders, saving files into specific folders, moving or copying files from one folder to another) is a very difficult concept for my kids. They actually did better with hardware, mainly because that stuff can all be memorized. Some of these kids have never used actual folders before and the idea of copy/paste is so foreign that it needs to be revisited in class all the time. The kids are great though, simply awesome. They knew the first CAT had been hard for them and the next morning they came to my lab to ask me what would be next and how they should practice for it. I made up some Word activities and set them to work. They've been practicing every free period they have and have been asking to stay after school. The CAT isn't' for another three weeks. I'm amazed by them.

As for my Year 13 students, my principal decided that they shouldn't sit the PSSC for computer studies this year. They are at the same level as Year 12 and the PSSC is much harder so I agreed. I'm teaching them more practical stuff and I'm able to take my time with them.

My Host Family

My house is on a family's property. There are three people in my host family: my host parents Fiasiumu [Fee-ah-see-ooo-moo] (host mom) and Tagiao [Ta-ngee-ow] and my seventeen-year-old host brother Ulavale [Oo-la-va-lay]. When I first came into the Peace Corps I had never wanted to live with a host family but I could not be happier with mine. I have my own house and since there are no little kids, I have a lot of privacy. Plus, I get to make my own food (though I usually eat with them on Sundays after church) which helps (though sadly not too much) in making sure I'm getting enough nutrition. Not only is it safer to live with a family, but they can always tell when I've had a bad day and will usually have me come sit with them or make me food. I never considered before how amazingly good it is to have people to come home to when days are rough. They provide me with so much, like electricity, water, rides when I need them, and it is Samoan culture to give back so I try to help them in any way I can. I help my host mom get materials for the preschool she runs in the house, I help my host brother figure things out on his computer or simply give him homework help. I'm also always on hand if they can't figure out something with their TV, VCR, or DVD player (access to a DVD player, another host family bonus).

Peace Corps in General

Emotions run extremely high in the Peace Corps. There are days spent in the depths of despair as you try to resolve what purpose you serve here. There often isn't a lot of appreciation. Leaving family and friends to fly to the other side of the world just to help only to encounter certain people that treat you like they don't want you here is emotionally tumultuous. There are days though when things just seem to work, you successfully proposed a new project, your students finally understand the concept you've been explaining and reexplaining or you even have a moment where you feel you've been accepted, you feel like you belong. You have to find the good things amid the bad and savor them because they are the reason you came in the first place.

Samoan Funeral

2007-03-02T17:27:00.000-11:00

Firstly, it has been my experience that whenever I participate in any Samoan cultural event I miss countless subtle details and very rarely have a good idea about what is going on, so please keep in mind that this experience is being told from my point of view and there probably are several points which have been missed or misinterpreted.

The mother of my vice principal passed away and so a few of the teachers at my school, the principal, and some of the village matai (chiefs) prepared to go visit the family to represent the village and the school. They decided to bring me so that I might experience more Samoan tradition.

We piled into two trucks along with about fifteen fine mats, a bolt of lace, a bolt of fabric and a huge wreath of flowers painted gold. We all wore traditional Samoan clothes: puletasi for the woman and ie faitaga for the men. When we got to the house we formed a procession. I was put in front, holding the wreath. Behind me, the others held out the fabric and the lace in a long line like a train. We waited for our turn. Important members of the family are entombed on the family’s property. Some tombs are rather grand in scale but most are a few slabs of concrete layered on top of one another pyramid-like. The tomb was open in front of the house and the inside lined with lace.

We entered the house and laid our gifts around the pusa oti (coffin). We then went back outside to sit facing the family. Here we presented our gifts of money and fine mats. In return we were presented with gifts of fine mats, tinned fish, money, fabric and a cooked pig. This exchange of gifts is very important and this procedure is followed by each family or group that visits the family of the deceased. There are church services in addition to this custom we just weren’t involved with it.

Everyone there (a good fifty people) thought it was quite hilarious watching a palagi (outsider) participate but, as always, they were extremely grateful that I was making the effort to understand the Samoan customs.

Once we returned to the village there is a consulting with the matai about how the gifts we were given should be split up. The Samoan culture is all about service to one another. You give and you receive. Everything you have you share. You always take care of your family and your village because they will always take care of you. The matai themselves are granted their title after proving service to their community. For large events such as weddings, funerals, and births families and friends give greatly to one another. The term for this is fa’alavelave (which also, funnily enough is the word for trouble). As Peace Corps Volunteers, we strive to become members of our community and so also participate in the fa’alavelave of our villages and host families.

Palalaua

2007-02-20T16:08:00.000-11:00

I’ve begun working and am currently the computer teacher (rather, entire computer department) at Palalaua College in Siumu.

Schools of Samoa

There are four basic types of schools in Samoa:

1. Primary School: Years 1 - 8

2. Secondary School: Years 9 - 12

3. College: Same as secondary schools but with Year 13 as well. To get into Year 13, students must achieve a SSC (Samoan School Certificate) in various subjects.

4. University: higher education; as far as I know, there are two universities in Samoa. To get into university, a student must get high scores on the PSSC (Pacific Senior Secondary Certificate) which is administered throughout the Pacific Region.

I teach both years 12 and 13 for now. Hopefully if we can get more computers for next year I can expand to the younger years and get them started earlier. Nearly every single student used a computer for the first time in my class. We started with the basics: this is a monitor, this is a keyboard, this is how you double click and right now we’re learning about Microsoft Word. The kids are determined learners and I have students come to my room every day during my free periods using the computer.

School Uniforms

All students are required to wear uniforms to school in Samoa. Our colors are white and turquoise. Everyone wears white short sleeved button-up shirts, the girls wear them with turquoise jumpers and the boys wear them with turquoise ie faitaga (tailored lavalavas with pockets). For boys hair is cut to a specific length and the girls are required to wear their hair in a braid; not just any braid, they must all look the same. When students get to school they put their shoes in their bags and only take them out again when they leave.

Though teachers don’t have to wear school colors, we still dress professionally. For male teachers at my school this means a nice button shirt and an ie faitaga. For female teachers, we wear puletasi (tailored two piece outfits) or a nice shirt and long skirt. We get to wear our shoes all day, inside and out.

Daily Schedule

There are six 50-minute periods on Mondays and Fridays; seven on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Between the third and fourth period is Interval, when the school breaks for lunch. Teachers eat in the teacher house and the students are free to eat their lunch anywhere on the school compound.

Each day, the faculty is provided lunch by the students (the families of the students in the village take turns). Lunch begins with a prayer. We are given tea and plates heaped with food but you only need to eat until you are full. Samoan meals are always overabundant because people would never, ever want to be in a situation where they have not provided enough food (think Italian or Jewish mentality). The students serve the teachers and when we are done eating we are given bowls of water and towels to wash our hands (we only really use utensils when we’re eating soup). This is very typical of a Samoan meal, with the younger members of the family making sure that the elders are fed and taken care of first.

On Mondays, fifth and sixth period are devoted to singing practice and on Fridays, fifth and sixth are used for sports. On most Fridays, the boys play rugby and the girls play volleyball (though they sometimes play soccer). The students are allowed to change into t-shirts and shorts for those two periods.

School Supplies

The Ministry of Education provides school supplies to the students as well as to the teachers. Like the uniforms this allows each student to have an equal status. At the beginning of the year they get notebooks, pens, and rulers. We get all that along with tape and markers.

Student Structure

Students are responsible for the care of the school. Each morning before first period the students go around the school collecting rubbish and taking care of the yard. Our school lawn is mowed by a lawn mower leaving only the clippings that are raked up by hand but at the primary school next door, the grass is cut by the students with machetes. As the rooms are swept out by the students, it is their responsibility to bring brooms to school. On the first day, each student must bring a broom or a mat (there are not enough desks for every room so the mats are used to sit on). If one is not brought by the end of the first week, students are sent home to make one to bring in the next day. The different years take turns staying after school at the end of the day to tidy the rooms, clean the bathrooms, and straighten up the kitchen.

The students are governed by the teachers, the prefects, and the head boy and head girl. The prefects have inspections all the time to check the students’ appearances and detentions are given to those that don’t comply, those who show up to school late and those who act up in class. Detentions are often very practical, students will have to clean up the yard, weed or clean the bathrooms. If you’re thinking that this is beginning to sound like Harry Potter, you can thank the still-present influences of the British Empire that were gifted to Samoa via New Zealand.

So, What Do I Do Everyday…

I teach Year 12, trying to get them ready for the SSCs. They need to know Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access of course but they also need to know the basics of how a computer works.
Although my Year 13 students won’t be sitting for the PSSCs (their principal feels that they just won’t have the experience by then) I’m still teaching them the stuff covered by the exam in case individual students want to take it. For the rest, I want them to have a firm understanding of the basics and I want them to be more confidant when it comes to figuring things out on their own

I’m also holding lessons for the teachers, some of whom have never touched a computer before. Their lessons are very similar to the stuff that I’m teaching my students.

My lab currently has five computers: two that function on a regular basis, one that has issues I haven’t quite figured out yet, and two more that are awaiting new power supplies (that should arrive any day now). Running this lab has been my crash course in computer repair because if I don’t figure out what’s wrong with them, no one will. So, regardless as to how this whole effectiveness as a volunteer thing pans out, at least I’m learning more about hardware.

Samoan Food

2007-02-02T09:08:00.000-11:00

I want you to keep in mind that if you are willing to pay for it you can get nearly anything you want to eat in Samoa. The stores sell tons of things, like cans of tuna fish, raisin bran, yogurt, granola, microwave popcorn, and M&Ms. There’s even a McDonald’s in Apia if you get the craving (believe me, when we first stepped into the Samoan airport and saw the huge poster advertising McDonald’s we all began to wonder if we were in the right place.) This entry, however, will only discuss the foods commonly consumed in the villages of Samoa.

Let us first talk about our available resources. There are numerous fish that can be found (both in the water and in cans from the store) as well as eels and shell fish. Samoa doesn’t have many land animals. In fact, there are only three species of mammal native to Samoa and all of them are types of bat. However, there are now cows, pigs, and chickens enough to go around (all imported a couple hundred years ago along with Christianity and pants). We have coconuts, of course, which find their way into numerous Samoan culinary creations through coconut cream. After a coconut is husked, using a sharp metal stake, and opened by being struck several times with a rock. The insides are then scraped out. When these scrapings are wrung out, they produce a cream. There are two types of coconut, the ripe coconut (niu) and the mature coconut (popo). The popo is used for making coconut cream and is the type of coconut that can be purchased in the States. The niu has a thinner, softer meat and is completely full of liquid. When this is opened, either a small hole is drilled in or only the very top is broken off so that it can be drunk.

Some other local vegetation used for cooking include mangos, papayas, bananas, breadfruit, and taro. There are also onions, pumpkins, tomatoes and pineapple.

A Few Local Foods (Baked foods are prepared in an umu, a traditional method of cooking. Ovens are rare but there are many camp stoves used for boiling.):

palusami - banana leaves filled with coconut cream and baked
fasipovi – beef
oka – raw fish with coconut cream
sea – sea cucumber
supo fa’i – banana soup
supo moa - chicken soup (sometimes with cabbage and pumpkin)

Taro and bananas are usually baked in coconut cream and breadfruit is just baked. We also have innumerable foreign delicacies like Ramen, turkey tail, mutton, canned corn beef, and special heat-treated milk from Australia that has a very long shelf life (which actually is really weird at first but is easy to get used to).

Living in Siumu

2007-01-27T09:06:00.000-11:00

I’ve finally moved into my house and school has begun. Well, it’s officially begun but I haven’t been really teaching yet. I think that is going to happen next week. This first week the students signed up for classes, had singing practice, and started their basic classes like English, History, and Maths (and yes, I meant to add the s at the end).

The house is great and it's nice to finally be able to unpack my things after three months of moving between hotels and the training village. My house is on a family's compound and for now I've been using their bathroom facilities but they've said that the school will build me my own as well as a shower off my house. Not exactly sure when this is supposed to happen but I'm looking forward to it. Until then I've been sharing and taking bucket showers and I'm actually really getting used to it. Luckily I have my own refridgerator and stove and have been trying to cook meals for myself. My host family, having very low confidence in my cooking abilities, still sends meals over to my house every day.

How to Take a Bucket Shower:
Bucket showers definitely have their benefits. For one as you always get the water to use beforehand it’s much harder for you to waste water (something I think my dad would greatly appreciate). First you need to get a bucket of water from the nearest working tap. This could be available on your family’s compound, there could also be a tap on your neighbor's property and you could always get water from the village pool if there is one. (A pool in the village is a closed area of clean fresh water that can be used for bathing in). Once you've got your bucket you find a nice preferibly enclosed place. If one is not available you could always shower with a lavalava wrapped around you. Using a small bowl or cup you can then dump water over yourself, taking time to lather up and shampoo your hair and then using the remaining water to rinse.

How to Get from Here to There:
There are basically five basic means of transportation (not including the ferry it takes to travel between Upolu and Savai'i).

1. Walk

Highly under rated but not always the best solution for long distances

2. Bicycle
Each volunteer was issued a bicycle upon swearing-in which make us all stand out gloriously as we are the only ones in the entire country who wear helmets (Peace Corps requirement). Very good for traveling between villages to see other volunteers or for getting around Apia

3. Hitchhike
Keep in mind that hitchhiking in Samoa is not the same as hitchhiking in the states. We’re still careful but it is definitely a more common means of travel. Nice for long distances when paying for a taxi or riding a bus is not desirable

4. Bus
Cheap but can get very packed, in which case people generally sit on each others’ laps for the duration of the ride

5. Taxi
Can get pricy when going long distances but sometimes can be worth it (A ride across Apia is only a few Tala and a ride across the island is at least fifty but consider the fact that fifty Tala is about 20USD and if you go in a group it’s not that bad.)

How to Get Internet Access:
A few of the schools across the country have internet access and even some volunteers have internet at their sites but sadly I do not. So, how does a volunteer in my situation get access to the internet? There are two ways, both of which are in Apia. There’s always the internet cafes which really aren’t that expensive and can be found all around the city. There’s even one that’s open on Sundays. Secondly, there’s the Peace Corps office, which along with providing numerous resources for teaching and study, also has two volunteer computers. These computers have internet twice a day everyday (from 9am-11am and then again from 4pm-6pm) and like the good children that we are, all of the volunteers who are in the office at the time share.

Samoan Holiday

2007-01-07T09:53:00.000-11:00

On December 23, after a rather interesting cab ride that involved a superfluous thirty-minute scenic tour, I arrived in Ma’asina to spend Christmas with my host family. There is a lot of evidence of American holiday traditions in the capital, Santas and the like, but in the village the holiday is centered on its religious origin. On Christmas Eve we attended church twice. One regular Sunday mass in the morning and then a Christmas mass in the evening. The best part of Christmas mass was our transportation. The villages around Fagaloa Bay are all rather small and there is only one Catholic pastor that is shared amongst multiple villages. When Sunday mass is held in Ma’asina, the church is right next door to my host family’s house but on some Sundays we need to travel to a different village to go to church. We either catch a ride in the back of somebody’s pickup truck or we just walk. On Christmas Eve morning we used a truck to get to mass but in the evening a rather large Samoan bus pulled in front of our house. We, along with the rest of the Catholic population of our village, piled into this huge wooden bus. Children we seated on everyone’s laps and we clung to each other as we made our way to the church. The church was completely decked out, from mounds of golden coconuts to a crucifix adorned with flashing Christmas lights.

The children of Ma’asina have never heard of Santa Claus, there isn’t even a gift exchange on Christmas day. As Christmas fell on a Monday, people had work to do and still went out into the plantation and went about their daily routines. The absence of my usual Christmas traditions combined with the heat of the Samoan sun, it was easier to forget all that I was missing at home. Though some of the other volunteers and I had tried to inspire the Christmas spirit (watching The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, singing Christmas carols through the village on Christmas eve, having secret Santas) it just wasn’t the same and Christmas seemed to pass just like every other day.

After a few days back in Apia, I embarked on my New Year’s trip. The volunteers usually all plan to do something together for New Year’s and this year the party was to be on the beach in Falealupo. The greatest thing about this selection was the fact that Falealupo is on the far western tip of the island Savaii and is basically the last place on earth to see the coming of the new year. On the 29th, my friend Molly and I trekked to the village of our friend Maka (he always goes by his Samoan name), Papa Sataua. This involved an early morning bus ride, a couple hours on a ferry from Uplolu to Savaii, and finally an hour ride from the wharf to his village. At Maka’s house we waited for two other volunteers, Jordan and Lafi (also always goes by his Samoan name). The five of us hiked down to a private beach owned by Maka’s Matai (chief). It’s at least a mile away from any other civilization and we had it completely to ourselves. We spent the evening drinking rum from coconuts, sharing ava, and cooking hotdogs on the fire. That night we slept on lava lavas right on the beach. It was all so beautiful. I woke three times in the night, once to a big beautiful moon, once after the moon had set and there was nothing to see but stars, and the third time was when the sun was just starting to rise. In the morning we woke up freezing (when you spend every day sweating in the heat, you begin to relish in the rare occasions when you are actually cold) and had last night’s leftovers for breakfast (the remnants of Cajun trail mix and a few mustard and hot sauce sandwiches). We hiked back up to Maka’s house and from there managed to get all of our bags, a water purifier, an ava bucket, and the five of us to Falealupo on three bicycles.

In Falealupo, we stayed at the Beach Fales (fa-lays), which are small, raised, open wooden huts that are about the size of a large tent. For our set fee we got to stay in the fales for two nights (the 30th and the 31st) and were provided breakfast and dinner. About twenty-five volunteers showed up and we split up amongst the fales. The next three days were spent snorkeling, drinking, talking, and just chilling on the beautiful beach.

We celebrated each American New Year and at seven we partied on the beach as we watched the sun set on 2006. At midnight we ran to the water and swam around until we were too cold and tired to move.

On the morning of the first, people started to head back home but Molly, Maka, Lafi, Jordan, Aaron, and I decided to stay for an extra day. We chose to stay at a reduced fee, which meant that we would have to find our own food. After spending most of the day recuperating from the night before and snacking on the Ramen and leftovers we still had, Lafi and Jordan borrowed a spear from one of the villagers and went out into the water in search for dinner. When they returned with seven fish (six really, seven if you count Jordan’s butterfly fish) the rest of us went to the local store to buy rice and flour. We borrowed the kitchen from the beach staff and armed with coconuts, salt, and onions, set about making dinner. That night we feasted on a fish soup (fish boiled in fresh coconut cream and onions), hand-made tortillas, and rice. We used sugar to sweeten the butter we had for the tortillas and managed to procure soy sauce and a few limes to flavor the rice. We finished the evening with a bottle of wine under the full moon. On days like this we try to reflect on the fact that we are indeed in Peace Corps. Even though we have our share of hardships and inconveniences, life can be pretty sweet. The next morning, after breakfasting on cookies and tinned fish from the village store, we left Falealupo.

Still Here

2006-12-18T10:04:00.000-11:00

Don’t worry, I have not dropped off the planet, I’m just on the other side of it. It took me until the end of training to finally put up another post but now that I’m a volunteer I have much more time to dedicate to correspondence. So let me catch you up:

Training

Upon arriving in country we were deemed trainees and went through ten weeks of training before we could become Volunteers. There were daily classes for Language, Safety & Security, Medical, and Life & Work with Language taking a large precedence. Although I know more Samoan now than Spanish I’m definitely not fluent. Training leaves us with enough language to get through daily situations (shopping at the market, getting a ride in a taxi, having short introductory conversations) and enough material so that we can learn more about grammar and sentence structure as we go along.

There were 16 trainees in my training group. We met during staging in LA and have spent all of training together. Our training was split between Apia and a village called Ma’asina. The first two weeks were spent in Apia where we stayed at Apia Central. After that we moved to the village for a week. During our village stay we were split amongst the houses in the village so that we could learn more about everyday life. We still had lessons nearly every day but we ate meals with our host family and participated in family activities. Some of which were very religious.

Religion

The family that I shared with my roommate Molly was Catholic. We went to church every Sunday and spent the rest of the day resting. We pray before every meal and in the evenings we participated in Lotu. Lotu is basically prayer. Our family would get together in the main room, read from scripture, sing hymns, and pray together.

Survival Skills

Along with the lessons we learned in class, there are many skills we have picked up outside of class. We have learned how to weave baskets from palm leaves, how to spear fish (well, we’re still working on this one), how to kill and cook a pig, how to distinguish edible plants and leaves, and how to husk and open a coconut using only a stick and a rock (take that Survivor).

Dress

When I am in the village my knees and shoulders need to be covered at all times. I usually wear a t-shirt and a lavalava (basically a sarong) that goes down to about my ankles. On Sundays, special occasions, and in professional settings I wear a puletasi (pooh-la-ta-see) which has a long skirt or lavalava bottom with a tailored top made out of the same or similar pattern.

Matai System

For those of you who remember the term, Samoa is a shame-based culture (versus the States which is a guilt-based culture). There is a police force but most of the legal system is based off of what the Matai say. The Matai (ma-tie) are the Samoan chiefs and they have a very strong say, especially within the villages.

School System

Right now the students are on vacation (like summer break). The next school year begins around the end of January. There are three terms in the school year with little breaks in between. I’ve been assigned to be the computer teacher in Siumu.

If you guys have any questions, please post them.

Samoa

2006-09-19T07:12:00.000-11:00

I must admit that when I first read that my assignment would be in Samoa, I thought 'Where?' The only connection I made was with a small piece of dialog in "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels".

Once known as Western Samoa, the Independent State of Samoa is a collection of ten islands in the South Pacific, roughly the area of Rhode Island. The population is a little below 180,000 which is not as small as my hometown, but it's not that much larger. They speak both English and Samoan (Even though they speak English, Volunteers still need to learn Samoan).

My Address:
Meghan Veltri, PCV
Peace Corps
Private Mail Bag
Apia, Independent Samoa
South Pacific

If you would like to visit me, please let me know! There are a few restrictions on time but most of the time visitors will be more than welcome!

Peace Corps

2006-09-19T06:45:00.000-11:00

In less than three weeks I'll be on my way to the first step of Peace Corps training. It all begins with Staging, a two day orientation that takes place in the United States. We meet fellow volunteers who will be headed to our service region and after a bunch of back-to-back classes and final preparations we all board a plane and fly to Training. For three months we will study the culture and the language. In my specific country, I will be living with a local family while I train. After training we are then split up to our individual assignments. Some of us will live with families, some will have roommates, and some will live alone. For the next two years of Service, not only will we have our primary assignment to work on, but there will be numerous secondary projects to keep us busy.

For all of you planning to join the Peace Corps, start the application process as soon as possible. It WILL take a long time. If you truly want to go, be prepared to work for it. It took nearly a year between starting the application and receiving my invitation (Yes, invitation. After reviewing your application and interview, the Peace Corps will Nominate you for a position and start you on your medical paperwork but you do not get to go until you are Invited by the country). For all of you currently working on your application or going through the medical stage, hang in there. It seems overwhelming but you'll get through it.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Thoreau