Matt's Samoa Blog

Videos!

2011-01-03T01:29:00.002-10:00

I figure now that I've had real Internet access for nearly a month, some video uploads are long overdue. I didn't shoot much video during my Peace Corps experience, mostly because I was busy taking still photos. But I managed a few. Please note that all of these can be seen larger at my YouTube page here.

I hope you're well. Videos below.

The Savai'i House at Maluafou College in Apia rehearsing their siva for Culture Day 2009.

Akanese singing on the day I met her.

Me and Akanese playing Popo Mano.

Akanese and me playing a children's version of Go Fish.

Me and Akanese playing a Chick-ee-Bom (sp?).

Bored with Jenga, a couple of us built a tunnel that Scout inadvertently destroys. Hilarity ensues.

The 10.4 class (my English class) sings Herman's Hermits' "Henry VIII".

The 10.4 class (my English class) sings The Beatles' "Hey Jude".

There Are So Many Cake Shows

2010-12-26T23:59:00.002-10:00

Jack: Lemon, that’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said.
Lemon: Really? What about 3 years ago when I said there should be more TV shows about cake?

This was the conversation I just watched on On-Demand “30 Rock”. I started clapping. Hey America, why are there so many shows about cake now? I admit they are hypnotically fascinating, but still, it's absurd how many hours of American television are devoted to baking and assembling elaborate cakes. In the three weeks since I’ve been back, I’ve learned that straws inserted into lower cake tiers are used for weight displacement whereas dowels are used to hold cakes in place. A Comcast guide search reveals the following shows: Ace of Cakes, Amazing Wedding Cakes, Cake Boss, Cake Boss: Next Great Baker, (many many episodes of) Food Network Challenge, and Ultimate Cake Off. I’m overwhelmed.

It’s a weird overwhelmed though. I don’t feel hit over the head; I don’t feel the weight of cake shows crashing down on me. It’s a more subconscious phenomenon where, for example, yesterday I watched hours of cake shows for no other reason other than my brain seems extra susceptible to bizarre meaningless American television programming. My brain has spent the last 2 years taking it slow, and now even a lukewarmly stimulating TV show is enough to captivate my brain for hours.

But it’s not just TV. Christmas shopping was insanely difficult this year. Browsing the shelves at Borders one night last week, I walked around the store for an hour and a half. It was a strange feeling though, because even though it physically felt like boredom-fueled aimless wandering, I wasn’t bored at all; in fact, I was enthralled. It was as though something caught my eye, and then I was distracted by a shiny object, and then another shiny object would catch my eye, and then another and another. After shopping for a while, I ran into some friends of mine. I told them quite earnestly, “This store is so big!” They found this hysterical.

People keep asking me about how I’ve been dealing with the cold. But the truth is the cold isn’t all that big of a factor—it’s been freezing, but it’s such an easy thing to remedy, I haven’t minded it too much. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs comes into play, and the things at the bottom of the pyramid, while most pertinent, have been the easiest to resolve. It’s the more ethereal, more subconscious stuff near the top that’s been most difficult to address. I can get myself a sweatshirt or a blanket to deal with the cold, but it’s difficult to even realize how overstimulated I’ve been, let alone try to alleviate the issue.

So I’ve mostly been taking life slow, trying not to overwhelm my brain with unnecessary thought processes. I’ve been enormously unproductive since I got home. Blogging has been out of the question. Sorry about that, but it was a low priority anyway, and assembling 500 words of coherent thought was out of the question.

But now things are settling down a little, and maybe life is getting back on track. I could elaborate, but there’s a cake show on TLC right now, and my attention’s divided.

I hope you’re well. Pictures soon.

I'm Back

2010-12-08T23:59:00.002-10:00

There was a moment in the long car ride home last night when conversation with my parents got around to tragic things that happened to people we know so peripherally that it wasn’t important enough to share internationally but now that I’m home I may as well know. “This person’s aunt died” and “The mom of the boy you might remember from little league is in the early stages of dementia” and “That little girl from church who’s at least 8 years younger than you is taller than you.” Most of the ride was cool, but this conversation made me a little tense.

To draw an embarrassing literary parallel, it reminded me a little of the scene from Dan Brown’s latest, “The Lost Symbol”, in which Robert Langdon is drowned in a vat of amniotic fluid. Brown claims it’s a form of torture in the sense that when you come out of your natal relapse, reality is nearly too much to bear.

The Peace Corps provides geographic isolation, and with that comes a certain amount of emotional detachment. There’s also a relief in returning home after the Peace Corps where it feels like something difficult has finished and I felt a small sense of invincibility. And then reality punched me in the face.

It wasn’t just that conversation, of course. Living in the developing world, one occasionally idealizes America, and returning home can definitely bring one back to Earth. America is cold and dry and busy and expensive and not quite the haven of efficiency and convenience I remember.

When Phil and I sat down in the waiting area at the shipping agent yesterday as the lady behind the desk took care of Scout’s paperwork, Phil and I reveled in the fact that we’d just been assured that this seemingly bureaucratic process that might take forever in Samoa would be taken care of in 10 minutes.

The process took 2.5 hours. Taumafai atili pea, America.

The other analog that comes to mind is one Jim used to lay on us after youth ministry retreats in high school: After the Transfiguration, Jesus looks at Peter, James, and John and essentially says, “You can’t tell anyone about this because no one’s really gonna understand.” It’s kinda like Jesus’ version of the “What happens in Vegas...” tagline.

But the Peace Corps experience is all about that. Even with the blog, even with modern technology and text messaging and Skype and somewhat frequent access to Facebook, no one besides the people who were there know what really happened. We can tell you stories and we can paint a damn good picture, we can show hundreds of photos and perhaps some of you actually came to visit. But even then, you can’t really know what it was like.

I was chatting with a friend from CNET on GChat this morning, and I asked her what I missed during the last two years. She gave me a 20-word response, which was surely informative, but I can’t really say I know what happened. Only the people directly involved can really know.

And that’s a lonely feeling for a returned volunteer: I’m surrounded by people who don’t know. And now it’s the people who do know who I’m texting and Skyping and looking for on Facebook.

Sorry if this is on big downer. Honestly coming home has been very exciting and joyful, and even the 4 hours that it took to get the cat through Customs wasn’t all that bad. My parents setup my bedroom, the cat has adjusted surprisingly fast (save for getting along with the dogs), and the Facebook message board has been all warm and friendly. I swear I’m not complaining. I’m just trying to paint a picture of the experience.

I’m also sorry I’ve been away for the last couple days. I’ll catch you up on the stuff you missed tomorrow.

Finally, if I gave you a business card with my phone number on it, be advised that number doesn’t work. My cellular carrier, who assured me 26 months ago that they’d keep my account on hold until my return, instead decided to cancel my account without informing me (by their admission). I don’t want to say who it is, but I will say that the name rhymes with “Kay Tee and Tee”.

I hope you’re well. Pictures will be posted tomorrow.

Last Supper

2010-12-06T17:45:00.000-10:00

We're getting ready to head over to Italiano Pizza for Phil's and my last meal in country. I've run into all sorts of obstacles all day. Maybe I'll tell you all about them someday. In the Resource Room right now is Jenny S. 82, Kaelin, Supy, and Joey. Phil is in the Peace Corps office's shower. I figured I'd use my remaining Internet time to post.

There is a big debate over whether our flight will leave at 11:59 p.m. or 12:59 a.m. tomorrow. Either way, the shipping agent wants the cat at the airport at 8:00 p.m.; the likelihood of us making it there by that time is dubious. And anyway, I don't want the cat stuck in a box for so long.

The training group was in town today. Danny helped me unload the car this morning. I got to say goodbye to Nancy and Jenny and Rob.

There's still a lot that's not packed at my house. And honestly, I don't think the rest of it will get packed. This list includes:

Bed sheets and pillowcases;
Dish soap and dish drainer;
Mop;
Etc.

We are going to Y-Not for pre-pizza drinks now. Next post from America.

I hope you're well.

Hard Day's Night

2010-12-05T23:59:00.000-10:00

Moving out is exhausting. When did I acquire so much stuff?

Less than 24 hours left in Samoa.

I could blog, but I can barely keep my eyes open. Going to sleep now.

The Final Push

2010-12-01T23:59:00.000-10:00

I’m late constantly. Senior year of high school I was late to second-period English nearly every day. At eCivis, where management operated like time Nazis, I was often admonished for showing up to work 4 or 5 minutes after the 7:30 a.m. call time. In the training village, every morning was a contest between me, Supy, and Sara to see who would show up last. I have no moral problem with lateness, but I still felt pangs of guilt as I was running late for today’s PTA Luncheon.

I was supposed to be at school at noon, but this morning was busy and by 12:20 I arrived at my house by cross-town taxi, and scrambled to feed the cat and make myself presentable for lunch. And as I nearly rushed out the door, I looked around at my messy house which has only become more chaotic as my days have grown increasingly busy and things have fallen more into a state of neglect.

So I dropped everything and washed the dishes.

It’s difficult to think of the last time life was so busy and stressful. It’s a pitiful moment when you have to test the bounds of acceptable tardiness because there are menial-but-essential household chores to be done. If it’s not a sign that life is out of control, I don’t know what is.

And, as far as I can tell, life will only continue at this frenetic pace until I board the plane Monday night. There are lots of administrative things I still have to do: close my bank account, close my landline, close my dial-up Internet account, write up my official Description of Service, take the cat for her final vet appointment, take me to my final doctor appointment, get all the necessary cat paperwork to the shipping agent.

Then there are the social obligations, which are arguably less essential, but still obligatory, and definitely more time consuming. Rotaract is celebrating my going-away tonight, Staff Dinner tomorrow night, Host Family Friday night.

And normal responsibilities still carry on. The unflushable blog is breathing down my neck, tomorrow morning I’ll be helping Kaelin edit the co-teaching video, I need to make a CD with all of the files—grade calculating spreadsheet, vector-based logo, letterhead, etc.—I’ve developed for school over the past 2 years.

And between all of this, there’s all the normal trappings of moving out: purging (most) of my possessions, packing up the things I’m keeping, picking up souvenirs for the family back home, etc.

At this point, it’s all a blur.

So maybe doing the dishes this afternoon wasn’t menial or pitiful. Maybe it was just a nice way of taking a break from the warp-speed pace of leaving. Washing dishes made things feel normal, if only for a moment.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

I treated my Year 13s to McDonald's breakfast this morning before we headed to the Internet cafe.

At the Internet cafe.

My pule dancing at today's PTA Luncheon. I forgot to mention above that the PTA Luncheon didn't actually get started until around 1:15. I had no problem showing up 45 minutes late.

Prizegiving 2010

2010-11-30T23:59:00.010-10:00

Amanda, me, Tafale.

Standing room only in the Great Hall.

Me with a couple of year 12s.

Suasami and Bernie are also leaving after this year.

Me with a bunch of 11.1s.

A couple of year 11s stopped me outside the hall and requested I take their picture.

Colleen wins best in computers for year 11.

A bunch of the 11.2s.

Staff meeting after clean-up.

Getting with the Program

2010-11-29T23:59:00.003-10:00

Though Prizegiving is tomorrow, I was expecting today to be high on the ceremonial side. There are a bunch of teachers leaving, and the year is drawing to a close, and it only seemed appropriate for there to be some intimate acknowledgments of the bonds we’ve formed as a staff and as a school and while tomorrow is a large celebration with pomp and circumstance and family and friends, I imagined today might be a day for some calm before the storm.

But today was all business. The moment I arrived at school the secretary handed me the agenda for tomorrow’s program and asked that I turn it into a booklet handout. I had last year’s design saved, and I substituted some of the graphics with a bunch of vector-based graphics I built for the Peace Corps t-shirt, and by the time morning assembly was over—mark the time, 10:00 a.m.—I had a draft ready for my pule’s approval. I handed him the design as he walked out of the Great Hall. He nodded emphatically, said, “This is very nice!”, and then walked away without waiting for feedback.

I went over it again with the school secretary, who had some changes of her own. She wanted to put the starting time for tomorrow’s event at the top of the agenda, “8:30 – Taimi Amata”. I smiled and nodded and ignored her suggestion.

We’ve been having a talent competition of sorts at my school over the past few weeks, and though the entire agenda was written in Samoan, the talent events were written in English: Soloist Finals, Duet Finals, and “Agapela Champs 2010”. That last one seemed a little ridiculous to me, so I changed the invented Agapela to the traditional Italian-borrowed “A Cappella”. This caused a brief controversy among staff, as many thought I had no idea what I was talking about.

Once we finally started making copies of the program, my Vice Pule asked, “Did you fix fa’aisuaso?” Apparently the word should have been Fa’aiuaso, translation unclear at press time, but no one had told me this until the copy machine had started. I quickly hit cancel and fixed the mistake.

As the day wore on, I made 360 double-sided copies for tomorrow’s program, and after the secretary got sidetracked, I ended up folding about 250 copies of the program in half. The entire project took about 4 hours, and I was all too happy to get out of school this afternoon.

Once I was got out of school I went to the Peace Corps office, picked up the brand new Peace Corps t-shirts, headed to Italianos for dinner, and then went to the airport to see Dan and Jordan off.

I got back to my house around 1:15 a.m., only to be greeted by my pule who emerged from the campus’s shadows. “Can you come early tomorrow morning? The programs are wrong. We need to re-print them,” he told me.

Even though I’d received his cursory approval, the thumbs-up from the school secretary, and my vice pule’s (late) blessing, my principal wants me at school at 5:30 a.m. to redo the program. How fun.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

In order to make a big show of the Dux award (in America we'd call this the Valedictorian), my school gives the winning student 4 different trophies, all of which must be returned next year so they can be awarded again. In order to document the 4 trophies, the Prizegiving Committee asked me to take a photo of them today. I suggested Ms. Peteru be in the photo. She happily agreed.

My folded programs in the foreground. All of which must be discarded.

Blakey and me out for Dan and Jordan's going away this evening.

Thanksgiving III

2010-11-28T23:00:00.008-10:00

Wednesday marked the third year in a row I missed my family’s annual Martha Stewart viewing. The night before Thanksgiving every year, we invite friends over to watch the same Martha Stewart Thanksgiving Special, circa 1987. For most major holidays our family would go to someone else’s house to celebrate, but we always hosted Thanksgiving, so it’s always strange to spend the holiday without home-field advantage. But I must admit, part of the benefit of staying in Samoa for my school’s Prizegiving was it meant I’d get to spend one last Thanksgiving with the Peace Corps.

As I’ve said a thousand times before on the blog, we go all out for American holidays here—Thanksgiving, Halloween, and the Fourth of July tend to be big, jolly affairs. And yesterday was no exception.

Our monthly stipend provides more than enough for food, and certainly none of us is hungry, but it’s still a rare occasion to have a large American-style meal served. Sitting with a bunch of trainees from group 83 who are still used to either American-sized portions or the luxury of training itself, many of them filled their plates with small, sparse piles of mashed potatoes and turkey. You eat like a bird, group 83.

At the other end of the spectrum were those of us who’ve been out in the cold for 2+ years. Looking around at the other picnic tables, I saw a bunch of group 81s gorging themselves on plates of food piled to the point of absurdity.

After last year’s failed garlic mashed potatoes, I went in on a bowl of Poor Man’s Macaroni and Cheese—i.e. macaroni shells with parmesan cheese—with garlic-infused olive oil. It was not the most appetizing side dish on the table, but it at least it was served this year.

There was college football on TV, but few volunteers sat inside to watch. After dessert was served a bunch of us threw on our trunks or two-pieces and took a dip in the pool. A rather intense game of Three Flies Up ensued—the kind that ends in tears and broken fingers. It was a good time though. At one point I decided I was done and began to climb out of the pool, only to have my third fly land directly in my arms. It was cool.

Though the party was set to end around 7:00, the 83s were scuttled away at 5:30, which was sad.

The rest of us sat around chewing the fat until it was time to go.

Yeah. Third Thanksgiving is in the books. Bring on the Christmas music.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Admin Officer Denise dines with Supy, Paul, Otis (her husband), and Phil.

Lindsey, Jenny 83, and me.

Kyle and me. Kyle went to Notre Dame. Congratulations, Kyle.

Me and Jenny S. 82.

Joey and Mika dive for one of my Three Flies passes.

Movin’ Out

2010-11-26T20:00:00.000-10:00

The night of my college graduation, Sara and Jen came to my RA suite to help me pack up my possessions. Even though my room was furnished and I had no kitchen, I had somehow acquired a lot of stuff, and it was a headache packing and loading everything in the car. Moving apartments after college was even more of a headache since by then I had kitchen stuff and a futon and furniture and the like. But moving out of my house in Samoa is a whole different animal since I can only keep a suitcase or two.

My goal is one suitcase. Air New Zealand charges a whopping WST$140 for a second suitcase, and since I’m already paying to register the cat as cargo, I’d just assume keep the baggage cost minimal. One suitcase after two years is certainly a challenge, but I think it may also prove to be a good way of separating the wheat from the chaff.

I still tell people that ideally my house will burn down the day before I leave, and I won’t have to lug any of my junk home. There are things here that I like, but very little that I honestly need to take with me.

I plan to take as few articles of clothing as possible. According to RPCV Cale, the nicest clothes he had in the Peace Corps didn’t hold a candle to his clothes in The States. The Peace Corps lifestyle is rugged and unforgiving to clothing. I brought my OA uniform from college and my lucky USC football t-shirt, and last night I started mulling over whether or not I should bring those back to America for sentimental reasons. Right now I’m leaning toward no.

Books are a little perplexing. On the one hand, they are some of the easiest stuff to unload since the Peace Corps has a healthy library and volunteers tend to have nothing better to do with their time. But then I have a couple books on my shelf that I actually want to read, and it seems silly to get rid of them only to return to America and go through the trouble of buying/borrowing the same book again.

Besides moving out, the one other major problem facing my exit is I have a lot of gift-giving to do: teachers, students, the host family in the training village, the Indian missionaries, etc. My hope is these two problems will cancel themselves out. If I give everything away, I won’t have to worry about getting it to fit in the suitcase.

I think this will work without too much difficulty if I keep an eye on things. I’ve invited people to come “shopping” at my house.

PCV Kyle asked how much I wanted for my cinderblock bookshelf. I told him if he was willing to pay to move it, then it was his for free.

Just get it out of her.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Bag of clothes by the door ready to go to the Peace Corps free box.

There's so much crap in the kitchen. Hey Samoan readers, anybody want anything?

Odds and Ends Thursday 75

2010-11-25T20:00:00.000-10:00

Last year I remember talking to Cale and Sara around the time they had 2 weeks left, and I told them they should think of it as essentially a 2-week tropical vacation before they returned to America. Presumptuous fool. This last week has been just as busy as the rest of my time here, and the rowers show no sign of slowing. I will be busy all the way down to the wire. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

The phrase “interpersonal politics” from Sunday, November 14’s blog post caught on for a hot minute among group 81. I think Dan used it 19 times the day after the post went live.
Blakey, in addition to housesitting, is watching a kitten. Everyone swears this kitten is more well-behaved than Scout, but I beg to disagree. Scout’s manageable.
Oh by the way, I’ve been using my old camera that I broke during training. The viewfinder is still broken, so the photographer doesn’t have an exact idea of the photo (s)he is taking, but it still takes photos. Yes, mostly I am the photographer, but I figure at events like Prizegiving and such where I’m asking people to take pictures of me, this will be more of an issue.
The other fun part of this is that this is the first camera I used when I arrived in Samoa, and now it will (hopefully) be the last. Full circle. Book ends.
Finishing the Peace Corps is really expensive.
Finishing the Peace Corps involves a lot of paperwork.
I finally finished “Six Feet Under” today. I can understand why fans and critics enjoyed the series finale so much, although I must say in the time leading up to then I really hated just about every character except for Keith, Maggie, and Federico. And Nathanthiel, who I think was the best character for the entire 5 seasons.
I briefly mentioned the Avanoa Tutusa Health Fair in Sunday’s post. I want to briefly mention it again and say that it was amazingly successful. Props go out to Joey and the rest of the Avanoa Tutusa crew.
Samoa is obsessed with Brad Paisley/Alison Krause’s “Whiskey Lullaby”. Many of my students know how to play it on guitar. No one seems to know and/or care it’s about severe alcoholism. Oh well.
Tomorrow night is the Peace Corps Book Club’s second meeting. I ditched the first on account of not being interested in the book. This one I’m going to have to miss because I never acquired the book. I’m still going to have to pay for the book. I’ll read it once I get back to The States.
Apong was dying to buy my laptop off me, and in the end I’ve held out to sell to Suasami and her Ecumenical Women’s church group. Unclear on whether or not the latter will actually come through with payment. Worse comes to worst, I’ll have to bring my laptop back to the United States.
I only voted for one student award during Tuesday’s meeting: Best All-Rounder. It came down to Fou and Lanuola, and while I don’t know either that well, Lanuola just seems like a nice person. So I voted. She lost.
One thing I didn’t realize was we delineated between “Most Reliable Student” and “Most Honest Student”. I think Most Honest might be syntax error. Just a thought.
The furniture at Blakey’s housesitting house is right out of “The Golden Girls”. Check out the photos below for proof.
My school is getting a JICA volunteer to replace me in March! I'm so excited!

That’s all I got for this week. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Blakey's Golden Girls furniture.

The boys dressed up as girls dancing for the school.

Christina and Umuafu from my 9.2 class sing a duet for the school.

Losi and Akari sing their duet.

The year 13s put on a show.

Blakey's obnoxious kitten Good Times.

Tea for the Tillerman

2010-11-24T23:00:00.001-10:00

In addition to our principal, there are 4 staff members leaving at the end of this school year. The head of the Commerce department prematurely resigned his position when he received a verbal job offer from the Ministry of Education that didn’t pan out, one of the Samoan teachers received a scholarship to attend a Masters program at the National University of Samoa, I am returning to The States, and Suasami—the English teacher I sit next to at Interval most days—is retiring. The Commerce HOD has stopped showing up to school, and the Samoan teacher isn’t really leaving per se, so Suasami and I are in a club of our own. And today we bought tea.

As I’ve said many times before on the blog, most schools don’t have tea. If teachers want to drink tea at Interval, they have to buy it. And most schools certainly don’t offer a small pastry with daily tea. But my school, with all of its functional money management, is able to offer staff members a cup of tea and a panepopo or a scone or a muffin for just about every day of school. But now that we’ve essentially reached the end of the school year, and the tea committee has set off for India, daily tea has become less of a guarantee. So Suasami and I stepped up to the plate—errr—the saucer.

Celebrating your own special occasion by buying stuff for others is how things are done in Samoa. When Apong’s son was born he bought lunch for the staff. When the secretary got married she bought lunch for the staff. For my friend Dev’s birthday a few weeks back he bought rounds of drinks at the bar. And it was somewhat obligatory that Suasami and I would buy tea in observance of our own leaving.

Had I been going it alone, I would have bought Pinati’s for the staff. Pinati’s is sort of like Samoan Taqueria food; i.e. voluminous and cheap. But it still works out to between $3 and $4 per person, and Suasami thought that too expensive. She suggested we get cinnamon bread from some bakery she likes in Mata’utu, panekeke from the same place (deep-fried balls of dough somewhat similar to doughnut holes), and Sky Flakes crackers.

As the non-Samoan half of the duo, I decided to stay out of the decision-making process. Whatever she thought best was cool with me.

We went to the bakery this morning. “We have to wait until nine o’clock,” she told me when I arrived on campus. As it turns out, the bakery needed a couple hours to come up with 80 balls of panekeke. In fact, they needed until ten o’clock.

But we rolled in an hour early, so we killed time browsing the shop next door. Have you ever been really bored so your mind fixates on things to read even though they’re not particularly interesting? I read the warning label on the packaging for a bath mat, and I think Suasami was ready to buy it for me. I had to talk her down.

In the end, the bakery worked out just fine, and we got back to school with lots of time to spare. Once tea was served, art teacher Kolenio did the traditional Samoan announcement that is said when someone provides a meal. Ears perked up when my name was called out, and many staff members came to thank me and shake my hand once the meal was over.

Ehhh. I do what I can.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Business Studies teacher Tone, Art teacher Konelio, Tafale, and Lofale.

Today was a cleaning day on campus.

Dance practice was held after school as everyone gets ready for next Tuesday's Prizegiving.

This billboard went up near my house a couple weeks ago. Tonight I realized Miss Samoa's sash is written in Monotype Corsiva.

Meeting

2010-11-23T20:00:00.001-10:00

I assumed too much. Students Filifili and Marie from last year’s graduating class wanted school magazines, and I proposed meeting up for lunch, and we’d all agreed to meet at noon today at the fish market. Yes, the school day typically ends at 1:30 p.m., and even by Peace Corps policy I shouldn’t be off school grounds until that point. But given the lackadaisical nature of the last two weeks on which no day have students and staff dispersed after 11:30, I figured making a lunch date for noon would be no problem.

Murphy’s law. I sat down at 11:00 a.m., well after other teachers had gathered in the Staff Room for Interval—I’d been printing colour photos on the vice pule’s machine because hers is the only colour printer in the school that still has ink. We sat and ate buttered masipopo and drank tea for a while before my pule started the meeting.

This has happened before. I’ve gone through the blog archives, and I can’t find any other mention of it, but it’s certainly happened enough times, as soon as the meeting started, in my gut I feared the worst.

There’s no warning. In my text to Phil, I used the word “ambush”. Most staff meetings last 20 minutes, if that. But every once in a while—often on the rare occasion when I have somewhere else to be—a staff meeting will go on for 2+ hours.

At 11:57 a.m., I asked the teacher sitting next to me if she thought the meeting would go on much longer. She laughed in response and said, “Maybe two more minutes.”

Yeah. Right.

It’s true, I should have seen it coming. Prizegiving is next Tuesday, and since there’s probably not going to be school on Friday, there’s a lot of logistics to work out between now and then. In addition to forming committees and working out what teachers will wear and who is in charge of what, there’s also the rather obvious issue of what students should be awarded which prize.

It was sophomore year of high school when I first heard the quotation, “The worst part of democracy is that everyone gets a voice.” We sat there as a staff this morning, collectively mulling over which students should receive awards like “Best Sportswoman,” “Most Reliable”, and “Best All-Rounder”.

Note: When I made the label for the Best All-Rounder trophy, I typed out Best All Around. Both the Samoans and the Indian Missionaries thought this was hilarious. What a fool I was. Clearly the award should be titled Best All-Rounder. Whatever that is.

There were long discussions with debates that went on and on. For Most Reliable, there was a tie in the voting, so arguments had to continue.

During all of this, I’m receiving text messages from Marie and Filifili wondering where I am. At one point I feigned receiving a phone call as an excuse to leave the room to go pack up my laptop so I could get the hell off campus once the meeting finally ended.

I finally ended up leaving at 12:45 p.m., nearly 2 hours after the meeting started, and 45 minutes after I was supposed to meet up with my lunch party.

But at least we’ve all had input on who should be awarded Best All-Rounder.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

My pule mid-meeting.

Filifili, Marie, and Marie's friend (he told me his name, but it escapes me now).

Me, Marie, and Filifili.

Marie, in true Matt's Samoa Blog style, couldn't resist a blurry self-portrait.

A Passage to India

2010-11-22T20:00:00.001-10:00

Every Monday night—at least through January 2011—there are three flights that leave Faleolo International Airport (APW): one to Los Angeles, one to Fiji, and one to Auckland. There are a bunch of other flights to Fiji and Auckland, but Monday still ends up being central in terms of departure dates. For group 81, this means weekly departures scheduled between 15 November and 20 December. This week we have a bye, but I’m staying in Goodbye Mode anyway because the Indian Missionaries leave for the connection in Fiji tonight. Their departure provided a strange preview of what my own goodbye will look like.

As soon as I arrived on campus this morning, there was a rush to finish the list of awardees for next week’s Prizegiving. Somehow the fact that I and the Indian Missionaries are not Samoan gives us an air of impartiality in deciding which students should be awarded prizes. I don’t necessarily agree with this perception, but I agreed to take on the responsibility if only because it meant I got to make flashy Excel spreadsheets.

Once the list was checked and re-checked, and everyone was satisfied with the list, it was time for Interval. It’s funny how 2 years ago I may have missed the subtle hints that seating at luncheons like today’s was special. I knew the Indian Missionaries were leaving today, and I figured there would be some sort of program at our staff meeting, but I maintain there were still subtle, subconscious cues that helped the event run smoothly.

Thanpuii made a speech in which she thanked the staff on behalf of her, Apong, and Maengi, and she apologized for any shortcomings or faults. After 9 years of living here, Thapuii and Maengi know the drill.

Then our staff sang a goodbye song. Tolo, the other computer teacher, accompanied on guitar, and staff around the room swayed to and fro. A few times it sounded like the song had ended, and then a teacher—twice Peteru, once Tuuau—called out the beginning of the next verse, and the room broke out into song once more.

I admit I had to hold back tears, which doesn’t bode well for my own goodbye. I’m going to be a mess.

I wanted to give gifts, though I hadn’t purchased anything. But as it turns out, I have a house full of stuff I’m looking to give away in the next 2 weeks, so I went shopping in my kitchen and bedroom.

For Maengi, my small wok and my tea kettle (she’d asked for these). For Thanpuii, my mini MagLite I never opened in my 2 years here. For Apong, my electric guitar tuner. And for everyone—I admit this was a little bizarre—an Australian keychain! I bought a bunch in Sydney in January, and they’ve been collecting dust in my bedroom ever since. Oh well. Better late than never.

Dan and Jordan leave next Monday night. And then a week after that, me and Phil. We’re down to the wire.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below!

My shelf has become pretty bare with books and DVDs going to the Peace Corps office and papers going to recycling.

Maengi and I took pictures tonight before we said goodbye.

Hello, Yeah, It’s been a While

2010-11-21T20:00:00.003-10:00

The last week has been busy. Time has sped up to a fever pitch, and keeping up with everything seems impossible. Several times this week I’ve felt like I briefly stopped paying attention to the calendar, and without my knowing, two days had past. Now that exams are over, school has become far more casual, and the rest of the day is spent either preparing to go back to The States, or finding new ways to remain in denial about going back to The States. Either way, the blog has been put on the backburner, and I apologize. The following is a brief re-cap of the week:

Monday, 15 November

Tuesday, 16 November

Wednesday, 17 November

Thursday, 18 November

ka’a

Friday, 19 November

pule

Saturday, 20 November

Sunday, 21 November

It’s true. If I had budgeted my time better, I probably could have posted this week. But time management is not one of my strong suits right now—not with time going by at warp speed.

I’m not clear on how the camera situation will resolve itself, but I hope to start uploading photos later this week. Maybe not til next Saturday. I hope you’re well.

Good News

2010-11-21T01:40:00.000-10:00

New posts start tomorrow!

Yes. I took a week off. But starting tomorrow, I'm guaranteeing one post per day for my remaining 16 days in Samoa...

And I'm going to go ahead and match that with 16 additional days from America.

So I'm going to promise 32 days in a row of the Matt Experience (the one caveat being the day I arrive in The States during which Internet access may be difficult.).

Starts Sunday, 23 November at 8:00 p.m. See you then. I hope you're well.

The Last Hurrah

2010-11-14T23:00:00.007-10:00

Just after midnight tomorrow, Chris and Erin will board an airplane headed back to America, and that will mark the official beginning of the end. Group 81, who arrived in Samoa 8 October 2008, will begin leaving Samoa 15 November 2010. In order to celebrate (drink away?) this transition, the group—sans Joey on account of him being sick—headed to the Sa’Moana Resort on the south side of Upolu to spend one last night together.

Though we all ended up eating dinner together, there was no toast. No one made speeches. No tears were shed. Had there not been a myriad of conversations about what’s next in life and the schedule of layovers and the headaches of moving out, it would have been difficult to tell that this night was different from all other nights.

There was some tension due to interpersonal politics, and at times the night felt like a group divided. But like any big, dysfunctional family, differences were swept under the rug, and our final night together passed without incident.

This morning was a haze of continental breakfast and coffee. There was a little bit of snorkeling and bocci ball, and then it was time for the first wave to return to Apia.

Before boarding the van, we all got together for a group photo with members perched in the branches of one of the trees along the beach. And with the flash of a camera, it was over.

Chris and Erin said their final goodbyes to Supy and Phil, who had to head back to Savai’i. Everyone else is expected to be in town tomorrow for the lead-up to the airport.

Until then, we’ll all be in denial a little longer.

I hope you’re well. More pictures from the weekend below.

Supy and Phil.

Erin, Dan, Rob, Paul, Rebecca.

Dan and AJ.

Dan and me.

A bunch of 81 surveys the pool upon arrival at Sa'Moana Resort.

The view eastward from Sa'Moana's pool.

Australian Volunteer Rebecca and Group 81's Paul.

Me and Blakey.

Talking to No One

2010-11-12T20:00:00.002-10:00

There was one day when Ms. Yarbrough went berserk. Back in 7th grade English and Social Science, it was the last period of the day, and we were reading some textbook aloud as a class, and out of nowhere, she snorted. She laughed and flailed her arms and talked to imaginary people on either side of her. She leaned back in her chair and let out bursts of blithe incomprehensible gibberish. When she came to, she told us it was all an attempt to show us what our behavior looked like from her perspective. And now, 15 years after the fact, I finally understand.

I’ve heard a bunch of reports on NPR about how the human brain isn’t fully formed through most of the teenage years and how this can at least partially account for why teens act as though they aren’t in control of their bodies. And watching them day in and day out, I can believe it.

Trying to keep 9.3 under control yesterday, I warned them that the next person I saw talking would have his or her test taken away and that person would receive a zero. This worked for about 30 seconds, and then one boy across the room from where I stood turned and yelled something at the kid behind and to his right. As soon as the words had left his lips, he got this stunned expression on his face and snapped his head toward me. The look was less contrite and more bewildered, as if to say, “What was that?!”

The talking to imaginary people is a real thing as well. My 8th grade teacher Ms. Barton used to make fun of us. She observed that at certain moments, everyone in the class was talking to each other at the same time, and absolutely no one was listening. She looked out and saw not 15 different conversations, but rather a cacophony of 30 separate impromptu soliloquies being performed for 30 different imaginary audiences. Everyone is talking, no one is listening. “No one is listening to you!” Ms. Barton would mock. “You’re talking to the world, but no one can hear you because they’re busy talking to you.” I’ve seen it over and over this year, particularly with my year 9s (who would be 8th graders in America). It would be funnier if it wasn’t so obnoxious.

And it’s amazing how the kids grow out of it. Collecting the exams once the testing period was over yesterday was chaotic. I told the kids to quietly raise their hands if they were finished, and I would come around and collect everyone’s paper. The result: 46 kids babbling to no clear listener.

But when the same system is used with the year 11s, who take exams as one collective group of ~150 students in the assembly hall, they’re impressively patient and orderly about the whole thing. Certainly the acoustic reverb in the classroom makes things worse, but there’s still much to be said for how much more self-control the year 11s have in comparison to the year 9s.

Grow up.

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

My school's secretary, Fa'alau, asked me to take this picture of her next to the bulletin board.

Odds and Ends Thursday 74

2010-11-11T20:00:00.005-10:00

This week has been bizarrely productive. Tuesday’s post was a bit of a lie in that I actually found marking papers a good distraction from the inevitability I talked about in Wednesday’s post. I think this is why I’m way ahead of schedule. In fact, the only reason I haven’t finished marking my year 9 science exams is because the kids don’t take the test until tomorrow morning. Oh well. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

Speaking of yesterday’s post, sorry it’s such a downer. My writing style can veer toward dramatic from time to time, and I sometimes have a tendency to lay it on thick. Take everything I say with a grain of salt.
I brought my laptop to school, and I’m typing this as I proctor the 9.3 Business Studies exam. I never see the 9.3 kids, and as I look out on them to scan for cheating on occasion, there are always at least 3 pairs of eyes staring right back at me. I will never stop being a spectacle.
I bought a pound of popcorn last night. And a fluorescent light bulb. And that new tube of toothpaste last week. And I just ran out of dish soap. So many ridiculous things to be buying this late in the game.
I admit I’m proud of that picture of Shakira I drew despite the fact that Jenny 82 and Kaelin thought her chest was too saggy in the original, and Luisa thinks the published version looks like Helen Hunt.
The rainy season is in full effect. It rains for an hour and then gets sunny and then rains for another hour and then gets sunny. You’d almost think you were in the Bay Area, except even during the rain it’s way too hot.
Speaking of heat, me and the Taraval guys are going to Chicago in January. We’re gonna burn.
Yesterday I was compiling the computer studies grades for terms 1 and 3 to see who would win the prize for top mark at Prizegiving. I had a bunch of files open, and I inadvertently erased all the marks from 10.4 for term 1. Idiot.
Jenny 83 is training in a village near our host village and she is doing model school with Akanese’s Year 2 class. When the trainees were in town last Friday, I asked Jenny about her school and she said, “My favorite student is this girl Agnes.” Akanese goes by the palagi “Agnes” at school. I think I may have screamed.
In 9.3 just now, the sign-in sheet I passed around came back with 49 names. This is a problem because there are only 46 students sitting in the room. So I just toured the room checking off name after name. As it turns out, 3 students—Lanuto’o, Vaiaata, and Konelio—signed in twice for some reason. Something very similar happened in 9.2 yesterday.
Does 11 November make anyone else think of Graeme Base’s “The Eleventh Hour”? I loved that book. The solution was so simple, and yet it took a really REALLY long time for me to figure it out.
I have a rash on my chest. It’s insanely itchy. It’s all I can do to not touch it. Sorry. You’ll hear the highest highs and the lowest lows.
Everyone here seems mildly disappointed my hair has grown back so fast. My vice pule looked genuinely glum. “It’s already back?” She asked with a sigh.

That’s all I got for this week. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

This 9.3 student fell asleep during this afternoon's Business Studies exam.

Bracing for Re-Entry

2010-11-10T23:59:00.000-10:00

There must be the people that grin and bear it, the ones who never make it to the comfort zone, the ones who spend their entire time miserable and then gleefully countdown the days. The Peace Corps isn’t for everybody certainly, but there’s got to be a few who don’t fit and against all odds make it through anyway. They’re the people who can compartmentalize for two-years-plus and head back to America with the joy and relief of a fish who’s been flopping around on land feels as it finally heads back into the water. But for me, and for many others I assume, I feel myself contorting into crash position waiting to collide back with America.

They warn us about this from the beginning; it almost seems like a recruiting slogan: adjusting to life in the developing world isn’t nearly as difficult as re-adjusting to life in The States once you’re done. It makes sense too. It’s easier to slow down than it is to speed up. When I try and imagine what life will be like when I get back, I picture myself sitting on the sofa quietly, trying to get a grip on all the action going on around me.

I find myself growing increasingly anxious about going back to The States for any number of reasons. For example, I’m worried about being lonely. It’s funny because coming into the Peace Corps, I was worried about being alone. And now that I’m going back, I apparently have the same fear. I’m comfortable in my life here. Despite geographic distance, Peace Corps Volunteers are a tightly knit group, and the relationships tend to be emotionally intimate. Going back to The States, where I’ve had a distant, intermittent relationship with most people for the last 2 years, that closeness won't be there--at least not at first. Sure there are people excited to see me, but none who have gone through a common experience. And that just feels lonely.

At the same time I’m worried about finding a (temporary) job, getting into school, buying Christmas presents, keeping a budget, will my iPhone still work?, where is the cat going to live?, when in the hell am I going to move all my crap out of my house here?, etc.

But I presume, as with many other emotions, the anxiety before the storm is worse than the storm itself. Just as the weeks leading up to my Peace Corps departure were full of apprehension and nerves, these last few weeks before my return home are the same.

And adding to that symmetry is facing the crucible by myself.

On move-in day, we were dumped off at our sites, and the next month was spent learning to be alone. And the hardest part of learning to be alone is you have to do it by yourself.

Now things are going in the other direction. Now there's the apprehension of being around people again. And the hardest part about bracing for all of this is, once again, it's a DIY project.

But I guess it’s like I told the 83s: You gotta close your eyes and hold your nose and jump. Soon enough you’ll hit the water. Swim.

I hope you’re well.

Exam Week

2010-11-09T20:00:00.018-10:00

It’s that time of year again. This week is wall-to-wall common exams for the entire school. The year 12s and 13s are in their second week of the Samoan School Certificate Exam and the Pacific Secondary School Certificate exams respectively, and the lower levels have common exams as administered by the Congregational Church School System. It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times.

Teaching is so much work, and it’s a beautiful thing to wake up in the morning and not have to go through the day’s schedule to make sure everything is in order. Proctoring is such a nice break. It’s guilt-free, and I get to bring a book.

It reminds me a little of when I used to work the reception desk at the local community center during high school. I’d spend an hour un-stacking chairs and tables, and then I’d sit around for 6 or 7 hours reading and passing the time. It was awesome. This is similar, except I have to occasionally admonish kids when I see their eyes start to wander.

But then there’s the downside. Proctoring is boring. Most tests are 2.5 hours long, and it’s my job to sit there, ticking off the time on the chalkboard every 30 minutes. Books are fun and all, but at 8 a.m., my body gets confused as to why it’s awake if I’m not doing anything.

For the English exam I proctored Monday morning, the 10.1 classroom had exactly enough chairs for all of the students to have a seat, and me to have none. So I paced and wandered the classroom for 150 minutes, occasionally reading my book, occasionally stretching, occasionally wandering out to the balcony to suck in the fresh air.

But far and away the worst part of exams is the exams themselves. I walked out of school yesterday afternoon with 65 year 11 computer studies exams and 47 English exams. Granted this load is far lighter than last year—and really I’m only doing the two classes of year 11 exams as a courtesy to the other teacher; they’re not my kids—but I still absolutely abhor grading exams.

My conscious mind hates the tedium. Page after page after page after page. My subconscious mind gets incredibly bored. Yesterday I turned on Arrested Development to try and offer the bored parts of my brain a little entertainment. But halfway through the year 11 multiple choice—i.e. the easiest part of the correcting process—my subconscious seduced me into a 2-hour nap. Anything to avoid grading exams.

I try and find ways to reward myself—energy bars, fieldtrips to the store across the street, half-hour guilt-free minesweeper sessions—but mostly I find my brain repulsed. It’s sad when dishwashing sounds way more fun than the current activity at hand.

But I finished all the computer exams last night. And I’m halfway through the English. And with my rewarded free time, I wrote a blog. Back to work. Ugh.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

There's been much discussion about what small logo should go on the front of the t-shirts I talked about on the blog earlier this weekend. The result has been a parlor game of increasingly inane tidbits that encapsulate Peace Corps life in Samoa. The un-controversial favorite seems to be this one above of the pili waving with the caption "Malo, Friend." The phrase doubles as a greeting and a popular pick-up line.

This picture, stolen from the Vailima label, is probably inappropriate for Peace Corps to be sporting in Samoa, but the idea is kinda funny, especially with the caption, "Fia inu?", want a drink?

Given the mindblowing popularity of Shakira's "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)" in Samoa (and apparently nowhere else in the world?), this one seemed like a natural candidate.

My favorite is this one of taro on the half-shell bathed in pe'epe'e with the simple caption, "Fia ai?", hungry? But people mistook the taro for mutton flaps. Oh well.

The T-Shirt

2010-11-06T22:59:00.001-10:00

I had nothing to do today. It was hot when I woke up this morning, and so I figured I’d spend a couple hours in the Peace Corps office, hanging out with whomever was around, soaking in the air conditioning. Dan wanted me to bring my Skype headset, so I loaded up my backpack and headed over. Though I needed phone credit, I walked past K.K. Mart on the corner and headed directly for the office door. I hadn’t sat down for more than 5 minutes when Jenny 82 approached.

“Hey Matt,” she said. “Want to work on the Peace Corps t-shirt?” I knew what she was talking about immediately.

A while back some Peace Corps Volunteers in Samoa created a non-profit organization to make it easier for volunteers to perform collective community service projects and such and apply for grant money that might not be available to the Peace Corps itself. This group, Avanoa Tutusa, is typically headed by a volunteer (currently Joey 81).

Avanoa Tutusa’s latest fundraising project is making Peace Corps t-shirts and selling them to current volunteers. Jenny 82 drew the initial design a month or two ago, and since then the project has been in development hell. There were issues with finding a good place to get t-shirts made, and Jenny’s design went through several iterations.

So when Jenny asked this morning if I could help with the t-shirt design, I think she mostly wanted me to scan the image and move around a couple of the implements on the page.

But I, in my vector-based mindset, decided it would be best to re-draw the entire design on the computer. Chris (who had been working on getting a t-shirt vendor in The States) had toyed with the idea of creating a vector-based image of the logo, and that got me excited, and so when Jenny 82 casually asked this morning, I made a beeline for the computer.

I started work at approximately 9:30 this morning. I worked diligently for roughly 5 hours to re-create Jenny’s design. Jenny, who attended art school at one point, had big ideas for the t-shirt design that she had forfeited months back for whatever reason. But with my newfound zeal, my recreation of the design provided an opportunity to include a lot more stuff that had been cut.

This morning, the design included a bus with a breadfruit leaf, a banana tree, taro leaves, and a hibiscus flower. By late afternoon there was a fish, a fan, a lizard, and a pig. Then a computer (preferably drawn in dramatic perspective) and a stack of books were added in the early evening.

There was a lot of discussion about the angle of the bus and whether it looked like it was actually coming toward the viewer. It was worked and re-worked several times over.

In the end, I left the Peace Corps office at 8:30 p.m., 11 hours after I’d started. But it looks good, I think.

And I didn’t mind. I had nothing to do today.

I hope you're well. Leftover bald pictures from last week below.

Me after the initial haircut.

Dan helped with applying the shaving cream.

Me with the Bic.

Dan helped with the Bic.

The final product.

Odds and Ends Thursday 73

2010-11-04T11:00:00.000-10:00

Since the Year 12s and 13s are all in SchoolC and PSSC exams this week and the 9s, 10s, and 11s are off until Monday, this week has been pretty slow. I’ve been rolling into school around 9:30 every morning, and those morning hours have been spent preparing for Prizegiving, even though it’s 4 weeks away. The Indian missionaries are leaving for India on 22 November, and they want to have everything in its place before they go. So I’ve been compiling grades for the upper levels and printing trophy labels. Keeping busy. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

I took the cat up to the vet yesterday to start preparations for her to fly back to America next month. I paid $10 for a taxi ride up the mountain only to find out they’re out of whatever vaccine that cat’s going to need. It may arrive tomorrow. I paid another $10 to get home.
Not to beat a dead horse... but how about those San Francisco Giants?
In the World Series / Halloween craziness of last weekend, I forgot to mention I spent Friday night in the host village. Everything there is good. It’s my host mother’s 70th birthday next month, and there are lots of celebration plans in the works.
The SchoolC exam for computers was this afternoon. Here are some of the more inane questions:
- The printer that actually throws ink onto paper to produce the intended characters is known as a/an...
- What can Simon and Uili have on their computer that wll help them speed up communication with local and overseas customers and suppliers?
- Underline the printer that would cost you more.
  laser printer inkjet printer
I’m not really interested in any World Series stuff. I just want a Buster Posey jersey. That kid’s brilliant. And he looks like a batboy.
I’ve started watching Six Feet Under. Black humor is great.
How about Chris and AJ’s Avatar couple’s costume? It was elaborate. Did you see the ears?
I got called up to the girls’ college up the hill from me to fix the computer in their front office. Windows wasn’t recognizing the modem. After a half hour of tinkering, I plugged the modem into a different expansion slot on the motherboard. Windows found the modem, the college staff thinks I’m a genius. I fooled them.
My host sister Asolima rode the bus with me into town Saturday morning, where I helped her shop for Sunday to’ona’i. At Frankie Molesi I picked up some Colgate Herbal Whitening toothpaste for $2, which I proceeded to leave in the shopping bag that Asolima took back to Fausaga. At Lucky Foodtown tonight, I picked up an identical box of Colgate Herbal Whitening toothpaste... for $4.30. Oh well.
The fluorescent light bulb over my dining room table burned out. I’m living in this house for 4.5 more weeks. Do I throw down the money to replace it?
I’m ready to not be bald anymore.
I sewed my monk’s hood myself out of a brown ’ie. This was impressive because I’ve never sewn a hood before, and risky because I didn’t start sewing until after I shaved my head. But it all worked out.
The best part of the Saint Francis costume came on Sunday morning when Kaelin 82 texted me with, "Make me a channel of your peace." It was worth shaving my head, if only for that.

That’s all I got for this week. I hope you’re well.

Birds flying in the staffroom. It's Birds! It walked on my pillow!

School secretary Faalau and me sharing an impromptu lunch after it was discovered we'd ordered too much for the exam proctors.

Scout trying to get in on the Jim Beam.

For my host mom's 70th birthday, the guys tore down the garage to build a new large faleo'o.

Mufti

2010-11-02T20:00:00.001-10:00

The closest I ever came to wearing a uniform to school in The States was sophomore year of high school when our water polo coach required us to wear ties to school on the day of one of our post-season regional championship games. And that doesn’t really count. I still wore jeans. Our starting defensive hole set Will wore a clip-on tie on the collar of his T-shirt. So I make no claims to knowing the joys and pitfalls of wearing a uniform to school, but I can assume that free-dress days are an exciting treat.

I vaguely remember friends of mine who went to private school talking about free-dress days as rewards in some sort of scholastic or behavioral incentive scheme. Here in Samoa free-dress days come at a different price: literally a price. On occasion schools will use free-dress days as a fundraiser. From what I hear, the fee tends to be nominal—the one my school had last week was $10—though some students’ families have a harder time paying for this than others, of course.

The free-dress fundraiser is referred to as a Mufti. Since this is definitely not a Samoan word (two consecutive consonants is a linguistic impossibility in Samoan), I can only assume the term comes from Kiwi influence. Oh good. As it turns out, Wikipedia has an insightful article about the Mufti’s etymology. Apparently the term is Arabic.

In any case, I have to say from what I hear from other volunteers, my school deals with financing really well. School staff runs a small profit off the student canteen, and that tends to cover nearly all extracurricular expenses. This is a rare arrangement in this country, and it explains why in all the time I’ve been here, last week’s Mufti (to subsidize school magazine printing costs) was my first. In fact, when Koa texted me about a Mufti at his school back in February of this year, I had no idea what the term meant. Blakey had to explain it to me.

Free-dress comes with all the excitement one would expect. Girls wear earrings and make-up. Boys find their own ways to accessorize—hats, sunglasses, and for some, make-up.

The event seemed like a bigger deal for the lower levels. The 9s and 10s were all about it. The older kids, particularly the student prefects, seemed rattled with adolescent indifference and shrugged off the day as though it simply meant they didn’t have to worry about ironing that morning. By nature of their position, student prefects are on campus outside the normal school day pretty often, and much of that time is spent out of uniform.

And now that I think about it, my year 12 computer class was a bit of a fashion show. One girl Taeone, the pebble in my teaching sandals, was dressed to the nines with vinyl gold sandals and designer sunglasses. Legalo wore her hair down. Vincent, who tries his best to channel Michael Jackson, was in top form. It was a crack up.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Fautamara and Taeone.

Fanua and Eddie (who wore Vincent's sunglasses for this picture).

Boys from my year 10 English class. Vailima (in the middle) wore eye-liner. It was so punk rock.

Girls in my year 9 science class.

Akari from year 10. I have no idea what the 74 means.

2010-11-01T20:00:00.000-10:00

Halloween 2010

2010-10-31T20:00:00.001-10:00

I’ve done it once before. Between college and Samoa I cut my own hair, and on one occasion in early 2007 the guard on the clippers came off while I was trimming the hair on the back of my head, and I had no other choice. But yesterday’s session was a conscious decision from start to finish. I recruited Dan to help me in the matter, set out the objectives beforehand, and then stood on the steps behind myself while Dan went to work.

People have since asked when and how I came up with the idea, and to be honest, I don’t have a straight answer. Halloween snuck up on me, as it always does, and I’d been talking to a bunch of volunteers about costume ideas, and when someone suggested monk Friday afternoon, I immediately rejected it. But somehow it crept back into my deliberations yesterday morning.

On second thought, the idea had merit. The clothing wouldn’t be difficult; though I don’t have a brown robe, a brown ’ie faitaga would work perfectly. Additionally, what with the Giants doing so well in the World Series, being a Franciscan monk would fall right in line with San Francisco. In fact, Saint Francis would be a great tribute costume on a number of different levels.

But the part that really pushed the idea over the edge—the thing that would bring the costume from mediocre to memorable, the way the costume could really outdo years past—required a certain amount of sacrifice.

For whatever reason, in my experience Peace Corps Volunteers take Halloween far more seriously than most people I knew in The States. Perhaps the qualities that make for a good PCV fall in line with those that make for a good Halloween costume maker/wearer. Or maybe life overseas means we have a lot of pent-up Americanism and Halloween simply provides an outlet. Whatever the reason, past years have set the bar high.

And, if I do say so myself, I’ve had a pretty good track record. In 2008, my mosquito costume was certainly a failure, but it was a memorable failure. Though it became unwieldy almost immediately and it was unrecognizable to most people that night, people still talk about how awesomely bad it was. Last year my Halloween homage to Country Director Dale was a big hit. At Group 83’s Welcome Fiafia earlier this month, Dale even introduced himself as Matt. So I like to think I’ve built a bit of a reputation for coming up with a costume that generates some sort of buzz, which is all to say that expectations for this year were high.

So I shaved my head. It was the added quirk that brought the entire costume to a new level. When I told Dan my idea, we discussed whether it should just be clipped short or whether a safety razor and shaving cream would be necessary. We decided on the latter. Dan used a longer setting on the clippers first to get the general shape and then went over it again once we were both satisfied. I did much of the work with the safety razor, although Dan helped with the back.

The monk’s hood provided a good method of reveal that let people soak in the costume initially, and with its removal, the tada! moment. Many people at the party thought I was wearing some sort of bald cap, and I was asked several times during the night where I found such a thing in Apia. Everyone’s next question of course was, “What are you going to do tomorrow?”

My answer: shave the rest.

And so as I type this now, my head is completely bald. It will be difficult to explain this to school staff tomorrow, but I figure once people get over the initial shock, things will be business as usual. Students won’t be around this week on account of testing, and there should be a fair amount of stubble by the time they get back next Monday.

In any case, I feel like I rose to the Peace Corps Halloween standard. Don’t expect this next year.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Erin showed up as a Native American. Me as Monk.

Koa and Summer as John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

The costumes. 4 volunteers showed up dressed as other volunteers. Left to Right: Kyle as Jenny S. 82, Jim as Trent, Blakey as me, Elisa as Tifa.

The real people. Left to Right: Jenny S. 82, Trent, Me, Tifa.

Phil and Supy, in a sequel to 2008's Big Spoon / Little Spoon, came as Masima and Masima Saina (Salt and Chinese Salt... even though Supy is Thai.). Joey 81 was a baseball player.

Emily showed up in full Dia de los Muertos garb.

K8 showed up as Miss Mortein, a superhero of her own creation.

Group 81 showed up in its entirety as we do on occasion. No other group has ever achieved this outside of training in all my time here. Yes, we love patting ourselves on the back.

Me tonight. Bald.

Odds and Ends Thursday 72

2010-10-29T20:00:00.005-10:00

It’s been quite a day. An hour after assigning my English class a rather lengthy report to have ready for class tomorrow, I was informed tomorrow will be a cleaning day and there will be no classes. Essentially, today was my last day of teaching in Samoa. There was little time to process this though, because I taxied across town as soon as school got out to watch the Giants deliver a wallop to a stunned Texas Rangers. 9-0?! I mean, c’mon! Did that really happen? And then 8 hours later I finally watched the last episode of Lost. It’s a lot to take in. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

Okay, okay. For the sake of everyone else, let’s continue to refrain from leaving comments about Lost, but if you want to at this point, you can email me if you want to talk about it. I think I may be the only person in Samoa who has seen the whole thing—certainly no other Peace Corps Volunteers have seen it, probably some of the trainees—so goodness knows I could use someone to talk to.
It has been insanely rainy these past couple days. The wet season is here.
Blakey and I have been puzzled by all the baseball players on both teams wearing kitschy necklaces color-coordinated to their uniforms. RPCV Dylan says the neckwear is supposedly magnetic or power-channeling or some other sort of snake oil. Cool.
The magazine is really finished because the final product has been delivered. At Interval on Tuesday copies were distributed to all the form teachers so students could see an advance copy. Everyone seems pretty happy. I have not received a copy yet, but I’m thrilled there will be no more revisions.
You know Suasami? The teacher I sit next to every day at Interval? I somehow left her name off the list of people in her form class’s picture. Every single other teacher is listed with their class and has his/her name underlined. Oops.
Liam turned me on to this band The Morning Benders. They’re great.
I’m so happy Year 13 Camp is over. It’s fun at first, and then it just feels like the school day never ends. Even the hormonal students seemed relieved to not be here anymore.
Have you heard about this new casino they’re building in downtown Apia? I heard a rumor today that only foreign-passport-holders will be allowed to gamble. How are they going to enforce that?
Man. Lost isn’t The Wire or Arrested Development, but it’s damn good.
I desperately need to submit law school applications. I think this may happen Sunday.
I need a Halloween costume!

That’s all I got for today—sorry it’s a little short. I hope you’re well.

2 Down, 2 to Go

2010-10-28T23:00:00.002-10:00

Daaaang. Texas Rangers got beat down tonight. At one point, one of the announcers on the American Forces Network, before praising Edgar Renteria, tried to affirm his objectivity by saying he didn’t favor either side, and that all he was rooting for was a 7-game series in which each game was decided by 1 run. After which I said to Blakey, “I’m rooting for a 4-game series in which each game is a blowout.” The series has yet to be decided, but at least the latter part of my wish came true in game 2. Ouch! But really, the thrill of the last 2 days has simply been watching baseball.

Through Facebook and talking to friends from back home, I know a fair amount of people who attended one or both games, and it’s weird because I don’t feel jealous at all. After living in Samoa for 2 years, I am disconnected from America enough that the thought of attending a World Series game seems surreal. It would be sensory overload; more stressful than fun. Like getting in a car and jumping from 10 mph to 100. It honestly doesn’t sound appealing.

But I miss baseball. I wrote about this nearly a year and a half ago after watching Field of Dreams, and as much as I’ve spent the time since then adjusting to a life without it, I still quietly miss it a lot. So part of the thrill in having the Giants go to the World Series is having an excuse to seek out a TV in Apia showing a baseball game.

Shortly after I posted Sunday, I emailed the Charges d’Affaires to ask about possibly watching a few World Series games at the American embassy, and she was cool with that. So I wore my Tim Lincecum T-shirt to sixth period yesterday, and as soon as the bell rang I made a beeline for the embassy.

I felt a little ridiculous emailing the Charges to ask if I could come watch TV, and I was completely prepared to sit in a corner at the embassy to quietly watch by myself. But it was the Charges who suggested the event might be more fun if I brought some other people. So Blakey came along yesterday and had a good enough time she came back for Game 2 this afternoon.

There was a brief moment of panic when I first arrived yesterday and we couldn’t find any channel showing the game on the handful of stations that come in through the embassy’s satellite dish. But then some embassy TV expert came in and changed the input, and the American Forces Network came through like a champ. This means that we get military commercials between half-innings and during pitcher changes. Although I’m still apt to recite, “And when it’s time for a change, think Speedy Oil Change...”

So just for a second, I’m going to use my soap box here to talk some trash...
Is walking in a run not one of the most embarrassing things one can do in professional sports? I’d say it’s worse than shooting an airball from the free-throw line or getting tackled in your own endzone. It’s the kind of thing where the opposing team winces in embarrassment for you. The kind of thing where even the scoreboard shakes its head, shrugs, and then chalks one up for the other team. The kind of thing Germans invented the word “Schaudenfraude” to articulate. In English, I’d just have to call it pitiful.

Bring it on in Arlington.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Note: Odds and Ends Thursday will run tomorrow.

Me in my Lincecum T-shirt and my gray 'ie faitaga.

Blakey and I have been watching in the embassy's staff dining room.

Me and Blakey.

Lock Down

2010-10-25T20:00:00.001-10:00

Last Tuesday my year 13s begged me to open the computer lab during the open-study period from 9:30 p.m. until bed time at 11:00. While I was more opening the lab to the masses at the beginning of camp, I’ve lately been a little over camp, and sitting in the corner with a classroom full of year 13s looking at pictures on their flash drives and listening to the latest from J Boog isn’t my idea of a restful weekday evening. But I agreed to open the lab anyway. And none of them showed.

That’s right: I was stood up by my students. A few of the year 12 boys who live on campus came into the room around 10:40, and I let them use the computers for the final 20 minutes. As you can expect, I was cranky about the situation.

But then Amanda apologized the next morning, “Sorry about last night, Mista,” she said. “But they wouldn’t let us out of the classroom.” The idea that some overzealous teacher put the kibosh on the computer lab made more sense. Amanda went on, “I was so angry they wouldn’t let us out of study hall, I just didn’t study. They wouldn’t let me out. So I just sat there.” And then I was completely won over.

It’s totally something I would do. I’m all about irrational, pseudo-subversive responses to arbitrary rules. Would it have benefited Amanda to have spent that time studying rather than trying to make some pointless statement about the tyranny of the supervising teacher? Sure. But it’s much better to sacrifice studying in the name of a principle; it’s always a thrill to be the martyr.

Fast forward to tonight. The supervision rotation found all the players in the same spot for the first time since last week’s episode. And the year 13s were at it again begging me to open the lab.

“We’ll come this time, but you have to pick us up,” they told me. “[That teacher] is mean.” Speaking the name of the teacher in question, of course. Until this afternoon I hadn’t realize which teacher had been holding them in. The news was slightly surprising because I was under the impression it had been someone else, and yet not surprising at all because the story made much more sense now.

See, the students in question are all trustworthy. Most of them are student prefects. They don’t fit the profile of the cigarette-smoking rebels looking to sneak out and raise hell. To deny them passage to the computer lab seems a little extreme. But then again, what is the entire Hall Pass system, but a way of asserting one’s power? A hall pass is completely function-less except that it reminds students about the Rule of Law.

The entire situation became more ridiculous when I actually went to pick up my kids from The Big Bad Wolf tonight. The teacher coarsely acknowledged me as I approached, and then I said in a quiet tone, “Can I have the computer studies students?” The teacher, looking to hang on to the asserted power, barked at the students a bit before allowing them to go. But I didn’t stick around to listen.

I figure getting between Amanda the Martyr and The Great Authoritarian is no way to spend a Monday night.

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

Did I already post this picture? If I did, it's worth posting again. It's from a few months back when a student borrowed my camera for an event. I think the girl on the right is her little sister. They're darling.

Off to the Village

2010-10-24T23:00:00.001-10:00

They left a week late. The training schedule usually dictates the incoming group stays in Apia for approximate- ly 10 days, and then on their second Saturday in country, the newbies leave for the training village. In the past the Welcome Fiafia has been held the night before, so the trainees get one last hurrah before heading out into the cold. But for whatever reason this year, the trainees stayed in town an extra week. And then yesterday afternoon, they headed out.

There’s one other difference with group 83: they have 4 different training villages. While group 81 took the village of Fausaga by storm back in October 2008 with all 13 of us living with host families in the village, and group 82 doing the same last year with the village of Manunu, the 83s have been split into 4 sub-groups. I’m pretty sure the 4 villages are somewhat close to one another—I heard it’s approximately 5 miles from one end to the other—but the 4 villages don’t necessarily border each other.

When the volunteers heard about this strategy, there were mixed feelings. On the one hand, we liked our experience of the group unity that is forged in having a common village experience. After two and a half weeks in a Apia, group 83 knows one another pretty well, and it’s lousy to have to split up. On the other hand group unity is more difficult to achieve with 20 trainees, so it might be less overwhelming for the volunteers and the people in the village to split the large group into more manageable pieces.

Given my residence in Apia and group 83’s outgoing nature, I’ve been able to interact with them quite a bit since they arrived, and I’ve been in limited contact with a few via text message since yesterday. It’s been entertaining reading about their reactions.

I recall in the day or two leading up to my groups first trip to the host village, the Training Director warned us, “Just remember: you signed up for the Peace Corps.” Those first 10 days were spent at an air-conditioned hotel in downtown Apia. Going from there to the training village is a mix of The-Honeymoon’s-over and you’re-getting-pushed-into-the-deep-end. It can be overwhelming at first.

Here are some text messages I’ve received:

Lots of freakin roosters around me
Survived my first day. Lots of awkward moments but its expected.
I can’t remember anyones names! :-(
All the teen girls boss me around
How long does it take to get used to cold showers...cause that was pretty awful
[All the 83s] i have talked to are fine...still uncomfortable but fine...and actually looking forward to class tomorrow

Reading these feels like listening to one of my cousins talk about high school: I’m not jealous of their situation at all, but it’s mildly entertaining to watch someone else have to go through the same growing pains, and I can’t help but feel a little nostalgic. Being stuck in the training village was lousy. And I miss it a little.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Samantha and Olivia from group 83.

The tall palagi guy who manages Farmer Joe shopping at K.K. Mart.

This was posted on the chalkboard when I walked into my 9.2 class one day last week. Apparently in reviewing for the upcoming Visual Arts exam, the art teacher gave the sample question, "What is Art?" And the correct answer, "Art is life." I found this hilarious.

The next question: "What is the key of art?" So, by extension, what is the key to life?
The answer: "Drawing."
Fascinating.

Yes! Giants!

2010-10-23T23:59:00.006-10:00

My dad texted me at 8:46 p.m. PDT with, “Giants win 3-2”. And just like that, my boys are going to the World Series for the first time in 8 years. This is glorious news, except for the fact I’m completely isolated from baseball. I’ve been wearing my Giants t-shirt to class and my Giants baseball cap around town, but the thrill of baseball isn’t about the jersey or the hometown pride; it’s about watching the game. And though it’s going to be decidedly difficult to do that, I’m going to try my damnedest.

Looking at the game schedule, games 1 and 2 are this Wednesday and Thursday at approximately 2 p.m. Samoa Time. Then games 3 through 5 are Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and then, should games 6 and/or 7 be necessary, next Wednesday and Thursday.

Here is a list of viewing possibilities I’ve come up with:

Sports Bar. There are 2 prominent sports bars in Apia: Henny’s and Wildfire. Each of these has ESPN Australia. Fox has domestic TV rights, but I suppose there’s a chance ESPN is telecasting the games internationally (or at least to Australia). Assuming that, and that they are open at 2 p.m., these places become viable options.
Charges d’Affaires. The Charges gets the American Forces Network at her house, and I would definitely assume it will be showing there. Going to her house is probably not an option during the middle of the week, but it’s possible she’d allow a TV-less PCV to come watch the World Series next Saturday or Sunday.
The American Embassy. They have cable that can be shown in the lobby. It’s unclear whether they get any channels that will be showing the World Series, but it’s certainly possible. They tend to be tight on security there, but I don’t think watching a game there would be out of the question. It’s definitely worth a try.
GameDay Webcast. If worse comes to worst, I should be able to (ideally) watch or (more realistically) listen to the games over the Internet. When I lived in Pasadena I subscribed to MLB.com so I could listen to Giants games, and their web capabilities have only improved since. Watching a 3-hour game on LavaSpot would be expensive, and it’s unclear the LavaSpot would have the bandwidth to handle streaming video. These factors make this option a last resort.

I wonder if I know anyone else who has good cable. Jordan and Blakey housesat for a couple up the hill who have pretty good international cable. Jordan invited me over earlier this season to watch baseball. The second-to-last resort:

27 October, 1:57 p.m.
28 October, 1:57 p.m.
30 October, 12:57 p.m.
31 October, 3:20 p.m.
1 November, 2:57 p.m.
3 November, 2:57 p.m.
4 November, 2:57 p.m.

email me here

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

While watching Lost yesterday, I noticed Hurley put a Teuila blossom on Libby's grave. The Teuila is, of course, the national flower of Samoa.

Note: Please refrain from leaving comments about Lost. Thank you.

Finite Weekend

2010-10-22T23:59:00.007-10:00

In the office where my mom used to work, there was a sign posted next to the large office calendar that read, “Dates in the calendar may be closer than they appear.” Most members of group 81 are fully aware of how many days they have left in Samoa off the top of their heads. I had a media-related issue last night that I called Koa about, and his solution was, “We’ll be back in America in 53 days...” Koa’s leaving a week after me, so my countdown is even farther along. But I find the countdown only creates stress, so I try and avoid thinking about it.

On the other hand, I am acutely aware of how many weekends I have left (seven including this one), and since weekends are the only time of week when I can really do much in-country travel, I’m trying to mete out weekend time a little more wisely. Since everything shuts down Sundays, I mostly treat weekends as a Friday-Saturday affair.

First the constraints. We’ll be celebrating Halloween next Saturday and Thanksgiving on my penultimate Saturday in Samoa. This leaves 5 remaining Saturdays (including tomorrow) before I leave. Money is also more of a factor than I’d thought it would be. Whereas prior to May of this year, I was putting a little away every month, I’ve since been squandering my cash on who-knows-what. I don’t think this should be too much of a factor, but it’s still good to keep in mind when considering the next part of the finite weekend equation: the list of things I want to do.

Creating a list of stuff to do before we leave was part of the Close of Service Conference. I wrote out a long list that I have since misplaced. Oh well. Here is a list I’ve brainstormed off the top of my head:

Go to Namu’a Island;
Go to Manono;
Do the River Fales Hike (again) in Falese’ela;
Rent a car to:
- Return my large beer and soda bottles to Apia Bottling Co. for $0.40 per bottle; and
- Take one last joy ride along Upolu’s south coast;
Visit the training village at least 2 more times; and
Visit Savai’i at least 1 more time.

This list actually seems a little modest. It seems like there should be more, although nothing else comes to mind at this point. One thing that can be safely said is that if I’m going to do all of these things—or even most of these things—my weekend schedule is going to be crowded for the rest of my stay in Samoa.

There’s the consolatory idea that I whatever I don’t do in the next 6 weeks can be done on some subsequent return to Samoa. And while I’m not at all opposed to coming back to visit, even returning for 2 weeks doesn’t seem like enough time to accomplish much at all. RPCV Max has been visiting these past 2 weeks, but he’s spent most of the time catching up with his host family and living the typical PCV lifestyle; that is, saving all the fun stuff until it’s too late.

I hope you’re well. Happy Birthday Dustin! Picture below.

Girls after year 13 camp last night. Left to right: Amanda's sister (sorry, I don't know her name), Tafale, Amanda.

Odds and Ends Thursday 71

2010-10-21T23:00:00.002-10:00

I was up until 3 a.m. Monday night/ Tuesday morning grading exams. I managed to finish all my year 13s and then fought off sleep grading my year 12s’ multiple choice. It was the kind of deal where I was falling asleep in the middle of moving my pen back and forth across the page. But by 4th period Tuesday they were ready to be handed back, and just like that, the second to last big hump of my Peace Corps experience was over. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

Okay, maybe it’s a little too hopeful to think that there’s only one big ungodly effort left before December, but I think I’m just happy to be done with the slideshow and the exam-marking and the school magazine (knock on wood).
Happy birthday, Jen!
Why the knocking on wood? Well after the printing company delivered the proofs last Friday, my pule decided he had a slew of content changes he wanted to make. Proofs are only for checking color and margin size! The magazine was finished already! Let sleeping dogs lie!
I made his changes. We re-submitted the magazine Wednesday. We should have new proofs early next week.
It’s getting to be that time of year again where I lament the fact I didn’t start planning my Halloween costume a week or two earlier. Oh well. I found this one on the Mental Floss website. I really like it, but I’m not sure I could find orange tights or a cottontail in Samoa.
I’ve started listening to The Beatles’ Let It Be re-release, “Let It Be... Naked” a lot recently. I never found the original very approachable, but this new version has grown on me. Kinda funny because I got the “Naked” album as a Secret Santa gift for Christmas 2003, and it’s taken these 7 years for me to really get into it.
Most annoying development in months: somehow the device driver software for my touchpad disappeared. My computer won’t acknowledge the factory touchpad. Now, if the touchpad simply stopped working I could get an external mouse, and the problem would be solved. But instead the touchpad does work, but now I can’t disable one-touch clicking. So now I keep inadvertently bumping it while I’m typing, and I end up clicking somewhere else on the screen. And since the software is gone, there’s nothing I can do to disable that. It’s effing obnoxious.
The sāsā we performed at the 83 Welcome Fiafia was the worst sāsā I’ve been a part of in my 2 years. This is sad because it’s most likely the last time I will sāsā. Oh well.
So how about my San Francisco Giants? Sure, they lost tonight, but who’d have thought they’d get this far in the post-season? I’m just sad I can’t watch. If they make it to the World Series, so help me God, I’ll find a way. It will be difficult, but not impossible, I think.
Here are the best answers from my Year 12 and 13 final exams:
- What does ASCII stand for?
  American Standard Code for Interchuch Information
- What does WYSIWYG stand for?
  Word Software Input War (sounds menacing, ay?)
- Why is it good to use a spreadsheet program rather than pencil and paper?
  You dont have to waste your time by doing on paper and it good because the computer knows everything
- Question unknown.
  Microsoft Bublisher.

That’s all I got for this week. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

This afternoon I was on a panel to discuss teaching in Samoa as part of group 83's training. This picture, along with the next 2, is group 83 from my vantage point. Left to right: APCD Kellye, Interim Peace Corps Trainer Jamie, Sarah, Samantha, Olivia, Jenny, Lindsay.

Left to right: Katie, Rivka, OtherMike, Danny, Pat, Natalie, Chris.

Left to right: Chelsea, Rob, Mike, Devon, Rachael, Dave, Karen. Nancy was sitting right next to Chelsea out of the camera's frame. Sorry, Nancy.

This was the sky off the balcony of the Pasefika Inn this afternoon. Samoan skies are breathtaking. 2 years later, I can't help taking pictures of blue sky and clouds. I think the rusty corrugated roofs also caught my eye.

Slideshow: Year 2

2010-10-20T23:59:00.020-10:00

Yes, I admit these last Cultural Explorations were sporadically posted over a much longer time period than usual. For a moment on Sunday, I actually planned to write and publish 5 blog posts. But then I literally fell over on the couch and fell asleep. Much like last year, last week’s lead-up to the Welcome Fiafia was a mostly sleepless affair. With everyone in town last weekend, there was little time to catch up, and the re-introduction of Year 13 Camp this week has left me surviving on caffeine and mid-afternoon catnaps. So sorry if things have been uneven; it’s an accurate portrayal of life.

The slideshow turned out pretty good. Since the Fiafia came up way faster than I was expecting, I didn’t have much time to throw the slideshow together, so I mostly relied on the same clever tricks I concocted last year. Thus the crowd was less awed than last year, but still satisfied, I think.

I included factoids about each volunteer, and since I have twice the familiarity with group 81 this year, I was able to sprinkle the show with in-jokes and euphemisms. In fact, use of the word “factoid” itself is a quiet shout-out to the 81s.

There were the typical hang-ups. One volunteer felt all of her pictures were lousy, another shouted out during the slideshow presentation that the village I’d listed as her home was incorrect. Whatever. As a pre-emptive buffer to such criticism, I made sure to a make a show of being self-deprecating during the part about me. So there.

Supy put up a big stink because the Fiafia was held on his birthday, trying to get all of us to attend his alternative party. To lull him into coming, I included a special Happy Birthday Supy segment, which included, among other things, a sing-along-with-the-bouncing-ball portion; not an easy feat in PowerPoint.

I was worried people wouldn’t get it or would be weirded out, but much to my relief, the crowd actually sang along to the bouncing ball! Too bad Supy didn’t show up. That’s right. He didn’t come. Not that I’m bitter.

Until 4 hours before the Fiafia was scheduled to begin, I still had no introduction. I was chatting online listening to my iTunes on random play when Ira Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” came on. I thought of the beginning of the movie “Manhattan”. And thus the introduction was born. I found as many dramatic pictures of Apia buildings as I could find, changed them to black and white, and edited my Gershwin mp3 down to a manageable length.

The result is ridiculous. Woody Allen filmed iconic images like the Empire State Building at dawn, cars crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, and crowds moving through Time Square. I used shots of a breakfast banner over McDonald’s, a Birthday sale at Chan Mow, and two ladies walking in front of K.K. Mart. Iconic to Peace Corps Volunteers? Certainly. Majestic? Not so much. Entertaining to (movie nerds) me and Koa and no one else? Most definitely.

Oh well. I liked it.

I hope you're well. The finished product was 215 MB, so I’m not going to post it here. But there are some screenshots below to help you visualize.

Dramatic photos of Apia from the slideshow intro.

More dramatic photos of Apia from the slideshow intro.

Okay. So the basic gimmick I kinda invented last year and then shamelessy used again this year works like this: Dan's pictures fly in. The disappear one after another to reveal different information about Dan—his village, project assignment, and factoids. Different pictures replace the old ones. Then Dan's name and all of the pictures except one fly. In this case, the large picture on the left stays.

That large picture on the left then pans within its frame to reveal a different member of group 81. In this case, A.J. (Red arrows added for demonstration purposes.).

Once the pan finishes, pictures of A.J. fly in to fill the slide. The process repeats itself. A.J. links to Phil, Phil to K8, K8 to Blakey, etc. We're all connected.

Cultural Exploration 56: Fa'amavae

2010-10-19T23:59:00.001-10:00

I admit when I left for the Peace Corps, my goal was to essentially sneak out of the country under cover of darkness. When my roommates and my family asked about throwing me going-away parties I asked they be small in order to minimize the number of goodbyes. When you leave for the Peace Corps, there’s a tendency for people to treat you like you’re dying, and I wanted to avoid that. So I didn’t tell most of my friends I was leaving for Samoa until I was at LAX getting ready to board my flight. I have a feeling leaving Samoa won’t be so easy.

Fa’amavae, or going-away parties, are a big deal in Samoa. My group’s first Samoan fa’amavae came near the end of training when we left the training village. We spent a good 5 or 6 weeks preparing for the event, including rehearsing a song, a play, and several Samoan dances. The party took on a fiafia structure, starting with a big dinner and eventually evolving into an exchange of talents and musical numbers. Most volunteers went home after the public event for private celebrations with their host families, which probably included an exchange of gifts and even more food.

Now that group 81 is getting ready to leave our permanent sites where we’ve lived for considerably longer, the stakes are a lot higher, and some of us are starting to get nervous. Much of Samoan culture is considerably more formal than American culture, and I personally feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells, hoping not to say the wrong thing or inadvertently slight anyone—and that’s just normal life. Just like in America, special events in Samoa—weddings, funerals, Christmas, going away parties—bring on heightened stress.

Most Samoan speeches begin with an apology. “I’m deeply sorry if any of my past actions have in any way offended you...” Et cetera. I guess I can handle that. Maybe throw in some biblical allusions for good measure. Round it off with a long list of thank yous. I guess I can do that.

Maybe I’m more worried about the exchange of gifts. It’s somewhat common for a school to give a departing Peace Corps Volunteer money, which is nice, but it definitely puts the pressure on the volunteer to reciprocate, and it’s difficult to know what’s appropriate. Giving money back? Not appropriate.

For host families, several Peace Corps staff have suggested framed pictures, or some sort of photo album. I feel like the magazine I created for my school might be enough of a gift, but I don’t know how fresh that will be 2 months down the line.

In any case, volunteers often throw our own fa’amavaes where we get together for one last hurrah. Group 81’s shouldn’t disappoint. And then, of course, there’s the typical congregating at Aggie Grey’s—from where the airport shuttle departs—for hugs and a final Vailima. I’m dreading / looking forward to that.

Back to regular blog programming tomorrow.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Me dancing at our host village fa'amavae.

The Battle of the Minds finals I scrutineered on Saturday morning.

The Battle of the Minds studio audience during a brief break when Digicel did a promotion.

Cultural Exploration 55: Recycling

2010-10-18T20:00:00.001-10:00

There’s something post-apocalyptic about it. It reminds me of “Mad Max” or “Waterworld” or even “Wall-E” in which people (or robots) trying to survive after the world has ended re-commission everyday items for new purposes—think of Kevin Costner filtering his waste with a modified Mr. Coffee or Wall-E with his cache of treasures he’s found in the dump. The practice in Samoa isn’t quite so dramatic, but it’s still a little off-putting the first time you think about it.

This trend is noticeable on the trip into town from the airport: even from the road it’s easy to see the Samoan thatched fales securing the roof with old tires. Some houses use the left-over scraps of the rubber sheets used to cut out the soles of Jandals. The foot-shaped holes form a sort of rubber net that holds a small sheet of corrugated aluminum that keeps the fale waterproof.

Culture Day in the village provided some more examples. Rather than using a vegetable peeler or a knife to peel taro and breadfruit, it’s common in Samoa to cut a tin can about an inch from one of the bases and to use the jagged edges as a peeler. In addition to using banana leaves and breadfruit leaves to cover the umu, the above ground fire used to cook whole pigs among other things, I’ve seen people use old refrigerator boxes.

Re-usable food containers are all over the place. Tip-Top Ice Cream—perhaps the most popular in Samoa—comes in a plastic blue box. My family used these tubs as jewelry boxes, containers for storing important papers, and as cheap substitute for Tuperware. Other popular reusable food cartons include SkyFlakes cracker tins and large plastic Best Food mayonnaise jars.

Sometime about halfway through training I tried not to notice as different members of my host family took large swigs from a plastic bottle of well vodka. It was only when they gave some to the baby I realized they were using the vodka bottle to store water.

I’ve actually adopted this technique, although it’s not something I picked up from my host family. It was Cale and Sara who pointed out water tastes better from a glass bottle than that from a plastic bottle. So pretty early on I acquired a finished bottle of Absolut, and I’ve used that as a water jug for nearly as long as I’ve lived in my house.

My own re-commissioning of everyday items doesn’t end there. When I couldn’t find a cooling platform for my laptop, I bought a cheap plastic basket at Big Bear. I lowered my shower curtain using the wooden pegs the biology kids used on their field trip to Mt. Vaea. Scout eats from old Skippy’s peanut butter lids.

And sometimes when I’m watching her eat, I feel a little like Mad Max.

Tomorrow's Cultural Exploration (the last Cultural Exploration): Fa'amavae

I hope you're well. Pictures below.

I noticed this while watching Lost last night. See that oxygen tank hanging in the background? That's a makeshift bell. Those are used everywhere in Samoa. I think it's safe to assume every village has at least one of those. I can hear them ringing outside my house from time to time. Hats off to Lost for its eye for detail.

Note: Kindly refrain from leaving comments about Lost. Thank you.

Phil and me, mustachioed, peeling taro with tin cans.

Scout and her food dishes. The dark blue (i.e. the chunky) is for food. The light blue (i.e. creamy) is for water.

Cultural Exploration 54: The Big Laugh

2010-10-17T20:00:00.016-10:00

There’s a scene in “Annie Hall” where Albie goes to visit his friend Max, who produces a sitcom in Los Angeles. In the scene, Max is supervising an audio technician who is adding a laugh track to the sitcom. “Now, Charlie,” he says. “Give me a big laugh here... And a medium-size chuckle here.” The scene demonstrates America’s nuanced spectrum of socially acceptable laughing. If something is a little funny, there’s a quiet laugh. If something is hilarious, laughter is more uproarious. In my experience in Samoa though, laughter is rarely quiet or nuanced.

It doesn’t take much to get a classroom full of kids to laugh—a witty remark, a wardrobe malfunction, a clumsy misstep—and when my kids laugh, they laugh hard. When some of my fellow volunteers get together, we often trade stories of good and bad moments we’ve had at school, and many of these stories involve students laughing for one reason or another. When recounting these stories, volunteers sometimes use a laugh similar to that of the miserly Muppets characters Statler and Waldorf; that is, a huge belly laugh with a “BWAAA!” sound and an accompanying rolling back of the head. It captures the zero-to-sixty nature of students’ laughter.

During a free period in the middle of the day, I’ll sometimes come back to my house, and I can often hear the sounds of classrooms full of students bellowing with unbridled laughter. The sound is loud and it carries.

The Big Laugh certainly isn’t limited to students. While there might be less screaming and whooping, the laughing that goes on during staff meetings is often just as big and hearty. The laughing doesn’t seem limited by geography; we noticed the big laugh during training on the south side of Upolu, and volunteers from around the country have attested to The Big Lausgh at their sites. I remember sitting outside Tanu Beach Fales on Savai’i waiting for a bus and overhearing the family church services going on in the open fale nearby. About once a minute there was a great big, “BAHAHAHA!”

It’s conceivable that things here are simply funnier; the slapstick more over-the-top, the irony more brutal, the comedic timing more crisp. Perhaps. But in my experience, the same tired “O fea lou teine?” jokes never fail to garner The Big Laugh.

As far as I can tell, The Big Laugh seems like a great thing: most medical research on laughing seems to point to the bigger and more frequent the laugh, the better. So more power to you, Samoa. My only qualm is this: with The Big Laugh, I feel like I have a stacked audience. I crack one small joke in my science class, and immediately my kids are in stitches. It makes me think I’m funnier than I am. But I guess I can live with that.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: TBD

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Mike 83 and other trainees en route to the beach last Saturday.

Danny 83 and Samoan boy blowing bubbles in the ocean.

Jenny 83, Chris 81, Rachael 83, and OtherMike 83

Dan 81 opening a can with a large knife in the Peace Corps office. Nothing new for AJ.

Cultural Exploration 53: Honking

2010-10-12T23:59:00.000-10:00

Once, when I was very young, I called my grandpa an idiot. Confined to a car seat in the backseat of the car, I was unable to see out the front windshield. As we approached the intersection at Hesperian and Win ton, my mom saw my grandpa in his car across the intersection, so she honked and waved. When I heard the honk, even at my young age, my Pavlovian response was to shout, “Idiot!” This kneejerk aversion to honking has stayed with me, which has made life in Samoa difficult.

Spend ten minutes riding in a car around Apia, and you’ll hear no less than 8 honks; probably more. Taking a taxi across town is a veritable symphony of car horns. Backing out, pulling in, passing, being passed, assuming right of way, acknowledging right of way, saying hi to your cousin walking down the street. I think even if you drive in a straight line at a constant speed in Samoa, it’s customary to honk every two minutes, just for good measure.

In addition to honking frequency, there’s also high value placed on a having an elaborate customized honk. Lately I’ve noticed a lot of drivers around town have installed a new horn that honks once and then echoes that honk over and over and over, slowly fading to silence. There’s also the ever-popular synthesized catcall. I’ve also taken cabs where I didn't realize the weird sound I was hearing was the taxi’s horn until we were nearly at our destination.

And as I’ve mentioned previously in Cultural Exploration, RPCV Cale once had a million-tala idea that involved inventing a car horn that simply sounded like a long kissing noise.

The one time I drove a car on the island, I had a difficult time perfecting the staccato Samoan honking technique. On occasion we do a similar thing in America in which we punch the horn with the side of a fist, but the American style is a little too short. On the other hand, the normal, open-handed American honk is way too long of a tone. I get the impression it’s an acquired skill.

The worst part of Samoan honking, for me, is getting honked at while I’m on my bike. I’ve been told drivers honk at cyclists as a means of making the cyclist aware of the car’s presence. And because the practice is essentially obligatory, riding a bike down the street inevitably means honk after honk after honk after honk from a line of drivers passing.

The sound never fails to grate on my ears, and I sometimes feel an un-diplomatic urge—one which I’ve never acted on, one which might be described as Pavlovian—to yell back at passing cars, “Idiot!”

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Laughing

I hope you’re well. Pictures will be posted later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Cultural Exploration 52: Ska Kupe

2010-10-11T23:59:00.012-10:00

Growing up outside Berkeley, attending college in downtown Los Angeles, and living in San Francisco for a few years after, I’ve experienced a fair amount of panhandling. It’s an awkward, narrow line to walk balancing budget and compassion, and so inevitably we make up arbitrary rules about who we give to along the street. There was a guy who hung out near the Embarcadero BART station who used to repeat over and over, “A nickel and a smile will last a long while.” I would usually toss him some spare change. And there was a piano player who would play with a keyboard and amplifier downtown during the day and huddle in our neighborhood laundromat at night. I’d toss him a dollar whenever I’d see him around. But for whatever reason, “Ska kupe” doesn’t bring out my giving side.

As several visitors have pointed out in the Guest Contributor series, Samoa has relatively few conspicuous homeless. The streets of Apia are mostly empty at night, and those that are out tend to keep to themselves. Panhandling is, for the most part, limited to young children around town during daylight hours singing the unapologetically direct, “Ska kupe.”

“Ska kupe” is a slang contraction of the phrase “Aumai se tā tupe,” which technically translates to “Give me our money”—How beautifully collectivist is that? “You know that money in your wallet that is both yours and mine? Give it to me”—but in the modern lexicon essentially means, “Give me some money.”

The first time I was ska kuped was shortly after I moved in walking back to town from Ming and Hana’s Supermarket. Two children walking toward me, a girl no older than 7 and her younger brother. On seeing me, the girl stopped, pulled the boy back, and whispered in his ear. When she let go, he trudged right up to me, and with as much assurance as I’ve ever seen, he stuck out an open-faced palm and commanded, “Ska kupe!”

No.

Ska is used with other objects, of course. It’s not uncommon to hear teachers to call out to students during Interval, “Ska tea!” When I was in the front office today, I used “Ska flash drive” talking to the librarian.

Still, the brash entitled demand of Ska kupe is not lost on Samoans. Consider the following situation. In Samoa, rather than accepting gifts and money and drinks from your friends on your birthday, it’s more traditional to buy drinks and food for others. So earlier this year, after computer class, one of my year 13s revealed it was Luana’s birthday. So without missing a beat, I turned to Luana and said, “Ska kupe.” The class seemed wholly entertained.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Honking.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

These are the kids from PCV Leah's school on the south side of the island. None of them gave me a ska kupe.

Leah's kids.

The view from behind the camcorder.

Cultural Exploration 51: The Question Melody

2010-10-10T23:59:00.002-10:00

Sometime back in 2006, I recall I heard some jazz artist on the radio talking about his new album in which he converted the intonations in peoples’ speech to musical tones, and from there he would compose music around that melody. His favorite, if I remember correctly, was a melody string he’d taken from a Hong Kong reporter reading a long string of stock reports. It was a fascinating collision of music and linguistics, and since then I’ve tried to keep an ear out for distinctive lingual melody strings. One that every American seems to notice upon visiting Samoa is the question melody.

When RPCV Dylan returned earlier this year, he told a story about having a phone conversation with RPCVs Cale and Sara when they were fresh off the plane in Los Angeles last December. According to him, Sara couldn’t shake the question melody, and understandably so: the question melody permeates a volunteer’s English very early in the Peace Corps experience, and I can only assume it will be a difficult habit to break once I leave.

I’ve written out the question melody above in its most simplistic form. This 4-note string captures short questions like “Where are you going?” or the Samoan “Te alu i fea?” Each word is assigned to one note; syllables don’t matter. “What are you reading?” “O ai lou igoa?” “How is the morning?” All of these follow the most basic pattern.

Things get trickier as the question gets longer. The jump from the G down to the C seems to be present in every question, but the number of syllables attributed to any one of the tones in the pattern changes depending on the question. For example, in the question “What are we doing for dinner?”, the first two words “What are” are intonated on the F, the “we doing” on the F#, the “for” on the G, and the “dinner?” on the C (“we” could also be said on the F leaving only the “doing” for the F#).

There are also exceptions, of course. When asking “What time is it?”, “What” starts on the G, and then “time is it?” would all be intonated on the C. The Samoan version of the same question, “Ta se fia?” would also skip the F. The “Ta” would start on the F#, “se” on the G, “fia?” on the C.

It’s unclear where the question melody comes from. I hear it’s the result of New Zealand influence, but while I recognize British, Australian, and New Zealand English speakers all have distinct question lilts, none seems to be the direct predecessor to Samoa’s.

The question melody is so far off from the American English question melody—we intone up at the end of our questions rather than down—volunteers can often be heard making declaratory statements in the question tone. Around the Peace Corps office, this practice works out fine, but on occasion I’ve made statements to my classes using the question melody. This usually results in students looking at me quizzically, confused about whether I’ve actually asked a question.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Ska Kupe.

I hope you’re well. Pictures will be posted later this afternoon.

Cultural Exploration 50: Fe’au

2010-10-09T23:59:00.000-10:00

At my middle school and high school, students were allowed to take one period off in their schedule to be a Teacher’s Aide. While TAs in college were usually graduate students who would assist in teaching lab classes and take on other teaching duties, TAs in middle school and high school would do menial tasks like marking multiple choice tests based on an answer key or walk around collecting attendance sheets. While this isn’t the same sort small-time job as would be asked of a student doing a Samoan fe’au, the diminutive nature of the task is as close a parallel as I can find.

The literal translation of fe’au is an “errand” or “something to be done”. Within the context of school, this usually means an errand a student is running for a teacher. At my school it’s not unusual for a teacher to pull aside a trusted student, hand that student $5, and have the student walk across the street to buy Digicel phone credit or a cup of Ramen noodles. Often when asking a student to fulfill such a task, a teacher will ball up the $5-bill and toss it in the student’s direction, and the student will pick it off the floor.

Though fe’aus don’t always involve retail transactions, most involve moving a object from one place to another. Having a student do some heavy lifting or sending a message to another teacher via carrier student are both acceptable uses of fe’au; I’ve heard other volunteers talk about sending a student to retrieve items from the volunteer’s house.

Rules also differ from place to place. I heard from another volunteer that at his school, if a student is sent on a fe’au to buy phone credit, and the fale’oloa down the street is out , that student needs to keep walking until he finds phone credit. He’s essentially not allowed to return to school until the fe’au is completed. This mentality of not resting until the job is done is okay though because running a fe’au is a completely acceptable excuse for not showing up to class on time.

I am fascinated by the fe’au phenomenon for 2 reasons. First, most tasks seem either too menial or too risky to warrant a student’s participation. I don’t feel justified in asking a student to carry a stack of books thirty meters when I could just as easily do it myself, and I’m always a little terrified some kid is going to get hit by a car crossing the street to buy me phone credit.

My second fascination is choosing the student to run the fe’au. When I have a task in mind, I will think of a specific student and then seek out him or her. Whereas other teachers seem willing to trust any random kid to run an errand.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I never could have implemented the fe’au system in Oakland Unified. I would have been fired for child endangerment, and I would have been out $5.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: The Question Melody

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

This kid approached Dan and me to sell us pens. We chatted with him.

Jackfruit growing at Blakey's pule's house.

2 Years!: The Story So Far and FAQs

2010-10-08T23:59:00.001-10:00

This morning marked exactly 2 years since we landed here in Samoa. It’s weird how in some ways it feels like we just got here, and the last 2 years has gone by in the blink of an eye—and on the other hand, it feels like we’ve been here forever. The time remaining seems incredibly finite. No longer does a free weekend mean sitting around the house reading a book. A free weekend needs to be spent doing something tourist-y that I haven’t done yet, going to the training village, or preparing to leave. But before I go on too much about the future…

The Story So Far (as continued from July 8, 2010)

The week back after 4th of July was the unofficial School Magazine kick-off, a project which would span the entire 3 months, and be a shocking onerous undertaking. Back in July I started taking class photos. My pule and I also went around to get photos and logos from sponsors.

Around that time, Erica 80 registered Peace Corps Samoa in a 9-week soccer tournament. Though it was difficult to field an entire team at times, and though other teams had an ungentlemanly style of play at times, it proved to be my favorite part of the week while it lasted.

Jen and Tommy came to visit near the end of July. Their stay was cut short because of an airplane mechanical failure that left them stuck at home for an extra day. We made the most of their stay, heading out to Manase for a couple days.

A few days after their departure, I attended my first Peace Corps wedding. A volunteer married a native Samoan in judge’s chambers. It was lovely.

In the midst of all this, the Volunteer Resource Room moved down the hall at the Peace Corps office. At the time, this was extremely controversial, but 2 months later volunteers have made peace with the move.

In school sports, athletics (err… Track and Field for American readers) reached its climax with the national Champ of Champs meet in early August. Though my school performed well at the regional “zone” meet, their performance at nationals was admittedly lackluster.

Champ of Champs was held on the Friday before the long Father’s Day weekend, which meant plenty of volunteers were around to celebrate. Phil and I had lunch with the Indian missionaries up at Apong’s house on Saturday, and a larger contingent of volunteers headed down to Tafatafa on Sunday.

With the help of student aide Maryhellen, I took a great majority of the class photos and staff photos in mid-August. Also, Jordan and I studied for the GMAT.

A visiting Tahitian Rugby Team came to stay at my school in late August, so we canceled the last week of classes for term 2. This did not necessarily mean a longer break since teachers had to come in and cook and serve food on a 3-day rotation. I was mainly tasked with cooking rice.

The Peace Corps came in first in the 2nd annual Perimeter Relay Race.

September was a month of blog lies. I got a tattoo on September 1, but wrote about PCV Paul getting his. Later in the month I posted an apocryphal story about Scout’s birthday party and posted a heavily photoshopped picture.

In reality, I helped Kaelin shoot for the Peace Corps’s new Co-Teaching Video. The project has since run into some roadblocks.

During school break, Group 81 had its COS conference at Le Uaina Resort in Faleapuna. It was the usual tomfoolery.

After the break, the last term started with a fairly easy teaching day, and a mad dash to get the magazine finished. By the first day of school I had a working draft of the layout, though getting all of the students, teachers, and administrators involved to submit articles was a little like herding cats. There was also an unexpected content approval process (which gave me an excuse to make an obscure Elvis Costello reference).

In addition to the magazine, life has been crowded lately by the year 13 camp and their subsequent tests, adjusting to Samoa’s first foray into Daylight Savings, and preparing for the (now arrivéd) Group 83.

And that’s the story so far.

FAQs

When do you get back?

I think I’ll be flying into Los Angeles December 7, but that won’t be for sure until I’ve purchased the plane ticket.
Are you excited?

Yes and no. There’s been a lot of people, places, and things from back home I’ve missed. But there are also a lot of Samoan people, places, and things I’ll miss once I leave. Moving out and moving in and drastically changing one’s lifestyle are never very much fun. And I’m sure the joys of reverse culture shock will be a riot. But yes, I’m excited about coming home.
What about the cat?

The plan is still for Scout to come home with me. True, I haven’t really done much about this, but it’s on my radar.
And you’re going to go to law school?

Maybe. If I am accepted. I think I’m going to start submitting applications Monday.
What schools are you applying to?

Two in California and three on the East Coast.
Tomorrow starts a new round of cultural exploration. Tomorrow’s topic will be Feau. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

83s Rachael and Olivia. Hey Amanda, doesn't Olivia look like Lara?

Odds and Ends Thursday 70

2010-10-07T23:59:00.000-10:00

Time is speeding up. In the true binge-and-purge spirit of the Peace Corps, the dog days where time seemed to stand still for hours on end have switched gears and we’re mow moving at warp speed. As you may have noticed updating the blog has become less frequent. But if I’ve missed a few days here and there, it’s only because the day went by so quickly, I didn’t realize it had passed. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

Now that it’s Spring, there’s been a huge uptick in what Dan calls “death bugs”, which is a rather dramatic name for an insect that’s mostly harmless. Death bugs are extremely tiny flying insects that swarm in clouds about 5 feet off the ground at dawn and dusk. These clouds are only visible from about 5 feet away, so it’s difficult to know you’re about to walk into a cloud of bugs until you are standing in the middle of the cloud of bugs. This is particularly nasty when jogging. I’ve run through death bug clouds and come away with dead bugs all over my shirt, arms, and face; as though I’m a human windshield. The worst is inhaling them. So gross.
Last night was ridiculously hot. I fell asleep clothed with no covers, and I woke up sweaty at 3:00 a.m.
My year 12s took the computer studies common exam for Congregationalist schools this morning. It was uneventful.
Oh, I nearly forgot! The magazine is officially finished. I finally received a report for the Director of Education—a digital copy of the half-page report, so exciting!—and the layout is complete. I’m having some trouble converting to PDF. I’m using PrimoPDF to convert, which has a tendency to inexplicably make random objects disappear. A page full of pictures will show up in the PDF with a white rectangle in the middle where one photo somehow didn’t make it.
We received official word from Washington allowing us to give our bikes to Host Country Nationals! This was exciting.
Giants looked good against the Braves today! This is excellent.
Tomahawk Chop: most annoying cheer in all of sports. Thoughts?
I am still fan-less.
Group 83 is great. Since most of 81 is leaving in a couple months, I think we had all written them off a little, but we’ve just been so impressed with them. They remind us of us, and we’re nothing if not jolly narcissists.
Saddest moment yet: Tauinaola, who’s been featured on the blog several times over the last 2 years, was hanging around the computer lab because she wanted me to import a bunch of mp3s into iTunes so she could play them on her Nano. While she was standing around, I asked why she didn’t take computers this year. She shrugged and asked, “Can I take computers in year 13 next year?” So I had to remind her I wouldn’t be here next year. She was surprised by this, and I don’t think she’d ever known I was leaving. And then things just felt sad.
I met the Prime Minister today. Randomly.
My pule is very skeptical about bringing a digital copy of the school magazine to the printer. He wants me to print it out and submit a paper copy. I will print out a hard copy to appease him, but I sure hope the printer uses the digital version (provided the PDF converter starts working).
My friend who asked me to take photos at the National Memorial Ceremony, and whose family owns the dog I talked about Sunday, read Sunday’s post about the dog and confronted me. “My mom is a high chief with seven matai titles and you’re trying to tell her lies and feed her bread to the dogs?!” She laughed.

That’s all I got for this week. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

My Vice Pule was finally ready for her close-up.

Prime Minister.

Koa, Summer, and I watched "Rain Man" tonight. Me in full Giants regalia.

Kaelin and Jenny S. 82 at the pool this afternoon.

Group 83

2010-10-06T20:00:00.014-10:00

83 is here! Blakey and I were picked up by Peace Corps staff at 6:00 a.m., and we trekked down to the airport to welcome the new trainees, give them ulas, and smile at them to theoretically smooth over their culture shock. We stood around with the training staff and a basket of moso’oi and groggily stood around sipping coffee and waiting for the tell-tale sound of jet engines. And about a half hour after the plane landed, they started trickling out of the customs checkpoint.

This was a slightly new situation for me. The only other time I’ve experienced it was the brief period between when I arrived at the Crown Plaza hotel in Los Angeles for staging and the time our first scheduled session began in the hotel’s conference room: intuitively guessing which random faces in the crowd are Peace Corps trainees. Back in LA, I remember waiting for an elevator next to a short blonde girl, attempting to discern her volunteer-ness through a myriad of indefinable visual cues (Incidentally, the girl at the elevator went to Tonga.).

Picking through travelers at the airport this morning was both easier and more difficult. At least half the passengers on the Air New Zealand flight from Los Angeles were Samoans, and since Peace Corps tends to not send volunteers to countries where they have family, they could be ruled out. But I feel like within the remaining group it was difficult to delineate the Peace Corps Trainees from the German tourists from the American travelers from the Kiwi travelers laying over , etc.

Does she look like she could grow to enjoy cold showers and bug spray? What would his legs look like covered in mosquito bites? Can I see this person “scraggly”? Could this person wear the same t-shirt for an entire week? It’s seemingly impossible to define criteria to answer these questions, but some people seem to look more the part than others.

Some were easier than others. The kid with the curly hair, the girl with the aviator prescription glasses, a couple girls I recognized from their blogs—these were obvious. But a few faces slipped into the crowd and had to be ushered back toward the herd.

The first person out was Nancy, who has emailed Blakey and me several times. Blakey and I recognized her immediately. Interim Training Director Jamie turned to me and asked, “Who’s that?” I think not expecting to hear it was a Trainee.

“That’s Nancy,” I said.

“Nancy who?” She asked.

I rattled off her last name. Jamie was surprised.

“How do you know that?!”

I shrugged. “The Internet.”

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Group 83 on the bus to Apia.

Danny and Chris 83. Apparently Danny's mom frequents the blog. Hello, Danny's Mom!

Blakey and AJ await the morning's 'Ava Ceremony. Blakey was taupo this morning, and in this photo she is already in costume.

Me, Blakey, and AJ at the 'Ava Ceremony.

Jenny 83 drinking the 'ava flanked by Rachael and Chelsea 83. Jenny's mom also reads the blog. Hello, Jenny's Mom!

A bunch of group 83, as well as a bunch of group 81 and Ally 82, stuck around after the ceremony to finish the 'ava.

Magazine Update and the Dog from Yesterday

2010-10-04T23:00:00.004-10:00

It’s Finish
The magazine is done except for 4 things:

I have received no report nor do I have a good photo of my Vice Pule;
I have received no report nor do I have a good photo of the Director of Education;
I have no photo of the Magazine Committee; and
I have no advertisement for Samoa Stationery Supplies.

If I don’t get the first 2 tomorrow, I figure we can just turn their page into a Table of Contents. It will be more worrisome if they both submit and they write too much to share a page (which is pretty likely). I couldn’t write in the names of the Magazine Committee because I don’t really know who is actually on it. I feel a little like I am the entire Magazine Committee (people have been asking, “How’s your magazine coming along?”), but I’m trying to be inclusive. I made my own ad for another Apian vendor, but I can’t find any contact information for Samoa Stationery on the Internet, so I’m at a loss for what to do there. These are all relatively tiny details though. The major hope is that I don’t have to spend another couple hours scavenging and cropping photos. Although if I end up making that table of contents, that’s exactly what will happen.

The Dog from Yesterday

One of my friends in town asked if I could take photos at the National Memorial Service yesterday because for whatever reason she would be late if she could make it at all. She arranged a ride for me: I rode over to Taifagata Cemetery with her mom and her mom’s friend. On the way home, we stopped off at a fale’oloa to pick up a few loaves of bread for Sunday’s typically light dinner. And then we went back to my friend’s mom’s house to drops some things off.

When we get there, Mom sets the loaves of bread on the patio furniture outside, finds her keys, and opens the door. I follow her into the kitchen carrying the small take-away meals we received after the service. “Can you get the bread before the dog gets to it?” She asks me. Sure. I walk back outside to find the dog wolfing down a loaf of bread.

I’ve mentioned before Samoans can be nasty toward domestic animals, and though I was annoyed at the dog for complicating my life, I didn’t know what would happen if someone found out. So I quietly scolded him, tore a small chunk off where he’d been chewing, and took the bread inside. A couple minutes later I went back outside to wait by the car, only to find the dog eating a second loaf of bread I had missed the first time. This time it was a loaf of pane, which is sort of like Hawaiian sweet bread. It comes in individual “buns” that can be torn away from the loaf one at a time. So the fact that the dog has taken a chunk out of one of the buns makes it conspicuous this time.

Still wanting to cover for the dog, I ripped off the remaining corresponding bun (loaves are baked in rows of two), and in attempt to get the dog away from the scene of the crime and to destroy the evidence, I threw the bun across the yard. The dog goes tearing off, and I turn the loaf of bread the opposite way in the bag to hide the now-non-heeled end.

I go back into the kitchen, leave the bread on the counter, and then walk back outside. The dog, who has eaten way more bread than he’s used to at this point, is taking his sweet time swallowing the pane.

Just then, Mom walks out. I’m getting ready to wash my hands of the entire thing, should she notice what the dog is eating. I figure I’ll just blame the dog and that will be that.

But then her son follows her out of the house, and he’s holding the doomed loaf of remaining pane.

“Here!” says Mom, taking the loaf from her son and handing it to me. “We bought too much. You take this.”

So at least no one had to discover that the end of the loaf was missing. But now I kinda regret giving the extra chunk to the dog. Pane’s good. Oh well.

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

We talked about the seasons in my 9.2 science class today. Notice my crappy rendering of Australia and New Zealand on each globe.

Where Have I Been?

2010-10-03T22:53:00.000-10:00

Originally, the plan was to actually write and publish 4 posts tonight. I was going to start with Thursday’s Odds and Ends and power right on through to writing a treatise about today’s National Memorial Service for the one-year anniversary of the tsunami. But it’s 10 o’clock now, and I have too much non-blog stuff to do to justify spending the next 4 hours writing and cropping photos. My pule wants the magazine to be finished tomorrow, and I want my law school personal statement to be finished tomorrow. So I going to give you a synopsis of the last 4 days, so you’ll be all caught up. That cool with you?

Thursday
We ended school early on Thursday because a group of Samoan Kiwis came to hang out with the year 13s during what would usually be camp. After school let out, I went down to the Peace Corps office to work on some things. I came home to change before heading out to Aerobic Dance Fitness at JP’s Fitness Center. After showering I had dinner at Peace Corps Admin Director Denise’s house, after which I helped her husband Otis with some algebra class he’s taking over the Internet. I got back to school in time to watch the kids clean. People seemed pretty annoyed I wasn’t there for the Kiwi visitors. Oh well. I can’t be everywhere.

Friday
I wanted to go to Savai’i this weekend, but a wrench was thrown into that plan when Phil texted to say he was sick and would be both contagious and not fun to hang out with. So I invited myself to Dan and Paul’s. They were cool with it. Getting away from my campus was difficult. Upon hearing I was heading to Savai’i, my pule decided that moment was exactly the right time for me to install the printer on my vice pule’s machine. She didn’t have enough outlets in her office to plug the printer in. I left. I’d never been to Dan or Paul’s house before. So I can check that off the list. Now the only 81 houses I haven’t been to are AJ and Erin. I’ll get to both if time permits.

Saturday
Paul got up early to go get email addresses for his students at the Internet cafe. I slept in, and then Dan and I caught a bus into Salelologa. The bus was an hour late, but we were in no hurry. Le Waterfront was closed, which was mildly heartbreaking, so Dan and I got fish-n-chips at a lesser restaurant. Then we headed down the street to Lusia’s Lagoon Fales where we whittled away the evening with a bunch of other volunteers.

Sunday
I caught the bus into town so I could make the 10 o’clock boat. The boat ride was uneventful. For no particular reason, I treated myself to a meal at McDonald’s. By the time I got home, I had enough time to briefly charge my camera and change my shirt before running out the door to get to the National Memorial Service at the Taifagata Cemetery. It’s a long story that I won’t get into here, but I was a photojournalist for the day. There was an incident that involved a dog—maybe I’ll tell you that story tomorrow. I came home, trucked over to the hi-speed Internet to submit my photos, and now I’m here.

I’ve got the magazine to finish next, and though my personal statement is passable at this point, everyone keeps saying it needs to have more of a tangible story. But I’m having trouble relating teaching 6th grade middle school in Oakland to anything having to do with the law. There are some major issues that need to be dealt with. It’s going to be a late night.

I hope you’re well. Apologies for the missed days. Pictures below.

Dan on his campus

The ocean in front of Dan and Paul's school.

Grrr.... Blogger has changed the way users upload photos. The new way is lousy. It's not letting me upload anymore right now. And it's taken a half hour to get these 3 up. So I'm going to stop now. More photos tomorrow.

Echoes and Aftershocks

2010-09-29T20:00:00.003-10:00

I’ve been time-traveling in my dreams. Reality and fantasy often converge during sleep, but lately I’ve been taking the next step, justifying the inexplicable by accepting time-travel as an acceptable narrative device. Watching “Lost” while living on an island, it hasn’t taken much for my subconscious to make these leaps. Several times over the last week, I’ve awoken with the rare (and in this case phony) intellectual satisfaction of being able to explain my own dreams: time travel. So it was especially creepy this morning when, on the anniversary of last year’s devastating earthquake, I was rudely awakened by another earthquake.

This morning I reported the quake “occurred exactly 1 year and 2 hours after The Big One,” but that’s only because I forgot to account for Daylight Savings. Technically it was only 1 year and 1 hour. The sun was in nearly the same place, the kids at school let out nearly the same scream, and I was in nearly the same position on my couch—with one crucial difference: I was laying the other way. Last year, my head lay at the eastern end of the couch. This morning my head was at the western end. If not for this immediately obvious detail, I might have actually believed The Island wanted me to join the Dharma Initiative.

But that wasn’t the case. This morning’s jolt, though slightly strong, lasted less than 10 seconds. I recall I yelled, “Get out!” in an Elaine Bennis sort of way, and then, upon checking the time on my cell phone, realized I was 5 minutes late for second period.

This experience encapsulates the national mood as I experienced it today. On one hand, I knew many people who expected today to be a national holiday, and after it was decided not to be, still searched for ways to commemorate the occasion. On the other hand, today was business as usual.

A few Peace Corps Volunteers had specially calibrated lesson plans because they assumed there would be no school today. Emails from the Rotaract community invited people to come commemorate the occasion with a moment of silence in front of the government building, while others encouraged people to wear black and white.

I hear there was some sort of ceremony in Lalomanu this morning, but mostly today functioned like any other Wednesday, which was both strange and a relief at the same time.

I attended the launch of (occasional blog commenter) Lani Wendt Young’s book, Pacific Tsunami – Galu Afi on Monday night, which gives a peoples’ history of last year’s earthquake and tsunami. There were speeches and musical tributes and opportunities for emotional release. It proved both cathartic and inspiring.

Looking back, the tsunami was literally and figuratively the centerpiece of my Peace Corps experience. Something changed that day at Samoa’s emotional core, and its effects seem to be everywhere: the cracks in the floor of my computer lab, the jumpiness of my students, the readership of the blog—hell, there’s good evidence Scout was abandoned by her mother as a result of the quake, and thus she came to stay with me.

But as easy as it is to see the change, it’s difficult to see life much differently. After all, this morning when I awoke, the sun was in nearly the same place, the kids at school let out nearly the same scream, and I was in nearly the same position on my couch. Sometimes when things change, they kind of stay the same. It’s almost like time travel.

I hope you’re well. More pictures from last year below.

Me standing next to Tui as Mira uses my phone to call her parents after the school was evacuated.

Crowds from multiple schools hike to higher elevation.

Cars and people evacuating under banners informing drivers of the switch from driving on the right to driving on the left. The switch happened 22 days before the earthquake.

Books in my living room that fell off my shelf during the quake.

Apia was evacuated again later that evening after sizable aftershocks. This family packed their bags to stay the night up the mountain.

Production Setback

2010-09-28T23:00:00.001-10:00

Leah still wanted me to bring doughnuts at 7:57 this morning. Since we were scheduled to truck down to her village first thing this morning, she wanted us to bring two dozen doughnuts from Gregg’s Bakery in town to share with her staff, and I figured Peace Corps staff would be cool with making a pit stop before we left town. But then 19 minutes later before Peace Corps staff ever arrived, Leah called me. “I think we have a problem,” she said. Ho, boy, Leah. You don’t even know.

As I’ve mentioned on the blog before, I’ve been charged with videotaping and editing a video on The Art of Co-Teaching for the Peace Corps office here. Theoretically this video would be shown to both incoming groups and to schools where a Peace Corps Volunteer will soon work. Kaelin 82 is spearheading this production; I’m just DP. We went out a couple weeks back during my school break to get footage of a bunch of the 82s leading songs and activities with their kids, and interviewing Principals and students alike.

I have a little experience with digitally editing video, but not too much, so I was a little nervous from the beginning. It hasn’t helped that I can’t get my laptop to acknowledge the camcorder. This morning I finally figured out how to turn on the camcorder’s “USB Flow”, but even then, my laptop crossed its arms and turned a cold shoulder. Vista can be a snooty jerk.

But even that wasn’t the half of it.

I rewound to our old footage from last time to see how much tape we had left for today and set the tape at the right spot. But in the viewfinder’s playback, the screen is barred with a bunch of thick grey lines. Also, the camera’s speaker, which was already had an obnoxious crackle, was mostly silent. This wasn’t how playback looked and sounded two weeks ago.

In my frustration over the USB issue, I downloaded the camcorder’s 300-page manual over hi-speed internet a week or two ago, so I went looking for these grey stripes in the troubleshooting section. The manual diagnoses a dirty video head, and prescribes using the cleaner cassette for a minute or two to clear up the problem. But the Peace Corps doesn’t have a cleaner cassette.

And if the camera can’t play the footage we already shot, I’m severely dubious of its ability to accurately shoot new footage. But none of that mattered this morning because the staff member with whom Leah was going to co-teach was out sick. And he was the back up. The original is out on maternity leave.

AND THEN this afternoon I went to the office to figure this out with the Peace Corps’s Technical Officer, and I was standing at his desk when the acting Training Manager came in to tell me that it’s irrelevant whether Leah’s co-teacher will be back in school tomorrow because no one from the Peace Corps staff is available to drive me down there anyway.

So between missing on-screen talent (and her understudy), a camera with which to shoot said talent, and the transportation to carry the nada-camera to the nada-talent, the project seems a little doomed. I think we have a problem.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Pelenatete giving a presentation on Thailand.

Fautamara giving a presentation on the Philippines.

I Got Nothin'

2010-09-27T20:00:00.014-10:00

Today was an unremark- able day. Also, for whatever reason, I couldn’t sleep last night. And between the banality of my day and the tiredness of my brain, I am at a loss for a good blog topic for the day.

I went to the Tsunami Pacific - Galu Afi book launch tonight, but I’d just assume wait until Wednesday to cover that.

I asked Suasami, the teacher I usually sit next to at Interval, where she thought I should get my watch’s battery replaced. She recommended a jewelry store in town called The Treasure Box. They got it done expediently for only $14. Although they told me my watch had a broken gasket (is this a watch or an engine?), so they charged an extra $20 to replace that. Fine.

I didn’t realize I’d forgotten my bike lock until I arrived at The Treasure Box, so I had to ride all the way home to get it, and then all the way back.

My personal statement is just about ready, but the LSAC people still haven’t received my last Letter of Recommendation, so law school applications are in a holding pattern.

I’ve been watching Lost Season 5 (Do not leave any comments about Lost, please), which is phenomenal, and reading Chuck Klosterman’s “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs”, which is incredibly overrated.

My school was relatively unaffected by daylight savings this morning; maybe a few more late-comers than usual to this morning’s assembly, but beyond that, nothing. It sounds like in more rural places school attendance was more chaotic (as I predicted yesterday).

I was assigned 2 student teachers from the National University of Samoa during Interval today, but I had compelling reasons that I should be assigned neither, so they were assigned to other teachers. I admit I am excited to have dodged this bullet.

We started the “rocks” unit in my year 9 science class today. Much of today was spent doing call and response vocabulary. Igneous. IGNEOUS! Plutonic. PLUTONIC! Pummace. PUMMACE! etc. ETC!

Slow news day. None of these things is worth 500 words. Let’s hope for a more exciting tomorrow.

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

My year 12s are doing presentations from around the world. This is Esau talking about Brazil.

No One Noticed Today Was Daylight Savings

2010-09-26T20:00:00.013-10:00

All over Samoa, people woke up this morning before dawn whether from roosters crowing or their bodies’ internal clocks waking them. Most Samoans moved through their Sunday morning routine: the younger children collected rubbish from around the yard, the older kids made the saka (the fire for boiling breakfast), the women ironed the families’ church clothes while the men prepared the umu for to’ona’i, the big after-church Sunday brunch.

Sometime after the sun rose, someone rang the bells to inform the village church was about to start. The people hurriedly put on their Sunday whites, slicked back their hair, dawned their hats, grabbed their bibles and fans, and set off for church. Choirs sang, faife’aus prayed and gave sermons, the list of names and monetary contributions was read. Afterwards people stood around to chat for a while, but not for too long since to’ona’i was waiting at home.

Was it ever. There was pork, chicken, and taro that had been cooked in the umu; fresh oka; bananas topped with coconut cream; fried fish from last night’s catch; papaya and mangoes; and kokolaisa. After finishing their niu, the women washed the dishes while the men fed the table scraps to the dogs.

After such meals, most people experienced a post-prannial energy shunt, changed out of their Sunday whites into a more airy t-shirt and ’ie outfit and went to lay in the faleo’o and nap. Even the animals seem to get into the spirit of aso mālōlō, the day of rest. The cats and dogs napped along with their masters.

Sometime late in the afternoon in most villages in Samoa, someone rang the church bells once more to let people across the village know it was time to come back for afternoon services. As usual in most places, afternoon services were more lax and low-key. Many faife’aus made a few jokes. The choir sang some more, and then church was over.

Late Sunday afternoons are a relaxed affair, and as the sun starts to droop in the west and the temperature eases into the mid-twenties (Celsius), it’s a nice time for a quiet stroll around the village. Many people are out and about moving slowly, enjoying the breeze.

Once the sun set, most families in Samoa sang and prayed together, and then pass the evening quietly. Some watched whatever movie was showing on TV1. Some of the older boys in many villages brought out their guitars and sat with friends on the graves of their ancestors strumming nothing in particular. Most students prepared their uniforms for tomorrow, and some may have actually finished their homework.

And then, after most babies got groggy and the kids passed out, the adults felt sleep overcome them as well, and the lights were turned out.

People were supposed to move their clocks forward an hour at midnight this morning. But really, how would that have changed anything about today for most of Samoa? And how many students and teachers show up an hour late to school tomorrow? I guess we’ll see.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Blakey with UN workers Ane and Avril.

We played baseball Thursday night at the end of my computer class. That's Lise with the "bat" and Luuao playing catcher.

This Ain't My First Rodeo

2010-09-25T23:59:00.000-11:00

“I was sitting at the bus stop, waiting with 5 or 6 other people, and I was clipping my fingernails. That was when I knew I’d finally become a bus rider,” my friend Liam told me once. After we’d lived in San Francisco and ridden the public transportation system Muni daily for a substantial amount of time, a couple of us hopped on BART, and we were amazed by its posh decor. By Muni standards, BART was built for a king, what with its cushions, carpeting, and capaciousness. “These people are spoiled,” said Liam.

Cut to yesterday’s bus ride to the south side of the island. I got on the rickety wooden-roofed bus at 3:40 p.m. With an nebulous departure time, I took out my book and read to pass the time. Usually by Friday afternoon I’ve worked up a lot of sleep debt, and after 5 or 10 pages, I hit a wall. Since buses here tend to be packed to the gills with people, and since the hard wooden benches have seatbacks that are only about 8 inches high, sleeping on the bus in Samoa can be difficult. I chose to fold myself at the waist and fell asleep resting with my head on my own lap. This takes practice; I don’t think I could have done this when I first arrived in Samoa.

I’m guessing I slept in this position for roughly 25 minutes. I woke up when some kid tumbled past me. Not too long after I awoke, the bus driver started the bus’s engine, and a slew of stragglers got on.

Once the seats are filled on the bus, the common practice is to si’i, people sit on other people’s lap. So as a bunch of guys boarded, the girl across from me asked if I would be willing to have someone sit on my lap. I nodded and told her that was fine.

She handed the child sitting on her lap to the woman next to her, and then got up and sat on my lap. I should note this is slightly unusual. For the most part, unless a male and female know each other—usually family members of some sort—women sit on other women and men sit on other men. So there was a little bit of social rule-breaking here.

In any case, she sat down on my lap and then turned to me. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Lē afaina.” No problem.

Very slowly she swiveled her head to look at me. “Have you spoken Samoan the whole time?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“How long have you lived here?” she asked.

“Almost two years.”

“Two years?!”

Yeah, lady. I just folded myself like a map and took a 20 minute nap in the middle of a crowded bus. That’s an advanced skill. It’s not nail clipping, but it’s proof that I’m a bus rider.

I hope you’re well. Pictures from the village below.

Me and the baby. New Facebook photo?

Akanese (in the middle) and friends.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but Akanese is playing jacks with these small rocks.

Keleme again.

Scout's Birthday

2010-09-24T20:00:00.001-11:00

I acquired Scout on 7 October last year, and she was between 10 and 14 days old at the time, so I’m going to arbitrarily choose today as Scout’s birthday. I invited Jordan and Blakey over this afternoon to celebrate. As you can see, I was the only one who got into the spirit. I made a special iTunes playlist with Cat Power, Cat Stevens and Cat Empire, and Scout peed on Blakey’s foot. Jordan felt ridiculous from the get-go. Scout ate her food stingily, jumped off the table, and spent the rest of her party shredding paper towels. It was all to be expected.

Sorry for the short post today, but enjoy the photos. I hope you're well.

Hanging out on the power brick.

Laying in the lap.

First trip to the vet.

Imprisoned with Jenga blocks.

Grooming on Phil's back.

Solving puzzles of skill.

On the kitchen floor with favorite toy: toilet paper roll.

Today in front of the screen door.

Odds and Ends Thursday 69

2010-09-23T20:00:00.016-11:00

My year 12s are putting together PowerPoint present- ations, and my year 13s have been working on their desktop publishing assignment, so I’ve done very little teaching in either of those classes lately. It’s strange because I’ve been at school a lot more hours this week because of camp, but I actually feel like I’ve been teaching less. Maybe I’m just pacing myself to get through the day. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

As part of Close-of-Service procedures, the members of group 81 have been updating their resumes these last couple weeks. Everyone’s got a different opinion about what a resume should look like, and we’re all stubborn about which rules by which to abide. Jordan likes all of his bullets to fit on one line, Phil swears by serif fonts, I think wide margins are foolish. You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself, right?
On the crotch-grabbing photo: Crotch-grabbing is a way of life with ’ies. Since most boys wear shorts under their ’ie, there’s a whole lot of fabric adjustment that goes on throughout the day. This is particularly true during sustained physical activity. In the case of that picture, Manila is in the middle of Culture Day dance practice, and yes, he’s grabbing his crotch. But that crotch-grab is so secondary, I barely noticed it when I chose the photo. Also, it’s such a part of life here, I feel like it only improves the magazine’s accuracy in capturing the life and times of 2010.
In teaching my class “At the Zoo”, it turns out the zookeeper is very fond of gum. Also, the hamsters goof off frequently. Yeah. My zoo is sugar-coated.
My year 13 Amanda was asking the other night what music I have on my computer. I gave my normal response, “Nothing you’d like.” But then she asks, “Do you have any Paul Simon?” Yes. Yes I do.
At Pinati’s last night, I ate 2 full plates. Take that, stomach!
I’ve lived without an electrical fan since 10 June (or at least that was when it was first reported on the blog). But Phil texted this morning to observe the first day of Spring. The heat is coming. And we just got paid. I think I’m ready to buy.
On Weezer’s new tour, the band is playing 2 nights at each stop: on one night they're playing the entire Blue Album, on the other the entire Pinkerton album. When I heard about this, I emailed my friend Chris to tell him that such an event was as special as his getting married, and thus I would be willing to fly back to The States for such a show. As it turns out, Weezer has scheduled their Bay Area appearance for 30 November, the jerks. I’ve already assured the Admin Staff that I will not be going home in November. So hopefully I can catch them somewhere else on the tour. Roadtrip to Seattle anyone?
Also, Weezer played a show in San Francisco a week after I left back in October 2008. Those guys hate me.
I had dinner with Jordan and a Korean guy doing anthropology fieldwork on Sunday. “Jordan” and “Korean” are interchangeable in T9 Word Prediction.
My watch stopped twice this week. I fear the battery is dying. I haven’t looked into watch-smiths in Samoa, but I assume it will be expensive to replace the battery here. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Or go watch-less until December.

That’s all I got for tonight. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Weeks-old picture of Paul mopping the new PCV Resource Room.

I took this picture while a bunch of us were out one night, and I realized that everyones shirts were all so colorful. It was like one of those TV shows where everyone clothes go together a little too well.

Blakey and Iki.

AJ tried to go all retro and turned in his common exam scores to the Ministry of Education on floppy disks. Somehow the data on the floppies got corrupted, and he had to have someone burn them off of his computer on Savai'i and bring them to Apia. Scowl indeed.

This mug is one of the ones in rotation at Interval. It freaks me out a little with its psychedelic tendencies. A monkey riding a zebra (see yesterday's post) with a split-headed fox(?) running next to it. Weird, dude.

Leah 82 after I inadvertently pulled that chair out from under her. I honestly thought she heard me pulling it away, and I had been sitting in it before. But she just sat right down in the chair-less space. What a jerk am I.

At the Zoo

2010-09-22T20:00:00.001-11:00

I’ve been teaching my year 10 English class Simon and Garfunkel’s “At the Zoo”. For those unfamiliar with the piece, the latter verse of the short song is a rundown of the state of inter-species politics at the Central Park Zoo. “Zebras are reactionaries / Antelopes are missionaries” etc. The effect is that of a children’s song written for adults, and I feel like there’s got to be some good English lessons to be taken away. So all week I’ve been using the song for more than just singing.

It’s not ideal though. For one, Samoa doesn’t have a zoo, so the concept is obscure if not baffling to my kids. Going along with that, I don’t think most of my kids have seen a giraffe in person, or an elephant or very many of the other creatures in Simon and Garfunkel’s menagerie. But there are occasional nature shows on TV here. My host family had a few books with pictures of various animals from around the world. So we’ve been making do.

This posed a problem yesterday when I had my kids try and draw the animals the way the song describes them. Monkeys standing for honesty went okay, and portraying a kindly-but-dumb elephant was easy enough, but the kid who drew the reactionary zebra was clearly taking shots in the dark. The class corrected him, but I so loved his original picture I had him re-draw it after he erased it.

It’s difficult describing an animal to a person who’s never seen one before. How do I explain an antelope? “It’s similar to a skinny goat, and it can run very fast.” And an orangutan? “It’s like a gorilla with longer arms. It’s from Indonesia.” And a hamster? “Similar to a mouse.”

Today’s lesson was my favorite though. We wrote our own bizarre personifications of Samoan animalia. The animals we came up with were less “zoo” and more “petting zoo”—dogs, cats, cows, pigs—but that didn’t hinder the assignment.

At first the kids had a difficult time wrapping their minds around the concept. I got a lot of sentences like “The dogs don’t like the cats, but they do like bones.” I told them to separate themselves from real life, and to try to think of something funny.

Their reactions were entertaining. “What if you walked up to the fale’oloa, and there was a cow behind the counter?” I asked. “Would a cow be good with money?” I asked this question to several times to several different groups of students, and each time they answered with a confident, “No.”

It took a while, but the concept slowly dawned on a few. As a class we came up with, “Cats are lousy drivers.” A couple other highlights included:

Cows often play rugby, but they’re slow;
Chickens are very cheeky (which I liked for the consonance); and
(My personal favorite:) Pigs are strong and silly, and they always want to play dress-up games.

Now that’s the spirit.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

It's a nice pigeon. The hamster looks a little like Sonic the Hedgehog. The antelope looks like an unidentified giant microbe. Maybe Listeria?

The beautifully drawn orangutan, the zookeeper, and the amazing zebra, which is amazingly reminiscent of Trogdor (Watch the whole video.).

Year 9 Nakisa wins my unpublished magazine award for best smile.

Inches on the Reel-to-Reel

2010-09-21T23:00:00.001-11:00

Five years ago I may have put up a fight. No, actually, probably not. I was more irrationally idealistic back then, but even I had my limits. I was censored back then about as much as I am now. Working at eCivis, I had to write up summaries that captured the essence of different grand programs, and the monotony of the job would often lead to a game where I’d see how many hidden puns I could sneak by Quality Control. I guess it wasn’t very surprising when they’d cut stuff out back then, and I guess in that sense today was unexpectedly expected as well.

I suppose I should have been more nervous when I handed the first draft of the magazine to my pule today, but mostly I was excited and proud. It’s not the best high school yearbook ever by any means, but it’s been a cumbersome project, and the simple fact that I have a working draft to hand in feels like an accomplishment. But somewhere along the way, I began to enjoy working on the magazine, and I willfully took ownership of the whole thing. So when, after seeing the second page, my pule grimaced a little, and then quickly reached for a pen to cross out one of the pictures, I wasn’t sure how to react.

As I said, I’ve been censored before. Hell, the blog itself has been censored on many occasions. For the most part, I’m willing to acquiesce to anyone who’s got a beef with what I publish here. I’ve never laid claim to journalistic integrity in this space, and if people want certain details redacted, I’ll chop away.

But it does hurt my artistic soul a little. Journalistic integrity might be too lofty a principle, but there is something to be said for experiencing something the way it was originally intended. Once you start contorting around details, it stops feeling organic. That sense of pride and ownership slips away a little.

I took a film class at USC where a guest speaker talked about being on the set of a film and how if he makes only 2 small concessions a day on a 30-day shoot, by the end, he’s compromised 60 times. At that point, is the finished project anywhere close to his vision?

But the yearbook is not my opus. Nor is the blog. If a few photographs need to be cut, it’s not the end of the world. And really, who am I to force my American aesthetic wit down the throats of an unsuspecting foreign audience?

So I’ll cut the pictures of Manila grabbing his crotch and the one of Luuao sleeping in my class. I’ll allow the blog to my artistic outlet this time....

...until someone asks for the photos to be taken down.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Delilah, Sunula, and Angelina. Goofballs.

Nellie sweeping.

Sam and Esther dropped by today to bring me lunch on behalf of their friends who read the blog in New Zealand and Hawai'i. Thank you, blog readers, wherever you are!

Lunch was delicious. Salad with avocado and egg. Custard dessert. It was quite a surprise. Thanks again. I'm speechless.

Camp

2010-09-20T23:00:00.003-11:00

It’s 10:35 p.m., and I’m sitting in the computer lab listening to a barrage of Rhianna, Justin Bieber, and Glee. All the year 13 students are camping here on campus for the next two weeks in order to cram for the Congregationalist school common exams in early October. For the next 2 weeks I’ll be teaching an extra 75-minute period Monday through Thursday. Yup. Year 13 Camp is on once more, and I’ve decide to embrace the teeny-bopper music aspect.

In effect, it’s the beginning of the end: 2 weeks of camp, 2 weeks of tests, 2 more weeks of camp, 2 more weeks of tests. From there it’s a short trot to Prizegiving. There’s that feeling in the air I vaguely remember from my last semesters of high school and college, where one suddenly realizes things aren’t going to last forever.

It’s true: I’m probably more in tune with that feeling because my year 13s’ end is my end too. Let’s not dwell too much on this.

Camp is exciting. Everything about it seems new. Some things feel like breaking the rules: the students wear street clothes rather than uniforms, I wear shorts and a t-shirt rather than my typical Hawaiian shirt and ’ie faitaga. It feels like rules are being broken; like we’ve gone behind the scenes a little. I went running tonight, and I admit I thought a little more about walking past everyone to get off campus. They’re going to see me go running, I thought. That’s weird.

It’s the other side of that teacher mystique. I remember thinking it bizarre to imagine my teachers going home and performing menial tasks. Buying groceries, washing the car on Saturday, feeding the dog. Weird.

But now, as I said, I’m on the other side. I can’t have students know that I go running. Or that I occasionally wear the same t-shirt 3 days in a row. Or that I can’t help singing along to “Don’t Stop Believing” in my own terrible, shrill voice. Oh well.

I’m not wholly convinced that Camp makes much of a difference in the kids’ performance on the tests. Right now I can hear several playing Mavis Beacon and two looking at pictures from someone’s flash drive and giggling. But it’s hard to believe the alternative is better necessarily.

Staying at home has its own distractions with feaus and TV and little brothers and sisters to look after. At least staying here offers a quiet place to study. Provided you’re not in earshot of whichever Beyoncé song is on right now.

Although tonight is the first night, which means everyone’s going to stay up until at least 3 o’clock in the morning, and then show up to my class exhausted tomorrow.

Meh. Whatever. It’s camp.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

My year 13s wanted to take a class photo after tonight's session. I really like this picture. I almost printed it tonight.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Okay. So these next photos are so creepy, I've decided to link to them rather than display them. If you want to take a peek, you're going to have to click. That way I'm not to blame. Proceed with caution.

Last night before I went to meet up with some guys at the movies, I went to use the bathroom before I left, and I noticed the floor in front of my shower was covered in ants. Covered. I'm estimating well over 20,000 ants. I sprayed them with Mortein and headed to the movies to clean up the mess later.

Photo 1

This is the carnage 24 hours after the fact. The edges of the floor are still dense with ants.

Photo 2

This is a slightly closer view of that density.

Photo 3

Even closer.

Photo 4

The pile of ant cadavers after sweeping. My estimate of >20,000 ants comes from the size of this pile. Gross.

International Food Festival

2010-09-19T23:00:00.000-11:00

Shortly after I graduated from college I paid a visit to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and I was blown away by how underwhelmed I was. It seems like if you’re going to have an NFL team, your town should be a happening metropolis. And the Green Bay Packers are nothing to scoff at; they’re steeped in tradition. But Green Bay, Wisconsin is about the same size as Hayward, California, which is pretty middling for California. But here’s the kicker: Green Bay and Hayward are, population-wise, about the same as Samoa.

Phil likes to point out how small the country is simply in terms of degrees of separation. Whereas it’s probably possible to connect to anyone in the world in 6, in Samoa, I’d assume you can get from anyone to anyone else in less than 3. Everyone knows everyone else—much like an American suburb. I bring up all this because Samoa’s tininess makes events like yesterday’s International Food Festival at the Hotel Insel so fun: everyone knows everyone.

I hadn’t heard about the festival until I was in the car en route. Rotaract had a Battle of the Minds taping yesterday morning, and a bunch of us piled in the car afterwards, I assumed to be dropped off at home. But we didn’t go home. We went the International Food Festival.

The event was small, but there was an impressive array of countries and cuisines represented, and all were quite tasty. The Indian Food tent had a deal offering 2 curries, rice, and buttered roti for $6, which offered the most food for the least amount of money. But there was also Italian, Filipino, German, Fijian, Hawaiian (yes, not a country. I know.), and Samoan booths.

As good as the food was—and the food was good, I ate at 4 booths over the course of the day—it was the startling cross-section of people that I enjoyed most about the day. I ran into a bunch of families I normally only see at mass on Sunday. I saw the lady who runs my favorite restaurant in Samoa, The Curry House, enjoying the afternoon with her family as a patron, not a vendor. “Funny seeing you on this side of the counter,” I told her. She laughed and told me I needed to try the tiramisu she ordered. Done and done.

I spent most of the day hanging out in the car park with the Rotaract kids, but when they announced a fashion show was about to be held on the events stage, we got up to watch. As it turned out, two of my friends, Aina and Esther, were models.

In the car on the way there, I assumed we’d check out this festival and leave after an hour or two. As it turned out, we were there for nine hours. Hanging out, shooting the breeze, drinking cheap imported beer, eating a myriad of ethnic cuisine. At one point I heard tinikling (sp?) in the distance, which was so Union City, I went and bought a plate of adobo, rice, and two lumpia. Apparently the lumpia was extremely popular and sold out in 20 minutes.

In any case, I was blind-sided by the event, but happily so. And everyone I know was there to celebrate with me.

I hope you’re well. Unfortunately my camera’s battery died yesterday morning, so I have no photos of the event. I very disappointed about this. Apologies.

Odds and Ends Thursday 68

2010-09-16T23:00:00.001-11:00

This week flew by. Granted Monday was a cleaning day so there wasn’t much work to do, but even then, I can’t believe it’s already Thursday. Although now that I think about it, last week’s conference seems like it was ages ago. But still. These last 4 days have gone by at break-neck speed. I wonder if this is just the feeling of getting back into the school rhythm, or if this is how time is going to feel between now and December. Hard to say. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

Yes. I’ve been a day behind all week. But that’s pretty good relative to the last two or three weeks. Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, huh?
Wednesday after school I was upstairs in my computer lab when Samoa experience a small earthquake. I’d guess 4-ish on the Richter Scale. In any case, I think my lab is the only second-story classroom at my school that’s retrofitted for earthquakes. And it held up well.
During Tuesday’s gleeful 9.2 science session, I realized 361 and 961 are both perfect squares. Does that seem suspicious to anyone else?
After thinking this through, I now see that many perfect squares have a difference divisible by 100: 576 and 676, 484 and 784, 529 and 729, etc. It’s all just (x + y)(x - y) where one of the multiplicands is divisible by 50. Or when they’re both divisible by 10. Nerd alert.
Sorry, Barb.
Does humidity help with joint flexibility? I can touch my toes way easier here than I could in America. Thoughts?
I find it’s starting to get easier to miss things now that America is on the horizon. Jeopardy! was brought up twice today. I can’t wait to watch Jeopardy!.
For those keeping track at home, 3 of my 4 Letters of Recommendation have been received by law school people. I just need that last one, and I can start submitting applications to schools. Raise your hand if you want to proofread my personal statement.
To those of you who’ve emailed me from Point Loma Nazarene University, I am going to try and get to your questions in the next couple days, but there are a lot of you. So hold tight.
Weezer’s new album, “Hurley”, is better than there last, “Raditude”. But then again, you could make arguments that Justin Beiber has put out albums better than “Raditude”. Yeah, I said it.
Paul has got me on this new kick listening to songs by The 88s and a bunch of stuff by The Hold Steady. Thanks, dude.
Also, I discovered earlier last week that the mystery song I’ve had in my head for, seriously, the past 2+ years is The Verve’s “Lucky Man”. I never listen to The Verve, but I saw them at a music festival in April 2008, and I guess the song must have stuck with me.
Sorry. Last music bullet. This American Life played Shakira’s “Pies Descalzos, Sueños Blancos” at the end of a recent episode. It was enough to inspire me to buy the whole album. No buyer’s remorse here.
I waited and waited to open this new pair of glasses because I was worried the anti-reflective coating would fall victim to the humidity before I left. Call it a self-fulfilling prophesy, call it what you will. Half the right lens has peeled off. Oh well.

That’s all I got for this week. I hope you’re well. More Miss Samoa photos below. Once again, all pictures taken by Blakey.

Miss I Love Samoa's Beachwear.

Miss McDonald's Beachwear. She won.

Another of Miss McDonald's.

Miss Apaula Heights' Traditionalwear.

Miss Australia's Traditionalwear.

Miss New Zealand's Tradtionalwear.

Miss Apaula Heights' Eveningwear.

Miss Australia's Eveningwear.

Miss New Zealand's Eveningwear.

The Missing Article

2010-09-15T23:59:00.003-11:00

The magazine is almost done, save for a few glaring gaps I have no control over. One teacher has decided to be a stickler about students in his class photo making various benign hand gestures—despite the ubiquity of such hand gestures in the rest of the magazine. Another decided too many of her students were absent the first time we took the class portrait, so she also wants a re-take. And the head of each department is supposed to submit a report; I’ve received one so far: my own.

And then there’s Tauinaola.

Before the break I hand-picked my own student yearbook committee and tasked each student with one article per person. From my calculation, there were 9 articles to be written, and I chose 9 students from years 12 and 13, each of whom:

I like; and
Was personally involved in the subject s/he was assigned to cover.

I asked one of the biology students, Sera, to write about the biology field trip; I asked Rubgy player James to write about the rugby season; I asked year 12 Sam to write about English Day; etc. I assigned the articles, and since most of the school is quietly anticipating the magazine, my prospective committee members were all eager beavers.

I gave them a 2-day deadline, which made them all grimace slightly, but most handed it in no problem. Sure, there were a couple of stragglers, but I’d chosen my team carefully, and many were participating in the Tahitian-hosting over the break. So there was ample time to badger them about the article.

But Tauinaola is a special kind of straggler.

I know because I am one myself. How often does the blog go up way after deadline? The 8:00 p.m. post time is fudged far more than 50% of the time. Sometimes if it’s posted late at night, I’ll change to an 11:00 p.m. post. If it’s the day (or days) after, I’ll give it an 11:59 p.m. tag. You can go back and count all the times I’ve been late.

So because of this, I’ve been a little more persistent with her. Every time I’ve seen her since I gave her the assignment, I’ve asked for it, and every time she’s told me she’d give it to me the next day. Whatever.

This morning Tauinaola is about 4 weeks late with getting her article in, and since I can do little else for the magazine at this point, I decided to track her down this morning. During my free period, I headed toward the 12.1 classroom.

Compared to my high school, my school here is pretty small. It’s pretty much one long building, so it’s just a matter of finding out where someone probably is, and making sure you don’t run into him/her before you get there.

As luck would have it, Tauinaola came to the top of the stairs at the end of the year 12 wing when I was about 20 yards behind. She turned in the direction opposite me, and started walking at a quick pace. I assume she’d been sent on an errand of some kind that she was returning from.

She walked with purpose, and even though I quickened my own gait, I could not catch her. She briefly swung her head to the side to look out at the field, and I thought for a second she saw me out of the corner of her eye, but her expression didn’t change if she did.

I could have called out to her, but there were a lot of people around, and singling a student out—particularly a female student—is a little taboo. 12.1 is at the end of the bloc, and I figured I’d catch her there.

But she kept going. She passed 12.1 and went down the stairs at the end of the building without slowing. There was a boy at the top of the stairs, who I didn’t know, who said something to her, and then chuckled at her reaction. When he turned to face me, he desperately tried to hide his smile, and I immediately knew what was going on.

Despite the broad daylight, the whole situation had a noir-ish feel. Her over-the-shoulder glance, the quickness in her step, the cryptic smirk of the kid at the top of the stairs. I’ve read enough detective novels. I put the clues together.

So I wasn’t surprised when she wasn’t on the stairs when I rounded the corner; nor when I reached the bottom of the stairs, looked both ways, and didn’t see her in either direction.

But I got Sam Spade skills. As it turns out, I am a master at Hide and Seek. I have a wealth of experience in the game, and I’m as good a hider as anyone. But there are two sides to the game, and as good as I am at hiding, I’m terribly good at seeking.

I crept slightly around the bottom of the stairs and saw a pair of feet in Jandals trying desperately to mold to the cement staircase. So I quietly turned around and snuck around in the other direction.

At this point, the absurdity of the situation hit me. “Are you seriously hiding from me?” I couldn’t help laughing.

She burst into giggles.

Long story short: she didn’t have the article. Maybe tomorrow. Either that or she’d better look for a better hiding spot.

Update! The day after the Hide and Seek incident, Tauinaola turned in her article. I think she also though the incident absurd.

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

Fautamara on the left, Gasologa on the right, and Tauinaola in the center on the landing of the staircase she would later use for a hiding place.

Today Wasn’t So Bad

2010-09-14T23:59:00.004-11:00

I walked into sixth period whistling. Often at that point in the day, particularly on dreaded Tuesdays, I’m down-trodden and grumpy, but not today. And during sixth period, I had one of those fleeting moments where I was enjoying myself so much I briefly thought it would be fun to be a chemistry teacher. Now that the clouds of cynicism have drifted back in, teaching chemistry sounds absurd. But today sets the tone for my final school term, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Okay, so I half-assed my double-period with the year 13s this morning. I got them started in Microsoft Publisher—one of two units we have left before cramming for their final exam—and then sat down at my laptop to work on the magazine. In spite of yesterday’s post, I realized today I’m actually having a pleasant time working on it. It’s an outlet for creativity and obsession, and I thrive under those conditions. At points I zone out and the perfectionism takes over. I wake up 4 hours later, and very little has been accomplished, but the pictures on every single page are exactly flush with one another.

Educationally, it was not my high-point with the year 13s today, but it’s Publisher. It teaches itself.

Ever since the second half of COS last week, the weather has been terrible. But in a good way. We probably got 4 inches of rain during school hours today, no exaggeration. It’s a welcome respite from the heat. Cold-ish rain and gusting wind are a rare treat, and sitting at the staff room at Interval, a lethargy set over the staff, and I was fine with that.

I’ve decided I’m going to sing with my year 10 English class as much as I can this last term. It’s what they seem to like doing the most, and it’s what I enjoy teaching the most. Today I started them on Simon and Garfunkel’s "At the Zoo". Truth be told, the lyrics aren’t entirely appropriate. I haven’t decided what to do about "And the zookeeper is very fond of rum" or "Hamsters turn on frequently", but I’m not all that worried. I can gloss over it quickly, and who uses the phrase "turn on" anymore anyway? In any case, we only had time for the chorus and the first verse today.

And that’s why I walked into 9.2 science whistling. I was on a high (turned on?), and the kids seemed to respond. I was pleasantly surprised when many of them had done their homework, particularly since my assignment was somewhat impossible. They were supposed to find the chemical symbol for a bunch of different metals, but they have neither textbook nor even a photocopied periodic table to work from. But somehow they figured it out.

First day back wasn’t so bad.

I hope you’re well.

Yearbook Committee

2010-09-13T23:59:00.011-11:00

I didn’t do yearbook in high school. My senior year I was in the yearbook an awful lot, but I was never on the committee. In middle school I had friends who did it, and they were constantly pulling out Kodak disposable cameras to capture the moment. I was never that guy—until the blog. The blog is a hungry mistress; it may not be real journalism, but there’s certainly a demand for new content. So I learned early on to always carry my camera with me. So even though I never set out to make a school magazine, I luckily have a wealth of material at my disposal.

That said, the job is still slow-going. Part of the problem is I almost have too much to work with. At this point it appears I’ve taken over 10,000 photos in Samoa, which is approximately 35 gigabytes. Even when I take out the photos of Peace Corps events and host village visits, there are still a huge amount of photos of staff and students.

And they’re not organized at all beyond sheer chronology, and even then, it gets confusing because at certain points during my Peace Corps tenure for various reasons I’ve had 2 cameras in rotation at the same time. Also, chronology helps in finding pictures of particular events, but if I am looking for a memorable picture of the year 10 girls hanging outside the door to the computer lab, it could be anywhere. So I end up spending hours scrolling through thumbnails looking for a needle in a haystack.

Another yearbook skill I have yet to develop—and I think even seasoned yearbook-ers have a tough time with this—is varying the people in the layout. Some people have more prominent personalities than others, and they end up getting their picture taken more often. Some are just so darn photogenic, they take too many good pictures, and it’s difficult to leave them on the cutting room floor.

And then there’s the whole issue of how all the pictures come from my collection, which means there are stunning gaps in places (netball), and certain events have a rather homogenous feel to them. For example, a great majority of my pictures from last year’s Culture Day are of the Savai’i house. So there are a bunch of students in my pictures, but they make up only a quarter of the entire student body. When I took pictures at that event, it was less about encapsulating the entire event for collective posterity; it was about capturing my own experience.

But all in all, production is going well, albeit slowly. And the more I put the book together, the more I’m excited to take home my own copy. It will provide a nice bookend for my own time here, and it will be just the way I want it since I’m the one putting it together.

Mostly I want it to be finished.

I hope you’re well. More sample page layouts below.

Page 25. Netball. This page is a little sketch. The white space at top right is because I don't know how to label the team pictured there; not in terms of student names, but I just don't know what division this team is. Or even how netball divisions work. Also, all the pictures on the page are from last year. Unclear on whether people will notice.

Page 27. Athletics. This page works for me. The one facing it will have an article. Supposedly.

Page 31. Samoan IA. Article is also to be written. I'm happy with the way it came out though.

Exhausted

2010-09-12T20:00:00.009-11:00

I’m sorry. I was at that conference and then I got back, but everyone’s still in town and there’s little time to sleep let alone blog or clean the house or do any of the 12,000 things I’ve been meaning to do lately. I spent all day today working on the school magazine layout, which is coming along, but still has far far more to go. But seriously. Despite the magazine and the blog and the lesson-planning and figuring out my computer lab’s intranet, all I want to do is curl up into a ball, turn on some movie I’ve seen a thousand times before and do absolutely nothing for days and days on end.

Not that the conference didn’t allow for a little bit of that. I won’t get into the long string of events that led to a bunch of us having our own rooms this past week. Even though I live alone and I constantly have my own room, it was thrilling to have my own hotel room with air conditioning and a hot shower. I didn’t have to worry about sharing space or keeping my area clean or figuring out who has the key. And the cat wasn’t there to be all hairy and needy. It was awesome.

But Group 81 tends toward a “rest when you’re dead” mentality. We work hard, we play hard. Sleep gets put on the back burner. We’re a gregarious bunch, and we would often walk together from dinner to somebody’s room, where we would listen to music and reminisce and collectively dread the future late into the night.

There was excitement about reaching the end of our service and going back to America. And there was dread about leaving each other and going back to the frenetic pace of America. But more than excitement or trepidation, it seems to me we’re all mostly exhausted—not just in the immediate with the late nights and early mornings, but in a much larger sense.

It’s not palpable on a micro day-to-day level, but the Peace Corps is all about endurance. Some steps outside the comfort zone requires a person to adapt, and once that happens, that person is all the better. But other steps outside the comfort zone are flat-out uncomfortable, and you don’t learn to adapt and accept as much as you learn to tolerate and put up with.

Living alone, not having a car, cooking on a camping stove, having the water shut off as early as 10 o’clock some nights, the constant barrage of mosquito bites, dealing with issue after issue after issue in the computer lab. I don’t mean to complain as much as I mean to say that the Peace Corps lifestyle is taxing.

And it’s all in the spotlight. I briefly mentioned recently that during a trip to Corina 82’s school, I made a good impression because I ate my fish with my hands. As much as I take pride in being patted on the back for my cultural sensitivity, it’s telling that I was being watched. It’s not that her staff was spying on me or distrustful in watching me. I’m the stranger who came to lunch; of course people are going to watch me eat. All I’m saying is it’s wearisome to be the stranger in the spotlight, and I’m tired.

School starts tomorrow, and I’m pretty sure blog posts should become more frequent and reliable. Apologies again for being MIA last week. I hope you’re well. Pictures from COS below.

Country Director Dale toasted the group after afternoon sessions ended on Wednesday.

Supy.

DJ Paul in the zone.

Bed-sharing.

Lunch on Friday morning before heading back to Apia.

We've been in the middle of a 4- or 5-week dry spell. But torrential rains came Thursday and Friday. What great timing. Thanks, rain. You really liven up the beach.

Miss Samoa 2010

2010-09-10T23:00:00.030-11:00

There’s a small subset of you who read the blog pretty regularly, and then there’s far more sizeable group who Google “Miss Samoa” and inadvertently stumble across my blog. I really like having all you loyal readers out there checking in day in and day out—I think you’re all the driving force behind me maintaining the blog (I admit maintenance has been poor lately.). But I also like having the Googlers pass through. Guys, this one’s for you.

I was exhausted when we rolled back into Apia this afternoon, and so I opted out of attending tonight’s beauty pageant. Luckily, Blakey was all about going, and she was nice enough to take my camera. You can thank her for the photos.

I’m going to shut up now. No one Googles for the articles. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

The contestants in their traditional wear made from natural materials. Left to right: Miss I Love Samoa, Lagitualua Ita Fiso; Miss McDonald's, Jolivette Menime Ete; Miss Apaula Heights Lounge, Sasaai Ietli Tiatia; Miss Samoa New Zealand, Maree Angelica Wright; and Miss Marisa's Fashion, Maria Tupou Woo Ching. Miss Samoa Australia, Sallie Maryanne Wulf Peterson, is not pictured here.

Miss Samoa Australia, Miss I Love Samoa, and Miss McDonald's waiting for results.

Miss Samoa New Zealand is named first runner up.

Miss McDonald's is named the new Miss Samoa for 2010.

Miss McDonald's in the beachware portion of the competition.

A closer look at Miss Apaula Heights Lounge's fale-skirt traditional wear.

Miss Samoa Australia's beachware.

Pets Are So Fun

2010-09-05T23:00:00.000-11:00

I have a cat hair in my mouth. I haven’t been licking the cat; I think I inhaled it just now while I was laying on the couch. It’s stuck at the back of my throat, and I’m having trouble getting it out. I’ve had the cat for 11 months now, and she’s come to be a fixture in my Peace Corps experience. After spending the first year of my service alone in my house, it’s been quite pleasant having a companion to come home to. But she is a mess. And cleaning up after her is no easy task; particularly in the developing world.

Hair is a problem. With the heat and humidity so constant in this climate, Scout is a shedding machine. Even in these relatively cool months, I’ll pick her up for just a moment and immediately have 20 hairs stuck to my shirt. I remember having pet hair problems back in The States, which we commonly remedied using the vacuum cleaner or the Dustbuster. But here, I don’t have a vacuum. So I sweep. And I tend to wear shirts with a sprinkle of cat hair.

Going through the kitten phase has also been fun because she’s been an avid shredder. Neither my toilet paper nor my paper towels are mounted on the wall, and for a while there she was particularly skilled at finding whichever roll of paper, knocking it to the floor, and tearing it to shreds. Such paper products are not cheap in these parts, and it’s been really fun budgeting extra rations.

Then there’s the smattering of bodies the small-time-but-accomplished huntress leaves in her wake, which is almost fully comprised of geckos. She’ll bat at the occasional moth, and she likes nothing more than finding a dead cockroach to play with, but lizards are the only real kills for which she can take credit.

With her ever-improving jumping abilities, surfaces that used to be safe have become embattled territory. And since I have no cupboard doors, those shelves have been fair game almost since the beginning. I’ve had to resort to keeping dishes in Tupperware to keep the cat away from them.

I’m sure there will be some adjustment pains once we get back to America, but I’m optimistic that a place where vacuum bags, spray bottles, lint brushes, kitty litter, and wall-mounted paper rolls are readily available, cat maintenance will be easier.

Knock on wood.

I’m going to go clear my throat. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Bowlful of cat.

I'm such a rebel. I turned in my Common Assessment Test scores to the Ministry of Education, Sports & Culture, but I abbreviated the Ministry's name. Quite the statement, right?

Taboo and Otherwise

2010-09-04T23:59:00.001-11:00

Every once in the while I get punched in the face by a Samoan contradiction. I turned in my absentee ballot the day I left for Group 81’s Peace Corps Staging in Los Angeles. While the change in geographical climate from San Francisco to Samoa has been daunting, the change in political climate has been equally so. San Francisco, that bastion of hedonism, free love, bleeding hearts, and communism, is nearly as far as one can get from coolly conservative Samoa. But on occasion, the world turns.

The Tahitians left for the airport at 10 tonight, so earlier in the evening my school’s staff and student prefects hosted a going-away fiafia. A fiafia is often an entertainment exchange. One group performs for the other, and then everyone switches. Rather than volleying back and forth tonight, the Tahitians performed a bunch of musical numbers, and then our students reciprocated with their own program.

The Tahitians started off with a haka (pictured above), which I think is a Maori term (?). In any case, warriors or athletes or rugby players or whoever will stand up and perform a haka before battle or a game to pump themselves up. There’s usually chanting, shouting, whooping, and chest-thumping; it’s very male. The Tahitians had a good haka. Their fa’aluma, the guy out in front leading the chant had some amazing moves.

For their second number, they wanted to sing to someone, so they asked for a female student to come up and join them. There was an awkward silence as volunteering to be the girl would have been taboo. Finally, the hormones of one girl, Ruta, beat out cultural adherence, and she stood up and walked to center stage.

Now I’m unclear what happened next, but there was some quiet wrangling among students, some famous Samoan non-verbal communication was had, and then the switch happened.

The Tahitian boys had just gotten into formation; one was standing at the microphone holding up his cell phone, which provided accompaniment. They’d formed a semi-circle around Ruta, but just as they sang their first notes, she stood up and walked back into the audience. Sione with style, poise, and expedience took her spot.

Sione is a young fa’afafine. While he still sits with the boys at assemblies and conforms to the male uniform standards, he carries himself effeminately and, on free-dress days, often shows up in a wig, earrings, and high heels. Today was free dress day, and he was in full regalia.

The Tahitians were unphased. They were fully aware of what had just occurred, but they didn’t seem to care. In fact, the same fa’aluma came from the back and did a very dramatic dance for Sione, and then took Sione’s hand and they danced together.

The crowd laughed. One could argue Sione was simply a freak show and an object of entertainment. In fact, later when our kids got up to perform, the boys did a full number in drag. But Sione wasn’t one of the boys in drag; Sione was being himself. And while there was a comic element to Sione’s dance, it wasn’t taboo at all. And when it was finished, the students cheered.

Coincidentally, the national Miss Fa’afafine Pageant was held last night in front of a sold-out audience. For a place so coolly conservative, there are occasional pockets of progressiveness.

Note: Students’ names have been changed.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

The fa'aluma dances while Sione swoons on the floor.

Our boys doing their haka.

A cooler full of barbecued chickens.

Primary School Tour

2010-09-03T23:59:00.014-11:00

I’ve got new respect for the 82s. The Peace Corps office commission- ed Kaelin 82 to produce a video about co-teaching that can be shown to incoming PCVs and to primary schools where the new PCVs will work. Kaelin, in turn, employed me to head up videotaping and editing. So yesterday, along with language instructor Mafi and Peace Corps staff member Papu, the 4 of us visited 3 schools to get footage of primary school kids doing their thing, as well as interviews with teachers, principals, and volunteers. And I must say, I was impressed with what I saw.

Our first stop was at Jenny Uefa’s school. The plan was to tape the kids singing a song, and then to interview the principal and a few students. I’m used to my school, where we have over 30 people on staff, and more than 700 students. Though our campus is relatively compact, the amount of activity on school days is sprawling. Primary schools, on the other hand, tend to be tiny and intimate. Kyle 82’s school, has a staff of 4, and a student body of 85. I have nothing in my experience, as a teacher or as a student, to know what that’s like.

In any case, the small nature of the school means when a bunch of palagi visitors come rolling in with video cameras, it’s big news. Everything stops. So at Jenny Uefa’s, I setup the camera, and her kids sang a pretty good rendition of “We Are the World”. “We Are the World” was popular at my school even before the devastation in Haiti and the new version was released. So seeing a classroom full of Samoan kids singing it didn’t impress me. But then while we were interviewing the principal, the class started singing Bob Marley’s “Every Little Thing’s Gonna Be All Right”. Now that was something to warm the heart.

Next we were off to Corina’s school. Unbeknownst to me, Corina is quite the artist, and she’s spent much time decorating her classroom with amazingly stylized posters and activities. Her classroom could easily rival that of a good elementary school in The States. Phonics and vocabulary and grammar litter the walls to such a degree, I set up the camera to tape the interview, and then spent the rest of the time marveling. I took a lot of pictures. You can see them below.

Corina’s school fed us lunch. Apparently I made a good impression because I ate my fried fish with my hands rather than my fork.

Our last stop was Kaelin’s own school. Kaelin spent the day bragging about her kids’ English. “It’s certainly not because of my teaching,” she told me. “But when I got to my school, my kids just had amazing English.” And they did.

During their taped interview, Kaelin asked a couple of kids why they thought it was important to learn English. One girl answered, “It’s important to learn English in order to communicate internationally, with friends and family overseas.” None of my year 10s speak English that well.

Keep up the good work, 82.
Note: Frequently readers know I try to stay away from using last names. Note Uefa is not Jenny’s last name, but rather, her Samoan name. Since there are 2 Jennys in group 82, we use their Samoan names, Sieni and Uefa, to identify them. Anonymity is intact.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Flashcards taped to the chalkboard.

Parts of Speech posters.

Vocabulary on the back of the door.

A cat writing a letter. Hey Corina, after the Peace Corps just go ahead and illustrate children's books. You're ready.

The Phonics Corner.

Kaelin interviewing Corina's pule in The Phonics Corner.

This girl scowled at me. So I took her picture.

Kaelin doing a ridiculous dance with some of her students.

Odds and Ends Thursday 67

2010-09-02T23:59:00.000-11:00

I’m tired. My days this past week have been wall-to-wall. Between waking up early to cook for the Tahitians or waking up early to go videotape on the south side of the island (I did that today, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow) or going to bed late for any number of reasons, I’m exhausted. But this might be a micro-manifestation of a bigger trend. Paul and I were talking last night about, whereas lots of group 81 has been rather bored for the last couple months, we’re moving into a phase where we’re simply worn out. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

I haven’t run, or even exercised, since last weekend’s big race. Like I said, I’m tired.
During Paul’s tattoo session yesterday, the tattoo artist would on occasion bark orders at the stretchers, and then swat at one of them with the stick. I don’t know if that would assure my confidence or hinder it.
There are only 4 members of group 80 left in country: Jenny, Spencer, Ben, and Jim. I feel like a junior watching the seniors graduate; there’s an excitement to being next in line, but it’s also quite alarming. Because then what?
I ran my downhill 5k a minute or two slower than my final flat 5k into town. Running downhill isn’t as easy as one would think.
The 83s have been coming out of the woodwork. Did you notice Rachel 83 up in the blog list there? I’ve also heard from Nancy and Jenny. Any others of you out there?
I’ve been without an electric fan since early July. Since then, it’s been relatively cool. But temperatures are going to be on the climb again relatively soon, so I’m thinking I’ll invest in a new one pretty soon. Maybe Monday.
The Peace Corps office is moving to a system where each volunteer gets 150MB per month on the office computers. Though this system is certainly more egalitarian, I’m having a hard time with it because megabyte usage can be difficult to gauge. For example, if I use GoogleChat for a half hour, how many megabytes have I used? I guess we’ll see next month, huh?
The cat twitches a lot. Any idea what’s up with that?
Air New Zealand now only allows passengers to check one bag. This is a big deal since PCVs have been checking two bags for as long as anyone can remember. Your baggage fee goes up exponentially the more bags you check (i.e. your first extra bag is $100, your second $300, third $500, etc.). But as I’ve said for a long time, I’m hoping my house will burn down 3 days before I leave, and that way I won’t have to pack anything. Except the cat.
How about those Trojans?
I have yet to start work on the school magazine. This is a source of stress.
Marisa Tomei is coming to Samoa for the Teuila Festival next week, and somehow the Peace Corps roped her in to being the spokesperson for Group 82’s health project. Paul and I are excited.

That’s all I got for this week. I should tell you now we have our Close of Service conference next week, and it’s unclear when/if I’ll have Internet access during that time. So I’m not sure what will happen to the blog on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. In any case, I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

This bowl of pork was just sitting in the middle of the kitchen table in the Peace Corps office. Par for the course in this country.

Trent left earlier this week. Cheers to you, Leni Styles.

Paul Got a Tattoo

2010-09-01T23:59:00.001-11:00

Living in Apia, I get a fair amount of guests staying at my house, I typically always have someone to hang out with on Friday nights, and I get to watch a lot of volunteers get tattoos. Of the volunteers who get work done while they’re here, most go to Tatau Suluape, run by the Suluape family, which operates out of the same building as Magik Cinema. Paul told me last night he planned on getting his tattoo today, and always up for a spectacle, I showed up to watch.

RPCV Sara wrote a particularly good article about the traditional tattoo practice, and I don’t want to re-tread old ground. I will say watching someone get a tattoo the traditional way is more of a spectacle than watching someone get tattooed with the buzzing machine. My roommates and I, on occasion, used to watch “Miami Ink”, which chronicles the clientele at one particular tattoo parlor in Miami. It was interesting, but looking back it seems quite saccharine compared to the literal hammering at Tatau Suluape.

The process, on the whole, is more involved. Typically a team of “stretchers” are employed to keep the skin taut. The tattoo artist, who holds the sharp, ink-filled comb and the hammering stick, directs the stretchers like the director on a film set. I was amazed by how, for much of the time I was there, the artist and the stretchers worked in silence, intuiting the next move with almost no verbal communication. The process is methodical, and when everyone is in the zone, they can cover a lot of ground with efficiency.

RPCV Trent claimed when he got his tattoo, he slept through much of it. Given the intermittent bursts of hammering, I’m not sure I believe a person could actually fall asleep. On the other hand, drowsiness and slumber seem like the best way to dull the pain; after all, isn’t that why we use anesthesia?

Paul, for his part, took it like a champ. His concentration seemed as focused as the tattoo artist’s. Though he acknowledged me when I entered the room, it was brief, and he quickly went back to distantly staring at the mat on the floor.

Paul had a crowd of spectators, among them Rachel 82 and her parents, who are visiting from The States, and Dan and his mom, who’s also in town. Rarely does anyone get such a crowd. The group would watch in silence for minutes at a time, and then strike up conversation. And then fall back into silence. It was a little surreal.

When it was all over, it felt a little like the end of a play. Paul and the tattoo artist both came out of their focused trance, the air in the room was immediately more light and jovial.

And Paul had a tattoo. Pretty cool.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Paul smiling for the camera.

The artist marks the arm.

The comb making lines.

Toeitiiti

2010-08-31T23:00:00.002-11:00

There’s a part in the “Numbers” episode of Radiolab where they talk about how counting by ones is a relatively new thing for humans. Originally, humans counted exponentially; i.e. I have one, I have a few, I have several, I have lots. There are still a few tribes in South America, I think, that don’t have words for any number greater than 5—once you have more than that, there’s no need to quantify. I think there are still some vestiges of this phenomenon in Samoa. Strictly for quantifying objects, there’s a lot to be said for tele, but I think this practice is even more prominent in the word toeitiiti.

Directly, toeitiiti translates to “almost” or “soon”, depending on the usage, and I suppose to a certain extent, both “almost” and “soon” have their own inherent relativism in English. If I say, “The taxi will be here soon,” the time involved is probably much shorter than when I say, “Experts predict a big earthquake will hit California sometime soon.” Geological events and yellow cabs work on different scales of time; thus the problem with “soon”.

But in Samoa, toeitiiti can mean significantly different quantities of time, or other units, on the same scale. For example, the first time I went to the river fales in Falese’ela, we walked to the local fale’oloa to wait for a bus home. When we asked the owner when the next bus was coming, he smiled and shrugged. “Toeitiiti,” he said.

There was some knowing humor in that smile: it’s possible he meant the bus would arrive in 5 minutes. Or 2 hours. Both would fall under the toeitiiti threshhold.

In fact, I’d posit it’s difficult to pinpoint the limits of toeitiiti, somewhat similar to soon, I guess. If the bus is coming in 3 hours, is that not soon? What about 4? 5?

I bring this up because it was mildly entertaining to see toeitiiti frustrate the hell out of my Samoan staff today. Twice.

The first was around noon when we had finished preparing lunch for the Tahitians, but the team was out at an HIV/AIDS rally. We were in constant contact with one of the team’s Samoan chaperones, who had informed us of the team’s expected time of arrival: toeitiiti. Suasami had me peel the Saran Wrap off the deep-fried fish at 12:05 p.m., after which I was to fan the dish with a breadfruit branch.

A half hour later, I was still waving that breadfruit leaf back and forth. The team was nowhere in sight.

Then later this evening, there was some worry over the dearth of rice that had been cooked. I was overseeing the rice cookers, which Cascade and Panasonic have both designed to be timer-less. So once again, Suasami was checking in with me every other minute to see how much longer the next batch of rice would be. But with no quantifiable time, I could only shrug and answer, “Toeitiiti.”

Soon.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Deep-fried fish heads for lunch!

Chrispune and Eletise fanned food for ~40 minutes while we waited for the team to show.

I Have a Dream

2010-08-30T23:59:00.001-11:00

For whatever reason, I’ve been having strange dreams lately. Dreams are always strange, I suppose, so I guess when I say that these are particularly strange, it’s only because they fall outside the parameters of my normal dreams. The people who show up in my dreams are typically people I know personally: family, friends, people from college, etc. Here are 2 I’ve had recently that fell a little outside the norm, feel free to get Jungian:

In the first, I’m in the car with my family dropping off a friend of my sisters’. My sister and her friend get out to say goodbye. They walk to the door, and my sister comes back with a guy who I immediately recognize him as the lead singer of Green Day, Billie Joe Armstrong, but I don’t say anything. My dad finds the guy sketch, and politely tries to drop him off on the side of the road. But then, with the car pulled over and all, I say, “Hey Billie Joe Armstrong, is there a better place we can drop you?” So Armstrong kinda smiled, my dad rolled his eyes, and things get hazy after that.

In the second, I find myself with an older lady and a girl I assume is her granddaughter. The old lady tells me she’s having some trouble with a cargo container she keeps in one of the rooms in her house: she thinks it has a demon inside. I’m not sure why I’ve been called in on this matter, and as I’m scratching my head, the Ghostbusters arrive (Only Egon, Peter, and Ray. No Willis. Take that for what you will.). There is goofiness and witty banter. After Bill Murray is briefly dazed by the ghost or one of the ghostbusting streams, Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis briefly fall out of character, genuinely entertained by Murray. As they aim their attention back to the ghost, who is in his final throes, they turn to me and tell me they’re very proud of me. Thanks, guys. Then they take out the ghost and leave. It was thrilling.I know this post is an aberration from normal blog fodder, but I feel like I would like to tell the world the Ghostbusters visited me in a dream and told me they’re proud of me. What else could a child of the 80’s want from life?

I hope you’re well.

Mālō Mātou (Part 2)

2010-08-29T20:00:00.024-11:00

The sun was a factor. On the car ride over the mountain, I looked out the window and, though it was still before dawn, the sky was growing lighter. I turned to AJ, “That doesn’t bode well.” He shook his head wearily. During last year’s race, cloud cover was a welcome state of affairs for most of the day. It wasn’t until we got to the village of Falefa on the north side of Upolu that the sun became a factor, but this year, from the beginning, there was no cloud cover.

There was a clause in the race rules this year that essentially said if you finish the race too early, you’ll be disqualified. This was an effort to keep teams from inflating their estimated finish time in order to get an earlier start time. Earlier start times allow for more running in darkness, which is much much easier.

AJ started the race about 20 minutes after dawn, which meant my first leg came somewhere around 8:30 a.m., and anyone who’s been to Samoa knows a sunny day here gets hot well before 8:30. Sunscreen-laden sweat rolled down my face into my eyes moments into my first run, my shirt and pants immediately soaked.

We had Joey’s fiancée buy us matching dry-fit shirts in The States before her recent visit and used fabric paint to add a mock-Peace-Corps logo and our official team name, “Toa Pisikoa”. The fabric paint held up surprisingly well, though there was still a faint trace of red and blue bleeding into the rest of the shirt. I joked with Dan about the post-9/11 Bush ‘These Colors Don’t Run’ mantra. “These colors...” I trailed off.

“...occasionally run,” said Dan.

“It’s a race, man. These colors run fast.”

During one of my legs I ran through patches of small bugs, only to realize it was light rainfall. I was still in direct sunlight, and the raindrops weren’t nearly substantial enough to feel good. It just felt like more sweat.

We used the Peace Corps name to get us into the bathrooms at Faofao Beach Fales in Saleapaga. And when we remembered PCV Paul and his mom were staying at Tafua Beach Fales in Lalomanu, we drove past shouting, “Paul! Paul! Paul! Paul! Fa Paul! Fa Paul!” We spotted him eating breakfast, and it seemed like he was pretending not to know us, but he told us later he simply hadn’t heard us. Sure, Paul. Whatev.

Though none of our runners ever got near that of our rival team, our leap-frogging van caught up to their truck sometime around leg 11 up nearing the Mafa Pass. Whereas the morning had been a leisurely affair, getting within sight of them brought a new urgency to the race. We dug our heels in and pushed ourselves harder.

This newfound motivation came just in time: the distances of the legs increased toward the end. Everyone’s last leg was 5 kilometers, a longer distance than all but 2 legs had run contiguously, and by that point it was 12:30 in the afternoon and the day was reaching peak temperatures.

AJ looked dazed after his final leg. Dan bottomed out on blood sugar after his and took copious amounts of Gatorade before he became coherent again. Kyle said it may have been the most painful thing he’d ever done in his life. I don’t want to make us out to be a bunch of whiners; I’m just trying to paint a picture.

Since I had the last leg, I sat and listened to all this in a state of nervous denial. As I stretched before my final leg, I tried to get real with my body, “Do you realize what we’re about do to?” I asked my dawdling legs. “You know that everyone is talking about how awful this last leg has been? Are you ready for this?” Ben came tearing around his final bend in a dead sprint. The kid looked good. He passed me the baton, and I was off.

My final leg was nearly identical to the course of the Independence Day 10k a bunch of us ran in June. I started in Fagalii-Tai and worked my way toward town.

Oh! Before I get to my leg, I should tell you: for whatever reason, our team had its own police escort for the entire race. This meant one guy on a motor-scooter behind the runner, and one in front of the runner for the entire event. Have you even run 18 km with a guy following you on a motorbike? It’s weird.

They were nice though. They’d occasionally shout words of encouragement, “Faamalosi! Faamalosi!”, and once one of them offered me water mid-leg.

In any case, as I entered the village of Moata’a on the outskirts of Apia, they seemed to both shout, “Only two more villages!” It was fun.

Back to the sun’s death knell: It was fiery and there was little-to-no shade. The pavement reflected the heat, creating a sort of broiler. And with the smog and dust and pollution of urban Apia, things could only get worse. Traffic picked up, exhaust fumes blanketed the course, the foliage-lined highway gave way to dingy, crumbling sidewalks. It was a briar patch of pavement and asphyxiation.

But just like Brer Rabbit, I was at home. The up-and-down driveways, the drivers that can’t find it in themselves to give a runner (with police escort!) right-of-way, the uneven curbs, the curve of the seawall, the giddiness of other pedestrians, the kids walking along the walls of the bridge, the beauty of the harbor, the majesty of the trees on the waterfront, the music of the car horns. As Shaquille O’Neal would say, “This is my house.”

We finished 7 minutes behind the next closest team; the same team that started 16 minutes before us. We won the race by 9 minutes. Our total time was 8 hours, 5 minutes. Not too shabby.

I drank a niu.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Kyle making a much better "My house!" Shaq face.

Ben.

Crossing the finish line. Dan was low at the time, but the other 4 guys crossed it with me.

Dan and me after the race.

The girls crossing the finish line. The girls took first place in the Open Womens' Division.

Group photo.
Guys left to right: Kyle, Dan, AJ, Joey, Me, Ben.
Girls left to right: Rachel, Dana, Lily, Kaelin, Corinna, Erin.

Mālō Mātou (Part 1)

2010-08-28T23:59:00.007-11:00

Yesterday was the 2nd annual Perimeter Relay Race, which started at Sinalei Resort on the south side of Upolu and wraps around the rolling terrain of the island’s east coast, over the mountains of the Mafa Pass, in and out of the inlets in the northeast, and finishes 64.1 miles (104.7 km) later in downtown Apia. The distance is separated into 24 legs, run in a 6-person rotation, with varying lengths depending on elevation change; i.e. the more the climb, the shorter the leg.

The Peace Corps fielded 2 teams this year, for whatever reason separated by sex. The boys’ team consisted of Ben from 80; Joey, Dan, AJ, and me from 81; and Kyle from 82. The girls’ team was Erin from 81; and Corinna, Dana, Kaelin, Lily, and Rachel from 82. Because of the nature of the race, we didn’t see the girls’ team for most of the day, but there was a shared camaraderie.

In any case, the boys’ team gathered at Chris 81’s house Friday night to carbo-load, strategize, and sleep. There was already a rotation at that point: a couple guys standing in the kitchen keeping an eye on the pasta, someone showering, someone reading over the list of race legs, and 3 other guys sitting in the living room passing the time.

We weighed in with our leg preferences, but in the end, team Captain Joey 81 came up with the following order:

AJ 81;
Dan 81;
Joey 81;
Kyle 82;
Ben 80; and
Matt 81.

Rinse. Repeat.

When we registered for the race we had to estimate our finish time because the race’s organizing committee, the US Veteran’s of Samoa, staggers the starting times of each team with the idea that everyone will finish together. Based on these predictions, we were the top seed.

I admit I was a little disappointed by this. Last year we were seeded second, and the team that won beat us by an hour. There was no chance of our being able to win, which meant we could relax in our second-place glory and have a good time with the day. This whole first-ranked business brought a competitive edge to the day.

Being top seed has another implication: we had to start last. In order to get everyone to finish together, the teams expected to have the longest finish time start earlier (In this case, one team started at 10:30 p.m. Friday so they would finish at 3:30 p.m. Friday) and the teams expected to have the shortest finish time start later.

We headed over the mountain this morning, bleary-eyed and tense, watching the sky slowly brighten. We rolled into Sinalei early enough to see the second-seeded team start the race. We were allowed to start up to 30 minutes before our allotted time. So 16 minutes after our nearest competitor left—we used the bathrooms, signed waiver forms, pinned on our bibs, did some awkward stretching—AJ sauntered up to the starting line, and we were off.

Part 2 tomorrow. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Dan and AJ standing over the stove making pasta. That's also Dan receiving the baton from AJ above the fold.

Kyle and Ben sitting in the back of the van in the Sinalei parking lot.

Dan proudly rocked his short shorts.

Me in the foreground getting ready to receiving the baton from Ben. That's Joey on the side of road watching. You can also see the police escort, which stayed with our team's runner the entire day.

Joey, Chris, and AJ at the exchange point in Saleapaga.

Our team's van, sponsored by Country Director Dale, at the exchange point at the rock quarry outside Lalomanu.

Daylight Savings

2010-08-27T23:59:00.003-11:00

“It will be so much nicer after Daylight Savings and we’re only 6 hours off the east coast,” Chris said to no one in particular while sitting in the Peace Corps office resource room recently. Since our group arrived nearly 2 years ago, Samoa has wavered between being 6 and 7 hours off Eastern Time, depending on whether the east coast is in Daylight or Standard time, and thus 3 or 4 hours off my old haunts in California on Pacific time. But this year, there’s a twist.

“Samoa’s observing Daylight Savings this year,” I told her. “So it’s probably not going to be the same 7-hour/6-hour shift.”

Chris was none too excited to hear this, which wasn’t surprising. I certainly have less people with whom I communicate regularly living on the east coast, but I can imagine how a 6-hour time difference could far more convenient than a 7-hour one; goodness knows I have enough trouble with 3 hours and 4 hours.

But then I thought of something. “I wonder if we’re springing forward or falling backward.” Samoa’s in the southern hemisphere so seasons are backwards from those in America. School lets out of the summer in late November/early December, Christmas is spent at the beach, and September 21 (or 22) will be our spring equinox.

One quick Google search confirmed my suspicions: we are indeed springing forward. On Sunday, September 26, Samoa will move its clocks forward an hour. This has bizarre implications when one considers America, what with its northern-hemisphere-status, will move its clocks backwards on Sunday, October 31.

This means Samoa will be:

5 hours behind the east coast;
2 hours behind California; and
1 hour ahead of Hawai’i.

This last one is particularly strange since Samoa is considerably farther west than Hawai’i. So let’s put this into perspective. At 5:00 p.m. here in Samoa, it will be 7:00 p.m. on the west coast of the United States, 10:00 p.m. on the east coast, and still only 4:00 p.m. in Hawai’i. That’s weird. Incidentally, Luisa, who has been in Chile (and thus in the southern hemisphere as well) since late May, will still be 7 hours off Samoa because she’s be springing forward too. What is my point with all this? I’m not sure I have one beyond that:

Time is weird; and
This year it will be weirder.

But, if nothing else, Chris will be happy.

I hope you’re well.

Odds and Ends Thursday 66

2010-08-26T23:59:00.000-11:00

I was laid off 5 months before I joined the Peace Corps, and I spent that time desperately searching for a job, watching The Wire, and running on the treadmill. RPCV Cale once observed that every time I tell stories about this time period, the muscles in my face form a subconscious grin. As terrible as it is to be out of work, there’s a satisfaction that comes from having time off while everybody else is working. And that’s what I’ve been feeling all week. My school breaked a week early on account of the visiting Tahitians, which means Apia’s been relatively free of Peace Corps, and I’ve had some time to relax by myself without many social obligations. It’s been nice. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

I’ve been watching “Deadwood”. It’s brilliant. But I wouldn’t recommend it to the faint of heart. Dakotan prospectors in the late 1870s had foul mouths and wretched lives. But that’s a good show. I hear I’m going to be disappointed by its non-ending.
I think the teacher at my school who wanted to throw cornflour in with the pasta wanted to do so because that would be similar to how curry is prepared in Samoa. I admit I’m not sure. I tried cooking curry once and failed miserably.
The Samoan teachers at my school as well as the Indian missionaries were baffled I took the boat to Savai’i on Saturday and returned less than a day later. “If I’m going to take the boat,” my vice pule told me, “I’m going to stay there for 2 weeks. I hate the boat.”
My friend Chris emailed me with a link to Rolling Stone’s recently released rankings for the top 10 Beatles songs. I have yet to come up with my own list, but I can tell you mine would include “I Should Have Known Better” from A Hard Day’s Night, and a bending of the rules to allow for the entire B-side of Abbey Road to fit within a single list item. I’m a rule-bender.
Okay, okay. So I’m writing these Odds and Ends 3 days late on the Sunday, August 29 (Though I’m only including odds and ends from the August 20 – 26 time period, for those who are keeping track at home), and I just realized I’m 3 days late in posting the answer to Monday’s semicircle problem. The answer is 20°. Sorry for the delay.
That picture of Dylan I posted Tuesday cracks me up.
When I took over molding rice on Wednesday, the girl who preceded me had shaken the rice out with a small up-and-down motion. When I took over, I introduced the practice of slamming the container on the serving plate once, which used inertia to get the rice out of the container one the first try nearly every time. But the other students and staff preparing dinner seemed a little shocked with my use of force; as though this was too violent a way to treat rice. I found this strange because many common practices in Samoa—husking coconuts, cutting grass with a machete, slaughtering pigs—is reliant on use of strength and force. But I guess once stoneware gets involved, people get weary.

That’s all I got from this week. I swear these will be up on time next week. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

My 10.4 classroom turned into a bunkhouse.

Teachers and students having fun with sausage.

Another crevasse getting off the little boat Saturday afternoon.

A rare teaching moment of mine caught with the camera. I'm talking to last year's year 13 Marie.