Quick Language Lesson

Some of the vocab I’m probably using in my blog without even realizing it

Fale A house.  Notably, there’s the fale Samoa which is the gazebo like
house and then the fale palagi which is a house like we think in America.

Faleo’o A small fale

Palagi A foreigner

Pule School Principal

Faifeau Minister, Preacher, Priest

Tafao Hang out

Sole Unmarried, young, man

Puletasi Dress

Lavalava Sarong like skirt

Pisi Koa Peace Corps

And just a note, Samoa is pronounced SAH-mow-uh, not suh-mow-uh.

Samoan Videos

Vailima Pool Commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70j6QqcAuVA

The guy walking says "O a mai", "how is it/how are you"

The guy in the pool responds "Malu rag son", "cool, cold" with slang

American Samoa Oppa Gangnam Style:

It's amazing quality and totally Samoan.

Digicel:

All the best culture parts of Samoa.  Digicel is a phone company here and this is a video they put out about extraordinary Samoa.

Samoan Buses

Samoan buses are a hoot.  They’re converted flatbed trucks that look like a big wooden bus.  Usually a family will own 3 or 4 of them and operate them in a certain region.  They’ll be painted with various slogans.  I ride bright green ones with I’u O Atua written on the side.  The inside will be crammed with seats and it’s two per seat with the one on the aisle having half a buttcheek hanging off.  Once all the seats are full they’ll start sitting people on top of other people.  Usually it’s a good idea to grab a kid and have them sit on your lap.  It’s better that than someone larger.  The front of the bus on the dashboard is usually blinged up.  Upwards of 15 rear view mirrors will be displayed even though none of them can possibly be used due to the bus being crammed.  There is also usually a feathery boa along the dashboard and necklaces hanging.  Many will also hang tapestries or lavalavas from the ceiling with a good example being my usually bus driver who has a large tiger on his. 

The best way to tell if a bus is coming is by listening.  They tend to blast their music so you can hear them a good ways off.  There aren’t any bus stops in Samoa so all you do is go out to the street, chill in a nearby faleo’o in the shade until you see one coming then just wave it down.  Buses run on a very loose schedule so the general rule is to be there 30min before it’s supposed to come and you’ll most likely catch it within the next hour.  Once you get on, a guy called a supokako will take your bag to stash upfront and point out where you should sit.  This guy is responsible for getting as many people as possible on the bus and to also handle any problems (not that there are many).  Women usually sit up front and guys in the back though if you’re married it’s considered good form to sit on each others laps so that you open up another seat. 

If you’re on a bus leaving Apia you have plenty of opportunities to get food.  First off while it’s sitting in the bus depot waiting for passengers, people will be going by the windows selling food.  There’s been a crackdown recently on parents taking children out of school to sell food to bus riders.  The next opportunity is a few minutes later.  As the bus drives out of town it makes a stop at a place resembling a minimart or convenience store.  All the passengers will unload and pile into the store, loading up on snacks for the ride as well as bread and butter for the family back home.  Once you pile back in, the bus will sometimes make other stops as requested by passengers.  I’ve been in the back lot of Bluebird lumber more times than I can count as lumber gets loaded onto the bus through a door in the back and pushed through the aisle.  Sometimes baskets full of taro will be loaded up the middle of the aisle. 

Finally after all of this you’re on your way home.  The ride in and of itself is an adventure.  Going up hills you wonder if the bus will make it while going down you pray that the breaks were recently checked.

That all being said though, I really appreciate the buses.  I have one every hour in my village and they only cost 3USD to go to Apia.  I can meet new people and join in with village life.  How many other palagis (foreigners) ride the buses?  

Getting into the Groove

These last few weeks have been an absolute blur.  I’ve heard that about Peace Corps service; some weeks will feel like they’ll never end while sometimes entire months blink past.  February was certainly one of those months and with any luck the next few weeks will as well.  School has become a routine and we just finished our first term.  I retested all of my At-Risk groups and was pleasantly surprised by the growth that I'm seeing in them!    One boy in particular not only went from only knowing 3 letters of the alphabet to now 23/26, he also could pronounce all the short vowel words I threw at him (mat, sat, fat, hit, mit, lit, etc).  Malo lava David!

A few weekends ago I went to my friend Lu’s village to have a girl’s weekend.  It was a pain getting over there thanks to the buses.  I had to leave school a half hour early, wait outside for the bus which ended up being half and hour late, go to Apia, wait for another one to her village, and travel all the ways there.  All in all about 4 hours when she only lives about 30 min by car.  Bleck.  Lu lives in a village shaped as a circle around an open field which is different from mine that is in a line.  She has a whole house to herself so I got my own bedroom to crash in for a few nights.  It was also a treat to learn that she has cable TV!  This means 10 channels: MTV, BBC, CNN, 2 Bollywood, 3 Samoan, and 2 others I’m forgetting.  The Bollywood ones felt random.  For dinner we made pasta which was a treat.  In the morning we continued with the palagi eating by making pancakes in nutella and syrup.  Yum!  Her mom had mailed her some food treats and Lu was nice enough to share.  You don’t understand what a hot commodity some of those things are until you live off of chicken and ramen noodles for an entire month.  We decided to head over to Lalumanu Beach for the day.  Some guys from Apia who are returned Peace Corps volunteers came in and picked us up.  They were apparently spending the weekend in Lalumanu as well (hmmm, coincidence much…?).  So we all spent the day swimming, getting sunburned, and laughing over stories.  Definitely one of my better weekends.  It’s nice to feel a part of a group for once and it’s such a good one to be in.  I feel lucky.






My brothers are so funny.  They are always getting into mischief and it’s usually when the older one comes home from Apia on the weekends (he goes to Primary school there).  A few weekends ago I was reading in the main fale when I heard banging and laughing.  I thought nothing of it but then five minutes later when I was walking back to my fale I noticed yellow footprints all over the ground.  Following them I couldn’t help but laughing at the sight: my two brothers and the family dogs had yellow all over them.  Apparently they’d been playing in paint barrels.  Well naturally I started laughing and ran to grab my camera.  When I came back they were getting a severe scolding from my sisters and were being set to work scrubbing the paint off the driveway.  They were warning about how when my host dad got home he’d make them really sorry but he never did notice.  To this day the footprints are still there haha!

Easter was interesting.  First off, no Easter bunny.  Which was kind of a relief not seeing some creepo in a bunny suit at the ball with kids on his knee (when did that start??). Had a bunch of relatives come in from various villages.  My host dad had a bunch of sisters so they all came (four total plus their families).  It was definitely a religious holiday here, as it was in the origins.  Went to church twice (Good Friday and Easter Sunday).  Even though I still couldn’t understand lots of it I did hear the word Eseta (Easter) lots of times.  During the Good Friday service we got a performance by kids from the secondary school reenacting the crucifixion.  They walked down the aisle with a guy playing Jesus dragging the cross and three others whipping him.  From the sounds of the slapping I think they were taking their job a little too literally haha.  After service we all went back to the house and had our toonai (Sunday meal).  All the while this was going on, my family was pulling out lots of boxes of tin fish and woven mats.  Thinking something was going to happen, I walked over to my cousin and asked if someone was coming over.  “Yep, there’s a funeral today”.  Oh, well that’s news to me.  Sure enough, about an hour later cars started piling into the driveway and relatives started pouring out.  And what followed was definitely a cultural experience.  Lots of gifts were exchanged as well as money.  The favorite gifts to give in Samoa are woven mats and boxes of tin fish.  Woven mats come in various sizes and fine-ness.  For instance ones that are about 2x4 with 1 inch wide weavings are cheaper to make and are usually used for sleeping.  The ones given as gifts though are upwards of 5x15 with weavings of maybe ¼ inch.  Those take months to make and if they are sold can go for almost $10,000.  Well my family received 2 of those mats and we gifted one of ours.  The other popular gift tin fish is interesting and has a background.  Many many years ago, gifts of pigs and cows were given and often times if a fine was given it was in terms of that (i.e. 80 cows to be given to the victim).  Over time this has given way to tin fish being given instead.  When the person giving the gift calls out what they’re giving though, they don’t say “And here are 30 boxes of tin fish”, instead they still say “And here are 30 cows”.  Anyways, after the mats and tin fish the families divided up the slaughtered pigs and cows that were brought.  It was very important that every family present ended up with a part and each part had various meanings and importance.  My family ended up with two pig legs, a cow mid-section as well as the cow’s head.  It was interesting watching the young men carving up the animals while one of the relatives dictated what family got what.  Whew, it was certainly an eventful Easter weekend.

Funny and memorable tidbits:

• Being asked quite seriously if I was from Russia because I don’t like the heat
• Being locked in the school bathroom.  Who puts locks on the OUTSIDE of stalls?
• Killing my 6th centipede
• First marriage proposal (I told him “no” if any of you had any weird doubts)
• Getting bit by a dog
• My host sister exercising by running around the front lawn in circles for 5 minutes.  You go girl!  You did more than me.
• My new baby host nephew.  I’m an auntie!  Dadrian is beyond adorable and I was able to hold him when he was a mere 5 hours old.
• Giving my host brother Daniel a Batman shirt for his birthday and then having him wear a cape and zoom around the house for days.
• Sports Day at my school where “soccer” turned out to be lets throw a soccer ball at each other
• Being told “you look rather fat today”
• Watching Juno and my brother asking me if the pregnancy test was a flashdrive.
• Sitting down in school and my dress’ zipper breaks exposing my whole back.  Aaaaah that was so embarrassing…
• Yelling “GO MANU!” as the Samoan Rugby team played in the Tokyo 7s.  Did you know they're one of the best in the world?