The rush of classes

Whew, what a hectic week and a half of teaching!  As I said in my last post, groups have finally begun.  I’ve got years 4, 5, and 6 split into At-Risk, Middle, and Advanced for each year and each class has their own characters in the classes to make each interesting and unique.  They’re also all at vastly different levels!  I’m lucky if 2 out of the 9 are on the same topic.  I’m starting to feel some major respect for teachers in America who have to come up with so many different lesson plans ever single day!

Some of my favorite moments from this last week and a half at school:

• ·      One of my year 5 boys came in a gave me a Snickers bar and ran out.
• ·      I was reading a book to a year 6 girl during lunch interval when suddenly 10 others ran in wanting to hear me read. 
• ·      Watching the year 8 boys and girls dashing down the road in front of the Vice Principals car thanks to a new rule that any students behind his car (or left at school) are disciplined the next day.
• ·      My brother drawing Batman on the word poster his class was making with me
• ·      Two girls coming in and wanting to borrow books from the library to read at home (understand, this library is never used.  This is huge!)
• ·      My year 5 at risk class finally clicking with short vowels (success!!)
• ·      Two year 1s taking each of my hands as we walked back to the village after school.
• ·      My new friends Mativa and Mafa (years 3 and 4) who like to walk home with me each day
• ·      Playing JENGA with my year 5 and 6 At-Risk groups.
• ·      Walking up to school and every 10 seconds, “Good morning Michelle!” and a hearty wave, as I go by
• ·      A little year 1 coming in while I’m on break and just staring at me, smiling.  He’s the picture below, so cute!  

This is why I joined the Peace Corps, the whole reason I came to Samoa.  I love it!  I feel so extremely lucky and blessed to by placed at the school that I’m in.  My pule and teachers are wonderful and so enthusiastic about helping the kids. My pule wants me to set up a training program for the teachers for literacy and reading.  I’m beyond thrilled at how excited he is about this program.  It makes me feel wanted and needed and honestly, who doesn’t need to feel that every now and then?

Love you all in America <3  Mom, Dad, Kiersten, Redell, Lily, PAUL AND HOOKER FAMILY RELATIVES, miss you all greatly.  I received a whole bunch of letters over Christmas and when I saw the pile in my mailbox I started crying right there in the office.  Feeling the love all the ways over here in Samoa was a wonderful thing.  Even got a letter from Sweden (thanks Yuta!).  Much love, ‘ou te alofa lo’u aiga

A few random photos:

Finally got a picture of the giant black lizards.  This one came into my faleo’o while I was visting my training village family.

Nora loves to sleep in the sun.  This was a particularly cute pose.

My brother is obsessed with Batman and Ironman.  So I cut out paper to make Batman and Ironman masks.  Nevermind that mine turned out more like a cat, we had a blast!

An almost perfect rainbow as seen from the school!

School Begins!

2/6/13

Huge earthquake in the Solomon Islands about an hour ago.  Samoa is under a tsunami watch.  I have to say, I have goosebumps just thinking about it.  My bag is packed if I get the call from Peace Corps to head to the hills.  After experiencing the earthquake in Japan in 2011 I have a healthy respect and fear of tsunamis.  My mom and dad both texted within 10 minutes of each other to make sure that I’d heard about the earthquake and was keeping up to date on tsunami warnings.  I love that my parents look out for me!

Update:  Tsunami watch canceled 2 hours after being issued!


Well I’m halfway through my 2nd week of teaching!  The first week fell away in a blur with students spending the first few days cleaning the school which was sorely needed after the hurricane back in December.  The teachers lounge and the science classroom were worst hit but the rest of the school had a lot of greenery damage.  So lots of pruning and sweeping for the children!

The school that I teach at is years 1 – 8, basically the equivalent of grades 1 – 8 in the US.  The difference here is that each year is only 1 classroom of students.  We’re also short 2 teachers this year so year 3 and 4 and years 7 and 8 combine into one classroom each (that’s about 60 kids in one classroom).  There are a little less than 250 kids at my school and I’ve been assigned to hold literacy groups with years 4, 5, and 6.  The school itself is designed in a line with an outlying building that serves as a cafeteria for the teachers.  My school has a beautiful computer lab and library full of books and computers donated from sister schools in Australia.  It was fun walking into the computer room and seeing Macs from the 90s.  It felt like going back to my elementary school with the elegant curvature of the Mac computers in the bright blues and greens.  Opening up the Mac, I ruffled through some of the educational games on it and while the names didn’t mean anything to me, upon opening them up I recognized instantly some of the games that I played as a child.  It really brought back the memories.

Wednesday of the first week I began my testing of each student for their reading level.  I then broke each year into At-Risk, Middle, and Advanced groups so that I can adequately meet the different levels of capability.  I’m rather pleased with the Advanced groups in each year.  Their reading level comprehension is quite good and certainly leaps and bounds beyond my Samoan reading comprehension.  I’ve been given the Library to hold my groups in so I’m thrilled to have access to all of the books.  MESC (Ministry of Education, Sports, and Culture??) recently received a grant from the US to purchase reading aid books at various levels for schools that have Peace Corps placed in them.  I’ve glanced through the books and can’t wait to use them.

         Another task I was given was taking pictures of all of the students for a student registry that the pule wanted me to type into the computer.  So I whipped out my handy dandy Sony Cyber-shot and proceeded to take pictures of almost 250 people.  It was actually a really fun exercise to do.  The guys got all cheeky and flashed “gang” signs or did over the shoulder looks haha I was cracking up.  In the end though I cropped all the pictures for just the head so it didn’t matter what they did below the neck.  My favorite group though was the 1st and 2nd graders.  They were absolutely adorable beyond belief.  One poor guy was bawling then I called his name and he quickly wiped his eyes and got up front, tears still rolling down his cheeks.  The teacher was just giggling throughout, I love her!

Finally today I finished with my testing and began my groups.  It was a relief to finally get started with my real work and to get to know the kids.  Though it is rather daunting having to learn 100 names!!  Eeeee well I have 2 years to do it.

There was a big controversy yesterday.  In parts of Samoa, the families of the village take turns to provide lunch to the teachers each day while school is in session.  Yesterday, the village council voted that that would cease to happen in my village.  The teachers are upset about this and I’m not really sure what’s going to happen in the long run.  It’s an interesting cultural aspect but it doesn’t truly matter to me one way or another.  On one hand I got delicious curry chicken from the parents, on the other I can bring my own lunch.  It’s up in the air about how this’ll turn out.

Just for funsies, heres a few of the Samoan phrases I’ve been using in the classroom!  Have fun trying to pronounce ;)

Fa’ata’ita’i mai         Repeat after me
Fa’avasega Put in order
Nofo i li’o Sit in a circle
Valivali le ata Color the picture
Moe’i’ini mata         Close your eyes
Tu’u i fafo se’evae Leave your shoes outside
Usu le pese o mata’i tusi Sing the alphabet song
Na’e malamalama i le palakalafa lea? Do you understand this paragraph?

Critters of Samoa

Spiders

No poisonous ones in Samoa!  Thought I’d start on a positive note.  There are ones though that like to chill in the showers that are the size of your hand.  They move super slow though so you know, don’t worry about them.

Millipedes

Not much to worry about, just don't step on them!  They have acidic fluid inside so they’ll leave a minor burn.  You’ll know them from the centipedes in that they move in a straight line and curl up into a spiral when touched.

Snakes

None on Upolu.  Woo!

Cockroaches

Yeah, they’re all over, get over it.  They can’t bite, they don’t sting, and they’re not poisonous.  Though they do have jokester streak where they like to fly at your face while you’re in the shower.  Somehow they always head for the nose, why is that?  Out on Sava’i, there are even some green ones.  Yummy.  Samoans tend to deal with them by scooping them up and throwing them outside.  My advice is to ignore them.

Ants

These would be the annoying aunts or uncles who come for a visit and never go away.  They come after the most random items (computers, dirty underwear, retainers, etc) and are difficult to disperse.  Once they catch a scent, even killing the ones in view won’t guarantee a complete removal, as they’ll just come back the next day.  The best advice I can give is to not have any food in your room, whatsoever, keep your computer in a large bag, and if you really want to go the extra mile, spray your room once a week to kill any hidden critters.  They have the rather helpful talent though of cleaning up dead bugs for you.  If you’re super bored, watch as they make a ring around a cockroach then carry it off somewhere.  It’s almost better than HBO.

Centipedes

The true archnemesis of Samoa.  They can grow upwards of 6 inches, with legs thick enough to gross even the stoutest person out.  They have the nasty habit of biting rather than stinging people and their bites pack a wicked wallop.  Even the tiny babies, only an inch long cause your leg to twitch from shoots of pain.  They are wicked fast and like nothing better than crawling into bed with you as it rains outside.  The easiest way to kill one is to scream like a girl at the top of your lungs until your host family comes running to take care of it.  If that method is not available or preferred, then it’s suggested that you take Mortein (bug spray) in one hand and a shoe, hammer, umbrella, etc in the other hand.  The Mortein sufficiently slows them down and the other object is excellent for killing it after multiple blows.  I had the unfortunate experience of one crawling up my skirt and biting my inner leg and don’t care in the least to experience it again.  You’ll know them from the millipedes in that they move in a swishing S shape and you can see their legs.

Mosquitoes

There seem to be quadruple here what there are in the entire US combined.  Where bug spray and you’ll be fine.  If you forget and one gets inside your mosquito net at night though, you’ll wake up looking like you have chicken pox.

On to the good!

Birds

My brothers like to bring back the mini-parrots that they find in the banana trees (sorry, I’m not a bird expert).  They can’t fly so they can’t run away and they’re super colorful.  The birds here are quite a bit more colorful than the ones in America.

My brother holding such a bird

Bats

Really big which is really good because they eat a huge amount of those pesky bugs mentioned earlier.  I like to sit outside and play cheerleader as they swarm after them.

Geckos

Much cooler than the Geico Gecko.  They’ll walk across your ceiling making chirping sounds to one another.  Usually you’ll see them chasing after bugs.  One of the most heart-warming sights you’ll see is two geckos pulling on opposite ends of a cockroach.  Aaah the animal kingdom.

Summer Break

Since early December, I’ve been free from obligations.  There’s an interim period between training and when school starts that tends to last about a month and a half.  While many may think that this is a great time to go on vacation or to lounge around, that’s really not the case for newly minted Peace Corps Volunteers.  We were urged to use the time to integrate into our communities.  Ways of doing this include going to the various church congregations within the community, meeting the fafeao (pastor), pulenu’u (mayor), and various other members of the village, going to visit other families and simply talking with them, honing your teaching skills, continuing to the learn the language, and participate in activities with your family.  All it boils down to is to be a part of the village that you’ll be living in for the next two years.

So far, I have gone to the EFKS Church (Congregational), Morman Church, and the 7th Day Advantists.  As a person who is not particularly church inclined in the States, it has been an extremely interesting and at times confusing experience for me.  My sister Lema has graciously been declared my chaperone/guide for my stay here, and has accompanied me on all of my different church trips.  She came in particular help during the 7th Day Advantist Sunday as we were invited to a to’ona’i (meal) afterwards and she could help to translate my formal speech of thanks afterwards for those present.

I’ve also used this time to work on my records for the coming school year.  I’ve decided on which tests I want to conduct at the beginning of the year to appropriately decide a placement level for each child.  I want to focus on alphabet awareness, alphabet sounds, phonics level, and sight words.  With a little help from Excel, I’ve come up with a computer program to work out averages for each child throughout the school year to come as well as to show averages within a grade and to see over the long run any improvements that (will!) occur.  I’m excited to start so I can get down to business!!

Today the volunteers on Upolu were evacced into Apia because of an incoming Hurricane Gary.  Everyone is slightly paranoid after the last Hurricane became so devastating that they’re being overly cautious this time.  So here I am in a hotel room with Lu and Millie, playing Scrabble as we wait out the wind and rain.

Christmas/New Years

Christmas this year had many firsts for me.  First one away from home, first one celebrated in a church, and first one without a tree.  It was suggested by a very wise PCV friend of mine to stop comparing and to simply embrace it as a separate event.  The Sunday before Christmas I had the wonderful opportunity to be included in a Christmas concert with all the EFKS churches in the Falealili region.  As I was walking up to the stage, I heard my name being called.  There were all the kids from the EFKS church who went to the school I had trained to teach at!  It was just as surprising for both of us – I was so happy to see them so happy to see me.

The family all dressed up for Christmas Mass

Christmas Eve, I got the first experience of watching a cow be slaughtered and cut up.  I actually wasn’t as grossed out as I thought I would be, and even laughed along with my brothers as they put the hose in one nostril and water shot out of the other.  That night I got to enjoy fresh cow tail soup.  Yum.  Later that night at midnight, I gathered with the youth choir at the beginning of the village then walked through it, singining Christmas carols and Church songs throughout the village.  Whenever we stopped outside of a house, the leader would read out how much that family had donated to the church that year then we would all clap and sing.  This lasted until around 3am.  My village is only a single street, but it’s fairly long at about 2km.  Christmas morning we all dressed up in our Sunday best white puletasis and went to mass.  Not much different than normal, but grades were read for the kids and the top ones in each grade received toys from a pile.

 My two brother playing with the cow head.

I think overall I handled Christmas away from home fairly well.  Until my family called that is and I talked to all 3 of them on speaker phone.  It really brought it home hearing them all 3 at once and I started to choke up.  It’ll never really feel like Christmas for me unless I’m with my family.

For New Years this year, I called up my family from the training village and they picked me up for a few days.  All the PCVs reunioned in the training village.  We haven’t really been apart long enough for it to feel odd seeing them, but I was still thrilled.  My friends Allyson and Josh couldn’t make it which dampened the mood slightly but still it was overall good.  For New Years night, we went to church for 3 hours where there were skits and songs.  At midnight, Madi and I had a private countdown on her phone then hugged at New Years.  Not much but it felt good.  When else can you celebrate literally the first second of the new year on all of Earth?  The next morning the village put on a Toonai (party) for us and once again we all danced and laughed.  At one point my Aunt Tusi brought out a creepy giant baby doll and started to dance with it.  So funny!  It was hard saying goodbye again, but I know I’ll be back.

Family

My permanent family is amazing.  I have 4 sisters between the ages of 18 and 25, and 2 brothers, age 9 and 10.  From oldest to youngest, they are Laititi, Puao, Lema, Eseta, Caleb, and Daniel.  I live on a compound with a Palagi style house (mine), 2 Samoan style sleeping fales, and a cooking fale.  Theres 2 dogs, a puppy, and a cat who looks about bursting with kittens.  My mom loves to garden and sells her plants for money.  So my yard is covered and beautiful.  My village is a single road that goes on for about 2km.  There’s no real beach access in my village but theres a great waterfall near my house that has a deep swimming hole.  After the cyclone, trees fell perfectly to creat climbing and different height jumps.  The kids swim here when its hot and jump and play fight each other off the logs.  The water is cold and so much more fun in my opinion than the ocean.

Just a few of the family

            Power was just turned back on yesterday (Jan 2^nd) and it’s so nice to charge everything again.  The moon’s been so bright, I haven’t needed a light at night!  I also got to know my district’s SRO (School Superintendent).  His family has a generator and offered to charge people’s phones for them for 2 tala.  So I would sit over there and talk with him while my phone charged.

            Excited to spend two years here!

Hurricane Evan

The way that I learned I was coming to Samoa was by a PC nurse calling and making sure I’d be okay with going to a country with earthquakes.  So earthquakes are what I envisioned for Samoa.  I completely ignored however the much more common occurrence of Hurricanes (or Cyclones as they’re called here).  This past week I’ve come to experience the sheer force and devastation that comes with Hurricanes.

            I was born and raised in North Carolina so Hurricanes kind of came with the territory.  When I was little, I can remember sitting in the bathtub with a mattress over us while my mom yelled at my dad who was sitting on the couch outside to get his butt in the bathroom because Fran was coming.  All the PC volunteers came into Apia on the 7^th for a final week of training, culminating in the Swearing in Ceremony that was scheduled for the 15^th.  The first few days were amazing.  We rejoiced as a group that we were going to make the transition from trainees to volunteers and enjoyed being in Apia.  One day there was even a huge ship in port full of Russian sailors.  While my group and I were out at a place called The Edge for live music, in walk in a large group of sailors!  Aaaah it was fun hearing them speak Russian.  They couldn’t speak a lick of English though so it was more charades than anything else.  We all planned to come back to The Edge for our final night before moving out to our villages.

            The next day, we rolled out of bed, showed up at training, and there was our Country Director, Dale.  We knew something was off because he wasn’t in his ie faitaga (formal skirt).  He explained that training was canceled for the day.  Apparently a Cyclone warning had been issued.  He explained though that it was only a tropical depression and shouldn’t be more than just a lot of rain.  He warned us to stay away from the windows and to not go outside and that was that.  Instant freeday!  We all whipped out the cards and started tourneys of Sevens and Up and Down the River. Around 9:00am, the wind started to pick up and we watched out the windows as the palms waved in the air.  It still just seemed like a breezy day.  After about 2 hours, it suddenly turned into something more dangerous.  As we watched out the window, the river behind our hotel went from empty to filled with fallen trees.  As they floated down, we saw as they got stuck behind the bridge that led out to the sea.  In a matter of minutes, the river rose and as we all gasped, it rose over the banks.  Out the window, we could see people who were stuck on what used to be a path beside the river and now had gone underwater.  They struggled through the water then went out of sight around a building.

            There were now three main areas for us to watch.  Out the back, we watched as water filled our backyard, pulling down trees and finally overflowing into the pool.  Out the side we watched as our neighbors house was slowly engulfed in water until it came up to his roof.  And out the front we watched as the main road slowly muddied, then became a virtual river, shoulder height deep.  We watched as people went into the grocery next door and floated the freezers off down the road.  As the man next door attempted to drive his car through the waist deep water.  And finally as water began to seep into the hotel itself. 

            The hotel is already on high ground, a good 3 feet higher than the road.  We never really thought as we were watching that the water would come up, but when it did, it came fast.  At this point we elected someone to call up Dale and tell him that not only was the Peace Corps office definitely flooded, but the hotel as well and we had definitely not stocked up food-wise for conditions this bad.  Dale told us all just to hang tight through the storm and they would let us know once it was safe for them to travel when they would be getting food to us.  And so we hung tight.  We played some cards and tried to forget the scary situation outside.  Some volunteers practiced yoga, some went outside to watch, and some slept.  Whatever was their way of dealing.  Surprisingly, the internet stayed up for several hours through all of this!  The power had gone out early on but the internet somehow hung on.

            The eye of the storm passed through that evening and so as we laid down to sleep, the storm was picking up again and made for a truly howling night.  The next morning, Dale and Karen made the trek through the flooded streets, all so they could get food to us.  That shows you exactly how well taken care of we were with Peace Corps.  They waded through waist deep water and came inside to drop off the food, then went down to try and assess the situation within the Peace Corps office.  Once the door opened, the extent of flood was evident.  There was mud and standing water throughout the office.  We knew it would have to just stay put until another day though as there were more pressing matters elsewhere throughout the city.

            The next day, Karen came by again to see if anyone wanted to go and find a grocery to stock up more.  So I went with some other volunteers to a place up the mountain a bit.  The devastation was astounding throughout the city.  After the grocery Karen asked if we minded staying the car while she ran some errands and none of us minded what with some serious cabin fever so off we went.  It turned out that she was trying to locate two Peace Corps staff members who they had been unable to reach.  As we drove through neighborhoods, especially along the river, the damage was incredible and reminded me a lot of what I’d seen in Japan.  Trees tossed against houses, cars flattened, houses gone. 

            The next day, we began clean up.  We all went down to the Peace Corps office to begin cleaning.  A lot of things in our Rec room had to be simply thrown out as they were soaked through with mud with no hope of recovery.  Getting the mud itself out was another matter.  We formed an assembly line of sorts, pushing the mud out of the rooms, down the hall, and out the door.  With 13 PCVs and some staff, it only took about 2 hours.

            The helping bug had caught.  We’re Peace Corps after all!  We contacted someone at the Red Cross and the following day went over to their main building.  Allyson and I worked on entering family names and numbers into record accounts for each evacuation center while the other volunteers went out on site to distribute food and clothing.  In the process, we met some other volunteers from Oz Aid, an Australian aid agency, who were helping out there.  They offered up their shower to us and so we had our first shower in almost a week.  It was glorious.

            The next half a week we were in the hotel and just tried to wait for word from our sites.  We had our official swearing in ceremony almost a week after it was originally scheduled.  It was nothing fancy, just held at the US embassy.  We wanted to make it special though since we felt we were missing out, so we all decided to wear our special outfits that we’d had made anyway.  And we rocked it!  We finally got word that the ferry had started running out to Sava’i so those volunteers stationed out there were told to prepare to leave the following day.  That night we all got together for our final night and had a Christmas party.  We’d picked Secret Santas earlier in the month so we exchanged presents, sang Christmas songs, and laughed.  It was an excellent goodbye.  Even better present?  The power came back.  Right around 11pm, the lights suddenly turned on.  Sleeping in AC was glorious that night.

            The next morning, volunteers left for the early ferry and us Upolu volunteers went out to Samoan Victim Support to shovel mud out of their office.  The next day after that I finally headed out to my site!  The ride out was rather eye-opening.  The top of the mountain looked like it had been stripped bare.  I could see a previously hidden waterfall, and plenty of open area.  Other parts of the road had fallen away down the mountain and so it was a rather tricky obstacle course getting across the island.  I was so happy to finally arrive at my permanent site, it didn’t matter that there wasn’t any power yet.  I had my new family and I had water, that was all I needed.