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?

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.