Yesterday I took part in a volunteer panel on working in Samoan primary schools for our new group of trainees. Apparently, the session was viewed as kind of a "downer." I swear I thought I was being really upbeat! I'm really happy where I am: I love my school and kids, love my village, love my host family. Of course, I have days I want to scream and pull my hair out - but that would be the case anywhere (right?).

I guess after a while, as volunteers we become so accustomed to things that may have once been shocking or frustrating, it just no longer registers as such - it's just life.

So, I'd post pictures of my activities with the kids for Global Handwashing Day, but I lost my camera.

Yesterday, I was working with Year 7, and I did an activity I borrowed from Oxfam called "Wants and Needs" - the lesson is meant to focus on children's rights, but it's also a good English lesson for Samoan kids since the concepts and words for "want" and "need" are a bit wishy-washy in Samoan.

The first daily needs the kids suggested were things like, water, air, a home... a bit later on the list were happiness and strength, then a plantation and the forest. I noticed that the list was definitely different from what American kids might suggest (for example, money wasn't suggested). Under "wants" the suggestions were 90% food (ice cream, chocolate...) but no one suggested TV or many material goods.

(I'm not suggesting that American kids are inherently materialistic, and Samoan kids aren't - I just thought it was interesting.)

I'm sure by now most everyone has heard about the earthquake and tsunami that hit Samoa on Tuesday. I was lucky, in that the tsunami did not hit Sili, my village. The wave did hit the region where I used to live on southeastern Upolu, and a Peace Corps friend lost her house and all her belongings (otherwise, all Peace Corps volunteers are fine).

There has been a tremendous loss of life here though - I'm told even more so than the devastating cyclones that hit Samoa in the early nineties. But I have been greatly touched and impressed with the Samoan people's unhesitating generosity and caring for their unfortunate neighbors and compatriats.

Yesterday the local TV station and radio stations had a "telethon" and raised $600,000 in donations, plus over 1,000 bags of rice, boxes of tinned fish and other staple foods, donated clothing, building supplies and other necessities. Samoan relatives living overseas are returning home to help, and this weekend students from Samoa College will be traveling to the affected region to help clean up. Samoa is such a tiny country that the sense of community here is palpable during such a time of crisis.

I've been celebrating the UN International Day of Peace this week with my kids.

(Malae and I reading The Peace Book by Todd Parr to the Year 5 kids.)

(Enraptured!)

Peacebuilding is different from "peacemaking" and "peacekeeping" in that it focuses on creating a long-term culture of peace, rather than solving existing conflicts or preventing old ones from re-occurring. Peacebuilding activities aim at building understanding and tolerance between individuals, communities and societies and establishing new structures of cooperation. Peacebuilding activities range in scale from personal acts of kindness toward others to global inter-governmental programs.

(from www.internationaldayofpeace.org)

We've been reading The Peace Book, talking about symbols of peace, and then having a Peace Day poster drawing contest.
At some point, I'll have the teachers and staff vote on the best posters from each class and one overall winner, and I'll give out some goodies at the end-of-year prize giving.

Peace Day

Posted at 22:45 on 08 September, 2009 UTC

Bus owners in Samoa say they’ve been forced to take strike action after the government refused to pay them any compensation.

Samoa officially switched the side of the road people drive on from the right to the left yesterday.

But many buses now have the steering wheel and passenger entry door on the wrong side.

The treasurer of the bus society on Upolu, Leanapapa Laki, says it’s not good enough that the government won’t help pay for the changes to buses, the main mode of public transport.

He says they are joining forces with others from the island of Savaii during their strike, and plan to park many buses down at the market.

“The society from Savaii are coming over to support our strike here and they can us to have a meeting about the issue and to be united.”

Leanapapa Laki.

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(I got a ride into Salelologa in my host mom's brother's taxi van.)

Group 80 recently marked our one-year anniversary as swearing in as Peace Corps Volunteers (on August 25). And the week before that we spent three days at Stevenson’s Beach Resort in Manase for our Mid-Service Conference.

I fear that being directly exposed to our individual and collective eccentricities for three days, our APCD, Kellye, my now be somewhat concerned about our mental health. I believe the word she used to describe the experience was, “enlightening.”

One of our group members has gone from being a yuppie (his word) a year ago, to now resembling Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Another guy who showed up as a basically clean-cut engineer, has become a kind of shaggy MacGyver (seriously, we watched him make an oven from little more than a cardboard box and some aluminum foil). As a group, we seem to have developed the kind of exasperated, although generally playful, antagonism that usually appears among groups of siblings who have spent far too much time in the back seat of their parent’s car during a long road trip.