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.

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.

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.

News Content © Radio New Zealand International
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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.

‘Ava (or kava) is a common ceremonial drink throughout much of the Pacific. I have seen it described as both “not technically an intoxicant” and “slightly narcotic.”

At any rate, ‘ava definitely makes your mouth and lips go numb, and can make you feel pretty uncoordinated.

I don’t actually go to a ton of ‘ava ceremonies, but this is how Lonely Planet describes the Samoan ‘ava ceremony:

’Ava is the ceremonial matai drink. Made from the ground root of the pepper
plant (Piper methysticum), water is added to make a muddy-looking drink whose
history goes back thousands of years.

The matai [village chiefs] seat themselves in a fale meeting house with the wooden, multi-legged tanoa (‘ava bowl) at one end. The taupou (hostess) sits cross-legged behind the bowl, revealing her thigh tattoos if she has them, and maybe wearing siapo and a fancy headdress adorned with numerous mirrors and shells. She stirs the ‘ava and then the tulafale [orator chief] calls out the name of the person honored with the first cup. The taupou dips a coconut shell into the ‘ava and passes it to a
young server, who gives it to the recipient with a polite flourish. The
recipient calls out ‘Manuia lava’ (Cheers), spills a few drops on the ground
(for the ancient Polynesian gods, as the ‘ava predates Christianity), and drinks
it in one mouthful. This is repeated until everyone has been served in turn.*

From my experience, this is pretty accurate. The drops on the ground can also be considered a gesture for one’s ancestors.






*Smitz, Paul and Susannah Farfor. Samoan Islands & Tonga. Lonely Planet: 2006. p. 38.