I’ve been in my site for just over two weeks now.

My village already has a computer center (a bit of an anomaly) that was donated by the EU last year. Only three of the five computers are functional at the moment and the dial-up Internet only seems to work on one computer. At any rate, teaching computers to the community will be my first and primary job here (so much for my “Health Extension” program sector). And once that’s underway, I can hopefully start looking at other projects as well (some people have mentioned that the local cattle farmers need a fence and the primary school’s library needs a lot of work, among other things).

Last Thursday the village Women’s Committee performed as part of some competition put on by the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development (MWCSD) in HIV/AIDS awareness, or something. I was never totally clear on the whole thing, but there were some representatives from MWCSD who took lots of notes.

Anyway, the Women’s Committee performed several dances and songs and a play. I understood almost none of it, but I do think I endeared myself to the Committee at least a little bit. As part of the computer center, a digital camera was included, but the batteries weren’t charged, so I lent some of my own for the event. I then ended up taking pictures, uploading them to the computer, organizing them and deleting all the old pictures off of the (full) memory card so it could be used again.

Last Saturday I attended the Volunteer Advisory Committee meeting in Apia, which was precisely as exciting as the name would suggest. But, I did hear about the Peace Corps computer curriculum meeting which I’ll be attending this morning.

Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure my Samoan language skills have become worse since I left training, but I’m doing my best to remedy this situation. On Thursday, another Peace Corps who has been here for a year stopped by on his way to Lalamanu. Of course, my Samoan family was very impressed with his “manaia fa’aSamoa” (nice Samoan), and mentioned it to me several times after he left. So now I’m making a better effort to speak in Samoan, and I’m going back to my notebooks to better my vocabulary.

I’ve gotten used to a lot, and Lotofaga is feeling more like home everyday, but I’ll admit that I’m no less annoyed (and perhaps even more annoyed) at kids staring at me with the same vacant, zombie-like gaze that American kids get when they spend too long in front of the TV. If I was actually doing something of interest, I could understand, but really, I’m not that interesting. I’m not how to react to it either: when I was at the HIV/AIDS thing, there was a little kid there (about one, one-and-a-half) giving me a slightly concerned, slightly befuddled look, and all I did was smile at him – the kid tilted his head back, closed his eyes, opened his mouth and started wailing to raise the dead.

In other news, a relative of my host family in New Zealand sent us the season one DVD set of Prison Break, which we all watched last week. The series is mediocre at best (a myriad of plot holes and ludicrous story, but I give it props for interesting characters), but it certainly kept me on the edge of my seat – not that I have a lot to choose from out here. And as a former TV critic, it was also nice to analyze a show I’d never seen before, although I wrestled with whether or not to try to explain the C.B. Cooper reference to my Samoan family (I opted against it). I also enjoy listening to my Samoan family discuss and explain what’s going on to each other in Samoan. Unfortunately, though, the season ends with a big cliffhanger, so now I’m on a mission to find a region four season two DVD set of Prison Break somewhere in Samoa.