dispatches from the south seas

Two wrap-up photo albums on Picasa

2010-10-02T13:16:00.002-10:00

Enjoy.

This month is flying by!

2010-06-15T13:15:00.004-11:00

We've got lots of fun and interesting stuff going on on Savaii this month!

From the Samoan Observer:

Teachers of the Palauli school district on Savai’i are today better
equipped to establish and run a school library.This is a result of a workshop at
Sili Primary Schoo organised by District School Review Officer (SRO) Masoe
Tufuga Tovia. United States Peace Corps volunteer, Elizabeth Gartley (who is
based in Sili), and Sili Primary School principal Mataafa Telenise.

Teachers from each primary school in the district were in attendance:
Apaula Tito of Gataivai Primary School, Fualole Isaia of Ga’utavai Primary
School, Anarosa Pio of Palauli Primary School, Nafu Aiolupo of Puleia Primary
School, Moana Alafai of Satupa’itea Primary School, and Teuila Iupati of Tafua
Primary School as well as Olevia Sia’a representing Sili Primary School.

“This training is part of our goal to provide quality education,” said Mr.
Masoe Tufuga.

Miss Gartley, a Peace Corps volunteer, led the workshop.
The training included topics such as preparing a library room, how to secure
funding and book donations, organising the library and bookshelves, school
library management, integrating the school library with form classes and
techniques to introducing students of all ages into the school library.

“There are so many more things I now know about organising the library
books and so on,” said Mrs. Fualole Isaia.

From left to right: Nafu Aiolupo, Apaulu Tito, Olevia Sia’a, Fualole Isaia, Anarosa Pio, Moana Alafai, Teuila Iupata, Elizabeth Gartley, and Masoe Tufuga Tovia.

And I've been helping with a seminar "roadshow" traveling to villages around Savaii in an effort to spread the word on healthy lifestyles and prevention of non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. You can read more about that here.

New library books!

2010-04-08T09:10:00.002-11:00

(Waiting for the bus.)

I recently received four boxes of books for our school library from my hometown of Houlton, Maine.

(The Magic School Bus series was pretty popular with the kids.)

Special thanks to Houlton Elementary School for donating the books and to my mom and dad for posting them to us.

Freedom of Religion

2010-04-08T08:43:00.003-11:00

The Samoan government recently appointed a commission of inquiry to look into the issue of religious freedom in Samoa. Although freedom of religion is guaranteed in Samoa under Article 11 of the Constitution and Samoa has ratified the Unversal Declaration of Human Rights, it's fair to say that the inquiry does not hold a favorable view of religious freedom. There are some well documented cases of religious persecution in Samoan villages, particularly aimed at the Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) Church and members of the Baha'i Faith.

(My religious diversity collage with the commission notices in English and Samoan from the newspaper.)

(I made some prayer flags with messages of peace and tolerance from all different religions.)

Since I have a number of Mormon students and there is a Baha'i community in my district - and because I believe in basic human rights - I thought I'd try to instill some ideals of religious tolerance in my students.

(I had my Year 7 students research different religions in groups using Encarta.)

I also recently had a chance to visit the Baha'i House of Worship on Upolu. The grounds were beautiful and peaceful, and the temple was gorgeous too. I had a chance to speak with some of the Baha'i community leaders, and they were really interesting and, of course, eager to give me resources to help with my classes. My photos of the temple here.

Back to Samoa!

2010-01-11T12:31:00.001-11:00

I'm leaving this:
And heading for this:

Need I say more?

Homeward bound

2009-12-15T15:51:00.002-11:00

I'm traveling home for the holidays. As I type this, I'm sitting in LAX waiting for my connecting flight. This is my first time in the United States in about a year and a half. In some ways it feels like a homecoming, in other ways I feel like a foreigner. I'm a little afraid I might forget how to speak English and saying, "Fia le tau?" or "Faamolemole" or "Fia ai" or any other of my most frequently used Samoan phrases.

Whoops.

2009-11-10T08:08:00.002-11:00

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.

Handwashing, Wants and Needs

2009-10-16T08:23:00.002-11:00

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.)

Tsunami

2009-10-02T13:16:00.002-11:00

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.

Peace Day

2009-09-25T11:53:00.010-11:00

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

On strike.

2009-09-09T10:39:00.001-11:00

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
PO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

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

One Year! Woo!

2009-08-27T10:33:00.004-11:00

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.

Fulu Puaa

2009-08-03T13:24:00.003-11:00

(Swine Flu)

All schools in the country were closed all last week, are still closed this week, and according to rumors I heard today, may be closed next week as well in an effort to prevent further spreading of the "swine flu."

Last I heard, there were 80 confirmed cases of "swine flu" in Samoa, meanwhile a lot of people have been sick with regular flu during the last few weeks.

I'm sure the the preventative measures are warranted, but I've been going a little nuts because I like going to school and I haven't had anything to do!

Culture Notes: Part IX

2009-08-03T13:06:00.004-11:00

'Ava: It's not technically an intoxicant

‘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.*

(Every new Peace Corps Samoa group is welcomed with an 'ava ceremony.)

(Me, drinking 'ava for the first time.)

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

(Jenny and I buying kava in Fiji.)

(My host dad, Fiu, and his buddy Simi like to hang out drink 'ava just about every night. Here they are finishing up the last of the Fijian kava I brought back for them.)

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

Sili River

2009-07-16T11:07:00.003-11:00

Sili's river is a great source of village pride. There are a number of families who live on the far side of the river - there used to be a bridge connecting the two sides of the village, but devastating cyclones in the early nineties knocked the bridge down. So, now the local buses just drive through the river to reach the other side of the village.

(The driver, Fatu, skillfully navigates the bus through the river.)

(Through the river we go.)

(Don't drop anything.)

Occassionally, when there's a lot of heavy rains, the river floods and the buses can't cross - and kids that live on the other side of the river can't make it to school.

Road Switch Song Competition

2009-07-11T10:03:00.002-11:00

So, in September, the entire country of Samoa will be switching the side of the road cars drive on. Right now, cars drive on the right (same as the United States), but come September, everyone will have to switch and drive on the left (same as the UK, New Zealand, etc.).

As any major event in Samoa, this involves a number of song and dance competitions. This week, I went to the district competition for primary schools' road switch songs and plays (there were seven local schools competing).

(Sili won 2nd place and $200 for their song.)

(Tafua, my host dad's school, won 1st place for their song, but came in last in the play competition, because their dialog had cursing.)

(Sili's play ranked fourth.)

As the theme was road safety, all the plays climaxed with a small child being hit and killed by a car.

Bula! Fiji!

2009-07-05T09:44:00.004-11:00

(Ah, vacation.)

I just returned to Samoa after a week of vacation in Fiji. I traveled with the four other Group 80 Ladies. We spent the first two nights and last night at Mango Bay Resort on the Coral Coast and I spent three nights at the Raintree Lodge outside of Suva.

Fiji is pretty easy to get around, so we all spent some time traveling together, but also enjoyed our own little private excursions – some wanted quiet time on the beach, others went scuba diving, and I wanted extra time in the big city.

(Suva.)

We came in on a Sunday, and as in Samoa, there’s not whole lot to do on Sunday in Fiji. But, we did get to go have a look at the Sri Siva Subrahmaniya Swami Hindu temple in Nadi.

From there we went to Mango Bay, where we enjoyed the beach and Fiji Bitter and Fiji Gold. We also had a successful day of swimsuit shopping down the road at the Warwick, and then went down to check out the Arts Village at Pacific Harbour.

On Tuesday, we went in to see the capital city of Suva. I’d heard many wondrous tales of Suva from other volunteers: air-conditioned restaurants, modern tall office buildings, a KFC/Pizza Hut, three different kinds of beer – they even have metered taxis!

Jenny, Erica and I took some time in Suva to wander around the municipal market. The ground floor is the fruit and vegetable market. What a beautiful sight! Fresh, fragrant fruits and vegetables as far as the eye could see. I swear those plump, red, luscious tomatoes looked and smelled so delicious, I could have picked one up and eaten it like an apple.

Then we walked upstairs to the “grog sales” area, the kava market. All different vendors were selling ground kava and kava roots. There were also some people selling Indian spices. Walking by, we were overcome with the spicy aromas of curry powders, turmeric, and masala mingling with the muddy pepper smell of the kava root.

The three of us then each enjoyed a personal pan pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut (the next day I went back and ate KFC). I generally avoid both Pizza Hut and KFC in the states, but the novelty was such that I couldn’t help myself.

I spent Thursday on my own, leisurely wandering around Suva. Suva is a bona fide city and definitely not the tourist trap like Nadi; I could walk around with anonymity, which was a refreshing change of pace.

I bought a cheap pair of Chuck Taylor sneakers and socks and wore those around in the afternoon – this was the first time I’d worn anything other than flip-flops in over a year, so by the end of the day, my feet were positively covered in blisters.

I spent the afternoon at the Fiji Museum. They had a very nice collection and a classy gift shop (a much better place for cool souvenirs than most of the other shops peddling tacky, mass-produced, probably made in China, definitely not Fijian “handicrafts”). I find Pacific Islander history pretty intriguing; something about people sailing across hundreds of miles of open ocean in rickety two-hulled canoes just blows my mind. (Someday, I’ll have to make it up to the Museum of Samoa in Apia.)

(The kind of boat ancient Fijians sailed on.)

On Saturday, Erica, Karin and I went into Nadi. Nadi is definitely more the tourist hub than Suva. We wandered around town, checking out the shops, then went to the much-publicized Indian Trade Show Expo. Vendors came from India selling saris, jewelry, bangles, shoes and the like. I bought a couple of bindis for a dollar each and a small Ganesh figure.

After Karin headed back to the resort, Erica and I had a tasty, but overpriced Mongolian buffet dinner at the Mercure Hotel’s Rokete restaurant then stumbled upon a meke cultural show before eventually meeting Jenny at the airport (Karin and Briony would be leaving Tuesday).

The other Group 80 Ladies booked their flight through a travel agent in Apia, but I booked mine online with the Air Pacific web site. Through some kind of computer error, there was no record of my ticket number. The problem should have been fixed in Samoa before I got on the plane, but wasn’t, so I spent several hours in the Nadi airport not knowing whether I’d be heading home to Samoa or not.

The plane was scheduled to leave at 1:45 a.m. Sunday morning, and by 1:15 I still wasn’t sure if I’d be going or not – all the other passengers were checked-in and through security, and the plane was nearly finished boarding. The lady at the Air Pacific check-in counter actually had to call the IT specialist at home, wake him up and have him come into the office to verify my purchase and fix the error while another was on the phone saying, “don’t close the plane yet, we have another passenger.”

Anyway, I made it back to Samoa.

I don't have a ton of great pictures right now (I'm waiting to trade with the other girls). But I have some pictures here.

This 'n That

2009-06-17T08:26:00.004-11:00

A few pictures of different things of been up to:

(A view of the cross road which connects Sili to the main road, my new favorite bike route.)

(Me, reading Thanks to the Animals to the Year Five class in my new puletasi.)

(Malae, giving a math lesson: converting fractions into decimals.)

(Sometimes when I'm stressed out I go shopping. I bought these weird Chinese coloring books in Apia. What child doesn't need a military weapons coloring book - complete with heart and flowers?)

(If you can't read it, this one says: "Hundred is changed into a Buddha's warrior attendant. Yes, Buddhist transformers.)

My new favorite word.

2009-06-06T10:28:00.002-11:00

‘ai 'ū - to become angry upon returning home to find that all the food has been eaten

For example:

Leane was ‘ai 'ū when he saw that Fiu and Seti had eaten all the chicken and chips take-out from Salelologa.

You should have seen my face

2009-05-16T10:52:00.002-11:00

when I saw this on the New Zealand news. I think my eyes just about popped out of my skull, and I'm only a little ashamed to admit that my face lit up with a childlike glee.

From the New Zealand Herald:

Samoa: Police shoot out tyres of bus hijacked by prisoners
1:45PM Wednesday May 13, 2009
By Cherelle Jackson

APIA - Samoan Police have confirmed that 41 prisoners escaped from Tafaigata Prison this morning and hijacked a bus.
The prisoners, who were armed with machetes, walked out on police guards during a morning gathering for the allocation of work duties.
They stopped a bus and hijacked it to take them to the town of Apia. On board were three women and their children.
The prisoners included those convicted for crimes including murder and manslaughter.
In a press briefing a few minutes ago, acting Police Commissioner Lilomaiava Fou Taioalo said the local police were advised by the prison guards of the mass escape.
"We then proceeded to plan a roadblock in Pesega, where we had police vehicles block the road for when they arrive at the lights," Lilomaiava said.
As the bus closed in on the road block, Lilomaiava said it did not look like it would stop, therefore the order was put out to shoot the tyres of the bus.
"It was the only way we could ensure that they are stopped," he told the Samoan media.

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Lilomaiava said a police negotiator approached the bus after it had stopped and talked the prisoners into ending the hijacking peacefully.
"After words were exchanged, the police then went on board and escorted them down, the women and children on board were unharmed," he said.
One prisoner remains at large.
The rest were taken into police custody and interviewed.
They are now back behind bars but questions are being asked about why they were able to escape in the first place.
Lilomaiava confirmed the prisoners escaped for the sole reason of addressing issues they are facing in prison directly with the police, however sources close to the incident say the prisoners wanted to head directly to the government building to address their issues with the prime minister.
Some of the issues include hunger, harsh working conditions and negotiation of work loads in the prison grounds.
Asked if police should reconsider issuing machetes to prisoners during work shifts in prison, Lilomaiava said: "And who would do the work?"
Lilomaiava confirmed there had not been enough prison guards and police officers at Tafaigata Prison to stop this morning's incident.

I honestly never thought anything so exciting could ever happen in Samoa.

Sili

2009-05-16T10:43:00.003-11:00

I’ve been living in Sili for about three weeks now. Moving to a new village has had its ups and downs. Although I miss my family in Lotofaga, I also love my family here in Sili. I live with my host mom, Malae (a teacher at the primary school), host dad Fiu (head teacher at a school in a neighboring village) and Seti (13-year-old host sister). We are the first family as you enter Sili, so the house is very quiet and peaceful. I’ve been spending time getting to know my new family, drinking a lot of coco Samoa*, and watching the New Zealand news (we get TV in Sili! Only the one channel, but still).

(My Samoan faleo'o. I haven't moved in yet, still needs some work.)

My primary project (I have a primary project! Hooray!) is working at the school. I’ve arrived at an awkward time (I came around exam time and now we’re on holiday), but eventually I’ll be helping teach English and computers (the school has two), acting as librarian and maybe having social studies lessons, too.

(The school has two computers and one monitor.)

In Samoan, Sili means “best.” And Sili definitely has some awesome things going for it. Firstly, Sili has banned the exchange of tinned fish at Samoan fa’alavelave. Sounds weird, but this is actually pretty great – and somehow both progressive and true to Samoan tradition at the same time. In Sili, people are only allowed to exchange what they have for fa’alavelave (usually pigs and cows).

Sili is also the only certified organic village in Samoa. There are other organic growers, but the whole village of Sili is certified organic which is pretty sweet. I’d like to convince people to start selling their cocoa beans for export (think of it: Fair Trade Certified Organic Cocoa Beans from the Heart of Polynesia – who wouldn’t want in on that?).

* Samoan cocoa beans are unique to the Pacific. “Coco Samoa” is much darker than what we would drink in the States with a different flavor that can be an acquired taste. Coco Samoa is also highly caffheinated.

Culture Notes: Part VIII

2009-05-12T14:10:00.003-11:00

Too Much Trouble: the Fa'alavelave

The Samoan fa’alavelave is kind of a hard concept to explain. In some contexts the word fa’alavelave means “trouble,” but it also refers to anything that’s out of the ordinary. Generally speaking, weddings and funerals are common fa’alavelave in Samoa.

The most notable aspect of fa’alavelave is the extreme gift giving. Funerals in particular can be huge events, and people who attend are expected to bring outrageous amounts of gifts. Traditionally, gifts would be food (pigs, cows) and fine mats (‘ie tōga). The idea was that everyone would contribute what they had, and everyone would take something back in return.

Nowadays, people are also expected to bring huge quantities of tinned fish (sardines and mackerel) and cash, and unfortunately, in some cases, not everyone gets back what they contribute. This poses a problem as Samoa is not truly a cash economy, but rather most people still live a subsistence-based lifestyle. I’ve actually heard of people taking out micro-loans (meant to start small businesses) for money to take to fa’alavelaves.

Fa’alavelave is a bit of a controversial topic in Samoa, as while many people here are critical of the practice, tradition and social pressure are very strong forces in Samoa.

I get by

2009-04-20T09:26:00.006-11:00

with a little help from my friends.

Now that a new site has been established for me, I thought I should take a moment to acknowledge how amazing my volunteer friends have been over the last month and a half.

The last few weeks of being in limbo have been very stressful and pretty crummy, fortunately, my fellow PCVs have really come through for me.

(Erica and I dancing for visiting USP students.)

For good or ill, the remaining members of group 78 (the second-to-last VBD group, next to my group) basically adopted me. I also had a chance to visit my friends Erica and Jenny in their respective villages, they showed me around, told me about their projects and fed me. And Cale and Sara were kind and hospitable enough to have me at their place quite often and feed me (the best meals I've had in a while: pasta, burritos, stir-fry, mashed potatoes).

So anyway, thanks to all my fellow Peace Corps Samoa volunteers - I couldn't have maintained what few shreds of sanity I still have without you.

Fantastic news!

2009-04-18T16:08:00.002-11:00

I've been assigned a new site! I'll be moving to the village of Sili on Savaii island sometime in the upcoming weeks.

I was definitely becoming concerned, as I'd been told that I wouldn't be able to move to another village, but would likely relocate to Apia - then most of the Apia assignments fell through, so I'm very happy and very relieved.

I'll be working very closely with the local primary school helping with English, the computer center and setting up a library. I'll also probably be doing village projects also with gardening and health and wellness.

Visiting Savaii

2009-04-08T14:38:00.003-11:00

I grew up in northern Maine. A place where winter begins in November and begins to recede in April. In high school, the baseball team usually had to postpone their first few games of the season because there would still be snow on the field. Temperatures can easily reach -20 Fahrenheit and can even go as low as -35 or -40. One snow storm can drop 16 inches of snow. Driving is treacherous and the sun in set by 4 p.m. This is what I grew up with.

Last weekend, I was visiting a volunteer friend, Jenny, in western Savaii. The weather was treacherous all week, all over the country, and this was certainly no exception out on Savaii. Sitting in Jenny's little thatched-roofed Samoan fale, the rain and winds were so hard we were afraid we'd blow away.

(Me in far western Savaii - the last tip of land before the International Date Line.)

At one point, the air was a little chilly, and I decided that I needed a sweater. Jenny looked at the the digital thermometer she keeps in her fale. It was 77 degrees Fahrenheit.

(Jenny and the kids working in the primary school vegetable garden.)

Anyway, Jenny has been very busy and has a lot of very cool projects she's working on. She's working with her community doing a lot of gardening, the village just received several sewing machines, and they're looking at a water tank project and composting toilets.

"Take care of your feet"

2009-03-30T08:07:00.004-11:00

I remember these words very well. Early in training, as the rest of Group 80 and myself were still adjusting to the heat and a new country, a panel of volunteers sat before us to impart their sage advice and pearls of wisdom.

I don’t actually remember what the session was supposed to be about, and I only remember the one piece of advice: take care of your feet.

Shane, a group 78 VBD volunteer, with his foot wrapped thickly in white bandages, but still wearing the ubiquitous white-bottom/red-top rubber flip-flops, emphatically beseeched us: take care of your feet.

While I take some solace in that I am not the first group 80 volunteer to fail in this seemingly simple task (a month or so ago, another volunteer banged up his foot when he fell off his bike while trying to simultaneously carry a box on his shoulder), I do admit that the moment that the first pangs of pain hit my feet as I jumped into Togitogigia Waterfalls, I could hear Shane’s words echoing in my back of my mind: take care of your feet.

(My fateful jump.)

Last weekend, I was visiting another volunteer, Erica, on the south side, and we took a visit to Togitogiga Waterfalls in O Le Pūpu-Pu’e National Park. As I was preparing myself to jump into the pool created by the waterfalls, I was so concerned about not cracking my skull that I failed to give proper consideration to my feet. The water was significantly shallower than I expected, and I hit the rocks with both feet. Immediately, sharp pain overtook my toes and the upper part of both feet. I sat on some nearby rocks and wiggled my toes: nothing broken, at least.

(The discoloration doesn't show in pictures, but you can see how much fatter my right foot is than the left. As I write this, although my foot is less sore, every joint of every toe on my right foot is black and blue.)

Within a few moments, my left foot felt basically fine, but pain persisted in the right foot. By the time we got back to the house, I was hopping around, unable to put any weight on my right foot. The next day, I went back to Apia, by this point swelling and bruising had commenced, and I could no longer move my toes at all. From what I can tell, the impact seems to have causing deep bruising, and I think I’ve sprained every toe on my right foot. But through a combination of Ibuprofen and Excedrin and can now walk without drawing too much attention to myself. (Although, I’m pretty sure this is significantly impeding the healing process.)

I also never realized just how important toe movement is to walking – particularly as the only pair of shoes I own are worn-out rubber flip-flops.

The Good, the bad and the ugly*

2009-03-24T14:39:00.002-11:00

So, a reader has brought to my attention that I never really took the time to explain what my “job” is. I belong to the Village-Based Development project in Samoa; my job here, basically, is to go into a Samoan village and do stuff. Incidentally, I belong to the last group of Peace Corps Samoa VBD volunteers. Shortly after I swore in as a volunteer last year, the post decided to refocus the Peace Corps Samoa project back to village based development through the schools.

I should also confess that in writing this blog, I have painted an unrealistically rosy picture of my life in Samoa. I have omitted nearly all the frustrations, challenges and hardships I have endured over the course of the past nine months, particularly the most stressful. And while the reporter in me deeply regrets the lack of forthrightness in my writing here (not to mention the fact that the worst headaches make for the best stories), I’m not sure how much I’ll change this writing approach.

The heat, the bugs, spotty electricity and dodgy water, getting used to different food – the kind of things we anticipate being difficult – in reality, these are not what make Peace Corps service difficult. But every post, and even every site, will have its own unique challenges. I’ll briefly, if not vaguely, run through some of my own:

While there are people in Lotofaga whom I adore both personally and professionally, finding motivated village counterparts has been challenge. I have also had to deal with malicious vandalism/property damage, sexual harassment, the effects of negative rumors and gossip, among other things.

I have also had the unique challenge of trying to explain what and who a Peace Corps volunteer actually is. The American university students who visit my village twice a year have a less than stellar reputation (i.e., they spend their visit on the beach drinking). Nonetheless, the village does enjoy them, and families are paid very well to host them for the 10 days they are here. My problem is that the entire village calls these college kids the pisikoa (Samoan for Peace Corps). Needless to say, this has created some very unique headaches for me. (The one positive is that I am the only Peace Corps Samoa volunteer I know who has never been told I have bad Samoan, as the folks here all know what bad Samoan actually sounds like.)

Although the library is going well, I also have two or three failed projects under my belt. And the reality is that I will have far more failures than successes during my two years of service.

The important thing to remember, as a volunteer, is that we’d all have frustrations and challenges and bad days in any job at home too (that’s life) – the real challenges for Peace Corps volunteers are: a.) all the problems we deal with are totally different than the things we’ve gotten used to dealing with at home and b.) our “job” is quite literally our entire life – we can’t go home, eat a tub of Ben and Jerry’s and fall asleep to Conan to forget about our bad day at work.

I’ve narrowed down three character traits, which I personally feel, are essential to being a good Peace Corps volunteer: being able to wake up every morning thinking, “I have no idea what crazy thing is going to happen to me today (but I know it’s out there waiting for me);” being comfortable letting go of what few shreds of sanity you may still possess after Peace Corps medical clearance and Pre-Service Training; and the ability to laugh, even when (especially when) things really aren’t funny.

***

So, I wrote the preceding blog post before I awoke a few weeks ago to find evidence that someone had been trying to break into my house. As I wrote earlier, post decided the best option now is for me to relocate, and at the moment I still don’t know where I’ll end up.

And somehow, despite everything, I’ve never wanted to pack up and leave. I’m not sure what exactly it is that’s driving me – idealistic hope (probably not), blind determination (maybe a little), a passionate love of Samoa (mainly it just feels like home now) or just plain obstinacy (most likely) – but at this point, I’ve been through so much that I refuse to go home until August 2010 (when my service ends), unless I am sent home.

*My first, but probably not my last, reference to a Clint Eastwood movie.

In limbo

2009-03-20T15:20:00.002-11:00

So, I've had to leave my village. Due to some ongoing safety concerns, post decided it would be best for me to relocate. Yesterday, a friend came with me to collect my belongings and bring everything back to Apia (at the moment, all of my worldly possessions are stashed away in the back of the volunteer resource center).

I've been stuck in Apia for the past couple weeks, and I'll be in limbo for about a month while a new site is sorted out. During that time, I'll visit other volunteers' sites, see what they're up to and hopefully help with some of their projects.

At the moment, we're looking at three possible sites for me: a village on Savai'i, a village on 'Upolu or an office job in Apia.

While I regret having to leave Lotofaga, I'm hopeful that I can have a happy and successful service in my new site.

(Mis)adventures in international mail

2009-03-11T13:33:00.003-11:00

A few months ago I received a small package from my aunt which had been missent to Port Vila, Vanuatu.

(At least this one stayed in the right region.)

Recently, I've received a package from my mother which was missent to Jakarta, Indonesia and a letter which I'm pretty sure made it to Azerbaijan before reaching me.

Faitau tusi

2009-02-27T08:40:00.002-11:00

Now that school is back in session, I've been going to the primary school in my village and having library time with the kids.

I try to break up structured time and free reading time, depending on the age group.

I assure you, these children appear deceivingly well-behaved in these pictures.

Culture Notes: Part VI

2009-02-27T08:20:00.002-11:00

Weaving Mats

One of the most important and common crafts in Samoan culture is the weaving of fine mats. Traditionally, fine mats were used as a kind of currency, and are still very much a part of Samoan life. There are two kinds of fine mats: the fala lili’i (sleeping mat) and the ‘ie tōga (a particularly precious mat decorated with feathers). The fala lili’i is usually decorated around the edge with colorful yarn. Generally, people sleep on the mats on the floor, but even on a bed, people seem to like to put a mat under the mattress with the edge sticking out around the sides. The ‘ie tōga used to be decorated with real birds’ feathers, but these days people use fake plastic ones.

(Fa'atoga is weaving an everyday mat for sitting on.)

(Toe'e is weaving a fala lili'i.)

Most of the middle-aged and older women in my village dedicate a lot of time and effort into making fine mats. Weaving the mats is a very tedious job, and the ‘ie tōga in particular can take months to complete.

(My host parents Tauanu'u and Lamosa are stretching out an 'ie toga.)

Fine mats are given at fa’alavelaves (weddings, funerals - more on fa'alavelave later) and some women are now making the mats to sell to wealthy families (some fine mats can apparently fetch up to several thousand tālā).

Early Service

2009-02-20T08:51:00.006-11:00

A few weeks ago, Group 80 had our Early Service Conference and High-Intensity Language Training at some beach fales on Upolu. While the in-service technical training and language lessons were useful, I think most of really just enjoyed each other’s company for a week. Now that we’ve all been here a while, we all know each other and are more-or-less adjusted to life in Samoa, it was nice to catch up and hang out in a much more relaxed environment than Pre-Service Training.

(The boys and my south side buddy Erica, spent their free time playing American Football.)

(We had a sand art contest, my group made an ava bowl.)

(Here's me presenting about something.)

Side note: I’d heard people lament about how grueling and miserable Peace Corps Pre-Service Training is, but at the time (and even for a while afterwards) I didn’t think it was all that bad – but now, when I look back, all I can think is how glad I am that I’m not in training anymore. I think this is because during PST, everything is new and so much energy is exerted just getting used to life in a new country, whereas now I feel pretty comfortable in Samoa and with my life here.

Work progresses

2009-01-30T17:35:00.004-11:00

In December of last year, I planned to use the last two weeks of January to organize and tidy up the school library. The idea was that I’d have some of the kids come in to help, and hopefully at least one of the teachers, and we’d label and shelve all the books, and do some fun stuff too. So last week was when this all came to fruition.

Monday was a bust because I went to the library and waited for the kids, and the kids went to my house and waited for me.

But Tuesday we all met at the library at 8 a.m. Six kids came and a teacher, Ana. We called it a day at 11 a.m., but we got a ton of work done – I was shocked. Wednesday, nine kids came, but Ana couldn’t come. (This was a short day.) Thursday, 14 kids came and Ana made it. And by 11:30, we were done. Done, done.

This isn’t usually how things go around here.

Ana was great to work with, and I’m so glad she was there – this definitely wouldn’t have happened without her. I’d probably still be there. The kids were good too; by the end, the boys and I had quite the little labeling assembly line going. I also have to say I was thrilled that more kids came each day – that means there’s buzz in the village about the library. Awesome.

We don’t have a system for lending books yet, but we can work on that. In the meantime, I’m hoping we can get the kids in there for free reading time at least once a week when school starts. I may actually be working as the librarian/teaching as part of the school reading program in the library. Anyway, I am excited to spend lots of time in the library once school starts.

More pictures here.

A first

2009-01-03T09:09:00.002-11:00

Last night, a friend and I went to a movie in Apia (Madagascar 2). There was a bird in the theater (and this is not an open-air theater), and at one point during the movie, the bird totally flew directly into my face. I don't think I'll be suing Magik Cinemas though.

Kerisimasi 2008

2008-12-30T09:07:00.000-11:00

I'm not going to write too much about Christmas, but I will share my Christmas week in pictures.

Culture Notes: Part II C

2008-12-22T08:37:00.001-11:00

Even more tricky linguistics

The thing that really throws language learners is the Samoan “K Language.” In everyday speaking, Samoans tend to replace all the Ts in the language with Ks (so tala becomes “kala”). And Rs are replaced with Ls, and Ns are replaced with an NG sound. This sounds super confusing at first, I know. But there aren’t a lot of consonant sounds in Samoan, so since there are almost no Samoan words that already have a K sound in them, and R is also a borrowed sound, plus N and NG are pretty similar anyway, I’ve been really surprised at how quickly I’ve been able to get used to the K language. Although it’s a weird adjustment as a native English speaker (which is a relatively consonant-heavy language) taro and kalo almost sound the same to me now. I’m not really sure why Samoans do this, but I have noticed that the K sound is actually easier to make than the T sound.

Pigs in the plumbing

2008-12-22T08:29:00.001-11:00

While I was well aware that Samoa’s un-fenced, free-roaming pigs have a habit of reeking havoc on people's gardens and taro plantations, I hadn’t thought of them damaging plumbing.

My water was working when I went to bed last night, but when I woke up it wasn’t working. This isn’t terribly unusual, but my neighbors’ water was working, so I starting looking around. I thought I could hear water flowing somewhere, and I discovered that the pipe supplying my water had somehow been severed overnight. The pipes are plastic and part is above-ground, but still, I was having a tough time figuring out what could have broken a PVC pipe. All I could figure was that one of the larger sows had stepped on it (later, someone else said, “Yeah, it was probably a pig”).

Anyway, the pipes are plastic, so another, wider pipe to join the two broken ends would do the trick. I asked a friend if there are any plumbers in the village (no), but she called over some guys to help. They managed to find another pipe slightly bigger than the first, but not quite big enough. So, they made a small fire and put the ends of the pipe in – this softened the plastic just enough so it could be shoved over the ends of the broken pipe. And that did it!

My mother had sent me some Lindt’s chocolates, so to show my appreciation, I gave everyone a chocolate.

Thanksgiving, All Vol, Shia LeBeouf and so much more

2008-12-16T10:09:00.002-11:00

I haven’t written about what I’m actually up to in a while, so here’s some of the stuff I’ve been doing over the past few weeks:

For Thanksgiving (actually the Friday after Thanksgiving), the chargé from the U.S. Embassy was kind enough to invite all the Peace Corps volunteers, staff and other Americans in the country, to her home for a potluck dinner. There was tons of food and some of the Peace Corps senior staff even bought Butterball turkeys from Pago Pago. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, stuffing, salads, desserts and loads of other stuff. By the end of the meal, I was feeling thoroughly satisfied.

Then we all went out for a while, and I believe that was the same night we went to see Eagle Eye with Shia LeBeouf and Billy Bob Thorton.

The next day we had our All Volunteer Conference (All Vol). This is an annual event that most Peace Corps posts have – it’s a rare opportunity to have all of the volunteers in one place at one time. The country director gave a “state of the post,” our safety and security and medical officers gave their annual updates, and then some volunteers talked about projects they’ve been working on and some of the travel opportunities in the region. We heard about Australia and New Zealand, someone was supposed to talk about Tokelau, but he didn’t show, and someone else was supposed to talk about Fiji, but came late (lame). We were also supposed to meet with the volunteers in our regional consolidation points, there’s only one other person in mine and he didn’t come either. Finally, one of the outgoing volunteers made a great photo slideshow (although, “slideshow” doesn’t really do it justice) of the past year.

Since I couldn’t get back to my village that weekend (no buses on Sunday), I spent most of that Sunday in the office watching the boys plays rather heated games of Monopoly. Then we went to see Death Race. All in all, it was a pretty sweet weekend. (In Sāmoa – as at home – most of the benchmarks and high points of my life revolve around the consumption of food and entertainment.)

I’ve been in my village since then, and as it’s December now, not a whole lot else has been happening. I went to the primary school prize giving last week, which was fun (although really long). Every kid got a prize, but the kids that came in first or second in their class got the big prizes, and the year eight subject prizes, Best Conduct and Most Improved prizes were pretty sweet too (the Best Conduct prize included a new cell phone!). I also got to enjoy some cake and ice cream at about 9:30 in the morning. The students also performed dances to raise money. Each class had their own choreographed dance, then kids from the same family also danced (all to the same song, and all more-or-less the same dance), and teachers put bowls out for people to drop in money.

Later in the week I also went to the end of the year dance at the Catholic Sunday School. This was pretty much the same as at the prize giving: there were some practiced dances and in between kids from each family did their dance for money (this is a pretty common Sāmoan fundraiser). They ended up raising almost $1,500. Which is like, insane. I guess at least some of the money is going to go to buy Christmas presents for the kids. But like most in events, my biggest enjoyment came from the food. Beforehand, my host mom was making egg salad sandwiches to take (there isn’t a bakery in my village, so even bread is a luxury), I we ate some of the extras (I had two sandwiches) right before dinner. Then dinner also happened to be really good that night – we had some pig, but we had the ribs (usually I don’t know what part of the pig we have). I was already full from the sandwiches, but I still ate some pork. I was very stuffed and very happy.

Christmas is very big in Sāmoa, and not a whole lot gets done in December. So I don’t really plan on doing too much for the next few weeks. I am trying to plan a Library “Camp” for next year’s year eight kids during the last two weeks of January (school starts the first week of February). I want to get them to help me label and organize books, along with some fun stuff like stories, drawing, coloring, what-have-you.

The "Free Box" and other things

2008-12-16T10:05:00.001-11:00

Peace Corps Samoa Group 77 is on its way out. At this time, I believe only two members remain in Samoa – they were a good group, and we’re all sorry to see them go.

The exodus has illustrated, however, that as a group, Peace Corps volunteers – or at least Peace Corps Samoa – seem to have a penchant for amassing large collections of weird and unusual possessions.

As one volunteer on his way out was unloading some of his stuff in the volunteer lounge, he gave away (or tried to give away): a pink polo shirt, a collection of Santa hats, several books of mazes, a book of magic tricks, two kites (one Barbie, one Batman), a bag of props from his Halloween baby costume, and a couple of old horror movie DVDs (House on Haunted Hill and Don’t Go Into the Basement) among other things. Someone said they imagined him sitting up straight on the pan-Pacific flight home and lamenting, “Oh no! I forgot my whoopee cushion!”

I’m convinced that if for some reason I needed to find a rubber chicken somewhere in Samoa, I need only ask around the Peace Corps circle, since surely someone has one in their possession.

Then there’s the “Free Box.” Although I suppose the “free” is accurate enough, calling the thing a “box” at this point is more than generous. The Free Box is this entity, thing, or perhaps more an idea or concept that dwells in the depths of what was once known as the Peace Corps “Bike Room” (another misnomer). Whenever a volunteer is heading out, they abandon whatever clothes or possessions they won’t be taking stateside with them into the Free Box. Occasionally, there are things worth taking. More often though, the findings in the Free Box leave one wondering things like: why would one ever be in possession of a velour zebra-striped tank top? Or, how is a pink frilly scarf necessary for the development of Samoa? Do Peace Corps volunteers ever consciously wash their clothes (rain storms excluded)?

Culture Notes: Part V

2008-12-05T11:35:00.005-11:00

Samoan Dress

When I’m going to the primary school or to church anywhere else where I want to look professional or well-dressed, I wear a puletasi. A puletasi consists of a long skirt (most wrap around then tie, but I have a few with elastic waists and one with a zipper) and a fitted top with a wide neck and short sleeves that zips in the back. Puletasis are generally made of colorful
patterned fabric.

I’ve only actually purchased one puletasi (it was made by a seamstress), and the rest were given to me as gifts during training. The first puletasi I was given has taken on a somewhat legendary status among the members of Group 80. I’m pretty sure it was originally designed for someone about six-foot four-inches tall and no less than 400 pounds. The top reached down past my knees and the collar hung off my shoulders. It was a very bright teal and orange color with an orange frilly collar. The whole thing put me to mind of a twisted football player done up as a clown. I am no longer in possession of this puletasi and there is no photographic evidence of its existence, but it is burned into my memory as perhaps the most ridiculous item of clothing I have ever worn.

When I’m just hanging around, I usually wear an‘ie lavalava (or just ‘ie) and a tee shirt. An ‘ie is basically just a big piece of patterned cloth you tie around your waist like a sarong; both men and women wear them. I like to wear shorts or a tank top around the house sometimes, but modesty is very important in Samoa (particularly for women), so if I’m going out, I tie an ‘ie around my waist and change into a tee shirt.

(One of my many Samoan 'ies.)

Culture Notes: Part IV

2008-11-29T16:55:00.005-11:00

Food (Or All The Taro You Can Stomach)

Taro, a root plant, is the staple food of Samoa, along with breadfruit and banana (there are different varieties of banana here: some are small and sweet, and others are bigger and starchy, and still others are humungous and taste – for lack of a better word – planty). Chicken and pork are common, along with fresh fish, canned meats and the occasional fruit or vegetable.

The Sunday meal or To’ona’i is usually prepared in the traditional earth oven (or ‘umu) and includes taro, pork and palusami along with other Samoan foods. Palusami is a very popular dish among Samoans and palagis alike, that I don’t care for at all. It’s some sort of coconut cream dish baked in banana leaves. It’s very, very rich.

(A Samoan roasted pig in the back of the Peace Corps Samoa pick-up truck.)

I’ve definitely developed a taste for taro – which is perhaps the most important adaptation for survival in Samoa. I like taro from the ‘umu because the outside gets all crunchy and delicious. Boiled taro varies widely depending on the cook. Boiled taro is usually cooked with coconut cream – sometimes the coconut cream is really plain, but a good cook can liven it up with diced onions, salt and pepper, even a dash of curry powder, making it quite tasty.

(Samoan 'umu meal: taro, banana, chicken, pig and pisupo.)

The most interesting Samoan food I’ve eaten thus far is the lupe. The lupe is a wild bird that’s kind of like a variety of dove. The meat is very dark, but not greasy like duck. It’s a little tough, but very flavorful.

Samoa is an island, so obviously a variety of foods come from the ocean. I’ve eaten a lot of reef fish, some octopus and crab and some clawless lobsters and a kind of spiny lobster. Around the full moon in October and November palolo (a kind of sea annelid) appear in the coastal waters. I didn’t get a chance to try any this year, but they’re very popular – although they look like slithery earthworms (oh, now that I look up what “annelid” means, I guess they aren’t anything more than worms of the sea). The other night, my host family was eating some kind of green-ish, purple-ish leafy algae-lichen type thing called limu (I tried a bite – very salty). We also had fāisua or giant clam – it was prepared uncooked with lemon juice, there wasn’t a lot of juice, so it was still pretty raw and fishy. I haven’t tried sea cucumber, but I did try something which I’m told was similar: these weird little white speckled flat-ish round things that tasted extremely salty and had a very disconcerting slimy, chewy hard texture that I just couldn’t get down.

But although Samoa is an island and most people live close to the sea, I would say that most Samoans eat a lot more canned fish (mackerel and sardines) than fresh fish. Canned corned beef or pisupo, is also a common “Samoan” food (the name “pisupo” actually comes from the word pea soup – when missionaries and others introduced canned foods, pisupo originally referred to any canned food, but now it’s specifically corned beef).

Apparently, Andrew Zimmerman of the Travel Channel did a show here in Samoa recently. I haven’t seen the episode, but I’m told by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers that the episode got a lot of stuff wrong – they mispronounced nearly all the place and food names, plus a lot of the things he was eating were more “bizarre” than “foods” (in other words, he was eating things that Samoan people don’t actually eat).

Library update

2008-11-18T10:46:00.000-11:00

People have been asking me about it, so I feel I should provide an update/explanation about the school library situation:

It’s still very much a work-in-progress and still isn’t in use. One problem is that we’re at the end of the school term here and the next term doesn’t start until February (we’re on the New Zealand calendar, so Christmastime is the “summer” vacation here). So I’m having a hard time doing too much with the library right now. I’ve been trying to organize how I can, sometimes with the help of some of the kids, but with all those new books we discovered, we need a lot more shelves.

I’m hoping I can talk one or two of the teachers into helping me organize and label the books over the break (isn’t that how you’d want to spend your vacation?). For one thing, a lot of work needs to be done and I don’t want to get stuck doing everything myself, but practically speaking, since they’ll be around after I’m gone, the teachers should be familiar with and comfortable working in the library.

But right now, everyone’s thinking about end of the school year stuff. At the end of the year, the Samoan schools have a prize giving – the school gives out prizes to the kids with the best marks (when we finished training, our host village referred to our swearing-in day as our “prize giving”). The sorts of prizes vary widely, so I’ll get back to on that one. But anyway, I’ve been trying to generate some buzz about the movie night idea, and I think we’ve decided that December 10 – the day of the prize giving, would be the perfect night to start movie nights. I’m pretty pumped about it.

Culture Notes: Part II B

2008-11-18T10:32:00.002-11:00

Tricky Linguistics Returns

I realized after the fact that I’d made a mistake when I wrote that faitau means “to buy” as it actually means “to read” (I’m not sure how, since I use that word all the time). Anyway, fa’atau means to buy or shopping. Fa’a- is an even more perplexing prefix than fai-, though – here’s some of what my dictionary has to say about fa’a:

fa'a- pf. Prefix used with a large number of bases and serving many separate functions. […] The following are some of the main functions of this prefix. They are not mutually exclusive, that is to say any one word with fa’a- might be given to illustration under more than one of the following subheadings. 1. Cause (some one or something): e.g. sinasina: (of a tap) to drip, fa’asinasina: to drip water onto a table; gāe’e: (of a person) to stir move, fa’agāe’e: move (a thing) […] (N.B. It will be noted that a word without fa’a- is frequently translated in English by an intransitive verb, whereas the corresponding word with fa’a- is translated by a transitive verb.) 2. Characteristic of, proper or belonging to: Sāmoa: Samoa, fa’a-Sāmoa: language, customs, etc., belonging to Samoa […] 3. Like, in the manner of, of the same kind as […] 4. Give, provide with […] 5. Reducing the full force of a (potentially) harsh or otherwise undesirably strong word: leai: not, none, fa’aleai: not very much …[1]

After living in country for a while, you’d be surprised at how quickly the whole “fa’a” thing starts to make sense.

I often hear my Samoan host father (who doesn’t speak English) saying to my host mother (who does), “Fa’amālamalama Lisa.” Which is like saying “Explain to Lisa” or “Translate to Lisa” or “Make Lisa understand” or something like that.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the word and prefix tau, which has twenty separate entries and spans five pages in my dictionary. Some meanings include: price or cost, weather or season, war, or the fore-deck of a bonito canoe, among many others.

[1] Milner, G.B. Samoan Dictionary. Pasifika Press: New Zealand. 1960. 43.

Culture Notes: Part III

2008-11-12T17:34:00.004-11:00

What's your religion?

One of the first questions a visitor is asked when they come to Samoa is “What’s your religion?” When a Samoan person asks this, they’re not asking whether you’re Hindu or Jewish or Buddhist or Muslim or Zoroastrian, they’re really asking whether you’re Catholic or Congregationalist or Mormon or Methodist. And if you give a non-Christian answer, you’ll generally get a confused or concerned look in response (I mean, I get puzzled looks when I say “Episcopalian”). I don’t mean to suggest that Samoans aren’t a welcoming or accepting people; it’s more just that since everyone in Samoa is very much Christian, anything else wouldn’t occur to them.

(The Catholic Church in my village.)

I go to church every Sunday with my family – they’re Catholic, so I go to Catholic mass. There’s also a Congregational church across from my house; when they have functions (like plays or dancing competitions), I usually attend those also. The Congregational church in Samoa is better known by the acronym EFKS (effah-kah-sah), I have no idea what this stands for, but I’m pretty sure the “S” is for “Samoa.”

(The Congregational Church in my village.)

Church and prayer are very central parts of Samoan life. As I said, I go to church every Sunday, and every evening around 6 o’clock we have another prayer at home, which is about 20 to 30 minutes long, and then we say grace before we eat.

As far as I can tell, there’s really no “separation of church and state” in Samoa and not too much in the way of secular activities (at least not in the way Americans think of “secular”). Prayers are said daily in school and at basically any event you might attend in Samoa, big or small, state-sponsored or no. A cross even tops the Samoan coat-of-arms or national seal. Surely, no one could argue that Samoa is anything but a Christian country – although, oddly, there is a Baha’i temple on the Cross-Island Road on ‘Upolu (the only non-Christain religious establishment of which I am aware).

More pictures from around Lotofaga on my Picasa page.

Culture Notes: Part II

2008-11-12T15:28:00.004-11:00

O mea ‘uma i le ‘āiga: The Samoan Family

One of the first questions I get when I meet a Samoan person is: are my parents still alive? Kind of odd question, and I’m still getting used to it, but in the context of Samoan culture it (kind of) makes sense. In Samoa, the whole family lives together – that usually means extended family and several generations. So in my host family, I have my host parents (in their mid-fifties), two of their unmarried daughters, one married daughter and her husband and their four kids, and sometimes another grandkid stays with us (that’s the other thing about Samoan families: it’s difficult to say how many people are in your family because it’s not a hundred percent consistent).

Anyway, the younger generations serve the older generations. So, the kids serve their parents and their parents serve their grandparents. (Both my host parents’ parents are still alive, so their siblings stay at home with them to serve them.)

So, getting back to whether or not my parents are still alive: I’m here in Samoa, right? Thousands of miles from my home in northern Maine. The natural Samoan assumption is that if I’m here – not serving my parents’ needs – they must be dead. Only, my parents are definitely not dead.

A couple weeks ago, someone asked me if my parents were still alive, then asked how many brothers and sisters I have. I told him that yes, my parents are very much alive and well and that I only have one younger brother (who goes to college out of state). He was nothing short of shocked, taken aback even. He could not begin to fathom how on earth two middle-aged individuals could possibly get by without one or more of their children at home with them to fix their coffee (let alone everything else that goes along with daily living).

(For the record, not only are my parents both quite capable of fixing their own morning coffee, but they even manage to hold down respectful, full-time employment. In fact, now that I think about it, my Samoan host parents seem like pretty capable people. I’m confident that even if one of their kids wasn’t around, they could probably get by without going hungry.)

But I can’t even imagine what people would think if I told them about my 91-year-old grandfather who still lives alone (and makes his own coffee, to boot).

Culture Notes: a multipart series

2008-11-12T15:14:00.004-11:00

Part I: Tricky Linguistics

My favorite peculiarity in navigating the Samoan language comes from the words fia and mana’o. Fia and mana’o both mean to want or to need. Fia is used only with verbs (fia moe, want to sleep or fia ‘ai, need to eat), and mana’o is used only with nouns (mana’o le fasipua’a, want a piece of pork or mana’o le vai, need water). Although apparently, if you use fia with a noun it translates as wanting to be that thing, as in “Ou te fia le esi,” or “I want to be a papaya.”

Anyway, even though there are two different words, they both mean to want and to need. This is a challenge as a Peace Corps Volunteer because the distinction between wants and needs is kind of a big one. E.g. “You want a lawn mower, you do not need a lawnmower” or “I don’t need mayonnaise on my taro, but yes I do want some mayonnaise.”

Peace Corps Volunteers also like to joke that there are only about a dozen words in the Samoan language and it’s combinations of those dozen words along with a few prefixes and suffixes that make up the entirety of the language. E.g. mea = things, ‘ai = eat, therefore mea’ai = food; or fai = make/do/say, tau = price, ~~therefore faitau = buy~~; and since tala = story, faitala means gossip. (Not at all a bad thing for the language learner, though.)

But the language does have this oddly literal sense. I was studying my color words recently, and most of them are in a similar vein: orange = lanumoli (color of orange fruit), blue = lanumoana (color of the ocean). But the most interesting was the word for green: lanumeamata. Literally, the word means something like “the color of how things look” (lanu = color, mea = things, mata = look). And, as I look around, it is indeed the color of how things look.

Green Christmas

2008-11-12T15:12:00.000-11:00

I’m not exactly sure how to express my feelings about riding the bus on a tropical island in the heart of Polynesia with island-dance-remixes of songs like “Jingle Bells” and “White Christmas” playing at top volume – with Christmas well over a month away, to boot. (As far as I can tell, once November first arrives, it is officially “almost Christmas” here in Samoa.)

I was in the U.S. Embassy in Samoa

2008-11-05T10:45:00.002-11:00

when I heard that Barack Obama had been elected the next president of the United States of America.

Nearly all the Peace Corps Samoa volunteers, some American exchange students, a handful of other expats and a couple of non-American well-wishers were in the American Embassy yesterday to watch the live CNN coverage of the election results. Everyone was sitting around, on the floor, drinking soda and eating popcorn, the whole scene was pretty cute.

I wasn't in the room when CNN announced their projection that Obama had won - but I heard the cheers. When I came back to see the chyron reading, "Barack Obama elected next president: CNN projection," I was basically in shock. I don't think anyone really believed it until John McCain gave his very eloquent and truly patriotic consession speech. The satellite feed started acting funny as we were waiting to hear Obama speak, but it managed to hold up enough so we could listen. There were some tears shed, and when he made reference to the "far corners of the world" (or however it went), the room cheered.

I think there might be pictures on the embassy or Observer websites later.

There was a lot of celebration and patriotism all around.

Then I went to see Tropic Thunder.

Glossary of Common Samoan Words

2008-11-04T10:11:00.002-11:00

Note on pronunciation:
The guttural stop ( ’ ) is the similar stopping sounds in “uh-oh.” The macrons ( ¯ ) indicate stressed or elongated vowel sounds (think of the difference between “icy” and “I see” in English. The letter g is pronounced like the NG sound in “ping-pong” or “Singapore” (not like in “finger”).

ali'i – high chief

alofa – love

a’ōga – school

‘aua – don’t

auluma – daughters of the village

aumaga – untitled men of the village; strength of the village

autalavou – church youth group

fa’afetai – thank you

fa’alavelave – event, something out of the ordinary

fa’amamafa – macron ( ¯ )

fa’amolemole – please

fa’asalalauga – media, broadcasting

fa’aSāmoa – Samoan way

fai’āoga – to teach; teacher

fale – traditional Samoan home with no walls and thatched roof; house; building

fiafia – celebration, party; happy; to like/enjoy

i'a – fish

‘ie (lavalava) – unisex piece of cloth tied around the waist

komaliliu – guttural stop punctuation mark ( ’ )

la – sun

lagi – heaven, sky

lalolagi – world, earth (literally: below heaven)

leaga – bad

lelei – nice, good

mālō – hi, hello (common)

mālōlō – rest, nap

malūlū – cool, cold

manaia – nice, pretty, good

manuia – well, good

matai – village chiefs, head of the family

moa – chicken

niu – green, young coconut for drinking

nu’u – village

pa’a – crab

palagi – European; white person; foreigner

pese – sing; song; music

popo – mature, brown coconut for making coconut cream or eating

pua’a – pig

puletasi – traditional Samoan-style dress

pulenu’u – village mayor

sami – sea

savali – walk

siva – dance

sōia – don’t, stop it

sole – dude

suga – like dude, but for girls

tai – seaward

talofa – hello (formal)

tamā – father

timu – rain

tinā – mother

‘uma – finished, done; gone; all, every

(tō)fā soifua – goodbye

tulafale – orator, talking chief

ula – lobster

ula – necklace, lei

uō – friend (boyfriend or girlfriend if referring to opposite sex)

uta – inland

va’a – boat

vai – water

vevela – hot

School Library: a work in progress

2008-10-31T14:03:00.003-11:00

On Tuesday some teacher/librarian students came to the library in the village primary school to help organize and label the books.

(Working away.)

They did a great job, they organized the books into fiction, non-fiction and Samoan language books. They even brought some posters to pretty-up the library.

(Fiction.)

(Beautiful collection of Samoan language children's books.)

I went back to visit the school yesterday, and someone mentioned that they had some more books in the store room (I'm thinking a handful of old textbooks) that they'd forgotten about. Then they have some of the boys carry up four (4) huge boxes of children's books donated by someone in the States.

(I guess I'll be learning all about the Dewey Decimal System.)

Typing is fun

2008-10-31T14:00:00.002-11:00

I've been "teaching" computer lessons in my village's computer center, I recently acquiring a typing game for all the computers, so this week the kids have been practicing typing.

They're very good. They'll very intently sit and practice their typing, and they're also very good about helping each other.

Mito and the cat have a snack

2008-10-31T13:54:00.002-11:00

Yesterday I was walking home from the store when I noticed that Mito, the one-year-old in my host family was more-or-less unattended (his brother Tautua had fallen asleep on the job).

Mito, free of restrictions and supervision, had discovered a pot of noodles and taro left on the stove and decided to have a mid-afternoon snack. Mito does like to share, so one of the cats was joining him.

He then tried to offer me some of his noodley mush.

I respectfully declined.

Adventures in Public Transportation

2008-10-31T09:09:00.001-11:00

Last Friday I boarded my usual bus at the Apia fish market just before 2 p.m. ready to go back to my village. The body of most of the buses are wooden – wood siding, wood benches, wood floors. Buses here are privately owned and operated and are uniquely decorated to make them easily recognizable. The exteriors are colorfully painted with their names painted on the sides. The inside is also elaborately decorated with flags (Samoan, American, French, the U.K., the European Union or whatever else people could find), religious icons and posters. My bus driver used to play loud, bass-heavy dance music, but I think his CD player broke, so now it’s just quiet.

When I found my seat that afternoon, the bus was just about ready to leave. Generally, my ride into town is about an hour and half, and it’s about two hours going back: the driver stops at a store on the way out of town to gas up and also takes a different route to drop people off closer to their homes. This trip was to be different, however. The police stopped the bus on three different occasions (they’re trying to crack down on overcrowded buses). The first cop yelled at the passengers because no one was sitting in my lap (lap-sitting is common on Samoan buses; I usually like to find a small to medium-sized person to sit in my lap when necessary). The second cop looked around for a while, but didn’t do too much. But the last cop nosed around and ultimately wrote the driver a ticket.

After that, we continued on our way and we stopped at the store, then about ten minutes down the road we stopped at another, smaller store. A while later, as we were going through the mountainous area, the bus broke down. The bus unloaded and I heard people saying, “Savali loa,” which means, “Walk now.” (I was still at least a dozen miles from my home.) But everyone just milled around, and I finally gathered that we were waiting for the Apia-bound bus to pick us up. A short time later, the bus finally came, everyone re-boarded and we were on our way.

By the time I made it home, I was exhausted, but I was still shocked to see that the clock read 6 p.m. (I don’t have a watch). By car, the ride is little over an hour, but four hours on the bus(es). I wouldn’t have minded so much if I’d been mentally and physically prepared for such a trip, although honestly, if I’d known it would take so long, I probably just would have stayed in town another night. Although, I know I really shouldn't complain - at least I don't have to take a ferry to get home.

Some notes...

2008-10-24T13:26:00.002-11:00

I have two (2) separate rashes on my forehead (fortunately, my bangs cover the worst of it). The first rash is dry, chapped skin from the salty ocean air: this requires hydrocortisone cream to soothe and moisturize. The other rash is some kind of weird sun/heat rash (when I had the same rash on my shoulders and chest, our medical officer told me she’d never seen anything quite like it), and this one needs zinc oxide powder to cool and dry. And of course, putting the wrong treatment on the wrong patch of skin will make it worse.

This week, my neighbor’s pigs have eaten nine (9) of my family’s baby chicks. Needless to say, my family is quite put out by this. My host father has put the surviving chicks in a cardboard box for safe keeping.

I have become my family’s go-to person to fix the DVD player (i.e. choose the appropriate subtitles, dubbing or what-have-you). It’s nice to have a role in the family.

In actual Peace Corps work news: the primary school in my village has a “library” (a locked roomful of books which no one uses). So I’ve been trying to think of a way to get it up and running. I’d heard of a training program that costs $200, but then I heard through the Peace Corps grapevine (a.k.a. the “coconut wireless”) that the Samoan Ministry of Education is running a program specifically for schools that have libraries, but need training. Perfect!

I tried calling last Friday, but didn’t get a very satisfactory response, so I tried again Monday morning and that time I actually spoke to the person I’d wanted in the first place. She said that the program was actually already underway, but since I’d called, they’d put a team together to come in next week! So next week, some folks are going to come visit the school to help clean and organize the books and train the teachers in managing the library, lending books and all those other tedious (but important) elements of running a school library. I’m so excited, but I’m still holding my breath, crossing my fingers, hoping and praying nothing goes awry.

The trouble is that, as far as I can tell, I’m way more excited than most of the teachers. So, whenever I tell someone about it or talk about it, I try to smile a lot and act really happy, in an effort to convince them that, yes, spending three to four days cleaning and organizing a dusty old room of books will totally be fun and they should be super pumped about it. (Wish me luck.)

And yesterday, some people from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology came and visited our computer center. They brought back our printer/copier/fax and a new keyboard for one of the computers (so we now have four out of five working computers!). They also showed me that the tele-center includes a projector and screen! (The women's committee was totally holding out on me.) This has amazing possibilities, including, but not limited to, weekly movie nights...

Avoiding Dengue

2008-10-17T13:19:00.001-11:00

“The luxuries of civilization satisfy only those wants which they themselves create.”

~ Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World (1922)

The last week and a half or so has been a little rough. Last Saturday I woke up with a bad headache, had pain in my back and neck and an elevated temperature – tell-tale signs of early stages of Dengue Fever. Fortunately, it didn’t amount to much, I just felt fatigued all weekend and slept a lot. Also on Saturday, while fixing a cup of instant noodles, I accidentally poured boiling water on my hand. My hand turned really red, but didn’t blister. And good Lord does that smart though, my hand was throbbing for the rest of the day.

Then, in a somewhat dazed and weary state of mind, I locked myself out of my bedroom. I can’t go into much detail, but breaking back into my room – particularly under the circumstances at the time – was not pleasant. And all that happened before lunch. Little wonder I decided to sleep the rest of the weekend.

The bummer was that last Sunday happened to be White Sunday, an important holiday in Samoa. It’s a children’s holiday where the kids get to perform songs, dances and skits in church and also get to eat first at mealtime (usually parents eat first, whoever prepared the meal eats second and kids eat last). Then Monday was a public holiday and there was lots of games and food and having fun. I still wasn’t feeling great Sunday and Monday, so I missed out on a lot, but frankly, I’m just relieved that I don’t have Dengue.

Life is weird.

2008-10-08T08:40:00.001-11:00

Journal Entries:

1 October 2008

“When I lie down to go to bed, I hear the crickets chirping, occasionally a pig will grunt quietly outside my bedroom window, but mainly I heard the waves of the ocean crashing on the beach as the tide shifts or a storm rolls in. The season is changing now, so it rains a lot at night, so then all I can hear is the heavy rain drops hitting the tin-roofed house and the wind blowing in different directions through the rain and the trees.

When I wake up, I hear the roosters first – its usually still dark at this point, around 5 a.m. Then song birds start singing and hens clucking with their babies chirping behind them. My host family begins to stir, my host mother, Lamosa, starts telling the kids to get ready for school and there’s usually a baby crying. My neighbor turns on their radio (which usually stays on until evening). Today it’s oddly quiet – all I can hear is the radio, birds chirping and the ocean. It’s pleasantly – and unusually quiet.”

4 October 2008

“I saw a thunderstorm today far in the distance out over the ocean. It was about five or six o’clock or so, and the sky was bright orange and pink. From the road, on the hill, I can see the ocean – not the beach, but the open ocean in the distance. I was walking home with my host mother and sister and from the top of the hill, I could see the whole thing – the still water and the huge cloud formation: the tall stack high over the ocean with the big T top. (I recognized the shape from the meteorology class I took in college. I’ve seen a thunderstorm from a similar vantage point once before – from a plane in the air somewhere between Bangkok and Singapore.) It was awesome, it must have been a half mile or mile away. No one else got why that was cool.”

I’m in Apia today to meet Group 81 who I suppose has been in-country for just about four hours or so now. The new Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD) – a.k.a. my new boss arrives today also.

Yesterday was a very strange day. Monday afternoon, my host family told me that Tuesday some doctors and nurses would be visiting the village. And sure enough, yesterday morning at about 9 o’clock, a whole team of doctors and nurses shows up, with a pharmacist to boot. A few people were American, and there were also a few Australian as well as several Samoan doctors. They had an-all day free clinic for anyone and everyone in the village. Apparently they come every year and visit five different villages. I went over to see everything, and there were a ton of people, I talked to a bunch of people in my village and some of the visiting people as well. They were even testing people’s eyes and had glasses. Later in the evening, my host father was showing off his new reading glasses.

Also, yesterday when I was eating my lunch (tuna and taro), two ladies came up to the house – one from New Zealand and the other Samoan. They interviewed my host mother about weaving the fine mats and some other things (I just listened – it was pretty enlightening, since she hadn’t told me a lot of this stuff before). When they were done, I was chatting with the Samoan lady and she asked me about my background. I told her that I have a degree in Media Studies, so she asked, “Oh so you’re a journalist?” I said, “Yeah,” and she perked right up and explained that she worked with Woman’s Time Magazine (a Samoan glossy, I’ve seen it around) and asked if I’d be interested in writing for them. Of course, I said I’d love to.

Life is weird, man.

In other news, on Monday I helped the Year 8 English class (which meant that I actually conducted the entire lesson on my own). They have their big National Exam coming up in two weeks (which is all in English), so I offered to help them prepare. I’ll go back tomorrow, also.

I have also been teaching computer lessons to the Catholic autalavou, sans computers, which has been interesting. Apparently they wanted the “theory” first, and then the “practical.” But as a lot of them really want to learn to type I’m hoping I can get them to the computer center next week. (Wish me luck.)

Baby Elisapeta

2008-09-20T18:43:00.001-11:00

I woke up this morning and there was a baby. My host sister Lucy had just delivered her baby girl. I somehow managed to sleep through this. Around five or so this morning, I heard a bunch of talking and then someone put a movie on for some reason, I just thought, “Oh whatever,” rolled over and went back to sleep, never suspecting that a baby was being born.

So I guess the delivery went smoothly. Lucy looks good. The baby is teeny, sleepy and covered in a fine white fuzz.

The baby’s name is Elisapeta – after me.

My siva

2008-09-19T21:33:00.003-11:00

I’m sitting in the big fale next to the faife’au’s house enjoying the SIT kids’ farewell fiafia, when all of the sudden I’m accosted by several zaftig Samoan women. They have me by the waist all turned around, tying feathers around my middle and in my hair, along with a beaded headdress around my forehead. I am then informed by Teki, the faife’au’s wife, that I will be performing the final dance of the evening. Not just dancing along with everyone else, but performing a solo, impromptu siva of my own. I had, apparently, inadvertently become the belle of the ball.

Allow me to provide some context, or some exposition to the preceding scene. Since I’ve been in Lotofaga, I’ve been hearing about the “other Peace Corps” that are coming to visit in September. Now, I was pretty sure all along that they weren’t Peace Corps, in fact, I was downright certain. Well, I finally got the story this week – they’re American exchange students in Samoa for the semester, and they visit Lotofaga for a week-long village home-stay as part of their program, and there's a group every semester. (I was more than a little annoyed at first that everyone in the village calls them “Peace Corps,” but last Sunday I was walking with a local girl down the road, when someone asked if I was a Peace Corps. She said, “No, this is Lisa.” So I apparently am my own separate category of palagi now.)

So anyway, some of the village ladies who’d hosted them put on a farewell fiafia at the end of the week, which I was invited to attend. (I had an amazing meal there, by the way, green salad, pasta salad, I even got a lobster tail – amazing.)

So after the college kids had done their dances, and the village ladies had done theirs, I was called on the finish up the evening – though I’m not totally sure why. But using the moves we’d learned for our farewell fiafia in Amaile, I managed to get through it without pissing myself or running away in shame.

Actually, it was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward now to Peace Corps Samoa Group 81’s welcome fiafia next month.

Settling In

2008-09-13T09:54:00.002-11:00

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.

To-Sua

2008-08-30T17:47:00.002-11:00

I sit under the shade of a tree with my host sisters Melania and Atalina, Melania’s 13-year-old son Tautua, and cousin, the cheeky 10 year-old-girl, Magalelei. Tauanu’u, Melania and Atalina’s father and matai of the family, has wandered off out of sight, presumably talking to some smartly-dressed tour guide or grounds keeper.

We’d just tramped about 30 minutes through dense tropical forest when we suddenly emerged to a trimmed lawn, well-kept gardens, and neatly arranged little fales and benches. I’m not sure where we are, but apparently it’s a tourist attraction.

One of the Samoan guides, in black slacks and a patterned green shirt, tells us we have to wait for the two palagi tourists to leave before we can go have a look at the To-Sua – a deep trench in the earth which has a cave allowing seawater to enter. The story goes that in olden times, the spirits made their home in To-Sua, but when the seawater came in, the spirits moved inland, to where I’m told there is another similar trench (called To-Le-Sua) with no water.

Still sitting under the tree, I look over at the two tourists. Kiwis, I guess, with their wide-brimmed hats, khaki shorts, tank tops, camera bags and fanny packs. I then realize that I know nothing of the Samoa they are seeing – a neatly planned itinerary featuring sandy beaches and palm trees, cocktails served in coconuts, smiling local guides in matching uniforms who speak flawless English, bus tours quickly passing brightly colored homes, which appear charming and quaint from the comfort of an air conditioned bus.

I sit several yards away from them – out of sight – in my ‘ie (a unisex Samoan-style sarong, sans fringe), old tee shirt and dirty feet. Apart from my complexion, the only other obvious thing putting me apart from my companions, are the $49 Reefs on my feet rather than the simple rubber flip-flops everyone else is wearing.

Once the Kiwis are safely stowed away in their taxi van, we are free to admire the trench. The trees line the edges and the green vines and other vegetation reach deep into the pit. The shadows give the seawater at the bottom an eerie, hazy appearance.

After a moment, we continue hiking eastward. We come to a plain of black volcanic rock. It looks barren from a distance, but every puddle and pool is teeming with life – white and brown spotted algae, mossy green algae on top of that, teeny fish and fast-moving speckled crabs. The coconut trees and brush line the waterfront, and the black rock juts out into the ocean. The perfectly turquoise tide is coming in our way, and the frothy white suds wash over our feet and legs. A deeper hole in the rock maintains a hazy turquoise glow and houses pink and brown coral with vividly neon blue little fish swimming about. Between the tree line and the rocks, sheltered by a cave that breaks the waves, a tremendous bed of pink, green and brown coral thrives.

We wander around a bit longer; Tautua tries in vain to catch crabs. Though armed with a knife, he uses that only to taunt them out of their hiding places, then goes after them with his hands.

“Tatou o,” Tauanu’u says, “Let’s go.”

Only this time we take a different route – tai, towards the sea, instead of uta, inland. After a treacherous swim through shallow and rocky waters, I stumble across more black volcanic rocks. These, however, are not the smooth plain of volcanic rock, but rather a series of variously sized boulders. With every unsure and slippery step, I am acutely aware any one of these is a potential skull fracture. Miraculously, I make it back home for a late lunch of chicken and squash soup, and despite all my slips and stumbles, I didn’t even scuff up my feet.

Swearing-In

2008-08-25T15:38:00.003-11:00

I'm officially a Peace Corps volunteer today!

We all went back to our training village this morning for our swearing-in ceremony. We're in Apia for two more nights, then we all move to our villages on Wednesday.

Done with training

2008-08-24T16:50:00.004-11:00

With Group 80 packed into the Peace Corps van, it seemed that the entire village of Amaile was leaning into the side door repeating their “Goodbyes” and “Fa soifuas” as Setu starting slowly backing out. As we reached the center of the village, having finally lost the hangers-on, the van door was still open, Casey had put on M.I.A. full blast on the stereo, Setu hit the gas and sped away, yelling, “Wooo!” with fist raised in the air.

So someone was certainly thrilled to have training over with.

The preceding evening was our farewell fiafia, which was a great time. All the Peace Corps did meticulously rehearsed dances for the village, along with a play and a song, then a few groups of the local ladies performed dances for us as well. The village also fed us to our fill (including, but not limited to: pork, chicken, pisupo, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, taro, and potato salad with koko Samoa to drink), and showered us with gifts. Between family and village gifts, I left with three new puletasis (including one dark green and black patterned puletasi for swearing-in on Monday), seven new ‘ie lavalavas (pieces of fabric tied around the waist – most common mode of casual dress in Samoa), a pair of earings, a hair clip, two tee shirts, a fan, and a small purse. I gave my family some photo prints and a Samoan storybook for the kids in addition to the Peace Corps’ monetary donation and “thank you” (or “fa’afetai,” I guess).

The morning we left, my host sister and primary caretaker Peivi walked with me over to the van. She gave me a hug as we prepared to leave and started to cry, which, in turn, made me start to choke up as well. Since I’d returned from my site visit, Peivi had apparently become more comfortable with me, and we developed a more natural rapport. She started vicariously teasing me and giving me a hard time through her four-year-old son, Sollie, prompting him to ask me simple questions in Samoan that he and I could both understand, which generally became increasingly cheeky. We’d start off with things like, “Who’s your mother?” or “Where’s your village?” but it would always lead to “Who’s your boyfriend?” or “Do you want a Samoan boyfriend?” or accusations that I was in love with my language teacher.

During the drive into Apia, I was thinking about how much dramatically harder saying my “goodbyes” and “tofa soifuas” is going to be two years from now.

*More pictures on photo page.

Big Test today

2008-08-21T13:13:00.003-11:00

Well, we're almost done training. We all took our LPI (Language Proficiency Interview) today - mine went pretty well, I think, though I haven't received my actual score yet (we have to score an "Intermediate Low" or better).

Tomorrow we have a fiafia (a kind of Samoan party or celebration with lots of dancing) in our training village, then we all swear-in as bona fide volunteers on Monday - then off to our permanent sites on Wednesday! I have to say that I'm both excited and nervous.

Hopefully, I'll be able to post some pictures and some more intriguing thoughts when we're back in Apia this weekend.

Site visit.

2008-08-08T10:31:00.004-11:00

I just got back into Apia after spending a few days at my site. I'll be living with a family, so I had a chance to meet them - they're all very nice, very protective. I'll have a bunch of sisters - they all seem great, I'm looking forward to spending more time with them. That's basically all I did - spend time getting to know my new family - I didn't have much of a chance to do much data collection or technical work, but whatever.

(My village.)

We have two weeks left of training. From everything I'd heard before coming, I expecting training to be a grueling, miserable experience. But that has not been my experience at all. All of our trainers are great people and honestly, Group 80 (my fellow trainees and I) is totally awesome. For me, training has overall been a positive experience, due in large part to all the people I've had opportunity to meet (wow, I know, a non-sardonic, misanthropic remark coming from me - I'm not even being sarcastic).

As for right now, I'm feeling pretty good about going to my village and the next two years of my life. I know that the first few months especially will be difficult and awkward as I try to find my place, but as I was going to sleep last night, I was comforted by the fact that at no point did I feel any desire to run for the hills (or the airport, as it were). Sitting in an open fale with chickens, cats and children running about, or taking a "shower" (standing under a cold tap) with the odd cockroach coming around, I feel pretty much at home now.

Site visits tomorrow!

2008-08-05T12:48:00.003-11:00

I don't really have anything prepared to write, but I'll make a few updates.

We're nearing the end of training; we all go to visit our permanent sites this week, then we have two more weeks in our training village. Uh, yeah, I'm pretty excited. My village already has a computer center where I'll be working and apparently the village youth group(s) want to start a band.

I've also posted pictures, finally.

And yeah, training's going well, although I am excited about getting to my site now. I'm not sure what else to say right now and I'm hungry, so I'll think about it and get back to you.

Volunteer Visit

2008-07-11T09:57:00.003-11:00

Oh man, I just got back into Apia from my week on my volunteer visit with Sally. It's been a great week, and went by really quickly. (Basically, the idea of the volunteer visit is that each trainee spends a week with a different current volunteer to see what life is like and all that.)

Sally is actually a capacity building volunteer (I'm a village based development volunteer), but she's been tagged the "wanna-be" VBD. She's actually a special ed teacher (which is what my mom does), and I immediately thought of my mother when I saw Sally's binder labeled "IEPs 2008" on the floor.

So, basically what I did this week is go to school everyday with Sally, then in the afternoon we did different stuff. Tuesday we went and dug up oysters in the ocean, then had tuna melts for dinner (amazing). Wednesday we weaved baskets and played Sweepy (the local card game of choice). Then last night we played some more Sweepy and hung out in the computer lab/homework center.

Also, Sally gave me some great contacts and information for a bunch of the projects she's done (including, but not limited to: the Red Cross doing a First Aid training for the village, excercise and healthy eating programs, fruit tree plantings, and trash clean-ups/waste disposal projects).

In terms of everyday training - not that much exciting happens. Every morning I get up, have breakfast, then go to class. We've gone to the beach a few times, which is always fun. I was a hero recently when I busted out the bottle openers on the bottoms of my flip-flops.

I do have pictures to post, but unfortunately, I don't really have the means to post them, so they'll have to wait.

Rain

2008-06-14T10:59:00.004-11:00

We're heading to our training village this afternoon. This may be a challange since it has been raining steadily all day - and this is the dry season. All the streets and sidewalks in Apia are completely flooded, and everytime a car drives by, a big wave washes over the side of the road.

Earlier, I saw some teenage boys and girls playing rugby in the street having a ball. Other people are doing there best to wade through the flood, but I heard through the grapevine that this kind of flooding is unusual. I've resigned myself to the fact that I won't be able to get anything done today, which means I'll be heading to the training village with three tala on me and I wasn't able to get prints of my family photos to show my host family. Hopefully, they'll believe that I am actually borne of humans.

I was sitting on the back balcony of the hotel earlier watching the buses drive by at the bus depot. The buses don't have much trouble with the water, since they're raised so high off the ground. They're fun to watch because they're all so colorful, each is painted with it's own unique colors and design, most of them also have names like "Sun Rise" or "Jungle Boys" painted on the side. One has Bon Jovi lyrics painted on it, and other has Spider-Man. Anyway, watching the rain falling on the buses and lush green palm trees is beautiful in its own way.

Week one!

2008-06-11T17:09:00.001-11:00

Okay, a lot has happened, but I’m going to try to whip through everything before we go to our training village (i.e., while I still have access to internet cafés):

I’ve been in Samoa now for eight days. Peace Corps Samoa Group 80 arrived at Faleolo Airport at around 4:30 a.m. local time on Wednesday, June 4, 2008. A few of the training and country staff and a couple volunteers greeted us as we arrived with real leis. The flowers had this sickly sweet smell and stained my shirt with purple and green.

By the end of my first day, I must admit, I was nothing short of terrified. Although I slept during most of the 10-hour flight, I soon learned that plane sleep doesn’t really count, since I was still painfully exhausted. As bedtime finally approached on Wednesday, though, I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. I’m a writer and a media critic, what on earth am I doing in the Peace Corps? I can only be doomed to fail my friends and family, my host country and myself.

But talking to other volunteers the following day and since, has helped ease my fatalistic sense of impending doom – well, somewhat. Two years of Peace Corps service is an undertaking, and things happen. Sometimes people do have to go home (volunteers get sick, have family emergencies back home), but I’ve realized I should dwell on these uncontrollable situations. Things happen. All of the volunteers I’ve met that are approaching their close of service appear relaxed and comfortable, so I’m telling myself that if these people can survive, so can I.

On Friday night, the current Peace Corps volunteers had a fiafia for us (a sort of Samoan welcome party). A bunch of the volunteers performed Samoan dances, and everyone brought food (Samoan and palagi* food).

On Sunday, we all went to the beach on the southern side of ‘Upolu. I’m usually not much of a beach person, but I actually really enjoyed swimming in the ocean. I couldn’t believe I was actually there, the whole place looked like a postcard: the land jutting out into the sea, the palm trees leaning in the breeze over the turquoise water.

Tuesday afternoon we did our “water safety” session – about a half-hour talk on beach, swimming and water safety in Samoa and then snorkeling. This activity was wasted on me though, as I don’t have any contacts with me and I’m pretty near sighted. I gave it a shot, but realized that it wasn’t a fantastic idea when I couldn’t see the other people in my group. I’d definitely give it a shot again, though.

Tonight the current volunteer girls are having a “girls night” for the six women in our training group, so that should be fun - and girly.

And in between all of that has been lots of classes: safety and security, technical training, cross-cultural, and language, language, language. (So far, I’m really enjoying language class, but I know it’ll be a different situation when I have to rely on my Samoan language skills for everyday communication.)

This Friday night we’ll be heading to our training village – all of the current volunteers have been giving our village glowing reviews. We’ll be there for about eight weeks, but we’ll be coming back into Apia occasionally (I believe). We also go on a volunteer visit, when we get to visit a current volunteer at their site.

* palagi (pah-lahng-ee) foreigner, white person (not generally derogatory).

World Wise Schools

2008-05-23T02:45:00.000-11:00

On Wednesday I spoke to the fifth graders at the local middle school about the Peace Corps and Samoa. I showed a short video, talked a bit and answered questions. I'm going to be corresponding with this class and their teachers while I'm overseas through the Coverdell World Wise Schools program.

Some of the kids seemed confused about who I was and why I was there, but nevertheless enthusiastic about (in their mind) getting out of their everyday schoolwork. I gave them all my blog address and email; I explained that over the summer, while they're on vacation, I'll be doing three months of training. A few of the kids seemed really interested, so I'm hoping maybe they'll be in touch sometime before school starts again.

Two weeks

2008-05-19T07:25:00.004-11:00

and counting.

Two weeks from today I'll be leaving Maine and heading for Los Angeles for my staging. I have a lot of friends out in La La Land, but my time will be pretty tight, so I don't know if I'll actually have time to see any of them before I leave for Samoa on Tuesday night.

I'll arrive in L.A. around mid-day, then have orientation stuff all afternoon and all day the next day, then my fellow trainees and I will be flying out of LAX late that night.

Timeline: History of Samoa

2008-05-09T11:18:00.002-11:00

A chronology of key events

1722 - Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen is the first European to explore Samoa.

1830 - London Missionary Society arrives in Samoa.

1899 - Germany annexes Western Samoa (now called the Independent State of Samoa, or just Samoa), the US takes over eastern Samoa (American Samoa) and Britain withdraws its claim to the islands in accordance with treaty between Germany, Britain and the US.

1914 - New Zealand occupies Western Samoa during World War I and continues to administer it after the war by virtue of a League of Nations mandate (and a United Nations mandate after World War II).

1928 - New Zealand authorities shoot dead 11 members of the mau passive resistance movement.

1939-45 - US troops stationed in Western Samoa during World War II, but no battles are fought on the islands.

1962 - Western Samoa becomes independent, the first Pacific island nation to do so.

1990 - Voters narrowly approve universal suffrage for parliament and increase the legislature's term from three to five years; 10,000 people are left homeless by Cyclone Ofa.

1997 - Western Samoa changes its name to Samoa, a move which causes some tension with American Samoa.

1998 - Government imposes stringent restrictions on media freedom

2000 - Two former cabinet ministers are sentenced to death for the murder of a fellow politician who had threatened to expose a corruption scandal, but the death sentences are commuted.

2001 March - Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi is re-elected for a second term after a cliff-hanger election. His Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) claims 28 seats in the 49-seat parliament.

2002 June - New Zealand formally apologises to Samoa for its poor treatment of Samoan citizens in colonial times. Prime Minister Helen Clark makes the apology at a ceremony in Apia marking 40 years of independence.

2004 February - Australia says it will give Samoa $7m to help train its security forces.

2006 April - Prime Minister Tuila'epa's ruling HRPP wins parliamentary elections.

2007 March - The rights group Mau Sitiseni prepares to take its fight for most indigenous Samoans to be granted New Zealand citizenship to the UN.

2007 May - King Malietoa Tanumafili II dies aged 94, after 45 years on the throne. He was appointed king for life at independence in 1962. He was the world's third-longest reigning monarch, after King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand and Britain's Queen Elizabeth.

Courtesy: BBC country profile

Sia Figiel

2008-04-12T12:52:00.004-11:00

I still have several months before I'm due to leave for Samoa, but in the meantime, I'm doing what I can to familiarize myself with the country and its culture.

I just finished reading two of Sia Fiegel's books. Figiel is a Samoan author and poet who seems to be very highly regarded in the literature world as both a talented writer and a kind of ambassador of her culture through her writing.

I first read where we once belonged (1996), which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, Southeast Asia/South Pacific region. I then followed that with They who do not grieve (1999), her second novel, which is very similar in style and also shares some characters (although really isn't a "sequel").

I really loved both books, and I may look into more of Figiel's work. I would have enjoyed both novels even if I wasn't headed for Samoa in a few months. Where we once belonged is a kind of coming of age story, told from the point of view of Alofa, a young teenage Samoan girl. They who do not grieve takes place over a much wider stretch of time and focuses on three generations of Samoan women. Of course, both novels really provided insight into Samoan culture through the stories and characters (both good and bad elements).

They're very much female stories (which I enjoyed), but also very human. The stories are funny, uplifting and heartbreaking - sometimes all at the same time. I can't really sum up what the books are "about" - I guess the best way to put it would be to say they're about being a woman from Samoa and trying to find one's place and way in the world (yeah, I know, that doesn't really help).

Both novels are highly poetic, and while they're certainly narrative, they're also pretty experimental. They who do not grieve in particular jumps back in forth in time and changes narrators throughout the story.

I'm always game for non-linear narratives and creative use of language.

"Tomorrow is another day.
Another day.
A not her day..."

I have to wonder though, how much of Figiel's writing technique is her own personal style and what is inspired by her cultural background? I suppose, like any writer/artist, the two are inseparable.

Oh and here is a Radio Australia interview with Sia Figiel from "In The Loop."

Google Map!

2008-03-18T05:09:00.005-11:00

View Larger Map

Since Google does kind of own my soul (but then again, their corporate motto is "don't be evil" ...).

Anyway, check back here for occasional updates.

Mapping Samoa

2008-03-04T08:42:00.002-11:00

So, when I tell people that I'm going to Samoa, the first question I get is, "Where's that?" So here's some perspective:

And a bit closer:

About this blog

2008-03-04T03:56:00.005-11:00

Part travelogue, history lesson and culture exchange, this blog is the ongoing chronicle of my experiences and adventures as a Peace Corps village development volunteer in the Samoan Rural Health program.

I will be using this blog to correspond with Mrs. Ludwig's 6th grade Social Studies class back in my hometown of Houlton, Maine, along with my friends and family and anyone else who happens to stumble upon my blog.