Ahhh Thailand

Well we made it to bangkok against all odds. Apparently if you are flying from Samoa to Thailand via Sydney you still have to get an Australian visa. On the flight from Sydney to Bangkok the crew over served some jack ass in first class and then when he was harrassing the first classers they decided to move him back to economy class and guess where the only free seats were? So after spending the last 2 hours of our 8 hour flight being called a bitch and having this drunk jerk-off reach around his seats to our seats and knock our food off our trays and sexually harrass us and shout racial slurs as the egyptian family behind us AND throw pillows and magazines and the flight attendants we finally landed. (Side note- the crew did bring out hang cuffs at one point but didnt want to put them on the dude because then he would atomatically have to go to jail upon landing for 2 months and since he was a first class flyer that would just be bad for buisness). Anywho, we stumbled into bangkok and somehow manged to find our hostel and internet (had to let mom know i was alive). Walking back from the internet cafe that night we saw an elephant walking in the traffic with a blinking light on its tail. Ahh Thailand (reference to the movie "Volunteers" circa 1980s tom hanks/john candy making fun of peace corps in thailand...must see it if you haven't).
Saturday we awoke unsure what day it was or where the hell we were, but knowing that there was shopping to be done! Oh and it was my birthday. So we spent the day shopping at the weekend market and then had a couple drinks that night to celebrate the quarter century.
We are trying as hard as we can to pretend that jag lag doesnt happen to people like us, but im not gonna lie today was a bit of a struggle. We went back to the weekend market of a few hours because really, its just that awesome. I mean seriously this place is HUGE! And they have everything you could ever want! The down side is that Asians are tiny and after a year of eating taro and coconut cream i am not. There fore none of the clothes fit but between sefa and myself i think we have bought about 45 bags...whatever they cost like 3usd a piece...and they make us feel pretty.
After more market shopping we came back to our side of town and treated our selves to thai massages. amazing. Now we are heading back to the airport to fly to chaing mai in the north of thailand to meet up with my good friend doug young (from wisconsin) his girlfriend and a couple of peace corps volunteers from thailand (Go peace corps GO!) for new years. Life is a highway. Happy new years!

christmas in Samoa

Twas the night before christmas
and all through my hut
all the creatures were stirring
even the dino-rats and cockroaches...
Ok apparently i suck at rhyming. So, christmas eve was actually pretty cool this year, mostly because i was substantially less homesick than i was last year. I spent christmas eve day running around apia trying to get everything i needed for thailand since i am leaving the morning of the 27th and christmas and boxing day are holidays here. For this reason christmas eve in apia was more obnoxious than shopping in new york during christmas season...ok probably not but it felt like it. Large crowds scare me these days (good thing i am going to bangkok tomorrow) so apia was a bit overwhelming. The highlight of my day came when trying to cross the road and a cooler bounced out of the back of a bus. Wouldnt have been to big of a problem if the cooler wasnt full of fish. Gross. Of course no one on the bus noticed so the fish stayed where there were for who knows how long.
At any rate, got a ride back to Tafatafa that afternoon and had a few glasses of wine while watching the christmas episode of grey anatomy (season 2) and making a cake for the next day. why cake on christmas, well i will tell you. Sina, a girl who lives across the street from me, turned 25 of christmas and as i was also turning 25 a few days later i decided that we should celebrate our birthdays together on christmas. So i made a cake that was actually a layer of brownies covered in chocolate icing with a layer of chocolate fudge cake and an other layer of chocolate icing. Apparently i like chocolate.
So after i was done with all this i laid down to go to sleep only to be awoken at 1230 by music or something....after listening for a few minutes i realized it was singing so i got up to investigate. When i looked out my window i saw the methodists dressed in their sunday best (i.e. all white) singing samoan christmas songs in the road! It was just a full moon a few nights ago so it was bright enough to see them. I went and sat on the steps of the womens committee fale next to my house and listened to them walk up and down the road carolling for a little while and then went back inside to fall asleep hearing them singing. Even though being far from home on christmas it is nice to be away from the commercial christmas and remember what christmas is all about...
More to come on christmas, but for now i have to run to the boxing day festivities. Hope everyone had a merry christmas!

aaaand was happen?

Well, its been a bit hectic 'round these parts the last few weeks. School ended this last week and we had prize giving last Thursday. In samoa they do prize giving as a sort of graduation in all the schools. The top 3 kids in each grad get prizes that usually consist of pots and pans for their families...that is unless the kid is in one of my reading groups. Thanks to mom and grandma, the top kids in my classes got candy, stickers, and books. Which I was extremely excited about, forgetting that in Samoa no one person owns anything, but the family owns everything. Therefore, when you give a child a present they turn around and give it to their parents who do whatever they see fit with it...It is a beautiful custom in many ways because I always see the kids sharing everything they have, but when you make presents specifically for certain children...anyway...it was great
After prize giving all the teachers went back to the office and divided up the mea alofa (gifts) from the parents i.e. money and tinned fish. Then we all thanked eachother for a wonderful year and i apologized for being a stupid palagi (white person) and we laughed and cried and hugged and then went home and passed out...
Well i was going to write you all a list of all the books i have read over the past year in samoa but then i realized i was hungry and there is a fish burger down the street calling my name. so more to come..