a new link

I just added a new link, the Borealis Expedition. These are some pretty amazing girls I know from camp who are paddling for 90 days this summer to the arcitic circle...and get this...its the second time they have done it. Very envious of their travles and just in awe of their general hard coreness. Check it out if you have time.
In other news, Dad arrives Wednesday. Gonna be a very busy week running around the national hospital and having a health clinic on Stephanie's island, Manono. Looking forward to some all-american chaos!

Ode to chicken in a bag

Last Thursday my teachers informed me that there was an all-principal meeting in Siumu on Friday (as in the next day). That’s nice, I’m glad it doesn’t concern me…oh how little I (still) know. Apparently because of this big to-do we (as in all of the teachers) were required to spend Thursday night at the school in order to prepare the umu (remember- the ground ovens Samoans make with lava rocks that are heated on a fire) with lots of pig, taro, palesami, etc. OK…I knew I would at least get a good story out of this or just very little sleep.
They told me to come to school at 4pm that night, but I am now very good at this game. If a Samoan tells you to be somewhere at 4 do not even think about being there any earlier that 6. Feeling very proud of myself for at least understanding this part of the culture (it only took 18 months) I wandered up to the school a little past 6pm. The teachers were all sitting outside, not really doing anything, which wasn’t really that much of a surprise. I have also learned to always bring a book to any Samoan function because there will probably be 6 hours of nothing to the 1 hour of whatever the event is, you may think I exaggerate, but you are wildly mistaken…
So, I settled down on the steps and got out my book when little Sina trudges up to me with a rice sack slung over her shoulder. She plops down on the step next to me with great effort and swings the sack around so it falls between us. By the way, Sina is maybe 5-years-old. I give her a nod of acknowledgement, which she returns. After a few seconds silence she points to the bag and says matter-o-factly, “O le moa”. That pretty much means “It’s a chicken.” Half way through translating “No, no, silly that is a rice sack,” I realize the rice sack is actually quivering a bit…
Instead, I say in Samoan, “There’s a chicken…inside the bag?”
“Yup,” as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Uhh…well is it…dead?”
“Nope,” and with that she lost interested and trotted off to play with the other kids leaving me with the chicken…in a bag. Wellllll, okkkaaaaay. Better play this one cool and just keep reading and pretend that what is sitting inside the rice sack next to me isn’t sitting in the rice sack next to me. Maybe 5 minutes go by….

Malaki and Sina with her beloved chicken in a bag

Then I think the chicken in the bag all of the sudden realized “OH SH#*! I’m in a bag! This is definitely not going to bode well for my future!” And with that realization, the rice sack made a blood curdling “SQUAAAAACK!!” and flew about 3 feet in the air and proceeded to bounce off toward the toilets. At this point, half of the teachers began berating little Sina for being so careless as to leave chicken in a bag for the dumb white girl to look after while the other half of the teachers began chasing after chicken in a bag. I did the most understandable thing in such a situation which was to pee my pants laughing.

Its a chicken in a bag

Later that night when I realized there was going to be no food making (at least not by us, but the 6 or 7 year eight boys that were there were pretty busy…) I decided to go to my house where there was…you know…a bed. As much fun as it would have been to sleep on the cement floor with all the teachers and the pre-pubescent year eight boys (calm down Kyla) I opted for my quiet house instead. After I had just fallen asleep (Samoans in my village have a knack for sensing the moment that I fall asleep and then knocking on my door to ask for something) one of the year eight boys knocks on the door.
“Lola, we need to use your refrigerator.” The good news was that the chicken in a bag had found a friend…the bad news was that they were spending the night in my refrigerator…and thus was the end of chicken in a bag.
Tune in next week for elephants stampeding through the village!

The sad end to chicken in a bag

Everybody loves pictures...right?

Malaki and Luisa learning to make koko Samoa...a little heavy on the sugar

Malaki at school with his fellow hearing diabled friends! yeah! Look how cute they are!

Ok I just had to put this on here. Anyone who has worked in Samoa before can see the frustration oozing out of this picture. These are all of my teachers. These are all of my teachers on their cell phones...every one of them. They are all either playing this "snake" game that makes a sound like this "shhhoomp! ding!" over and over again or they are going through the list of ring tones on the loudest possible volume...over and over again. Now times this by 5 hours a day then multiply by 5 days a week...do you see where I am coming from??

AHHH!!! The finished and cleaned new computer lab/library! The kids spent all day yesterday cleaning out the room (which was really gross and Im sorry I don't have before pics) and sorting through old books. That is Sina my counterpart leaning on the new computer tables.

This is a view of the computer lab from the opposite side of the room. Pretty nice eh?

Kids reading when I didn't even tell them to!

All the kids sorting through the old, gross books.

the man from mars

The finished product that actually has nothing to do whith what this blog is about...

For some reason the first day/week of new terms are always the most interesting…for various reasons… Last Monday was our first day of term 2. I would like to show all of you how my first 5 minutes of school went and maybe you will understand why I have to recite in my head 50 times a day “I am making a difference.” So, I walk into school in my new school outfit all excited about my gifts for the teachers from America and all the medical supplies I brought for our disaster of a medical kit (see my blog entry for the first day of term 1 if you are curious) and this is what happens- there are two teachers sitting in the office and they look up and say in Samoan-
“OHHHH Lola!” slight pause to look me up and down which I am disturbingly use to and say “You got fat.”
Through gritted teeth I say, “Why thank you, how nice of you to notice!”
“OHHH Lola’s angry.”
Perceptive bunch they are.
We then proceeded to sit in the office and rotate between eating and staring at each other for the rest of the week. That is very, very boring. Good news for me, I am reading Stranger in a Strange Land the unedited version which is 655 pages long, therefore I did not die of complete boredom and insanity. Oh the best part about presenting the teachers with their presents (gifts are a big thing around here) was when they did not thank me, they thanked…John i.e. Dad! Because Dad is the “chief” of our family he’s really the only one of any importance, so even though he had nothing to do with the gifts that Mary and I picked out he gets all the credit! Pretty cool, huh? I think after he retires he should come to Samoa so he can finally find a family that will do what he says. Speaking of Dad and Stranger in a Strange Land, which I am absolutely loving by the way, Jubal Harshaw may be my favorite literary character yet! Anywho, Jubal has many a wonderful quote in this book, one of which very much reminded me of all my friends and their father’s and it goes something like this
“A little more money won’t do you any good- because daughters can use up ten percent more than a man can make in any normal occupation, regardless of the amount. That’s a widely experienced but previously unformulated law of nature.”
He also has some pretty awesome quotes about religion (which is probably why many people wanted to ban this book back in the day) I would be more than willing to discuss these with anyone via email.
Well, I hope everyone is as proud as I am that I survived another first week of term, only one more to go! Oh the other good news is that I got an email from one John Quality Heckman to inform me that he put 4 computers plus a laptop in a crate and sent it off for Samoa on Monday. Which means that the computer lab of Nene Primary may be up and running by July!! I also convinced the school committee to give me 70 tala for more paint for my bookshelves and computer desks. This is pretty exciting as this is the same committee who didn’t even want a computer lab when I first asked. It’s also exciting because now I get to spend the next month covered in paint!

fire dancing

I am in Apia for a long weekend because a new peace corps group (group 80) arrived on Wednesday and we will be celebrating with a Fiafia tomorrow night.

I was lucky to be in tonight because it was the "Siva Afi" (samoan for fire dancing) competition tonight. Let me just say this is one Samoan custom that just never gets old. The guy in this video qualified to compete in the finals on Saturday. Pretty amazing. Enjoy

im back

Back in the SP (south pacific in case you needed a little help). Pretty useless right now after that wonderful red eye with a baby doing an imitation of a dying dinosaur next to me for the entire 10 hours. The ipod picked a wonderful time to stop working too. Eh, what can you do? Just did a little shopping and planning to go hide in my village for a little while, not quite sure how I am going to get everything out there since "budget cuts" won't allow peace corps to actually use the 45 cars we have parked in the driveway at our office. Wow, apparently when i am tired i am bitter. Anywho, for those of you who I saw in the US of A it was wonderful to see you and I had a fantastical time, for everyone else I will be back in 6 months, call my secretary, we'll do lunch.

The American Adventure

Did you know that in America there are no cats and the streets are filled with cheese?  True story.  I made it back to the US for the first time in a year and a half.  I can't believe I haven't set foot on American soil in a year and a half!  That is a long time.  It also is a long time to be on an airplane to get here.  I left Samoa at midnight on Monday/Tuesday the 28th/29th night in April and arrived in LA 10 hours later at 215pm Pacific time.  I then had a 9 hour layover.  I would say the bulk of my culture shock occured at this time.  I was planning on meeting my friend Louis who is getting his masters out in LA instead of sitting around the airport waiting for my flight.  Louis was running a little late picking me because apparently they have this thing called traffic in LA.  It was fine because there was a Starbucks 3 feet outside of customs.  Welcome to America.  There was also a little store where I could by my favorite magazine, flavored water, and swedish fish.  All in one place!  And I didn't have to walk 10 miles and sweat off 15 lbs!  Who knew life could be so easy?  

  At any rate, I sat down to enjoy my American luxuries when a nice little family that lets just call the "Fats" sat down next to me to enjoy their "reduced fat" steak and mayo sandwiches from Subway.  I was so intrigued by the fact that I could understand what they were saying that I couldnt help but eavesdrop.  I shortly after wished I could not understand what they were saying.  Now I cannot recall exactly what the conversation was about but I remember wanting to laugh, scream and cry all at once.  Something about needing more money for a gym membership so she could lose weight when she goes to visit her friend in London....

It was good to see Louis and his girlfriend Leah.  We went to a nice Mexican restaurant and then sat in traffic for old times sake.  I got on a plane Tuesday night and woke up in Chicago Wednesday April 30th.  Oddly enough Dad was there.  He had a meeting in chicago so he met me in the airport and treated me to a 530am breakfast.  All I can say about the buffet breakfast at the Hilton after a year and a half of coconuts and taro is OMG!!  

After breakfast I got on yet another plane to Madison, WI where my little sister and her good friend Jenn were waiting for me.  SOOO good to see them!  My first night in Madison I went out to sushi with Mary, Jenn, a few of their friends and Kyla (for more details see Kyla's blog in side bar).  Raw fish and good friends..oh and sake make a very nice combination.  

That weekend was MIFFLIN which Mary and I have been counting down to since...pretty much our whole lives I would say.  Mifflin is actually the name of a street where a lot of college kids get really drunk once a year and most of them end up in jail.  what fun?!  But for us it meant a rugby game.  The rugby game was actually suppose to be the UW team versus alum, but since I don't remember most of college I think it is fair enough that I be allowed to play for the UW alum, right?  So I did.  Turns out we played on a field that was down the hill from the town dump and oh yeah..it was raining.  Nothing like rolling around in fresh sewage to cure a hangover.  I have many a picture, as of now they are in an album on my facebook page, but I will work on getting them up on the old blog.  

Some more good camp friends came up for the weekend and my friend Jesse even ended up siring the game.  Good times.  After the game we got social...which....well...you know...

Last Monday I flew out to VA to really come back to my roots.  I thought it would be weird coming back home, but you just kinda get right back in the swing of things.  I went to work with Dad last Thurs and Fri which was amazing.  Apparently he is a big deal, who knew?  I even got to see someone's brain!  Surgery is neat.

Last weekend I went up to NOVA (for those that don't get east coast slang that is NOthern VirginiA, god we are cool down south).  I saw my two best friends from college which was just wonderful and at the same time a bit shameful.  One is engaged and one is living with a boyfriend and just got a dog.  I play in oceans...whatever.  

This week Im trying to finish up all my c'ville stuff, such as looking for jobs and filling out applications because that is all very hard to do in Samoa, what with the pen shortage...I am flying back to Madison early thursday morning and little sister Mary graduates from college this weekend!!  Can you believe it?  I think she is really still 8 and just put a dead snake on my phone, precious.

Well, that pretty much sums up the American adventure thus far.  I will be going back to Samoa on Tuesday May 27th for another 6 months of "duty" (I met a guy in DC last week who was just back from Iraq and told him that I was also in the "service" decided not to go too much into details with that one).  Anywho, great to be back in the US of A!