cats out of the bag...

Its true I got a tattoo...and there might be more...This was back in November. I went with Meghan and Molly from our group. I got the bottom part of the Malu which is the tattoo samoan women usually get. Sulu'ape (the man, the mythe and the legend) is the one hammering ink into my skin. It does not feel good, but it sure looks cool. anywho here are the pics

Sulu'ape and the boys holding me down.

I was having the opposite of fun here. Go badgers!

Close up of the traditional tattoo teeth. He uses the top stick to hammer the bottom stick which has teeth dipped in ink. I would like to say again that this does not feel good.

Finished product

Back view. The diamond shape is called the "Malu" and is the symbol used for Samoan women and for protection.

Sulu'ape (the tatooist in Samoa) sixing up my leg for work

ps- the video bellow is my entire school signing the Samoan National Anthem!

Who wants some more?

The computer lab/library!! Those are the computer tables on the left and the book shelves on the floor. Am so excite!

Moega (his name means bed) and Sioasi (his name means George) trying to drink the paint...

More wedding...here the bridesmaids are trying to figure out what they are supposed to do with the wedding cake....they didn't get to eat it thats for sure.

Stephanie having a stare down with the wedding cake

Dylan, Meg, Tim, and I at the wedding. Dylan is in the middle of saying "Yeah, friendship!" and im in the middle of trying to hide my fishing tan

birde and groom with the groomsmen behind. Sweet shirts eh?

Sustainable development!

What a tumultuous couple of weeks! Somebody got married, I got bit, or should I say attacked, by dogs (again), I helped paint 2 world maps, we had “field day” at school, April fools happened (the war continues…), and we finished season 2 of Veronica Mars (I can’t believe it was Beaver!). I have maybe hundreds of pics from all of the events (save for me watching TV and getting punked for april fools) so I hope the pics I can post do all the events justice.
Last Saturday (March 29th) Ema, a Peace Corps volunteer that came in the group before me (June 2006), was married to Lafi, a Samoan guy from her training village in Vaie’e. The wedding was very nice and although it was my 4th wedding in Samoa it was the first wedding I went to that wasn’t dry! Let me just make a point of saying here that a wedding without alcohol is just weird, seriously. Anywho, my friend Stephanie (who I went to Tailand with) and Sarah (aka Texas) were bridesmaids. Ema’s parents from America came which was special. It was all very fun and for the most part Samoan, which is to say…it was hot?
This last Friday (4/4) we had “play day”. About 2 weeks ago Sina, my counter part, and I went to a sports clinic in apia for children with special needs. It was quite fun and equally educational. So, we were allowed to show off our PE teacher skills on Friday and let me tell you, it is not easy to keep 70 Samoan children entertained for 2 hours in 90 degree heat! But we did it. My personal favorite was playing a game that is basically duck, duck, goose, except substituting the words for samoan, samoan, palagi (white person)! Its these little things that no one else understands that get me through the day. At any rate, the day went off quite nicely I thought.
That night I had my teacher friend, Tina, come over with some boys in her family and help trace the world map and the south pacific map on the wall of what will soon be our new computer lab! Speaking of, the computer desks and book shelves are finished! I have also heard from a certain blond New Englander that our computers should be arriving sometime in June (after I come back from my tour of the United States). So this is all very exciting as I am sure you can all see in my colorful writing style. Back to maps- we traced Friday, Saturday we filled in the color scheme…sort of. Then Monday night I had the kids from year 7 and 8 paint the map. It was only a semi-disaster and it actually looks kind of like a map which is a victory in my book!

77 and 76 girls and Ray at the wedding. Back row from left to right- Sally, Steph, Ray, Molly, Jan, Jordan, Ema, Jame, Texas and then its meg and I in front.

Always the ham...did i mention we were excited about there being alcohol at the wedding?

Lafi and Ema..awww

Here comes the bride...and Stephanie with the umbrella...

Ema, next to her dad at the church.

Can you see why painting a map on the wall with 13 year olds might be difficult?

The map! This was about the only time we had everyone concentrating

Painting the PC logo on the wall above the map...don't want anyone getting confused about where this map came from...

First step- trace the map

Play day! Thats the year 8 teacher playing

Everyone can play "Samoan, Samoan, Palagi!"

This is what Samoan leap frog looks like

the see-saw balance game..thing. These kids are strong!

life is neat

I added some links to blogs of friends that i think are neat. They are both friends from Wisconsin, Kyla is running around Europe being ridiculous and Ben is teaching in Chile for the next year. So if you enjoy blogs and you enjoy friends you should check them out!
Life in the old SP (South Pacific) is superidy duperdy! I could be going crazy but you know what they say, crazy is in the eye of the beholder...or whatever. I had another busy week running back and forth from the village to apia. I picked up 4,000tala worth of sewing machines, material, scissors, and thread for the women's committee yesterday. Thank you New Zealand aide and thank you to mrs. comings my second grade teacher who taught me how to write.
I found out wed that my principal signed Sina (my counterpart pictured in earlier blogs with cake) and I up for a special needs sports training for 3 days in apia next week. Apparently im going to learn how to play netball....
Anywho, gotta run, trying to decide whether to get on the bus or not...

Good deeds and pears

Last week was a week of good deeds…and pears! We started work on the computer lab at our school which was wonderful. Michael, who is a new peace corps volunteer living in Satalo which is a village about 10 min bike ride from me, is a very experience carpenter who has agreed to help build our computer lab. We put up screen and coco wire on the windows to help hinder some of the creepy crawlies from getting into the lab. We also discovered that I was a bit short on the measurements, so we could only cover about half the windows. No fear, though I made a trip to Apia this weekend to get more screen and coco wire.
On Wednesday Meghan and I were picked up by a Peace Corps car and taken out to Sapo’e to help set up a computer that was donated to the school there by another peace corps volunteer. I was mostly there for moral support as those of you who know me know that computers are not exactly my specialty (lets not get into why I am starting a computer lab at my school…its all very confusing here in Samoa…).
On Thursday during my afternoon jog I was hailed to a house of a good friend by a bunch of flailing children screaming “Lola sau!!” (Lola come here). The woman that lives at said house, Lise, is a wonderful lady on the Women’s committee in our village. I wrote a grant for their committee to get sewing machines which I have a check for, but we needed to work out logistics about when to pick them up and when we should start sewing classes, etc. Lise had been in American Samoa for the last few weeks so it was good to catch up with her again. As I was leaving she called me back to give me presents from her trip (in Samoa it is rude not to bring everyone and their mom presents after you come back from trips, more often than not presents are in the form of food). She sent her girls in the house and they come back out with a bag which she pulls out a box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts and then she pulls out a pear!! This might not sound very exciting, but when you haven’t seen a pear in over a year the sight of the sweet savory fruit is beyond exhilarating. I, of course, freaked out a little bit, which I think surprised Lise as she didn’t even know what the name of the fruit was.
Later that night, after I chilled the pear, I bit into it while standing in my kitchen and collapsed on the floor in fruity bliss. Im not kidding. So that is my story of the pear.
I volunteered with the Red Cross again last Saturday. We were helping out with the Manu Samoa 15s try-outs. For those that don’t know Manu Samoa is our national rugby team. Some of the players were there which is about as close to a celebrity sighting as I have gotten in awhile. Quite exciting really.

Now that is what i call sustainable development!! It might be hard to tell that this is my entire school and they are all signing the national anthem! Malaki (my brother from another mother, i.e. the little boy i teach with a hearing disability) is in the bottom left corner.

My buddy Michael putting up the screens for the computer lab at our school. He had a lot of eager helpers...

Michael and the boys cutting the screen for the windows

Meghan showing off her work. This is the computer we (and by we I mean meghan) installed at Sapo'e

Estimated Prophet

So i found some pics from all sorts of random things that i thought everyone might enjoy. Life is pretty swell here. I am starting to get really excited about going back to america for a visit at the end of april...vacation from vacation is good.
One of the peace corps girls in the group that came a few months before me is getting married to a samoan guy next month so we have bachlorette things to look forward to in the next month. Other than that, school has been keeping me the opposite of busy, but Ella (malaki's mom) is now a full time and paid teacher's assistant to help in malaki's class. This is very exciting because samoa has never had paid teacher's assistants before. Sustainable development! That is what i do!

My little pal Sina and I playing with a plate at the wedding. Lets hear it for the bright organge puletasi eh? Do i have style or what?

Meghan and I went to a wedding in my village...like 3 months ago, but whatever. It was our friend Tina and it was at the mormon church. So this is what a wedding in samoa looks like. Check out the cake on the right! Too bad only important people get the cake...luckily since the palagis (i.e. white people i.e. meg and i) were a package deal that apparently made us important. So we got half a round of cake. We were pretty siked.

Dylan, me, meghan. There is no time for fun in peace corps....

This is me and "baby dan" at meghan's house in siumu. Ok i know i say that i love every samoan kid, but baby dan is a pretty cool dude. He really wanted to wear my helmet even though it was all sweaty from my bike ride over. So i thought i would just give him a little practice run on my bike...in meghan's house. Im not really sure why she puts up withme...

This is Luisa and Malaki at school in apia. We made life-size cut outs of them that day and painted them the color of their school uniforms.

My boy Malaki playin with his new christmas toys on the beach.

Santa does come to samoa! He even came to Tafatafa beach...along with the rest of the special ed class of Senese school in Apia. Senese is the school that Malaki goes to on Fridays. He is in a class with 2 other little girls who live in villages and have hearing disablities. The whole crew joined us out at our beach last december. I am playing the part of santa's helper behind the picnic table.

Santa and Malaki