Ive recently noticed that my writing styles tend to mimic whatever author I am reading and for the past few weeks I have been reading Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aide Acid Test, so bare with me…
Well, I believe the “soccer season” has finally come to an end. The games were always fun to look forward to, but I was becoming a little tired of every single Samoan in our district (at least 10 villages) man, woman, child, elder demanding “Lola, Siva (dance)!” every minute I was there, which by the way the games last from 8am to 3pm. This last Wednesday was ANZAC day, which is a holiday in New Zealand. For those of you who don’t know, New Zealand is a group of islands approximately 1600 miles from Samoa, so naturally we didn’t have school. Instead we played soccer. Our under12 boys won the district…I think…And our under 14 boys lost in a heartbreaking 0-1 game.
Remember that time that there was the poor exchange student in your middle school and use to kind of make fun of his accent and giggle when he messed up words? Remember how it was the funniest thing ever to teach him swear words and tell him that it really meant “chair” or “pencil”? Haha, man were those good times…karma sucks. So the other day we are having lunch and I sneezed. One of the teachers says, “Ia, ua ti’o le povi.” Huh? Oh you know, it’s a Samoan thing you say when someone sneezes, it means the cows are crying. Oh cool. Being the disciplined disciple of the Samoan language I dutifully jot it down. Yesterday, teacher sneezes. “Ia, ua ti’o le povi.” HAHAHAHAHA! Hmmm….they are laughing harder than usual. Lets take a peak at the dictionary. Ti’o, ti’o, ti’o….ahhh here it is…yes “ti’o v. (not for decent use)” (The dictionary actually said “not for decent use!) “…to ease one’s bowels, to defecate.” Classy. The cows are….nice.
One week left in the first term and then we have a break from May 4- May21. The first week Im planning on biking around the big island, Savaii with a few other PCVs. The second week we have our early service conference at some beach fales in lalomanu. Early service conference is for just our group after the first 6 months. Have I been here for 6 months?
So I got barby-dolled for the first time the other day. Often time peace corps volunteers have Samoan families who are really excited to dress up their palagi (white person) in samoan attire, hence the phrase being barby-dolled. The other day I had set up a meeting with the matais in my village in a peace corps staff member to discuss a project I was trying to get going with the women’s committee. The meeting was supposed to be at 10am so I was planning on going to school first and was going about my daily morning routine, i.e. no Samoan before coffee, very strict rule, when mama Sally drives up in the truck. I thought she was gonna drop off some clothes but no, Lola get in the truck. But…I…ok, never argue with a Samoan woman on a mission unfortunately weighs more heavily than the coffee rule. I get in the truck and we go to her house where she has made me a beautiful new puletasi (woke up at 4am to finish it!) and demands that I put it on now so she can see. Of course I oblige. Mmmhmm good, now sit. Next thing I know my hair is done up like I am going to prom with flowers and all. It was actually very nice and who knew they had hair spray in Samoa?
I got to mix the ava again at the meeting and this time I didn’t fall into the ava bowl afterwards which was nice. The rest of the meeting achieved absolutely nothing, but lets not talk about that. Am I becoming jaded…
No, I am not. I really do love my village. Recently the days have been flying by. Multiple times I have been walking home after helping a kid with homework or just enjoying a meal with a family and look up at the southern sky and feel like, didn’t I just wake up? Ok mom here is the schedule of the last few weeks of my life because I know you and absolutely no one else wants to know.
650- wake up…coffee….
730- stumble up the hill to school
740-830ish hang out with teachers and try to follow their conversations
830-2 teacher…sort of
2-3 either read or sew or go help my buddy malaki (we can come back to him)
3-5 soccer practice
5-630 dance and song practice with the kids at the church
7- help kids with homework or help my one computer student
8- Lola time
Malaki is my little buddy who is in year 1 and has a big old hole in his eardrum which makes it a bit hard to hear. I am working on getting him a hearing aide from an Australian NGO, but in the mean time we are learning sign language, the alphabet, colors, numbers, etc. But Laura, you don’t know sign language, you might say. No, I don’t and not only that they have a different sign language here than they do in the states, but no fear. I am a peace corps volunteer, hence, I take myself far to seriously. And there is a nice little DVD for Samoan sign language that just came out, so that helps. Anywho, Ive been helping out Malaki and his mom so she can know some of the signs as well. He is my one little project that has been going very smoothly and has had no problems thus far…
Well, Samoa is still here and so am I. Hope everyone is happy and well. Letters and emails always welcome.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
And then a little something
Just a few more for viewing pleasure...
St Praticks day in Samoa. We dont like to have fun here...
Kids, front of my school. Go Nene!
Yeah infected feet!
Little known fact: Samoans hate the sun. Tonipo on the right has his school i'e on his head and his buddy Arona is using his school shirt.
Standing on the "porch" of my school "coaching" the soccer team. You can just barely see the ocean over the tops of houses. I mean its not the worst view....
Its BABY LOLA! This is in my training village, Maasina, with my sister Sele (holding baby lola) and little Vitale on the right, the love of my life. This is shortly before I passed out from heat exhaustion after biking 15 miles in the equatorial sun.Oh what a long strange trip it has been…continues to be and will be. Samoan primary school soccer season is in full force. We had our first games the week before last at a village down the road. All the kids were so cute in their matching “uniforms” (random blue shirts and random red shorts). We were the first school to arrive to “game day” and we sat politely under the little sign that had the name of our school and waited for the other teams…and waited…and waited… Eventually the other schools began to slowly trickle in. There were maybe 10-12 schools in all. Of course in the atmosphere of sport and anticipation I, along with the kids, began to grow antsy after the first hour. Fortunately Samoans and I make a winning combination, as they love to sing and laugh at very silly things and I enjoy making an ass of myself. Naturally, I took center stage and directed them in some camp songs I had taught them. I taught them the banana song which, if you don’t know, is a winner with kids and involves dancing around like a banana ending with the grand finale of screaming, “Go bananas, go, go bananas!” It pretty much brings me to tears every time because the kids have no idea what they are saying they just jump around yelling whatever. The kids from the other schools were so in awe of our sweet new song that when we finished they all started clapping and chanting “banana, banana!” That counts as sustainable development right?
Eventually we started playing and it was just so weird to think about all the soccer games my parents drove me to when I was growing up and how all the kids on my teams were always decked out in shin guards, matching socks, cleats, clean new uniforms, etc. And here are the Samoan kids. Just as excited and pumped to play soccer, but their shirts are hand-me-downs or ripped or too big, their shorts don’t match, and cleats…haha! I think I saw maybe 3 kids wearing shoes. But it just goes to show, no matter what the conditions are, mankind just loves sports!
Last weekend (March 24-25) I decided to ride my bike out to my training village, Ma’asina, to visit my training family. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the geography of Upolu island, my village, Tafatafa, is a 30 mile round trip to Ma’asina with some pretty monster mountains in between. First stupid mistake, thinking I am Lance Armstrong. Second idiot move, leaving for Ma’asina at 10am on Saturday, hence biking up mountains when the sun is the absolute hottest on an island where we can spit on the equator. Thanks to our Lord and Savior J.H.C. I am still alive today. It was great to see the family and remind myself how beautiful that village is. When I got there I was happy to see that my family had recently purchased a truck. When I left the next day they graciously drove me over the first two massive mountains (the first 4 miles). The road leading into Ma’asina is a long, VERY curvy, VERY narrow, gravely, loose, road down a steep, STEEP mountain. This was the road that my brother, Manu, decided to teach my other brother, Lafo, how to drive their new stick shift truck (mom, maybe you should skip this part) with me and my bike in the back of the truck. Again, thanks to our Lord and Savior I made it out alive.
Don’t know if anybody heard about the earthquake off the coast of the Solomon islands on Sunday. Peace Corps issued a formal Tsunami warning in Samoa Unfortunately this was at 2pm on Sunday which is right after Sunday feast and national nap time. So as exciting as it would have been to run for the hills, I stayed put in my bed. Luckily the tsunami in question was another 18 incher.
I had one more near death experience today as well as a valuable learning experience. I learned today that it is very important to never tell a Samoan to please stop singing. One of our teachers thought it would be really cute to sing me a nice little song in the English language. Very nice of her, except the song in question was the %$^@$ Barney song “I love you, you love me…”remember that little tune that makes all people in the whole of the US want desperately to be put to death as soon as physically possibly? Right, well I asked her politely to please not sing that particular song. She thought that was funny and decided to show me how you can sing it in Samoan too, and proceeded to show me…the whole song. Sigh, yes that’s nice, but please stop. Well, she just couldn’t understand how I couldn’t like a song in my own language so she sang in again in English just to make sure I hadn’t been mistaken. At this point I put my head down on the table and tried desperately not to drive my pen into my eyeball. Finally she finished, looked at me with a confused look and then abruptly went to class. I went back to reading my Economist glad to have survived the audible torture. The other teacher in the room looked at me as if I had just strangled a kitten. “What has happened? Why would you do that?” I tried to explain that I just don’t like the song, just like he probably doesn’t like certain things. Yeah, no go. Had to go formally apologize for my rudeness. If I ever meet the schmuck who invented that song I will kick him in the shins.
Eventually we started playing and it was just so weird to think about all the soccer games my parents drove me to when I was growing up and how all the kids on my teams were always decked out in shin guards, matching socks, cleats, clean new uniforms, etc. And here are the Samoan kids. Just as excited and pumped to play soccer, but their shirts are hand-me-downs or ripped or too big, their shorts don’t match, and cleats…haha! I think I saw maybe 3 kids wearing shoes. But it just goes to show, no matter what the conditions are, mankind just loves sports!
Last weekend (March 24-25) I decided to ride my bike out to my training village, Ma’asina, to visit my training family. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the geography of Upolu island, my village, Tafatafa, is a 30 mile round trip to Ma’asina with some pretty monster mountains in between. First stupid mistake, thinking I am Lance Armstrong. Second idiot move, leaving for Ma’asina at 10am on Saturday, hence biking up mountains when the sun is the absolute hottest on an island where we can spit on the equator. Thanks to our Lord and Savior J.H.C. I am still alive today. It was great to see the family and remind myself how beautiful that village is. When I got there I was happy to see that my family had recently purchased a truck. When I left the next day they graciously drove me over the first two massive mountains (the first 4 miles). The road leading into Ma’asina is a long, VERY curvy, VERY narrow, gravely, loose, road down a steep, STEEP mountain. This was the road that my brother, Manu, decided to teach my other brother, Lafo, how to drive their new stick shift truck (mom, maybe you should skip this part) with me and my bike in the back of the truck. Again, thanks to our Lord and Savior I made it out alive.
Don’t know if anybody heard about the earthquake off the coast of the Solomon islands on Sunday. Peace Corps issued a formal Tsunami warning in Samoa Unfortunately this was at 2pm on Sunday which is right after Sunday feast and national nap time. So as exciting as it would have been to run for the hills, I stayed put in my bed. Luckily the tsunami in question was another 18 incher.
I had one more near death experience today as well as a valuable learning experience. I learned today that it is very important to never tell a Samoan to please stop singing. One of our teachers thought it would be really cute to sing me a nice little song in the English language. Very nice of her, except the song in question was the %$^@$ Barney song “I love you, you love me…”remember that little tune that makes all people in the whole of the US want desperately to be put to death as soon as physically possibly? Right, well I asked her politely to please not sing that particular song. She thought that was funny and decided to show me how you can sing it in Samoan too, and proceeded to show me…the whole song. Sigh, yes that’s nice, but please stop. Well, she just couldn’t understand how I couldn’t like a song in my own language so she sang in again in English just to make sure I hadn’t been mistaken. At this point I put my head down on the table and tried desperately not to drive my pen into my eyeball. Finally she finished, looked at me with a confused look and then abruptly went to class. I went back to reading my Economist glad to have survived the audible torture. The other teacher in the room looked at me as if I had just strangled a kitten. “What has happened? Why would you do that?” I tried to explain that I just don’t like the song, just like he probably doesn’t like certain things. Yeah, no go. Had to go formally apologize for my rudeness. If I ever meet the schmuck who invented that song I will kick him in the shins.
And now for your viewing enjoyment...
My kids pulling away after the soccer games
The "school bus" that took pretty much our entire school to the soccer games. There were about 15 pick up trucks packed with kids from all the villages and they were all singing songs and just happy as can be. 
I mean...really...can you get any cuter?
Tafea, Gloria, Uesa, and Emeline hanging out before the game.
All the primary schools lining up getting ready to begin the games!
Mania (his name means "nice" in english so that is what all his friends call him) on the left and Iemi on the right. Some of my favorite year 8 boys who love to rock my pink sunglasses.
This is about hour 2 of waiting for the soccer to start...Kids are still excited though and keeping a very good watch on my bike I might add.Oh what a long strange trip it has been…continues to be and will be. Samoan primary school soccer season is in full force. We had our first games the week before last at a village down the road. All the kids were so cute in their matching “uniforms” (random blue shirts and random red shorts). We were the first school to arrive to “game day” and we sat politely under the little sign that had the name of our school and waited for the other teams…and waited…and waited… Eventually the other schools began to slowly trickle in. There were maybe 10-12 schools in all. Of course in the atmosphere of sport and anticipation I, along with the kids, began to grow antsy after the first hour. Fortunately Samoans and I make a winning combination, as they love to sing and laugh at very silly things and I enjoy making an ass of myself. Naturally, I took center stage and directed them in some camp songs I had taught them. I taught them the banana song which, if you don’t know, is a winner with kids and involves dancing around like a banana ending with the grand finale of screaming, “Go bananas, go, go bananas!” It pretty much brings me to tears every time because the kids have no idea what they are saying they just jump around yelling whatever. The kids from the other schools were so in awe of our sweet new song that when we finished they all started clapping and chanting “banana, banana!” That counts as sustainable development right?
Eventually we started playing and it was just so weird to think about all the soccer games my parents drove me to when I was growing up and how all the kids on my teams were always decked out in shin guards, matching socks, cleats, clean new uniforms, etc. And here are the Samoan kids. Just as excited and pumped to play soccer, but their shirts are hand-me-downs or ripped or too big, their shorts don’t match, and cleats…haha! I think I saw maybe 3 kids wearing shoes. But it just goes to show, no matter what the conditions are, mankind just loves sports!
Last weekend (March 24-25) I decided to ride my bike out to my training village, Ma’asina, to visit my training family. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the geography of Upolu island, my village, Tafatafa, is a 30 mile round trip to Ma’asina with some pretty monster mountains in between. First stupid mistake, thinking I am Lance Armstrong. Second idiot move, leaving for Ma’asina at 10am on Saturday, hence biking up mountains when the sun is the absolute hottest on an island where we can spit on the equator. Thanks to our Lord and Savior J.H.C. I am still alive today. It was great to see the family and remind myself how beautiful that village is. When I got there I was happy to see that my family had recently purchased a truck. When I left the next day they graciously drove me over the first two massive mountains (the first 4 miles). The road leading into Ma’asina is a long, VERY curvy, VERY narrow, gravely, loose, road down a steep, STEEP mountain. This was the road that my brother, Manu, decided to teach my other brother, Lafo, how to drive their new stick shift truck (mom, maybe you should skip this part) with me and my bike in the back of the truck. Again, thanks to our Lord and Savior I made it out alive.
Don’t know if anybody heard about the earthquake off the coast of the Solomon islands on Sunday. Peace Corps issued a formal Tsunami warning in Samoa Unfortunately this was at 2pm on Sunday which is right after Sunday feast and national nap time. So as exciting as it would have been to run for the hills, I stayed put in my bed. Luckily the tsunami in question was another 18 incher.
I had one more near death experience today as well as a valuable learning experience. I learned today that it is very important to never tell a Samoan to please stop singing. One of our teachers thought it would be really cute to sing me a nice little song in the English language. Very nice of her, except the song in question was the %$^@$ Barney song “I love you, you love me…”remember that little tune that makes all people in the whole of the US want desperately to be put to death as soon as physically possibly? Right, well I asked her politely to please not sing that particular song. She thought that was funny and decided to show me how you can sing it in Samoan too, and proceeded to show me…the whole song. Sigh, yes that’s nice, but please stop. Well, she just couldn’t understand how I couldn’t like a song in my own language so she sang in again in English just to make sure I hadn’t been mistaken. At this point I put my head down on the table and tried desperately not to drive my pen into my eyeball. Finally she finished, looked at me with a confused look and then abruptly went to class. I went back to reading my Economist glad to have survived the audible torture. The other teacher in the room looked at me as if I had just strangled a kitten. “What has happened? Why would you do that?” I tried to explain that I just don’t like the song, just like he probably doesn’t like certain things. Yeah, no go. Had to go formally apologize for my rudeness. If I ever meet the schmuck who invented that song I will kick him in the shins.
Eventually we started playing and it was just so weird to think about all the soccer games my parents drove me to when I was growing up and how all the kids on my teams were always decked out in shin guards, matching socks, cleats, clean new uniforms, etc. And here are the Samoan kids. Just as excited and pumped to play soccer, but their shirts are hand-me-downs or ripped or too big, their shorts don’t match, and cleats…haha! I think I saw maybe 3 kids wearing shoes. But it just goes to show, no matter what the conditions are, mankind just loves sports!
Last weekend (March 24-25) I decided to ride my bike out to my training village, Ma’asina, to visit my training family. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the geography of Upolu island, my village, Tafatafa, is a 30 mile round trip to Ma’asina with some pretty monster mountains in between. First stupid mistake, thinking I am Lance Armstrong. Second idiot move, leaving for Ma’asina at 10am on Saturday, hence biking up mountains when the sun is the absolute hottest on an island where we can spit on the equator. Thanks to our Lord and Savior J.H.C. I am still alive today. It was great to see the family and remind myself how beautiful that village is. When I got there I was happy to see that my family had recently purchased a truck. When I left the next day they graciously drove me over the first two massive mountains (the first 4 miles). The road leading into Ma’asina is a long, VERY curvy, VERY narrow, gravely, loose, road down a steep, STEEP mountain. This was the road that my brother, Manu, decided to teach my other brother, Lafo, how to drive their new stick shift truck (mom, maybe you should skip this part) with me and my bike in the back of the truck. Again, thanks to our Lord and Savior I made it out alive.
Don’t know if anybody heard about the earthquake off the coast of the Solomon islands on Sunday. Peace Corps issued a formal Tsunami warning in Samoa Unfortunately this was at 2pm on Sunday which is right after Sunday feast and national nap time. So as exciting as it would have been to run for the hills, I stayed put in my bed. Luckily the tsunami in question was another 18 incher.
I had one more near death experience today as well as a valuable learning experience. I learned today that it is very important to never tell a Samoan to please stop singing. One of our teachers thought it would be really cute to sing me a nice little song in the English language. Very nice of her, except the song in question was the %$^@$ Barney song “I love you, you love me…”remember that little tune that makes all people in the whole of the US want desperately to be put to death as soon as physically possibly? Right, well I asked her politely to please not sing that particular song. She thought that was funny and decided to show me how you can sing it in Samoan too, and proceeded to show me…the whole song. Sigh, yes that’s nice, but please stop. Well, she just couldn’t understand how I couldn’t like a song in my own language so she sang in again in English just to make sure I hadn’t been mistaken. At this point I put my head down on the table and tried desperately not to drive my pen into my eyeball. Finally she finished, looked at me with a confused look and then abruptly went to class. I went back to reading my Economist glad to have survived the audible torture. The other teacher in the room looked at me as if I had just strangled a kitten. “What has happened? Why would you do that?” I tried to explain that I just don’t like the song, just like he probably doesn’t like certain things. Yeah, no go. Had to go formally apologize for my rudeness. If I ever meet the schmuck who invented that song I will kick him in the shins.
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