The Samoan Adventure: Horton hears a who

Mountains and mustaches this is a busy month!! So Condi came. Yeah…that happened. Recently my secondary projects are taking over my life. So in Peace Corps you have your primary project, for me that is basically Malaki or teaching special needs, whatever floats your politically correct boat. Since Malaki now has a hearing aide, a trained teachers aide in his classroom, and weekly classes in Apia for children with hearing disabilities I have taken the liberty of getting involved in a few secondary projects. Secondary projects can really take on any form and can be quite fun…unless you try to do too many.
The Women’s committee approached me recently (after a year and a half in the village they finally realized I am here) and asked if I would help them organize a first aide training day. Neato in a speedo, I thought. I immediately contacted the Red Cross who was more than willing to come spend a day training the men and women of our village how to do CPR and other basic first aide training. So we were all set to go the last week of July, but one must remember that nothing is that easy in Samoa. Wouldn’t you know that the wife of the President of the Mormon church in our district (and the mother of one of our teachers) happens to pass away that week and of course the funeral is scheduled the day that our first aide training would have been (hope that doesn’t make me sound too heartless). Ah, well. E le afaina (no problem) as I have found myself saying way too much recently. We re-scheduled for August 7th to start at 9am at Leapaga’s house (the house across the street from me where my counterpart Sina lives). At 9am on said day at said house I found myself sitting with 3 chiefs and 1 lady from the women’s committee. Anger doesn’t even begin to explain what I was feeling in the moment. Then to my astonishment (although I guess I really shouldn’t have been) one of the chiefs said “oh well, Lola didn’t tell us what time the program was going to start.” This was the same chief who called me at 6am that very morning to confirm that the program started at 9am, but yeah sure, I guess I could see how this was all my fault. With gritted teeth I told the one lady to start making phone calls as I took off down the road running to as many houses as I could telling people to come to the first aide training that they had insisted I organize. By 10am we had about 12 people which I felt was a pretty good turn-out considering.
The rest of the training went smoothly. Everyone seemed interested and asked questions and at the end of the day our chiefs asked the Red Cross to come back for a second training later that month. I’ll call that a success
In even more exciting news…OUR COMPUTERS ARRIVED!!! Of course getting them off the port and to my school on the opposite side of the island was about as fun as a root canal, but we did it! Everyone is very excited and we all want to thank every person that helped make this happen.
In other current developments, my counterpart, Sina, was offered a job as a teacher’s assistant at Salealua Primary school which is about 4 villages down. Ella (Malaki’s mother) found a little girl in Salealua who also has a hearing disability and Donna (who runs our little Apia program on Fridays) negotiated a job with the Ministry of Education for Sina at Salealua School. It was bittersweet moment as it is an excellent opportunity for Sina to have a job on her own at a new school, but I was sad to see her go as she was excited to help teach computers with me and she was enthusiastic about my library program and helped check-out the books to kids every day.
Career Day is next Friday, which is when we at our little NGO, Avanoa Tutusa, invite all the kids in year 12 and 13 to attend a career fair at the National University of Samoa. Last year we had over 1000 kids and 40-50 business present. This year we are inviting schools from Upolu and Savaii. It is a LOT of planning and negotiating and will be wonderful to see go off successfully.
I’m also still working with the women’s committee to organize a sewing day to help them learn how to use the sewing machines I helped them attain through a grant from New Zealand. Is there not anyone in this country who will come teach our women to sew for a day?!
So that’s that. Hope I don’t sound too whiny. I just add those bits for satirical purposes…for your enjoyment really…