A Looooooooong Weekend

So I went to Manu'a this past Thursday to spend a long weekend with my friends KC and Courtney. The weekend was awesome, but I found out that my flight Sunday was cancelled, but they put me on the early flight on Monday. Then on Monday they changed the time of the flight but said they "couldn't contact" me to let me know, so I missed the flight. We then found out the the FAA has shut down the only airline that flies to Manu'a, Inter-Island, becuase none of their planes are up to saftey standards. However there is one chance to get off the island and that is the govener's plane which holds a whopping six people. Today KC and Courtney were supposed to fly out also so we all went to the airport at 7am to try to get on the flight. When the flight arrived at 10 not only were we not the ones to get on the flight, but they told us their was no other flight that day. Three minutes later we here the pilot turn and tell a matai's (cheif's) family that another flight would be back this afternoon to pick up more people. KC and Courtney are familiar with this getting shunted to the back as it happens to them as some of the few white people on theh island, and Samoans in the know admit that it is because we are white.

So this is what racism feels like! It's actually a good experience as I never really was treated like a second class citizen because of my race before.

When will I get home?

I seriously don't know. And it kind sucks cause I have to cancel my trip to Western Samoa which I am supposed to be leaving for tomorrow... blargh...

Fa'asamoa! I'm going to make the best of it regardless!

Produce Miracle!

Today after wogging (walk/jogging) at the track in Tafuna with Taylor, Scott and Thanh we stopped at KS mart to pick up a few things. As you may recall from earlier posts and my ever increasing signs of scurvy, American Samoa does not have many fruits or vegetables readily available unless it can grow here (breadfruit, bananas, Asian eggplant for some reason...). But today, lo and behold what do we find at KS? POMEGRANATES!

I love them, I really do - ever since my presentation on Persephone (Wikipedia it) in Junior/Senior Humanities. Taylor and I were pretty pumped, but due to an annoying habit of this island, the price was not posted anywhere and we wanted to know that it wasn't going to cost a millions dollars. When we asked about the price we discovered that the staff didn't even know what a pomegranate was because they have never seen them on island before. First pomegranates in AmSam in known history! (At least according to KS Mart staff)

My lucky day!

(Note: I am eating my pomegranate right now. Score!)

A Chaotic System

Last week my department head, Doug, told me that we were going to have a Christian Rock concert at school all morning on the 17^th. Yesterday at our morning flag raising assembly they announced to the students about the concert. Last night Thanh and I were discussing what the possible schedule would be and we agreed with what Doug had said which was that as our typical Tuesday schedule is: 5^th ,6^th ,1^st , lunch, 2^nd ,3^rd – that we would most likely have just 2^nd and 3^rd .

As I arrived at school today I said my usual 'good mornings' and snagged our morning bulletin. Blarg. Of course the message about the concert had been mistaken, and we actually still had Period 1 in the morning, just after the concert. I went to my room and spent the time before class started finishing up a lesson for period 1 as I had heard that we wouldn't have them and thus hadn't double checked that everything was ready. As the bell rang for assembly I walked with Dr. DeWees, another teacher in my department, and we discussed the pros and cons of the chaotic nature of our school system here.

The assembly was fun in its Jesusy way with the Kantina brothers turning out to be more of a Christian cover band more than a rock group, but still it was a nice change. As the assembly came to a close, Dorian came up and announced that there had been a little change in the schedule – figures – and that now we would have a 15 minute break, then 5^th period, lunch, and in the afternoon 6^th, 1^st, and 2^nd. But each was only going to be 45 minutes instead of the usual hour.

Sigh.

So we all went our separate ways to prepare for class. I didn't have to do much as 5^th period was my prep period, but as I settled in to get some work done Doug found me and asked me to cover 15 minutes of Dr. DeWees class since had left for town because 1^st period was his prep. I commiserate with the schedule changes so I had no problem covering, and headed down to Dr. D's classroom to wait for the bell. As I waited I played his guitar and just chilled, and as the bell rang only one student came in. Upon entering he dropped his bag and started to walk out so I hollered,

"Dr. D is going to be back in ten minutes so you need to come to class and can't skip" (kids skip all the time if their teacher is absent)

The kid popped his head back into the room and responded, "It's OK Miss Kate it is lunch time now."

"What???"

"Yeah the office changed the schedule again."

Double-blarg.

 

So I went and checked with Doug and was met with an exasperated shrug. As started sweeping my eyes over campus seeing if anyone was coming around with a memo and who did I see? Julia with a stack of papers! I hollered at her and we met midway and she handed me the new schedule with a total 'whatev-this-school-is-insane' look. So what was the new schedule?

10:20 – 11:45 Lunch

11:50 – 12:50 5^th Period

12:55 – 1:55 6^th Period

2:00 – 3:00 1^st Period

 

Why the heck not? Our fourth schedule for one day… The good part is that I had nothing to do essentially from 9:50 – 12:55, so I managed to get a lot of work done, and even find time to write this post.

 

Oh and they still haven't told us the schedule for tomorrow…

Aunu'u

What is the most wonderful Saturday you can imagine?

That is exactly the Saturday that I just had. The usual group (which I am beginning to refer to fondly as 'the crew') Thanh, Jesse, John, Cynthia, Scott, Taylor and me headed to the far east side of the island to catch a little pontoon boat to head to the island of Aunu'u for the day.

Aunu'u is a tiny little island about a mile of the coast of Tutuilla that is home to about 500 people and zero cars. To get to Aunu'u we parked in a small parking lot and took a $1 ferry boat ride to the wharf on island. The water was a bit choppy so we had a fun roller-coaster like ride to the island which gave us an awesome view of Tutuilla.

Once on the island we 'oooh'ed and 'ahhh'ed over the general cuteness (and cleanness) of the village, and then began our walk to the back side of the island were Taylor and Scott knew of a nice place to swim with a cool cave to check out. As we arrived at the site the tide was very low which was perfect for us to check out the cave. To get inside you have yo lower yourself into a hole in the rock and crawl through about ten meters of tunnel with a little water at the bottom (hence going at low tide...) which is thankfully still lit from some cracks in the rocks. Once you make it inside the cavern it opens up to a pretty huge space in which the waves crash in at the other end making an awesome/terrifying noise. The cavern itself is spectacular with the waves crashing around your shins and the gap in the side up near the ceiling letting in light to show the cool rock formations. In the center of the opening is a rock form that juts up that you can climb out to to escape the waves and get a nice very of the entire cavern. I only wish that it wasn't so wet so that I could have taken in my camera and gotten pictures!

Soon after we got into the cavern the tide started coming in, which was our cue to get out. The area of the beach we were at had a nice pool area where we could relax in chest deep water and just relax and talk for a bit. After we had enjoyed the water we dried off in the sun and ate lunch which I digested with a little nap afterward. Feeling re-energized we hiked back to the village and some of us went to the other nice sandy beach, but me and some others decided to do some snorkeling at the wharf. Despite the decent current the snorkeling was pretty good and I had a nice time checking out some of the fish. I especially enjoyed myself swimming in the middle of a school of banded flagtails as they would school around me and get very close. I felt just like one of the gang.Once my legs were tired from swimming in the current we joined the others on the beach were we looked for shells and then we laid out our towels in the sand to relax until it was time to leave.

After another wicked sweet boat ride we brushed the sand off and piled back in the car. We stopped to drop off our friend Jess (who we picked up on the way as she lives on the east side about 10 min from the ferry stop) and she and her hubby Charlie graciously let us rinse off and admire their ocean view love nest. We said our goodbyes and packed back in the car for our hour long drive back to civilization, and decided on the way to get some dinner at Koko Bean. Due most likely to our brains frying in the sun all day we all had mad fits of the giggles all during dinner and our after dinner coffee which rounded off our fantastically fun day.

As we finally emerged from our hours long dinner, we decided to call it a night as we were all beat. After dropping of those closer to the central area I arrived back home and as I was falling asleep all I could think was that days like this were what I had hoped for when I decided to move here. Awesome.

Aunu'u

PS. The first few pics are from the JV championship football game, and from Thanhs expression you can see it didn't go well... When we left it was 42 - 0.

Veterans Day (It's a real holiday here!)

For some unknown reason (although I suspect it has to do the with crazy patriotism here) all schools have Veterans Day off. This year the holiday fell on a Wednesday which beautifully cut our work week into two manageable two day bits.

A few weeks ago we had been postulating on what to duo with our surprise day off, Thanh and I offered to have a party at our house if it was ok with Salu and Ben. As soon as we mentioned it Taylor and Scott offered up their house and Thanh and I not-that-grudgingly deffered to them as they do have the beach house. Also as Taylor's B-day was on the Monday before, we figured that a Tuesday night party would be an awesome birthday celebration.

When Tuesday came around the plan ran smoothly. As many of us needed to catch the bus out to their house in Failolo which only ran until 5, and Taylor and Scoot didn't get out til 5 they left the key to the house in their outside dryer.  Thanh and I left immediately from school and took a very fun ride on the school bus with our students to their house, which the students absolutely loved and they were amazed that we were actually visiting their west side. After waving goodbye to our students as the bus pulled out of the drive way, Thanh and I got down to the serious business of cooking up some grub.Thanh used her awesome genetics and prodigious cooking talent to whip up some awesome seaweed/kimche/mushroom/tofu soup while I got overzealous and baked a two level birthday cake and some spicy chicken wing dip (thanks to my mummy for the recipe). 

A couple hours later everyone had arrived and we had a very nice and fun party that lasted decently late in the night. I however had tried to sneak to bed early as I was very tired form school, but was aggressively wrestled out of bed by a mob of friends, which at first extremely annoyed me, but moments later I felt the unmistakable fuzzy friendship feeling of being loved my my equally stressed palagi friends. 

After finally turning in, we awoke to some ridiculously amazing breakfast thanks to John and Cynthia, but some not so awesome weather for our purported beach day. However God provides, because as we were wondering what to do we discovered that there was a Top Chef marathon on Bravo! I'm not ashamed to say that their may have been some tears of joy in my eyes, but before you think me sociopathic try living without movies, TV, and good food for a few months and then see how much you appreciate the stress relieving and food fantasy inducing power of Top Chef in the company of good friends. The rest of the day was a jumble of Top Chef, beach walks and much snacking and BBQing and is most definitely the best Veterans Day I have yet had.

Veterans Day!

The Most Relaxing Weekend in Known History

This past weekend was supremely relaxing. Friday night was the first weekend night since I've been here that I didn't go anywhere and just stayed home, but it was just what I needed. The rest of the weekend was more fun since we had plans to help Sandra (lady in charge of PICED/ Taylor's aunt) deliver some goods that were donated for tsunami relief. Sandra wanted to make sure that things were delivered fairly and that the goods got to the right people, so her plan was to take a pre-sorted load to one village at a time.

When we got to Sandra's house at 10 packed up the stuff and packed ourselves in and headed to the village of Masefau on the north-east side of the island to deliver the goods. After we spread out the food and goods and the chief and mayor lead the handing out we were invited to the mayors house for tea. Now, when you hear that someone is going to 'tea' you most likely imagine some cookies, or maybe little sandwiches and tea - of course. However the tea we had was Mountain Dew and Coke to drink, and a huge plate of coconut rice and pisupo (corned beef - right out of the can). This is some good eating here in Samoa, but for us bunch of palagis the idea of eating approximately half a pound of cold, fatty corned beef not to mention a hefty portion of rice in the late morning is a daunting task - especially as it is a very kind gesture from the mayor and you know you have to eat at least a third of it. Luckily for me I received the smallest portion. While we were plugging away at our plates we did get to hear some very interesting talk from the mayor about the way relief funds are working and how his village is doing, which help us deal with our plates. Oh and some really cute puppies didn't hurt either.

On the way home Sandra took a little detour to show us the cool little village of Sa'ilele which has some truly lovely sandy beaches that we immediately vowed to return to. As we headed back west we decided to head to Scott and Taylor's for some dinner and just some chilled hanging out. A very nice, relaxing weekend.

Check some sweet pics!

Thanksgiving Starts Now

Home Sweet Home

Today marks an monumental day in my time here in American Samoa, as it is the first weekend night I have not gone to town! For some reason today I felt like staying home and having a hot date with a nap, some blogging, and the new episode of Grey's Anatomy (which only take about two and a half hours to watch with buffering...).

I am feeling thoroughly relaxed, and decided it was time to show everyone the lovely place that I call home.

 Isn't that cozy looking? Well it is. Here are a few more pics of mi casa.

 

My kitchen.

The front of my house. My bedroom is the window on the far left. 

The first picture is the view of the yard from my front stoop looking left, and the second is looking right at Salu's house.

Here is a more zoomed out picture so that you can see how wickedly short my walks to school and the beach are. Pretty good placement huh?

Even more zoomed out, you can see where i live in comparison to village of Leone, the harder hit smaller villages to the west side, and friends.

Here's a map of the 'town' area where almost everything civilized is: Carl's Jr, the football stadium, the bowling club, McDonalds, Laufou Shopping Center.

Pago Pago and the east side, connecting to the last map.

So there you have it, my niche in a nutshell. My home away from home, and a home that I am getting quite fond of.