My attempt to explore and write about alternate ways of living in order to foster a more meaningful existence. Dabbling in voluntary simplicity, freeganism, hitchhiking, and losing my materialistic ways. From my hometown, to year teaching in American Samoa, and now my ditching of a good job to follow my craving to travel by moving to Europe.
This morning Thanh and I were getting ready for school, bouncing around the house getting lunches and book bags ready. On one of my many trips from the kitchen to my room I happened to look up and was startled by something staring at me near Thanh’s open bedroom door. I stopped in my tracks and blurted “What the hell?”
There before my eyes was the front unsquished half of a biggish gecko that had apparently gotten caught in Thanh’s door the night before. At this point Thanh, just from hearing my exclamation (and rightly assuming it had to do with animals) had already jumped on to her bed with a shout of “What is it!?!? What is it?!?!” As I move in a little to inspect the poor guy, Thanh catches sight of its legs and starts with some “OMG!”s. We are both pretty grossed out as it freshly dead and some guts are coming out of its side, but it is cartoonishly only squished in one hip area. Thanh looks pensive for moment and then realization dawns on her. When she went into her room for the night, she had heard some scratching noises that she thought was a rat or something trying to get into her room. As it turns out it was the slow death of a trapped and partially pancaked gecko.
Thanh is super disgusted, and even though I usually don’t mind dead stuff I was kind of grossed out too. Thanh remained on her bed while I got Ben’s machete and an empty oatmeal box to get rid of our deceased friend. Our grossed-outness was upped as the geckos’s toes stuck to the machete as I tried to pry the body out of the door frame. It was a disgusting process as the body was sill all fresh-and-floppy but the part that had been squished in the closed door was practically cemented on. After some scraping and a nasty, wet plop the gecko was removed.
Strangely this was not out first squished-gecko-in-the-door experience. About a week ago Thanh noticed the near-mummified remains of a smaller gecko smooshed lengthwise in the bathroom door. As this was fully pancaked and dry and crusty it wasn’t so bad, and is actually still there. But the one this morning had a tendency to wiggle. Eww.
So far no one else in out group has had this problem, but maybe Thanh and I are just natural (if accidental) gecko killers.
Last Friday was Thanh’s 26th Birthday and we celebrated in an interesting way. After school we went to Pago Pago for the DOE Teacher of the Year Banquet that we were invited to since we are WorldTeachers. As it was formal we had to rock the pulatasis (ugh) and act all professional and when we arrived we realized that only Thanh, Julia, Rosemary, Steve, and I came to represent WorldTeach. I was secretly, or perhaps not so secretly, grumpy about getting guilted into going to some boring DOE dinner on a Friday night, but as the night went on I became glad that I came. The night turned out to be one of those unique Samoan experiences for a few reasons.
When they called up the teacher of the year for each school, and announced each regional winner the lucky teacher came up to the stage to not only receive a “trophy, certificate and three hundred dollars” which they announced with EVERY teacher, but stayed up to do a traditional Samoan ‘siva’, or dance. It is fun to watch the traditional dancing and see dollar bills thrown at and shoved into the clothes of respectable teachers. I amused myself during the boring talking in Samoan part by imagining what it would be like if when teachers in the states won an award they had to do a dance on the stage and have all the audience stuff dollar bills in their shirts like common strippers. I think I’m going to try to start that up when I get home.
There was a little break for dinner, and the dinner was classically Samoan and made my night. Do you see the platter of food I am showing you in this picture?
Did you think that was for our table? Nope. EACH of us got one of those platters! I have no idea how anyone could eat all of that, but I know that Samoans are fond of left-overs so many that’s the intention. Regardless, we had to stifle our amusement at just how much food was put in front of us.
We ducked out a bit early as we arrived at six, the time it was supposed to start but as it didn’t actually start until seven we were pretty tired of sitting at nine when we were still there. We headed to Sadie’s by the Sea for a bottle of wine by the harbor to celebrate Thanh’s B-day and had a very fun night and a great sleep once we were back home.
Saturday was also a nice day consisting of the typical Taylor and Scott’s house, and then some late night Chinese food. Nice last weekend before my visit home!
I apologize for the delay since the last post, but these last few weeks have been rather busy and fun, coupled with sporadic internet function. Today however I am kicking back and relaxing. My school work is all caught up, we got out of school a bit early, and I caught a bus and am at Pizza Hut watching the Monday night Packer's game in sweet AC, writing this between plays. Sigh… It's a good Monday.
To quickly recap:
I finally made it off of Ta'u and back to Tutuilla by Thanksgiving afternoon, only four days late... My long weekend actually turned into a week, but it was definitely a fun week!
A few hours after I got back, KC and Courtney came in on the next flight and surprised us at our house. Thanh, KC, Courtney and I had a fun Thanksgiving Day weekend of many movies, dinners out, laughing at New Moon and late night chats. It was so fun and relaxing that I wasn't even that upset that the delay in Manu'a had caused me to have to cancel my trip to Western Samoa.
Last week at school I had one of those awesome weeks where I just love my kids to death, even when they are little shits. For example, when two of my seniors were fighting over a book bag and dropped a liter of beer which shattered and showered them, me and my room in beer – I could only roll my eyes, laugh and ask them to clean up. Well that and having them come in at lunch for two weeks to do review work – the alternative was the office which would give detention. The beer actually ended up being beneficial to their education!
The weekend rolled around and we had an awesome Friday night and Saturday at Taylor and Scott's house that involved much eating, drinking, swimming and coral/mountain adventures (see the pics!) Saturday was definitely one of those days that I will always remember as Taylor, Julia and I ended up sitting in tides pools at the really low tide and just watching all the beautifully colored little fish swim around us. I was even actually cleaned by a cleaning wrasse! Life goal #125 - check. Oh, and I beheld the kleptoparasitic behaviors of a magnificent frigate bird! Epic day for bio nerds.
Time is rolling along, and I feel like I blinked and it is almost time to go home for Christmas. I am ridiculously excited to get home and visit everyone to the extreme that I have dreamed about it many times and made extensive lists of what I want to do when I get home. I also have created a teary scene where I attack-hug my family at the airport in which I knock my mom over with love. Sappy, but true – I miss my fam. I may also cry and or freak out upon seeing any family member or friend – I am that full of emotion.
Despite my excitement for heading home, I oddly am starting to already miss it here, which is lame because I will only be gone for a couple weeks. If this is any indication about how I am going to feel when I leave in June I sense some nights of tipsy crying and much yelling of "I love you guys!" and "I am going to miss you Samoa!" But I'll cross that bridge when I get there.
To end with, a few random notes:
I was very nearly Frida Kahlo-ed on the bus.
I have realized that no grocery store banana will ever be good enough for me.
Sea-cucumbers are God's dirty joke.
This year's WorldTeach teachers have now had: tons of swine flu, MERSA, boils, detached retinas, bone infections, other eye infections and oodles of lice. We live in a giant Petri dish…
Side note: As I sit in this Pizza Hut I am reminded to mention one of the things I most hate about Samoa – they chew louder and more disgustingly here than any place I have been before. I am literally twenty feet from a table of people (mind you they are blasting the sound from the football game) and it sounds as if they are crewing their food in my ear canal. Chomping and smacking of lips? Check. Talking with a mouth packed full of food? Oh yeah. Obnoxiously loud sucking of fingers in between bites? You know it. As my family will attest I loathe loud chewing more than my combined hatred of Hitler, Paris Hilton, Latisse and Nickleback. There is no higher dislike.
Yet another side note: Sorry, but I am just full of Pizza Hut observations today. Another issue here is health, especially for the kids. For dinner while watching the game here I had a nice combo of a diet pepsi, personal pan cheese pizza and a side salad – and I am stuffed. There is a new family near me that consists of two women and two little girls aged about 9 and 7. Both of the little girls had the same combo as me (except with regular soda and pepperoni) AND an order of popcorn chicken each from the connected KFC. And they ate it all! No wonder obesity and diabetes are common place here.
And finally after all the ranting, here are the pictures:
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!
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!)
Last week my department head, Doug, told me that we were going to have a Christian Rock concert at school all morning on the 17th. 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: 5th ,6th ,1st , lunch, 2nd ,3rd – that we would most likely have just 2nd and 3rd .
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 5th period, lunch, and in the afternoon 6th, 1st, and 2nd. 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 5th 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 1st 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 5th Period
12:55 – 1:55 6th Period
2:00 – 3:00 1st 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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In marine science we are currently learning about algae - which is just about the most boring thing ever, especially since some of my students have trouble with English, and my projector had been commandeered by the Red Cross. Thankfully today everything got more fun. It order to make algae seem slightly more intersting and since I had my projector back today I made a slide show of pictures about algae and how people use it. After the slide show we watched a quick video about algae as biofuel, and then I brought out the coup de grace - a container of seaweed.
I thought it would just be mildly interesting to them as they live around the ocean and eat from the ocean all the time. However the student freaked out about eating the seaweed, and although most of the tried their reactions were hilarious. The faces some of the made were classic, not to mention a certain boy in my class jokingly threatens to sue me because apparently I was trying to poison him. Classes like these make me love my students...
Some days there are moments that make me realize I am in a different culture. For example today at lunch I was sitting in my room working on a PowerPoint presentation for my class when some boys came in and asked if they could use the outlets in my classroom. This might seem unsual, but it is an everyday occurance for me because the kids love to charge their phones and mp3 players at lunch and before school, and as I have outlets at all the lab tables they stop by often. Not to mention that some of the students don't have houses, so they need to charge things at school.
I was still working away listening to some music, when I noticed a few minutes later a strange buzzing noise in the background. I turned off my music and immediately knew what the noise was and stormed to the other side of the room where the boys were circled. In the center was a boy with his arm out on a stool, and another boy whom I know with a homemade tattoo gun in hand, ready to ink up the other boy's arm.
That may sound crazy, but the best part is that the day before I had found two girls in the stairway after lunch washing one of the girl's legs with soap above the knee where she had obviously just had a six inch tattoo of the word "diva" made in blue ballpoint pen ink. I kid you not, these kids jerry-rig tattoo guns from an old power adapter, a small motor, the shaft of a ballpoint pen and a needle, then break pens open and use the ink to tattoo each other. How insane is that?
Strangely enough my new thoughts of the matter is that next time I catch them I'm going to take a picture so you can see just how weird the situation is.
Look! I'm back! I'm posting again! Sorry for the delay folks, please note that there are three pre-written blog posts that I also just published, so go back and read those first to get caught up, if you have the time.
Life is basically back to normal, and thankfully my days at school have gotten much better in the last few days. I am out of the funk I was in when I wrote my last post, and am back to feeling ok about going to school, and actually liking my students. I am truly relieved that my weird bummed-out mood only lasted week and that I am back to my usual content feeling.
School improved by the end of last week, with Spirit week ending on a pretty fun Halloween day. For Halloween I decided to dress up as a student at our school (one of the most thuggish variety) and Thanh, Raj, and Julia joined in too. It was pretty sweet as we all looked nice and thuggish, and the kids got a real kick out of our fake attitudes and my sudden desire to talk about how I skip class to smoke behind the E building. Raj invited my classes over to watch Simpson's Tree House of Horror with his classes for the day, and we had a nice morning of shortened classes. After lunch we all headed to the gym for a dance which was pretty cool for a bit when the kids were doing the jerk, stanky leg, crumping, and the like – but soon turned less entertaining. The dance was called off and the students told to leave early as a few serious fights broke out and at the same time an epileptic student had a grand mal seizure. WE hung around until the fights were cleared up and the ambulance arrived, and left very subdued.
That night I decided to head to a dance competition at the American Samoa Community College (ASCC) between ten of the college's clubs. There were three categories: Michael Jackson tribute, group dance, and monster dance. We watched all ten clubs in each category, and some of them were awesome! I wish I could show you some videos of some of the group dances, and I can't find any on YouTube but if I do I will post them because they were pretty good. We crashed at Julia's place, watching a movie until we fell asleep.
Saturday was pretty sweet as we all met at Rosemary's place at 11 to head to the annual Tattoo Festival at Tisa's Barefoot Bar. Tisa's is way out on the east side so we had to transfer to a different bus, but it was really nice to be able to go somewhere different for a change. The tattoo fest was pretty cool as they had three tattoo artist set up tattooing all day, as well as one artist who specializes in the traditional style Samoan tattooing. The traditional tattoos are made by attaching a piece of wild boar tusk that has been specially sharpened to the end of a stick, dipping it in an ink made from the seeds of a local tree, and then tapping the sharpened point of the tool into the skin with another stick. Sounds crude but you would not believe how cool this was to watch. The man traced no template on the skin, would just do it with no guidance but his own mind and hands. The person who is receiving the tattoo has to lie on a mat on the floor, and two people have to pull the skin being tattooed taut so that the tusk can easily pierce. Wilson would just tap away over the skin and after a few seconds a design seems to appear perfectly, moments later oozing with blood. All I can say is that it makes your typical tattoo gun look really pathetic in comparison. Definitely check out the pics we got for this.
Later that evening we grabbed a ride back to the west side form Taylor and Scott (seven of us and all our bags in their tiny Suzuki five-seater – we are getting pretty good at this sardining…) and stopped to grab some dinner at a sushi place in Pago. Afterwards we hung out at Rosemary's place for a bit until we decided the time was ripe for a trip to the Bowling Club. Bowling club was fun as usual until some random drunk dude offered us some beer, which we politely turned down as he was drunk and we didn't want to be tied to him, but promptly sat at our table anyways. This in itself would only be slightly annoying if he was a nice drunk, but as it turned out he kept trying to pick a fight with Scott because he thought that Scott was buying all of us girls beer after he offered. Scott only bought a bucket for him and Taylor, but we could not convince him thought he drunkenness what was really up. The weirdness continues as Thanh and I find out that this dude already knows where we live because he is also from Vailoa and he has seen us before. Creepy. Later in the night it got even worse as he started yelling at Scott saying, "Half these girls teach at Leone and they are from my village! MY VILLAGE!" For some terribly infuriating reason he thought that since we were form his village he had the right to buy us drinks and dance with us. Um, hello – I think Thanh and I should have a say in this? Thankfully it was closing time, and Scott managed to talk some sense into the drunk guy's friend who managed to keep him away from us and Scott as we left. First time we have had any issues like that, and hopefully will be the last.
Today we had a BBQ to attend that was being thrown for Raj's mom who is visiting. The amusing part is that we were all invited by Raj, but none of us (including Raj) knew where it was or what was actually going on until it happened. It turns out that Raj's mom wrote is a columnist for a newspaper and wrote an article about her concerns about her son being so far away in an obscure island for a year. A woman, Sue, a palagi here in Samoa read this column and wrote to Raj's mom assuring her that life in American Samoa was safe and comfortable. The two struck up an email correspondence and Sue decided to throw a BBQ for her and all us WorldTeachers once Raj's mom arrived. I didn't know any of these details until I was at the party, so Taylor, Scott, Rosemary and I had no idea what the party was going to be like. I didn't really know what to expect, but it definitely wasn't what I was soon to find at this party. Their house was huge and very contemporary styled, with brand new appliances and much artwork on the walls. Their living room had three couches (ok that might seem like a weird detail here, but couches are rare on island) around a big flat screen TV with football on. Out in the beautiful front yard people were drinking at tables on the front porch while kids played out in the yard. After some introductions and speeches it was time to eat, and we were all ecstatic to see a wide range of food including a salad that was made of mixed greens! (You may only be able to appreciate that if you live here…) As I was eating some cake and ice cream on the porch, I was convinced that I was at a Fourth of July party in the States.
After that lovely BBQ I am back home trying to post all this blog stuff, and get my work done for tomorrow. That's all I have energy for, but check out the pics that go along with the last few posts!
(Note: Written on 10/28.)
Sorry, sorry, sorry, for the extremely long break between posts. The reason for the delay is a combination of the power being out for hours each day up until this week, school related stress, and procrastination. We are FINALLY getting back to some semblance of normal this week just about a month after the tsunami, although some students and teachers are not yet back, we have adapted.
These last two weeks have been my hardest yet, far more taxing than the week of the tsunami or even the beginning of the year. I suppose that the reasoning is a combination of the fact that I have lost my initial motivation and energy that I had at the beginning of the year (now we are over ¼ done!), and that the tsunami completely wiped out the classroom management I had established. The story seems to be the same for many teachers – when the kids returned from the tsunami it was as if they had forgotten how to act at school, probably because the school was a circus for weeks after. All the energy I had invested in strictly enforcing my management plan had really started to pay off in the weeks before the tsunami. Behavior was really improving, the students knew what to do when they came in class, and they knew the consequences if they chose to misbehave. However, after a week off and a week of nothing, when we actually started to teach again it was as if they had forgotten how to act at school. I felt as if I was starting from scratch again, having to keep many students after school (many of them not showing up, which they had learned not to do before as I keep them the next day twice as long…), reign in abnormally rowdy classes, chase out kids skipping other classes and sitting in mine, find my students loitering outside, and other horribly stressful activities. Not to mention that we are still missing multiple teachers so we are always covering other classes.
This week is finally getting a bit better (which is really good because I almost lost it last Thursday) as the students are slowly getting reconditioned to know how to act in class. However, my feelings on school have really taken a plunge because of these last few weeks. I think they are slowly beginning to come back up – the good day today counteracting the atrocious day on Monday when I had to keep an entire class after school. While my energy is low, and this past week I have never dreaded going to school more, I am starting to believe that it is getting better.
Enough moping for now. On a positive note my weekends and evenings have been especially nice lately, and I find myself thanking fate that I have such good friends here to be a great support system. Thanh is my constant sounding board and many evenings I have been reassured that I am not the world's worst teacher or a horrible person thanks to her sound words of wisdom. Not to mention that on some evenings and weekends we have some pretty awesome fun. I am positive that if I had just come here to teach alone, I would have quit and ran away crying. It is completely thanks to friends here that I have retained my sanity and love for teaching (although it is hidden deep, deep, down sometimes). It has been extremely helpful to know that others are going through the same hard times, hear their solutions, ideas and their good moments to uplift. You've probably read about them but some of my closest friends here are Thanh, Rosemary, Julia, Courtney, KC, John, Cynthia, Taylor, Scott, and Jesse. Seriously, without these lovely folks I would be a mess.
This past weekend we sadly had to say goodbye to yet another of our friends, Brigit. She had broken her ankle last January and had to have surgery to install hardware so that it would heal correctly. The pain in her ankle returned after some weeks here and was accompanied by a fever. They ran some tests here but could not tell anything conclusively, and as they are concerned about an infection in the bone from the hardware they suggested that she go back to the states for more testing. So with that prognosis Brigit had to make plans to head back home to figure out what is up with her ankle, and we had a 'tofa' or goodbye party for her on Saturday. As it was so close to Halloween we also made it a costume party, and it was a blast. Almost all of our group, even those from Manu'a, were at the party at Taylor and Scott's and it was a ton of fun. The weekend really made me feel better after an atrocious Thursday and an interesting night of parent teacher conferences.
Again, I am sorry for the delay, life has been a bit rough. However my life for the next two months is looking extremely amazing, so I am confident that any hard times at school will tolerable thanks to other good parts of island life. This weekend is the Tattoo Festival at Tisa's Barefoot Bar on the east side which will be a pretty sweet time. We have the 11th of November off from school for Veteran's Day and as that is a Wednesday it will break up the week nicely. The weekend of the 14th Taylor and Scott are having a join Birthday party at their house, and so far all events at their house have been awesome. A week and a half later is Thanksgiving and Rosemary's coworker invited her and two friends, Thanh and me, to stay with her and her family in Western Samoa. From Wednesday afternoon to Sunday night we will have an amazing vacation in Western, and besides gifts for our hosts we don't have to worry about a place to stay or food. Some real cultural immersion! Once we get back it is less than three weeks until I fly home for Christmas! Thanks to my extremely generous, loving, kind, wonderful family I am able to come home for the holidays which is just what I need. I am so excited to see everyone back home!
Once I looked at my life in that schedule, I figured I can deal with anything that school or tectonic plates might throw at me.
(Note: Written 10/16. Still didn't post due to internet and power issues… look for the pictures for this post in the later post)
Last weekend was an extremely fun and relaxing time, and I felt much less stressed and tsunamified on Tuesday. After the crazy week of school, it felt great to have the weekend to do what I pleased, and thankfully it was very fun. On Friday we grabbed some Chinese for dinner, and later that night Jesse, Rosemary and I went out dancing. It was awesome to get back to some normal activities and try to forget about the tsunami for a while, although the DJ works at my school and lost his house, so I had some moments where the tsunami invaded even there. However the night went very well, and the Bowling Club changed its plans and now Z, the DJ, plays some really good rap. A classic moment of the night was running into one of the teachers I work with in the bathroom of the club, and after a sweaty cheek kiss we were chatting and the conversation continued as she and her friend were in the stalls. Her friend yelled that she was out of paper, and my coworker's response was, "Be resourceful, girl! Use your dress!" Jesse and I had our hands clamped over our mouths to hold back the giggles.
Saturday was a insanely wonderful day as the morning began with laying around and reading all morning, until the early afternoon when we headed ove to Taylor and Scott's "Thank-God-we-still-have-a House Party" in Amanave. We arrived in style after hitchhiking and getting picked up in our coworker's mustang, and joined the fun. It was a beautiful day, and we spent it all drinking, eating some awesome ribs and salads, and lounging in the sand. You really have to see the pics from that day. As the party wound down Taylor and Scott gave us all rides home in the back of their borrowed PICED truck, and a back-if-a-truck ride is always the prefect end to a night.
Sunday was White Sunday here in American Samoa, which is the second largest holiday here, after Christmas. In traditional Samoan culture the elders are the most respected in the family, and that is shown in day to day activities. For example, children serve adults meals before they are allowed to eat (and I mean they wait on them so when dinner starts at 6, the kids sometimes don't eat until 9), and kids are always required to do anything adults ask. It's not just obeying rules, its more like, "get me my lighter in the other room, run to the store and get me some milk, do my laundry". The reason that I bring this up is that White Sunday is a day that honors the children – this is the one day in the year that in the traditional culture the children get to eat first, receive presents, don't have to do any chores, get new white clothes, and get to perform at church services.
Thanh and I decided to go to church on Sunday so that we could see this Holiday that is a Samoan tradition. We decided on the Catholic church in Leone, as it was one of the churches that had been hit by the tsunami, and we had met parishioners – me while I was cleaning St. Theresa's which is right behind the church. We woke up and dressed in our best (or in my case, only) puletasis and started the 25 minute walk to church. As it was a stiflingly hot day, we were lucky to be offered a ride after only about 10 minutes walking. Upon reaching the church we realized just how big the holiday was as the pews were packed full, and I would say there were about 600 people attending. An usher found Thanh and I seats, and we were just in time for Mass. I was surprised to realize that years of Mass had still left there conditioning on me, and I felt relaxed and content, as well as a part of the community – even though the Mass was in Samoan. However, Mass is Mass wherever you are, so I still could follow along. After Mass there were the performances from the Sunday School students, and they were adorable. There were many songs about Bible stories, some other religious songs, and some small scenes were acted out. At the end there was a song sung in Samoan and a prayer said when a banner listing all the victims of the tsunami from the Leone area.
The whiteness of White Sunday continued in antithesis that night as our friend Kara (who is a WorldTeacher from last year) was throwing a party at her newly acquired house. This was the first time that we had really interacted with many of the other palagis on Island, and it was definitely strange to be in such large groups of nearly all palagis. The people we didn't know mostly all work as lawyers, scientists, or teachers – but it was nice to get to know some new folks. Jesse and I finally returned to her house after snagging a ride at 3:00, and were thoroughly happy that there was no school the next day.
Columbus Day I mostly slept, did school work, and watched hulu – and as a result was energized and ready for the first real week of school post-tsunami.
Bonus: One of the other WorldTeachers in an elementary school told me about this conversation that she had with her students concerning the arrival of Western explorers in Samoa due to the upcoming Columbus Day.
"Yes, so when the white explorers arrived in American Samoa they landed at what is today called Massacre Bay. The reason for the name is that because the Samoans and white people didn't understand each other and didn't know each other, there was a battle and they fought and sadly 11 of the explorers and 39 Samoans died."
A students responds, "Wait, didn't the palagis have guns?"
"Yes."
"But that's not fair."
"Very true. Um… sorry. "
A great example about why celebrating Columbus Day in an Island still inhabited almost entirely by its native inhabitants, who have many parallels to the Native Americans in Columbus's story, is maybe not the best idea. What happened to Indigenous Peoples Day?
(Note: Written 10/5. I apologize for the delay, but power has been out every day for some amount of time, and when it is on I am typically trying to get school work done so here it is… finally)
School today was totally chaotic, in classic Samoan style. I signed in at the office, said good morning, and grabbed the daily bulletin to see what the schedule was for the day. The schedule was mostly normal with an assembly in the morning then all six classes after. To me it was the perfect schedule since it was obviously going to address the students as a group, but still have classes to resume that normality we are striving for.
The assembly was an emotional and moving time for everyone as teachers, students, and survivors took turns talking to the group about their experiences on Tuesday and their advice. There were songs, prayers, tears, and a whole lot of laughter. You know when someone makes a joke about something tragic that happened in the past, and someone comments "too soon"? There is no such thing as too soon here, as evidenced by an elder who barely survived telling his story in a way that had the students literally rolling with laughter. As I have said before, this is part of the Samoan culture and I must say it does cut the tension and the laughing really makes everyone feel better. Along with the laughter were tears, and it was interesting to see many of the speakers go between tears and laughter so fluidly. One of the most touching moments was when our acting principle spoke of how it was ok to show emotions and cry, and talked about how the tsunami has affected him. I mentioned in a previous post how he lost an aunt, but he now shared how on Friday he found out that he lost another aunt and 12 other members of his extended family in Western Samoa. As he was speaking about his lost he teared up again – and I have never heard our students so silent.
At the end of the assembly, around 10:45, Dorian announced that we were having lunch early, then the students would be going to a sharing session. This entailed the students going into any classroom that was open (as we were missing some 16 teachers) and to have a sharing discussion about how everyone was feeling about the tsunami. Thanh, Julia and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows, and knew this was going to be a hot mess.
We went our separate ways for lunch, and towards the end of lunch I had a few students come in my room to chat. No one wanted to talk about the tsunami, they were more curious about how I liked Samoa and where I came from as I didn't have these kids in my class. I ended up having a long conversation with one boy about how the book of Job applies to the current situation, and how people have to keep hope and spirits up. He then spend a good amount of time telling me about how he is getting ready to go on his Mission after he graduates this year. He is Mormon and is very excited to be assigned where he is going for his two-year mission, and hopes that he will be going to the Philippines. He is a very nice kid and it is always wonderful to hear that a student is really thinking about the direction they want their life to take after school. Once the sharing period began I had students moving in and out of my class, and we talked about this and that. At one point I looked outside my room and realized that many students were leaving and others we just milling about in the commons. However, I return to my students and keep hanging out.
Time is dragging on and we were not told when the bell was going to ring for the kids to go home. The students were confused, asking if they could leave, and I answered honestly that I had no idea either. About an hour or so had passed when I hear some yelling, and looked out in the commons to see one of our teachers yelling that all the students could leave as she was getting into her car with some other teachers to leave. I was pretty baffled because I know the rest of the school wasn't leaving, but within the next 15 minutes most of the students had left our area, and Raj and I were the only teachers still in the classroom with students in our departments. I admitted defeat and told the kids that I guess they could leave, and I myself packed up and headed to the office. I found out that the bell was ringing at two, but that apparently our departments just gave up. I found Thanh and Julia, and we called the Red Cross to see if we could help out. Turns out that they actually flew in enough volunteers from off-island, that they can't use us. With a giant "whatev…" I headed home and decided to spend the evening at Pizza Hut so that I could watch the Packers/Vikings game. It was extremely chill and it was so great to finally get to watch my first football of the season.
Tuesday dawned, and we had no idea what to expect. As we arrived we found that we were going to has classes as usual, but as my classes began I realized that there would not be much teaching as I averaged about 50% attendance. I utilized my back up plan of watching Planet Earth (thanks family!) since it was a nice way to relax, but still fit with Life and Marine Science. Just as I was thinking the day might be ok, the power went out. So there at 11 I had to devise a new plan, which ended up just being talking and hanging out. The day was horribly long, and eventually the administration sent around a memo (a kid with a piece of paper scribbled in sharpie) at 1:20 that we were dismissing at 1:45. Classy, but definitely a good idea. AS there were 14 teachers missing, we had kids wandering around and in and out of classrooms. Once we made it home, we realized that the power outage was not just in our school it reached our house too. Thanh and I made do by napping until the power came back on at 5:30.
Wednesday started much the same as Tuesday: low attendance, power out at 9:50, and tons of teachers missing. However everything changed right before lunch we heard the bell ringing the tsunami alarm. Awesome. I had a job of convincing my students that it was a real tsunami warning (I in actuality had no idea what was going on, and knowing how things roll here it could have been anything – but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry)but eventually got them all onto the malai and started moving down the road to the evacuation site. As I started walking I asked around to teachers and finally one knew what was going on and let me know that there had been a huge earthquake near Vanuatu and that there was another Tsunami warning. Eventually in the river of students I found Raj, Julia, and Thanh and we reveled in how crazy the last week has been. After chasing students out of the store (this is not time for ice cream it is a real tsunami warning! Do you remember what happened last week?!?) we made it to Fa'asao Marist where we would wait out the warning. All of our students that hadn't been picked up by family on the way were but in the assembly hall, and couldn't leave until the warning was over or their family came to pick them up. WE teachers were getting bored ourselves as were our students, and it was packed as Marist, Leone, Midkiff and St. Theresa's Elementary were all on the campus. Thanh and I managed to amuse ourselves by playing with some of the little Midkiff kids – I taught them 'Down by the Banks', which they loved – and we played that for a while.
Finally we were allowed to return to school, and the students who needed to catch a bus walked back to school with us. Lunch was ready, but the cooks had left so the administration and teachers served the food to the kids who were there, and we all went home early.
That night Thanh and I had a feeling that school would be even lower attendance the next day, and we were right – we had only about 25% of students! Obviously it was not going to be a learning day, so I again played Planet Earth for the kids in the morning, and apparently word had gotten out because even though I had only 4 or 5 kids from my class in each, I would end up with closer to 30. It was nice to have kids who were interested in learning about science for once. In the afternoon when the power was off, things deteriorated, and I ended up just chatting with the few kids in my class, and yet again we got out early. That night we were glad to have a distraction as it was John's birthday during the week so we gathered at Rubble's to celebrate.
Friday's attendance was even worse, though that is barely possible, but it managed to be. After some more of the same in the morning, we received a memo that we were getting out after lunch which we much appreciated. IT was a relief to have a break from the chaos, and it was especially nice since it was a long weekend coming up.
The school week in general was so unpredictable and chaotic, that I am sure wherever I teach next I will be hard but to be surprised or upset by any event or change of schedule. I'll just be happy to have power and water that is safe to drink.
Sorry that it has been so long since I have posted an update, especially since many are wondering about the situation here, but it has been a busy and exhausting weekend. Overall the cleanup has been going decently well. Families, friends and volunteers have been working hard and have cleared away impressive amounts of rubble, but there is still much more to do. There has obviously been some snags in the way of organization, looting, and some people taking advantage of the situation – but those are expected. Situations like these bring out the best in some people and the worst in others. This post should give you a glimpse of the recovery efforts from my view thus far.
Thursday I awoke and Thanh and I headed to school to check in and hear the latest news. Teachers were looking melancholy and were swapping stories about the tsunami and news about what is going on. From what we are hearing it seems as though people are still waiting for FEMA to finish their assessments before too much serious cleaning can begin, so we decide to wait to hear from the Red Cross as they said they would call us once they were ready to distribute supplies. Raj and Kelly had told us that they also wanted to help, so we walked up to their house to wait for the call from Red Cross. Two hours later we were still waiting, and getting exceptionally stir crazy. We finally decided just to call them and see what was going on, and once we got a hold of them we found out that there was nothing for us to do. Needless to say we were stumped at how there was so much that needed to be done, but nothing for us to do…
Not willing to give up on helping yet (plus no school so what else were we to do?) we headed to the Mormon church down the road that is doubling as a shelter for those that lost their homes. Upon arriving we discovered that we had just missed lunch and that there was really nothing to do. They actually offered us food, which we politely refused as we really were starting to feel anti-helpful. As I had not yet heard from Taylor and Scott or the National Park folks (phones here are a hot mess) Thanh and I decided to head to Pago Pago where I hoped I would run into the staff at the office.
On the way I was repeatedly trying to call people, and finally much to my surprise and delight got a call through to Taylor. I was relived to here that both her and Scott were alright, and that miraculously their house was fine. Their story turned out to be the one that we had heard through the coconut wireless, but even more terrifying. Apparently they had felt the earthquake, gotten into their car and begun to drive along the coast to get to the road up the mountain, and as they were driving the first wave came up and slammed their car off the road. Luckily they managed to get back on track and drive the car the remaining short distance to the road to high ground, not without much freaking out and swearing as the water was getting ever higher. Both have said that there was nothing as terrible as watching the following waves tear through the village as they looked on helplessly, though thankfully there were no casualties in their area.
Feeling heartened by the good news from Taylor and Scott we continued on our way to Pago. Arriving in the harbor area our mood sunk again as we survived the damage there for the first time. The area that we were just coming to know and love was gone, and I was struggling to remember what had been in the now rubble covered areas. We hopped out of the bus and began to walk, trying to take in the scene. As we arrived at Pago Plaza, where the National Park office had been we now saw the empty shell of the building as all of the stores and offices on the first floor had been gutted by the wave. Looking around I saw no one I recognized, and so we split up: Thanh to get more footage for the Vietnamese news station she had a correspondence with, and me to walk to the Teacher Quality office to pick up my long waiting birthday packages from home. Mid way through my mile long walk I heard a voice shout "Kate!" and saw a SUV pull over in front of me. Sarah and Mike from the park jumped out and Sarah gave me a swift hug asking me if I was alright. I assured her I was fine then asked about them and the rest of the staff, and was amazed to hear that they too, like Taylor and Scott, had a close call. Mike and Sarah had run out of the building and up the mountain with other staff and were only seconds ahead of the wave. If the wave had been a second earlier or a bit bigger they could have been lost. Mike related the story of Jim, another staff member that I know, who was traveling on one of the busses and had to scream and shake the driver so that he would stop and they could both run to safety as he was trying to outrun the wave. Luckily they both also make it in the last moments. It was miraculous that some many people I have met in these last few months were so close to perishing but had the good sense and luck to make it.
Mike and Sarah gave me a ride to pick up my packages, and then a traveled with them until Nu'uuli hearing about the damages at the park, stories from Pago, and Mike's chat with Wolf Blitzer. After assuring them that I would love nothing more than to help them re-setup the office (I guess my new master's work?) I hopped a bus back to Leone. Back on the bus I was in a much more relaxed state than I was twelve hours ago as I now knew for certain that those I had not heard from were safe, even if just barely. The cleanup here stops with dusk, which here is about 6:00, so after a shower at home we relaxed for the night. Somehow we managed to keep out Thursday night tradition of Rubble's alive despite the chaos, and met up with friends from around the island to share our stories from Tuesdays, and ways to help those affected. Back home after that long dinner, I slept much more soundly than I had the last few nights.
Friday dawned and the WorldTeach Leone crew had an even more intensified need to help out. Thanh, Julia, and I headed down to Leone and found the chief (also our PTA president) and asked him how we could help. We were directed to an area where we helped those already working sort rubble into wood, metal and garbage piles which we continued to do until the early afternoon with the additional help of Kelly, Raj, Tanne, John and Cynthia. Sifting through the debris was a strangely emotional task. One moment you were solemn because you knew we were still searching for the body of a little boy – the next you were laughing at some ridiculous item you found, like someone's porn stash, or silk boxers – then you were right back to somber as you realized that that was someone's life laid out for you to sift thought. There we also the just bizarre moments were you would find a stiffened and rotting moral eel or puffed up puffer fish.
Once people started breaking, we started to plan our next move while sweaty, unbelievably filthy and with stinging eyes and lungs from the dust and smoke. We called the Red Cross only to again find out that they were planning and still didn't need us, so we all went home for some much needed showers and naps. That night we met again over dinner with other friends who were coming to our area as the east side still didn't have power. After dinner we all headed back to Rosemary and Brigit's house where I crashed along with our east side friends Charlie and Jess so that I could be closer to the Red Cross in the morning.
Saturday we Julia and I headed down to the Red Cross praying that they would finally have something for us to do, and lo and behold they did! We were immediately sent to a FEMA training where they were showing recovery volunteers and Red Cross staffers how to set up the Yurts that are going to be the temporary housing for those who lost their homes. The training was pretty cool, and so were the Yurts. They go up quickly and house about 8 people; I just hope they can stand the intense wind and rain that sometimes come up here. Back at the Red Cross, we thought that we would be sent out to put up some Yurts, but obviously there was more organizing to do because we waited about an hour before we joined forces with Sandra. Sandra is the woman in charge of PICED, and we ran into her at the Red Cross where she was also waiting to see if she could help. Eventually she was sick of waiting and decided to take matters into her own hands and get and deliver some supplied herself. We jumped in her truck, Rosemary included, and headed across town to the wholesale store to buy some intense amounts of mackerel, spam, noodles, flour, and canned spaghetti. After loading up the purchases from the few stores we visited, we headed out to Poloa where her relatives lived and were house 35 people from their village who had lost their homes. We swung by and picked up Thanh, and then delivered the food to her family's house.
One the way back into town we stopped by Taylor and Scott's house where they were cleaning the debris from their yard and beach. After we visited for awhile Sandra was ready to go, but the four of us decided to stay back and help Taylor and Scott with their clean up. After a few hours of picking up garbage, hacking trees with a machete, carrying cinderblocks up the beach (torture, I swear…) it was getting late and we were getting exhausted. We clean up and decided to get some Chinese to relax and hang out. Dinner was lovely, and I promptly headed home with Brigit and Rosemary where we were planning to watch a movie, but Rosemary and I were out before it even got started.
Today I decided that I had to relax. Tomorrow we go back to school for the first time since the tsunami and I have no idea what to expect. As the chiefs of some of the villages said no one can go to work or school until the village is cleaned up, or principle is expecting between 50 – 60% attendance. We have no real idea how many will actually show, or how the students will act and feel on their first day back. Because of this, and since teaching is the reason I am here, I felt that I should be properly rested and ready to face tomorrow, whatever craziness it may bring. Attempt at normalcy, here we go.
Again here are some pics from the days past, just follow along and you will be able to figure out what they are.
As I sit to write this I am sweaty, filthy, and utterly exhausted.
Today I woke, and the memories of the day before flooded back to me ruining my sleepy ignorant moment. The morning was a dreary, drizzly day fitting precisely with my feelings at the moment. Thanh and I heard from Salu that they were announcing on the radio that teachers should report to school, so we packed up and headed over to Leone. Upon arriving at school we were met with a solemn mood in the office and sidled up to the front desk to hear the news. Some of the worse tidbits include finding out that one of our teachers lot her house and everything she owned in the tsunami, and was caught so unawares that she had to run up the mountain in only her towel after emerging from the shower. She literally doesn't have the shirt on her back. Reports from the far west side is that everything near the coast is damaged, with the village of Amanave left without one building standing. In addition, we heard from our acting principal himself that three members of his family were still missing, including his aunt.
Our hearts were heavy as we left school, but we were determined to help. Thanh needed to return to home first because as the only Vietnamese person on the island she was going to be reporting and sending in video to the global Vietnamese news station (go Thanh!). I decided to head into Leone on my own to see if I could find anyway to help. When I arrived in town I was at a bit of a loss as to where to go to help, and after checking the churches and finding them empty I gravitated towards an area behind one of the Catholic churches. As I was walking I heard some commotion and walked over to see what was going on. Although I can't understand Samoan I could feel from how they were motioning to the police that there was something serious going on. Moments latter an ambulance arrived slowly driving in, and it dawned on me that there was only one reason an ambulance wasn't in a hurry. I turned and walked away as they began to load the vehicle.
Turning to look to my left I noticed that there was an elementary school at which many people were working at cleaning. I read the sign to learn that I was at St. Theresa's school, and walked over to see if I could help. I introduced myself to some of the people working and after explaining who exactly I was, I was briefed on what the basic plans were. We were sorting the debris and I was working on getting all the wood into piles around the school yard. After dumping detritus on to one pile out side of a classroom for a while, and noticing a distinctly pungent odor I realized that laying half out of the pile was a bloated dead dog. All I could think was thank God that the children had gotten out before the waves had come.
Before I was ready for a break I was told we had to stop. When I asked why, I was told so that people could take pictures. I was thinking that that was ridiculous until someone else explained to me that FEMA was here and that they needed to do their assessment of the damage, and that we had to halt clean up so that they could record what had actually happened. I spend the next ten minutes swapping stories and news with some of the women I had met, and was soon taken to meet others from the school. I mentioned that my acting principle was still missing family including his aunt, a baby, and the babysitter. One of the woman (obviously understanding the Samoan that had been spoken) told me that the old woman, my principal's aunt was the victim that I had just seen found. This was too close to home. Next thing I knew I was being kissed by the principle and thanked, and had my arms filled with frozen broccoli, a gallon of liquid eggs, lunch meat, and a pallet of chocolate milk as they were trying to not waste the food as it would go bad soon. Surprised and thoroughly bemused I was lead to my new friend Lucy's car, and she gave me a ride home as the rain picked up and we had to break for FEMA anyways. As I stumbled into the door at home, Thanh looked at me like I was crazy and commented, "Shouldn't that food be going the other way?" I explained to her that I guess it would go bad and that how could I refuse the food that they were shoving in my arms coupled with kisses. I don't want to offend.
Filling Thanh in with what I had been up to, then taking a break and grabbing some lunch I managed to regain my energy and Thanh and I headed to the bank was we needed to bulk up on cash. While at the bank Julia called me and let us know that she had hooked up with the Red Cross office, and Thanh and I joined her as it was conveniently across the street.
I met with the woman, Lani (who turned out to be our principal's wife), who is in charge of the west side for the Red Cross and within the hour she had hooked us up with a couple trucks that were going out to the extreme west coast of the island to deliver food and water to the road and utility workers and people hardest hit. Turns out that in American Samoa when the Red Cross delivers food they deliver McDonald's - I kid you not we handed out over 500 meals from McDonald's and hundreds of bottles of water in the next few hours.
WE rode in the back of one of the pickups through Leone and all the way to Poloa, all the while seeing first hand how severe the damage was. In addition we constantly ran into our students who would shout a greeting, and if we were stopped stay and chat. I cannot tell you how amazed I am at the attitude of my students and the people in general. While chatting with one of my kids as we passed out food and water I learned that all he had left to his name right now was the clothes he was wearing. Somehow he still had the good humor to jokingly ask if we had homework for tomorrow. It was the same with everyone we talked to, very surprisingly upbeat.
One of the harder moments came when we were driving and were in a bit of a traffic jam. A car coming in the opposite direction (headed to town) was frantically laying on their horn to get through, and as my worry spiked I saw into the back of the pick up to see a young man being held my family or friends - one holding a towel to the lower half of his face, another doing chest compressions. The blank look in the young man's eyes terrified me as the seemed too dull for life. We could only pray for the best for him, but we knew I was not looking good as they were still 40 minutes from the hospital. I am hoping like no other that it was not one of our students.
Seeing the utter destruction in some of the villages was completely devastating, but the attitudes of the people and seeing everyone cleaning and helping out made the sadness much lighter. After giving out the extra food we dropped off some that we had set aside for the newly homeless now residing at the Mormon church in the area.
Back in Tafuna we got some dinner, and then made plans with Lani to help out tomorrow if we didn't have school. The Red Cross was done for the day, but hearing Rosemary's experience as the check in person at the desk at the ER we headed to the hospital to see if they needed any help. We were glad to find that the hospital had calmed down and the nurse we talked to thanked us for the offer but said that they were finally seeing a slowing of people injured in the tsunami.
Thanh and I hitched home with a student's family, and now I find myself here typing this post. Despite all the chaos, tragedy, and destruction I experienced today I cannot help but be in a better place emotionally that have been for the last two days. Seeing the community spirit to help rebuild and clean up has really helped to raise spirits as it reminds me that while it will take many months, even years, there will eventually be a return to normality. However the people lost cannot be replaced, and images of the people recovering the woman's body and the boy in the back of the truck will not stop playing before my eyes.
Students will not return to school until Monday, but teachers are checking in tomorrow morning. Lani is going to pick us up on the way back out to the west side and we are going to continue to help with the food and water distribution, and help out in anyway that we can. It is the strangest feeling as a teacher to know that many of my students have lost family and all their possessions, and I am at a loss for how this will affect our community and school for the next few weeks. These next few days we are merely going to try to help out in someway, because this is our community now, and I cannot help but feel that I must help if only for the selfish reason that I need to feel as if I am doing something.
I tried to document as much of my day as possible, so as you follow this post check the pictures to see what I am talking about. I have some video that really puts the destruction of the far out villages of Amanave and Paloa in perspective, and as soon as the internet is running a little faster I will post them.
This morning I awoke around my usual time of 6:15, jumped in the shower and emerged fifteen minutes later refreshed and ready to start my day. I was extra excited because Jesse and I had plans to start our first day with the paddling group at the Yacht Club in Pago Harbor after school. Thanh and I were making our typical PB&J's for lunch when we heard something that sounded like a huge dump truck driving down the road. A moment later the house began to shake and we realized that there was no truck, just an earthquake. The quake got worse and after staring mutely for a few moments we realized that we should get outside. It was the most surreal minute or so as we stood outside watching out house and the trees around it move independently, while the ground below us shook. The worst of it over, but my landlady's cars still moving back and forth, I ran over and knocked on the door, asking her if she knew if we should go to high ground. I assumed this would be relatively normal for her, but she looked concerned and her son Dave, who is six, looked terrified. Salu informed us that this was the worst quake that she had ever felt here, and that we should be prepared for the possibility of a tsunami warning.
Thanh and I figured that school would know what was going on, so we packed our school bags (mine including my passport, wallet and external hard drive just in case) and walked the few minutes to school. As we arrived we saw teachers and administration gathered around the office brows furrowed with concern. Moments after our arrival our acting principal, Dorian, gave the cue for evacuation. Thanh and I walked throughout the school speedily rounding up the students that were there, thankful that since it was still about an hour til school would start that there were not too many. With the the students assembled we began the evacuation to higher ground following the disaster plan.
While all of this was going on, myself, Thanh, and the kids were mostly just excited to have a day off from school, and while Thanh and I were taking the evacuation very seriously on the inside we didn't think there would be any tsunami since it had been forty years since the last. I would gladly go back and have school if it meant that we could have avoided the tsunamis.
The evacuation route lead us to the gas station which was the gathering point, but as word trickled in that there was actually a tsunami that hit, we continued the kids on to higher ground stopping at the nearby private high school, Marist. Once at the school we got the students settled in the hallways, and joined the teachers and administration at the entrance to hear teh news. Slowly reports trickled in that a 15 ft wave had hit Pago, that the waterfront area of Leone was hit hard too, and that more waves were possible. Immediately my mind turned to our friends in other parts of the island, especially our friend Jesse who always is at school near Pago early.
At this point despite the phones not working much, and all lines being busy, I got a call from my mom who had heard the news online and was very concerned. I assured her that I was fine and at high ground, and gave her the quick run down of what had happened. After getting off the phone, I finally made contact with Jesse who told me that she was fine, having joined her students in running up a mountain.
The next few hours was a waiting game. While sitting around at the school I alternated trying to call people to see if they were ok, and talking to family and friends back home. I was most worried about two friends, Taylor and Scott (see birthday post) who recently moved to a house on the ocean out further west than us.
Finally the tsunami warning was removed and we were about to send the kids home. Before we went our separate ways, the students present from Leone HS, Midkiff, and Marist along with the teachers and staff joined hands in a large circle, and we prayed and sang. Amidst all the tragedy and worry it was a beautiful thing to see people come together as one. However, no one yet knew the true extent of the damage.
We received a ride home from a woman who picked up her kids at Marist, and she related to us the story of her sister who works in Pago plaza in the same building on the second floor, right above the NPS office. She talked about how the wave came at the building and she thought that she was going to die, but thankfully the second floor was spared.
At home we knew that we would face no power and unsafe drinking water. So with bottled water in hand we set of to see the damage in Leone. I was not expecting it to be as bad as it was, and I was amazed to see that entire houses were missing, cars were thrown into other houses, and debris was everywhere. I cannot really explain it but check out the pictures and video. For some reason my memory card thing isn't working so I cannot get my pictures out, but these are some I stole from my friend Raj. One video is from some random people, the other two are footage from my roommate Thanh. You can tell which because you can hear me rambling in the background.
Now I fully began to understand the magnitude of this disaster. During my walking around I was amazed to find that the people we not crying but stoically surveying the scene. I am not sure if it was shock or acceptance but it was present. I also noticed that the Samoan attitude of laughing at things that are uncomfortable or upsetting was in full swing as many people would occasionally laugh at something or another. I appreciated this as joking is how I typically deal with my upset feelings, and at least I wouldn't be looked on as disrespectful here. One of the worst moments was when I ran into one of my students in the debris. He is typically one of the most cocky and misbehaving seniors I have, and although he was had become remarkably more well behaved in the last week he never lost his swagger. However as I saw him today I can say that I never imagined he could look so solemn and dejected. All I wanted was for that cocky attitude to come back.
Finally returning back home, I was exhausted both mentally and physically so lay down to sleep as I felt I couldn't take anything more at the moment. I awoke to the sounds of Salu and her niece Flo, who is an EMT, talking. I joined them outside and learned that the official death toll released by the hospital was up to 29, but Flo said that in reality it will be much higher as there are still dozens of people missing. She reconfirmed that 6 were announced dead in Leone, one a little girl from the elementary school, and that at least 10 more were missing, some of them also young kids who had been on their way to school. This somber news was joined with the information that Pago was utterly wiped out near the water, and that there was a chance that there could be another tsunami tonight or tomorrow. Great. Keep the emergency bag packed.
For the rest of the night I have been listening to information and stories trickle in from friends here on the island, and friends back home. I try to keep telling myself that some of this information may not be accurate, because honestly some of it scares me shitless. I still haven't been able to contact Taylor and Scott and was getting worried. However, Ben came home and related a story to us that he heard from the volleyball coach at our school who lives near where Taylor and Scott do, just up the side of the mountain. Apparently him and his family were high enough to be safe, so after the quake they actually watched the big waves come in and pound the coast below. Between a break in a few he saw a car flooring it to escape the area by driving up the mountain road. He said that literally feet behind the car was the hugest wave yet and he said that he thought for sure that they were going die. Thankfully the car made it and as it moved closer he could tell that they were palagis. As there are not too many palagis in the area there is a good chance that his story could be about Taylor and Scott, which is great in terms of them being alive, but horrible since they are probably terrified and homeless right now. Tomorrow I plan on calling there workplace where her aunt also works to see if they are alright.
KC and Courtney had a rough experience out in Manu'a. Although in the end they didn't receive any major tsunami action, they were terrified because not only is their house on the beach, but their school is too. The were at school when they noticed the ominous sign of the ocean receding which typically precedes a tsunami. The lack of organization was apparently indecent as teachers and students alike climbed into trucks or ran up the mountain. KC talked about how some students just waited at the bus stop next to the ocean as if the bus was going to come, not understanding that a tsunami could be coming in minutes. Thankfully she and other teachers were able to get the kids all to safety uo the mountain. I cannot even imagine how terrifying it must have been to have seen the water recede and be expecting a tsunami to crash into you at any moment. Thankfully they are all ok, but sadly some of her students have family that died in Pago.
In addition, Raj called me and related some stories that he had heard when he was down in Leone. It seems that one of the students that we both have lives directly on Leone Bay and was home when the wave hit. According to Raj the only reason that our student survived is that he managed to cling to a concrete post as the waves swept thought his house, completely destroying it, leaving him with cuts and scratches all over his arms, legs, and face. Thank God that he is OK, but his uncle is one of those who didn't make it.
Most of you know that I am doing my Master's work through the National Park here, and while I haven't gotten much done yet since I am still settling with school I have met and gotten to know some of the staff. I had heard that the NPS office and visitor center had been especially hard hit, but I didn't realized just how bad it was. Once power and internet were back up I received the horrible news that as of mid-day, Mike (the superintendent of the park), reported that they were only able to locate a fifth of the park staff. A fifth! I was terrified to think that those super nice people I had met at the park could be injured or worse, and immediately sent emails to those at the park I was in contact with asking if they and the other were alright, and if they need any sort of help (I have no idea how I could be of help but I felt like I should offer) and to please let me know.
Part of me is dreading waking up tomorrow as I am worried that the day will only bring terrible news of the deaths of students, student's families, friends, and acquaintances. I am trying to hope for the best. While I haven't known anyone here for more than a few months or very intimately, my fondness for this island and it's people that has developed since I have arrived leaves me feeling heartbroken at this destruction.
I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I am going to try to face it head on and do whatever I can to help my community rebuild and move on.
