DOE Dinner and Thanh's Birthday

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!

DOE Dinner and Gecko Guts