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!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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!)
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 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…
Monday, November 16, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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| 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.
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.
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| 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!
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!
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| Thanksgiving Starts Now |
Friday, November 6, 2009
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.
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.
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 first picture is the view of the yard from my front stoop looking left, and the second is looking right at Salu's house.
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.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Seaweed and Crazy Students
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.
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...
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.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
I’m Back!
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!
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!
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| October and the Like |
School Pains
(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.
Until next time, which will be soon I promise.
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.
Until next time, which will be soon I promise.
Double White Sunday
(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?
Back to School… well sort of…
(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.
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