Tsunami... Again

This going to encompass my whole weekend, so hang on – the tsunami stuff is coming…


On Friday the original plan was to go see Shutter Island which we were sure was going to come out at our theater that weekend. I was heading into town early since I was going to do some work in the sweet A/C of Carl's Jr., and discovered to my horror that Shutter Island isn't on the "list" that is set for the Island, so instead we got Copout and STILL have Valentine's Day. Wow… thanks for the awesome movies… This put a few kinks in the plan but I headed to Carl's to get the work part of my plans done, but that also was foiled (not that I minded) by the fact that Rosemary and Jessie were already at Carl's to work. Needless to say none of us got any work done, but we did have some very fun hours of chatting, and I do mean hours. We didn't end up leaving Carl's until about 9, and we decided to walk to Jessie and Julia's instead of cabbing it which took us about 40 minutes. It was a nice walk and once we got to their house we just chatted for a bit more, and then decided to watch an episode of Glee. After infinite more talking about philosophy of education, international education, and such we headed to bed. 


Just as we were about to fall asleep, around 2am we heard the Sa bell ringing, in a kind of strange pattern. Immediately Rosemary thought about how her friend from Japan had called to tell her about a huge quake in Chile, and we wondered if it was a tsunami warning. We figured it didn't really matter if it was because Jessie and Julia's house is way far from the ocean and decently elevated. Back to sleep we went… Mere moments after nodding off Jessie got a call from Brandi confirming that there was indeed a tsunami warning, which we acknowledged and then went again, back to sleep. At 5ish AM I was awoken by my dad calling to let me know that there was a tsunami warning. His concern was nice, and I thanked him and assured him that I was safe. Just as I was heading back to bed (I walked outside so I wouldn't wake people) and getting snuggly in Julia's A/C'ed room my phone rang again. This time it was my mom telling me there was a tsunami warning. I assured her I already knew, again, and asked if she and dad were at home. She said yes and then I asked her if she knew he had just called twenty minutes before. Apparently he said he was going to call later. Really awake now, but filled with the knowledge that my parents really love me, I called some friends just to make sure that everyone was ok, and found out that many people were at John and Cynthia's house up the mountain. Julia was now awake (I talk a bit too loud) and we decided that if we had wait for a possible tsunami, we might as well do it with friends. 


Half an hour later Julia, Jessie and I were on the road walking up to John and Cyn's house in Mapusaga Fou. The walk took about 35 minutes and was actually very interesting. As we were in safe areas the whole time, we could see all the people from the lower areas arriving to hang out with their families or at their church that was on higher ground. It was strange because the whole scene reminded me of a giant Fourth of July picnic. There were people grilling and chilling in the back of pick-ups in their family's front yards, people had blankets and lawn chairs spread out, and all the kids were playing while the adults chatted. 


Once we made it to J&C's house we found a few awake and a few asleep friends, and Sandra's kids Leo and the newly adopted, and utterly adorable two month old Pikasone. Turns out Sandra and her hubby are in Hawaii and Scott and Taylor picked up the kids and a few other family and brought them up the mountain too. We hung out and chatted, and I eventually napped and before you know it it was same to head back down. I snagged a ride back in the truck and promptly took a nap in my powerless house. 


That night we refused to let a lame tsunami ruin plans, so we met for dinner at Jade and then headed to the Karaoke Bar in the airport (it's Samoa, just go with it…) for some nighttime amusement. WE ended up having a redic fun time at singing at the karaoke bar, especially since the only other people there were a group of friends there for their fa'afafine friend's birthday and they were nice enough to even share some fruit and cake with us. It didn't hurt that they weren't great singers and didn't give a damn, it gave us some confidence. After some "Baby's Got Back", "No Scrubs", and "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" we called it a night and caught a cab home. 


Sorry there are no pictures yet, all the one we took are on Julia and Cyn's cameras!

Lunch: Petting Zoo Style

Think back to summer memories at a farm or state fair petting zoo. Everyone has an image of some little kid taking a big load of treats into the petting zoo area and being nearly crushed under the weight of eager sheep and goats jumping up on the kids chest, back and shoulders. The piercing screams of a scared child, the treats being thrown as far as possible, and the farm animals' sly glances at each other that clearly say "Mission accomplished" as they swarm on the treats now accessible on the ground.


This is exactly what happened in my classroom on today.


The class after lunch today was one of my senior marine science classes, and as usual the kids had a few snacks that they were still munching on when they came into class. So far there were only some boys in my class that had shown up when in walks on of the girls in my class with almost a whole hamburger that she had gotten from the store near school. Like a pack of starving hyenas their noses pricked up and they caught the burger in their gaze. Mere seconds later the girl was surrounded by at least five boys who were grabbing and scrambling for a piece of the burger, which they girl had chosen to try to stuff in her mouth as she saw the boys rushing over. The girls is attacking the burger like a starving person, attempting to get as much as possible in her mouth while a couple of the boys manage to rip off pieces. With her mouth now full the girl resorts to punching the living heck out of any part of a boy she can reach with her flailing fists, to which the boys respond with more punching. Soon there isn't much burger left as much has been ripped off or stuffed into a mouth. The girl finally escapes the circle of boys, takes one last bite, and with a final punch from one boy hands over the rest of the burger to him.


Now this may sounds violent and quasi-ridiculous, but I tell you that they were all laughing while this was happening, including the girl and that stuff like this is the norm.


Totally like a petting zoo though.


You're just lucky there's a fence...

A Depressing Monday

Some days here are bad days – stuff just goes wrong. In the fall when these days happened I would have a sick, sinking feeling in my heart, a short fuse, tears of frustration welling up, and when I got home and nice loud venting session. I have realized this semester that I have finally become able to distance myself emotionally from the problems that happen at school. I don't mean that I don't act on the problems or that I don't care – but I no longer get depressed or overly upset by this situations. This has been very good because Lord knows you aren't a better teacher when depressed and frustrated. 


So this Monday in my first two periods of the day my students' Animal Reports were due. We had been working on these reports for two weeks solid in the library. I gave them a rubric, worksheets with prompts for research, and example report, and a sheet detailing EXACTLY what they needed to do to get an A. And did I mention that it only had to be two pages and have a drawing? 


That may sound like I am not having them work hard, but please remember that the majority of my students (except 2 freakishly advanced students) read at about a 6^th grade level, and write at maybe a 4^th grade level. I'm not joking. So this report was at their level. 


Most of them had all the research done, as well as their picture and all they had to do was take the information from their research outline into an essay format over the weekend, and then turn it in.


 
I got 11 out of 39 reports on time.

 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

 
Thank God that I have become more stoic, because if this had been the fall I would have cried, thrown something at the kids, and probably quit. It is pretty upsetting to see just how apathetic these kids are to learning… anything… This semester I am more at peace with this reality, especially as it is the norm all over our school and the other high schools in the area. Instead of quitting I let them hand in the reports all week, just reminding them that they lost points every day and beating in the fact that I would fail them for the semester if they didn't give me something by the end of the week. For a bunch of my kids, something was what they did in class the week before, and couldn't even be bothered to attempt to write an essay. Forget that I said all week that they could come in at lunch and I would help them write it. 


Luckily I am able to keep going without smashing my head against the wall, but my God these poor kids… This is why all of the WorldTeachers have some resentment towards the powers that be. Whatever the schools here are doing, in many cases it doesn't seem to be teaching. How can half the kids in on an island with a US Federally funded DOE get to senior year and not be able to write above 4^th grade level? Where is the money going? What the hell are they doing in Elementary schools?


Oh yeah. According to friends in the elementary schools, not much.

Sa'ilele

Another weekend rolled around and lucky for us the weather is the complete opposite of the past cycloney weekend. Friday afternoon we were craving some outdoor activity since the past week and a half had been pretty rainy. Thanh and I made plans to meet folks at Lion's Park for some relaxing by the water, and headed out right after school so that we could make it to Cost-U-Less to get some wine for the night. It was wonderful to be able to walk outside in the cool (relatively) evening air, and it made me realize how much I had missed that during the week of rain. This in turn made me realize that I am going to die next winter in Erie… 


Thanh and I met up with Rosemary and Jess at Lions park and busted out our wine and stories of the week. I can't explain how completely and utterly relaxing it was sitting by the water as the sun dipped below the horizon. We sat there for hours just chatting, and eventually as it became late at night we caught a cab and Thanh and I head for home feeling entirely stress free. 

 

 

  
Saturday was a beautiful day, and we celebrated the weekend by breaking in Scott and Taylor's new work truck! If you have seen how we had to travel in their last car, you can see why this was a big deal. This is especially true because when we wanted to go on adventures to the east side we just didn't have enough room for everyone, so we had to have some people take busses. Now that T&S had this work truck we were able to do something we have been wanting to do since the fall – have a picnic in Sa'ilele. 


If you were to look waaaay back in this blog you would find a post about when we went with Sandra (Taylor's aunt, runs PICED) to deliver tsunami relief supplies to the village of Masefau on the north side. That day on the way back, Sandra turned off and showed us another village on the north side, Sa'ilele. The village was really beautiful with a sandy beach and little beachside fales. It very much reminded me of Fale'asao in Manu'a in terms of the small size and quaint houses and church along the coast. 


So this Saturday, thanks to the awesome hauling capacity of T&S's truck, we loaded up a cooler, our bags, and the back of the truck and headed out to Sa'ilele. It was a big group, and we even had some room left over in the back of the truck.

 
A wonderful day of swimming, sunning, eating, reading and napping – the kind you only get in Erie a few times in the summer. The only down side is that here, regardless of how much sunscreen you put on – you will get sunburned. 

Picnic in Sa'ilele

Samoan Day

Over the past month if you had visited our LHS campus you would have frequently seen that all the students were out of class. Why is that? Samoan Day! 


The original date of Samoan day was set to be Feb 11^th so beginning in mid-January we were having 50 minute long practices each day to prepare. For Samoan Day each grade was to perform a series of dances and a song that would be watched by the other classes, parents, teachers and anyone else who came to Samoan Day. The day is meant to celebrate the Samoan culture and help keep the kids close to their roots and to remember the traditional dances and songs. 


The practices were fun to watch (we couldn't really help with the Samoan dancing…) and they only shortened each class by about 5 minutes so it didn't have too bad of an affect on the learning. Well, at first. As we got closer to the long anticipated day the practices kept getting longer and longer. I don't mean that they would be scheduled for longer time slots; they just would let the run longer on random days meaning you would never know if you actually were going to see the class period that was scheduled for after the practice. That last week we didn't see those class period see once. One day the last week they just canceled the afternoon periods all together - right before they were supposed to start so that we could practice more!


Regardless of the frustration we felt as teachers, we were really excited for Samoan Day since out students were pumped and had some amazing dances worked out. However the day before Samoan Day was to happen we heard word that Cyclone Rene was on the way. Since it was predicted that school was going to be canceled the next day the we had an emergency assembly (as we have no PA system) to tell the students that Samoan Day was going to be moved to next Thursday. This was pretty awesome because it meant that we were going to have Friday off, and as we already had Monday off for president's day we ended up with basically a three day week. 


As it turned out it was good in terms of no real school, because we spent almost all of Tuesday and Wednesday practicing. At this point Thanh and I were banging our heads against the wall because we hadn't been able to teach in a structured setting for what felt like eternity. Finally, Samoan Day rolled around and it was worth it! The kids were so excited and they did an amazing job! Here are some of the pictures from the day, and for more check out the web album. I am going to do my best to put up some videos that I took, but that is always tedious with our internet. 

Mr. & Mrs. Long-Samoan-Word-That-I-Don't-Remember, but they opened the day's festivities with the 'Ava ceremony and a traditional siva (dance). 

Some of my sophomore showing off their guns.

The girls of the Tongan club doing their dance. See Tonga was even included!

The freshmen class.

Our principle getting down to some traditional tunes.

Samoan Day

Classic Sayings

In the last few weeks I feel like I have been subjected to some hilarious and bizarre conversations or sayings. Some are just because there is a misunderstanding of English, and it's not funny because people can't speak English, its just funny the way it comes out. Some other sayings play on the occasionally brutal honesty of the Samoan culture. And some make me frustrated because they portray the sometimes poor attitude towards teachings. Here are some that I can remember off the top of my head.

I was scheduled to have my class in the library during the period after lunch, but when I arrived at the library the door was locked. I headed to the office to get a key as my students were waiting outside and looking like they were about to skip. The secretary directed me to one of the counselor's offices, and as I enter the room is packed with teachers and staff.

"Um hi, can I get the key for the library?"

"Oh hey Kate, would you like some chicken?"

"No thanks, I just ate and have to get to class. Could I get the key please?"

"It's Samoan day this week you have to eat Samoan food! Come have some chicken or breadfruit."

"Thanks for the offer, really, but my class is waiting outside and we need to work on their reports."

"Ok here is the key, but you have to enjoy the culture, take some chicken with you!"

"Thanks but I'm good. Thanks for the offer I'll get some food on Samoan Day."

Really nice teachers, but I have to teach those kids lol…

Thanh and I went to ask the principle about when we have to sign out for the day because we had heard a different time from our department heads than what our principle had posted on the bulletin. Thanh speaks for us…

"Mr. _____ I see what you have posted on the bulletin, but I was under the impression tha-"


"YOU ARE UNDER MY IMPRESSION!"

Thanh looked mortified as he yelled at us, but I almost couldn't hold in a laugh. It's hard to be upset by a screaming administrator when they are butchering English.

One of my students barely speaks any English but I have lately started to have a problem with him because of inappropriate comments. Here is a conversation that lead to one. He walks up to my desk clutching his chest making very dramatic, tortured looking faces.

"Hey ____, you look pretty sick."


He replies with much clutching of his chest and wincing. "Yes, I… stroke… It's no good… no work…"


"Well don't worry, just keep working on your journal and if you die I will give your body to your family."


"Miss I die now…"


"You can do a little work first."


"No… I die… last words: I love Miss Kate."


"How 'bout: I love Life Science?"


"No… I love… Miss… Kate..."


"OK _____, you need to get started on your work."

"I come you house tonight. Finish then."


"NO."

Conversation with a student who I am near certain is MR but receives no special education, but she tries very hard in class despite the work being somewhat over her head. We were getting settled for some PowerPoint notes.

"Miss Kate, we have notes today?"


"Yep."


"How many slide?"


"Five."


Very carrying mumble, "Oh, fuck you Miss Kate."


For a moment the class is silent, then it erupts into laughter, "ooooooo!"s and lots of pointing. For a minute the student didn't even realize what was going on until the girl next to her said,


"_____, you just swore at Miss Kate!"


She looked at me and responded, "Oh sorry Miss Kate! I meant to swear in Samoan!"

I actually had to try really hard not to laugh, because I know this girl and she just likes to swear but never really means it. Especially since 97% of the time she is trying very hard and really trying to please me and garner some attention. Or maybe I just can't be fazed anymore.

Recently one moment has taken the funny (and kinda sad) cake. My Marine Science seniors are currently working on animal reports. I have mentioned before that my students are not at the level of their states-side counterparts, and in fact are realistically at about a fifth grade level when it comes to writing and analytical skills. Because of this I had created a packed with questions and areas for the answers that would guide the students in finding and organizing information about their chosen animal. I was looking over one student's worksheet who had been using the internet to do his research when I stumbled upon this completely serious answer:

The Land of Football

I have mentioned many times before how serious football is here in AmSam. The kids love it and many of the students dream of being in the NFL. This isn't very different than many other kids in the states except that our students actually have a decent chance. It is estimated that a boy of Samoan decent is 56 times more likely to play in the NFL than any other boys their age.

This came to the attention of 60 Minutes after the spotlight was on Samoa for the tsunami, and they have since run a story on football here on the island.


Watch CBS News Videos Online


There is also a little web clip of the Leone JV team doing there 'Haka' traditional war dance that they perform before and after the game. As three of my classes are sophomores many of my students are performing and it cute to see them so excited to do their thing. In the main video some of my seniors are seen and interviewed and it is great to see them so pumped up.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Last Wednesday we had even more football fun when three players from the Cincinnati Bengals came to visit the island. Why where they coming here, you may ask… They are all from American Samoa. It's funny to think that three unrelated players are all on the same team, and from the same island of 65,000 people! The kids were pretty excited since the players coming made them feel like they really can achieve their dreams, especially because many of our students are related to one of the players. I feel closer to the NFL than I ever did in the states.

Valentine Rap

My only Valentine of note this year came from a student's class assignment to write a poem or song for a teacher. A couple students brought me cards and recited poems, but one student actually wrote a rap and recruited two guitar players to help her with her valentine for me. She came in during my sixth period and with her charisma got the whole class cheering by the end. Check it out:



She asked for a 'big fat A' and did I give it to her?

How could I not? Its hard not to when they say you are sexier than Ashanti.

An Animal Abundance

A few weeks ago we began out unit on animals in both my marine and life science classes. Amusingly just as we were getting in to the animal kingdom my room was attacked by a plethora of critters. On Monday I was at school early to get my class set up and to prepare when I suddenly realized that I had been under attack by a horde of starving lady-mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes here have one major difference from the ones in good 'ol Erie, PA. In Erie when I am bit by a mosquito I feel it and the result is usually a squashed mosquito and a vigilance for any of its friends. Here in AmSam when the little buggers bit you don't feel it which means that by the time you're a little itch you might discover that you have ten nice obnoxiously itch bites. This is what happened on this past Monday as I was working hard on some lessons for school. Once I realized that I was covered in bites, I was pretty ticked off and confused as I usually never had mosquitoes in my room. I notices that there were tons of the mosquitoes just flying around my room, and I figured there must have been some eggs laid. As luck would have it I found that one of the lab sinks in the back of my room had been plugged up and there was some standing water under the garbage the kids put in there (yes my room is a mess, but the kids here are walking litterbugs). As I moved a crumpled paper a swarm of mosquitoes flew out - yuck. For the next few days I was slathered in DEET while at school, and was still constantly getting eaten alive. I was about to lose it. Thankfully I survived til the weekend.

Mosquito attacks where not the only animal invasion of the week. I few weeks ago I started running after school since the campus is covered in areas and free of attacking dogs which make it so I can't run around the neighborhood. Lately I have been leaving my sneakers and socks at school on weeknights since I only wear them to run. When I came in last Tuesday I found my sneakers still sitting right on my desk, but one sock was missing. I thought it might be the wind and searched all around the desk area, but couldn't find it. I just figured it would turn up. The next day I came in and the other sock was missing. That's when it hit me. Those dang rats in my classroom must have stole it. You might think that it would be unlikely, but these rats in my classroom have chewed through Tupperware that I left overnight in the classroom. They are not to be messed with.

Cyclone Rene Update

The windows were boarded, stuff was moved away from the windows, buckets were filled with water, we were well stocked with provisions. How did the cyclone turn out?

A lame, kinda windy rainstorm....

Awesome!

Hey, Rene.

Cyclone Rene is on her way! Good news - no school today! Bad news - its a cyclone... We have battened down the hatches (boarded up the big windows) bought water and some extra food and are getting ready for a windy night.

This year has proved to be chalk-full of new weather experiences for me with the earthquakes, tsunami, and now a cyclone. Let's just hope it doesn't do as much damage as the other phenomena did. I'd have a pretty complete set of experience if we just had a torna... maybe I shouldn't even suggest it...

 

Power is going out soon, but hopefully I will be back online sometime tomorrow. Yay for new experiences!

Laws, Smhmaws.

Here is a scrapped together pic of a section from my school's Journalism Club's occasionally published news letter.

 

By: Unknown. There are two things wrong here - the first is blindingly obvious. You should NEVER use a colon after a preposition, in this case the word "by". My eighth grade teacher (code name: "the bird") beat that thoroughly into my skull after losing points for it on approximately 638 consecutive poems I had to write.

The second and slightly less obvious problem.... does that poem sound familiar? Sorry Bette Midler, not only do Journalism students here not give you credit for writing your own song, but they will butcher it too. Exactly how does a river drown a need? I don't know either. So much for journalistic integrity.

Clown Car

Here in AmSam life is a little different. For example no one really pays any attention to either seat belt laws or having the legal number of passengers in your vehicle. This works out awesomely for us because as you may well know none of us volunteers have cars, but our friends Taylor and Scott do have one.

Their baby is a little Suzuki sx4 which is a four door hatchback that is most frequently compared with the mini cooper because of its small size.

Our usually group of friends has nine people, but we usually don't all make it to hang out, or we will meet up near someones house so most people can get a ride home with T&S. However we have gotten progressively more confident at fitting people into the car and have recently created a new record with all nine of us fitting in the car to go somewhere.

I will remind you that this is a car that is comparable in size with the mini cooper - this isn't a Ford Escape I'm talking about.

This is what we look like...

So how do we do it? Here is one configuration: Scott drives. John sits in the passenger seat with his lovely bride Cynthia on his lap. Five people fit in the back row of seats (Taylor, Jessie, Julia, Rosemary, and Thanh) and then the last person goes in the trunk (me!). It is actually surprisingly comfortable.

TMI

Everyday for the last two weeks we have had classes shortened by five or ten minutes so that we could have fifty minutes of "Samoa Day" practice. At these times the each grade gathers at a designated spot on campus and choreographs and learns a few traditional Samoan dances that they will preform on Samoa Day next week.

On Tuesday I was heading to the Sophomore class's practice as I am and adviser for that class but was running a little late as I had to stay back to speak with a student. Finally I was on my way and while walking along campus I crossed paths with another teacher who I knew by face but didn't know her name. I was just being friendly and said hi, and this is how the conversation went:

"Hi, how is your day going?"

"Oh not well. Very bad actually. Diarrhea. I got the runs."

At this point I notice that she is holding a roll of toilet paper...

"Uh, ok well feel better!"


TMI.

Wonderful Waterfall Weekend

After the exhausting slave labor of our "Field Day" on Friday Thanh and I needed to relax. Thanh chose to take it easy at home while I chose the infinitely more responsible meeting friends for happy hour at Rubble's. There is nothing like air conditioning and margaritas to make you forget a stressful day or week at school, and some of our group had a rough week. After a pitcher of margaritas, some dinner and then another (free!) pitcher of margaritas from Jessie's coworkers we were all feeling much happier than earlier in the day. We decided to then hit up Koko Bean for some coffee and to listen to the band that was playing. As it is AmSam and small as heck, it figures that the band playing was my coworker's band that we heard play at JR's art expo a few weeks back. IT was nice to hear some bluegrass as it is a real departure from the typical music we hear on island. 


Saturday we decided to do something fun and easy and decided that we would go investigate a waterfall in Nu'uuli. Jessie had been to the waterfall a few months ago so knew how to get there, and we were pretty excited because it sounded fun. We parked at a store on the main road, and from there it was only about a 25 minute walk down a road and then a trail. The waterfall was even better than I had hoped it would be – tall and beautiful with a large, deep pool to swim in. We admired the view from up on the area where the trail comes out, and then headed down to the water for some swimming. It was both relaxing and fun as you could jump off of some of the rocks into the pool right under the waterfall so that you get half-drowned with water on the way back up, which was pretty fun. A few boys were there when we got there and they were climbing the cliff face to jump off into the water which looked totally awesome – but as soon as we tried to climb up the cliff we realized that either those boys (twelve year olds, mind you) were redic buff or had gecko feet because it was impossible to get up there! We admitted defeat and just enjoyed swimming and jumping off some of the larger rocks. 


After we all squished back in the car and headed to Jessie and Julia's to shower and change to get ready for the Birthday Party for our fellow WTer Matt. The party was going to be epic because they were renting one of the Aiga busses to chauffer us around from bar to bar for the night. However as it is Samoa, the guy flaked and we ended up staying at the Tafuna house for a good while before finally taking a fleet of cabs to the Bowling Club. We ended the night by camping out back at J&J's house until morning. Despite the bus troubles we still a good night.

Waterfall!