Processing, Please Wait

My sister Fa and I on my birthday.  I'm wearing a puletasi she gave me.

I know now how my computer feels when I get that annoying message that I need to wait patiently while it processes my input.  That’s sort of how I’m feeling.  I left home on October 4^th.  I arrived in Samoa on October 6^th.   It feels as if I’ve been gone for years.  Yet, the time has passed so quickly.  So many new experiences, new people that I’m feeling in need of time to process it. 

I know, I’m on a beautiful island in the south Pacific, so why don’t I just lounge on a beach and let my mind absorb it all?  Because that’s not the way training is structured.  Our days are packed with training.  Evenings and weekends are filled with spending time with our new families/friends, church (avg. for me was 6 hours per Sunday) and homework.  Endless homework. 

Since accepting my invitation to join the Peace Corps, it’s been a series of transitions, goodbyes and new experiences. 

First it was closing up my American life, selling and storing all my stuff and saying goodbye to the people I love.  It was an emotional time, with the feelings of sadness swirled together with the enormous excitement and anticipation of heading off the cliff.

We were only in L. A. for staging for a day, so that was just like a pit stop, with no attachments formed, but it was filled with new people and a fairly large dose of stress.   Our first three weeks in Apia were spent getting to know the people we’d be sharing the next two years with, both staff and other trainees.  It was also a very diluted introduction to life in Samoa, since we had access to most of the creature comforts and culture we were used to in the U. S.   It was long enough for us to be tired of being cooped up in a hotel and to be anxious to move on to the “real” Samoa.  Since we knew that even though we’d be in different training villages (5 volunteers per village) we’d see each other at least once a week, there were no tears when we said goodbye.

Our time in the training villages was hard, horrible and wonderful.  Everyone who’s been through it says that the months of training are the hardest part of service.  I can believe it.  I know I’ll look back on my training experience fondly, though.  More about that later.

Our latest transition was leaving our villages to return to Apia for a final week of training and swearing in.  Saying goodbye to my host family was hard.  They’ve given me so much and helped me through a challenging time.  I also know that I’ll be saying goodbye to more new friends this week, when I move to Savaii.  Then, the challenge of meeting more people, sorting through the logistics of getting settled and finding the people that I’ll become close to for the next two years.

Bottom line, since coming to Samoa life has been filled with new stuff.  People, experiences, expectations, language, food, etc.  We’ve also had very little control over our lives in any way.  I can’t say it’s been overwhelming, but close at moments.  I need time to process all that I’ve been experiencing.  I feel as if I’m a fresh wine skin, with lots of a new vintage being pouring into me.  I’m starting to fill up and my skin is stretching and becoming tighter, thinner and more sensitive. 

Emotions are rising to the top and occasionally bubble over.  Not in a bad way, just in a “full” kind of way.  Like on the drive to Apia with neighbors recently.  Heading into town to celebrate Thanksgiving, I was sitting in the backseat, singing along with them to the carols on the radio.  It was sunny, with a dark, stormy sky in the distance.  And there was a perfect, complete double rainbow.  The colors were intense against the dark sky and so were my emotions.  I didn’t have the Samoan or English words to explain why I was crying.  Because it was so perfectly beautiful?  Because my dream of living on an island in the Pacific has come true?  Because strangers have taken me into their lives and made me feel welcome and loved?

When we’re surrounded by people and things we know, I think we tend to take them for granted.  I remember the first time I saw a space shuttle launch from the grocery store parking lot near my home.  I stood stock still in awe and almost got run over by someone who had seen so many launches before that they took them for granted.

Maybe it’s a good thing that we become inured to all of the amazing things around us.  If we experienced everything in our lives with the same fresh sense of wonder, all the time, it could become painfully intense.

I don’t know if the Peace Corps did it on purpose, but having yesterday afternoon and today to relax and process all we’ve experienced is a good thing.

Fa's house - and mine, during training in the village.  I had the best house of anyone.  The perks of being the oldest volunteer.

We took a break one day during training.  From left:  Hector PC Staff from El Salvador, Sia (Pat), Lisi (Lindsey), Lopati (Rob) and my BFF Sesa (Chelsea)

This is where we trained from 8 am to about 6 pm, five days a week.  The gentleman seated in the front is Onofia, our 69 year old teacher, who was excellent!

Elu (Danny) and his sister weaving a basket on culture day.  I think she did most of the weaving.