Sorry, but with the change in computers I'm having some technical difficulties. Imagine cute Samoan kids on a turquoise lagoon. That's my life.
For the first month I was here, I felt as if I was invisible. I was rarely greeted except by children who asked for money or said “bye bye, Palagi” as I walked by. Yesterday kids ran up to walk along and practice their English, parents called out from their homes and on the street people said hello and asked me what’s up. I’m no longer invisible and it’s good to feel like I’m becoming a part of the village.
School was good. It was my last day of “observing”. I used quotes with that because while I have observed, I’ve also been teaching. Thursday the Year 8 teacher was at a meeting for the day so I was the sub. I started working on phonics with the kids and they thought the games were fun and didn’t want to stop. I was happy that they were beginning to be able to differentiate between “ch” and “sh” sounds, and learning some new words.
Fridays continue to be a mystery. I was told that there would be school clean up for the first two hours so no teaching. The clean up actually was 45 minutes of girls weeding with butcher knives and boys using machetes to hack at shrubs and grass. One of my favorite Year 7 boys had to be taken to the hospital to have his hand bandaged after another boy hacked it by mistake. It wasn’t serious and he took it in stride.
After 45 minutes, the kids went to their classrooms, so I headed to the Year 7 room to observe. No teacher arrived, so I started a lesson. First on phonics, then practicing asking and answering questions. They drill a lot, responding as a group to questions from the teacher but rarely actually practice conversational English. They had fun with it and after just an hour and a half there was some improvement. A lot of what they need is the confidence to try to speak. I’ll be giving a sticker as a prize each week to the student who speaks the most English to me outside of class to encourage them. I’ll also be giving prizes each week for “Most Improved” and other things that every student, no matter their current level, have a shot at.
Notice that I taught for 1 ½ hours rather than observe? That’s because the teachers were hanging out together while kids hung out in the classrooms. I use downtime like this to grab any class and do an impromptu English lesson, sing songs or play games that involve words or phonics. Teachers don’t seem to mind and the kids eat it up.
The big downer for the week was the purchase of a new laptop. My old one (and it is a few years old) is no long useable. Computers are extraordinarily expensive here and I’m notoriously frugal. Ok, cheap. I researched going to American Samoa to get a better deal or buying a laptop online and having a friend ship it from the States, but opted for the speed and ease of buying the Toshiba that was on sale where I get my internet. So, the good news is I have a functioning laptop. The bad news is I had to spend a bunch of tupe out of my “at home” money.
I’ll be using the laptop at school next week. I’ve already given Year 7 & 8 a heads up that I’ll be interviewing them individually while filming them. They’ll get to see themselves on the laptop. I’m guessing most have never seen themselves on video. It should be fun. I want to have the tapes as a benchmark so at the end of the year we can do it again and they can see how much they’ve improved. With Year 7, we’ll also be able to do it again at the end of next year and they should see huge progress, knock on wood.
The highlight of the week was yesterday. I spent the day at a beach fale in Lu’ua, which is a subvillage of Faga. The beach fale near my current home is lovely but you have to climb over a lava boulder seawall to get to the water. I am a klutz and am afraid of breaking a leg or spraining an ankle which would be a huge problem here.
Lu’ua is a hike. It’s a couple of miles walk in tropical sun/heat. I kept thinking I was moving near there so was waiting until it was a shorter trek. I got tired of waiting so did it yesterday. I was lucky and hitched a ride there. It was a hot day, but in the shade by the water the temperature was perfect. The water temp was cool enough to be refreshing without being cold. I swam out about 50 yards and snorkeled over a huge bed of coral. Lots of small fish and beautiful to see. I wouldn’t say it was world-class snorkeling but it was comparable to most you’d do in the Caribbean and will be a 10 minute stroll from my new house. Thank you, God and Peace Corps for sending me to Samoa.
About the house. Something else that made this a 5 popo week was about my housing. The meeting with the parents was uncomfortable and difficult. It’s hard for me to concentrate on rapid Samoan that intently for so long. It felt like begging to have all the parents discuss how they can find me a place to live and come up with the money to do it.
The upside was the support they showed. That support continued. On Friday, two of the most outspoken people at the meeting were in charge of collecting money from each family. They spent several hours sitting in the faleaoga, accepting the donations. Along with them were several other parents, who spent the afternoon there to show their support. I was touched.
The meeting is also what got everyone into greeting me and being so much friendlier. The principal said the meeting should have been held before school started. Peace Corps assumed, I think, that the school committee would be communicating with the parents. That didn’t happen. If this meeting would have been held in October, when I first visited Faga, I would have had my own house in December and a very different first month here. I’ll be suggesting it to PC for the next group of volunteers.
I heard yesterday that they collected all the money they needed on Friday and took it to the hardware store to order the necessary supplies to build the outhouse. I was dreaming that it might be done this week and I could move in over the four-day weekend next week, but that’s not likely. At least I hope to see some progress.
I heard a story about a previous volunteer here who was in my boat. One day he got fed up and went to a plantation and started hacking down small trees with a machete. Someone asked him what he was doing and he said “Building my house.” Word spread and a group of men helped him build his house, in one day. It can be done, just need to get the momentum going.
The other big thing this week started out badly. I can’t go into details but after significant ugliness this week, someone I care about was able to move to a better situation.
I hope you had a 5 popo week, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment