Pisi Tele - Very Busy

I know – excuses, excuses.  I hate it when I follow a blog and they take a powder with no explanation.  It’s like when they show some lame Presidential emergency announcement right in the middle of All My Children.

But, I’m giving you my excuses anyway.  It started a couple of weekends ago when I headed to Apia for my monthly visit.  This one was especially nice because I stayed with a family I adore and we had a splendid time. 

Then back to school, a pile of laundry and the flu.  I spent a few days in bed, watching my laundry pile grow and feeling sorry for myself.  Stuff like no air-conditioning, cold showers and mosquitoes don’t usually bother me much but give me a slight fever and some muscle aches and I’m a big fat whiner.

Last weekend I was recovering from my brush with death (what, you don’t consider a temperature of 99 degrees life threatening?) and I had guests.  Two of my favorite PCV’s came for the long weekend.  One arrived on bike, after a 60 mile ride.  I was tired just walking the ten feet across my house.  The other arrived after a 12 hour trip by bus, bus, ferry and bus.  A trip, that in total is about 100 miles.  And if made by just car/ferry/car would take about 3 hours. 

Even though I wasn’t 100%, I really enjoyed their company.  As usual when PCVs get together, we bitched about PC, Samoa and America.  We seem to be just cram full of opinions that we’re happy to share.  We also laughed a lot and talked about things we’re looking forward  to – both in Samoa and after our service is over. 

In addition to travel and company, lest you think I’ve forgotten why I’m here, school has been a tad busy.  We’re winding down the second term, which involves exams and prep for English Day.  It’s a busy time.

Mostly, my internet time has been dedicated to making travel arrangements for my holiday trip to New Zealand.  I booked it, Dano.  A friend from the States will be meeting me in Auckland and returning to see Savaii.  I’m stoked.  My dial up is very handy, but awesomely slow.  After waiting two hours online to book a hotel room, waiting for a post to upload was beyond my level of patience.

Bottom line, the dog ate my homework.  I’ll hope you’ll forgive me and continue to read.

Quinn, The Letter You Mailed in March Just Arrived

I used to find it annoying to get my mail in Florida.  Like many subdivisions we had community mail boxes.  I had to trudge across the street and halfway down the block to get to mine.  Of course, it was one of the few times I saw my neighbors.  We were (and I assume they still are) typical Floridians.  I’d arrive home and use my remote to open the garage door.  I’d close the garage door as I walked into the house.

I spent quite a bit of time outdoors, but it was next to my pool, which is completely private.  Walking to the community mail box was when we caught up on neighborhood happenings.

Today I made the weekly trek into Salelologa to check my mail.   It involved 2 buses, 1 taxi and a bit over 2 hours and makes me appreciate the ease of home mail delivery in the States.  The trip to town was worth it.   I hit the jackpot – 2 packages, 2 letters and 1 postcard.

Thanks to Peter and Elizabeth from the Melbourne area.  You sent the first post card for my Year 7 class.  They’ll be excited to see it tomorrow morning.   The postcard was postmarked July 22, 2011.

Shout out to Quinn who sent a great note.  I appreciate you reading my blog and hope you’re enjoying your new adventure teaching in American Samoa.   You’ve got a place to stay at my house in Faga when you visit Savaii.  The envelope was postmarked March 11, 2011.  Yes, March.  From Chicago.  Was the carrier pigeon injured?  Quinn moved to American Samoa in July. 

Another letter was from my most consistent correspondent, Granny T.  Miss you and love you, Granny, and wish we could be playing a hot game of Jenga with R and ML.  Thanks for the crosswords! The envelope was postmarked July 14, 2011.

The boxes were from Donna and ML and both were filled with love and fabulous goodies.   To be honest, I was too excited to rip into them and didn’t check the postmark dates, but know that ML has been asking for weeks if it had arrived.  It’s hard to say what my favorite items are but the artichoke hearts and Swedish fish are both especially appreciated.  And, really, sea salt in a grinder?  I believe I’m the most pampered Peace Corps in service anywhere in the world.  I’m very grateful.

Along the way to and from town I noticed a few things that I thought you might find interesting.

A man got on the bus carrying a tiny infant and a chain saw.   

I saw t-shirts (all worn by Samoans) from Portugal, the Duke Fencing Team, US tour dates of Aladdin on Ice, and some high school in Missouri.  I’ve spoken at/attended a lot of conferences over the years and most involved t-shirts.  I gave them away.  I’m convinced I’ll see one worn here before I leave.

On the bus floor, next to the driver, was a large bottle of the local beer (empty) and a full plate of taro and barbequed chicken.  Next to a set of wrenches.

We experienced a slight delay on the way home since the bus had to wait for the police van which was blocking the road.  The policemen were buying fish from a roadside vendor.

When I arrived by taxi at the market, a man grabbed my packages and said “Pasi o Pua Pua, i?”  “I.” I replied and started following him.   He works on one of the busses I take that passes through my village on the way to Pua Pua.  He put my packages on the bus for me.  When the driver stopped in front of my driveway, he took them off for me.  It’s sort of like having a very large, noisy limo.

14 people waved and called my name as I rode by on the bus.  I counted.  

PC, is this what you mean by “integrated”?

China, Malaysia and Shopping

My father used to tell us not to complain because when he was growing up in a large family with little money, he had it tough.  You know the kind of thing I mean…”I had to walk 10 miles uphill both ways in a blizzard to go to school all summer.”  He also used to tell us he was so poor he had to use corn cobs as toilet paper.

I opened a new roll of toilet paper the other day and was looking at the wrapper.  The tag line, in English under the Chinese, was “Corn. Fortable. Soft.”  Perhaps they were thinking of my father.

Most of the products for sale here were made and imported from China.  The quality is somewhat disappointing.  Like the knife/scissor set I bought before coming to Savaii.  I used the knife once.  The handle broke in half.  I was slicing an onion, not doing some kind of Ginzu test.  I also bought a shallow plastic tub to use for laundry and other household chores.  I used it three times to haul wet laundry outside to hang.  I still use it although it has large cracks in the bottom after those three uses.

The grocery stores also have a variety of items from Malaysia.  Many are quite tasty and inexpensive.  One thing I love is a small bag of “nuts”.  It’s actually a snack mix made from garbanzo beans, soy beans and peas.  A bit salty, crunchy and only $1 for a small bag.  I’ve also discovered a Malaysian snack called Cheesy Balls.  Only $.40 for a tiny bag of tasty little balls that have a taste reminiscent of Cheetos.  It’s a good thing they come in very tiny bags.

I drink a lot of water.  I also drink a lot of Crystal Lite.  My Florida buddies sent me a case and I stocked up on some more when I found it in Pago Pago.  Occasionally I get the urge for a soda.  I only drink diet soda at home and even that, not very often.  Here, it’s hard to find diet anything so when I find diet soda I grab it.  Shasta is a popular brand and one of the least expensive sodas available.  Makes me feel like a kid again, since Shasta was a rare treat growing up in Arizona.

I enjoy reading the labels of the food and other items I buy.  Most are made in Asia with labels in Chinese, Vietnamese or Malay,  English and…Spanish.  Go figure.

Babies

There are a lot of babies in Samoa.  Babies, toddlers and kids.  They’re everywhere.  I like that people are trusting and very willing to let me latch on to a little one to play or just snuggle.  I thought you might be interested in some of the things I’ve noticed about child care here:

Food.  There are about 40 jars of baby food at the local store.  That’s not 40 types of baby food, that’s 40 jars, total.  I asked how babies are fed.  Nursing, obviously.  Done whenever it’s needed and done modestly with a lavalava or blouse covering up the parts that would make most Americans uncomfortable.  I was told that mothers also chew food and pass it to the baby’s mouth when the child is old enough to start moving beyond nursing.  They also use “gummable” foods like Twisties (think Cheetos).

Diapers.  I have not seen any cloth diapers here.  Doesn’t mean there aren’t any, but I’ve seen a lot of babies and all were wearing disposable diapers.  In some homes I’ve seen babies with no diapers.  They just go commando and do their business wherever.

Babysitting.  The other day the Year 1 teacher was absent so I was the sub.  Beyond some memorized words like numbers and colors, they don’t speak English.  I brought in 15 Year 6 kids to help out.  I assigned each a couple of younger kids and they were my helpers.  Year 6 doesn’t speak a lot of English but they are used to child care.  It seems that when a new baby arrives an older sibling is given primary responsibility for care when the mom and dad aren’t doing it.

Babies here seem to be universally loved and the older kids don’t seem to view this as an onerous chore.  I’ve seen a big, tough Year 7 boy carry his 2 year old sister around while playing soccer.  He doted on her.  I love seeing men holding babies.  Men and boys here seem to do their fair share of child care.

Alofa – love.  People show a lot of love to babies, sometimes in a way I don’t expect.  On a bus I saw a woman holding a sleeping baby…maybe 8-9 months old.  She was chatting with a friend and suddenly slapped the baby on the cheek.  Not really hard, but certainly hard enough to cause an awake, crying baby.  She and her friend laughed then she kissed the baby, rubbed the cheek where she’d slapped her, then tried to rock her back to sleep.  I’ve seen that kind of “rough love” on numerous occasions.  And with young children, it does definitely seem to be done with love.

In addition to human babies, we’ve got a bunch of other species.  Within 20 yards of my fale live two bitches and their puppies (3 each).  A sow with 7 piglets.  More hens and chicks than I can count.  Nice to have the fun of playing with the puppies and watching the piglets and chicks with none of the responsibility.

Beach Volleyball

Clearly, I’m in the Beach Corps, since I played beach volleyball last week.  If you’re thinking buff, brown-skinned Samoan dudes, think again.  It is part of the Samoa Health Challenge III that Peace Corps is sponsoring and I was playing with the women’s committee.  I’m one of the older players, but not the oldest and not the most “voluptuous”.  They play a mean game of voli.  They don’t talk to me much, because my Samoan sucks, but they smile a lot and they let me play as an alternate.  

They enjoy the game but take it seriously.  I warned them (in Samoan) that I was bad.  It didn’t take long to prove my point.  They had me play on both teams.  I think it was so that I was an equal liability.  They did seem shocked when I hit a couple of winning serves.  They gave me advice in English and Samoan.

I wasn’t clear on how/when they rotated players but they would tell me “uma” and I was outta there.  At one point there were a bunch of kids staring at me, most too young for school. I asked if anyone wanted to Hokie Pokie.  Didn’t have to ask them twice.  We hokied, we pokied.  We sang and danced.  We counted.  We did the alphabet.  We did a song that involves pointing at each kid in turn as they dance (Her hands are high, her feet are low and this is how she jig-a-lows).  They loved that one and it was also popular with the women, some of whom started dancing to our song.

If you’re in the mood to play some volleyball, stop by.  We play every Monday night along the main beach road in Sapini.  Hopefully, you’re better than I am.  

BTW, if you just want to watch, you might want to walk just up the road where the buff brown-skinned dudes play in front of my fale.  And you wonder why I sit at home most evenings gazing at the view?