Making Copies

Are you old enough to remember back to when Saturday Night Live was young and fresh?  Featuring comedians like Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase and John Belusi?  I still chuckle when I think about skits like “Cheebooga, cheebooga” and “Land Shark”.  Today, I was giggling under my breath about the guy in the copy room skit.

Remember him?  “Making copies.  The copinator.  The copy meister.”  etc., etc., etc. I’ve been making copies all week.  And typing, which I do before I make the copies.  I used to find this very annoying.  I did not go to graduate school so I could spend days in a hot room, slaving over a keyboard or copy machine. For free.

Now I’m resigned.  While waiting for copies to print or while doing the manual collation of 86 copies of a fifteen page document (that was one job), I enjoy the view.  I turned on “The Lion King” so I’d have music to type to, as I typed the aforementioned 15 page document that I also helped author.  It is a trial test being used in preparation for the National Year 8 Exam which will be given in October.

I kibitzed with other teachers as they came through to interrupt me to make copies of their own.  I ate an orange and some kind of new snack my family is selling at their store.  It’s Chinese, involves corn and something sweet, and has a texture remarkably like Styrofoam.  But it’s kinda tasty and certainly cheap.  I’m positive it can’t be healthy.  I shared mine with a Year 3 student and the three year old daughter of another teacher.  I’m not sure why they were wandering around near the office, but assume they heard the faint sounds of Lion King.  Or were looking for me, which frequently happens.

Rather than stressing about the fact that I was neither teaching English to children nor teaching the teachers how to teach English, I just got into the Zen of the week.  “You’d like another few hundred pages collated?  No problem.”  And in my head I could hear it.  The voice from SNL…”Makin’ copies.”

Thanks, Ros and Doug!

Written Wednesday, July 11, 2012

I was shopping at the Tuisivi store after school today, when one of the nice women who works there asked if I’d been to the Post Office across the street to pick up my mail.  The Post Office opened recently and I hadn’t been in.  Mostly because my mail is addressed to the main P.O. in Salelologa.  And because a nice young man delivered my last package to me personally at school.

I’m not sure how she knew there was mail waiting for me.  I assume the postman asked her if she knew me.  It’s a small island and business is very casual here.  And since there are no street addresses, it makes sense to just ask around.

In any case, I introduced myself to the man in charge of the mail in Tuisivi and he gave me a large, padded envelope.  It seems the envelope had quite the travel experience since it was originally sent from Australia, and then accidentally visited American Samoa, then Upolu, then Salelologa, then Tuisivi.

I met Ros and Doug when they were visiting Savaii recently.  They visited the school and I’m incredibly grateful for the wonderful packet of goodies they sent.  I know the kids will be excited too, with the workbooks, flashcards, stickers, etc.  All of the stuff is wonderful and will get lots of use for years to come.  Ros, the book you picked up at airport in Fiji is outstanding!  We’ll be able to use it with kids from several grades to help improve their maths skills.

I really enjoy it when visitors from overseas stop by the school.  The kids are always thrilled to meet a new palagi and love to sing and dance and show off their Samoan heritage.  They also love having their photos taken, practicing their English and getting attention.

As the resident palagi, I always get to show visitors around.  If you’ll be in Savaii before I leave in November, I hope you’ll stop by – for a few minutes or a few hours, your choice.  While it’s great to receive gifts from visitors that’s certainly not expected or required.  Your genuine interest is a gift in itself.

Thanks, Ros and Doug for taking time from your vacation to spend some time with the kids.  And thank you so much for your generous gifts.  I guarantee they will be put to good use.

You Think?

How much time do you spend thinking?  I know that as a consultant in the USA I frequently felt as if I was too busy working to think.  What a luxury to spend time just thinking.  Considering options and alternatives.  Mental problem solving.  Daydreaming, even.  Wool gathering, as my grandfather, Fred, called it.

In Samoa the pace is slow.  There is ample time to think.  To cogitate.  To poke around at ideas.  To chew on concepts.  At first I found it frustrating.  Let’s get on with things, let’s DO something.  Now, I enjoy the thinking time.

On Saturday it took me 4 ½ hours to do my shopping.  I bought carrots, bok choy, squash, a whole tuna (for my family, who gave me a piece which I ate raw) and an apple.  4 ½ hours.  It involved 4 buses.  And waits of over 30 minutes for each bus.  That gave me time to think.  

As a consultant, I flew a lot.  I’ve flown over 1 million miles on Delta alone.  I flew almost every week for almost 20 years before coming to Samoa.  That means that I experienced delays, cancelled flights and all the other inconveniences that come with air travel.  What I neglected to notice was that it also gave me the gift of time to think.  Instead, I did email, work, phone calls or reading.  I rarely just sat still and thought.  All those hours wasted in Sky Clubs around the world.

Sometimes I think deep thoughts.  Meaning of life stuff.  Sometimes I think about what to make with the carrots, squash and bok choy.  Many times I ask questions that I can’t answer.  Where does wind come from?  I have a basic understanding of weather and what causes it, but want to learn more.  Today, for example, a squall came up as I was thinking while waiting for a bus.  The winds were intense, probably at least 50 mph.  They lasted only a few minutes.  How does that happen?  Why does some poop float and not flush?  Is thinking about the mundane wrong?

How often do you think?  What do you think about?  When you are in that perfect state at night between consciousness and sleep, what goes through your mind?  Do you take time to think throughout the day?  Or just wrangle the time and get through it?  What do you think about…?

Adulation

I crave privacy here.  But I also know that I will miss the adulation of the children.  Wherever I go, children scream my name and wave wildly.  It’s a beautiful thing.

This evening I was on the phone, near the road.  One of my students was pushing his younger sister in a wheelbarrow to my family’s store.  They both yelled and waved.  It is not easy to drive a wheelbarrow with one hand but he kept it up to continue waving all the way to the store.

Imagine going to work.  Your co-workers scream with glee at your arrival.   “How are you?”  “ Let me carry your bag!”.  Wouldn’t that improve the start of your work day?  That’s what happens to me every day.

I’ve also become used to hearing footsteps behind me.  The thundering of children racing to catch up to me.  To hold my hand.  Or carry my bag.  Or purse.  Or umbrella.   One child per finger, holding my hands.  That’s ten children, walking in step.

It is my greatest joy.  It is what I will miss most.  The sound of a tiny voice yelling “Fa, Nancy!” until I am out of sight.

I'm a Lo'omatua, Beware!

I left school early today to go to Salelologa.  Long story but I needed to get my phone fixed.  It’s fine now.  On the way home I decided to ride past my house and take the scenic tour to Puapua.  The bus wasn’t crowded and at one point it was funny because it was me, five palagis, the supakoka and the bus driver.  The supakoka (bus helper guy) asked where we were going.  The other palagis explained, in English, that they were going to the beach fales in Lano.  I explained, in Samoan, that I was going back to Sapini. 

He understood them.  Me, he had trouble with.  He was expecting English and got Samoan.  He asked me to repeat it.  Then to repeat it again.  There are some things that I really do know how to say correctly in Samoan and this was one of them.  His brain just couldn’t fathom that he was on a bus of only palagis and one of them was speaking Samoan.  He got it and then laughed.  I pointed out that it was a palagi pasi (foreigner bus) and he laughed again.

After we dropped off the tourists going to the beach fales, we turned around and headed back to my village.  Then we stopped.  In the road.  For 15 minutes.  I didn’t know why.  I didn’t really care.  I had a nice view of the lagoon and there was a lovely breeze.  I was a happy dog (one who has no control over events but happily accepts them as they come).  Then it occurred to me we were waiting for the kids at the college.

But as we started up and headed toward the groups of kids near the college, he blasted past.  We passed a family waiting by the road.  The driver had picked up a few guys heading to play rugby and they raced to the front of the bus, asking why he wasn’t stopping.  I was wondering if I’d gotten on a “special” bus, which means that sometimes groups charter buses.  Crap, were we going back to my village?

Then the driver stopped.  A young man came to the bus and started screaming at the driver.  Clearly beyond pissed.  “You left my mother and brothers!  You are a bad man!”  was the essence of the message.  The bus driver backed up and two women, children and their luggage was brought on board.  Then we headed off again.  Only to turn off the road.

Now what?  He was turning around.  This time, we passed groups of students heading the other direction.  Then we turned around again and stopped to pick up the students we’d passed before.  I have no idea why.

There were a lot of kids.  When they got on, the bus was almost empty.  Just me, two women and two children and a few rugby players.  The kids slowly got on.  But they weren’t moving quickly and they weren’t jamming into the back of the bus, which is required to get everyone on.

Unfortunately for my three siblings who go to that college, they had to get on the bus with me.  I suggested my sister sit next to me.  Kids loaded her with their backpacks, to help with space issues.  I gave her my bags as a joke, then took them back, which got a laugh from the kids watching.

But I turned into a lo’omatua (old lady) and faiaoga (teacher).  I started telling the kids in the aisle to move, quickly, toward the back.  There were boys hanging outside the bus because the kids inside didn’t want to cram together.  Too bad.  Move it!  Move it!  I took charge, in Samoan. 

One girl gave me the look of disdain that only a teenage girl can manage.  I gave her my teacher look and told her in Samoan.  “I’m a teacher.  You are being cheeky.  Stop it.”  She did.  My sister probably wished she could be anywhere else.

I told my siblings that I looked forward to riding the bus with them every day.  I am evil.

Help!

Like many people, I believe that I could be a writer.  I just know that somewhere, deep down inside of me, is a book, waiting to burst free.  I could be the next David Sidaris, although goy and female.  Or a non-fiction version of Janet Evanovich.  Actually, I dream of becoming a writer so I can meet David and we can share humorous stories about our families.  Then, maybe he’d introduce me to Ira Glass, host of This American Life and my not-so-secret crush.

I’ve actually talked to a publisher about a book.  I was trying to sell the fact that I’ve done a variety of stuff that many women dream of.  No, not killing my husband.  I’m talking about the luxury cruise around the world I took when I turned 50.  Being self-employed and getting paid to travel around North and South America for almost 20 years.  And spending two years on an island in the South Pacific as a way to celebrate turning 60 (and 61 and 62.)

The best way to convince a publisher that they should invest in me is to show that I already have a following.  People willing to take their time to read my blog.  That I have a blog that people not only read, but that they are interested enough to comment on.

I know, I know.  So many blogs, so little time for reading.  And frankly, I have tended to write not as a professional, focused on my audience, but as a small-minded (but big-butted) woman focused on her own feelings and thoughts of the moment.

I promise I’ll try to clean up the writing if you’ll help me get some new readers.  Think Julie and Julia – from a blog she got a book deal.  Then a movie deal.  Think of how exciting it would be for us to go to the premier together (and trust me, I’d be happy to take my first 41 followers) to watch Glenn Close play me in the movie.

You can help by sending my blog link to everyone you know.  Put it on billboards, if you like, although if you want to do that, I should give it a snappier name.  I kind of like www.hot_old_broad.com but that might send the wrong message.

Ok, it’s a hot, boring Sunday in Samoa so I’m daydreaming.  But do you believe dreams can come true?  Tell me what you like about my blog.  Or what you don’t.  Would you read a book if I wrote one?  More importantly, would you tell a friend to read my blog now?

Fa’amolemole (please) do.  And if you happen to know Ira Glass or David Sidaris, be sure to give them my number.