Geek in Meditation at the sea

picture comments: the two boys are Ni (a relative) and TJ my sister's three year old. I told them to smile (ata).
Sina and Pine are twins--eight years old.

12/06
I have learned to much in the past two months. Two months huh?? It feels like a lot more time than that. It (the language) has always been a struggle for me. It comes easier for others. I do know I’m making progress and today we all find out if we can really speak at an intermediate low level—for our language proficiency interview (LPI)—the big test during our two months.

I sit here on the sea wall in Apia and wait—I’m last at 11am. I still get sad when I see the ocean—I want to dissolve in it—but that goes into other stuff. Good luck to everyone…even if we have been a little complainy. It’s hard when I don’t get time to reflect—well—here is time—and I need to find a new journal soon. I’m on page 96 of 101.

Let’s talk about attention. Everyone wants attention. Who gets in Samoa? The older you get, the more you seem to get here. Younger people/kids don’t really get attention. That’s not how I operate. I’ve noticed I love to say smile and say malo (hi) to kids. I love to see people smile. Many Samoans seem to ignore young people. Dogs get rocks thrown at them. I feels weird to be afraid of dogs. I’ve had dogs bark at me, and have had to pick up a rock and yell “halu” but I haven’t had to throw any rocks yet. I really hope I don’t have to throw rocks. The little kids at my host family in our training village were very shy (ma) for the first few times we lived at the village. By our last time in the village, all the kids were doing yoga with me before dinner. Even Lotu (the one year old) was trying on his downward dog. Speaking of yoga…I have not “released” my back since I’ve come to Samoa. For me, release means my back muscles can relax to a point where they don’t feel tight to me. Back in the states the things that did this were swim club, power yoga, sprinting, and my three hour workouts. I haven’t done any of those since I’ve been in Samoa, but I have made a point to include what I can: a morning walk/run, and a little Frisbee and yoga before dinner. Do what you can.


12/03
Christmas jingles—well how about Christmas remixes—the latest examples is the Macarena song remixed against five or six different classic Christmas songs. It was actually pretty good—it had a good beat. I hope to collect a CD or 2 of popular Christians songs/remixes.

Back in America, I liked to plan a week or month in advance. From what I’ve experienced so far, samoans don’t really plan for the future. One day at a time. They don’t seem to talk about what has happened in the past either.

Another feature of the Christmas time in samoa (at least in our training village, Lalomauga_) is the loud sound of the boom boom—in Samoa called “fana’ofe”—bamboo gun. It sounds like canons going off, but one cool effect is what sounds like a sonic boom that wraps around the mountain.

Here is my daily routine in Lalomauga: go for a walk/run (usually with my little brother, Iapela) about 6 or 6:30am. Shower—I love the warm bucket showers with the sun breaking over the mountain. Breakfast with my mom and dad. Training starts at 8:00am with language, cross cultural, diversity. There is morning and afternoon tea with yummy snacks that other volunteers bring from their families. Since coming to Samoa I’ve been drinking about two pots of tea each day. Lunch at home 12-1:30pm class out at 5 or 5:30pm volleyball or Frisbee (fa’atifa) until 6:30pm, when the evening shell sounds and everybody heads home for family prayer. I have learned a short prayer in Samoan). Dinner. After dinner: homework (mea ‘aoga), TV, or suipi. Then read a book—if I have the energy. Right now I’m reading a book about nomads. Lights out about 11 or 11:30. a few nights I have been reading and fallen asleep with the lights on. Someone turns them off for me. The switch is in the other (main) fale.

Ants are strong! I saw one carrying a piece of something that was three times its body size…and they are everywhere. I forgot a lollipop in a pocket of my backpack—pulled it out four days later—the ants were giving it lots of love. If you’re headed to Samoa, bring good Tuperware and lots of double locking zip lock bags.

Some words Samoans (at least our trainers) don’t know: geek (I have a t-shirt that says “geek” on the front of it, labels are for jars on the back). I told them it was a term that is commonly used for someone that really likes computer stuff. Also “bon appetite” we couldn’t get a comparable phrase in Samoan. And “preventative”…I love yoga because it prevents so many physical ailments, and I like to feel healthy… “soifua” means good health.

We had our complaining session recently with the trainers about the training. We’ve been put under a lot of stress and people are starting to break…well, no, that may not be the word I’m looking for. How about more than we thought it would be. But one trainee said in response, “if you’re unhappy, why did you come?” HP, our training manager said some things that I thought were really cool: “what it takes to be successful.” I think a lot about this..because feeling successful is a key to happiness. “Your training for service” yes, this is/was very hard/intense/long/mind frying, but this is the training that will make us more effective. Someone told me that JICA volunteers (Japanese) don’t get near as much training as we do. I think we will appreciate this training later down the road when we are at our site. HP also said “training as your most stressful (peak) experience.” That reminds me of yoga training. Level2 was crazy hard, but it was so awesome. This training is hard too, but it’s hard on my brain/mind. Yoga training was hard on my body. If this is the peak experience, well then, the whole next two years should be easy. But I don’t think that will be the case. But this training has given us many useful things(ok…tools) we can use. For me, there has been so much I haven’t had the chance to reflect on each one and think about how I could use it. Also, we haven’t been put into the environment we will be in long enough to apply any of this training stuff…well, the language is already being applied.