training village yummy

10/17
It’s interesting to think about how Western culture is pressing into Samoan ways (fa’asamoa). There’s a Mcdonald’s on the Corner in Apia close to our hotel. I see man samoans in jeans and shorts. I see the Manikins in the store windows with the 36-24-36 hour glass shape body..what does that do to a young girl when that has not been the way forever? Kind of like what I saw in Zimbabwe.
The open houses (fales) I see right next to the road where cars are zooming by at 50-60mph make me sad.
Today’s morning was our normal schedule—breakfast, check in at 8am, first session at 8:30am (we talked culture: the seen and unseen, morning tea and snack at 10am and another session (more culture) then ate lunch, but the afternoon we went to Annie Gray’s hotel where we had our water safety session—and went snorkling. It was really pretty! I swam with a school of small fish right before I got back on the boat. I put lots of sunblock on this time—I got burned Monday when we went to another beach for the day off after White Sunday.
I am missing my normal workouts.

10/28
I took my journal to the training village thinking I would make time to write something in it…nope. We got back from the village on the 27th, had a Halloween party for the kids at the hotel we are staying at for training, then went to a costume party..for the big kids at a PCV house. I was kind of dorky and didn't dress up..but I had a good time..and saw the cool robot and a few crazy natives. It was cool..sorry not pics though.
Samoa seems to be placing emphasis on youth “Year of the Youth.” On our way to church this morning we passed a youth place. I heard some music with a drumset. Oh I really wanted to go inside.
Our group had our first big “test”…called an LTA…I forgot what it stands for..but I passed though..we discussed out training village family tree..all in Samoan!.
Our training village is Lalomauga (meaning under the mountain). Very pretty. It took a few days to get used to the quiet—totally not like Boston!
Food cravings—my stomach doesn’t feel settled—I think the milk I used to drink really helped settle my stomach. I miss tomato, cucumber, and mozzarella cheese salad, tortillas and muenster cheese. They do have Pringles in Samoa;)
They also have Coca Cola Dynamic Ribbon Device..the joys of marketing…
Samoa has sweet lightning storms—tonight and last night. I wish I was closer.

10/29
“Malo. soi fua” hello and good health.
Tsunami drill today..using cell phones to notify everyone. Walk in the hot sun to Chanel college. I told another PCV that if tsunami really came, I wouls tand and wait for it to come and get me..i love water! Today we found out where we will be serving—Lafanga Secondary School!!! They want a computer teacher and also a math and physics teacher. Should be interesting. I haven’t done any physics since college, and it was mostly theory. My classes will be all hands on—learning about some rugby and Frisbee arcs;)
More diet..my training family uses a lot of salt. The food they fed me was salty enough without extra salt. Samoans live much closer to the land than most Americans I think. My host family in the training village have pigs and chickens and kill them the day they eat them..yum…much less processed food, much heavier, thick food. Than I’m used to.
I keep thinking about how Samoans see health. Diabetes and glaucoma seem to be big here. It has been hard for me to adjust to the lack of movement. I went walking with my new mother..she got tired pretty easily..but I hope I can walk more with her.
I saw my first sunset today..i love sunsets..and sunrises. The other PCV rode in the landcruiser to HOT and Spicy, a decent restaurant. ..but I love to walk and look at sunsets…
Hot tips..good syncopation: Robert frip and andew summers. Good percussion…the Meters. My roommate, erik has some cool music….
Until next time..stay cool…


sorry no pics right now..out of time..

disclaimer of an adventure

these statements and opinions are mine mine mine, and not peace corps...so they are only
mine..and mine alone...btw.this is the disclaimer;)

talofa..here is the address of our flickr account where you can see all the pics different
volunteers from group79 have posted..http://www.flickr.com/groups/samoa79
We are heading to our training village for a week..so I probably won't post until we get
back to the hotel in Apia.It's interesting to think about how western culture is pressing into Samoan ways
(fa'asamoa). There's a McDonalds on the corner in Apia close to our hotel. I see many Samoans in jeans and shorts. I see the Manikins in teh store windows with the 36-24-36 hour glass shape--what does that do to a young girl (and expectations placed on her) when that has is not the way it has been for hundreds of years?Kind of like what I experienced in Zimbabwe.The open houses (fale) I see right next to the road where cares are zooming by at 50-60MPH...things are changing quickly. I wonder what the scene will be in two years when I say goodbye.

some inspiration..
But there's that starlit burst of animal laughter
Success is problem solving. "No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple
form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential
element in thinking."

White Sunday and Ava ceremony

10/13
Apparently Samoa is four hours behind of west coast time. My laptop says 11pm right now, and we just had Chinese food and my watch says 7pm. Another night of very heavY rain! I love the sound of rain. I played rugby with some locals this morning. I’m really missing my normal workout routine. I’ve run on the sea wall a few times, and done a LITTLE yoga. It’s so hot/humid here usually that I don’t have to find a hot room to do yoga, just step out of our air conditioned room.

Today our training included more personal and house safety, and a panel of current PC volunteers to talk about relationships—PC volunteers having relationships with samoans—and what that means. Apparently a relationship gets very serious very fast here in samoa. And marriage means a very different thing here in samoa.

Tomorrow is another long day. It’s White Sunday, where the kids run the show, and pampered by the parents. Usually, it’s the other way around the rest of the year. Our peace corps group is going to sing Amazing Grace. I will be wearing my white button down shirt and a white fitted lava lava. Maybe I can get some pics. We went to a place called Mr. lava lava today; apparently, they don’t have any lava lavas but Big Bear across the way did.

well...now this is me typing on the blog before I post it..the other text I copy and paste from before..white sunday was fun..lots of church and food. We each went to a different Samoan family. My family gave me a lava lava, shirt, fan, and purse weaved out of cococut leaves.

One thing I hear in samoa is a few cars with the deep bass going by. American music is all the rage. One of our language trainers’ favorite station is what sounds like top40s.

I wish I knew what people were saying during the ava ceremony. It seemed important. Has it been written down/recorded anywhere? On the web? But I also wonder if people are just going through the motions—if it doesn’t mean as much to some people. Is the American influence causing young people to turn away from Samoan culture? Ava ceremony is the way Samoans welcome new comers to their community.

Hanna (ane, by her samoan name) told me that suicide of teens/ young adults is the leading cause of death….that pokes a very soft spot for me.

Arrival in Trainings

10/12
We got our Samoan names today. I am Matoia (long sound over first A).

First full day in Samoa. WOW. Lots to learn and read! We got our language binders, volunteer, handbook,, and medical manual. I have no shortage of stuff to read:0 oh and speaking of medical, I have to get five more shots….yea!!..not..i think our medical officer knew I did not like shots by the face I made when I found out how many I still needed to have.

Heavy rains drenched or maybe I should say flooded the area today. It would rain super heavy for about 20-30 minutes and then stop and start and stop and start and stop. It is pouring rain as I write this.

It will be a challenge to keep my back from hurting. I haven’t run yet, but maybe tomorrow morning. I’ll run with another PC trainee. I did a little yoga today. One of the good things about the humidity is I don’t need to go in a hot room to do yoga—the humidity makes it feel almost like a baptiste room. One of our trainers (Kevin) is a yoga teacher in Samoa he has a web site…www.yogasamoa.com. I’m going to try and take one of his classes during our training.

Today was a day of telling us how much Samoa we would know by the end of our training, and how well we had to do to pass. I’m going to be needing extra extra help with the triple vowel, sounds. (‘aua = don’t). there is the horizontal line over the vowels sometimes to make a long sound. I don’t know how I’m going to type that. It seems impossible that I will know how to speak a paragraph and converse for 20 minutes by the end of the 9.5 weeks of training. It will be interesting because I’ve worked on finnish and French, but never got very far with them.

One thing that reminds me of Zimbabwe is the puffs of black smoke and bad smells from the busses.

picture is me in my lava lava...ohhhh aahhh..I just got another one from my White Sunday family.

I hope these blog entries will reflect how much samoan I’ve learned. Maybe I could even do a whole blog post in Samoan! (tofa = bye. Long sound on the O and A)

Boeing's 11 hours to island

10/10
It’s amazing to me how much power this Boeing 767 has—to lift a full jet off the ground..full of people and bags—a flying sardine can.

…time goes by…about a 10 hour flight

30 minutes from Apia, Samoa. Oh I’m excited!! Maybe a little tired. My personal definition of success (after completing the staging part of PC): people who are excited and want to dialogue about the work I’m doing. When I learn about samoans and they learn about me. When I can be comfortable sitting around talking about whatever. When people I work with define what success means to them and we start working in that direction.

I feel I have head knowledge of what this whole thing is going to be like, but I can’t know what it’s really going to be like.

I wonder about samoan’s idea of personal space. What is an “inconvenience?” I have a feeling it may be a little different than what I’m (Americans) used to. We’ve been told animals (dogs) are treated differently than in the US. And there might be some corporal punishment of children. L not sure if I’m ready for that yet.

What are the rules of engagement? We have traveled a long way in darkness…left LA about 11:30pm and arriving in Apia about 5am.

“Prepare for landing”…I usually see lights on the ground by now…no lights yet. Deboarding plane—into the humidity. ..reminds me of Zimbabwe. I see the men wearing lava lavas, the sniffer dogs…a drive to our hotel as the sun peeks over the pacific ocean.

In Samoa!

10/8

sorry people..I only have internet access so often...

Today is the day—my flight to LA. It has been soooo long in the waiting. This day feels unreal. The hum drum of getting up at 6am, at least we spent the night in Portland—my mom and stepdad—so we didn’t have to drive 2 hours from Astoria, to Portland this morning. To my family and friends: I MISS YOU more, but it’s time to make new friends, but keep the old. I think you all shine bright.

As we take off, low cloud cover erases all views of the airport and city quickly, only to reveal houses spread much further apart when the plane is a little higher. Seeing the mountains sandwiched between clouds is awesome. The snowy slopes sparkle in the sun. as the plane inches higher, I see the exhaust lines of other jets…maybe Air Force..i’m not sure. It would be cool to have an Air Force jet flying next to us. I was almost in the Air Force, but that’s another story…

My neck is really bothering meL back knobber to the rescue! J what else is on my mind: 1)I have not canceled my cell phone yet. 2)a quote about doing something (ordinary) exceptionally well that I got from an email list I’m on. 3)an article from Harvard Business Review magazine about a guy that did work in Iraq recently and what it took to determine the status quo and help define a desired future. I wonder what that will look like in samoa.

For those of you who are older and wondering about peace corps, we have two older volunteers. One is 65! I think that’s very cool.

Feeling: sad, excited, awestruck.
A few American indicators: gas $1.83/gallon, stamp 41 cents.