Poorhouse Salamasina fair

5/15 need pics of culture day
Today was culture day. A big event. Parents came to see. Students all had specially made outfits. The house design (salamasina) that Mr. Fualau created on the computer became the design that was painted onto the lavalavas the students wore. It was good to see students improvise a little and put on a show. The audience many good laughs. There are some hams in our school. …seems to be the students that get hit the most.

Today was a good day. After school, I fia moe(slept), then did the rugby/cardio practice. That always makes my back feel better. But my quads have been sore since I started participating in rugby practices. My muscles are not used to that kind of work out anymore.

We had a “party” during dinner tonight, meaning drink lots of beer. I drank 4 small bottles, then I was hungry, so I ate taro, pig, palusami, and chop sui. It was pretty good. I’m still not used to Samoan food though. I dream of arby’s sandwiches…

I’m defrosting my fridge right now because group79 has their early service training next week, and then 2 weeks of break. So I won’t be using my room for 3 weeks.

It’s time to do the PC reports…quarter one is way overdue, but we just got the forms. Hmmmmm…working with the American Government. ..fun. I think I’m making good progress…teaching students, teaching teachers at my school + matautu teachers, starting a reading program next term, starting teaching year 12 students next term. I will be busy.


5/14/08 …salamasinaScreenShot
It has been an interesting experience finding out what the teachers at school want help with regarding computers. They did not hand me a book of forms and documents and say “we want to learn how to make these.” It has been an unearthing process. From the very first project, the Lefaga district meeting agenda (with underlining, bolding, centering, capital letters, and lists), to the project I just showed Mr. Fualau tonight—how to create a design for our “house.” I’m in the house called “Salamasina.” The design uses WordArt, Text Boxes, and AutoShapes. We haven’t done this for the teachers class on Mondays yet, but hopefully next term. We are in the last week of term one, and big preparations for Culture Day on Thursday. Next term I get to start doing the same process with teachers at Matautu Primary School. I will be teaching there after school one day a week.


5/7
Tonight for dinner my spoon held a mixture of ta’amu (like taro, but a bigger plant), pi supo (corned beefàeaten by the 4pound size), supo povi (soup with pieces of beef, rice, and ramen noodles). I’d take a picture, but my camera’s rechargeable batteries are uma (not working) ahhhhhhhhhhh…another cheap(er) Chinese product—but I got this one in America.

Today I tasted yummy…Jane who own some fales by the river, made a chocolate and banana milkshake—with real milk, that was really shaken. In other words a thick and creamy chocolate concoction. On another food noteàlast night I ate dinner with Jane and Olsen. Jane made steak and eggs burgersà which also included baby tomatoes, lettuce (real lettuce, not cabbage), avocado, fried onions, ketchup, mayonnaise, and pepper. I had two—they were both very tasty. Satisfied deeply. Wished I didn’t have to ride my bike back to my school building at 9pm.

We haven’t had the teacher’s computer training for the last few weeks, but I’ve been helping the science teacher, Mr. Fualau. Tonight was using OCR (scanning text and graphics) to make a copy of his letter from the Ministry of education. He has done the most with computers and his school stuff.


5/6
I just finished a book called “the poorhouse fair” by John Updike. It was OK. Here are some sentences I liked:
In heaven there are no appearances.
There is infinitely more nothing in the universe than anything else.
There is no goodness without belief.
Sap his mind, and the lid was lifted from a cesspool of muddy colors.
The dawn of evening, the bright trousers and luminous skirts brushing past him, the weight of silver in his pocket, the smell of crushed grass beneath him, and the net of conversations spread above his head seemed to make good the fantastic promise that someday he would inherit the delights of adulthood.


5/4
The day after a yummy Mexican lunch and dinner. Some PCVs celebrated cinco demyo
I read a recent speech by Barack Obama. He talked a lot about race and one of his ‘former’ pastors. He also said one of the time old sayings “the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday.” Hmmm…I haven’t heard that time old saying. Am I under a rock? I wonder what kind of rock.

I looked through one of the national geographic photographic anthologies “through the lens” very nice pictures. Good inspiration for more pictures. Now I just need my battery charger to work.

Tortilla making with high Hearts

in the pics: Seattle high school students came to my school to donate 140 dictionaries and my students paint maps on our school walls: a world map, a south pacific map, a picture of Upolu and Savaii...Seattle Prep rocks!

5/1
I went to visit Mataupu (name of the village) Primary school today. They had gotten a donation of five computers from a middle school in New Zealand. The teachers were busy typing up their tests when I walked in the door of the office. They are struggling with creating the shapes in basic math (triangle, pyramid, circle, and shading off sections). They want me to start teaching once a week next term. I’m up for it. They seem nice, and they like to laugh, fa’asamoa.

A new month! In nine days I will have been in Samoa for exactly seven months. Seems like a long time…not really. There has been a lot of new things. In two weeks our PC group (79) will have early service training. We’ll see how people are dealing with things. I think we’ll do fine, but as I’ve said with other things, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Two new items to the daily line up: a hot water rinse after my shower every day. The medical PC officer suggested I try this for those lovely little red bumps on my body. I miss my hot showers. The other thing, Pringles, yum…added to my late night sandwiches of bread, mayonnaise, mustard, tomatoes, and cucumbers. “A good little crunch goes a long way”

I just finished another book: the High Heart, by Joseph Bathanti. Here are some phrases I liked:
Almost making sense
I can’t imagine the lives of other people
To rescue us from this gloom
I have never eaten anything that has tasted so much of sheer joy and damnation simultaneously (about a steak sandwich;)
She had her share of arrows sticking out of her
Even if I lost. I thought of sweets.
Boys without futures have short names, short lives.
And I always knew he loved me. Always.
The ice had a way of whispering. Then yawning like a bow skidding over a fiddle I.
I had never seen the ocean.
That was very Italian, Rita.
New mexico: She’s read about it. Or the yucatan. Or British Columbia. A commune. The Peacce Corps. Maybe a monastery.
What people of epic endurance possess. They only know how to suffer. Not to hit back.
Who knows what it’ll cost to get planted in forty, fifty years.
The sun awaits another minute or so before leaking its yellow blood across the horizon.

The author’s description of what a kid goes through in wrestling and training makes me glad I did not do wrestling.


4/26
I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures of my first tortilla making adventure. I stayed at Erik’s house today (another group 79 PCV). We attempted the handmade tortillas—from a recipe off the internet. Later we realized it would work better if we had used milk (like the PC cookbook says), and baking powder—not baking salt. Oh well, first try. Next attempt will be better. And Erik has cool music and hot running water –nice showers. My skin says thank you.

2 movies this weekend—“defending your life” I watched this with some PC friends after a Sader. The first SAder I’ve been to. I thought the movie was funny and thought provoking. Go after what you love. It is the only thing that matters. The other called “300”, after the tortilla experiences. Blood splatters in almost every scene. If you don’t like gore and killing, don’t watch this movie.


I’m reading through the year12 school text books. I just finished the English text book. There is a poem: “crossing the Bar,” reminds me of home, and bar pilots in Astoria, Oregon. Hmmmm…many reminders of home recently.

Crossing the Bar
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep.
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourn of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

Lesson's of a Pig

in the pics: A picture of Apia from high above on a mountain, ahhh coconut trees, inside ANZ bank...looks pretty modern.

4/22
Today’s adventure took me to Allan’s house, about a 30 minute bike ride from where I live. I met him when I was flying down a hill on my way home after riding to the top of the mountain one day. He is a palagi (from Australia) who married a Samoan woman and decided that it is important for his daughter to know her roots and heritage, before she goes out into the world. I wanted to do work, and today, I was in luck: Allan had just shot a pig (unlike the way I helped kill a pig in our PC training by standing on a stick to strangle it). He needed help carrying it back to his house (fale). Well, it was actually a bit of a hike—30 minutes into dense jungle. And, um, the pig was actually in three pieces: the fore end (with the head), and rear end (with the rearend), and the guts—which I got to carry back in a double plastic bag. All 30 pounds of it. Allan said it was a size 4 pig...they come as big as a 6 or 7. the pig allan killed today must have been at least a good 150-200lbs. I wonder what a size 7 pig looks like. So I’m covered in sweat and some blood smears on me, but having a good time. I wished I had my camera with me to get a picture, but I’m sure your imagination can make up a good mental image;)

I wanted to do some work, and not just eat, stand, or sleep. I think the options to help with work are shaping up quite well. There is also Jane and Olsen, who have lived in NZ for a long time, and have no “extended” family to help them. I can help them. I told allan just give me a machete and let me do some bush wacking and I’ll be happy as a clam. He seemed excited to get me into it. He said he likes to do that too. Now I just have to remember to do the yoga before I go to bed or I will hurt the next day.

Current music selections (thank you to Erik) include: Allman Brothers, Badly Drawn Boy, Beck, Ben Harper, Blonde Redhead, Blue Oyster Cult, and Bob Marley. I haven’t heard many of these artists before, but that is what I want—to hear new music.


4/21
“The greater the structure of a lesson and the more precise the direction on what is to be accomplished the higher the achievement rate.”
This is so much more important in a rote learning environment. It amazes me almost every day how much I have to watch what I write on the board. If I write it down, the students write it down. If I don’t write it. They will not write it down.