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.
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.
posted by bigchainring at 10:29 PM
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