back to school tastes better with toasted cheese

in the pics: english day pictures. the students tried their best with a solo poem, a chorus poem, a drama, and song, and a dance...i think they liked the dance and drama the best...

6/15
So starts another term—actually this is week two, but the training for athletics started this week—meaning I help with training and I won’t get done with school until around 3:30pm. Most days my eyes hurt at the end. (could it be be running in the hot samoan sun???)

One of my samoan families has a DVD player that is broken. I thought it would be easy to find info on the “magic” internet about how to fixx the DVD player. (if I only get one thing out of this two years, might it be an appreciation of talking to PEOPLE to get information, not only the inter-webbed highway). All the websites I visited said to throw it away and buy a new one. In Samoa, that would be very hard (faigata!) there is no money for a new dVD player. Samoa doesn’t know the same “throw away culture” that the western world knows.

I was thinking about computers…I’ve done user interface design, now I’m teaching computers. I wonder if I’ll ever be developing SW, or working with people who do develop. I tried in college. The code and I didn’t converse very well.



6/10
Two Germans came to visit me at my school this afternoon. The weather was not cooperative. This must be the cold week. the weather is bad and there is a “cold” wind that blows. They asked me “what is the Samoan dream.’ ..like the American dream. I laughed. I told them some really want to go overseas, and some want to stay right here in samoa and work on their plantation and make the family. Life is slower here and not everyone wants to speed up western style.

Even though it’s cooler, the mosquitoes still seem to be snacking on me. rugby is big in samoa. Here are the names of the village teams in my district: Savai Spiders, Matautu Ainiusami, Safaatoa Puaanifo, Faleaseela Maroon, Matafa’a ama’ama (a small crab), Gagaifo Jungle.



6/9
Back to school…term two starts this week. toasted cheese with smoked salmon, tomatoes, and gouda cheese—rock. (thank you for the package mom!) Yes, but put too much salmon in the sandwiches. They still tasted good. I’ll never get tired of melted cheese. Cucumbers and French sauce complete the yumminess.

Iesu e, o lau tatalo
Ia o’o mai lou malo
Ia faia lou finagalo
E pei o I luga.
Amene.

OK, so I’m starting to draw tattoo designs around the edge of my journal pages—which is something I can’t show you in my blog…well, maybe if I get a good version I can scan it.