Stamped Out

I need a stamp. It’s common courtesy to present a stamped envelope to someone who writes a Letter of Recommend- ation, which means stamping the envelope you send to that person, and then stamping another envelope and folding it up and sticking it inside the first. To do this, one needs a stamp to send to the envelope to the recommender, and another stamp for the recommender to send to the institution. This means I need Samoan postage for the first part and American postage for the second, but where am I going to find American postage in Samoa?

As it turns out, I had a few things to mail from LAX before I left in October 2008, and so I bought a bunch of American stamps in bulk. This Letter of Rec project needs three American stamps, and I had two left. Where do we go from here?

I went to the Peace Corps staff. Now that I think about it, I have no idea why any of them would have American stamps, but it seemed like the most likely option. I was greeted with shrugs. “I don’t know where to find an American stamp.” Then as an afterthought, “Good luck.”

Next stop was the Internet. The Envelopes tool in Microsoft Word has an E-Postage option, which points the user to the Microsoft website, which points the user to Stamps.com, which asks the user to download a program that integrates with Word to print a stamp directly on to the envelope. For whatever reason, hi-speed Internet in Samoa has been dreadfully slow lately, so I sat there for an hour today downloading Stamp.com’s integrated program.

As it turns out, to print E-postage from this program, one needs to be simultaneously connected to a printer and the Internet. Up until now, my life in Samoa has been either/or, and I can’t think of any computer that fits this bill. My laptop can connect to a printer OR the Internet, but never at the same time. All of the computers that can do this—i.e. the ones at the Peace Corps office, the ones at the Internet cafes in town—restrict users from installing programs... like Stamps.com’s integrated one.

RPCV Dylan 77 is flying into Faleolo Airport from Los Angeles tomorrow morning. Dealing with this predicament this afternoon, I was able to catch him in the terminal at LAX. His reply text was adamant, “If you can get stamps in an airport terminal I will.” May the force be with you, Dylan.

An hour later my phone buzzed, “No stamps in the terminal, sorry. :(”

So the game plan from here is tomorrow I will go to the Post Office and ask if they, by any chance, sell American postage. I expect confusion will ensue.

I also just might shoot an email to the American embassy to see if they have any ideas. Or any stamps, for that matter.

Worse comes to worst, I can ask my recommender to spot me the 44 cents.

But who wants to be that guy?

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

This is the desktop of one of the desks in the 10.4 class.

We had a staff meeting at Interval today.

The Bond that Unites Us All

“Let me know when the Peace Corps commercial comes on,” John the Welder said jokingly. We were sitting in the Charge d’Affaires Robin’s living room getting ready for today’s kick-off. The joke emanated from the fact we were watching Superbowl coverage on the Armed Forces Network. Samoa may air the Oscars and the Olympics and the IRF Sevens tournament, but the two TV stations draw the line at American football. So we all crowded into Robin’s house to catch the game on satellite. So we pulled in the same channel that military stationed in American Samoa watch.

Jordan and I were the first ones to arrive at Robin’s, and we staked out out spaces on the sofa, dead center. Settling in, we chatted with American ex-pat Pamela who is visiting Samoa. She admitted to not being a football fan, but was excited to watch the Superbowl for the fanfare and commercialism and “palaver.” And so she was quite disappointed—the first of many other attendees—when we broke it to her we wouldn’t be seeing any of the commercials.

Last year’s Superbowl was very different. For one, we watched the game at a bar in town rather than at the Charge’s. In addition, we watched last year’s game on ESPN Australia, which played commercials of its own. As I recall, commercial breaks simply featured ads for other ESPN programming.

This year, the commercials were a lot more eye-opening. Since the channel is specifically geared toward the military, and since the station is run by the United States government (and therefore contractually prohibited from showing advertisements), commercial breaks are a long line of public service announcements and ads for other AFN programming.

That said, public service announcements can take a lot of different forms. There were a lot of motorcycle safety commercials aimed specifically at Marines, which I thought was strangely specific. There were also a lot of video travel brochures for tiny rural American towns. Of the ones I can remember, there was Needles, California; Carhenge (near Alliance, Nebraska); and Frankenmuth, Michigan (Michigan’s Little Bavaria). There was also a series of segments entitled “Civilians Say the Darnedest Things” in which they’d as people on the street to define obscure military terms like Ship Over and Irish Pennant.

The voice over on one commercial went like this: “It’s the bond that unites us all: The United States… of NASCAR.” That one creeped me out a little.

The commercials for specific TV events listed times for 4 different time zones: CET, IRQ, AFG, and JKT. IRQ and AFG seem obvious enough, but what are CET and JKT? Supy and I put our brains together and came up with Jakarta. Judging from a quick Google search, Supy and I were right on the money. CET is Central European Time. Who knew?

Early in the game, the special messages from President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates must have played about 10 times each. It’s a weird feeling to sit in on those. It sort of feels like when you’re little and you stay over at someone else’s house and you witness how other families function—it’s pretty much what you imagined it would be, but you feel like you’re witnessing something you shouldn’t.

The nice thing was if we ignored the parts of Obama’s message about “combat” and “harm’s way,” a lot of what he was saying applied to us. “We appreciate your service to our country” and “We miss you” and all that stuff.

John the Welder never got his Peace Corps commercial, but I’ll settle for my mentally edited Obama message and the highlights of Needles, California.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Obama's message.

Cat Picture Sunday: Probably because she likes the cool, the cat comes sprinting into the kitchen whenever I open the refrigerator. This was the first time she actually climbed into though. I closed the door on her while I went to grab the camera.

She jumped into the toilet last night. So I gave her a bath when the water came back on this morning. She was very unhappy about the toilet and the subsequent bath. Rough day.

I'm a Survivor

The United States Chargés d’Affairs invited Americans to the embassy last night for a Survivor premiere party. Survivor Samoa premiered in The States last week, but it probably won’t show on either of the TV stations here for a while. And though we won’t be able to watch the rest of the season, who’s not down for a castaway-themed party? So the Apia volunteers met up and headed over.

I thought the castaway theme was funny. The Peace Corps lifestyle is rough on clothing, and my joke was that since castaway costumes were optional, I could either wear something from my closet or I could wear something from my closet. Another volunteer had holes in the shorts and t-shirt he wore today, and leaving his house he looked down and thought people might think he’d showed up in costume.

I haven’t been to the embassy since the election last November, and a visit there is always a regal experience. There are all kinds of posters and pictures on the walls touting the greatness of America. The bathroom is fancy. There are cubicle walls and cable TV. All of these things that seemed so menial are now posh.

The food was great. In addition to the Chex Mix, which was fantastic, there were deep-fried mussels and breaded fish and samosas and tropical fruit.

And then it was time for the main event. I watched the first 2 seasons of Survivor, and I remember how much of a media event the final episode of Season 1 was in which Richard and Kelly went head-to-head in the final Tribal Council. “On this island there are snakes and there are rats,” was a moment to remember. But none of that compares to watching Survivor Samoa in Samoa with a bunch of Samoans. Last night was surreal.

Though shots of Samoa tended to be quick glimpses strung together into quick montages, and it was difficult to recognize any actual place, I started calling out, “Been there! Been there! Been there! Been there!”

News of Jeff Probst’s recent Emmy win had spread, and expectations were high. I imagine if the season aired after I return to The States, I would be nit picky about things and it would annoy everybody else because no one would care about the minutia of my complaints. But watching here with a room full of people who collectively cringed at Jeff Probst’s butchering of the Samoan language was satisfying.

As far as the actual contestants go, I have 2 thoughts. First, America should not export reality television. It flies in the face of the rosy portrait of respect we strive for. On the other hand, my second thought is there are ridiculous parallels between the show’s premise and the Peace Corps experience. In their first moments on the island they look haggard and appear to be in shock. They immediately establish an internal pecking order. Alliances are formed and broken and formed again. And someone gets a million dollars at the end.

Finally, the best part of the show might be the middle-aged mulleted female ex-marine who calls herself “Shambo”. We could certainly use a Shambo within our ranks. Come on, group 82.

Pictures below.
















Erik, Blakey, and Cale.
















Briony and Erik.
















The crowd watching the TV.
















These people are American tourists who just happened to be in town.

Countdown to the Newbies

In addition to The Road Switch and Swine Flu, one of the most common topics of conversation at recent Peace Corps gatherings is the anticipation of Group 82. As far as any of us can guess, they are expected to arrive on the first Wednesday in October (i.e. October 7), and unlike any group since the 1990s, we estimate they will have in the ballpark of as many as 24 members. Everyone seems pretty pumped for new blood.

Working at eCivis, which was always in the midst of mass hiring (because of their sadistic love of mass firing), I was hired with Gower and was there for a month before Sebastian and Vanna were hired. At CNET, I came on in the first week of November, and I think I had to wait until just after the first of the new year before Andrew and Christine were hired. A month or two seems pretty par for the course for having to endure “new guy” status, but we in group 81 are coming on 10 months now, and we still feel a bit like the new kids on the block (the figurative kind, not the washed-up vocalists from Florida).

Last night I got to the movie theatre—I went to see “I Love You, Man” with Paul Rudd and Rashida Jones—just before the scheduled showing. There was a long line for the box office, and the feeling was very similar. It’s lousy to be the last one in line. Having someone behind you validates and elevates your place. It feels good to have someone following you—to follow in your footsteps, tread where you tread.

Just the same, it’s empowering to have some semblance of seniority in an organization—to be forced to hide your insecurities in order to assuage (or exploit?) the insecurities of those who come after you. We can’t know that a relay runner has done a good job until she passes her baton. It gives us purpose.

More than that, they’ll probably have cool toys and crazy stories to tell us about what America is like in 2009. Sure, we communicate with people from back home, and Blakey and Phil are going home for a couple weeks in September, but these new guys will undoubtedly be able to tell us about the future. And hopefully they’ll come bearing hard drives loaded up with new movies and new seasons of television.

But really, more than physical goods or purpose, they will bring freshness. By my unofficial count, there are 34 Peace Corps volunteers in Samoa right now, and a planeload of 24 more is bound to stir the pot and change the flavor.

Colonel Sanders had 30 herbs and spices that went into his recipe for fried chicken, but in The States we’re bombarded with so many options and flavors, it’s difficult to isolate or appreciate each one. But here in Samoa with only 34 people to know day in and day out, each one counts. And 24 new flavors is going to be monumental.

So the countdown is on.

I hope your chicken is finger-lickin’ good. Pictures below.















Hanging out at the faleoloa.















Koa doing a little dance.

Things that Float

Yesterday Filifili mentioned to me he and the rest of the year 13 history class were going on a boat after school. He laughed a little when he asked if I wanted to come, and so I thought he was joking. Blakey gets invited on all kinds of field trips; me, not so much. I was heading back to my house, so I told him and Mira to come and find me when it was time to go. They never did, which I was fine with. I had things to do.

But then they all ran into me at the Internet café an hour and a half later. It turned out they were going on the USNS Richard E. Byrd, and while I’m not normally interested in naval affairs, I was bummed. It turned out the invitation was sincere, and being a fly on the wall while Samoan youth are exposed to the American military sounds fascinating. One of them had a cell phone with a camera, and they showed me the pictures they took. I was bummed.

Filifili came back to my room this afternoon to inform me that the boat is open to the public until Friday. “Well we should go,” I said. “Tatou o,” said Fili. I shut down the lab and dropped off my backpack at my house, and we headed down to the wharf.

Before today, the closest I’ve been to the wharf is a small restaurant half a block away, so I’m unfamiliar with which gate we should use to enter. Fili seemed almost as clueless, and I realized I had no other evidence the ship would be open. But whatev. The excursion was free.

We finally found the right gate, and Fili said something to the guard in Samoan. The guard shook his head. I thought we were done. But then we were handed visitor badges and told to wait for a van that would drive us to the ship. A bunch of students from Samoa college and a man and his daughter waited for the van with us. It showed up promptly.

Though Apia is much smaller than Baltimore, the cargo docks look a whole lot like Season 2 of “The Wire”. There are stacks of cargo containers and lots of cement and grizzly horse-faced men. No Sabotkas though.

We dropped off one man at his car, which was parked on the docks near the Navy ship, and Fili started to climb out when the driver told him to stay. Fili climbed back in, and we started driving to a different ship. The docks are fairly small, and it’s rare to see 2 ships parked there at once, but it turns out that a second ship fit squarely on the dock just behind the Navy ship. It was not a Navy ship though. In fact, it was—wait for it—a Greenpeace vessel.

By strange coincidence, both happen to be parked in Apia Harbour right now. The small Greenpeace boat, the Esperanza, is dwarfed by the towering USNS Richard E. Byrd, but it happened to be the one giving tours today. It felt similar to showing up to watch a NASCAR event that turned out to be a Peter, Paul, and Mary concert. Potayto, potawto... Right?

Whatever. They were both boats. And Filifili hadn’t toured this one yet, so it was just as well. I wore an ’ie because I thought it a good way to distance myself from the Navy, but it turned out to be useful in distancing myself from the Greenpeace kids too. Don’t get me wrong, Greenpeace does great things. But they’re more scraggly than the Peace Corps, which is impressive. And one girl was playing a lute, which I found odd.

Appearances aside, they were very nice. Our tour guide was an American who was part of the skeleton crew. The skeleton crew is always on the Esperanza, while the campaign crew rotates each tour. On the current tour, the boat is going around the South Pacific as a way to gain research and insight for the upcoming South Pacific environment conference to be held in Cairns, Australia in December.

In addition to goodwill, the boat also occasionally participates in “activities,” which is when they get confrontational with other seafarers who are fishing illegally or otherwise harming the environment. This piqued the interest of a bunch of the people on our tour, but the language barrier prevented much detail from being divulged.

Oh well. Maybe I can hear about that next time I try and tour an Air Force carrier.

I hope life’s keeping you on your toes. Pictures below.
















The Greenpeace Esperanza.
















Filifili at the helm.
















Flags from left to right: Greenpeace, The Netherlands, Samoa. Greenpeace is based in Amsterdam.
















Greenpeace kids watching one of the Navy's smaller boats.
















On the walk home, I ran into Blakey and her football players. That's right. Blakey's coaching American football.

Weekend America

This afternoon on the car ride back to town from Koa’s house, Trent said, “Wow. These last two days actually felt like being in America.” True that. Between yesterday’s party and Erik driving the rest of us around the island today, very little felt Samoan. It was appropriate for 4th of July weekend, and it was a nice change of pace. I admit the thought of school tomorrow makes me wince a little.

There was a lot of controversy going into yesterday’s Peace Corps/Navy softball game at Robert Louis Stevenson’s house. At issue was the varied level of seriousness people with which people approached the game. To some, the email invite conjured a fun, casual game with impromptu rules and handicaps to ensure everybody enjoyed themselves. Other people interpreted the event to be a high-stakes cut-throat match-up of America’s beloved seafaring children and their smelly hippie cousins. It was apparently naïve was to not realize the Peace Corps’ reputation was riding on a 4th of July softball game at Robert Louis Stevenson’s.

The serious side won. And that turned out to be a good thing, I think: The U.S. embassy hired 3 umpires for the event, the distance between bases was carefully measured, and the game was scored by no less than 3 people.

I didn’t really care how serious we were going to take it. I just wanted to play. So I did. I missed Friday afternoon practice because of Athletics Day, so I was benched at the beginning of the game, which was cool. I still got to play 4 innings. My fielding was mediocre; I was second baseman, and there was one pop-up where the right fielder and I both hesitated and no one went after the ball. I batted 1 for 2 with a double, an RBI, and a run. So not a terrible day, all in all.

The Peace Corps won 14 - 4.

The event afterwards turned out to be a really good time. It was pretty well attended. It appeared some of the Navy had family with them. I’m not sure how that worked. I heard the Byrd is actually a supply ship, and that most of the people on board were civilians rather than enlisted officers, so that might explain the large number of women and children.

There were sparklers and hot dogs and ice cream cones and some very short speeches. The Navy band played, and there was dancing. The tuba player was excellent. I talked to the bass player while I was in line for food. He suggested I go down to San Diego and audition for the Navy when I get back to The States. Probably not going to happen. The band played a great cover of “I Want You Back.” Maybe one of them read last Thursday’s post?

It felt even more like America because Phil’s got a friend in town and Erik’s mom and brother are here visiting. Erik’s family rented a car for the week, and since Erik took a couple days off, he’s not bound by Peace Corps rules and therefore he’s allowed to drive. With his mom at the pool and his brother catching up on work this afternoon, Erik had some free time this afternoon to scoop up me, Trent, Koa, and Supy for a leisurely Sunday drive. We headed to the western side of Upolu to explore the mountains, and we dropped Koa off at his house.

Good times all around. Busy weekend though. I’m ready for a break.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.
















Softball.
















The Prime Minister of Samoa threw out the first pitch.
















Me.
















Supy.
















Candid shot.
















Less candid. Much better.
















K8. This was the original above-the-fold pic, but then I found the one of Blakey and me. Close second, K8. Close second.
















The band playing "I Want You Back".
















Phil, Taylor, sparklers.
















Ryan and the wait staff. Sorry, Max. You got cropped.

Joe and Patty are Here

Walking down the aisle of the pasiovaa this morning, climbing over legs, trying to get off quickly since I made a slight breach in bus etiquette by asking the pasiovaa to stop anywhere other than the bus stop in Apia or the wharf. And in trying to maintain a low profile at 5:30 a.m., the toe strap on my flipflop became disconnected from the sole, and I had to repair my shoe mid-bus-disembark. It was awkward and decidedly un-low-profile.

Today marks exactly 7 months since group 81 arrived in Samoa, and picking up my parents this morning was the first time I’ve been back to the airport. It was kinda cool to be there again and see it through more seasoned eyes. Not that there’s much to see there. The airport is pretty tiny, but there are some cool wooden carvings from Koa’s school. And it was cool to see the place when I’m not overwhelmed and jet-lagged and exhausted and on sensory overload.

Once again proving how tiny a country Samoa is, I was leaning against a post waiting and the girl standing next to me goes, “Malo Matthew!” It doesn’t shock me anymore when strangers know my name, but it still feels a little cool. It also turned out she’s a student at my school. She’s a year 12 who is not in any of my classes, so I was guilt-free for not recognizing her. Also, I’m a lot better at not being obvious about not recognizing people. And while I was talking to the, a teacher from my school walked by. The girl grimaced a little, and I felt it would have been awkward to leave the conversation with her to say hello to the teacher. So that was that.

I think my parents’ flight was scheduled to arrive at 5:35 a.m., and I remembered when we came through that it took a while to get through customs and baggage claim and another round of customs after baggage claim. But I didn’t really put all of this together, and as time ticked by I started to get nervous. I’m usually at school by 7:40, and as I calculated how long it would take to get from the airport to the hotel and from the hotel to my school, it became increasingly obvious I would be cutting it close.

Since my parents were re-routed through New Zealand, there were a lot of New Zealanders coming out of the Arrivals area, and it was weird how they were quite clearly not American. There was nothing particularly different about them. You could just sorta tell.

I saw my mom before she saw me. It was good to see her and not as anachronistic as I was thinking it might be. The Peace Corps is the first time in my life where I’ve only interacted physically the last 7 months with a completely insular set of people who I’ve never met before. All the people I see every day are people I never met until October 6, 2008 earliest. So it was nice to see my mom.

My dad came out after. It was good to see him too.

And 48 hours after they left home in California, they arrived in Samoa. And I made it to school by 8:00.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.
















For the Mother's Day assembly today, a bunch of boys from the year 12 and 13 classes dressed up in drag and did a skit and dance. The dance was really funny, and part of it involved the Macarena. Even in Samoa, the Macarena is a joke.
















Joe getting acquainted with the Samoan lifestyle.
















Hard to tell from this picture, but this rainbow was so vivid and so close. It looked like it ended just beyond that stoplight on the right. Disappointing that the camera has such a tough time picking it up.
















I saw a Smart Car today. It was crazy.

Boss is Coming, Look Busy

Once a day becomes surreal, it difficult to remember what it felt like to get up that morning. But thinking back now, I vaguely remember that today started like any other day: I hit the snooze upwards of 6 times and, though I did put on a shirt that was hanging in my “closet,” I did double check to make sure the arm pits passed a shallow sniff test.

The rest of my morning was normal as well. I got to school with enough time to make copies in the library, except the copy machine is broken. My year 13s worked on the same Microsoft Word Problem-based document that I had them start yesterday, and during my prep I got the year 12s CAT practice done for this afternoon.

But then came interval, and over the usual tea and muffins, my pule calls to me from across the room. I try and keep a low profile during interval, and when I become the center of attention, I tense up. “No computer classes on Friday,” he calls to me across the room. I grow tenser. I often feel like the sole protector of the computer lab, and it hurts my soul when my ability to protect the computers is undermined.

“Why?” I ask hesitantly.

“We have visitors coming. And they need your room.” With 2 days warning and that much of an explanation, I decided to cut my losses. I nodded. But then, one of the Samoan teachers who speaks good English – hell, the best English of anybody on staff – asks me, “Are you excited?”

“About what?”

“Hillary’s coming.”

“Who’s Hillary?” I am used to being confused in conversation here, and in that moment, I’m not sure whether I anticipated her answer or if I was still totally baffled.

“Hillary Clinton.”

WHAAAAA?

It turns out that Hillary, who is in London right now, will be in Samoa on Friday morning for 5 hours on her way to the ESOMAR conference taking place in Bei Jing this weekend. And this comes less than 9 months after Condalleeza Rice was here last July. There is a lot of construction going on at the National University, so our school has been chosen to host the Secretary… and my classroom is the only room with air conditioning on campus.

Preparations have already begun on The Great Hall, and as soon as classes are over tomorrow, the church is bringing in professional cleaners and extra furniture to make the room more hospitable.

I’m totally pumped and still a little dumbfounded. It’s just insane how quickly and nonchalantly a day news comes here. Out of left field. But now that it’s sunk in a little more, and even though she’s probably not going to come see my house, I’m wondering if I should take down my Obama ’08 placard. I’ll definitely take the boxers off the kitchen table. You know. Just in case.

I hope your day is packing a surreal punch too. Pictures below.
















April showers. It's been raining for 3 days straight here. This is me wading home.
















It's difficult to capture how windy it's been lately. Can you see the slant in the rain drops? Like I said... difficult to capture.
















One of my kids borrowed my camera for a bit. I like how I am awkwardly framed into the left side of the picture. No cropping... that's how he took it.

Everybody Knows Your Name

Last summer in San Francisco, I attended a going away party for my friend Rahul. We had dinner at his place and then headed to a nightclub in The Mission. During the cab ride, the driver turned to the guy sitting next to me, one of Rahul’s investment banker friends, and asked, “Is your name Sunil?” The kid looked surprised and then nodded hesitantly. “Yeah. I thought I recognized you. You work at Bank of America” It was unclear if this last part was a statement or a question. Sunil nodded. “And you live at… Franklin and California.” It was a little creepy, but completely reasonable. Sunil had no car and worked late most nights, as most I-bankers did at the time (before the mass lay-offs began), and this cab driver worked the financial district regularly, so they crossed paths often. But it was still weird for two strangers to meet so regularly in a big city like San Francisco.

I found myself in a similar situation a few minutes ago. It’s pouring rain right now, and I took a cab home from Erik’s place. I told the cab driver where I was headed, so he gets on his walkie-talkie and calls out in Samoan, “Yeah. I just picked up a Peace Corps. I’m taking him to his school.” A little less creepy since he didn’t know my name. And I had just told him where I worked. But still… he referred to me with a familiarity that was a little disquieting.

Samoa is largely a rural country, and most volunteers end up in some sort of village setting, but a few of us do live in Apia. That distinction is important, but also a little deceptive; it makes Apia sound like an urban metropolis, and New York City it is not. Compared to most incorporated cities in America, Apia is fairly small. In The States, it would probably referred to as a “town” technically. And as much as it doesn’t have the intimacy of village life that so many other volunteers deal with, there is the sense that everyone here knows your business.

I walked from my house to the Peace Corps office and back tonight. It’s a short walk, but I ran into Phil’s brother from the host village, a woman waved at me and called out my name, and I ran into one of the students from my 11.4 class. This is a short walk through a relatively urban environment and 3 people recognized me.

Another example was when a bunch of us were at the local bar for St. Patrick’s Day. While I ordered a drink, a man sitting at the bar struck up a conversation with me. He manages a rugby team that had toured The States. He was chatty, and I humoured him, and conversation got around to his brother working for the Peace Corps. It turns out his brother is H.P. who is the director of training who headed up all of our sessions while we lived in the host village.

There’s no way to prove it, but I suspect that if you did a sociological experiment, you’d find that six degrees of separation are far more than are necessary in Samoa. I’d hypothesize that most people connect to each other within 4, and most times less than that. I acknowledge that my Peace Corps brethren and I stick out more than the average Samoan, and that could play a part in making it easy for people to recognize us and make connections. But still, in a relatively small population with a collectivist culture, it isn’t surprising that people would be well-connected to one another.

But it’s still a little odd when the cab driver knows more about you than you expected.

I hope you enjoyed March. Pictures below.
















It's been rainy here lately. And Apia tends to flood.
















Overcast over Apia Harbour.
















Erik got a cat. (S)He is tiny.
















Erik made fried rice for Trent and me.

Live Music? In Samoa? Mooooooooooo.

Mel Blanc used to do the voiceover for the Berkeley Farms radio ads, and I find myself in the same awe. Twice in as many nights I have gone to see live bands play real music in and around Apia. Either one of these bands would be a special occasion, but twice in two days seems excessive. Shouldn’t we be rationing this stuff?

Once again, I was at McDonald’s when I got the call from Erik yesterday afternoon. “What are you doing tonight?” He asked in a tone that implied the world might be imploding.

“I got nothing.” I replied.

“There’s a German band that’s going to be playing live tonight at the Rainforest Café.”

I should let it be known that the Rainforest Café in Apia is NOT a part of the Rainforest Café chain at where we went for Jenny Schwartzkopf’s 21st birthday. Rather, it’s an independent, upscale restaurant on the shores of Apia Harbour (Yeah. I said Harbour.). So I went.

In English, the name of the band was The Busker Princess and the City Pirates. In German it was Die Kleingeldprinzessin und die Stadtpiraten, which is pretty hardcore as far as German goes. In any case, I showed up and they were fantastic. By my calculations, if you add Jen and Derek plus Nena plus Manu Chao and throw in just a pinch of Nico, you get Die Kleingeldprinzessin, Dota Kehr.

I might add that she had a certain way of making contact with the audience that was a bit reminiscent of Marie De Salle. In any case, they billed themselves as “an original combination of German lyrics and Bossa Nova/Pocket-Swing sound.”

It was like absolutely nothing that I’ve heard live in the past 5+ months; i.e. brilliant.

***

Tonight was a completely different beast. A bluegrass quartet from Bowling Green, OH had been commissioned by the Kennedy Center to come and do 35 days of music and music education in the South Pacific. They are playing a concert on Thursday night, but the Peace Corps and some other Americans had the pleasure to share dinner and a sneak preview at the Chargés-Affaires’ house this evening.

I admit, the bulk of the evening was eating the caterered dinner (In which I am ready and able to participate at a moment’s notice.). It is always nice and rare to chat with Americans who are passing through. And in addition to the 4-piece band, who were really fun to talk to, we had about 15 seamen from the U.S. Navy who also happen to be in town.

So we ate and chatted about our disparate challenges in the workplace and smiled at each other as best we could. And then it was time for the band to play.

They only played 2 songs, but you hear 10 seconds of bluegrass, and for a moment, you’re not in Samoa anymore, Toto. Over that rainbow you fly, fully aware of the dessert of vanilla ice cream and strawberry jam that tastes just like crunchberries.

And for a moment, you’re there. In America. At the nightclub. Thinking you’ll order a Pabst for your next round, just to change it up. The harmony setting the tone, the chord changes so familiar, the halogen lighting just right. And there you are, caught in a dream, not wanting it to end, and heading back down to earth all at the same time.
















Juice next to boxed wine, which would have absolutely tortured Buster Bluth.
















The Student Loan. The bluegrass band who we all came to see.
















Naval officers who were there to judge?