The T-Shirt

I had nothing to do today. It was hot when I woke up this morning, and so I figured I’d spend a couple hours in the Peace Corps office, hanging out with whomever was around, soaking in the air conditioning. Dan wanted me to bring my Skype headset, so I loaded up my backpack and headed over. Though I needed phone credit, I walked past K.K. Mart on the corner and headed directly for the office door. I hadn’t sat down for more than 5 minutes when Jenny 82 approached.

“Hey Matt,” she said. “Want to work on the Peace Corps t-shirt?” I knew what she was talking about immediately.

A while back some Peace Corps Volunteers in Samoa created a non-profit organization to make it easier for volunteers to perform collective community service projects and such and apply for grant money that might not be available to the Peace Corps itself. This group, Avanoa Tutusa, is typically headed by a volunteer (currently Joey 81).

Avanoa Tutusa’s latest fundraising project is making Peace Corps t-shirts and selling them to current volunteers. Jenny 82 drew the initial design a month or two ago, and since then the project has been in development hell. There were issues with finding a good place to get t-shirts made, and Jenny’s design went through several iterations.

So when Jenny asked this morning if I could help with the t-shirt design, I think she mostly wanted me to scan the image and move around a couple of the implements on the page.

But I, in my vector-based mindset, decided it would be best to re-draw the entire design on the computer. Chris (who had been working on getting a t-shirt vendor in The States) had toyed with the idea of creating a vector-based image of the logo, and that got me excited, and so when Jenny 82 casually asked this morning, I made a beeline for the computer.

I started work at approximately 9:30 this morning. I worked diligently for roughly 5 hours to re-create Jenny’s design. Jenny, who attended art school at one point, had big ideas for the t-shirt design that she had forfeited months back for whatever reason. But with my newfound zeal, my recreation of the design provided an opportunity to include a lot more stuff that had been cut.

This morning, the design included a bus with a breadfruit leaf, a banana tree, taro leaves, and a hibiscus flower. By late afternoon there was a fish, a fan, a lizard, and a pig. Then a computer (preferably drawn in dramatic perspective) and a stack of books were added in the early evening.

There was a lot of discussion about the angle of the bus and whether it looked like it was actually coming toward the viewer. It was worked and re-worked several times over.

In the end, I left the Peace Corps office at 8:30 p.m., 11 hours after I’d started. But it looks good, I think.

And I didn’t mind. I had nothing to do today.

I hope you're well. Leftover bald pictures from last week below.

Me after the initial haircut.

Dan helped with applying the shaving cream.

Me with the Bic.

Dan helped with the Bic.

The final product.

International Food Festival

Shortly after I graduated from college I paid a visit to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and I was blown away by how underwhelmed I was. It seems like if you’re going to have an NFL team, your town should be a happening metropolis. And the Green Bay Packers are nothing to scoff at; they’re steeped in tradition. But Green Bay, Wisconsin is about the same size as Hayward, California, which is pretty middling for California. But here’s the kicker: Green Bay and Hayward are, population-wise, about the same as Samoa.

Phil likes to point out how small the country is simply in terms of degrees of separation. Whereas it’s probably possible to connect to anyone in the world in 6, in Samoa, I’d assume you can get from anyone to anyone else in less than 3. Everyone knows everyone else—much like an American suburb. I bring up all this because Samoa’s tininess makes events like yesterday’s International Food Festival at the Hotel Insel so fun: everyone knows everyone.

I hadn’t heard about the festival until I was in the car en route. Rotaract had a Battle of the Minds taping yesterday morning, and a bunch of us piled in the car afterwards, I assumed to be dropped off at home. But we didn’t go home. We went the International Food Festival.

The event was small, but there was an impressive array of countries and cuisines represented, and all were quite tasty. The Indian Food tent had a deal offering 2 curries, rice, and buttered roti for $6, which offered the most food for the least amount of money. But there was also Italian, Filipino, German, Fijian, Hawaiian (yes, not a country. I know.), and Samoan booths.

As good as the food was—and the food was good, I ate at 4 booths over the course of the day—it was the startling cross-section of people that I enjoyed most about the day. I ran into a bunch of families I normally only see at mass on Sunday. I saw the lady who runs my favorite restaurant in Samoa, The Curry House, enjoying the afternoon with her family as a patron, not a vendor. “Funny seeing you on this side of the counter,” I told her. She laughed and told me I needed to try the tiramisu she ordered. Done and done.

I spent most of the day hanging out in the car park with the Rotaract kids, but when they announced a fashion show was about to be held on the events stage, we got up to watch. As it turned out, two of my friends, Aina and Esther, were models.

In the car on the way there, I assumed we’d check out this festival and leave after an hour or two. As it turned out, we were there for nine hours. Hanging out, shooting the breeze, drinking cheap imported beer, eating a myriad of ethnic cuisine. At one point I heard tinikling (sp?) in the distance, which was so Union City, I went and bought a plate of adobo, rice, and two lumpia. Apparently the lumpia was extremely popular and sold out in 20 minutes.

In any case, I was blind-sided by the event, but happily so. And everyone I know was there to celebrate with me.

I hope you’re well. Unfortunately my camera’s battery died yesterday morning, so I have no photos of the event. I very disappointed about this. Apologies.

The Letter

The idea was romantic—not the love and un-platonic companion- ship candle- light-dinner romance, but more the lofty, idealistic romanticism. I synced my iPod, put my notebook in my backpack, and headed down to the seawall. Though it’s raining now, the sun was out this afternoon, and I didn’t have much to do today. And since I’d received a rare hand-written letter in the mail earlier this week, this afternoon seemed like an opportune time to draft my reply.

My friend is an amazing writer. Bona fide. She’s a Ph.D. candidate in English at Berkeley. And without getting into specifics, I can say that her letter had this tangible sense of place. Part was written at an art museum, another at a cafe on Telegraph Avenue. So I thought I would return the favor by leaving my house to write back to her from an interesting environment around here. Where better than the seawall?

The seawall lines most of Apia Harbour, starting in the east at the shipping docks in Mata’utu, meandering along Beach Road, jutting out behind the Government Building, wrapping back in around the fish market, and riding into the sunset in the west all the way into Mulinu’u, which literally translates to “the end of town”. From what I hear, the seawall was constructed fairly recently after the last batch of hurricanes battered Apia’s waterfront severely enough a barrier needed to be put in place. It’s scenic and tree-lined, and there’s enough shade to keep a person comfortable in the early afternoon.

The Harbour is about a 10-minute walk from my house, although getting to the greener shadier area takes another 10. Heading over, I remembered I had my iPod with me, and I had Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” rolling around my head, so I played that. The popular fashion in Apia is to wear one ear-bud, and let the other dangle aimlessly. I’m a slave to fashion.

Saturday afternoons in Apia are a lazy affair. The shops have closed for the rest of the weekend, and the nightclubs haven’t yet opened. Constructions sites are quiet, and the roads are empty. Crossing the bridge at Mulivai, I waved to some girls sitting in the shade of a coconut tree near the Samoa Tourism Authority.

I was in no rush for anything, so I had time to be selective about choosing a spot. A bench seemed like too much to ask for, but I wanted something a little bit away from anyone else, and shade and grass were important considerations.

In the end I found a nice shady tree, where the grass was a little long, but not too bad. There was a lady sitting in a van reading the Samoan Observer nearby, but she didn’t bother me.

I reached into my bag and found my notebook, and I scrounged for my pen. My pen. Where’s my pen? I didn’t bring a pen? I just put on this whole charade walking 20 damn minutes down the seawall in tropical sunlight, and I forgot my pen?

The idea was romantic.

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

The Mata'utu skyline as seen from behind the Government Building.

Kiki

Note: Google cannot corroborate the term "kiki". But that seems to be what everyone in Samoa wants to call it. I think this is essentially what Blakey was going for. Take the term kiki with a grain of salt.

My roommates during and post- college were never into themed parties, and it seems like the people who throw them never invite me. I’ve never been to an ugly Christmas sweater party. Or a Pimps and Hoes party. I attended an 80s party once, which was a good venue to show off my Nintendo track jacket. But other than that, nada. But I understand the concept though, so I was down this morning to help Blakey find a kiki for her Tahitian dancer costume.

The Yacht Club of Apia had a benefit fundraiser last night. The party’s theme was originally “Vicars and Tarts”, but when this was decided to be too British, the theme was changed to Vs and Ts; that is, you had to come dressed as something that starts with a V or a T. Thus Blakey’s Tahitian Dancer. (Note: I never planned on attending the party, and I didn’t. No costume for me. (In case you were curious.))

When Blakey asked me this morning where I thought she could find a Tahitian leaf belt, I had no idea what she was talking about. I’ve seen many Polynesian dancers in my time, but it’s usually the motion of the hips that hypnotizes me rather than their adornment. I shrugged. Blakey thought the open market at Fugalei would be the best place to look.

We went booth-to-booth through the souvenir vendors, each of them offering up grass skirts, none of which Blakey had in mind. Blakey had a conversation with each one, asking specifically about a Tahitian hip garland. It was the kind of deal where you ask 10 Samoans and you get 15 different opinions. In the end, we divined 2 important details: the garland was called a kiki, and it’s usually made from leaves of the lautalotalo, which my Samoan dictionary claims is an ornamental shrub called a Mauritius Hemp.

It became clear very quickly that the thing Blakey was looking for was a consumable item, something like a Hawaiian lei that’s only meant to be worn once and then tossed before it rots. But we were shopping at souvenir booths where they sell things meant to at least last the trip home (often not much longer).

So Blakey decided to make her own. But where to find this lautalotalo? At the market, we ran into an Aggie Grey’s employee and asked him where we could find the shrub. “Aggie Grey’s!” he said.

Not wanting to poach plants from an upscale hotel, we sauntered on keeping our eyes peeled walking through town. There was an ornamental shrub outside the barbershop where I get my haircut. We had a brief debate about how to proceed. We didn’t want to take leaves without asking. So Blakey went inside to ask the owner.

I waited outside, quietly amused by the whole thing. She emerged rolling her eyes. “He says it’s not the right plant.” Hahaha.

Eventually we found a tree in a lonely corner of a parking lot with passable leaves. It was certainly not lautalotalo, but it got the job done.

We walked to the Peace Corps office, where Blakey strung her own makeshift kiki and I played cards with some other volunteers.

Qualified success.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Friday at my school, the year 13s had their internal assessment for Samoan. Among other things, this involved making a couple traditional umus to roast pork, poultry, and other traditional Samoan cuisine. I had to teach during most of the festivities, so I gave my camera to my year 13 Amanda, who took 244 photos! Yeow! I didn't realize this until my camera ran out of memory during yesterday's wedding. Bad timing. Oh well. This picture and the ones below are from Friday's IA.

Giggly girls with the 13.1 form teacher in the middle of the line-up.

James with an axe.

Tafale and Ruta, both computer studies students, grill fish.

Lise peels ta'amū, a large starchy root, like big taro.

Girls pose for the camera.

Lanuola holding pig entrails.

Amanda, Tafale, and Ruta.

A Word from Our Sponsors

Even the lamest of field trips is far more thrilling than the banality of school. As with everything else in life, the destination isn’t nearly as important as the journey itself. And here’s something that is equally jarring in Samoa as it was in San Francisco: cities are busy in the middle of the work day. I spend my day cooped up in my computer lab—shouldn’t everybody else be doing something similar? Don’t these people have jobs? How is there no parking at the downtown shopping centre? These are just a few of the many bizarre parts of today’s 2-man field trip around Apia.

Over the past couple weeks I’ve been taking class photos for the school magazine, and during Interval this morning my pule asks to see everything I’d taken so far. So I trot out my laptop and show him my trove of tiny faces huddled in front of the flagpole. “These are nice,” he says. “We also need to take pictures for our sponsors.”

I’ve been on plenty of soccer teams and I played Little League. I know it’s customary to get some local sponsor to provide money for uniforms or trophies or whatever, and in return the sponsor gets a team photo to display prominently in his/her business. Yeah, cool.

Not what my pule had in mind.

“Do you have time to take the sponsor photos right now?” he asks me. The athletics students were working out, and I assumed we were going to round them up and take a photo for the TradePac Corporation, which donated uniforms.

“Sure,” I say.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll get the car keys.”

We drive to TradePac’s corporate offices near Apia Park, and my pule tells the girl out front we want to meet with the CEO. As it turns out, the CEO is out on an errand, but he returns within 5 minutes, and my pule and I sit at his desk.

There’s some chewing of the fat, and then my pule says, “We need to get a picture of you for our school magazine. We want to get a picture of our sponsors.”

The CEO is clearly caught off-guard—as am I. This leads to an awkward exchange in which I take a picture I don’t really want to take of a person who doesn’t really want his picture to be taken. My pule smiles ear-to-ear.

From TradePac, we head over to Aggie Grey’s, who donated money for prizegiving last year (I think). Thankfully, the lady there offers to email me a photo, and we skip the photo shoot. I realize the photo she’ll send is probably one of the hotel rather than the staff, but I’m perfectly fine with that.

As we continue our trek across town, I realize we are un-salesmen, going door to door in corporate offices thanking executives and cajoling them into taking uncomfortable photos.

At Eveni Carruthers, we have actual business to conduct, picking up uniforms for next week’s athletics meet. She starts asking me questions about logistics and fiscal matters, which I defer to my pule, as if to say, “Look, Lady. I’m only here to take the awkward photograph.”

Our last stop is Samoa Stationery. The CEO is polite, and even plays along when my pule cracks a joke about me having 20 Samoa girlfriends. In the back of my mind I hear myself asking, can we please go back to school now?

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

My pule insisted on getting a picture of these girls at TradePac because they're alumni.

I made this chalk tower in my year 10 English class last week. Doing this with chalk is much more difficult than doing the same thing with crayons.

I Love a Parade

The rooster chorus trumpeted the day. I’d set my alarm for 8:15 a.m., but I woke up early on account of the clamor outside. Also, Scout stood on my chest as she often does, purring preemptively, reminding me it was feeding time. I grabbed my phone and texted a couple volunteers around town, “Where you at?”

Last week the Prime Minister declared today a public holiday to celebrate the Manu Samoa’s victory in the World Championship Rugby Sevens tournament in London the Saturday before last, and there was to be a parade through town this morning, and not having anything else to do, I figured I’d go watch.

There was another parade a month or so ago to celebrate the Manu Samoa’s victory in the Hong Kong tournament, and the one thing I learned about parades in Samoa is the only sure sign the parade will pass by is to go to a spot where there are Samoa spectators; the route printed in the Samoan Observer is a rough estimate, by no means a reliable map. With this in mind, I set out down Beach Road, and only when I saw people standing along the sides of the street did I stop. The method proved itself effective: I stopped when I saw people, and that turned out to be the very beginning of the parade route.

Maintaining a blog demands a constant flow of content, thus I almost always have my camera in my pocket. This morning was no different, but when I went to take my first photo of the day, the battery died.

The police marching band was called to attention. They started playing. The parade was off. Girls through feathers in the path of the Manu Samoa players a la Prince Azim’s palace in “Coming to America”. I witnessed all of this, but caught none of it on film.

Then, as the tail of the parade passed, I saw Rachel and Lily (both of 82) approaching, each with camera in hand. They’d both missed the parade, and I had no photos. Let’s head it off at the pass, we all thought. “Maybe if we cut through the fish market, we can catch it in Mulinuu.”

We sprint-walked past the fish market and the expansive bus-loading zone next to it. Taxis and trucks trying to beat the parade found had also discovered our route, so we had to take oncoming traffic into account as we lumbered down the sea wall.

Finally I could see the front of the parade, and somehow we’d timed things perfectly so when the sea wall converged with the road, our smaller parade would meet the bigger more official parade at the same time.

For Rachel and Lily, this was not enough. “We need to get out in front of it,” they said. So we kept our faster pace, slowly overcoming the strangely quick-paced police marching band. But then I noticed it wasn’t just the 3 of us. Sure enough there were lots of other people walking along the side of the parade route, whether to keep up with their favourite players or to get a better seat at the end of the parade route, I’m not sure.

At one point when the road narrowed I wound up walking with my flow of foot traffic directly next to the rugby players who were actually marching in the parade.

Finally we broke ahead, and we found a spot with a bunch of other spectators where we were able to see the entire parade pass by once more.

I’ve seen many parades in my life. I’ve also marched in a few. But never have I watched a parade, joined it, and then watched it a second time.

It was quite a morning.

I hope you’re well. Pictures (thanks to Rachel and Lily) below.

Super Fans.

The Manu Samoa.

The Manu Samoa again. Mostly I'm just posting this photo because of the Giants cap at right.

This banner is written in Text Message. I really like the use of "FORGET'N" in the top line.

This banner reminds me of an old Conan O'Brien character that used to yell ridiculously long football chants. This is a banner, people, not a paragraph. It makes it seem obvious why marketers started using terse slogans.

The Head of State's motorcade.

Manu Samoa Under Tent with Police Officer in Foreground. Photographed by Rachel.

I ran into loyal blog reader Faautu (sp?) at the event. She usually accesses the blog from her home in Switzerland. It was a pleasure to meet you!

Dance Dance Revolution

“Okay, real quick. It goes up, down, up, down, right, front, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, pat, pat, ‘Talofa!’” A bunch of half naked, slightly buzzed palagis stand in a gravel parking lot taking traditional dance moves out of moth balls. “Climb, climb, climb, climb, wave to the right, wave to the left, climb down, climb down, climb down, climb down, pat, pat, clap.” Sure, we could have rehearsed all this the day before, but what kind of fun would that be?

Avenoa Tutusa, Peace Corps Samoa’s non-profit cousin, current President Joey 81, held a fundraiser at Maliu Mai last night, and volunteers showed up in droves to help out with logistics and to provide entertainment in the form of traditional Samoan dances. A $5 admission was charged, and Fono and his band performed.

Sometime around 7:30, Blakey came around and told volunteers to prepare for the dances. I think there was a short rehearsal yesterday afternoon, but I missed it, so Blakey’s warning was a cue to re-learn the dance I’d be performing in about 10 minutes. We also had to regale ourselves in lavalavas and pulatasis.

Our self-sufficiency at preparing for events like this is a testament to how far we’ve come. During training my host mother would correct the way my lavalava was tied. Often putting her arms around me the way a parent might adjust the diaper on a 2-year-old. I’m proud to say I can do it all by myself now.

I also brought a beaded necklace to wear during the dance. “Where’d you get the bling, Matt?” Erin asked.

Re-learning the dances is fairly easy because the dances themselves are rather basic. For example, each 8-count in the boys’ slap dance begins with the same movement; only the last 2 beats vary, and even those variable moves repeat. It’s simple enough for white boys like me to retain.

The sāsā is slightly more complicated, but it’s choreographed to tell a story, so the progression is pretty easy to remember. It’s essentially a rhythmic demonstration of the process of making pe’epe’e, salted coconut cream. After the “Talofa!” part, the dance simulated climbing a coconut tree; husking, chopping, and scraping the coconut; and then gathering, squeezing, and salting the flesh. Easy enough, right?

The other saving grace is that in both dances, the entire things is performed twice: once at regular speed and once fast. This means if you screw up the first time, you get to redeem yourself during the second go-around.

There was much screwing up last night, but I like to think the flaws are what gave it that cute palagi charm. Right?

The event was a success, bringing in ~$850 for Avenoa Tutusa. And Dustin got to see some authentic imitated Samoan culture.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Slap dance. Left to right: Casey 80, Jordan 81, Joey 81, Benj 78, Paul 81, AJ 81.  Sorry Matt, you got cropped.

Teine. Left to right: Jenny, Tifa, Ally, Rachel.  All from 82.

Elisa 82 was the taupo.

Dan and Medical Officer Teuila out on the dance floor.

Former Training Director HP dancing with the ladies.

History Quiz

Who was the first Prime Minister of independent Samoa? What flag was lowered during the ceremony when Samoa gained its independ- ence? Who were the leaders of the Mau movement? What is meant by the phrase “The Pacific Way”? Poor Dustin hasn’t left Apia since he arrived Wednesday morning, but he got a long Samoan history lesson sitting in the studio audience of the Independence Day Inter-School Quiz this morning.

Apia Rotaract was asked to coordinate the televised contest a few weeks ago, and those efforts culminated in today’s taping at the TV3 studio. I admit I’ve been on the sidelines for most of this work, though I made a few phone calls to ensure contestants would have buzzers. I wasn’t even sure I’d show up for the taping until last night when I ran into one of the main coordinators. So at 8:00 this morning Dustin and I drowsily walked across town to the TV studio to help with taping.

We found a place to sit at the back of the studio and tried to stay out of the way while other people worked their specific assignments. We finally got work when Savave showed up with banners that needed to be screwed into the wall. This worked well because Dustin’s tallness was useful and my novice power drill skills were just enough to get the job done. I’m not handy by any means, but I do get a thrill out of using power tools.

I’ve only been to the TV3 studio once before for the Spelling Bee a few weeks ago. That was literally a taping, the footage of which was edited and played on TV later that evening. Today’s event was broadcast live, which I didn’t realize until we were on air. This was good because we were drilling holes in the wall 5 minutes before taping, and things would have been a lot more stressful had we known how urgently we needed to finish.

For the most part, things went incredibly smooth. Rotaractor Mandria played host, and the students from 7 Apia schools showed off their knowledge well. They did very well although some of their answers were a little odd. When asked about the first missionaries in Samoa, one girl used the words “polygamy” and “cannibalism” in her answer, I’m unclear why. There were a barrel of laughs from the control room when one boy was asked to identify a notable Samoan business leader who recently died and he said, “Viliamu Ah Liki,” which I think would be the American equivalent of guessing, “Joe Costco”.

Dustin and I were both impressed with the students’ use of Samoan and English. Each question was asked in both languages, and contestants were allowed to answer with either. Often they’d employ both languages to answer a question—sometimes switching back and forth in the same sentence. I think some concepts must be easier to explain in Samoan, and others must be easier in English—even to non-native English speakers.

The whole event was a good time, and Dustin seemed pretty impressed. For me, I love being involved in TV. I really need to figure out how I can get into TV when I get back to The States.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Dustin behind the host's podium at last night's setup.

The student contestants.

Me and Dustin at the back of the studio.

I noticed this girl was wearing 2 pairs of sandals: hers and her partners. This was so they would be closer in height for the camera. I think?

The crowd watching the London rugby tournament on TV at the bar last night.

Spelling Bee

I lost with the word “sandwich”. It was first grade, and the bee was held afterschool in room 9, where Ms. Hawkins read the words. Everyone stood up, and we went around the classroom. If you spelled a word wrong, you sat down. The last 5 students left standing went on to the finals. After however many rounds, there were six of us left. I spelled it “sandwitch”. And thus the qualifying round ended. That was my one and only spelling bee. Today I got to be a spectator.

Digicel is sponsoring a 10-week televised spelling bee in which year 10 students from 12 different schools compete in pairs against one another. I’m not really involved, but I ran into Thanpuii after school today, and she invited me to come along. “We’re leaving at 10 after 2,” she told me. “Can you be ready?”

I checked my watch. It was 2:08. “Ehhh... sure,” I said.

We shuttled over to TV3, and after a brief wait in the lobby, we were escorted into a small studio. After a long wait during which we watched one of the “Mighty Ducks” sequels with the sound turned off, there were a couple speeches and the tournament began.

The bee worked like this: a moderator read a school subject, a point value, and then the specific word twice. At that point a team could buzz in to answer. It was announced at the beginning words would not be used in a sentence. All words were to spelled in British English except when the school subject was Samoan, in which case contestants were required to denote komalilius (apostrophes, as in fale’oloa) and fa’amamafas (lines over vowels, as in sē) . Each match was 20 minutes of spelling, which is a long time.

Enforcement of the “don’t ring in til the word’s been said twice” rule was arbitrary. Also, scores were hidden most of the time, which made it difficult for a team to keep a grasp on their progress. My school didn’t play until the second match, so I kept score with my own pen and paper. It was a barn burner.

Here are some words I had problems with:

• Symbols. This came up when the school subject was “music”. I would have spelled “cymbals”, but apparently I would have been wrong. The whole use-the-word-in-a-sentence thing would have been helpful here.
  
• Sow. This came up in the Agriculture/Textile subject. Once again, context would have been helpful. I wrote “sew”.
  
• Network. This word was written on the Digicel logos plastered behind the contestants, as in “Samoa’s bigger, better network.”
  
• Fertilization. Admittedly, the British English thing throws me off more than the students. I would have spelled it “fertilisation”, mostly because I just default away from “zed” whenever I’m spelling Britishly.

Perhaps the funniest part of the two matches was when the word dam came up. The first team spelled it “damp”, so the other team got a crack at it. They spelled it “damn”. Context! Context!

Overall, I was impressed at how well everyone did. There were some tough words: mountainous, farrowing (MS Word doesn’t recognize this word), rhythm, chlorophyll, indigenous, requiem, and epididymis (Word’s shaking its head again).

In the end, my school beat out Faatuatua Seconday, 135 to 130—a barn burner indeed.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Update! Fertilisation is totally acceptable!

Update! Farrowing means to produce a litter of pigs. Epididymis is also a word, but I'll let you Google that on your own.

The control room. Through this window we watched D2: The Mighty Ducks with no sound.

Inside the van on the ride over. The two girls who represented our school are in the far back, Racey and Tinousi. Sorry about the lack of focus. It was that sort of day.

Growing Pains

I hate getting yelled at. In third grade, I was talking to the kid sitting next to me during sustained silent reading, and Mrs. Tynes made me “turn my card.” More than 20 years later, I can still feel the sting. And so it’s no surprise that when the contractor barked at me while I was shopping at Lynn’s faleoloa this evening, I took it personally. But given the development climate in Samoa, I don’t feel like I was in the wrong tonight, so the feeling is less guilt and more miff.

I should explain circumstances. Lynn’s, one of the upscale faleoloas up the hill, is putting in tile. I never noticed the floors until this evening. They’re mostly cement with a few sheets of loose linoleum running up and down shopping aisles. With the recent advance in Apia’s grocery stores—Farmer Joe’s been raising the bar for the past year and a half and Lucky Foodtown has since completely remodeled—it was only a matter of time before Lynn’s would have to get a facelift to keep up with the Joneses.

In any case, my assumption is the contractors will be working all night tonight putting in tile. We walked in about an hour before closing to pick up eggs and rice. I wanted to check the price of cat food, so I had to walk into an area cordoned off with an improvised shelf of fruit. The crew was only sweeping and moving shelves around, and I didn’t give a second thought to crossing their perimeter. I decided against buying cat food, but then evaded boundaries again to search for rice. The Aussie (or Kiwi?) foreman barked at me, “Can’t you see we’re trying to work here?” I apologized and that was that.

But I’m not sorry. Samoa is a developing nation in the most literal sense, and if I had to respect work areas every time I came across a construction site or various “men at work,” I would never get anywhere.

In fact, in my experience I’ve found that it’s completely acceptable to step over construction equipment or to traverse gaping trenches with little more than a “Tulou.” Pardon me. Most of the time, guys don’t even look up. Over Easter weekend in Savai’i, I accidentally hopped off a bus directly into a patch of drying cement. The workers shrugged and waved (the cement was mostly dry anyway).

Since the road switch, the government has been constantly repaving roads in Apia. There’s also been underground internet cables installed and the new pressure sewage system. Stores and businesses have undergone much remodeling. The bottom line is the Apia I leave in December will be nearly unrecognizable from the Apia I found when I arrived.

Also, maybe I’m making American assumptions here, but Lynn’s is open until 10 p.m and as the customer, I have the right to check the price of cat food. Especially if the crew is still sweeping.

So I don’t feel bad for crossing the line. Apia’s bursting at the seams. Lines are crossed every day.

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

My sixth graders played at Apia Park today. They lost. First loss of the season :(

Cultural Exploration 37: Mount Vaea

“Nobody write on the grave,” Maengi called out this morning to her year 13 science students. The class hiked Mount Vaea this morning to study the canopy structure and forest stratification. Maengi invited me and the other two Indian missionaries to come along on the hike as chaperones. As 20 students filed through the botanical gardens to approach the hiking trail, the groundskeeper got alarmed. He and Maengi had a short but intense conversation, after which she warned the group. “Nobody write on the grave.”

Robert Louis Stevenson came to Samoa in 1890, and though he died only 4 years later, he immersed himself in local politics in the then-occupied Samoa. According to Wikipedia, was “loved by Samoans.” They loved him so much, when he died, they insisted on carrying his body “upon their shoulders to nearby Mt. Vaea, where they buried him on a spot overlooking the sea.”

116 years later, the hike to the tomb is popular among tourists and natives alike. At the bottom of the hill, RLS’s house has been converted into a museum. The trailhead is out back. It’s a good spot to sight-see, and beyond that, the hike is good exercise.

Mt. Vaea and RLS’s grave are definitely a source of pride for Samoa. I recently thumbed through the year 12 English textbook and found a bunch of fictional short stories centered on Mt. Vaea.

It should also be noted, as commenter Nostalgia pointed out, Mt. Vaea at times has been a hip place for young people to congregate after the nightclubs closed.

In any case, the hike offers two paths: the longer, less steep path; and the shorter, more vertical path. The first three times I went up the long way and came down the short way. Today we did the exact opposite.

I believe the foliage is technically “rainforest” although on days like today, that seems debatable. It was interesting watching the students at work, trying to differentiate between the strata. They also did in activity where they roped off a square meter of ground and sifted through it to observe the diversity of plant life and the diversity of animal life. They then had to speculate on whether these two diversities had a causal relationship.

I didn’t hear the results of their study, but I enjoyed the scientific spin on the hike. And the view from the top is pretty great.

Tomorrow’s cultural exploration: E te alu i fea?

I hope you’re well. More pictures from today’s hike below.

Boys observing.

Students with valley vista in the background.

The square meter activity.

The group. I'm right in the middle of the photo, just below the NZ on the girl's t-shirt.

Teine.