Getting with the Program

Though Prizegiving is tomorrow, I was expecting today to be high on the ceremonial side. There are a bunch of teachers leaving, and the year is drawing to a close, and it only seemed appropriate for there to be some intimate acknowledgments of the bonds we’ve formed as a staff and as a school and while tomorrow is a large celebration with pomp and circumstance and family and friends, I imagined today might be a day for some calm before the storm.

But today was all business. The moment I arrived at school the secretary handed me the agenda for tomorrow’s program and asked that I turn it into a booklet handout. I had last year’s design saved, and I substituted some of the graphics with a bunch of vector-based graphics I built for the Peace Corps t-shirt, and by the time morning assembly was over—mark the time, 10:00 a.m.—I had a draft ready for my pule’s approval. I handed him the design as he walked out of the Great Hall. He nodded emphatically, said, “This is very nice!”, and then walked away without waiting for feedback.

I went over it again with the school secretary, who had some changes of her own. She wanted to put the starting time for tomorrow’s event at the top of the agenda, “8:30 – Taimi Amata”. I smiled and nodded and ignored her suggestion.

We’ve been having a talent competition of sorts at my school over the past few weeks, and though the entire agenda was written in Samoan, the talent events were written in English: Soloist Finals, Duet Finals, and “Agapela Champs 2010”. That last one seemed a little ridiculous to me, so I changed the invented Agapela to the traditional Italian-borrowed “A Cappella”. This caused a brief controversy among staff, as many thought I had no idea what I was talking about.

Once we finally started making copies of the program, my Vice Pule asked, “Did you fix fa’aisuaso?” Apparently the word should have been Fa’aiuaso, translation unclear at press time, but no one had told me this until the copy machine had started. I quickly hit cancel and fixed the mistake.

As the day wore on, I made 360 double-sided copies for tomorrow’s program, and after the secretary got sidetracked, I ended up folding about 250 copies of the program in half. The entire project took about 4 hours, and I was all too happy to get out of school this afternoon.

Once I was got out of school I went to the Peace Corps office, picked up the brand new Peace Corps t-shirts, headed to Italianos for dinner, and then went to the airport to see Dan and Jordan off.

I got back to my house around 1:15 a.m., only to be greeted by my pule who emerged from the campus’s shadows. “Can you come early tomorrow morning? The programs are wrong. We need to re-print them,” he told me.

Even though I’d received his cursory approval, the thumbs-up from the school secretary, and my vice pule’s (late) blessing, my principal wants me at school at 5:30 a.m. to redo the program. How fun.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

In order to make a big show of the Dux award (in America we'd call this the Valedictorian), my school gives the winning student 4 different trophies, all of which must be returned next year so they can be awarded again. In order to document the 4 trophies, the Prizegiving Committee asked me to take a photo of them today. I suggested Ms. Peteru be in the photo. She happily agreed.

My folded programs in the foreground. All of which must be discarded.

Blakey and me out for Dan and Jordan's going away this evening.

Ungentlemanly Conduct

The most stunning sports injustice I've ever faced was during a water polo game fall of my senior year of high school. Water polo can be absurdly brutal because the pool’s surface provides a translucent-at-best scrim underneath which the referee cannot see—and thus can’t call fouls. In this particular game against Newark Memorial, the hole set had a much larger wingspan than I, and at one point he grabbed my wrist and pulled it far enough below the surface that I couldn’t breathe. He probably only did this for 5-7 terrifying seconds, but it was enough to induce deeply primal fear in me. I wriggled out of this literal death grip and climbed this kid like a ladder. From there, I proceeded to curl my body around his head, trying in vain to drown the guy. It was with only slightly less of a sense of injustice I approached tonight’s social soccer match.

PCV Erica works for the Samoan Soccer Association, and she has served as team captain for the Peace Corps’ team over the past seven weeks. Our games have always been on Friday nights, and for the great majority of the time, the games have been lively and competitive but still fun. We’ve played such local teams as Punjas, Lesa’s Telephone Services, and UN/SPREP, and we’ve had a great time.

Until our final game.

We played Friday evening. The first half of the game was uneventful, save for the goal we scored. The ball had sailed toward the sideline on a kick from our backfield, and I passed the ball in from the sideline just before it went out. The other team, who shall remain nameless, thought it should have been called out—our team took advantage of the confusion and scored.

The second half grew much more heated as the game became more rough and confrontation escalated. At the peak of this conflict, a player from our team was negligently kicked in the head/neck and was knocked out cold. We loaded this player on an ambulance, and the game pretty much ended then and there.

Three days later (errr... yesterday), the other team protested. They claimed we had abandoned the game. Nevermind that one of our players was taken away in an ambulance and another rode along to the emergency room; apparently the rest of us should have finished the game. The other team somehow also successfully argued that we should have to forfeit the goal we’d scored in the first half, and that the entire game should be replayed. The re-match was scheduled for tonight.

This was particularly detrimental for our team for several reasons, including:

• Our players are dispersed throughout the country, and it’s difficult for volunteers to assemble on a Tuesday night;
  
• Casey 80, one of our power forwards, finished his Peace Corps service and flew back to America yesterday; and
  
• One of our players couldn’t play tonight on account of the concussion he’d sustained in Friday’s game.

Unfair!

So we showed up tonight with six players and no subs. The other team showed up with enough players to field an American football team—it was as though they had squads to rotate in and out.

We managed to score a goal—a header off a corner kick—but of course the other side dominated, and we lost 6-1.

Our 1-0 game stolen from us, we sauntered off the field, completely disenchanted with The Powers That Be.

Whatever.

I hope you’re well. Tommy’s pictures from Friday’s match below.

Joey 81, an inimitable force on the Peace Corps Samoa soccer team, and Casey 80, who sadly made his exit last night.

Erica 80, our all-star goalkeeper. No really. Opposing teams are unanimous in their awe. She's amazing.

Joey 81, Jordan 81, and Ben 80 forming a wall in front of the free kick. This ball deflected off Ben's unguarded shin. Me on the far left.

Ferry Bad Day

Dustin and I woke up at 6:00 a.m. to catch the 8:00 ferry that leaves from Apia. The new boat, Lady Samoa III, has been leaving Apia because the Mulifanua wharf on the western side of the island (where ferries normally berth) isn’t deep enough to accommodate the new boat. Blakey and I have been hoping dredging efforts are slow because the convenience of having a ferry directly from Apia is awesome. It’s walking distance from my house.

This morning we were actually walking that distance when we ran into PCV Dan who had gone for a morning jog down to the Apia wharf to check out the situation there. “There’s no 8 o’clock boat,” he said. I looked at him quizzically. “They said the boat leaves at 12.”

I rolled my eyes. There’s a disclaimer on the Samoa Shipping Corporation’s website that says, “Please note schedule subject to change without notice.” Understatement of the year.

With nothing to do and 4 hours to kill, Dustin and I posted ourselves in the Peace Corps resource room which provided air conditioning and couches to sleep on. I tinkered about on the Internet for a while, and we both took naps.

After a while Supy showed up. “Which boat are you taking?” he asked.

Me: The noon boat from here.
Supy: There are no boats from here anymore. They finished dredging the wharf.
Me: Whaaa?! When?
Supy: 2 or 3 weeks ago.

Dan was long gone having taken the pasiovaa from Fugalei to take the next possible boat. So I called Samoa Shipping Corporation and Supy was right. No boats from Apia today. Lady Samoa leaves Mulifanua at 4:00 this afternoon.

As I write this it’s 11:30 a.m., and we’re contemplating what to do with the next 2.5 hours we have to kill until the bus leaves to take us to the wharf. Tide is too low to check out Palolo Deep, and 2.5 hours isn’t really enough time to hike Mt. Vaea. It feels like a waste of a day.

At this point I shouldn’t feel too surprised to be caught off-guard. It happens frequently enough the feeling is pretty familiar. But I still get annoyed when my cheese gets moved. I’m not sure if I should be annoyed with the Samoan Shipping Corporation for being so unpredictable or at other volunteers for not disseminating information or at myself for being so out of the loop.

I guess I’m just cranky because I woke up so early. We got up at 6:00 a.m. to catch a boat that leaves 10 hours later. What a joke.

I hope you’re well. Happy birthday, Monika! Pictures below.

Dustin sliding down the rock face at Papase'ea Sliding Rocks.

Group pic at Sliding Rocks. Left to right: Lili 82, Rachel's friend Gwen, Rachel 82, Me, Dustin.

Electrical Parade

It was an urgent knock. I was laying on my couch at the time, and the clatter of the knock made me spring to my feet. The cat has been increasingly curious about the outdoors lately, so I grabbed her to keep her inside, as I scrambled across the living room. I opened the door and saw a large man wearing an fluorescent orange vest stamped with the initials of the Electric Power Company. “You live here?” he asked me. I nodded. “Good,” he said. “We’re shutting off your power until you pay your electric bill.”

I was only for a moment, and then realizing I was essentially powerless in the situation (no pun intended), I started to laugh. “You’re shutting off our power?” I repeated. “When are you doing this?”

“Right now,” the man said, gesturing to his truck, where I saw a man with a hard hat pulling out an extendable ladder preparing to scale the electricity pole outside my house. “Do you know who lives here?” he started knocking on Maengi’s door.

“Yes,” I said.

“Where is she?”

“She’s at school. Teaching.”

“What’s her name?”

“I don’t know. You’re turning off our power right now?” The guy was clearly annoyed I wouldn’t identify my neighbor, and he didn’t seem too interested in going over the details of why he was shutting off the electricity. So I left the guy standing at Maengi’s door and went back into my house.

My laptop’s battery ain’t what it used to be, and I was working on my drawing contest entry, so I saved and shut down. By then, Maengi had come home to find the man up the pole.

“This is very frustrating,” Maengi said to me when I got back outside.

See, in return for our efforts, the school and its parent organization pay for our electricity. In gaining a Peace Corps (and 2 missionaries), the school agrees to provide housing and water and electricity, but for some reason, they waited until this morning to pay the bill, which didn’t leave enough time for the dispatcher to call this guy off.

And this guy had the self-righteousness of one of those Repo guys from TV. He knew that we were bad for not paying our bill, and he had no interest in listening to reason. So Maengi and I went back to our houses. The fan was dead. The lights were out. The computer’s battery indicator light was on.

So one by one, we complained our way up the chain of command. First our pule, then the main office, then the Treasurer. Maengi’s lived here for 8 years, so she knows a thing or two about navigating the system, and after not too long, we had guarantees from several people that our power would be back on today.

When I left to run some errands at 3:30 this afternoon, the power was still off, and I’d grown skeptical of its coming back on before tomorrow. I had flashes of reading a book by candlelight and sitting in the dark trying to make music blowing over the top of a Coke bottle.

But, sure enough, when I got home around 5:30, the cat was sitting in front of the electric fan, feeling the cool breeze.

Just another day in Samoa.

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

Who parks here? Who parks here. PUN!
Oh, is that Pete Townsend's spot? PUN!
That's where they park the magic bus. PUN!
Owl parking. PUN!
Who? My wife, Ellen. Who? My wife, Ellen. INSIDE JOKE!
I think you-know-who parks there. PUN!
Feel free to post your own.

High and Dry

I just spent 45 minutes in the shower. The water was cold, and for most the time, it wasn’t on. For the first 5 minutes, I had a solid stream, and the next 40 minutes was long periods of waiting and then obnoxiously short spurts of water. There are many aggravating aspects of my life here in Samoa, but none of them comes close to making me as angry as the stupid water does. I mean, really. Come on.

I’ve heard my next-door neighbor Maengi complain about it too, and her theory is the same as mine. In fact, she stated things so matter-of-factly I assume they’re true. The water pipe that runs from house to house on our school’s compound slants for some reason. According to Maengi, who’s lived her for 8 years, it wasn’t always like this but sometime in the not-too-distant past, the people at the other end moved the pipe to the ground which caused a slant. I’ve never seen the actual pipe in question, but stay with me. The pipe is lower to the ground on their side and the water main connects mid-slant. I’m at the very end of the high side, which means if anyone else in the whole compound turns on their water, mine turns off. Click here or on the picture up top to see the diagram up close.

I’ve talked about water problems before, and it’s absolutely worth point out that Blakey and Briony and Jenny 80 are all almost completely without water at all times. That is a lousy situation, and I am grateful for my running water. But at least they have reason to adapt.

The thing that’s so irritating about my situation is when I stepped into the shower, there was a steady stream. If there was no water, I’d make arrangements to shower somewhere else. But instead I end up standing in my stupid shower for 40 minutes like a fool.

I’m not sure the aggravation of an extremely intermittent shower is something you can relate to unless you’ve experienced it firsthand. Try it next time you’re in the shower. Once you’ve got the shampoo lathered in your hair—maybe even mid-rinse—turn off the water. And then wait.

There’s nothing to do during shower waiting. You can’t bring a book or a crossword. You can’t play games on your cell phone. Sure, you can think about what to make for dinner or go over mental notes on what you’re going to teach tomorrow. But you know, all of those things are great to think about WHILE THE WATER IS ON.

I think that’s why it’s so aggravating: if I’m going to have leisure thinking time, I’d prefer not to be naked and sopping and lathered. I'd rather not wipe the soap out of my eyes with soapy hands.  I'd rather not contemplate the shower curtain hooks for lack of anything better to do.  I’d rather not have the mental debate about whether or not to lean on the mildew-laden walls of my shower.

The biggest mental debate of all is when to give up. On most nights, all the water on the compound is shut off. What are the chances the water in the shower will come back on before then? What if all the water on the compound is shut off? Is it time to give up after 10 minutes? 20? What about the fact that I'm covered in soap?  What is there to do about that?

I reached my capacity for this nonsense at 40 minutes. I had conditioner in my hair, and for some absurd reason, my bathroom sink worked. So I rinsed my hair as best I could in my tiny tiny sink.

And I swear this is true: As soon as I turned off the bathroom sink, the water in the shower came back on. I’d left the nozzle open, and the splatter of the water echoed off the shower walls.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHH!

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Kids playing in Apia Harbour this evening.

I sat directly behind the speaker at this morning's assembly.

And Out Come the Wolves

Teaching middle school in Oakland, my road rage faded away. There was enough stress and unadult- erated rage during the school day mere traffic spats seemed insignificant. Normally in The States I was an angry driver, mad in traffic, irate when cut off. But during the few weeks and months I taught middle school, those emotions were dwarfed and quiet. And yet after I quit they came back in unyielding fervor. And now, living in Samoa, that anger has been channeled toward the dogs.

Though today is the first day of summer and nearly the longest day of the year, darkness fell before I left Blakey’s this evening. With campus empty and Christmas on the horizon, Blakey, Erin, and I got together for dinner, cookies, and wine. But all good things must pass, and as the evening came to an end, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and headed out the door.

The path from Blakey’s house to mine is relatively short; at most a fifteen-minute walk. But as I trudged down the hill on the crudely paved sidewalk, the LED flashlight of my cell phone lighting the way, the dogs inevitably began to bark.

I lived just south of downtown Los Angeles throughout college and I heard my fair share of gunshots in the distance and helicopters above and dogs barking in the distance. And so I take it all in stride.

And then, quiet and out of nowhere, a real dog is in my face. A German shepherd, angry as hell, barking louder and louder, and before I know it within a threatening distance. In less than a beat, the dog is within 3 yards of me, barking loudly and cautiously continuing its approach.

At first I’m rattled, and all I can do is front. I reach into my pocket, my cell phone is the first thing I feel, and I immediately pretend to throw it at the dog, making grand and violent gestures like a stage performer.

The dog is unconvinced, edging even closer, barking the whole time, his threatening teeth glisten in the starlight. I begin to scream words, feigning anger before it comes, and I crouch down to paw at the gravel in my path hoping to find something to throw at the dog. I find nothing, and the dog inches closer, now less than a yard away.

I throw my cell phone at him. Fuck you, Dog. The last ditch effort riles the anger from the depths of me, and I verbally come at him with all I’ve got. A string of expletives follows. Hell, I beat my chest.

The dog lets up, impressed with my newfound belligerence. My sacrificed cell phone has bounced behind me, and I retrieve it, popping the battery back into place.

By now, the neighboring dogs have heard the scuffle, and echo their own barking. I shine the LED light along the path and seize four rocks of sizable girth. I’m ready now.

I’m almost home, there are no more than 200 steps to my gate, but I hear the dogs, and I’m ready. My shoulders ride up high, and my defense edges past the midfield line as I call out to their barks, mocking them, inviting them out. The rock in my hand slides up next to my index finger. Come and get me.

Across the street a dog barks in a driveway. I hurl my rock, but the dog takes off before I release. He is temporarily silenced.

I walk through my school’s gate, still clutching my ammunition. I hold it securely in my hand until I reach the door to my house. I’m home and safe, but I can feel the blood pumping through my ears. It will be a while before I cool.

And so here I am. I hope you’re safe. Pictures below.

Erin and Blakey baking chocolate chip cookies.

A slew of Los Angeles paraphernalia is available at the Loko Samoa store.

This house across the street from my school has a nice display of lights.

The Other Bastard Machine

After I started working at eCivis, I would come home and want nothing to do with the brand new laptop I purchased just after I was hired there. The thought of any more time with a snarky little machine was torturous. Was it the unwavering blank unenchanting glow? Or maybe the machine’s inability to understand the simple things I want it to do grew to be too much by the end of a long day. Or maybe working at eCivis sucked and using a computer didn’t mesh with my escapist mentality at the time.

In any case, computers can be stupid machines that cause more problems than they solve, and days like today, it seems foolish to introduce them to the developing world. This became very clear when I showed up at Culture Day practice smoldering from a stressful day of computer mishaps while the rest of the students and staff there were jovial and excited to be singing and dancing. I feel like pushing the computers off the school’s second floor balcony might be a better way to serve the community here.

Some of the problems were out of my control. My server has been down since last Tuesday due to some hardware issues. When I turned it on, the green light would show up, but a high-pitched sustained beep would come from the back and nothing would show up on the monitor. I don’t know how to fix that.

My first few experiences with IT in Samoa were surprisingly good. One of the computers in the lab had a loose video component on the motherboard. I admit, this was probably a simple hardware issue that took only a few seconds to fix once the tower’s shell was removed. But once again, outside my area of expertise, and it was nice that someone could fix the problem quickly.

So when they came to pick up the server after school on Friday, I had high hopes. They even called yesterday to get the password for the server since they got the machine to start. Cool. Done and done. Teaching’s been a bitch without the server, so I was giddy when they brought it back today; ready to kill the fatted calf. I turned it on and when to type in the password and the keyboard didn’t work. And then mouse didn’t work. In fact, no keyboard or mouse worked. The USB inputs weren’t functioning.

I called the IT place. “The USB ports aren’t working on the computer you just brought back.”

I’ve met the guy I’m talking to before. He sounds like my friend Andreas from college. He’s Hungarian. I’m not clear on how he ended up in Samoa. He replies, “Oh. We weren’t having that problem.”

“Okay,” I say, not sure how else to respond.

“Okay, thanks.” He hangs up.

I guess some IT experiences are better than others.

I spent the rest of the day trying to resolve that issue.

And then… One of the unexpected perks of teaching computer studies here is I also get to be professional typist for the staff. How fun.

I spent 9.5 hours typing up math exams last week, and while I have heard a few thanks, I have heard far more complaints about little problems: typos here, a missing number there. I admit, it is a math test, and it’s important to be precise, but part of me still wants to tell them that if they aren’t happy with it, maybe they should have done it themselves.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Microsoft Word is just a jerk sometimes. I copied the answer sheet I made for one of my tests into the Word file for another teacher’s test, and it keeps putting a couple answers at the top of column 2 rather than at the bottom of column 1. It’s not an issue of margins or font size. It’s just MS Word being evil.*

It was a lousy day computer-wise. And since I watch all my TV and listen to all my music and podcasts via my laptop, there’s no escaping the bastard machine tonight either. Oh well.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

* = The problem turned out to be that MS Word automatically evens out columns when they don’t take up the whole page. So I was able to fix the problem by simply throwing in some carriage returns at the end of column 2. It took quite a while to figure that out though. It was stupid.
















My computer lab and the guy who looks and sounds like Andreas.





















My school got trash cans! So exciting! It's very rare to see public trash cans in Samoa.
















We saw this needlenose fish swimming in Apia Harbour last Monday.
















The most popular pizza place in town is now serving pizza on the same plates I eat on at my house. This means that a.) the people who own the pizza place shop at Nia Mall and b.) it's less of a treat to go to the pizza place because it feels like I'm eating at home. There's that lingering feeling that I might have to do dishes later.

Picture Yourself

“If these pictures have anything important to say... it's this: I was here. I existed. I was young, I was happy, and someone cared enough about me in this world to take my picture.”

- Seymour Parrish, in the (forgettable) film ‘One Hour Photo’ on
the every day snapshots we take of loved ones

"Picture book /of people with each other /
to prove they love each other /a long time ago /Na, na, na, na, na na."
- "Picture Book," The Kinks

I know I’m a bleeding heart sucker for even bringing this up, but there is one lingering issue in getting my stuff back yesterday: what do I do with the pictures that were taken by the people who took the camera? I think the kneejerk reaction is to delete them. I certainly don’t need them, and they were taken with a stolen camera.

On the other hand, I’ve always felt it was a little unholy to delete a picture or (in less technologically advanced times) to destroy a photograph let alone a negative. I think there’s even a philosophical debate to be had over who should own a picture. Sure, these pictures were taken with my camera, which was stolen from me, but the people in the pictures didn’t steal it. Why should they not be entitled to their pictures?

The people in the pictures are happy. There are infants and children and adults and elderly people smiling. There are what look to be mothers posing with their children. They seem to be the real victims here. Cameras are a rare thing to come by in Samoa, and it’s a rare treat for a mother to get a picture of her children. My host sister, Asolima, was so excited when she found out I had a camera. She would dress up her 2 daughters and pose them and re-pose them. And while little is expected of me when I go back and visit my host family, Asolima never forgets to ask, “Did you get those pictures developed?” So this situation has got to be lousy for the people in these pictures. They’ve been cheated out of pictures of themselves and their children.

Some would argue that it’s their fault for not asking, “Where did you get that digital camera?” It’s a valid argument. The people in the photos do not appear to be well-off, and the police tell me that the burglar was a young teenager. It surely must have been suspect when the youth showed up with a relatively expensive camera. But can they be blamed for not looking the gift horse in the mouth? Maybe.

But how do we know what they were told? What story they heard about where the camera came from? Asolima brought me an Olympus digital camera that seems to work except for a cracked viewfinder. She found it on the side of the road. Who knows what the people in the pictures were told?

I’m just trying to put myself in their shoes and give them the benefit of the doubt. When the camera was stolen from me, the only thing that made me really sad was losing all the pictures I had taken during training. The fact that the camera still works is just icing on the cake. I would have been elated if I had only gotten the memory stick returned to me.

So what would you do?

I think I might try and get some of the better pictures developed, and then I could burn all the pictures on to a CD. This wouldn’t cost very much. I’m not sure how I would actually be able to get all this to the family, but I know what village they’re from, and I know the burglar is in jail now. So it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how to get it to them.

I hope you had a great weekend. More strange pictures below.



















































































































I didn't realize until right now, but they took a lot of pictures in "portrait" (rather than "landscape") orientation. Strange.

Day 2

After spring break in high school, the swim team would come back to the pool, and for the first lap or 2, the water would feel so nice and easy. It didn’t start to feel challenging until 4 or 5 laps into the swim. And then the body would start to scream. I get the feeling the same things going on with yesterday and today. My body’s not screaming, but today the water wasn’t so smooth and easy.

Part of the increased frustration with today was I had a couple of batches of kids who spoke very little English, and standing in front of a group of non-English speakers trying to explain computer input and output devices in English feels a little foolish. I’m not saying it’s foolish to teach Samoan students computers, I’m just saying it’s difficult for me to explain the ins and outs of USB cables in Samoan.

It’s a little like college where it seemed like the more fundamental classes were always taught by a non-native English speaker. It seems like the basics are best taught in the student’s native language. And I’m not just saying this because the other computer teacher, who has yet to show up for work, was supposed to teach the lower level classes. It is overwhelming to have his classes, yes; but he could communicate to those classes so much better than I can. Although, I suppose even if he was teaching his share, the computer lab would still be loaded to the brim.

Peace Corps Samoa set out on a goal somewhere around 7 or 8 years ago for approximately 90 volunteers to teach 25,000 Samoan secondary students in some capacity. This leads to a volunteer-to-student ratio of approximately 1:278; that is, during my tenure in Samoa, I would need to work with 278 students. Many schools in Samoa are relatively small, and without double-counting the students that a particular teacher has 2 years in a row, some volunteers come in far under 278.

And then there are those of us that bring up the average.

My principal has mandated that all students in years 9, 10, and 11 should have a computer class at least once a week. It doesn’t really seem like that many when you pencil in 4 classes per week for each grade level (8 classes for year 11—they come twice a week). But when they show up, it becomes alarmingly obvious that their class sizes are huge. There are 50 students in each year 9 class. Multiply that by 12 to include years 10 and 11 and throw in the year 12 and 13 kids and I have 600 students coming through my computer lab each week.

And there are only 11 student computers right now. There should be 13, but Max and I worked together to strip one of its operating system, and another needs a new video card.

600 students ÷ 11 computers = 55 students/computer = Yikes

In any case, after school today I headed over to the market to see about purchasing taro, and I ended up eating crow. See, it turns out my host family was at the market today… SELLING TARO. And $20 WST is the elastic price. Asolima explained it to me: Some vendors have to bus back to the village, and the last bus leaves every day around 4:30 p.m. If they still have goods left to sell, they’re the ones who slash prices. I feel like a jerk for yesterday’s sentiments. I guess I need to go back to the village for some cross-cultural training. A bit ironic that Fausaga was there at the market to teach me a lesson.

In the end, I bought taro from my host family. It was really fun to see them, and they provided a welcome pick-me-up after today’s classes.

Finally, I went to the internet café yesterday to use the broadband to download a bunch of podcasts. And while I was there, I figured, why not upgrade iTunes? It’s been begging to be upgraded, and I was thinking that upgrading just might help my download speed.

IDIOT.

When it upgraded itself, it got stuck and only half installed the QuickTime upgrade. iTunes refuses to load if QuickTime isn’t working. So I couldn’t listen to the podcasts I had downloaded because I couldn’t play them in iTunes AND I had to go back to the internet café today to download a new version of iTunes so I can reinstall it. Ugh.

I hope things are well with you. A couple pics below.

Oh yeah. Someone Skyped me twice this morning during class. Was that you? I'm available every day between 10:30 and 11:00 a.m. Samoa Time.
















One of my classes. Not sure if you can tell from this picture, but the girl in the bottom right looks so much like Amanda. Not from the front. Only from the side. So much. It's creepy.
















This truck is owned by one of the teachers at our school. She's fun. Eccentric.





















Asolima, Mele (Phil's cousin's wife, not my host mom), and Phil's sister, Tafale.

Cultural Exploration 5: Bugs

There is a spectrum of living with bugs in Samoa on which people fall somewhere between the poles of co-existence and mass destruction. It’s a fine line and definitely a balancing act. The pursuit of either extreme can drive a person insane. I know Gandhi was living in tropical India when he said that he’d rather leave a room than hurt a fly, and that only makes the man more heroic. Dealing with pests is a multi-million tala industry here in Samoa, and with good reason. Bugs are a really annoying part of daily life.

I remember a particular Saturday Night Live commercial in which a new roach motel promised to rip the cockroaches legs off and then beat the cockroach with it. I’m sometimes reminded of that when dealing with bugs here.

Ants

Growing up on top of the giant ant hill that is Union City, California was good practice for Samoa, but the ants in my duplex bring a new level of intensity. They’ll eat anything, be it the glue that holds a cardboard box together or a dead bug that I killed 20 minutes earlier. That’s right. They have no problem dismembering other bugs and carting away the parts. During a toona’i in Fausaga, I spilled coconut milk on the mat in front of me. Speeches were being given, and I didn’t want to make a big to-do, so I watched as the ants swarmed. They started taking spilled food that day as well. Phil and I watched one ant haul off a chow mein noodle by himself. It was impressive.

In any case, I estimate that I have at least 4 separate colonies in my house. I think they are different because I see them coming from separate places and discarding waste via dirt hills in different locations around the house.

Yes, I said dirt hills. Living here means sweeping every day in order to get rid of the piles of dirt that the ants build. Sometimes in corners, sometimes behind doors, always around the edge of the room near the baseboard, piles are usually between 2 and 3 centimeters in diameter after a day. Mopping is completely useless in fighting this problem.

For me, this has meant an extreme level of vigilance in keeping dishes washed and the counter clean. I’m weary of keeping much garbage sitting around, and I often eat food leaning over the sink to minimize any crumbs. Ants will eat bread crumbs in my house. They’ll eat orange peels. It’s gross.

Mosquitoes

I don’t have too big of a mosquito problem in my house (knock on wood). You can never tell when the little bastards are going to swarm though. I’ve been in the secretary’s office at my school twice now, and both times I was eaten alive. They are known to be out for blood at dawn and dusk, but they are known to hang around during the day too.

Mosquitoes are easier to kill than flies, but they are much more difficult to see. Sometimes you have to give credit to the evolutionary trends of insects. Sometimes I am able to spot mosquitoes, but they fly in patterns with so many zigs and zags that I am rarely able to watch one fly across the room without losing it.

I’ve heard it claimed that once your body gets accustomed to the mosquito venom, the bites stop showing up and stop itching. Given the threat of dengue fever, I’m not sure that’s such a great thing. Also, I don’t really want to get bit enough to find out if this rumor is true.

Cockroaches

Koa sprayed a bunch of Surface Spray Mortein in and around his house and woke up to find 20+ dead cockroaches lying around. My cockroach problem has been minimal, although I do find the occasional roach scurrying when the lights go on. There was a dead one in my shower last week, so I put it in the toilet to flush. Did you know? Cockroaches are incredibly difficult to flush. Their disgusting bodies are lightweight enough that they just hover on top, weathering flush after flush.

It’s bad luck to kill a cockroach, according to many Samoans. Spiders too. This has not been a deterrent to most of us Peace Corps.

Centipedes

I believe I alluded to the Peace Corps Medical Manual’s strangely poetic description of centipede bites. Here it is:

Centipedes are another unpleasant type of insect found in Samoa… They seem to like to bite us for no apparent reason, often crawling into bed with us at night while we’re sleeping and wrenching us into wakefulness with their painful bites.

Sounds like a Rod Stewart song.

In any case, Samoans and Palagis can bond in killing centipedes. I’ve heard rumors that they can regenerate fairly easily, and that it’s necessary to crush them, and then to cut them into small pieces.

Flies

I don’t get flies in my house. They tend to be extremely common, and my host family had terrible fly infestations. I can’t tolerate that. I get one fly in my house, and I will hunt that fly down in cold blood. This outrage will not stand, man.

Moths and Other Flying Things

Sitting around with the fluorescent lights at night, the little bugs that can get past the mosquito netting get in. This is the worst. The stupid things have no fear of getting mixed up with humans. And while they seem to be harmless enough, it’s just gross to have things crawling around.

The other thing that sucks is late at night when I’m reading by flashlight. The light attracts little bugs that crawl around or try to fly in my eyes, etc. So it’s always a little satisfying when they land on the pages of my book, and a quick clap of the hands squashes the bug between the pages. ZING!

Mortein

Mortein is the most common brand of bug killer out there. The active ingredients in Mortein are tetramethrin, phenothrin, piperonyl butoxide, and n-octyl bicycloheptene dicarboximide. I’ve heard that one or more of these chemicals prohibits Mortein from being legal in the United States (although it can’t be that bad if it’s made in Australia). It’s ultra poison. It’s carelessly harmful poison. And I’m okay with that for the time being.

The Surface Spray that I mentioned Koa using earlier smells like oranges. This is apparently intentional in order to attract cockroaches and other bugs to the poison, only to sock them with death blows. It’s clever.

So that’s bugs. Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Footwear.

Hope things are well. Creepy-crawly pictures below. They aren’t too bad. Just ants and a mosquito. No roaches.

A mosquito that died on Phil's glass of water. I'm not very clear on how. But a dead mosquito is my favorite kind.

Pigs at the trough. I left the house without cleaning up two small drips of orange juice that fell on the counter. And these guys were waiting for me when I got home.

Koa was eating chips at my house, and one fell on the ground that he didn't pick up. It's maybe an inch or two wide. Gross.

An example of a dirt pile. This picture doesn't capture who large these things can grow. It rained all day yesterday, and it seemed like it made the ants as lazy as it made me.

The Mortein Family. There's more, but these are my favorites.

Trouble in Paradise

The original plan for today was for Phil to get groceries at his local store since it would be closing at 12:30 p.m. as is the custom here. And then we would go down and hang out in the wharf area of Savai'i until it was time to go home.

So we set out on this plan. Phil asked if I wanted to go to the grocery store with him, and since I had nothing else to do, I figured why not?

Our trip was short. Phil didn't need too much. I received a text message from my sister and I replied to it. I knocked over some plastic cups and looked at the price of clothespins. By the time I picked out an annoyingly expensive Gatorade, Phil was ready to go. We were gone approximately 15 minutes.

I had been futzing with my iPod just before we left. In fact, Phil was standing outside waiting for me as I set it down on the table I'm standing in front of in the picture above. So when I got home and it wasn't there, I immediately knew something was amiss.

Phil went to the kitchen to put away his groceries. He keeps his change in a large shell on his kitchen table, and when the change was missing, I became prime suspect. "Hey, Matt?" he asked awkwardly, "Do you know what happened to the change in here?"

"Ummm... I think maybe someone was here. Is the back door open?" And it was. And the mosquito screen next to the door knob was slashed.

We took inventory. In all, the bad guy(s) got away with my iPod and its charger, my digital camera (Pictures in today's blog were taken with Phil's camera), the headphones I use to Skype (because of the microphone attachment), and Phil's change. Phil's stuff was all in his bedroom, so it went unnoticed.

In any case, we contacted the Peace Corps higher-ups, the Savai'i police, and Phil tried to contact his vice principal. So people are on it, and I have confidence that the Peace Corps takes this kind of thing seriously. That said, I have no confidence that I'll ever see my stuff again.

I'm mostly okay. It's just stuff, and it can all be replaced. There are 2 things that do really suck though. First is that the camera had a lot of pictures on it that I don't have stored anywhere else. And they're gone now. Second is that it just makes me feel weird about the people around me. I feel like my relationship with Samoa has been a little tainted, and while I am able to isolate this incident mentally, it still leaves a bitter taste. I'm not sure if I'm making sense, but I think you get the gist.

In any case, things aren't that bad, and I'll write a lighter, happier blog tomorrow.

Hope things are well back home. Evidence for the court below.

Exhibit 1. The slashed screen.

Exhibit 2. The point of reach-around.