Last Supper

We're getting ready to head over to Italiano Pizza for Phil's and my last meal in country. I've run into all sorts of obstacles all day. Maybe I'll tell you all about them someday. In the Resource Room right now is Jenny S. 82, Kaelin, Supy, and Joey. Phil is in the Peace Corps office's shower. I figured I'd use my remaining Internet time to post.

There is a big debate over whether our flight will leave at 11:59 p.m. or 12:59 a.m. tomorrow. Either way, the shipping agent wants the cat at the airport at 8:00 p.m.; the likelihood of us making it there by that time is dubious. And anyway, I don't want the cat stuck in a box for so long.

The training group was in town today. Danny helped me unload the car this morning. I got to say goodbye to Nancy and Jenny and Rob.

There's still a lot that's not packed at my house. And honestly, I don't think the rest of it will get packed. This list includes:

• Bed sheets and pillowcases;
  
• Dish soap and dish drainer;
  
• Mop;
  
• Etc.

We are going to Y-Not for pre-pizza drinks now. Next post from America.

I hope you're well.

The Final Push

I’m late constantly. Senior year of high school I was late to second-period English nearly every day. At eCivis, where management operated like time Nazis, I was often admonished for showing up to work 4 or 5 minutes after the 7:30 a.m. call time. In the training village, every morning was a contest between me, Supy, and Sara to see who would show up last. I have no moral problem with lateness, but I still felt pangs of guilt as I was running late for today’s PTA Luncheon.

I was supposed to be at school at noon, but this morning was busy and by 12:20 I arrived at my house by cross-town taxi, and scrambled to feed the cat and make myself presentable for lunch. And as I nearly rushed out the door, I looked around at my messy house which has only become more chaotic as my days have grown increasingly busy and things have fallen more into a state of neglect.

So I dropped everything and washed the dishes.

It’s difficult to think of the last time life was so busy and stressful. It’s a pitiful moment when you have to test the bounds of acceptable tardiness because there are menial-but-essential household chores to be done. If it’s not a sign that life is out of control, I don’t know what is.

And, as far as I can tell, life will only continue at this frenetic pace until I board the plane Monday night. There are lots of administrative things I still have to do: close my bank account, close my landline, close my dial-up Internet account, write up my official Description of Service, take the cat for her final vet appointment, take me to my final doctor appointment, get all the necessary cat paperwork to the shipping agent.

Then there are the social obligations, which are arguably less essential, but still obligatory, and definitely more time consuming. Rotaract is celebrating my going-away tonight, Staff Dinner tomorrow night, Host Family Friday night.

And normal responsibilities still carry on. The unflushable blog is breathing down my neck, tomorrow morning I’ll be helping Kaelin edit the co-teaching video, I need to make a CD with all of the files—grade calculating spreadsheet, vector-based logo, letterhead, etc.—I’ve developed for school over the past 2 years.

And between all of this, there’s all the normal trappings of moving out: purging (most) of my possessions, packing up the things I’m keeping, picking up souvenirs for the family back home, etc.

At this point, it’s all a blur.

So maybe doing the dishes this afternoon wasn’t menial or pitiful. Maybe it was just a nice way of taking a break from the warp-speed pace of leaving. Washing dishes made things feel normal, if only for a moment.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

I treated my Year 13s to McDonald's breakfast this morning before we headed to the Internet cafe.

At the Internet cafe.

My pule dancing at today's PTA Luncheon. I forgot to mention above that the PTA Luncheon didn't actually get started until around 1:15. I had no problem showing up 45 minutes late.

Movin’ Out

The night of my college graduation, Sara and Jen came to my RA suite to help me pack up my possessions. Even though my room was furnished and I had no kitchen, I had somehow acquired a lot of stuff, and it was a headache packing and loading everything in the car. Moving apartments after college was even more of a headache since by then I had kitchen stuff and a futon and furniture and the like. But moving out of my house in Samoa is a whole different animal since I can only keep a suitcase or two.

My goal is one suitcase. Air New Zealand charges a whopping WST$140 for a second suitcase, and since I’m already paying to register the cat as cargo, I’d just assume keep the baggage cost minimal. One suitcase after two years is certainly a challenge, but I think it may also prove to be a good way of separating the wheat from the chaff.

I still tell people that ideally my house will burn down the day before I leave, and I won’t have to lug any of my junk home. There are things here that I like, but very little that I honestly need to take with me.

I plan to take as few articles of clothing as possible. According to RPCV Cale, the nicest clothes he had in the Peace Corps didn’t hold a candle to his clothes in The States. The Peace Corps lifestyle is rugged and unforgiving to clothing. I brought my OA uniform from college and my lucky USC football t-shirt, and last night I started mulling over whether or not I should bring those back to America for sentimental reasons. Right now I’m leaning toward no.

Books are a little perplexing. On the one hand, they are some of the easiest stuff to unload since the Peace Corps has a healthy library and volunteers tend to have nothing better to do with their time. But then I have a couple books on my shelf that I actually want to read, and it seems silly to get rid of them only to return to America and go through the trouble of buying/borrowing the same book again.

Besides moving out, the one other major problem facing my exit is I have a lot of gift-giving to do: teachers, students, the host family in the training village, the Indian missionaries, etc. My hope is these two problems will cancel themselves out. If I give everything away, I won’t have to worry about getting it to fit in the suitcase.

I think this will work without too much difficulty if I keep an eye on things. I’ve invited people to come “shopping” at my house.

PCV Kyle asked how much I wanted for my cinderblock bookshelf. I told him if he was willing to pay to move it, then it was his for free.

Just get it out of her.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Bag of clothes by the door ready to go to the Peace Corps free box.

There's so much crap in the kitchen. Hey Samoan readers, anybody want anything?

Tea for the Tillerman

In addition to our principal, there are 4 staff members leaving at the end of this school year. The head of the Commerce department prematurely resigned his position when he received a verbal job offer from the Ministry of Education that didn’t pan out, one of the Samoan teachers received a scholarship to attend a Masters program at the National University of Samoa, I am returning to The States, and Suasami—the English teacher I sit next to at Interval most days—is retiring. The Commerce HOD has stopped showing up to school, and the Samoan teacher isn’t really leaving per se, so Suasami and I are in a club of our own. And today we bought tea.

As I’ve said many times before on the blog, most schools don’t have tea. If teachers want to drink tea at Interval, they have to buy it. And most schools certainly don’t offer a small pastry with daily tea. But my school, with all of its functional money management, is able to offer staff members a cup of tea and a panepopo or a scone or a muffin for just about every day of school. But now that we’ve essentially reached the end of the school year, and the tea committee has set off for India, daily tea has become less of a guarantee. So Suasami and I stepped up to the plate—errr—the saucer.

Celebrating your own special occasion by buying stuff for others is how things are done in Samoa. When Apong’s son was born he bought lunch for the staff. When the secretary got married she bought lunch for the staff. For my friend Dev’s birthday a few weeks back he bought rounds of drinks at the bar. And it was somewhat obligatory that Suasami and I would buy tea in observance of our own leaving.

Had I been going it alone, I would have bought Pinati’s for the staff. Pinati’s is sort of like Samoan Taqueria food; i.e. voluminous and cheap. But it still works out to between $3 and $4 per person, and Suasami thought that too expensive. She suggested we get cinnamon bread from some bakery she likes in Mata’utu, panekeke from the same place (deep-fried balls of dough somewhat similar to doughnut holes), and Sky Flakes crackers.

As the non-Samoan half of the duo, I decided to stay out of the decision-making process. Whatever she thought best was cool with me.

We went to the bakery this morning. “We have to wait until nine o’clock,” she told me when I arrived on campus. As it turns out, the bakery needed a couple hours to come up with 80 balls of panekeke. In fact, they needed until ten o’clock.

But we rolled in an hour early, so we killed time browsing the shop next door. Have you ever been really bored so your mind fixates on things to read even though they’re not particularly interesting? I read the warning label on the packaging for a bath mat, and I think Suasami was ready to buy it for me. I had to talk her down.

In the end, the bakery worked out just fine, and we got back to school with lots of time to spare. Once tea was served, art teacher Kolenio did the traditional Samoan announcement that is said when someone provides a meal. Ears perked up when my name was called out, and many staff members came to thank me and shake my hand once the meal was over.

Ehhh. I do what I can.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Business Studies teacher Tone, Art teacher Konelio, Tafale, and Lofale.

Today was a cleaning day on campus.

Dance practice was held after school as everyone gets ready for next Tuesday's Prizegiving.

This billboard went up near my house a couple weeks ago. Tonight I realized Miss Samoa's sash is written in Monotype Corsiva.

A Passage to India

Every Monday night—at least through January 2011—there are three flights that leave Faleolo International Airport (APW): one to Los Angeles, one to Fiji, and one to Auckland. There are a bunch of other flights to Fiji and Auckland, but Monday still ends up being central in terms of departure dates. For group 81, this means weekly departures scheduled between 15 November and 20 December. This week we have a bye, but I’m staying in Goodbye Mode anyway because the Indian Missionaries leave for the connection in Fiji tonight. Their departure provided a strange preview of what my own goodbye will look like.

As soon as I arrived on campus this morning, there was a rush to finish the list of awardees for next week’s Prizegiving. Somehow the fact that I and the Indian Missionaries are not Samoan gives us an air of impartiality in deciding which students should be awarded prizes. I don’t necessarily agree with this perception, but I agreed to take on the responsibility if only because it meant I got to make flashy Excel spreadsheets.

Once the list was checked and re-checked, and everyone was satisfied with the list, it was time for Interval. It’s funny how 2 years ago I may have missed the subtle hints that seating at luncheons like today’s was special. I knew the Indian Missionaries were leaving today, and I figured there would be some sort of program at our staff meeting, but I maintain there were still subtle, subconscious cues that helped the event run smoothly.

Thanpuii made a speech in which she thanked the staff on behalf of her, Apong, and Maengi, and she apologized for any shortcomings or faults. After 9 years of living here, Thapuii and Maengi know the drill.

Then our staff sang a goodbye song. Tolo, the other computer teacher, accompanied on guitar, and staff around the room swayed to and fro. A few times it sounded like the song had ended, and then a teacher—twice Peteru, once Tuuau—called out the beginning of the next verse, and the room broke out into song once more.

I admit I had to hold back tears, which doesn’t bode well for my own goodbye. I’m going to be a mess.

I wanted to give gifts, though I hadn’t purchased anything. But as it turns out, I have a house full of stuff I’m looking to give away in the next 2 weeks, so I went shopping in my kitchen and bedroom.

For Maengi, my small wok and my tea kettle (she’d asked for these). For Thanpuii, my mini MagLite I never opened in my 2 years here. For Apong, my electric guitar tuner. And for everyone—I admit this was a little bizarre—an Australian keychain! I bought a bunch in Sydney in January, and they’ve been collecting dust in my bedroom ever since. Oh well. Better late than never.

Dan and Jordan leave next Monday night. And then a week after that, me and Phil. We’re down to the wire.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below!

My shelf has become pretty bare with books and DVDs going to the Peace Corps office and papers going to recycling.

Maengi and I took pictures tonight before we said goodbye.

Hello, Yeah, It’s been a While

The last week has been busy. Time has sped up to a fever pitch, and keeping up with everything seems impossible. Several times this week I’ve felt like I briefly stopped paying attention to the calendar, and without my knowing, two days had past. Now that exams are over, school has become far more casual, and the rest of the day is spent either preparing to go back to The States, or finding new ways to remain in denial about going back to The States. Either way, the blog has been put on the backburner, and I apologize. The following is a brief re-cap of the week:

Monday, 15 November
Teachers start turning in their marks to me to be compiled by my fancy Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. It’s becoming an increasing problem that I have not taught anyone to use said spreadsheet. At 5:30 p.m. I meet up with a bunch of the 81s who’ve gathered to see Erin and Chris to the airport. We (i.e. Me, Koa, Dan, AJ, Blakey, K8, Erin, Chris) take a taxi van to pick up Chris’s cat, and then we all head to the airport. It takes Chris about an hour to sort out registering her cat as cargo. It provides a nice preview for checking Scout. Blakey and Dan sleepover at my house.

Tuesday, 16 November
More compiling marks at school. Blakey and Dan are still at my house when I’m finished, so the three of us walk to Pinati’s for lunch. I spend the afternoon napping. Dan comes over for dinner, which consists of uncooked toast (i.e. bread) and over-medium eggs. Dan falls asleep in the middle of “Rain Man” while I finish marking my science exams. I finish marking around 11:30 p.m. and proceed to watch 5 hour-long episodes of “Six Feet Under”. An important character disappeared, and it took 5 hours to resolve this. I couldn’t turn it off.

Wednesday, 17 November
I show up at school briefly to hand out print-outs of compiled marks, and collect a few more mark sheets from teachers. I sneak out to attend the Avanoa Tutusa Health Fair at the National University of Samoa’s gymnasium. Jordan and I end up leading aerobics classes for two hours. I’m all about the cardio-kickboxing. Later in the evening, a bunch of us go out to dinner and drinks with Kaelin’s friends who are visiting from America. My camera disappears. Sad.

Thursday, 18 November
Teachers become increasingly annoyed with me as I am the keeper of the marks and I show up late. I can’t help but cop to being ka’a. I rent a car for a day so I can move some stuff out of my house. Most of my books and DVDs go to the Peace Corps office, and I have $35.60 worth of glass bottles to return to Apia Bottling Company. After running errands I take the rental car to the south side of the island and hang out with my host family in the training village. No photos since my camera disappeared Wednesday.

Friday, 19 November
I told my school the day before that I would be late on Friday. It takes a while to get from one side of the island to the other, and I roll in around 11:30 a.m. School has essentially finished for the day at this point, but my vice pule wants print-outs of all the compiled marks. This takes an obnoxiously long time because besides me and the vice pule, the secretary and the librarian get involved, and there are way too many cooks in the kitchen. I return the rental car and head to the Peace Corps office where the 83s are in a state of shock over visiting their permanent sites. After they head back to their host villages, a bunch of us head back to Blakey’s for dinner.

Saturday, 20 November
Saturday morning involved a heated exchange between me and the Samoan Port Authority. I probably shouldn’t get into details in this forum, but I will say that all ended happily, and there was an incredibly fancy lunch once the situation was resolved. I spent the rest of the day napping and accidentally watching a bunch of “Six Feet Under” episodes out of order.

Sunday, 21 November
Blakey is housesitting this weekend, so I have come up the mountain to watch TV and mooch hi-speed Internet off the hotel next door. Although can it really be considered mooching if I had to pay for my log-in? My conscience is clean.

It’s true. If I had budgeted my time better, I probably could have posted this week. But time management is not one of my strong suits right now—not with time going by at warp speed.

I’m not clear on how the camera situation will resolve itself, but I hope to start uploading photos later this week. Maybe not til next Saturday. I hope you’re well.

The Last Hurrah

Just after midnight tomorrow, Chris and Erin will board an airplane headed back to America, and that will mark the official beginning of the end. Group 81, who arrived in Samoa 8 October 2008, will begin leaving Samoa 15 November 2010. In order to celebrate (drink away?) this transition, the group—sans Joey on account of him being sick—headed to the Sa’Moana Resort on the south side of Upolu to spend one last night together.

Though we all ended up eating dinner together, there was no toast. No one made speeches. No tears were shed. Had there not been a myriad of conversations about what’s next in life and the schedule of layovers and the headaches of moving out, it would have been difficult to tell that this night was different from all other nights.

There was some tension due to interpersonal politics, and at times the night felt like a group divided. But like any big, dysfunctional family, differences were swept under the rug, and our final night together passed without incident.

This morning was a haze of continental breakfast and coffee. There was a little bit of snorkeling and bocci ball, and then it was time for the first wave to return to Apia.

Before boarding the van, we all got together for a group photo with members perched in the branches of one of the trees along the beach. And with the flash of a camera, it was over.

Chris and Erin said their final goodbyes to Supy and Phil, who had to head back to Savai’i. Everyone else is expected to be in town tomorrow for the lead-up to the airport.

Until then, we’ll all be in denial a little longer.

I hope you’re well. More pictures from the weekend below.

Supy and Phil.

Erin, Dan, Rob, Paul, Rebecca.

Dan and AJ.

Dan and me.

A bunch of 81 surveys the pool upon arrival at Sa'Moana Resort.

The view eastward from Sa'Moana's pool.

Australian Volunteer Rebecca and Group 81's Paul.

Me and Blakey.

Bracing for Re-Entry

There must be the people that grin and bear it, the ones who never make it to the comfort zone, the ones who spend their entire time miserable and then gleefully countdown the days. The Peace Corps isn’t for everybody certainly, but there’s got to be a few who don’t fit and against all odds make it through anyway. They’re the people who can compartmentalize for two-years-plus and head back to America with the joy and relief of a fish who’s been flopping around on land feels as it finally heads back into the water. But for me, and for many others I assume, I feel myself contorting into crash position waiting to collide back with America.

They warn us about this from the beginning; it almost seems like a recruiting slogan: adjusting to life in the developing world isn’t nearly as difficult as re-adjusting to life in The States once you’re done. It makes sense too. It’s easier to slow down than it is to speed up. When I try and imagine what life will be like when I get back, I picture myself sitting on the sofa quietly, trying to get a grip on all the action going on around me.

I find myself growing increasingly anxious about going back to The States for any number of reasons. For example, I’m worried about being lonely. It’s funny because coming into the Peace Corps, I was worried about being alone. And now that I’m going back, I apparently have the same fear. I’m comfortable in my life here. Despite geographic distance, Peace Corps Volunteers are a tightly knit group, and the relationships tend to be emotionally intimate. Going back to The States, where I’ve had a distant, intermittent relationship with most people for the last 2 years, that closeness won't be there--at least not at first. Sure there are people excited to see me, but none who have gone through a common experience. And that just feels lonely.

At the same time I’m worried about finding a (temporary) job, getting into school, buying Christmas presents, keeping a budget, will my iPhone still work?, where is the cat going to live?, when in the hell am I going to move all my crap out of my house here?, etc.

But I presume, as with many other emotions, the anxiety before the storm is worse than the storm itself. Just as the weeks leading up to my Peace Corps departure were full of apprehension and nerves, these last few weeks before my return home are the same.

And adding to that symmetry is facing the crucible by myself.

On move-in day, we were dumped off at our sites, and the next month was spent learning to be alone. And the hardest part of learning to be alone is you have to do it by yourself.

Now things are going in the other direction. Now there's the apprehension of being around people again. And the hardest part about bracing for all of this is, once again, it's a DIY project.

But I guess it’s like I told the 83s: You gotta close your eyes and hold your nose and jump. Soon enough you’ll hit the water. Swim.

I hope you’re well.

Finite Weekend

In the office where my mom used to work, there was a sign posted next to the large office calendar that read, “Dates in the calendar may be closer than they appear.” Most members of group 81 are fully aware of how many days they have left in Samoa off the top of their heads. I had a media-related issue last night that I called Koa about, and his solution was, “We’ll be back in America in 53 days...” Koa’s leaving a week after me, so my countdown is even farther along. But I find the countdown only creates stress, so I try and avoid thinking about it.

On the other hand, I am acutely aware of how many weekends I have left (seven including this one), and since weekends are the only time of week when I can really do much in-country travel, I’m trying to mete out weekend time a little more wisely. Since everything shuts down Sundays, I mostly treat weekends as a Friday-Saturday affair.

First the constraints. We’ll be celebrating Halloween next Saturday and Thanksgiving on my penultimate Saturday in Samoa. This leaves 5 remaining Saturdays (including tomorrow) before I leave. Money is also more of a factor than I’d thought it would be. Whereas prior to May of this year, I was putting a little away every month, I’ve since been squandering my cash on who-knows-what. I don’t think this should be too much of a factor, but it’s still good to keep in mind when considering the next part of the finite weekend equation: the list of things I want to do.

Creating a list of stuff to do before we leave was part of the Close of Service Conference. I wrote out a long list that I have since misplaced. Oh well. Here is a list I’ve brainstormed off the top of my head:

• Go to Namu’a Island;
  
• Go to Manono;
  
• Do the River Fales Hike (again) in Falese’ela;
  
• Rent a car to:
  • Return my large beer and soda bottles to Apia Bottling Co. for $0.40 per bottle; and
    
  • Take one last joy ride along Upolu’s south coast;
• Visit the training village at least 2 more times; and
  
• Visit Savai’i at least 1 more time.

This list actually seems a little modest. It seems like there should be more, although nothing else comes to mind at this point. One thing that can be safely said is that if I’m going to do all of these things—or even most of these things—my weekend schedule is going to be crowded for the rest of my stay in Samoa.

There’s the consolatory idea that I whatever I don’t do in the next 6 weeks can be done on some subsequent return to Samoa. And while I’m not at all opposed to coming back to visit, even returning for 2 weeks doesn’t seem like enough time to accomplish much at all. RPCV Max has been visiting these past 2 weeks, but he’s spent most of the time catching up with his host family and living the typical PCV lifestyle; that is, saving all the fun stuff until it’s too late.

I hope you’re well. Happy Birthday Dustin! Picture below.

Girls after year 13 camp last night. Left to right: Amanda's sister (sorry, I don't know her name), Tafale, Amanda.

The Horizon

“Did you know the horizon is the straightest line in the world,” my friend Ruane said once on our way to Lalomanu during the aftermath of the tsunami. “And the funny thing is, it’s not even straight.” I’m not sure why those words have stuck with me, but I remembered them yesterday morning when Paul and I rode the upper deck of the new boat back across the channel from Savai’i to Upolu. With the listing of the boat, the horizon bobbed in the distance.

In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, the survivor manual Pi finds on board tells him that from a sitting position on his tiny lifeboat, it’s estimated he has a 2.5-mile radius of sight, and I often think about that too. From 30 metres up in the air, how does my radius of sight improve?

When we were slightly more than halfway across the channel, Paul pointed to one of the hills on Savai’i behind us. “My house is right at the bottom of the other side of that hill,” he said. “I always think about that when I’m on the boat—about how it’s kind of cool that I know exactly where my house is.” All I wanted to do was quantify.

“How far do you think that hill is?” I asked. “Like, as the crow flies, what is that distance? 30 miles?” Paul shrugged.

Distance over the ocean is always difficult to gauge. When I did the swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco, I remember I could see the finish line a mile-and-a-half away, and it seemed so close. 40 minutes later, it was hard to tell if I’d made any progress at all; the ocean always seems to look the same.

Here in the South Pacific, the absence of much light pollution makes for amazing night skies. On many occasions I’ve seen a burst of lightning with no accompanying thunder because, despite the bright flash across the sky, the actual bolt of lightning was so far away the sound of thunder is nearly inaudible.

But my fixation with the horizon yesterday morning seemed to flow from a more figurative perspective. The horizon is at once such a tangible border between the sky and the water, and yet so ethereal and elusive. It’s always there in the distance, just out of grasp. There’s that scene at the end of “The Truman Show” where Jim Carey’s sailboat bumps into a wall posing as the horizon; an image surreally satisfying.

But really, the horizon is always at a distance. You can only be where you are.

There’s all this talk about the future—what things will be like back in The States, who’s leaving on what date, grad school applications—but the fact is my group is still here for another 3.5 months.

With the new Lady Samoa III, the boat ride from Savai’i to Upolu is fairly short; it’s a shame to spend the whole time staring at the teetering horizon.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Me making a strange face on the little boat on the way to Savai'i earlier in the weekend.

Paul snoozing.

More GMAT Maths! This one had me stumped for a good hour tonight, and then the solution turned out to be absurdly straightforward.

O is at the center of the semicircle. B, C, and D are points on the semicircle. The length of segment AB is equal to that of segment OC. Given the measure of angle COD is 60°, what is the measure of angle BAO?

Answer Thursday.

Christmas in August

I left my house twice today. I couldn’t find the motivation to put on a shirt before I took out the garbage this morning, which resulted in a tongue-in-cheek “Seki ā lou tino,” sweet body, from one of the boys who lives on campus. Then later on this evening after my propane stove ran out of propane, I walked up the mountain to purchase a chicken salad wrap from one of the nearby pizza places. Yes, when it rains on a Sunday, it’s hard to find any reason to go anywhere. I made some phone calls and talked to people back home, and that was nice. But I think the highlight of my day was Northern Exposure, season 3 episode 10: an episode entitled “Seoul Mates”.

From the DVD’s description of the episode:

Cicely townsfolk await the pageant of the raven, the town’s annual Christmas rite, and this means a first ever Christmas tree for Joel, unexpected time alone for Maggie, a nostalgia for past holidays for Shelly, and a new family for Maurice.

This particular episode won an Emmy for outstanding writing in a drama series, so it’s got qualified brilliance, but I think it hit me on more of a gut level this afternoon.

I miss American Christmas. Don’t get me wrong: experiencing Christmas here in Samoa has been educational, and I’ve had some enjoyable times, but it’s hard for it to feel festive amid the tropical heat.

I also feel like my Christmas experiences here have either been either too heavy on the Jesus (e.g. laying it on thick at midnight mass) or too heavy on the secular (e.g. radio mixes mashing “Feliz Navidad” with the Black-Eyed Peas’ “My Humps”). Is there no middle ground?

Also, since Thanksgiving isn’t a thing here, and Halloween isn’t much either, there’s no official start to the Holiday Season. It’s like sometime around September, someone fishes out their copy of the Mariah Carey Christmas Album, and just thing like that, things have begun.

I won’t bore you with my reverence for Northern Exposure, but I will say that this afternoon’s episode captures all the best parts of the American holiday season: the cold, the pluralism, the music, the fun. But it also has that overarching Peace-Corps-like tone with the stranger-in-a-strange-land premise and the relative isolation. In short, it made me look forward to being back in America for Christmas this year.

I’m still queasy about my return home in a few months, and anyone who knows me knows I detest starting the Holiday season too early. But I guess I just felt a warm wash of anticipation this afternoon. The malls, the cold, the red cups at Starbucks, the Drifter’s version of “White Christmas”. It’s going to be a good time.

Yeah. So that was my Sunday.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

To-Do List

For some unknown reason, Samoa celebrates Father’s Day in August. It was yesterday. And as with every other national holiday, the day after, i.e. today, is also a holiday. There was no school today, and most shops and businesses around town were shut down. As is my end-of-the-weekend habit, I’m hung up on the big picture tonight; focused on the grand scheme. For me at this point, the grand scheme is all about getting ready to leave Samoa. True, I’ve still got 4 months. But I’m thinking grand here.

The following is the list of things I need to do before I leave:

• School Magazine. This is first because it’s the only one I’m truly afraid of. It keeps me up at night. I’m supposed to be heading up the school magazine this year; holding committee meetings, taking photos, putting together a layout. But I’ve never done anything like this before. I never participated in yearbook stuff growing up. I haven’t even decided what program I should use. I guess that’s where the stress comes from: I don’t know what the process will be. I do know that once the magazine is finished, I will start to feel finished. It’s the final hurdle.
  
• Law School/Grad School Applications. Okay, so this one’s a pretty big hurdle as well. I’m working on getting all my Letters of Rec—1 out of 4 received, not bad—and I’ve been struggling with the personal statement for weeks. Most schools haven’t opened their application window yet, so I feel a little ahead of schedule here. That won’t last.
  
• Impart All of My Computer Knowledge to the School Secretary. I have no idea what will happen to my computer lab once I leave. Maybe we’ll have computer classes next year, maybe not. The only tangible things I will leave behind are my automated spreadsheets, which I think are incredibly useful. But they require a working knowledge of Microsoft Excel, and my school secretary’s just not there yet. I got 4 months to get her up and running. Oh, and she’s pregnant, so probably she’ll be on maternity leave pretty soon. This one might be a lost cause.
  
• Finish Books and TV Shows. There’s a lot I want to read and watch. Books:
  
  • The Milagro Beanfield War;
    
  • Genius;
    
  • The Magnificent Ambersons;
    
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude;
    
  • Mao II; and
    
  • Guns, Germs, and Steel.
  TV Shows:
  
  • Six Feet Under (all seasons);
    
  • Deadwood (all seasons); and
    
  • Lost (seasons 5 and 6).
  Books-wise, I still have those 2 on hold that are listed on the side bar. TV-wise, I’m working my way through Northern Exposure right now, which will surely take at least a month to finish.
• Visit Fiji. Or American Samoa again. Technically PCVs aren’t allowed to take vacation their last 3 months in country, so I’m not sure how likely either of these options is, especially since I haven’t done any planning at all. Oh well.

There are other things I’m leaving off this list—packing, tattoos, etc.—but I’m going to chalk those up to logistics and Samoan Bucket List respectively; not list-worthy.

The list looks pretty impossible. Ehhh... I’ll do what I can.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Note: I hate the term “Bucket List”.

Boys playing water rugby in Vaisigano River this afternoon.

AJ at Friday's soccer game.

Lame Duck

Teaching is a peculiar profession. Teachers spend their work day separated from their peers and they spend hours after work preparing for hours during work the next day and they’re a little repressed since they’re constantly on their best behavior. Even in Samoa, teacher parties are a little crazy because it’s people who never let their hair down letting their hair down. In any case, one unexplored area of teacher weirdness is the way in which, more than other profession I’d say, they operate on a yearly scale, which makes things feel almost geological at times.

Sure, working in the corporate world there are annual reports and analysts continually compare the current year’s data with data from years past. But with teaching, with each year there’s a new class of students each year with unique personalities, both individually and collectively.

Growing up, we noticed this, and Liam and I still have conversations about the 2000 kids versus the 99ers. My senior English teacher, who I still talk to occasionally refers to us as “The lazy kids who were too smart for your own good”. Maengi does this same thing with different classes at my school here in Samoa. “2007 was a good year,” she’ll say. “But, oooh, 2006. They were so hard to manage.”

This also shows up in lesson planning and polishing. I’m teaching my new year 13s databases right now, and I have notes that I wrote to myself last year about what worked and what didn’t work, and it’s weird because I vaguely remember, but a year is such a long time to connect from one point to the next. It’s like drawing a picture by connecting the dots where every 2 dots are separated by an entire piece of paper.

It’s such a slow progression, it really feels like the formation of a mountain range or the slow movement of a glacier.

And now I’m constantly being singled out by other teachers because I this is my last year. On two separate occasions today, I was confronted about this being my last year and what is the school going to do next year? It seems like the kind of questions and sentiments that would spring up toward the end of the year, but because education takes such a macro view of the year, I’m already at my endpoint, even though I’ve got another 8.5 months.

Really, it’s a good thing. I’m glad teachers are thinking about the future and making plans for when I’m gone. I know I’m making plans for what I’ll do after, and I guess it’s good we’re all thinking about the future.

On one hand, it feels like senior year of college. I remember talking to some freshmen on my floor rather callously about how I’d be gone the following year. They were slightly offended, and I had to explain that the idea of leaving was something I was constantly aware of, every minute of every day.

On the other hand, it feels like I’m resigning my position, and I’ve given an amazingly long amount of notice, and now I’m in that period where I’m still expected to be working, but everyone knows I’m leaving. And I’ll simply be in this weird nether-state for another 8 months. Hooray.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

My students asked where Greece is, so I drew a clumsy world map on the board. When I asked me kids to identify "Africa," they called it "East America." So then I got cranky and labeled the continents and told them to copy it. So then I saw the way this kid had copied it down, and I think the whole thing may have done more harm than good.

Am I Spongeworthy?

The packing list the Peace Corps sends future volunteers is 4 pages long, single-spaced. It goes through the necessities and the optional items and suggests helpful reminders. In my opinion, the most peculiar item is where it specifically calls out there are no dried apricots in Samoa, and if you’re someone who really likes dried apricots, you should bring your own healthy supply. As strange as that bullet is, the wisdom of that “healthy supply” part is applicable across the board. There are certain things you can’t buy here, so it’s good to bring a bunch.

The packing list goes into more detail of the “healthy supply” rule when discussing underwear. It suggests volunteers bring extra pairs of underwear sealed in a Zip-loc bag, and then after a year, once the volunteer’s underwear has effectively disintegrated in Samoa’s hellishly humid climate, s/he can open the Zip-loc bag and bask in the firm embrace of preserved elastic.

I followed this advice. I sealed a bunch of underwear in a large freezer-sized Zip-loc bag. I have an extra pair of glasses (thick-rimmed, of course) encased in plastic, and I have an assortment of other random supplies (e.g. dish sponges) still in shrink wrap.

But now that I’ve arrived at mid-service, now that I’m looking at less than a year left in Samoa, part of me is hesitant to open any of these things. My reasons are twofold: I think I enjoy looking forward to opening the new things more than I will enjoy actually opening them, and I’m hesitant to start working without a backup. Let’s look at these one by one.

The current glasses I wear are a little decrepit. The effect of 17 months of Samoan humidity, occasionally wearing them while I climb a waterfall or lounge in the water on the beach, has been substantial. The anti-reflective coding has been slowly flaking off so if the light hits them just right, you can see splotches of light where the holes are. I have a brand new pair that would allow pristine, untainted sight—for a while. Soon enough, they’d start to wilt and crack, and then I’d have 4 or 5 months left with 2 pairs of crappy glasses.

I can’t wait to open those new glasses, but the charm of opening them would wear off and then I’d have no new glasses to look forward to. It’s similar to the slight tinge of sadness I feel every year on Christmas. You spend so much time waiting for it, and then it’s never quite what you expect once you get there. I can have Christmas whenever I decide to open those new glasses, but isn’t it fun to wait?

And then there’s the second issue. When Phil and Koa visited for a teacher meeting back in mid-February, they were appalled by my kitchen sponge. It was frail, and if you watched certain dishes, little sponge-bits would flake off and swim around the sink before going down the drain. It was flimsy and tired. Now, as I said, I had a fresh sponge wrapped in shrink wrap in my house, waiting to be called up to the majors. But I liked having him there. Now that I’ve opened the sponge, I’m working without a net. This a Scotch-Brite No Scratch Multi Purpose sponge. And when it goes, what will I have left?

Please note this isn’t an indirect way of begging you to send me sponges. I can buy a cheap sponge here that will do the job fine. And even if you sent one, I’d probably just keep it in the packaging until it’s time to move out and then I’ll feel bad. I won’t ever be sponge-less, but I like knowing there’s a back-up.

I guess the situation is comparable to the same calculus one usually does when preparing to go on vacation or a long trip. Should you buy a gallon of milk if you’re leaving in 5 days? Should you buy a half gallon? Maybe you can forego cereal and just have pop tarts for breakfast, and then you won’t have to buy any milk at all.

It’s like that. Except my big trip is 9 months away.

I hope you’re well. Happy Birthday, Erin! Pictures will be uploaded late tonight or sometime tomorrow morning.

My glasses. It's a little difficult to see the anti-reflective blotches. They look like little circles on the lenses.

More pictures from yesterday's rugby exhibition game.

The sideline.

The scrum (?).

11.1 student (and Fausaga native) Esau was a sideline judge. Linesman? Flagperson?