I Mopped

“The ants make little piles so we have to sweep every day,” my neighbor Maengi told me during my first few days of living next door to her. For a while, that was the case. I remember moving into my house and being disgusted by the dirt on the floor, the ring around the sink, the gecko droppings lining the window sills. Did they use my house to keep pigs before I came in?

The answer, of course, is no. The inevitable truth of living in a climate where bugs thrive and the heat is so much the windows have to be opened 24 hours a day, dirt gets in. The humidity penetrates damn near everything, things rot and decompose so fast you can smell them only briefly, the ants are such a force they should have their own seat in parliament.

I’ve never been a stickler for cleanliness, although I’m no Pigpen. Friends back home might take issue with me saying this, but I believe I fall somewhere in the middle. I’ll enter into a game of chicken to see who will take out the trash. I’ll live in relative filth for days. But I’ll also be the one to cry uncle. My dirt tolerance is high, but not through the roof.

I bring all this up because I mopped tonight. I have friends flying in tomorrow, and I don’t want anyone thinking I live in squalor. I figure I’ll roll out the red carpet, clean up after the cat, sweep the cobwebs out of the corners.

But every time I clean like this, it only reminds me why I do it so rarely: it feels so pointless.

Dirt is an abominable force in my house. By the time I finish sweeping my small house, it’s time to start sweeping again. I mopped with bleach, and then I mopped with floor soap, and there are still copious stains dotting my linoleum. Clean surfaces seem like vacuums for dust; the dust fairies follow me around the house spreading a new layer the moment I finish an area.

It’s totally warped my memory of America. Our apartment in San Francisco was rarely if ever “clean”—one might have used the phrase “straightened up” from time to time, but never “clean”. In fact, as I recall we’d have girls over and they sit on the couch quietly appalled.

Yet in my house here, my recollection is our apartment was virtually immaculate. How did we keep the piles of dirt outside? Did we have a maid? It was so clean!

And I worry a little about adjusting to life in The States. What will the cat do when she’s introduced to an environment where there aren’t a handful of ants and dead millipedes in every corner?

Hey, look at the time. I gotta go sweep again.

I hope you’re well. Pictures from snorkeling at Phil’s house below.

Phil.

Coral.

Coral.

Fish.

And more coral.

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.

Awards Re-Cap and Housecleaning

First the Academy Awards (feel free to skip this section)... Overall, I’m happy. “Avatar” may be the technical revelation that only comes once every couple years, and that’s great, but I maintain it has no business winning the top awards without telling a good story. A good counterexample is Pixar. When “Toy Story” came out in the mid-1990s, it was an amazing step forward in cinematic arts—but it also had a poignant, clever story.

In any case, I was happy to see “The Hurt Locker” take Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay. The fact that it snaked the sound awards is even better.

I was happy to see Christoph Waltz win for “Inglorious Basterds”. It was too bad The Academy overlooked the movie in all other respects, but I guess some people just don’t get Quentin Tarantino. Some critics say it’s his best ever, and I can get on board with that. It’ll never be a pop cultural staple like “Pulp Fiction,” but as a piece of filmic literature, it’s great.

I thought the John Hughes tribute was great. I would still rank “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” in my top 3 favorite movies of all time.

I was proud that I called “Up” for Best Score. Everything I read pointed to other favorites-to-win, but I called the underdog. It’s got that simple, great, happy, tragic melody line. It fits the movie like a glove. I called it.

In the end, I called 14/24, which is 55% better than last year, but doesn’t match my 2007 record of 17/24. Oh well.

Regularly Scheduled Post

I had to install drivers on Thanpuii’s computer just before I watched the Oscars at Maengi’s house, and in similar conversa- tions, they both made the same observation: this seems to be the hottest year in Samoa they can remember. They both arrived in December 2001, so that’s pretty substantial.

In my first period class this past Wednesday, I was standing at the chalkboard at 8:00 a.m., and I could feel my body drenched in sweat. It rolled down my frontside and my backside and everywhere in between, and my clothes felt heavy on me as they absorbed what they could. It was gross. Later that day I talked to Blakey, and she reported having the same experience in her first period class. First period!

I bring all this up, one, to give you an idea of what we’re all going through here, and two, to give you an excuse for why I haven’t been doing anything for the past couple months. My house is in squalor. The trees outside are overgrown, and the inside has become a dumping ground.

Guests show up, and I have to move loads of dirty laundry to find sitting space. It’s embarrassing and gross, but until today my motivation has been rock bottom.

But this morning I needed to find a certain piece of paper to give a lady at church, and that finally tipped the scale.

I found I have stacks and stacks and stacks of out-of-date school stuff from last year, so I shed all that. And along with that, there was heaps of other stuff: old telephone bills and Peace Corps meeting agendas and draft syllabi and old notices from my pule and blah blah blah.

I also found:

• $5.20 WST;
  
• 4 flashdrives;
  
• Weeds Season 3 Disc 3
  
• The current Samoa tourism brochure (and the one before that, and the one before that);
  
• The Periodic Table of Elements;
  
• The receipt for my dental work in New Zealand; and
  
• Many other fun things.

It was a productive day, and I made a little cash. The dirty laundry is still sitting on a dining room chair though. Call before you come, and I’ll move it.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

A teacher at my school borrowed my camera on Friday, and this picture of me was taken as a test shot.

A couple months back, Jordan asked, "Why do cats like to sit on pizza boxes so much?" And lo and behold, Scout found a pizza box this week.

I took her to the de-sexing clinic in this box, which she hated. But turn it on its side, and she loves it. Whatever, Cat.

A Tail with No End

There’s a gecko that hides out behind the Obama placard on my wall. He’s relatively big, and when he runs out from under the placard, the rhythm of his feet on the hollow drywall sounds like thunder. Right now, it’s a cozy Sunday evening, and I may be anthropomorphizing a little, but it looks like he’s got a lady over. In fact, his mojo just set off a fascinating chain of events. The whole thing started when he let out a mating call, and then chased his uo teine under his Obamaroof.

Gecko thunder drives the cat wild. In this case, she comes running out from under one of the chairs, and then perches at the corner end of the wall, trying to find the source.

“Up, Scout. Up,” I say from the couch, pointing to the placard. The cat turns and looks at me. “Up! Up!” She walks around the corner, leaving my sight.

“Fine. Dummy,” I mutter. I go back to what I’m doing, amused by my housemates.

A bigger clatter in the dining room. First the sound of gecko thunder, and then empty thud of the cat slamming into the drywall under her own unchecked momentum. From my spot on the couch, it only takes a slight lean to get a direct line of sight on the cat. She’s clearly in predator mode. I squint. “Did you catch one?!” I ask.

Cats are big into leaving dead animals in prominent places as a means of showing off their work and, in their minds, making the owner proud. Sometimes to amuse myself, I tell the cat I think she’s great, but what I really want is a dead lizard on my chest when I wake up in the morning. Yes. I live alone, and I talk to my cat. Hooray for the Peace Corps lifestyle.

In any case, the geckos in my house are wily, and the poor cat seldom sees action. But from across the room I make out four reptilian claws hanging from her mouth.

Scout’s still technically a kitten, and she seems unsure what to do next. She shakes the gecko a little, but not violently. Finally, she drops him on the floor.

The lizard, thanking his lucky stars, takes off, darting toward the floorboards near the bathroom. The cat, who I admit could use more practice chasing the laser dot, takes off after him.

At this point, they run out of my sight. I grab the camera and run out to the kitchen. At first I’m confused by what I find. Scout definitely has something wriggling in her mouth, but it’s far too small to be the gecko. Whatever it is, she spits it on the floor, where it continues to writhe and squirm.

“What is that?” I ask her. She too is baffled, staring intently at it, cocking her head to the side.

And then I realize what it is: the gecko’s tail. When a gecko’s in a bind, it can detach its tail without being harmed. Sure enough, I spot Scout’s prey motionless on the floor, 6 inches from her.

He isn’t in much danger though because the oblivious cat is transfixed by the wriggling tail. I have to hand it to the gecko—the mere ditching his tail is certainly an evolutionary innovation, but it would have all been for naught without the wriggle. The wriggle mesmerizes the cat.

When the time is right, the gecko takes off across the bathroom floor. Scout loses again.

Now I’m back on the couch, and I can still hear strange noises coming from under the Obama placard.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

When I arrived on Friday afternoon, I sat down to a tea party with Akanese and Keleme.

Akanese is starting to read. She's taken over my responsibility as reader of the bible during evening prayer. It's amazing how good she is, but I guess it's amazing how much easier it is to read a phonetic language. Stupid English.

Me with Naku and her daughter.

Naku has quite the sense of humor, and posed for the camera with a rock on her head.

Asolima after the All Clear.

Cat Picture Sunday: Whenever I wash dishes, Scout comes and sits on the shelf underneath the sink, periodically poking her head out.

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.

Stir Crazy

There’s a part in “L.A. Story” where Steve Martin’s character is sitting in his house—I think he has a cat too—not really mopey, but certainly doing nothing. Finally, he gets up and walks to the window and in Magic Marker writes, “Bored beyond belief.” I’m certainly not at that point yet, but aside from last night’s debacle to get back into my house, I’ve spent far too much time in my house this weekend, and the cabin fever is starting to sink in.

In fact, for the entire month of February I’ve spent a lot more time here than usual. There were a bunch of factors that have made the month particularly expensive—a new electrical fan, a plane ticket for May—and fiscal responsibility for the Internet has moved from American Matt to Samoan Matt. So I’ve tried my best to lay low for the past month or so, circling the wagons around my besieged wallet.

I should clarify that I’m not in financial trouble. I have money in the bank, and I’m not rationing food or anything like that. Volunteers receive a modest stipend from the Peace Corps each month, which provides ample funds for eating and drinking and leisure fun. Like everyone else I know, I didn’t join the Peace Corps for the money, but at the same time I’m doing just fine financially. I’m only hunkered down because I’m trying to adhere to my own personal budget.

On one hand it’s been relaxing to hang around the house. There’s been work to do with the school year getting started. Also, after a raucous December and January, the solitary Peace Corps lifestyle is a welcome change.

But as I’ve said so many times before, the Peace Corps lifestyle is one of extremes. January was very social, February has been relatively isolated. Yes, we got together for the Super Bowl and a bunch of people have been in town for meetings at the Ministry of Education, but those are quick events, and the space between is quiet.

Not that there’s a lack of stuff to do at my house. The PCVs who went back to America returned with new movies and TV shows. I’m still trying to fight my way through “The Odyssey.” I need to start making flashcards for the GRE. The cat is good for fleeting moments of amusement. And, of course, there’s days and days of housework and schoolwork to keep me busy.

But more than anything, I want to get out of my house for a while. I had tentative plans to head out to the village this past Friday, but they fell through. I’d also intended to go last weekend, but that’s when the pseudo-hurricane struck.

Maybe I’ll go next weekend. Until then, I’ll be sitting here with the cat, listening to old Fresh Air interviews, playing Spider Solitaire.

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

Toana'i.

Friday night at Zodiac. See that TV in the distance? That is the only Winter Olympics coverage most of us have seen.

Cat Picture Sunday! Scout harassing Paul's guitar playing.

Distraction

My dishes are clean. There’s a fresh pitcher of lemonade in the refrigerator, and another couple of liters of water brewing in the filter. The kitchen table has been cleared off, the garbage taken out, the cat’s litter box cleaned, the cat herself fed. I swept the ant hills out of the kitchen and wiped down the stove. I would claim this is all in an attempt to start off the school year with my house in good shape, but I think we all know this wave of cleaning is just an excuse to avoid thinking about school.

Now that the class schedule is finished, it seems inevitable classes will begin tomorrow. Okay, maybe Tuesday. Either way, I feel pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. On one hand, it’s about time! Students showed up every day last week, and we didn’t do a thing. I read 300 pages. It was a little ridiculous. At the same time, I loathe lesson-planning. I’m not exactly looking forward to standing in front of the room lecturing on blah blah blah.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy the students. And if I do say so myself, as a teacher, I’m not half bad. I keep a good rapport, I explain things well, I try and keep it fun. But I can’t help feeling a wince of dread.

There are parts of the day I’m looking forward to. I am nervous and excited to see who shows up for my year 12 class. As I explained Friday, the kids have a choice, and I can’t help but feel like the whole thing is a little popularity contest. Or at the very least, a sort of referendum on my teaching of year 11 last year. If no one shows up, it’s probably because they all hate me.

Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic. Given I’ll have to cut students if that class is too big, I’d prefer it wasn’t too well attended. Ideally there will be exactly 24 smiling faces 3rd period tomorrow, but that may be too much to hope for.

Just the same, my knee-jerk reaction to teaching is one of fear. I remember hearing Chris explain the CNET Sales Pitch-Off to Jen back home. He had his undies all in a bunch because he had to give a 10-20 minute sales presentation to a group of his colleagues. Jen was not impressed. She teaches 8th grade and has to get up every day and give hours-long lessons to an arguably more difficult audience.

What if they don’t like me? What if I forget something? What if they laugh at me? It’s funny because as a teacher, I feel like I’m fearing the first day of school for all the same reasons the students are. It’s like when you see a big spider in the shower, and someone says, “He’s probably more afraid of you than you are of him.”

Speaking of the shower, that could use some scrubbing. In fact, I should probably bleach the whole bathroom. And my Peace Corps Medical Kit could use a reorganization.

Anything to avoid the inevitable.

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

I'm going to try not to be that guy who lives alone and posts lots of pictures of his cat on the Internet. But last night Scout crawled into my backpack after she finished eating. It was cute.

Cultural Exploration 32: Fala Mats

I love puns. I especially love mat puns. They’re so easy and they never get old. What do you call the dirty bum who’s always sitting on your front porch? Matt. My uncle Matt had a mat that said, “Hi. I’m Mat.” One of my favorite Christmas presents I've ever given was to my friend Lili. It was a small rug that had a frog sitting on a pond leaf. It was a lily mat. I tell you all this because there is a special place in my heart for Samoan mats.

The Samoan word for “mat” is fala. Falas are woven from dried palm leaves, and they tend to come in two varieties: fine mats and regular mats (Incidentally, I am of the “fine” variety. PUN!).

Regular mats are woven with inch-wide strips of dried palm leaves, and though they vary in size tend to be about 4 feet wide by about 8 feet long. They're extremely common as they are cheap to make and have many uses, which include sitting, for sleeping, for carpeting, etc.

Fine mats are woven with much thinner strips, and are used for more formal purposes. The taupo, the chief’s virginal daughter, wears dresses made from fine mats at occasions like ’ava ceremonies and fiafias. Fine mats are also commonly given as gifts at weddings and funerals.

They’re so common, in fact, that when you check-in for a flight to Samoa, there are almost always other people in line who are checking fine mats to be given as gifts to the married couple or the family of the deceased. And you know what you call it when they pack the mat for the flight? Weaving on a jet plane. PUN!

During training in the host village, it was common for me to come home and see palm leaves laid out in strips on my family’s front lawn drying out in the sun. Once the leaves have baked long enough, they’re rolled into small wheels, where they’re stored until it’s time to weave. My host mom Mele spends a lot of her day putting together mats. It’s a hobby similar to knitting or crocheting in The States.

At the beginning of every school year, new students must bring a broom and a regular mat as part of their tuition. I’m not clear on where these mats and brooms go. For a while the brooms were stored in a closet in the teacher’s lounge. I was told to take a few home with me, so I guess the teachers took them home?

During training, language teacher Onofia taught us the phrase Ua vela le fala, which means “the mat is cooked.” This is used when a meeting has gone long, and everyone’s been sitting on the mats so long the mats are baked.

What do you call a website with posts chronicling the flat and banal experiences of the fale floor? Mat’s Samoa Blog. PUN!

Tomorrow’s cultural exploration:

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Paul, Koa, and a bunch of others sleeping in on falas the day after New Year's, 2009.

Language Trainer Onofia cooking a fala at the reception after Group 81's Swearing In.

Last Day for Spring Cleaning

Phil, Briony, Jenny, and Spencer flew to New Zealand earlier this afternoon, and Koa and Ryan leave for America tonight. Max and Rosie took the ferry back to Savaii yesterday afternoon. And just like that, Apia, which has been full of volunteers for the past 3 weeks, is nearly empty. Blakey’s up the hill housesitting and I’m here and Erin is supposed to come through town tomorrow. As always, it’s a little weird to see the mass exodus, but mostly it’s a relief.

My list of things to do has been steadily growing since school got out, but I figured I’d put it off to hang out with people and trek out to the village and all. So, among other things, my laundry situation has grown dire. Dire. It’s common practice to wear garments 2 or 3 times before washing, depending on the amount of sweat and stink a particular shirt or pair of shorts has taken on, but my clothes have been putting in overtime lately.

The first order of business for the day was laundry. I amassed 3 full loads (I don’t remember ever doing 3 full loads in The States), stuffed them into some pillow cases, and called for a taxi. I figure I’d celebrate Christmas early by paying for laundry service. The lady told me to come back around 3:00 p.m.

Apia is all a-bustle with people getting ready for Christmas. I stopped by little Big Bear to get a price check on hangers: 10 frail plastic hangers for $11.90. No way I’m taking that deal. I walked home empty-handed.

It was time to mop anyway. I haven’t mopped since I moved in, and after a year in this climate, the floors desperately needed a wash. The screws had rusted on the shoddy mop I bought last year, but with some cajoling I was able to get them loose. I gave the floor a coat of bleach and then a coat of Fabuloso.

I keep a Samoan fine mat on the floor in my front room, which effectively acts as carpet. The problem is, unlike a carpet, the mat is permeable. I’m pretty good about sweeping the dust from under the edges, but I didn’t realize there was a layer of dust under the whole thing. Gross.

I mopped the kitchen and dining areas while I listened to NPR podcasts. It was an enriching and productive day. I picked up my laundry, and caught a taxi to schlep it home. I don’t like the way they fold the shirts, so I had to re-fold, but I have clean clothes now!

I hope that today’s momentum of productivity will carry through to tomorrow. I would like to wash the couch cushions and clean the bedroom. That’s a lot to ask for though. I might just watch a movie.

I hope you’re well. Picture below.

The nativity and Christmas tree outside of the Catholic church in Mulivae.

Night Terrors

Since I have no TV, I’m constantly afraid of running out of stuff to watch, so I tend to ration my TV viewing. But last night, Phil and I splurged. We watched one episode each of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Rome,” “Mad Men,” and “Eastbound and Down”. We set Phil’s laptop on his kitchen table and watched while we sat in plastic dining chairs. Not too far into “It’s Always Sunny…”, I shut of the lights, and almost immediately termites started landing on the screen of the laptop. Phil remedied the situation by turning on the light in the bathroom, to which the termites swarmed; however, the mosquitoes refused to relent.

When the 3-hour TV marathon concluded, cleaned up and started to get ready for bed, and Phil found the source of the mosquitoes: the backdoor to Phil’s house was open the entire time. Like the ones at my house, Phil’s screen doors are not completely sealed, and when the lights in the house are on and the door isn’t completely shut, unwanted guests invite themselves in.

Not too long after that, we settled into bed, Phil in his bedroom and me on the living room floor. Against Phil’s advice and my own better judgment, I didn’t light a mosquito coil. Mosquito coils are flat, cardboard-like discs that, when lit with fire, burn slowly and emit mosquito-repelling smoke. I neglected to light one last night instead relying on the electrical fan to create a draft strong enough to deter the pests.

The fan didn’t work. Within 10 minutes of laying down for the night, I had 3 huge bites on my right wrist and one to match on my left. At that point, I realized my folly and put on a t-shirt, covered up with an ’ie, and went so far as to spray insect repellent on my forearms.

Mosquitoes are crafty little bloodsuckers, and they will exploit whatever gap in security they can find. For me last night, it was my feet. An ’ie is roughly 2 yards of fabric, which isn’t enough to be an effective bed sheet. My feet inevitably exposed themselves during the night, and sometime around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m., I woke up to a throbbing itch on the bottom of my left foot.

I don’t know whether it’s the rude awakening or the depth of the mosquitoes’ puncture or the chemical makeup of the venom, but fresh bites in the middle of the night seem to ache more than they itch. In fact, the throbbing and the aching seem to exacerbate one another. I often feel that if it was just the pain or just the itch, my brain could adjust to the discomfort and move on. But the two in combination are too much for my brain to ignore. But when I’m faced with 3:00 a.m. mosquito bites, I still try in vain to distract my mind from the pain. Sleep! Sleep! I try and will myself.

The strangest part of all this is how my body has developed an immunity to the venom. By the time I woke up this morning, there was no trace of any bites on either of my wrists nor my foot. The pain and the itch are gone, and all the overnight bleary-eyed trauma feels like nothing more than an extremely unpleasant dream.

But it’s early tonight, and I’m already feeling sleepy on account of all the waking up in the middle of the night last night. Sleep deprivation is now the most lasting mosquito-caused malady.

I should have used a coil.

I this weekend has left you well-rested. Pictures below.

Phil and AJ.

The GoMobile Store in Salelologa on Saturday.

Small-Time Agriculture

Except for last night when I found a box of Kraft Cheese and Macaroni hiding behind the Weet-Bix in my refrigerator, I’ve eaten pumpkin stir-fry for dinner all week. I finished all the pumpkin I had in my house by Tuesday, so I picked the one in my front yard. I finished that one so I went around the side of the house and found another. Consequently, this week has been relatively cheap. This “grow your own” thing is brilliant. I should do it more often.

In her presentation yesterday, one of my year 12s Maryhellen pointed out Samoa is one of the “few places in the world where you can live off the food you grow.” Perhaps there are more than a few places, but she’s right in the sense Samoa is very green and fertile and plants thrive here. Spend 10 seconds in any maumaga, and you get the feeling there’s enough taro and coconuts to live there for the rest of your life.

Horticulture is a traditional Peace Corps volunteer pastime. Paul and Phil have very nice gardens. Cale grows basil. I certainly have the space to cultivate a garden. With a little passion-fueled effort, I could grow all kinds of stuff back there. As it turns out, when it comes to gardening, passion and effort is where I lack.

Growing up, we had a garden in the backyard that over the years yielded tomatoes, grapes, pumpkins, parsley, etc. My dad worked out in the backyard often trimming and digging and watering and clearing ivy. I picked up after the dog and mowed the lawn.

I don’t completely lack a green thumb. I’m not one of those people who refuses to have a plant at the office because I’m bad at it. I can keep things alive. And it’s that much easier in Samoa with all the rainfall. I just choose not to.

If I had a machete I might be tempted to go outside and hack at things and carve some sort of garden out of the dense jungle behind my house. But I don’t. And with that huge pumpkin patch that’s growing back there now, the ground is all thorny and it’s difficult to walk back there in flip-flops. So I stay in the house.

As it turns out, an ignored jungle can become a beast. It used to be an easy walk around the house, but the foliage is waist high now. One of the teachers sent some students back there after school yesterday to hack some of it out. Their technique was similar to pulling up carpet. One guy hacked at the base of the plants while the other four lifted and rolled the foliage back on itself.

I could buy a machete and start working back there, but at this point it would be a tough job. Hours of work every day for weeks. It would be dirty and my feet would suffer.

But the pumpkin would be cheap.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.
















The patch in the center of the picture is the one the students cleared out yesterday.
















Pumpkin leaves.
















This pumpkin vine is the plant as the vines in the student-cleared patch picture above. It's huge.

Organization

I haven’t lived in the same building as my washer and dryer for 4 years. I’ve been trekking my clothes back and forth to the Laundromat every so often ever since, and this makes me loathe laundry. I’ve never had a problem with the folding or the putting away of clothes; I simply can’t stand the schlepping. Here in Samoa, the full-service Laundromat does the folding. All I have to do is schlep and put away. I still hate the schlepping, but the putting away has become baffling. In the 9 months I’ve lived in my house, I haven’t figured out a system of organization for my clothes.

I’m not sure why there are very few dressers here. Koa has one, but that’s the only one I’m aware of. My host family in the training village—like many other Samoan families—uses suitcases. Everyone had their own; Akanese’s was full of tiny t-shirts and balled up socks (Looking back now, those probably weren’t socks. Who wears socks?). When I borrowed one of Oge’s shirts for church one Sunday, it came out of a suitcase full of bright whites.

I think the practice of permanently living out of a suitcase evolved as a result of living in an open fale. A chest of drawers doesn’t belong in the middle of the room, it belongs against a wall. But an open fale has no walls. It’s open. Large bulky furniture doesn’t make sense. People store stuff in boxes that lie flat so the breeze can pass through.

The method makes sense for other reasons too. The zipper deters moths and other insects from eating clothes. Whereas wooden drawers might hold in the humidity, the fabric walls of luggage are more air-permeable; it allows the clothes to breathe.

So when I moved out of the training village and into my sparsely furnished house, I used my own suitcases to organize my clothes. I brought 2 when I came from The States, and it seemed like a “When in Rome…” kind of thing.

I hate this method. A suitcase is similar to a drawer, except it opens via flap, so you can’t put anything on top of it. If you have enough clothes to necessitate 2 suitcases, you can’t lay them on top of one another. If you pull a t-shirt from the bottom of the pile, it upends the shirts stacked on top of it, and inevitably there’s a huge amorphous mass of dirty and clean clothes when laundry time rolls around again. And there’s no compartments. It’s like I have to imagine an permanent invisible line that separates t-shirts from underwear from socks. And it sits on the floor, which is a pain because you bend or kneel constantly. It sounds lazy, but in practice it’s lousy.

So what can be done? I could pay a fortune to get a dresser, but given I’m 9 months into service, it wouldn’t be very cost effective. I could make another cinderblock shelf, but storing clothes on a shelf seems nearly as bizarre as the permanent suitcase method.

Phil thinks if I’ve made it this far with the suitcases, I can probably make it the rest of the way. We’ll see, Phil. We’ll see.

I hope you’re well. USC’s win against Ohio State this evening was AWESOME. Pictures of Samoa below.





















My bathroom could also use a drawer or two. Or a medicine cabinet. I've been using this tired Banana Republic bag since I moved in. Slightly pitiful.
















The road by my school was closed today...
















...because of construction going on up the hill. Not sure what they're doing, but I'm sure it's Road Switch related. I think there's a backhoe behind the drill.

Lock and Lull

I am an idiot when it comes to locking myself out. It has happened at every place I’ve ever lived. Here is what happened today:

7:34 a.m. Heading out the door, I grab my keys and put them in my right pocket as I always do. My wallet is already in my left pocket, but my cell phone—the final piece in the trinity of pocket necessities—is missing. It is still laying on my bed, where I used it as an alarm clock this morning. Everything in hand, I head out the door.

8:13 a.m. Though 3 teachers are late this morning, I am told I cannot proctor the Samoan language exam because I wouldn’t be able to answer students’ questions. It’s a good point. I head back to my house.

8:14 a.m. En route, I wrestle my keys out of my pocket, only to discover the front door key is missing. I went running last night and took it off the key chain to avoid the others bulking up my pocket. I immediately realize I am locked out.

8:18 a.m. I arrive back at my house after going back to the vice pule to get a knife with which I might be able to jimmy the lock on my front door. I wouldn’t even attempt this in The States, but now that I’ve jimmied the door of my computer lab several times, I’m more confident of my skills.

8:39 a.m. After 10 minutes of unsuccessful attempts of lock-jimmying (in sweltering morning sun, mind you), and my pule insisting he has no key for my house, I am forced to call the Peace Corps. Country Director Dale is currently in The States, so I get acting Director Kelly. “Hi. This is Matt. I’m here in Apia, and I am locked out of my house.” The Security Officer would normally handle this situation, but he left to go on vacation yesterday. Kelly says she’ll call me back.

8:50 a.m. Apong, the only remaining Indian missionary, walks over and asks what I’m doing. He thinks my jimmying knife is too soft, so he goes to find a better one. He comes back with a spoon and fork. This doesn’t work either. He goes to find the school groundskeepers thinking they might have better tools.

9:24 a.m. I give up trying to pick the lock with a paperclip I find on the ground.

9:27 a.m. I give up trying to jimmy the lock. I resign myself to the fact I am locked out until after I administer my computer exam.

12:39 p.m. My pule asks how my test went. I tell him it went fine, but I am still locked out of my house. He suggests I call the Peace Corps. I give up on the groundskeeper idea.

12:43 p.m. I call the Peace Corps. They say they have left 2 long messages with me, and 1 with my school. I have been informed of none of this. Kelly gives me the name of a carpenter who will come and “deconstruct the lock.”

12:44 p.m. I realize I have no cash on me and call the Peace Corps back. I ask them about how money will work. They tell me I will probably need to have money on me to pay the carpenter. Kelly adds, “When this is over, you may want to leave a set of keys with a volunteer who lives near you.”

I answer, “I should probably just leave a set of keys at the Peace Corps office since I live so close.”

Silence.

“Wait. You live close by? I think we may have thought you were someone else this morning.” It turns out they thought I was the other Matt. They have me listed under my first name, which is not Matt. They say they will call me back.

12:47 p.m. Papu, an administrative assistant who works in the Peace Corps office, calls and says he and Tapu are coming to fix my door.

1:04 p.m. Papu and Tapu are unable to fix my door. We hop in the car to go to the locksmith. I sit in the backseat. Something about the dynamic of the car ride feels like I am 5.

1:13 p.m. The locksmith is available, but first must unload the whole fish from his car. We wait.

1:22 p.m. The locksmith is unable to jimmy the door.

1:24 p.m. The locksmith is unable to pick the lock.

1:38 p.m. The locksmith is still unable to do both of the above.

1:40 p.m. The locksmith pops the doorknob off and is able to open the door to my house. I ask how much I owe him. He says $45. I have $10.

1:49 p.m. The locksmith trusts I will come back to his shop with the money, or he’s not hard-up enough for the $45 to come to the bank.

And so ends another day of trying to assimilate and maintain a low profile and failing miserably.

I hope you don’t have to deconstruct your locks any time soon. Pictures below.
















Riding in the backseat with Tapu and Papu.
















My door, the locksmith, Tapu, and Papu in the distance behind the bushes.
















Coincidentally, the locksmith is located in this building; the coincidence being I posted this picture yesterday, but yesterday I had no reason to post it.

Should I Get a Dog?

Happy birthday, Amanda!

I am thinking about getting a dog. I’ve wanted to get a dog since I got out of college, but I couldn’t because I lived in apartments that had rules against owning pets. Also, my Pasadena apartment was little more than a glorified shoe box, and it wouldn’t have been proper to keep an animal there anyway. San Francisco is one of the most pet-friendly places in the world with more dog parks than human parks, but our building manager was having none of that.

But my situation right now seems more ideal than ever. My front yard is a huge lawn. I work 30 seconds away. I only teach 4 classes a day, so it’s not like I keep long hours at the office. It seems like there won’t be a more perfect time to get a dog.

That said, I see quite a few problems with the situation. First, I leave for a night or two occasionally. I go back to the host village or I head to Savai’i. And what happens to the dog then? I could bring him to the village, but I think the dogs there would eat him. That would also mean getting a ride from someone besides the bus. Dogs aren’t allowed on the bus.

Another problem is the parts of my house most suited for letting the dog “nest,” the bathroom or the kitchen, are also the warmest parts of the house. It seems questionable to keep a fur-covered animal in either of those places for very long.

All of these problems emanate from the fact that if I were to get a dog, it would be an inside dog rather than an outside dog. This is not typical of the Samoan lifestyle, but it’s not unheard of.

In fact, I spoke to Hannah from group 79 about the issue (she is a vet), and her first question was, “Is this going to be an inside dog or an outside dog?” This question leads to the larger issue of “What do you plan on doing with the dog when you’re done with your service?”

There are 3 basic options for this. First is leaving the pet with a Samoan family. This is a cute idea, but also slightly impractical. The second option is to leave the dog with another Peace Corps. In the past, pets have been passed from volunteer to volunteer, and that works tentatively well. The third option is to bring the dog with me back to The States when I’m done. This option seems most ideal, but it also means that the dog needs to be prepared for life in The States, which makes raising the dog as an inside dog better in the long run.

Phil’s advice was also practical. “You have to train it to be afraid when people throw rocks. And you have to make sure that it can defend itself against other dogs. Maybe you could socialize it with the other dogs that live on your compound.”

Some good points there. I do think the most awkward part of the situation would be taking the dog for a walk. People don’t typically keep dogs on leashes here, and it would be an odd sight to see, let alone to be a part of. And I don’t really care about people staring, but I would be nervous about bringing my prissy inside dog near the angry feral dogs that live on the streets of Apia.

During training, Dan and I had a conversation about what a domesticated dog and a feral Samoan dog would say to one another.

Domesticated Dog: Hey, what do you get for dinner?
Feral Dog: Some bones and whatever I can get the falls on the floor. What do you get?
Domesticated Dog: A bowl full of healthy food pellets.
(Awkward silence. Then Feral Dog bites Domesticated Dog in the jugular.)

So the jury’s still out.

I hope you’re finding companionship. Pictures from the village below.
















Three girls outside the siva on Friday night.
















Leme's birthday on Saturday afternoon.
















This is the food we brought to the Faifeao's house. Keep in mind that the Faifeao was at the party, but this is the obligatory tithing.