Slideshow: Year 2

Yes, I admit these last Cultural Explorations were sporadically posted over a much longer time period than usual. For a moment on Sunday, I actually planned to write and publish 5 blog posts. But then I literally fell over on the couch and fell asleep. Much like last year, last week’s lead-up to the Welcome Fiafia was a mostly sleepless affair. With everyone in town last weekend, there was little time to catch up, and the re-introduction of Year 13 Camp this week has left me surviving on caffeine and mid-afternoon catnaps. So sorry if things have been uneven; it’s an accurate portrayal of life.

The slideshow turned out pretty good. Since the Fiafia came up way faster than I was expecting, I didn’t have much time to throw the slideshow together, so I mostly relied on the same clever tricks I concocted last year. Thus the crowd was less awed than last year, but still satisfied, I think.

I included factoids about each volunteer, and since I have twice the familiarity with group 81 this year, I was able to sprinkle the show with in-jokes and euphemisms. In fact, use of the word “factoid” itself is a quiet shout-out to the 81s.

There were the typical hang-ups. One volunteer felt all of her pictures were lousy, another shouted out during the slideshow presentation that the village I’d listed as her home was incorrect. Whatever. As a pre-emptive buffer to such criticism, I made sure to a make a show of being self-deprecating during the part about me. So there.

Supy put up a big stink because the Fiafia was held on his birthday, trying to get all of us to attend his alternative party. To lull him into coming, I included a special Happy Birthday Supy segment, which included, among other things, a sing-along-with-the-bouncing-ball portion; not an easy feat in PowerPoint.

I was worried people wouldn’t get it or would be weirded out, but much to my relief, the crowd actually sang along to the bouncing ball! Too bad Supy didn’t show up. That’s right. He didn’t come. Not that I’m bitter.

Until 4 hours before the Fiafia was scheduled to begin, I still had no introduction. I was chatting online listening to my iTunes on random play when Ira Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” came on. I thought of the beginning of the movie “Manhattan”. And thus the introduction was born. I found as many dramatic pictures of Apia buildings as I could find, changed them to black and white, and edited my Gershwin mp3 down to a manageable length.

The result is ridiculous. Woody Allen filmed iconic images like the Empire State Building at dawn, cars crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, and crowds moving through Time Square. I used shots of a breakfast banner over McDonald’s, a Birthday sale at Chan Mow, and two ladies walking in front of K.K. Mart. Iconic to Peace Corps Volunteers? Certainly. Majestic? Not so much. Entertaining to (movie nerds) me and Koa and no one else? Most definitely.

Oh well. I liked it.

I hope you're well. The finished product was 215 MB, so I’m not going to post it here. But there are some screenshots below to help you visualize.

Dramatic photos of Apia from the slideshow intro.

More dramatic photos of Apia from the slideshow intro.

Okay. So the basic gimmick I kinda invented last year and then shamelessy used again this year works like this: Dan's pictures fly in. The disappear one after another to reveal different information about Dan—his village, project assignment, and factoids. Different pictures replace the old ones. Then Dan's name and all of the pictures except one fly. In this case, the large picture on the left stays.

That large picture on the left then pans within its frame to reveal a different member of group 81. In this case, A.J. (Red arrows added for demonstration purposes.).

Once the pan finishes, pictures of A.J. fly in to fill the slide. The process repeats itself. A.J. links to Phil, Phil to K8, K8 to Blakey, etc. We're all connected.

Exhausted

I’m sorry. I was at that conference and then I got back, but everyone’s still in town and there’s little time to sleep let alone blog or clean the house or do any of the 12,000 things I’ve been meaning to do lately. I spent all day today working on the school magazine layout, which is coming along, but still has far far more to go. But seriously. Despite the magazine and the blog and the lesson-planning and figuring out my computer lab’s intranet, all I want to do is curl up into a ball, turn on some movie I’ve seen a thousand times before and do absolutely nothing for days and days on end.

Not that the conference didn’t allow for a little bit of that. I won’t get into the long string of events that led to a bunch of us having our own rooms this past week. Even though I live alone and I constantly have my own room, it was thrilling to have my own hotel room with air conditioning and a hot shower. I didn’t have to worry about sharing space or keeping my area clean or figuring out who has the key. And the cat wasn’t there to be all hairy and needy. It was awesome.

But Group 81 tends toward a “rest when you’re dead” mentality. We work hard, we play hard. Sleep gets put on the back burner. We’re a gregarious bunch, and we would often walk together from dinner to somebody’s room, where we would listen to music and reminisce and collectively dread the future late into the night.

There was excitement about reaching the end of our service and going back to America. And there was dread about leaving each other and going back to the frenetic pace of America. But more than excitement or trepidation, it seems to me we’re all mostly exhausted—not just in the immediate with the late nights and early mornings, but in a much larger sense.

It’s not palpable on a micro day-to-day level, but the Peace Corps is all about endurance. Some steps outside the comfort zone requires a person to adapt, and once that happens, that person is all the better. But other steps outside the comfort zone are flat-out uncomfortable, and you don’t learn to adapt and accept as much as you learn to tolerate and put up with.

Living alone, not having a car, cooking on a camping stove, having the water shut off as early as 10 o’clock some nights, the constant barrage of mosquito bites, dealing with issue after issue after issue in the computer lab. I don’t mean to complain as much as I mean to say that the Peace Corps lifestyle is taxing.

And it’s all in the spotlight. I briefly mentioned recently that during a trip to Corina 82’s school, I made a good impression because I ate my fish with my hands. As much as I take pride in being patted on the back for my cultural sensitivity, it’s telling that I was being watched. It’s not that her staff was spying on me or distrustful in watching me. I’m the stranger who came to lunch; of course people are going to watch me eat. All I’m saying is it’s wearisome to be the stranger in the spotlight, and I’m tired.

School starts tomorrow, and I’m pretty sure blog posts should become more frequent and reliable. Apologies again for being MIA last week. I hope you’re well. Pictures from COS below.

Country Director Dale toasted the group after afternoon sessions ended on Wednesday.

Supy.

DJ Paul in the zone.

Bed-sharing.

Lunch on Friday morning before heading back to Apia.

We've been in the middle of a 4- or 5-week dry spell. But torrential rains came Thursday and Friday. What great timing. Thanks, rain. You really liven up the beach.

Mālō Mātou (Part 2)

The sun was a factor. On the car ride over the mountain, I looked out the window and, though it was still before dawn, the sky was growing lighter. I turned to AJ, “That doesn’t bode well.” He shook his head wearily. During last year’s race, cloud cover was a welcome state of affairs for most of the day. It wasn’t until we got to the village of Falefa on the north side of Upolu that the sun became a factor, but this year, from the beginning, there was no cloud cover.

There was a clause in the race rules this year that essentially said if you finish the race too early, you’ll be disqualified. This was an effort to keep teams from inflating their estimated finish time in order to get an earlier start time. Earlier start times allow for more running in darkness, which is much much easier.

AJ started the race about 20 minutes after dawn, which meant my first leg came somewhere around 8:30 a.m., and anyone who’s been to Samoa knows a sunny day here gets hot well before 8:30. Sunscreen-laden sweat rolled down my face into my eyes moments into my first run, my shirt and pants immediately soaked.

We had Joey’s fiancée buy us matching dry-fit shirts in The States before her recent visit and used fabric paint to add a mock-Peace-Corps logo and our official team name, “Toa Pisikoa”. The fabric paint held up surprisingly well, though there was still a faint trace of red and blue bleeding into the rest of the shirt. I joked with Dan about the post-9/11 Bush ‘These Colors Don’t Run’ mantra. “These colors...” I trailed off.

“...occasionally run,” said Dan.

“It’s a race, man. These colors run fast.”

During one of my legs I ran through patches of small bugs, only to realize it was light rainfall. I was still in direct sunlight, and the raindrops weren’t nearly substantial enough to feel good. It just felt like more sweat.

We used the Peace Corps name to get us into the bathrooms at Faofao Beach Fales in Saleapaga. And when we remembered PCV Paul and his mom were staying at Tafua Beach Fales in Lalomanu, we drove past shouting, “Paul! Paul! Paul! Paul! Fa Paul! Fa Paul!” We spotted him eating breakfast, and it seemed like he was pretending not to know us, but he told us later he simply hadn’t heard us. Sure, Paul. Whatev.

Though none of our runners ever got near that of our rival team, our leap-frogging van caught up to their truck sometime around leg 11 up nearing the Mafa Pass. Whereas the morning had been a leisurely affair, getting within sight of them brought a new urgency to the race. We dug our heels in and pushed ourselves harder.

This newfound motivation came just in time: the distances of the legs increased toward the end. Everyone’s last leg was 5 kilometers, a longer distance than all but 2 legs had run contiguously, and by that point it was 12:30 in the afternoon and the day was reaching peak temperatures.

AJ looked dazed after his final leg. Dan bottomed out on blood sugar after his and took copious amounts of Gatorade before he became coherent again. Kyle said it may have been the most painful thing he’d ever done in his life. I don’t want to make us out to be a bunch of whiners; I’m just trying to paint a picture.

Since I had the last leg, I sat and listened to all this in a state of nervous denial. As I stretched before my final leg, I tried to get real with my body, “Do you realize what we’re about do to?” I asked my dawdling legs. “You know that everyone is talking about how awful this last leg has been? Are you ready for this?” Ben came tearing around his final bend in a dead sprint. The kid looked good. He passed me the baton, and I was off.

My final leg was nearly identical to the course of the Independence Day 10k a bunch of us ran in June. I started in Fagalii-Tai and worked my way toward town.

Oh! Before I get to my leg, I should tell you: for whatever reason, our team had its own police escort for the entire race. This meant one guy on a motor-scooter behind the runner, and one in front of the runner for the entire event. Have you even run 18 km with a guy following you on a motorbike? It’s weird.

They were nice though. They’d occasionally shout words of encouragement, “Faamalosi! Faamalosi!”, and once one of them offered me water mid-leg.

In any case, as I entered the village of Moata’a on the outskirts of Apia, they seemed to both shout, “Only two more villages!” It was fun.

Back to the sun’s death knell: It was fiery and there was little-to-no shade. The pavement reflected the heat, creating a sort of broiler. And with the smog and dust and pollution of urban Apia, things could only get worse. Traffic picked up, exhaust fumes blanketed the course, the foliage-lined highway gave way to dingy, crumbling sidewalks. It was a briar patch of pavement and asphyxiation.

But just like Brer Rabbit, I was at home. The up-and-down driveways, the drivers that can’t find it in themselves to give a runner (with police escort!) right-of-way, the uneven curbs, the curve of the seawall, the giddiness of other pedestrians, the kids walking along the walls of the bridge, the beauty of the harbor, the majesty of the trees on the waterfront, the music of the car horns. As Shaquille O’Neal would say, “This is my house.”

We finished 7 minutes behind the next closest team; the same team that started 16 minutes before us. We won the race by 9 minutes. Our total time was 8 hours, 5 minutes. Not too shabby.

I drank a niu.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Kyle making a much better "My house!" Shaq face.

Ben.

Crossing the finish line. Dan was low at the time, but the other 4 guys crossed it with me.

Dan and me after the race.

The girls crossing the finish line. The girls took first place in the Open Womens' Division.

Group photo.
Guys left to right: Kyle, Dan, AJ, Joey, Me, Ben.
Girls left to right: Rachel, Dana, Lily, Kaelin, Corinna, Erin.

Mālō Mātou (Part 1)

Yesterday was the 2nd annual Perimeter Relay Race, which started at Sinalei Resort on the south side of Upolu and wraps around the rolling terrain of the island’s east coast, over the mountains of the Mafa Pass, in and out of the inlets in the northeast, and finishes 64.1 miles (104.7 km) later in downtown Apia. The distance is separated into 24 legs, run in a 6-person rotation, with varying lengths depending on elevation change; i.e. the more the climb, the shorter the leg.

The Peace Corps fielded 2 teams this year, for whatever reason separated by sex. The boys’ team consisted of Ben from 80; Joey, Dan, AJ, and me from 81; and Kyle from 82. The girls’ team was Erin from 81; and Corinna, Dana, Kaelin, Lily, and Rachel from 82. Because of the nature of the race, we didn’t see the girls’ team for most of the day, but there was a shared camaraderie.

In any case, the boys’ team gathered at Chris 81’s house Friday night to carbo-load, strategize, and sleep. There was already a rotation at that point: a couple guys standing in the kitchen keeping an eye on the pasta, someone showering, someone reading over the list of race legs, and 3 other guys sitting in the living room passing the time.

We weighed in with our leg preferences, but in the end, team Captain Joey 81 came up with the following order:

1. AJ 81;
   
2. Dan 81;
   
3. Joey 81;
   
4. Kyle 82;
   
5. Ben 80; and
   
6. Matt 81.

Rinse. Repeat.

When we registered for the race we had to estimate our finish time because the race’s organizing committee, the US Veteran’s of Samoa, staggers the starting times of each team with the idea that everyone will finish together. Based on these predictions, we were the top seed.

I admit I was a little disappointed by this. Last year we were seeded second, and the team that won beat us by an hour. There was no chance of our being able to win, which meant we could relax in our second-place glory and have a good time with the day. This whole first-ranked business brought a competitive edge to the day.

Being top seed has another implication: we had to start last. In order to get everyone to finish together, the teams expected to have the longest finish time start earlier (In this case, one team started at 10:30 p.m. Friday so they would finish at 3:30 p.m. Friday) and the teams expected to have the shortest finish time start later.

We headed over the mountain this morning, bleary-eyed and tense, watching the sky slowly brighten. We rolled into Sinalei early enough to see the second-seeded team start the race. We were allowed to start up to 30 minutes before our allotted time. So 16 minutes after our nearest competitor left—we used the bathrooms, signed waiver forms, pinned on our bibs, did some awkward stretching—AJ sauntered up to the starting line, and we were off.

Part 2 tomorrow. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Dan and AJ standing over the stove making pasta. That's also Dan receiving the baton from AJ above the fold.

Kyle and Ben sitting in the back of the van in the Sinalei parking lot.

Dan proudly rocked his short shorts.

Me in the foreground getting ready to receiving the baton from Ben. That's Joey on the side of road watching. You can also see the police escort, which stayed with our team's runner the entire day.

Joey, Chris, and AJ at the exchange point in Saleapaga.

Our team's van, sponsored by Country Director Dale, at the exchange point at the rock quarry outside Lalomanu.

The Alternative Event

I fully intended to attend the embassy picnic. Charges d’Affaires Robin throws a good party, and there was no reason to think this wouldn’t be any different. It was a pot luck, and I planned to bring a box of Cheez-Its (what’s more American than Cheez-Its?). Trent’s plan was to make chili dogs, and he brought all of the dressings to my house, intent on using my stove to cook before we headed over to the picnic.

We did not attend the picnic.

With nearly every PCV in Apia for the 4th of July festivities, and with Samoa shutting down after 1:00 p.m. Saturday, I invited a bunch of people to my house to hang around for a while before we set out for the picnic. Often lazy Saturday afternoons are spent lounging around the Peace Corps office, and I figured it might be fun to have people over and change up the tired routine. So around 2:30 yesterday afternoon, 10 volunteers showed up at my door.

From the beginning, there was no urgency to get to the picnic. It wasn’t as though we were all raring to go, and then we slowly lost enthusiasm. Things were nonchalant and easy-going.

My frisbee has been lying around the house lately—the cat likes to wrestle with it, and I prefer she claw up the durable frisbee rather than shred rolls of toilet paper. In any case, Dan and Koa found the frisbee and went outside to throw it around.

Paul fell asleep. A game of Euchre developed. Trent boiled water to cook his weenies, but then he got distracted and Phil took over in the kitchen. The cat was cranky, and thus she was banished to the bedroom.

Paul woke up after a while, and he, Phil, and I went outside to join the frisbee game. For a long time we stood in a pentagon, attempting fancy between-the-legs catches and stuff like that, making fun of each other when someone screwed up.

My principal’s twin daughters were out on the field playing with the art teacher’s 3 sons. Frisbees aren’t too common in Samoa, and the kids were curious about our game. And when our casual tossing-it-around became “3 Flies Up” the kids sat down to watch.

The game was immediately competitive. Our rules were pretty open: pushing, shoving, holding, elbow-throwing? All legal. The Euchre crew came out to join.

The afternoon felt very fourth grade. When Chris left there were only guys left, and it felt like we should have posted a “No Girls Allowed” sign on the clubhouse door. When the frisbee flew over the fence, we had to run around and knock on my neighbor’s door to get it back.

After a while we all accepted we were going to miss the picnic, and no one seemed to mind. We ate Trent’s hot dogs, and around 5:30 we called for a taxi van to take us to Jordan’s house for Group 80’s Going Away party.

The people who actually attended the picnic showed up not too long after we did. It was a good time, from what I hear. Oh well.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

Phil and Trent playing 3 Flies Up. You can see Paul in the distance as the thrower. Paul is amazing at 3 Flies Up. We started calling him "The Greased Pig" because he was so difficult to catch.

Matt 82 at Friday night's cocktail party.

We picked up a cake that Jordan had ordered on our way to Jordan's house. It was a nice cake.

Koa and me.

No One Knows What to Do with Themselves

As with most holidays in Samoa, the day after Independ -ence Day is also a holiday. The day after Christmas, the day after New Year’s, the day after Easter: holiday, holiday, holiday. The common term for such days is aso malōlō, a day of rest. Essentially it’s like the holiday is the Saturday and the each therefore has its corresponding Sunday. Given volunteers’ capacity for celebration, a day of rest is all too welcome, but after 2 or 3 weeks of vacation, on days like today no one knows what to do with themselves.

I woke up at 10:30 this morning and watched a bunch of episodes of Arrested Development before I decided today might be a nice day to sit poolside at one of the hotels in town. Living in the South Pacific, Samoa inevitably becomes a tourist destination and despite our day jobs as teachers in the developing world, on weekends there’s sometimes a tendency to cool off at one of the nearby resorts.

So after prolonged preparation and a fair amount of dillydallying, I headed off to the nearest hotel to malōlō. And, wouldn’t you know it, I couldn’t get a deck chair because the 4 poolside were occupied by Peace Corps Volunteers.

Serving in the Peace Corps in the South Pacific, there’s a lot of internal controversy over our reputation as “Beach Corps”. We do a lot of work, but we live in a place where sun and surf can clearly become a distraction. On the one hand we often live and work in the same place, and we immerse ourselves in that work. On the other hand, when school’s out of session and there’s no work to be done, what is one to do?

Most of us brought books, although a couple of volunteers have family in town so they chatted and played catch-up. I splashed around for a bit and talked to a few volunteers I haven’t seen in a while.

A couple hours later I came home.

It wasn’t the most interesting day, but that’s how things go on an aso malōlō.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

My staff at the parade yesterday. I'm in the back row, far right.

The 3 ladies that look like police officers are actually employees of the Samoan Ministry of Revenue. Imagine if the IRS wore police uniforms. Check out the chevron on her.

Blakey's parents and her brother Peter are here. Lily's already giving him the PC Samoa straw-up-the-nose treatment.

Dance Dance Revolution

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

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

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

Elisa 82 was the taupo.

Dan and Medical Officer Teuila out on the dance floor.

Former Training Director HP dancing with the ladies.

Satellite

Due to circumst- ances not worth discussing here, the satellite Peace Corps office in Salelologa, Savai’i is expected to close sometime this Summer. But for now, it’s open in all of its convenient glory. Centrally located, it provides a small haven of air conditioning and dial-up Internet, and so after lunch Friday, Luisa and I headed over to kill a little bit of time while we waited for the school day to end so we could head to Phil’s house.

Opening the door to the satellite office involves a code and specific procedures, and for whatever reason, the mnemonic I use to remember this process ensures I remember incorrectly. I always think I remember the code, and I never do. Luckily, Dan 81 was already at the office, and he was able to open the door for us.

Dan was headed to Apia for the weekend to re-up on groceries and supplies. He noted how rare of a trip this was, and emphasized his embrace of the rugged Savai’ian lifestyle. “Up until yesterday, I hadn’t worn sandals in a week and a half,” he reported. “I’ve been wearing running shoes to work out, but other than that, I’ve been going around barefoot.”

He told a story about asking his boys which color Jandals he should buy. “They didn’t like blue, black, or green,” he said. “One kid said red was seki a, but then I asked another kid about yellow and he called it ‘gangsta.’ And then I knew I’d get yellow.”

After more conversation, Dan left to swim at Lusia’s. About 2 minutes after he walked out the door, Paul 81 walked in. He was headed out on the same boat.

“How’s school?” he asked. “How many students do you have this year?”

I told him my load this year is much lighter than the insanity of last year. Paul, who was also overloaded last year, looked a little sullen. “My schedule is as busy as it was last year.”

We talked shop for a while, comparing notes on disciplinary measures and classroom management, grading papers and issuing partial credit, correcting student’s English and maneuvering relationships with staff. We agreed that treating students as subordinates and sending them on feaus, errands and favors, has been useful in establishing our roles as authority figures deserving of respect.

Somewhere in there, Elisa came in and used the Internet. She was happy because the main office had sent word her guitar arrived in the mail.

Briony showed up. After a week on Savai’i working with the Ministry of Fisheries, she was headed back on the same boat as the others.

By then, it was time for the boat people to roll out and Luisa and me to catch a bus to Phil’s.

Nothing incredible happened, but it was nice to have a place to come together. It’ll be a shame to see the office go.

I hope you’re well. Pictures from the satellite office computer below.

Lili 82, Rachel 82, and Nate the Kiva volunteer.

Halle, who is an American studying abroad at the University of the South Pacific.

Breakfast Club

Phil, Dan, and I breakfasted at the Aggie Grey’s breakfast buffet this morning. It’s $25, which is a little more expensive than any of the breakfast places in town, but it’s all-you-can-eat and therefore quite a deal. Without getting into any specifics in regard to last night (Supy, me, and Joey above), suffice it to say I had a headache this morning, and a square nutritious meal was just what the doctor ordered.

Phil told a story about how he taught his kids about Uninterruptible Power Supplies by comparing them to Jesus. Uninterruptible Power Supplies are a bit like surge protectors on steroids—they have a battery inside that allows the computer to stay on when the power goes out or becomes unsteady, and they also absorb any power surge or spike. Of course, if your UPS does absorb such an impact, it dies, but the computer lives. It dies so the computer might live. The metaphor kind of invites itself. And in the country, you can do no wrong with Jesus. "You know how Jesus saved us? Well that’s what a UPS does for a computer," Phil recounted his lecture with a smile.

Dan told a story about saving a dolphin. Some boys from his village came running up to him calling, “Malie! Malie!” Shark! Shark! They wanted him to come and see. As it turned out, the shark was actually a dolphin, and it was stuck in a small hole less than a meter deep. It had become stuck when the tide went out. So Dan employed two trusted year 10s to help him hoist the dolphin out of the hole, and then had the boys carry it out to the deeper part of the reef. When the boys returned, he asked if they did it, and they said yes, and when he asked what the dolphin did when they let it go, they said it swam away. “I saved a dolphin,” Dan told us triumphantly. “I totally have good dolphin karma now.”

I had a full plate of bacon. Just kidding.

Short post today, but you know, things are busy this weekend. I hope you’re well.

The Un-Quiet American

The feel of confrontation is inevitable. There are seven Peace Corps Volunteers left in Samoa who teach computers, and when the Ministry of Education invites all the computer teachers in the country to descend on Apia to discuss the new curriculum for year 12, we’re bound to form a coalition. We don’t hold planning sessions beforehand, and we don’t strategize our arguments. But issues arise and our brash American big-headedness comes through, and the room becomes tense.

Part of the problem is meetings like this become a sort of reunion for PCVs, and naturally we sit next to each other, and already we’re a row of palagis. AJ and Supy walked in a couple minutes late this morning, which broke up our a contingent a little. That was good.

Since almost all of us go most days without seeing another palagi, we share a common “Stranger in a Strange Land” feeling, and when we come together, it’s not abnormal for us to share our problems and commiserate. Thus by the time these meetings roll around, our common concerns have already been marinating in our collective conscious, sometimes for weeks or months.

Sticking us all in room together with the Ministry leadership, clashing seems unavoidable; the situation puts our diplomatic skills to the test. Growing up in America, we learned to question authority, a tactic which we see as innocent, but can be interpreted as brash and disrespectful. This can lead to big tension over insignificant issues.

For whatever reason, the South Pacific Board of Education puts a lot of emphasis on Microsoft Access, and so the Samoan Ministry of Education mirrors that sentiment. In the new curriculum, the Microsoft Access unit is weighted higher than the Microsoft Excel unit, 20 points to Excel’s 15. This drives the Peace Corps collective conscious up the wall. It’s 5 stupid points, but some PCVs grumbled, and there was grumbling in the room regarding the grumbling, and then there was grumbled voting. It was really fun.

I kept quiet during that debacle, but a few minutes later I couldn’t help taking issue with how the scheduled exam dates didn’t correspond at all with the time allotment for each unit recommended in the curriculum. So I entered the fray. It’s can be a difficult conundrum to voice concern without sounding impolite. Even using “I” statements—I don’t understand blah blah blah—and speaking in the passive tense allows for tones of arrogance and presumptuousness.

The mid-morning tea break allowed everyone to take a deep breath, and it let the air out of the tension. It was well-timed. There was tea and kekesaina, and we all got the hell out of that room for a while. The awkwardness wore off, and small talk and casual joking slowly seeped in.

When we came back to the table a half-hour later, the conversation was far more cordial and cooperative. As a collective body, we came up with new exam dates and brainstormed potential student projects for the optional topics. Dare I say, the meeting was productive.

Next time we just need a goofy icebreaker. Everyone loves those. Right?

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

The meeting was held on the hill above my school. I'd never seen it from this perspective.

AJ chatting with other computer teachers.

Phil and Koa (and their beards) came in for the meeting.