Project Runway

For reasons I won’t get into, I was wary about leaving my house for hours and hours to go unload an airplane yesterday, but Supy cajoled me into going. Briony walked around the Peace Corps office during fiafa prep on Friday recruiting volunteers to go and help with moving boxes of American tsunami donations from a cargo plane on to trucks to transport to the distribution center in Apia. In the end, we amassed 14 volunteers and headed out to the airport in a taxi van.

The event coordinated by a bunch of organizations including the American embassy, Malua Theological College (college?), and USAid. The plane was originally scheduled to land around midday, but it was delayed and instead got in around 4:30 p.m. The Samoan press was there to cover the event, and while Peace Corps showed up in beat-up, nasty clothes (as usual), many of the other workers wore pulatasis and dress shirts. We seemed underdressed at the photo op, but it worked out later when we were moving boxes.

As it turned out, the plane was carrying 90,000 pounds of donations that needed to be loaded onto 15 trucks. Upon hearing this news, Trent looked around at the rest of us and said, “No sweat. We should be done in 20 minutes, right?”

Since the event had been planned around the plane’s original arrival time, the US Embassy had agreed to provide dinner for all volunteers. With the arrival delay, this became awkward. We loaded up one truck, and then we were told to go eat. And then while we were eating, it was decided a different truck should have been loaded. We sat and ate hot dogs while a bunch of Samoans unloaded our truck and packed it all on another. The image was less than ideal.

Luckily, when there’s 90,000 pounds of stuff to move, there’s time to make up for mistakes. The airport crew loaded boxes and boxes onto large, hydraulic dollies which were driven over to our station where we unloaded the dollies. After the initial confusion gave way to more honed efficiency, we had a good system going. Most communication was in Samoan. My favorite part was yelling “Oh!” when the dolly needed to stop.

I’ve never been much into the upper-body workout, and my arms went through an initial state of shock, but I could still hang. After 3 hours of heavy-lifting, I was still able to toss 25-pound bags of rice to the guys on the truck. It’s a small feat, true, but impressive for my stick-like arms.

I think we all felt good about ourselves, actually. The Information Technology volunteers rarely see manual labor, and our air-conditioned computer labs start to feel like ivory towers, which is very un-Peace-Corps. Even volunteering for the Red Cross after the tsunami, there was little for volunteers to do at times.

But toward the end of the night when the last load came off the plane, there was a sense of hard work and accomplishment. We smelled gross and we were all sweaty and our arms were sore. Dan said, “This is what I imagined the Peace Corps would be like.”

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.















The gang at the airport.















Loading the wrong truck.















Dinner on the runway in the shadow of the plane.















The dinner spread. Yeah. There were brownies.















The bad-ass close-out crew. Dan, Ben, Trent, and Supy (and me behind the camera).

Group 82's Fiafia

I’ve always enjoyed the behind-the-scenes perspective rather than being a member of the audience. I sympathize with Toto: while everyone else is focused on the wizard, I’d rather be the one pulling back the curtain. And so it was last night I much preferred performing in the fiafia to sitting in the crowd watching the spectacle. Then again, I think most volunteers are quite happy to not be in training anymore.

The word Fiafia means happy, but it also used as a noun to mean something similar to a fiesta. It’s a party. A happy party. Most of the fiafias I’ve been to have been a sort of entertainment exchange. Group one performs a song or a dance or a song and dance for group two, and the group two performs for group one, and then back to group one. It’s sort of a like a we’ve-got-spirit-yes-we-do-we’ve-got-spirit-how-‘bout-you kind of thing. At our fiafia with the women’s committee in the village, there was much back-and-forth. And when the Kiwi girl’s school came to visit my school, it was the same.

The problem with the newbies is they haven’t known each other long enough to have a coordinated song and dance prepared. So the Peace Corps Welcome Fiafia tends to be a little one-sided, which is cool. We can handle it.

As is often the case, being in the show rather than watching the show, it becomes obvious the degree to which the entire production is haphazardly thrown together. There were small pockets of preparation—Blakey had a working set list, Trent did a lot of background research to figure out the haka, I put together the slideshow—beyond that, everything else was practiced and put together in the 24 hours leading up to the event.

Thursday night a bunch of people got together to collectively remember the sasa since most of us haven’t gone through the motions since training ended in December. The sasa is a modified slap dance performed sitting on the floor. The dance moves mimic the making of pe’epe’e sauce, which includes climbing the tree, husking the coconut, and adding salt to taste. I missed practice, but I got up and performed the sasa at the fiafia anyway. One nice thing about the sasa (and the guys’ slap dance) is the entire dance is performed once at a medium tempo, and then the drummer speeds up and the entire dance is performed again. I say this is a nice thing because anything that’s rusty the first time around you immediately get to fix the second time—or you can screw up twice in a row. It’s up to you.

The guys’ slap dance was cool save for the fact I slammed into a chair during the second go-around. I was kicking my feet up to slap them, and WHAM! into the chair I fell. Who put an effing chair there? I like to think that I stayed in character and pushed the chair off to the side with much machismo. I lightly bruised my foot in the incident, but mostly I hurt my pride.

Also of note in the injury department was the part of the evening in which Casey climbed on Dan’s back in a fit of temporary bravado. Dan and Casey had both lathered themselves in coconut oil for the event (as had the rest of us) and while Casey had enough momentum to ascend Dan’s body, he was too lubricated to stay. The crowd gasped when he fell, but he came away unharmed.

With the exception of some spacing issues, the girls’ dance went over just fine. We brought in professionals for the fire dance, and my slideshow seemed to pass muster with the group.

And so another Peace Corps fiafia is in the books, the last for groups 79 and 80. It’s weird to think next year’s fiafia will be group 81’s last. How quickly time passes.

In any case, I hope you’re well. Pictures below.















Guys lathering up in the office before the event.















Koa, who missed the group lathering, attempts to glean some coconut oil from Phil.















Guy's dance. Me at far left then Phil and AJ. Front row left to right: Trent, Benj, Joey, Casey, Supy, Paul.















Rosie's Taupo dance.















Group 79 saying goodbye. Standing left to right: Erik, Hanna, Cale, Sara, Matt, Rosie, John the Welder. On the floor: Max, Ryan, Lissa.















Siva afi on the poolside.

Student Teacher

Last week a bunch of students from the National University of Samoa started showing up at my school to shadow teachers and student-teach. One has been assigned to me, which is cool except for I find the whole thing to be a farce. I have no business mentoring an education major. I barely know what I’m doing, and if I choose to teach in The States when I go back, I’ll have to go through a year-long credentialing program during which I would have to be a student-teacher. That said, watching my shadow in front of the class, I can definitely teach her a lesson or two.

Naomi was assigned to shadow me because she has an emphasis in computer studies. Her other emphasis is in PE, and my school is between PE teachers right now. She is young and ambitious and the world is still her oyster, and theory-wise, her background in education is probably far stronger than mine. But alas, classroom management is not something you can learn in a theory class.

It makes sense the NUS kids are showing up now since they are nearing the end of the university’s scholastic calendar and they’re putting what they’ve learned into practice. The problem is we are also nearing the end of the school year, and we’re reviewing for exams now. There isn’t much “teaching” going on here. Peace Corps runs into the same problem when trainees spend 2 days with an actual volunteer during training to get a glimpse of what life is like. When I visited Sara last year, her lesson plan involved going over the answers to a practice test.

This lack of new curriculum got stickier yesterday when, after two weeks of being here, Naomi told me she needs to teach ten lessons before the end of her 4-week stay. “Ten periods?” I asked.

“Ten lessons,” said she.

Ouch. I see my year 9s and 10s once a week, so Monday through Friday, I teach the same lesson day in and day out. My life is like a slightly more sophisticated Samoan version of Blue’s Clues. My year 12s and 13s are the ones that function like a traditional daily class with five different lessons each week; however, those classes aren’t in session this week because they’re taking year-end exams. So keeping my classes on the same page and having Naomi teach 10 lessons is going to be tricky.

The other problem is sacrificing control. The year 9s, 10s, and 11s have their year-end exams coming up as well, and I’d like to be helping them cram right now. Proofreading the year 9 test, I saw the test asks about motherboards and processors, and my kids know none of that. I feel some urgency in communicating these concepts, and my style is a little cramped with the student teacher and all.

It could be a good thing though. I need to utilize her Samoan fluency to better communicate to my kids. And the students can only benefit from receiving the same information from someone else. A rising tide lifts all boats, and hopefully my kids and Naomi can both benefit from the situation.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.















Naomi leading the 9.2 class.















I made the poor girl teach the 9.4 class, who are currently holding classes in the Great Hall because they've been displaced from their classroom by the earthquake. Also during this particular class it was pouring rain.

Cultural Exploration 28: Card Games

For me, one of the saving graces of training was playing card games. I could play cards for days straight and not get bored. I don’t think of myself as very competitive (although I’m sure others will disagree), and I swear the allure isn’t winning the game; I think the allure is in the quest to win. But maybe that sentiment is the mark of a competitive person? In any case, we played Euchre when we were among our fellow trainees, but in the evening we played Samoan card games with our host families. Here is a rundown:

Suipi
I’m not sure of the English translation of the name, but Suipi seems to be the Samoan favourite. The game is played with 2 players or 2 sets of partners sat across from each other like in Bridge. Half the deck is dealt and four cards are turned face-up. The first player either matches a face-up card with one in his hand and keeps both in his pile, adds two or more of the face-up cards with one in her hand and keeps all in her pile, or places one of his cards face up if he has no match. Once everyone’s played their cards, the second half of the deck is dealt. The process repeats itself.

Scoring is nuanced. The team with the most cards gets 3 points. The team with the most spades gets one point. Aces are 1 point each. The 10 of diamonds is worth 2 points. The 2 of spades is worth 1 point. Oh! And if at any time during the game a team clears all of the cards by matching all of the cards in the table with one in her hand, that team gets a suipi, which is worth 1 point.

Suipi experienced brief popularity within our training group, but it became overly competitive and confusing (since rules seemed to vary greatly from family to family), which made the game lose its fun.

Adding up my points always seemed to take a while since there were so many things to look for and count. Phil’s sister could look through her cards in a matter of seconds and tell you how many points she had and how many points I had. It was very Rain Man.

Asigi
The name translates to “donkey”. Asigi is essentially the same game as Spoons with a limited deck. In Spoons you play with the whole deck whereas in Asigi you play with as many cards as there are people in the circle multiplied by four. The object is to be the first to collect four of a kind. Everyone passes at the same time and sings, “Asigi, A – si – gi!” Good times all around.

Kā Isu
Literal translation: Cut off the nose. The game works in tricks like Hearts or Bridge, but has an element of BS. Players must follow suit unless they have none of that suit, in which case they must pick up the other players’ cards in the trick. The object is to get rid of all your cards. The last person with cards gets his nose “cut off”; that is, he is hit on his nose with the cards left in his hand. There definitely seem to be style points for the person doing the hitting. There’s clear technique.

Pa’uelo
I think the name translates to slang for “stinky”. The kids in Fausaga refer to it in English as “Never Take a Shower.” Haha. It’s essentially Old Maid.

Lami
Samoan Rummy. Fans of the blog will recall Lami as the most frustrated I ever got during training. Lami is just like Rummy with seemingly arbitrary limitations. Any run of three or more cards is allowed, but books are only allowed for aces, threes, fives, and sometimes sevens. Red aces are worth 1,000 points; red threes, 300; red fives, 500; and red sevens, 700. Once I had a grip of the bizarre rules, I got to be pretty good. But up until then, it was like walking through the dark in a familiar room in which the furniture had been rearranged.

We’re done with Cultural Explorations until January! Back to normal posts tomorrow.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.















Akanese broke out the cards within the first hours of me meeting her.















Sadly, I have few photos of card-playing in the village. In this picture, you can see Asolima shuffling.















This should have gone up yesterday. Playing Bingo at home with the family.

Cultural Exploration 27: Bingo!

Despite the weekly bulletin an- nouncements, my family never attended church Bingo back in The States. In fact, the only time I ever interacted with church Bingo was at Our Lady of Grace religious education fundraisers, which was called by Bubbles the clown. Beyond that, my Bingo experiences are of the secular variety, playing in elementary school and Spanish classes and such. I’ve never “made it interesting,” so I have no real baseline to compare. But in Fausaga on a Friday night, church Bingo is the place to be.

Before leaving for Samoa, the Peace Corps sent lots of information about how church life is important in Samoa and how it would be important to attend services regularly and how it might even be a good idea to join the choir or find another way to get involved. So our first Sunday in the village, we were pumped. Phil and I attended choir practice the night before, we got decked out in our white-on-white threads, we sat attentively through a half-hour sermon (though we understood none of it). And when church was over, everyone went home. When we asked our training director why there was no socializing going on, he said, “Go to Bingo.”

Most Bingo attendees are women. Occasionally a husband shows up to play, but for the most part, the fale is filled with older women, younger women, and girls. The church treasurer, who is male, sits at the front collecting money, a man goes around distributing the bingo papers, and I’m there playing the role of the token charming palagi.

The games are tense and have a cut-throat feeling to them. Money is scarce in many families, and a Bingo win can be a big deal. Bingo is also a game built solely on luck; sure, it requires skill to quickly find and mark the numbers and to recognize when you have Bingo, but beyond that, it’s a lottery. In my opinion though, the tensest aspect is the Bingo caller.

In order to allow for all the women in the village to play, a girl, somewhere around 12 years old, normally calls Bingo. The girls tend to go fast, and each caller tends to have her own style.

The Samoan number system allows for variation and abbreviation. For example, the number “54” might be lima sefulu fā, lima fā, or lima ma le fā. That is fifty-four, five four, or five and the four. Sefulu, the word for 10 and also the suffix signifying a multiple of 10, can be abbreviated sulu or fulu. So with all these variations, Samoan Bingo can be quite a challenge for the novice speaker. After the third hour, my brain is reeling.

The role of Bingo night in the community is palpable though. Ladies laugh and gossip between rounds, children from the village play outside, women sitting next to one another compare cards from the last round and stories from the week before. Bingo is the lifeblood of modern Samoan collectivism.

And I don’t mind being the token charming palagi. If nothing else, I get to practice my numbers.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.















Attendees at EFKS Friday Bingo in Fausaga.















Me.





















Akanese does origami with finished bingo sheets. Often such sheets are used for toilet paper, no joke.





















Asolima keeps an eye on my sheet when I play.

Cultural Exploration 26: Hot Beverages

When I worked orientation the summer after my sophomore year of college, we occasionally had a 5:30 a.m. call time. At the beginning of the summer, those mornings were full of adrenaline, and despite the early hour, we’d show up raucous and ready to go. After a couple weeks of this, the thrill wore off. I drowsily helped myself to the catered coffee service, and that was the first time coffee really hit the spot for me. I was never a caffeine addict, but that morning coffee had an answer for all of my needs. I tell this story because it was the first time I realized the splendor of the drink. So even though I’ve never been a regular coffee-drinker, I know the thrill.

Here in Samoa, the coffee thrill is rare. Almost all coffee available in the country is of the Instant variety. American drip coffee is difficult to find in many parts of the world, but that tends to be because Europeans drink snobby gourmet espresso; not because of a prevalence of instant coffee. Instant coffee is a strange brew of tea. It is not coffee.

In any case, just about any hot drink that is normally served in a ceramic mug is referred to as “tea.” Whether it’s tea, coffee, hot chocolate, or koko Samoa, it’s tea. And more often than not, whatever it is has a lot of sugar in it.

In a law class in college, we studied the civil case of the lady who sued McDonald’s after she burned herself on the coffee. McDonald’s did a survey related to the case and found most customers cared more about the temperature of the coffee than the quality of taste. They wanted something hot. In that sense, Samoa seems similar.

When workmen came to my house just after I moved in to fix the door screens, the leader asked me for a cup of tea. “I only have coffee,” I said. He shrugged. So I brewed up some Starbucks in my one-cup French press. I had no sugar back then, so I sweetened it with honey. Relating this story to a Samoan friend later in the day, my friend responded, “Those guys don’t care. They just want the drink.” Maybe.

Koko Samoa is Samoa’s answer to hot chocolate. It’s hot water poured over crushed cacao beans; it’s a sort of chocolate coffee with no filter to get rid of the grounds. Supy says he likes to chew on the grounds, I’m not a fan of grounds. I keep meaning to try brewing Koko Samoa in the French press.

One fantastic form of Samoan tea is laau moli. The name translates to “orange leaf” because water is seeped through citrus leaves. I’ve had it with and without milk, and it’s a delicious concoction either way. The taste is of sweet lemongrass, and it’s always a treat when the student serve that at interval.

Mostly though, we get black tea and sugar, which gets the job done just fine. Half the time it’s mixed with instant coffee, which I’ve come to enjoy. It hasn’t warped my senses though: I try and break out the Starbucks on Sunday after church, and it still has its own splendor.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Bingo!

I hope you’re well. I think I might go have a cup of coffee right now. Pictures below.
















At to'ona'i the week before last, we discussed whether coffee goes with the meal or after the meal. I posited that coffee goes really well with taro. A woman countered that by saying she preferred the taro going with the oka, and then pointed out coffee doesn't go well with oka at all. Well played.















I found out one night recently that you can make a descent White Russian by substituting coffee and sugar in place of Kahlua. Try it.















Blast from the past. Ants got into the sugar at a school event in January. I didn't discover this until I got to the bottom of the cup. Moral of the story: Never get to the bottom of the cup.

Cultural Exploration 25: Climate Change

When Filifili and I headed to the US Navy boat and instead ended up on the Greenpeace boat, our tour had a question and answer portion. Our seafaring tour guide spoke no Samoan, and I hardly expected anyone in our group to ask a question; afterall, whenever I ask my classes “E iai se fesili?” I only get blank stares. But one man raised his hand. “Our carbon emissions in Samoa are low compared to the rest of the world. What more can we do?” We all shifted our eyes to the tour guide, who said something about the climate change conference in Copenhagen coming up in December, but an indepth answer to the man’s question could be the subject of a days-long symposium.

It’s clear Samoa is being affected by climate change. Traditionally October is the beginning of the wet season, but the last significant rainfall was at least two or three weeks before the earthquake. I remember being only a couple days into training last year before we saw our first storm. Supy, Dan, and I stood at the window of our hotel room, all of us in awe of the tropical downpour. This year, the climate is that of a desert; the air is dry, and the few times the sky has become overcast, the clouds brought no water.

Last April, the beginning of the dry season, we had 9 straight days of torrential rain. On Palm Sunday I took a picture of my shadow because it was so exciting to see the sun again.

The tsunami upended a lot of dirt and dust on the south coast, and the saltwater killed off a lot of the plant life down there, and with no rain, the dust in the air has been awful On trips back and forth to Lalomanu, people would stop us to ask for masks, which we never had.

But the man on the Greenpeace tour was right. Samoa has a relatively light carbon footprint and is still seeing the nasty effects of global warming.

That said, there’s always room for improvement. Owning a car is rare in many of Samoa’s more rural villages, but the few cars on Samoa’s roads are not the cornerstone of fuel efficiency. Buses would seem to be worst offenders, but taxis and privately owned cars can be nasty. Walking the streets of Apia can leave a nasty taste in your mouth.

With the heat, it seems more sensible to take a taxi than to walk. The taxi burns petrol fumes into the atmosphere. The climate gets hotter. With the heat, it seems more sensible to take a taxi than to walk. The vicious cycle continues.

Trash is a growing problem in Samoa. Many families, my host family and school included, burn their trash. Efforts have been made for trash collection and the creation of landfills to moderate success. Trash bins were placed around our school at the beginning of the year, but I’ve never seen who empties those. A number of Peace Corps volunteers have started composting programs in their village to moderate success.

Either way, Samoa’s environment is definitely changing and the less that can be done to expedite that change, the better.















Grass on my school's field is dry and dead from the recent dry spell.















Cars in Apia.















Debris, dirt, dust, and dead trees on the south side of Upolu.

Cultural Exploration 24: White Sunday

As far as I can tell, White Sunday is unique to Samoa, although blog readers from New Zealand and Australia can clue me in if I’m wrong. Even among Samoans there seems to be confusion about who celebrates White Sunday or Le Aso Sā Pa’epa’e or Loto Tamaiti. I got a ride from a Congregationalist Reverend to the Catholic Church in Mulivae for a White Sunday rehearsal, and as I was getting out of the car he said, “I didn’t know Catholics celebrated White Sunday.” Neither did I.

Jordan says he’d heard of it before he came here. PCT Kyle was wondering if Rome celebrated it. I’ve also heard it originated with the Methodists. So who knows, really?

Here are some facts I do know: In Samoa, White Sunday is celebrated the second Sunday in October. On White Sunday, it is traditional for children to wear formal white (duh) clothes. At church, they sing, dance, occasionally act, and recite bible verses for the congregation. After church services, they go home and eat the biggest to’ona’i of the year and many children are given ice cream and gifts. It seems like Mother’s Day for children with some Christmas and Easter children’s choir thrown in for good measure. I’m told it’s a bigger deal than Christmas.

That last one might be a lie in the sense Christmas is hugely anticipated here. From what I remember from last year, White Sunday in Samoa is the equivalent of Thanksgiving in The States; that is, it’s effectively a starting pistol for the Christmas season. Christmas Day itself was relatively low-key and anticlimactic though, whereas White Sunday is a big day full of celebration and activity. It’s a big enough day my school gets Friday AND Monday off in order to ensure students have time to get home for the weekend and return back to school after.

I bolted after mass this morning, so I didn’t get to revel in the ice cream and celebration, but mass was a pretty big deal and try as I might to resist, I got into the spirit.

Since I was helping coordinate, I was appointed at the last minute to sit in the boys’ pew during mass to keep them as well-behaved as possible and to cue the ones who had active roles in the mass. This job is just the sort of cat-wrangling you might expect. I herded the boys into the pews, I kept 5-year-old Raphael in check every time he tried to swat the kid next to him with a songbook, I hurriedly got the intercessions boys up on the altar when the priest decided to skip the creed.

Also as one might expect, there were a bunch of kids there today who’d never shown up to rehearsal. I didn’t mind at all, but it became a slight problem when one such 4-year-old got up for the dance and song portion, and then changed his mind and came and sat down in the pew by himself. He was decked out in a red bow tie, and while I had no problem with him chilling with me in the pew, I figured his parents would probably want to see him up there. I gave him a nudge. And that was all it took. He sprang right back up there.

The kids were cute and awkward, and it was moving when they dedicated the event to the children who died in the tsunami.

But I still haven’t figured out if it’s a Kiwi thing or what.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Global Warming

I hope you had great White Sunday. Pictures below.















Kids getting art projects ready to present.















Banner created for the day.















In the pew with the boys.















The big song and dance number. I didn't notice the girl standing in front until just now. Hilarious.

Cultural Exploration 23: Using an ATM

I remember the first time I used an automatic teller machine, my perplexed brain thought there was an element of magic involved. I had just received my first ATM card, and my mom walked me through the process. I swiped my card, and put it in my pocket. The idea of having a secret PIN was thrilling and after putting that in and going through the remaining options and then withdrawing cash in a multiple of 20, there was the wait for the cash. A message came on the screen about home loan financing, and the ATM sang a little song and spit out the cash and my receipt came out. There was no slot for me to get my card back. How do I get my card back? “It’s in your pocket,” my mom said. And for a moment I truly believed the ATM had magically slid the card into my wallet. I quickly realized I put it there, but the wonder of the ATM was permanently instilled in my brain.

In Samoa there seems to be a similar attitude of fascination and mysteriousness toward the ATM. Only a small segment of the population works with computers and other automated machines on a regular basis, so there can be some confusion, particularly at certain banks where the ATMs only speak English.

Credit cards are not prevalent in Samoa, so most debts, public and private, are paid with cash. This translates to one of the following options:

1. Not storing your money in a bank; or
   
2. Using the ATM at least somewhat frequently.

Many people opt for choice #1, but choice #2 is still able to generate busy times during which the crowd waiting for an ATM grows a little large. Choice #2 also means that it’s not uncommon for a machine to run out of cash.

There was one weekend about 6 months ago—maybe it was Easter?—where by Sunday night all the ATMs in Apia had run out of cash. I was fine sitting at home eating peanut butter and jelly, but two volunteers who were in town and without means of cooking their own food nor buying food with cash they didn’t have were SOL. Without a kitchen nor an ATM (they burned part of their remaining cash taking a taxi to the outskirts of town, only to find the ATM there out of cash as well), they scrimped together their change, bought some bread and cheese, and called to ask if they could use my kitchen. I agreed.

During the tsunami evacuation following the Vanuatu quakes, Koa and I found ourselves at the ANZ ATM up the hill. It was out of cash.

There’s little sense of ATM etiquette here. Whereas when someone uses an ATM in the States, we all treat the person like he/she smells awful and give that person a 15-foot radius of privacy, people here have no problem sidling up next to an ATM user. The line for the ATM often forms directly behind th person using the machine. There’s no rear-view mirror or security camera, which seems unsettling at first, but theft of that sort is pretty unheard of here. Also, people often use the machine in pairs or small groups.

ATMs are popping up more often as Samoa continues to develop. And you can now use your ATM card to buy groceries. Wild.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: White Sunday.

I hope you’re well. Pictures below.















Long line at the ATM.















Workers changing the sign at the ANZ Bank on Beach Road.

Cultural Exploration 22: Mourning

The National Memorial Service for Tsunami Victims was held yesterday, and though it was much larger in scale—the diplomatic corps attended, there were 11 caskets, the Prime Minister spoke, the event was nationally televised—it still followed the same general structure of a Samoan funeral. There was grieving and a sense of loss and lots of singing, and at the end, there were Styrofoam boxes of food for the entire crowd.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve been to a Samoan funeral. Back in August I went to visit the host family in Fausaga, and we whisked down the road to a funeral in neighboring Vaie’e. I was underdressed, and Asolima and I spent most of the time in the car, but when it came time, we sat outside the family’s fale and watched the presentation of money and fine mats and corned beef.

In training, the Samoan concept of Fa’alavelave was translated to us as “big trouble,” but that translation doesn’t quite capture the essence. My Samoan dictionary defines it as “Anything that interferes with normal life and calls for special activity.” This explains why both weddings and funerals constitute fa’alavelave. The dictionary goes on, “A wide range of events, ranging from a wedding to a canoe lost at sea is covered by this concept.”

Most often, a fa’alavelave consists of giving money to the family affected. Depending on a person’s relationship to the family, people are assigned the amounts they must give. For example, when Asolima’s cousin died last month, her mother Mele was assigned to give $40, 2 fine mats, and 1 case of corned beef. Asolima and her two children were assigned the same, but as a group.

The second part of the fa’alavelave is the family affected usually repays those who gave to the fa’alavelave with money and/or cases of corned beef.

With the immense destruction and loss of life caused by the tsunami, individual fa’alavelaves might break the bank. I haven’t heard too much about anyone being required to pay a certain amount, but I don’t doubt it’s happening.

As for the event yesterday, leaders representing the three main churches of Samoa—the Methodists, the Congregationalists, and the Catholics—gave prayers, and the Prime Minister spoke. Student leaders representing schools across the country laid wreaths as the names of the deceased were read. Many students cried.

There was a gorgeous sunset as crowds gathered at the site of the mass grave. Caskets were lowered and the crowd sang a traditional funeral song. I really liked the song, but I can’t recall any of the words beyond the last line, which was “Tōfā, tōfā, tōfā”, or “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.”

After the service, people crowded down into the grave to cover the caskets in flowers and baskets and packages. In Samoa, death is not viewed with the same macabre weariness that we feel in America; many many people have graves in their front yards. Sometimes these graves are decorated elaborately, and sometimes they’re just large slabs of cement where people lounge in the afternoon.

In any case, yesterday’s event seemed to me to hit the right note.

Tomorrow’s Cultural Exploration: Using the ATM

I hope you’re well. Pictures of yesterday's ceremony below.
















The Prime Minister giving his thoughts.
















Students line up to lay down their wreaths.
















The spot in which the deceased were laid to rest.
















The fa'alavelave tent.

12 months!: The Story So Far and FAQs

This morning marks exactly 12 months since Group 81 first landed here in Samoa. It’s weird how in some ways it feels like we just got here, and the last year has gone by in the blink of an eye—and on the other hand, it feels like we’ve been here forever. The last 3 months—particularly the last 6 weeks—have been unexpectedly (and expectedly) historic for Samoa, and it’s been rather incredible to be living in this time and place. Some of it’s been quite a shock to the system; also it’s been good for site traffic. In any case, the following is a brief history of the last 3 months.

The Story So Far (as continued from July 8, 2009)

While July marks the dog days of summer in the northern hemisphere, July is the middle of the dry season here and also the middle of the school year. Classes seemed to be advancing swimmingly. I was able to stretch out and give my year 13s time to take wrap their brains around the more difficult components of Microsoft Excel. But just as I was starting to get things right on schedule, the Swine Flu epidemic hit.

There were over 100 cases of Swine Flu in Samoa; nearly all of them secondary school students. The government recommended schools shut down for the last week of July, and then forced schools to shut down the first week of August. This gave volunteers an excuse to hang out together and wait out the pestilence, but it wreaked havoc on the school year.

I and 5 of my fellow Peace Corps found time to participate in the 1st annual 64-mile perimeter relay race around the eastern side of Upolu. The weather mostly cooperated, and we placed second overall. It was a fascinating (and ominous) tour of the island.

Other than that, August was a slow month, and I took the time to hike the Robert Louis Stevenson trail, cook a helluva lot of pumpkin, and conduct social experiments. The month was spent marking time since September promised to be a busy month.

We had no idea.

Amanda swooped in early in September, and we had a good time checking out Teuila Festival events, making friends at the Faofao Beach Fales, and playing Rummy with Phil. We were also able to gain tickets to the 2009 Miss Samoa pageant, which would provide the first huge bump in traffic on the blog.

And then on Amanda’s last day in Samoa, the country became the first in history (or so I’m told) to switch from driving on the right side of the road to driving on the left. The über-controversial switch ended up coming and going without too many hiccups, save for an ongoing bus shortage.

A week later, I was walking home from the Peace Corps office and noticed a bunch of people staring up at the likeness of the Virgin Mary on the side of the John Williams building. The apparition would become the explanation for many subsequent events.

September had a number of other noteworthy aspects including Year 13 Camp, the burning down of Hotel Kitano, and an Around-the-Island tour with Koa and his friend Caroline.

And then in the early morning of September 29, Samoa was rocked by an earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale. There’s been much fallout from that.

Finally, group 82 showed up yesterday, exactly 52 weeks (or 364 days) after we did.

And that’s the story so far.

FAQs

Are you okay?

Yeah. I was in Apia for the quake, and the tsunami didn’t hit anywhere near here.

What can I do? What do victims need? Where can I send money?

Yeah. I'm going to refer you to Sara' blog.

Was your host family affected?

Nah. They have a large mangrove that separates them from the ocean, so they came out unharmed.

I have family in __________ village. Are they okay?

Once again, Sara has done a ridiculously good job of cataloging the state of different villages. It’s best to check with her.

Hi Matt. I’ve never met you. Do you mind if I comment on your blog?

Not at all! I love comments. Please comment. Hey Supy's Friend Lauren, that goes for you too.

Tomorrow starts a new round of cultural exploration. Tomorrow’s topic will be Mourning. Pictures below.















Amanda came to visit.















Traditional fautasi races finish in Apia Harbour as part of the Teuila Festival.















Jacinta, the winner of the 2009 Miss Samoa Pageant.















Family from Saleaaumua, one of the villages hit by the tsunami.