3:15 to Uma
A little bit more than three months left in the program. Or, as I like to say these days, 3-15 to “Uma” (which means “finished” in Samoan). January dragged, February flew, and March will drag. Then there is Spring Break in Fiji! Then the remaining seven weeks, which will fly and be full of crazy emotions.
School was rough during January and early February. The kids I think feel the Winter/Spring strain and act out more than usual. I had some low moments at school- yelling and screaming at kids… chasing kids out of my room with textbooks in hand. Last week, I realized that it’s not worth going crazy over. I just need to get through the next four months of teaching. I’ve instituted a detention blitz on the kids, with notes going home to parents. I no longer care how the parents will react. I have 16 weeks left of material to teach, and I’m going to teach it. I walk around now carrying a ruler in my hand… it’s a warning for the kids… of what, I don’t know. I would never actually use it to hit them with… they know that… yet, it seems to work. I lightly tap them on their heads with it. I use it to slap their desks if they are sleeping. It’s not exactly the wooden two-by-fours that some of the other teachers carry around their classrooms, but it seems to do the trick. The kids were better this week. I think it’s really sad that they seem to only respond to physical threats, and threats to involve their parents. It’s all very tricky in a place where corporal punishment still exists. But I no longer care… I have seen the brink of craziness, and it’s not a place I want to be. Teaching does this to people.
Life on Manu’a is good. Our fale has become the place to be, apparently, for kids and adults alike. It can be annoying, and the noise definitely gets on my nerves a lot, but mostly it is a phenomenon. Where do they all come from? All of the sudden, they are in our fale, screaming. At all hours of the weekend days, and weekday nights. And Samoans are loud. The Samoan language can be loud and abrasive, no matter what is being said. And that is now what we hear day and night. I’ve started wearing my ipod around. Because, after full days at school, dealing with loud, crazy freshmen, et al., we all need some peace and quiet at home to decompress with. Well, that is now gone, and has been replaced by noise. On the other hand, it’s definitely fun to have all of the village kids hanging around our house. They are so cute!
About a month and a half ago, both our fridge and toilet broke. We all assumed that they would not be replaced before the end of the program. We also have an outdoor toilet, and we also were able to use the indoor toilet, with bucket flushing. Miraculously, a new fridge arrived for us last week! It’s beautiful and spacious, and we can refrigerate our food again! And our toilet? Well, a plumber came from the far village, and took out our toilet. Upon attempting to replace it with the new one that also arrived via the M/V Sili (our boat), he noticed that the new toilet was cracked. So, now we are indoor toilet-less. We still have our nice outdoor toilet, but it’s a scary walk out there in the middle of the night. I wear my headlamp for light, but have seen anything from a huge crab crawling around, to a small, shivering puppy sitting next to the bowl. Not to mention I try not to look in the backyard which is dark and scary. Picture me running the eight steps from the bathroom stall to our side door, headlamp aglow.
Kyle killed another huge spider the other night. I feel bad wanting them dead… I generally try to not even kill ants. But the spiders here can be enormous. The little ones don’t bother me at all! They are in my bed, in the shower, in my stuff, everywhere! They are sweet, and eat the bugs. But the big spiders? Who knows what they eat?!! And as Kyle put, we would not sleep very well knowing that “that thing” is crawling around.
In an attempt to save money, and now that we have a nice , large fridge, I am now primarily drinking boiled rainwater, rather than buying bottles of water at the store next door for $1 a bottle. The rainwater is actually delicious! I only boil it because it falls off of a metal roof. And it’s great- I can boil two medium pots of water, and it lasts me two days full of water bottle filling up. Today, I learned how to make a Samoan broom, using coconut palm frawns. It’s a very involved process, so I’ll likely never attempt it in full, but it was fun to do for half an hour. It’s incredible how many uses there are for a coconut palm. The leaves are used for houses, huts, decoration, brooms… you name it! The coconuts… every single part of a coconut has several uses. The husks and outside shells are used in barbequeing… it’s called “Samoan charcoal,” and gives the food a delicious, smokey flavor. The meat can be eaten (delicious) and used to make coconut cream. My favorite thing on earth is drinking the coconut water straight from a freshly opened coconut. There is nothing more refreshing. Actually, coconut water can be as hydrating as water! I have heard stories this year about people using coconut water IVs in the desert. Certain coconuts have a sponge-like center, which feels like angel food cake and tastes just as sweet. Our friend, Saunoa, has started a small business turning coconut shells into polished crafts, such as napkin holders, vases, and pencil holders. His crafts are incredible! Coconuts are incredible. How am I going to go back to the states and have to pay for them at the store? I refuse.
Manu’a is a special place. For Valentine’s day, the kids at school had to build booths as part of a student body council activity. So, the night before the event, the kids in each class went up into the rainforest, chopped down trees, and built unbelievable booths. My juniors’ booth had three columns, and was decorated with palm frauns, and dark red lava lavas (sarongs). That these kids can just build things that quickly amazes me. People here are so self-sufficient. They can build and do anything. My village kids shimmy up tall coconut palms to knock them down. One of my students shimmied up a tall, thin papaya tree to get one for us. They catch fish without proper fishing poles. They walk through the jungle barefoot at a quick pace, while us Palagis stumble in our sneakers. They can de-husk a coconut with a stick in the ground and 30 seconds of muscle power, or with a few quick whacks with a machete. So, maybe my math students can’t add and subtract, and the English students can’t speak English, and don’t read, and they are all crazy and horribly behaved. American kids may have the kids here on book smarts. And there are many brilliant, book smart kids, here. But, the kids here have triple the street smarts that we have.
We just hit our seven monthiversary in American Samoa. Seven months. I’m proud of us for surviving and giving it our all this whole time. The first two volunteers from the World Teach American Samoan Inaugural Program Year quit last month… they hated life on Pago, and hated teaching, and they picked up and moved to Auckland, NZ together, and are not looking back. When I see their pictures online, I can’t help but feel twinges of jealousy. They are on the outside… off the rock. Yet, it solidifies my wanting to stay to see the year through. Because, if I could be in Honolulu tomorrow, I wouldn’t feel satisfied with myself for having left early.
I still dream about Honolulu all of the time. Honolulu will mean freedom. My roommates and I often talk about what it will feel like to board that plane from Pago Pago to Honolulu in early June. It will mean freedom. It will be surreal… as surreal as the day we landed on this tiny island. I will be anxious to see my mom two days later at the Honolulu airport. I think about that moment a lot. I have been homesick lately, for the first time in my life. I was never homesick in France, nor anywhere else. It’s a crappy feeling inside my stomach, and I just can’t wait to see my parents and my brother. My roommates talk about what will be going through our heads on that plane ride. So much to tell, no good way to tell it shortly. What if the person next to us asks us where we are coming from and why? Do we tell the whole story? Do we say “you just wouldn’t understand.” Because really, there are so many things here that are too hard, or too long to explain. What will we say next year when people ask us to sum our year up in a few words? Challenging…intense… I learned a lot… it changed us… it’s a special place… teaching is for the birds… teachers are crazy… students are crazy… math is amazing, and I’m glad I got to teach it… I never want to teach again.
I’m going to spend the next three and a half months doing the same things I’ve done the last seven and a half months. Eating tarot, breadfruit, bananas (umu’d green and frozen yellow), canned peas, canned salmon, muesli cereal, peanut butter, crackers, jelly, bottled water, rainwater, Just Juice, chicken, fish, chai tea, avocados, cucumbers, cabbage and coconuts. I’m going to keep reading Jane Austen books for our book club here, and keep reading other books and magazines on the side. I’m going to keep practicing yoga and pilates, which my roommate taught me six months ago. I’m going to go on long, long walks several times a week and/or day with my volunteer friend Nell, to the far wharf in the next village, through the banana trees, and along the scenic paved road. I’m going to keep jump-roping with Kyle in our fale. I’m going to watch DVDs every night with my roommates, and catch up on seasons of Lost, 24, Alias, and every movie we can get our hands on out here. I’m going to talk with my parents a few times a week, because I miss them, and they have been unbelievably supportive. I’m going to keep telling myself that moving to Miami for a few months is a wise decision in July. I’m going to continue to dream about Fiji in April and Honolulu in June, and finally getting a haircut and eating at a real restaurant. I’m going to continue planning my road trip with my parents around the American southwest and Vegas. I’m going to collect shells so much that half of my suitcase will be filled with them in June. I can’t wait to come home, but I need to make the next three months count, and not seem as long as they really are.
Tomorrow is Friday. Then two days off from school. Then… the ruler.
School was rough during January and early February. The kids I think feel the Winter/Spring strain and act out more than usual. I had some low moments at school- yelling and screaming at kids… chasing kids out of my room with textbooks in hand. Last week, I realized that it’s not worth going crazy over. I just need to get through the next four months of teaching. I’ve instituted a detention blitz on the kids, with notes going home to parents. I no longer care how the parents will react. I have 16 weeks left of material to teach, and I’m going to teach it. I walk around now carrying a ruler in my hand… it’s a warning for the kids… of what, I don’t know. I would never actually use it to hit them with… they know that… yet, it seems to work. I lightly tap them on their heads with it. I use it to slap their desks if they are sleeping. It’s not exactly the wooden two-by-fours that some of the other teachers carry around their classrooms, but it seems to do the trick. The kids were better this week. I think it’s really sad that they seem to only respond to physical threats, and threats to involve their parents. It’s all very tricky in a place where corporal punishment still exists. But I no longer care… I have seen the brink of craziness, and it’s not a place I want to be. Teaching does this to people.
Life on Manu’a is good. Our fale has become the place to be, apparently, for kids and adults alike. It can be annoying, and the noise definitely gets on my nerves a lot, but mostly it is a phenomenon. Where do they all come from? All of the sudden, they are in our fale, screaming. At all hours of the weekend days, and weekday nights. And Samoans are loud. The Samoan language can be loud and abrasive, no matter what is being said. And that is now what we hear day and night. I’ve started wearing my ipod around. Because, after full days at school, dealing with loud, crazy freshmen, et al., we all need some peace and quiet at home to decompress with. Well, that is now gone, and has been replaced by noise. On the other hand, it’s definitely fun to have all of the village kids hanging around our house. They are so cute!
About a month and a half ago, both our fridge and toilet broke. We all assumed that they would not be replaced before the end of the program. We also have an outdoor toilet, and we also were able to use the indoor toilet, with bucket flushing. Miraculously, a new fridge arrived for us last week! It’s beautiful and spacious, and we can refrigerate our food again! And our toilet? Well, a plumber came from the far village, and took out our toilet. Upon attempting to replace it with the new one that also arrived via the M/V Sili (our boat), he noticed that the new toilet was cracked. So, now we are indoor toilet-less. We still have our nice outdoor toilet, but it’s a scary walk out there in the middle of the night. I wear my headlamp for light, but have seen anything from a huge crab crawling around, to a small, shivering puppy sitting next to the bowl. Not to mention I try not to look in the backyard which is dark and scary. Picture me running the eight steps from the bathroom stall to our side door, headlamp aglow.
Kyle killed another huge spider the other night. I feel bad wanting them dead… I generally try to not even kill ants. But the spiders here can be enormous. The little ones don’t bother me at all! They are in my bed, in the shower, in my stuff, everywhere! They are sweet, and eat the bugs. But the big spiders? Who knows what they eat?!! And as Kyle put, we would not sleep very well knowing that “that thing” is crawling around.
In an attempt to save money, and now that we have a nice , large fridge, I am now primarily drinking boiled rainwater, rather than buying bottles of water at the store next door for $1 a bottle. The rainwater is actually delicious! I only boil it because it falls off of a metal roof. And it’s great- I can boil two medium pots of water, and it lasts me two days full of water bottle filling up. Today, I learned how to make a Samoan broom, using coconut palm frawns. It’s a very involved process, so I’ll likely never attempt it in full, but it was fun to do for half an hour. It’s incredible how many uses there are for a coconut palm. The leaves are used for houses, huts, decoration, brooms… you name it! The coconuts… every single part of a coconut has several uses. The husks and outside shells are used in barbequeing… it’s called “Samoan charcoal,” and gives the food a delicious, smokey flavor. The meat can be eaten (delicious) and used to make coconut cream. My favorite thing on earth is drinking the coconut water straight from a freshly opened coconut. There is nothing more refreshing. Actually, coconut water can be as hydrating as water! I have heard stories this year about people using coconut water IVs in the desert. Certain coconuts have a sponge-like center, which feels like angel food cake and tastes just as sweet. Our friend, Saunoa, has started a small business turning coconut shells into polished crafts, such as napkin holders, vases, and pencil holders. His crafts are incredible! Coconuts are incredible. How am I going to go back to the states and have to pay for them at the store? I refuse.
Manu’a is a special place. For Valentine’s day, the kids at school had to build booths as part of a student body council activity. So, the night before the event, the kids in each class went up into the rainforest, chopped down trees, and built unbelievable booths. My juniors’ booth had three columns, and was decorated with palm frauns, and dark red lava lavas (sarongs). That these kids can just build things that quickly amazes me. People here are so self-sufficient. They can build and do anything. My village kids shimmy up tall coconut palms to knock them down. One of my students shimmied up a tall, thin papaya tree to get one for us. They catch fish without proper fishing poles. They walk through the jungle barefoot at a quick pace, while us Palagis stumble in our sneakers. They can de-husk a coconut with a stick in the ground and 30 seconds of muscle power, or with a few quick whacks with a machete. So, maybe my math students can’t add and subtract, and the English students can’t speak English, and don’t read, and they are all crazy and horribly behaved. American kids may have the kids here on book smarts. And there are many brilliant, book smart kids, here. But, the kids here have triple the street smarts that we have.
We just hit our seven monthiversary in American Samoa. Seven months. I’m proud of us for surviving and giving it our all this whole time. The first two volunteers from the World Teach American Samoan Inaugural Program Year quit last month… they hated life on Pago, and hated teaching, and they picked up and moved to Auckland, NZ together, and are not looking back. When I see their pictures online, I can’t help but feel twinges of jealousy. They are on the outside… off the rock. Yet, it solidifies my wanting to stay to see the year through. Because, if I could be in Honolulu tomorrow, I wouldn’t feel satisfied with myself for having left early.
I still dream about Honolulu all of the time. Honolulu will mean freedom. My roommates and I often talk about what it will feel like to board that plane from Pago Pago to Honolulu in early June. It will mean freedom. It will be surreal… as surreal as the day we landed on this tiny island. I will be anxious to see my mom two days later at the Honolulu airport. I think about that moment a lot. I have been homesick lately, for the first time in my life. I was never homesick in France, nor anywhere else. It’s a crappy feeling inside my stomach, and I just can’t wait to see my parents and my brother. My roommates talk about what will be going through our heads on that plane ride. So much to tell, no good way to tell it shortly. What if the person next to us asks us where we are coming from and why? Do we tell the whole story? Do we say “you just wouldn’t understand.” Because really, there are so many things here that are too hard, or too long to explain. What will we say next year when people ask us to sum our year up in a few words? Challenging…intense… I learned a lot… it changed us… it’s a special place… teaching is for the birds… teachers are crazy… students are crazy… math is amazing, and I’m glad I got to teach it… I never want to teach again.
I’m going to spend the next three and a half months doing the same things I’ve done the last seven and a half months. Eating tarot, breadfruit, bananas (umu’d green and frozen yellow), canned peas, canned salmon, muesli cereal, peanut butter, crackers, jelly, bottled water, rainwater, Just Juice, chicken, fish, chai tea, avocados, cucumbers, cabbage and coconuts. I’m going to keep reading Jane Austen books for our book club here, and keep reading other books and magazines on the side. I’m going to keep practicing yoga and pilates, which my roommate taught me six months ago. I’m going to go on long, long walks several times a week and/or day with my volunteer friend Nell, to the far wharf in the next village, through the banana trees, and along the scenic paved road. I’m going to keep jump-roping with Kyle in our fale. I’m going to watch DVDs every night with my roommates, and catch up on seasons of Lost, 24, Alias, and every movie we can get our hands on out here. I’m going to talk with my parents a few times a week, because I miss them, and they have been unbelievably supportive. I’m going to keep telling myself that moving to Miami for a few months is a wise decision in July. I’m going to continue to dream about Fiji in April and Honolulu in June, and finally getting a haircut and eating at a real restaurant. I’m going to continue planning my road trip with my parents around the American southwest and Vegas. I’m going to collect shells so much that half of my suitcase will be filled with them in June. I can’t wait to come home, but I need to make the next three months count, and not seem as long as they really are.
Tomorrow is Friday. Then two days off from school. Then… the ruler.