The Mark of the Jandal

Packing List

2007-10-02T16:00:00.001-07:00

I posted this once last year, and I this is my revised list of stuff I'd bring if I had it to do all over again. This is a list of things that came to me at various times that I thought were important. Some of these things I thought of and some I did not. I'm sure most of this was mentioned in the information sent to us before coming, and I just missed it. Hopefully some will benefit from my shortsightedness. Presented here in no particular order:

_Shoes_

Coming from grad school and being of limited funds, I didn't really bring a lot in the way of shoes. I basically brought one pair of running shoes. I'm not a big flip flop kind of guy, but that's what I wear the most of here. If I had it to do all over again, I'd pick up a decent pair of sandals (Chaco seems to be popular among the volunteers). I had a pair of Chacos sent and they worked really well until the sole started to separate from the rest of the shoe. Chaco, being a really good company, sent me a new pair based on some photos of the defective product that I'd sent them.

_Toiletries_

My roommate brought a really nice schammy/quick dry towel with him. It's ideal for this humid climate. I got something called a 'thai stick' which is basically a block of salt that works well as a deodorant.

_Clothing_

I seem to recall the book that was supposed to prepare us mentioning things like "pants" and "dress shoes" and "business casual". What a crock of shit. There is no way in hell any sane person here is going to wear Khaki pants on any regular basis. If you work in the village you'll probably spend most of your time in a lavalava or shorts and a tshirt. If you work in the schools, they will likely have a uniform. Alternatively the ladies will wear pulitasi's, uncomfortable form fitting dress/top; and guys will wear ie faitogas (polyester manskirt with pockets) and some flowery button up shirts. Bring casual clothing, but minimize anything you wouldn't want to wear when it's 80 degrees and 85 percent humidity

_Cameras_

I know there are some folks out there who are really stuck on film cameras. In my opinion, it's just impractical to get film developed here. The Kodak place in Apia can develop film and print digital pictures if hard copies are what you are looking for.

_Shipping Addresses_

I have friends in the states that gather stuff for me and ship it here. One thing to remember is that many companies wont ship stuff to addresses unless you have called your credit card company and authorized them to ship to that address. So if you have a set of friends you will have send you stuff, make sure you call your credit card company and have their addresses put on file.

_Cook ware_

My roommate brought a really nice Teflon coated pan that we use probably use six nights a week. We each brought a nice can opener. In retrospect, a nice cast iron skillet (I know heavy) is probably better -- you would be surprised at how many people can make it into the Peace Corps and not know that a fork will scratch Teflon. Also useful: a tortilla press (big one -- 12 inch) , and a small (two cup) French press.

_Shipping Heavy Things Here_

Depending on your assignment, you may wish to ship some of your stuff here. I packed up a box of text books to be shipped here. I was told by the PCB (Peace Corps Bureaucrat) that I probably didn't want to receive any packages until after training. So I left the box with my mom so I could have it shipped later. This advice may be more applicable to different locations, but for Samoa, you can ship what ever you want before you leave. You will have access to any packages which arrive during training, and they can be put in storage until after training. Things to consider with respect to shipping:

o Ground shipping can realistically take up to six months to get here. I've heard stories of a package taking a year and it took a package of mine three months.

o Air mail takes between three to five weeks to arrive though legends are abound about the mysterious package that took six months to arrive with customs stamps from all across the globe.

_Bike Accessories_

At the end of training, you will be given a bike. The bikes we got were fairly nice Treks though they seem to be giving out the Giant equivalent. They are supposed to provide you with locks and a couple other things. Now, the dilemma is that it's not easy to get decent locks and stuff in the country. One option is to goto the hardware store and buy a chain/padlock. You can take the receipt and be reimbursed. If I would have known, I would have just brought my u-lock from the States. If you have one, and some free weight, I'd throw the bike lock in my bag.

I also brought a patch kit, small hand pump, extra tube, and a chain tool. Later on I had a rack, a set of panniers, some extra tubes, and toeclips sent. The rack and panniers are really important for me and I've ridden over both islands with them. For those that are interested jandd.com, will ship internationally and I really like their products. Email me and I can make some suggestions.

_Tools_

I brought a small tool kit (screwdriver, vice grips, dikes, etc), a set of hex wrenches, and a bike multi-tool with me. These have been pretty useful.

_Computer Accessories_

_speakers_

If you have a laptop, I'd definitely bring computer speakers. Nothing really fancy, but something that can compete with the sound of rain beating down on a metal roof. Make sure they are 110-240.

_backing up_

I'm really paranoid about loosing information. Most of the work I'm doing here is on computer, so I like to back things up. If you have a cd/dvd burner in your computer, bring 10 or so rewritable disks. If you have the space, you might want to grab a 50 disc spindle. If you have a USB or Firewire external drive, that would probably be ideal.

_flash memory_

If you're going to live in the village and are going to depend on the Peace Corps computers to get work done, I'd bring a 1gb usb memory stick. These things are cheap now in the states and they cost a whole bunch here. In fact, if you pick up 10 or so, they can be used as gifts or prizes if you're a teacher. You can also probably raffle them off to raise money for projects.

_Warranties_

If your warranties are going to expire on things like computers and cameras, you might want to see if they can be extended for the duration of your service.

Email me if you have any questions.

More of Teh Gay

2007-07-21T01:57:00.000-07:00

For those of you who cannot wait to hear how this story ends on page two, your life is now complete:

---start text---
The management of the PFL Team Samoa is so keen to win gold at next month's South Pacific Games it has banned gay activities, drugs and alcohol for all team members.

It has also advised athletes to "eat to live and not live to eat" during the games.

The instructions are detailed in a memo to Team Managers, obtained by the Samoa Observer yesterday.

The memo was the outcome of a meeting of Team Managers at the Fagali'i Golf Course, on Friday 20 June 2007.

"Do not embarrass yourself, your family and your country by trying this in the (Games) village," the memo said about homosexual and lesbian relationships.

"Best not to even think about this. It's against the law of God."

The memo said the Management Team has set out rules and regulations so that there is peace and harmony at the village.

"With the rules and regulations there are also measures of discipline which the Management Team will exercise when any of these rules and regulations are violated," the memo warned.

"It is our desire that we are all mature, humble and responsible citizens, and therefore will not have to exercise these disciplinary measures."

But the memo has not gone down well with some athletes, sources said.

One sports administrator said the decision about homosexuals was "discriminative, outrageous" and "below the belt."

Speaking to the Samoan Observer on the condition of anonymity, she said what athletes do during the games is none of the management's business.

She said it appears the management team has isolated gays and lesbians which is "discriminating and downright arrogant."

But Chef de mission, Segi Bee Leung Wai defended the decision yesterday. He disagrees that it is "discriminatory and outrageous."

"We are against the practice of it in Team Samoa," he said. "when we stay together, we do not want a girl and another girl to show that relationship. According to the Bible, it is against the law."

But Mr Leung Wai said the rule does not mean gays or lesbians would be barred form representing Samoa.

"We are not saying not gays are allowed in Team Samoa," he pointed out.

"All we are saying is that we do not tolerate gay behavior within the village between members of our team or any other team.

"It is the same as saying athletes are as saying athletes are not allowed to drink alcohol or take drugs. After the games, these athletes who are gay or lesbian can then do whatever they want.

"But in the village and during the games, no such behaviour of any kind will be tolerated."

Mr Leung Wai said the idea is to prevent "embarrassing Samoa and the family of athletes."

"How would you feel if a member of your family was a fa'afafine and behaving gay towards other athletes within the village?" he asked.

"You wouldn't like it. We do not want embarrassment to fall on the families and onto Samoa."
---end text---

Homosexual Activities

2007-07-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

The South Pacific Games (SPG), sort of like a regional olympics, is going to be hosted in Samoa this year. It's a big deal, and most schools (including my own) are closing for a month to provide livinging quarters for the athletes. According to the newspaper headline below, it seems there are concerns about folks getting all gay and stuff.

For the Curious

2007-07-20T11:18:00.001-07:00

The headline reads 'Guilty of sodomy' and the text is transcribed below

---start text---
A 54-year-old man has been found guilty of two counts of sodomy in the Supreme Court.

The victim was a nine-year old boy of his village

The court issued name suppression for both the victim and defendant.

The matter was adjourned to 10 July for a probation report and sentencing.

The defendant was remanded on continuing bail.

He was put on trial on 12 May after denying that he had sodomised the boy on 26 and 28 of April last year.

Chief Just Patu Tiava'asu'e Falefatu Sapolu said the court was satisfied with the evidence given by some of the prosecution witnesses as well as by the victim and doctor called to testify.

He said the charges were proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The boy testified that he was sexually abused by the defendant on the days mentioned.

He said that he was called over by the defendant to his house, to pull grey hair on his back using a pair of tweezers.

The boy did as the defendant asked. The defendant then ordered the boy to wait for him in the lavatory.

The defendant joined the boy inside the lavatory and sexually abused him, the court heard.

After the first act of sodomy the defendant gave the boy 50 sene [0.19 USD].

The boy said that during the second time the defendant did this to him, he cried because he was in pain.

The boy said that the defendant put his hand over his mouth to silence him.

Dr Aleki Fuimaono testified that when the boy was brought to him by the Police for a checkup, he found evidence of penetration of the boy.
---end text---

Headlines

2007-07-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

You know things are lively when sodomy isn't the lead story rather it's page three news.

Visitors

2007-05-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

'The Visitor'

One afternoon back in November of last year, I was making some tea in my kitchen when I saw a Samoan fellow wondering around my front door. I asked him how he was doing and he asked if I were a Peace Corps. I told him that I was. He then asked me if I lived there alone, and I replied that I had a roommate. Next he said he had something for me and he pulled out a large white envelope with some writing. He asked me to read what was inside, and then he quickly hurried off. I looked at the envelope, and it had the following written on the outside:

United States of America
Pentagon, FBI, CIA
Pure White Citizen Only
September 11th, Report

Inside are several pages of what looks like random scrawlings. Here are some excerpts of what appears to be his stream of conscience.

-> burn U.S. and Britain Flag - before blood shed
-> some body tear me Apart
-> Dr Quinn, Australian TV Series Police Nicole Kidman, Crocodile hunter

There doesn't appear to be much method to this. He writes about Bush, Rumsfield, Flags, killing, pure white people, being in prison, playing rugby, etc. I thought this was odd, so I sent a letter to our Safety and Security Officer. This was his response:

_quote_
Must be one of several mentally disabled persons who freely roam the streets. Interesting though that he asked if you were from Peace corps and that he knows the connection between PC, US and Bush. Just be cautious and keep your doors locked at all times.
_quote_

I hadn't heard anything about this since I reported it. Today I'm speaking to Bryan with my back turned to the door. I notice someone out of my peripheral vision and I turn. It's someone who looks like a student telling me he has something from someone whose name I cannot remember. I look on the envelope:

FBI CIA PENTAGON NATO
Pure white people only

I honestly thought it was a joke. I could see a volunteer handing it to a student and having him bringing it into my office. In my initial speculations, the guy ran off. I opened it and it contained the same random scrawlings. Here are some interesting quotes:

_quote_
Ah Kui a female (girl) a cook student (2007) certificate in tourism told me accidentally, that I should not think of sept 11th, she said their group (wealthy top millionare halfcast) is angry and hate the united states and pure white people becoz white pure people refuse to give them sex like George Bush Junior's daughter, she said she promised to have sex with one of their boys.
_quote_

_quote_
David Cane siad 2007 (coconut beach) unless U.S.A. signed deal to stop envrionmental damag, terrorist will still atack their land. He gave me a dope.
_quote_

_quote_
I swear before god and pentagon that all this information are true may god help pure white people of America
_quote_
--

All Your Things Are Belong To Us

2007-05-07T14:30:00.001-07:00

I'm laying on the mat in my living room Saturday morning, May 5th, working on my final exams which have to be submitted on Monday when a young man walks up to my door. I open it and he hands me a piece of paper. I look down and see that it's a memo:

--beign memo--
To: All tenants
CC: Vice Chancellor
From: Director of Physcial Facilities
Date: 03 May 2007
Re: Condition Survey for NUS flats at Vaivase-tai on the 07/05/2007

------------------------------------

Please be advised there will be a full survey for all the flats at Vaivase-tai on 7 May 2007 starting from 8.30am until 3.00pm. The survey will be conducted by the Physical Facilities through the Building Service team to inspect and report on the current condition of these flats

Please note this will be a full survey and will cover the entire unit both inside and outside of building. We will carry out this exercise on the condition with or without the presence of the tenant.

You are also reminded we are not responsible for any loss of personal belonging during the survey

Thankyou for your corporation
Amerika Siale
--end memo--

That's Amerika, his friends call him 'States, he's responsible for not fixing things that are broken, and he does this job very well. Well I call him Amerika when I'm feeling polite, and I think it's nice of him to warn us on a Saturday that he's planning on looting our house Monday while we're at work.

There were some other volunteers over on Saturday, and upon reading the memo above one of them asked "Is that legal?". And what a good old laugh we had about that statement.

We called the Peace Corps office and arranged to have someone watch our apartment while the inspection occurred.

Unified Theory of Human Interaction in Samoa Part 2

2007-04-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

_Feudin' and Fightin'_

Consider the Hatfields and the McCoys. Those beautifully independent-minded American families playing dueling banjos along the Appalachian. Sure, occasionally little Bobby Hatfield would talk some shit about how thin Sam McCoys pigs are. Sam, wanting to save face and not deal with the fact that his pigs really are scrawny, gets his uncle's gun and shoots Bobby. Pretty soon you have revenge killings, and it's like the tribalism in Arab culture. The nice thing about living in Appalachian mountains is, if you get tired of people killing each other over a rude comment about the spots on someones cow, you can move to Arkansas.

Now jump back 2000 years ago. Somewhere on one side of the planet a carpenter is being nailed to a piece of wood. On the other side of the planet, Polynesians have constructed huge canoes and are staking their claims on every chunk of coral high enough to support coconut trees. Eventually, a few people settle on two volcanic islands, call it Samoa, and start to build houses with thatched roofs. At some point one Samoan looks at another and says 'O ou pua'a o laititi'. One response to such denigration of ones pigs might be to take a wooden ax and crush the offending parties skull in.

However, starting a good old feud like we had in the Appalachian mountains could realistically involve the entire island. Heck, this may have happened a few times in the past -- Samoa could have been settled several times before we finally ended up with the current inhabitants. In order for a group of people to live closely together, conflicts need to be dealt with constructively. Of course, one civilized way would be sunrise, machettes at 30 paces. Still, killing someones family member -- regardless of how honorable -- still has a tendency to breed a little animosity with the dead individuals relatives.

So how does this relate to getting course material from a fellow lecturer? Here's my bit of speculation on my part: I believe the passive-aggressive nature of the Samoan culture is a direct result of the need to avoid conflicts which could spiral out of control when confined to an island. I have a lot of anecdotal evidence to support this, but I think the key lies in their social structure. To understand this, consider the different traditional classes or roles in Samoan society.

_John's Brief Introduction to Samoan Society_

Disclaimer: Any inaccuracies are of my own creation based on my limited experiences here. Being more a glorified plumber than a cultural anthropologist, it's possible that I've made many errors and false conclusions.

The social order here is very rigorous. Centered primarily around the family and secondarily around villages, peoples roles are fairly well defined. At the bottom of the social pyramid we have the untitled men and women who do most of the work. Traditionally, people who work hard and do well for the family are selected to be Matais or chiefs. The chiefs, representing the different families, meet to make decisions concerning the village. There is a special type of chief called talking chiefs or orators, who simply represent villages or families in discussions with other villages or families. The talking chiefs speak the orator language which is different from common Samoan. I've listened to it, and I don't understand it at all. Of course this doesn't mean much because I don't really understand Samoan very well either. I'm told the dialog in the orator language occurs in metaphors and deliberations can become quite extensive.

So discussing issues is important, but the same could be said for digging purple tubers out of the ground for dinner. Consider the social status of those tasked with communication versus those who work in the plantations. The untitled men, generally responsible for the planting and harvesting, occupy the bottom rung of the social ladder. However, the talking chiefs stand on that part of the ladder with the sticker warning you to use the lower rung. I think the high social status of orators is linked to the importance of the service they provide in the society here.

In some ways, Samoans had the diplomacy thing down before the French decided to make their cheese smell like their feet.

Next I'm going to try to tackle the implications of this in relation to a modern state that is a confluence of tradition, advancement, and the desire for amenities -- not just issues Peace Corps volunteers might find painful.

Statistically Challenged

2007-03-16T15:55:00.000-07:00

A student I help quite often was in my office and we had the following conversation:

Student: How come when the boats come it rains?

Me: Excuse me?

Student: My grandfather says that it always rains when the boats with the people [cruise ships] come.

Me: You do realize it's the rainy season?

Student: Yes, but when it rains when the boats come.

Me: Yes, but it also rains when they don't come... it rains every day... it's the rainy season

Student: Yes, but it sometimes happens in the dry season.

Me: It's called the dry season because it doesn't rain as much. We live in the tropics, and it rains all the time.

[conversation proceeds]

Student: Are you telling me that you don't believe the Samoan superstition

Me: Do you know what that word means?
--

Practical Jokes on Peace Corps Volunteers

2007-03-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

I was talking to a fellow volunteer about packages. She mentioned that
every time she picks up a package from a particular friend she is worried
that the customs officer is going to pull out a dildo. I thought: wouldn't
it be funny to select volunteers randomly off the internet and send them
odd sexual amenities: inflatable dolls, ball gags, a silicone fists or two.
Imagine the look on the volunteers face as the Moroccan customs agent pulls
out a two foot long, 3.5 inch wide phallace --- and to think the packing
slip said school supplies.

Multiculturalism

2007-03-02T18:00:00.000-08:00

A secondary effect of living abroad is that I'm blessed with the exposure to people from other countries. In this regard, I'm speaking more of fellow expatriates living here for a variety of reasons. The irony of these encounters is that many times they consist solely of criticism of the US. I don't think my country farts pixie dust, I know we're fallible. I'm even willing to discuss the various faults. However having an Australian lecture me on the treatment of minorities in the US, especially the Native Americans, with no digression toward the treatment of their own indigenous folks makes the individual seem like they are trying to take down the rich kid on the playground with very little regard for the truthiness of their argument. Heck, I'm no fan of Bush, but Howard is little more than a clone of Bush with loosely wound DNA -- though some how he seems to be a better speaker.

It isn't just criticism of verifiable actions of the US. I'm just as likely to hear criticism for conspiracy theories. I mean how can one have a conversation about something when the basis for the conversation is:

o Moon landing was a hoax
or
o The US government allowed the attacks on Pearl Harbor to facilitate our entry into WWII

One evening I was having a conversation with an Australian Youth Ambassador, the Australian counterpart to the Peace Corps. This was about the same time that a school in England was telling a teacher that she couldn't wear a vale in class. The AYA was appalled at how culturally insensitive her fellow commonwealthers were acting. This is a paraphrase of the conversation we had:

Me: I think it can be hard for someone who grew up in the west to pay attention to someone and follow them when they can only see their eyes.

Her: Don't you think it would be great for your kids to be exposed to another culture; wouldn't it be great to expand their minds like that.

Me: I think it would be great for my kids to learn English, math, science, history, perhaps a foreign language. I think school should focus more on teaching kids and less on cultural tolerance.

Her: Shouldn't children learn more than just facts, shouldn't they grow as individuals.

Me: It's not the governments job to help kids "grow" and it's especially not their job to help kids "grow" at the expense of their education. If children don't feel comfortable being taught by a someone in a vale, it's it's not a failure of them or their parents. Heck some kids are scared shitless by clowns [I know this I was a birthday clown at Mc Donalds].

Her: How are kids supposed to learn about other cultures?

Me: If kids are interested in Islam they can take a class on religion. Then the teacher can bring someone in who can talk about the virtues of wearing a black tent in the desert so that men don't get too aroused and accidentally rape her -- a crime for which she may be stoned to death.

I'm a live and let live kind of guy. I personally believe that abortion kills a person. I understand that this is my belief and that there is no scientific basis for this. I mainly chose this belief to be on the safe side of things. However, because there is no way to define the moment that life begins, I'm willing to concede that I may be wrong. So I have a set of morals that define my behavior, and there is a set that I think should be applied to others. Sometimes these two sets overlap -- murder for instance is something I think is wrong and something I think the government should try to prevent. In my mind, forcing kids to be culturally sensitive for their own good is not one of these areas of overlap. If one person wants their children to be enlightened then they can expose their kids to what they as parents judge to be appropriate.

This conversation with the AYA was interesting. I had heard and read about multiculturalism before, but this was one of my first experiences with it. From the perspective of this ignorant and culturally insensitive American (where America defines two continents but I use it to define my country which is a small subset of those continents) it seems strange to see a countries strangled to death in their own political correctness.

Unified Theory of Human Interaction in Samoa Part 1

2007-02-28T10:26:00.000-08:00

_People Watching_

One of my pass times is people watching. I'm not referring to staring at
someone on the beach and thinking to myself: is that third nipple or a mole.
I'm thinking more along the lines of going to Wal-Mart at 3 a.m., and
contemplating on why the gentleman in plaid seems to be basing his sock
purchases on what they smell like. I also like watching people interact, their
word choices, how they respond to seeing someone sniffing socks in Wal-Mart,
etc. So living in Samoa has given me many people watching opportunities, and
I'm currently working on my _Unified Theory of Human Interaction in Samoa_
(UTHIS).

_Hippy Preparation: Remove Brain & Soak in a Vinegar and Cilantro Marinade_

During training, they prepared us for the differences between our culture and
that of Samoa. Like much of the hippy brainwashing this was done with skits
where volunteers and trainers would act out small little roles. After the
acting, we would talk about what happened, how it made us feel, if it reminded
us of that time when the bus driver took us home from school to his place...
umm, I mean what was said and what was actually meant. We laughed at these skits
partially from the absurdity of it, but some of it was nervous laughter
because we knew we were going to have to deal with this at some point.

Here's an example dialog between a volunteer (Pat), and his or her (gotta
remember that there are at least two genders) Samoan Counterpart (Tasi).

Pat: Malo tasi
Tasi: Malo pat
Pat: I understand you taught the year 13 physics class last year.
Tasi: Uhh, Yeah.
Pat: I was wondering if I could get copies of the course material you used.
Tasi: Oh, sure. I'll get that tomorrow.

Tomorrow:
Pat: Malo tasi
Tasi: Malo pat
Pat: So, do you have that course material.
Tasi: Oh, I was very busy yesterday, and I couldn't get it together. See it's
at my aunts house and she moved to Savai'i. I'm going there in a couple weeks
and I can get it for you then.

Two weeks later, Tasi still doesn't have the notes.

_Yes Means No_

Now, this is an example of "yes means no". Tasi is saying "Sure I'll do what
you want" but when he really means is "no". There are several reasons why Tasi
would say yes when he really means no. Perhaps he lost the material (or likely
never really had it in an organized fashion that would be useful to anyone but
him to begin with). It's possible that he playing some sort of dominance game
where he has something you want and he derives some importance from
withholding it from you. It could be any number of reasons.

This one example is characteristic of the passive/aggressive nature of
Samoan culture -- at least when people are sober. I'm going to spend the
rest of this post discussing the implications of this type of behavior on
someone who is, as I've been accused of on occasion, of being direct. In
the Peace Corps we have a name for "talking about how things make you
feel", we call it "processing".

There are parts of me that react differently to passive-aggressive behavior.
Part of me finds it curious, like a black box. I push something into it, look
at what comes out, and try to make some kind of correlation between the two.
There is also the part of me that wants to get stuff done. This part of me
isn't really entertained, and it can become quite challenging at times to deal
with this. Take the scenario above. This more or less happened to me the first
semester I was here. Because of the previous three months of hand holding, I
knew more or less that I wasn't getting squat from my Tasi. I also knew that I
was going to have to deal with this person in the future, and I wanted to
establish a precedent (precedents are a whole other post) that I'm going to
keep asking so he should just tell me the truth to begin with.

So with the assumption that I would get nothing from him after I asked for
the first time for some material, I kept asking for it. First it was, "I'll
get it together for you", which led to "I think I have it at home", which
was followed up by "I forgot, but I'll look tonight", but eventually we got
to "I taught that class for the first time last year, and I just made
everything up on the fly". That whole process took about two weeks. By that
time I'd already found what I needed on the Internet. The final answer was
a little reassuring though. Since I've come here to do curriculum
development, I'd feel pretty silly if he already had everything I needed.
Though I really just wanted what he used to give me an idea of the level at
which I was supposed to be teaching.

Of course, this type of behavior is pervasive. You call up a car rental agency
because your friend is coming in for a visit and you want to pick him up at
the air port. They confirm your car reservation for tomorrow (that you made a
month in advance), you show up and they tell you the person with your car
decided they needed it for an extra day. Why didn't they call you and tell
you? Well, that might upset you. It's much better to come there expecting a
car and be told that you're out of luck. What, that doesn't make sense to you?

How does someone who prefers direct answers deal with this? One might cope by
depending as little as humanly possible on other people. In ones spare time
one might try to figure out how this current system came to pass. In training,
the hippy herders said that Samoans just want to make people happy. That
translates into "they will tell you what they think you want to hear even if
it's not true" (98% Christian here folks). What they never mentioned was "why"
this was: Why would people be so concerned with happiness to the exclusion of
truth. I speculate that it's directly related to the passive-aggressive nature
of the people, and I think it's related to a culture that developed under some
unique circumstances.

Argument and Persuasion

2007-02-21T20:51:00.000-08:00

A review of 'An Inconvenient Truth'

Living in Samoa means that many things people in the States have access to can be a little harder to get here. We get movies, but they sometimes take a while to trickle down to my level. A couple weeks ago a volunteer came by with some movies, and I copied them to watch later. One of these movies was "An Inconvenient Truth". I've had some discussion with my friends about this movie, and most of my statements were limited to what I'd read about it. Now that I've seen it I'd like to share some thoughts.

I think of the global warming debate as a continuum with two distinct ends. On one end we have complete denialists. An example of this would be large oil companies who fund ads saying that CO2 is what plants breath and it's nothing but wholesome goodness for the environment. On the other end of the spectrum lie end of worlders that a friend described colorfully as "Gaia worshiping communists". I think most people lie somewhere in the middle with groups tending to lean in one direction or the other.

I was under the assumption that this movie was supposed to sell global warming as a problem that needed to be dealt with. It's important now to establish what the debate is about. The debate isn't really about whether anthropogenic (fancy word for man-made) climate change is occurring or not. The debate is about the extent and the eventual effects of such climate change. Conflating these two questions is a good way to confuse and mislead an observer who is not completely familiar with the science -- of which I believe this movie does a good job. Note: I'm not claiming to be a climatologist, rather I'm more careful about parsing words for their meaning.

Returning to the movie as a sales pitch for the ill effects of global warming: when one tries to sell something, one looks at their target audience. It's easy to sell something to someone eager to buy it, so a movie targeted at the left in the US probably isn't that useful --- preaching to the choir and all that. So if a movie on this topic is likely to have utility as a sales pitch, it will need to be made such that it appeals to skeptics (those undecided in the center and those lying to the right on this issue).

The easiest way to loose an argument in my mind is to overstate ones case. Take Bush's position on leaving detainees in a legal limbo between prisoners of war and normal prisoner status -- which leads to denying them the ability to face their accusers, defend themselves in a court of law, etc. I personally find this appalling, and I'm sure I'd have many people on the left that agree with me. In this debate, the far left frequently identifies the President as the anti-Christ, and attempts to associate him with Hitler. This is not a good way to sway someone to who might be on the fence about an issue, and it only serves to motivate people who already agree them with the issue at an emotional level. The left doesn't have a monopoly on this inability to persuade. Consider the far rights response to the left on the same issue. Anyone who would give rights to detainees would attempt to "provide aid and comfort to the enemy" -- wording that translates into treason. Voting for the Democrats is a vote for Al Queda, etc. So either you're on Bush/Hitlers side, or you favor helping Al Queda. Who could ask for better options?

The previous digression applies to global warming -- an issue which I sometimes consider to be the left's version of 'Saddam has WMD and he wants to kill your babies'. 'An Inconvenient Truth' that I would pose is this: overstating your argument to appeal to people at the emotional level instead of appealing to their ability to reason is a good way to get people who already agree with you fired up while simultaneously turning off those who you probably need on your side. I'd like to share some thoughts on the movie in this regard.

First, Al Gore takes jabs at the President for the 2000 election, his weak record on what I would call using policy to guide science (an issue I tend to agree with Gore on). Those are the first two to come to my mind. Now, I must admit that I laughed out loud when Gore jokingly commented that a elementary school teacher of his who ridiculed a fellow classmate for making a strange yet correct observation was now Bush's science advisor. Of course, I agree with him on this issue, but how would someone who voted for Bush feel about this? One obvious thought coming from the Bush voter might be: "The guy you voted for is dumb, and by association you are dumb for voting for him". That's over 40 million Americans right there.

To me and honest debate provides both sides of an issue, or multiple sides if they are relevant. As an example of providing both sides to a debate, I'll look at Kyoto. As it stands right now the US is the leading contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. As a result we are the worlds whipping boy. Kyoto was created to address this, and the US catches a lot of heat for not agreeing to it. I agree with Bush on this decision. Why is that? Folks like China want their cake and wish to eat too. In one of the final rounds of negotiation, China basically said they are not going to agree to limit their emissions. Their argument is that they are a developing country and they deserve a period of pollution to get their economy going. Basically we have to change but the developing world, which is poised to overtake us on emissions within the next decade, doesn't have to. How does Gore present this:

<blockquote>
Are we going to be left behind as the rest of the world moves forward? All of these nations have ratified Kyoto. There are only two advanced nations in the world that have not ratified Kyoto and we are one of them. The other is Australia.
</blockquote>

So, Kudos to China for signing a treaty which requires little from them economically, and shame on the US for refusing to sign on to the same treaty which it can be argued would have significant economic demands. Remember that this is a treaty that's been watered down so much it will have almost no impact on global warming. Gore presents a neither fair nor balanced treatment of Kyoto, and anyone familiar with the details will understand this. However, if you are not familiar with these details, the movie paints a down right dastardly picture of the US in this regard.

Now consider the conflation I mentioned above. In the movie, Gore takes a sample of scientific papers in the field of climatology to determine the current consensus on anthropogenic climate change. His sample shows that all the papers surveyed showed the following: anthropogenic climate change is a fact, meaning that man is in fact having an effect on the climate. Heck, I believe even Bush agrees with this statement. The problem I have is that he trys to conflate this consensus with all of the horrible _possible_ effects. For example he goes on to talk about the western part of Antarctica or all the glaciers in Greenland melting into the oceans. He doesn't attempt to determine what the scientific consensus is on these events, and I would argue that he doesn't do anything to prevent conflation of scientific consensus about the probability of these events with the consensus on anthropogenic climate change.

Next consider some of the possible secondary effects of global warming. Gore speaks of animals going extinct as a result of climate change. To me this is a very possible reality depending on the degree of climate change. During this portion of presentation he shows pictures of extinct species. Just glancing at the screen I noticed that there was a picture of a dodo bird and one of the tasmanian tiger (a marsupial similar to a dog with tiger-like strips on it's back). The dilemma here is that these animals have gone extinct as a result of being hunted to extinction, and not, to the best of my knowledge, as a result of global warming.

Another secondary effect of climate change is the ability of species to move to different regions that cooler climates would have prevented them from moving. He cites as an example of this the west Nile virus being spread by mosquitos. I honestly have no idea about this, but he also shows pictures of other diseases. The first one I noticed was ebola. I have never heard about any study linking the spread of ebola to global warming. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I've just never heard of it. But let me tell you this. If I thought that global warming would lead to me bleeding to death from every hole in my body, I'd certainly become concerned about global warming. Of course this doesn't cause me to think, it makes me react out of fear.

In order to explain complicated issues to the lay person, the issues sometimes have to be simplified to a degree. I understand this need, and I'm sure my understanding of climate change is no where that of a climatologist. However, just as I'm no climatologist, Al Gore is obviously no mathematician. At one point he makes the following statement:

<blockquote>
The earth climate is like a big engine for redistributing heat from the equator to the poles. It does that by means of ocean current and wind current. They tell us, the scientists do, that the earth climate is a non-linear system. It's a fancy way they have of saying that the changes are not all just gradual. Some of them come suddenly in big jumps.
</blockquote>

I may not understand atmospheric dynamics, but I do understand mathematical modeling. I can tell you, for example, that linear systems can respond quickly (in process control we say the system has a small time constant), and there are nonlinear systems that respond quite sluggishly. When someone says that a system is nonlinear, a more honest interpretation I believe, when applied to the global climate, is _complicated_. The system can be described mathematically over the range of data we currently have. However our ability to predict what will happen will get worse as we try to predict further into the future and it will get worse as we try to predict outside of our current dataset. In other words complicated leads to "we don't completely understand it", which will probably then lead us to "there is a debate about what can happen when the CO2 levels increase".

The following is speculation based on my understanding of mathematical modeling on which I feel somewhat qualified to comment. I speculate that the climate models are characterized by parameters. These parameters are probably derived from climate data. These data have a certain amount of variability associated with them which means that there is variability in the model parameters. This variability translates into variability in what these models predict. In English this means that these models can probably predict anything from the four horsemen of the apocalypse coming down and raining pestilence and all that biblical stuff (read: the melting of all the ice in Antarctica or Greenland). They can also predict a slight increase in temperature and much more benign effects. What will really happen will lie somewhere in between those to scenarios.

Why should I harp on these points? Am I just arguing semantics and presentation style? Well, this movie is trying to communicate a position on an issue to people who may not be familiar with the issue. It deals with concepts that many may find complicated or confusing. The people I think the movie targets, or should target, are the skeptics. As soon as a skeptic sees something they are familiar with and are capable of demonstrating that what was said misrepresented some fact, they will quite likely move on to the next logical thought: If this one thing I do understand was misrepresented, how can I trust the rest of this presentation? By overstating his case, Al Gore has produced a movie which does little to convince previously skeptical people of his position. By taking jabs at Bush, he is alienating a large group of people he really needs in order to move his agenda into the mainstream. Basically, An Inconvenient Truth to me is nothing more than a sermon to the choir of people who already agree with it's premises. I've provided a few examples, and these were the ones that jumped out at me. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more.

Issues like this should be debated openly and honestly. If Al Gore is really concerned with this issue he should present it in a way that appeals to reason and logic and not emotions. Sure, he can present that one of the possible outcomes of global warming is large scale melting of ice at the poles. He should not conflate the scientific consensus with respect to anthropogenic climate change with such worst case scenarios. Instead he should lay out the underlying assumptions which lead to these outcomes, the fraction of scientists which believe these to be realistic outcomes, any uncertainty associated with those outcomes, and reasonable opposing theories. The problem with this? Movies intended to make one think critically about a subject tend to be, just like this analysis, exceedingly BOORING.

Keep in mind that I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with his position. Rather I'm looking at his methodologies with respect to what I think he is trying to, or should be trying to, accomplish. An alternative would be to provide the even handed debate I stated above, and also look into what I consider to be harmful effects of the US dependence on foreign oil. I think energy independence would be very appealing to folks on both sides of the debate. Of course, in the short term (next 20-50 years) I think this means more reliance on nuclear power which many on the left think is just as bad as fossil fuels.

As an aside, am I the only one who thought this movie was a commercial for PowerBooks (now MacBooks) and Apple's presentation software Keynote? In this regard, I think they may have attracted the appropriate target audience.

All quotes taken from this unofficial transcript:

http://www.hokeg.dyndns.org/AITruth.htm
--

Customer Service

2007-01-29T13:07:00.000-08:00

In graduate school, I met people from more or less everywhere. I tended to spend a disproportionate amount of time with Indians -- the kind who give preference to gods that have multiple arms; not the kind that once hunted buffalo in North America -- specifically a guy in my research group named Abhi. One day, I believed he had recently returned a squash racket he was dissatisfied with, he remarked on the differences between businesses in the US versus those in India. Evidentially, customer satisfaction and customer service are a little wanting in his homeland. Most companies in the US have fairly forgiving policies concerning returns and warranties. However, most would require a person to send defective products in for servicing, or take them back to the store where they were purchased -- these last two options can be quite challenging for a Volunteer.

Last April my father asked me what I wanted for my birthday. All I really wanted were shoes. Being a little on the broke side when I started here, I didn't have a big budget. I arrived with one pair of running shoes which have not improved with the humidity. I needed new running shoes, but for every day walking I had been using flipflops. Now would be a good time to mention that I don't really walk well. In fact, I tend to trip a lot; tripping over lines painted on the street is not uncommon for me. I found that this penchant for falling increases significantly when I'm wearing flipflops or any shoe that isn't attached to my foot. I thought I'd get used to wearing them, but after a few months it didn't seem to be the case. So I also needed some sort of sandal type shoe because it's just too darn humid to walking around everywhere in shoes.

Fortunately for me, my roommate worked for a store in Dallas called 'Whole Earth Provision Company'. There he sold camping equipment to yuppies trying to help them achieve that mid-life crisis they had read so much about. In the course of working there, he became quite familiar with all the different shoes available. He was fond of a company called Chaco, and an informal survey of the volunteers here showed these to be the preferred shoe of volunteers, second only to the 4ST Jandal sold locally. Bryan helped me figure out what size I needed and I sent my dad an email asking for shoes.

The shoes came, and I was quite happy with them. I got a new pair of New Balances for running and made a note to try to avoid running in the rain. The Chacos were simple, comfortable and quickly molded around my feet. They worked quite well with the terrain here and seemed fairly durable. This remained the case until the end of November when I noticed the tread was separating from the sole.

This was a little frustrating for me. I understand that things happen, and I don't expect products to work perfectly. I also understand that most people don't want to warranty stuff from overseas, so I assumed I'd have to get them back to the US. I thought, well, I might as well see what my options are. I emailed Chaco, explaining my predicament, and asking what my warranty options were. This is a reply from Ilene in customer service:

John,
I do apologize for all of the inconveniences this has caused you. Recently, we changed our glue product to a water base glue, to safe guard our employee's from chemicals that we had to use with our last glue product. During this time, our temperature and combining procedure was a challenge, so a few pairs have slipped thru our testing process. We have since then cured the problem and our quality is like it should be.
If possible, could you send me a digital picture of the problem, then I will be more then happy to send you a new pair?
Again, I do apologize for any inconveniences this has caused you.
Sincerely, Ilene

I was really impressed with her candor and honesty about the problem. I also thought it was generous of them to just send me a new pair of shoes and not requiring the original pair in return. I sent a couple images of the problem, and Ilene told me they would mail me out a new pair at the first of the year. Fortunately for me, they chose priority mail instead of the ground, which would have taken months to get here, and the new sandals arrived last week. The customer service with this company is simply amazing, and I'm sure this is reflected in their customer loyalty.

Lost and Found

2007-01-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

We spent New Years at Falealupo in Savai'i. Aside from kids throwing rocks, the trip was more eventful. When returning from the Wharf to Apia, I looked back and noticed that Candice and I had lost Bryan. We turned around and found him shortly. Standing on the side of the road, he was with two Samoan boys on bikes and a couple on foot. I asked him if there was a problem and he pointed to the bike one of the boys was riding.

Jump back ten days

Maka, the volunteer who lives out at the far end of Savai'i, is in town. He's in a park by the sea wall in Apia and in the process of wooing another volunteer. In his distracted state, he left his bike unlocked but within eyesight. Having his attention drawn by events not completely under his control, he looked over to find his bicycle was missing. What followed was conveyed to me as none too successful attempts at contacting the Peace Corps duty officer, calling the police and explaining the situation in a second language, and a failed attempt at encircling Apia with a dragnet.

Back to the present

I think Maka had written off getting his bike back, I know I certainly had. It was a safe assumption that it had been stripped down, the frame spray painted some pimped out color, strange reflectors attached and possibly neon lights added. But this kid was sitting on his bike. It had the smiling avocado sticker, his rack, even his bungie cords. Bryan was in the process of trying to get in touch with the duty officer and/or our safety and security officer -- no answers. Bryan called Holly and turned her loose on the problem of getting in contact with someone from the Peace Corps and having them call us back.

Candice and I had arrived as Bryan was talking to Holly, and the boy insisted that the bike was not his, but rather his friends. One of the kids standing around took off to get the purported owner. After a few minutes of talking to the kid on the bike, the "owner" showed up looking agitated and a little nervous. He pulled the bike away from us and started to ride away. Bryan and I began to follow him. He rode away slowly at first, but when he noticed we were following him he sped up. He turned toward a large church, and then moved on to some trails between houses.

Bryan broke off to find some people in the village to talk to, but I stayed with him. He was getting a little stressed out and stopped the bike. He picked up a large stone and told me go back. Keeping a good distance between us, I told him I couldn't do that. Frustrated, he put the rock down and got back on his bike. I continued to follow him, keeping at least ten feet between us. He turned off of this trail onto a road heading inland.

Aside:
Each village has it's own rules. Some villages don't allow hair on men below the collar, most require women to wear lavalavas when in public. Many of villages have roads (or portions of roads) that bikes are not allowed to ride on -- however cars are just fine. These roads aren't labeled and people who live in the village are expected to just "know" which roads are forbidden.

As I follow the young man up the road, Samoans on the sides of the road are telling him to get off of his bike. He gets off and asks me to do the same. So now I'm giving chase by pushing my bike behind someone who is doing the same. I had the images of the OJ car chase passing through my mind. When we reached the end of the forbidden section of the road we got back on our bikes and started riding. Thinking I could talk him into coming back with me, I started communicating with him. I asked him where we were going. He told me his mothers house, this along with pretty much everything else would turn out to be a lie. I asked him where he got the bike and he told me he bought it from "a guy" whose name he did not know. I asked him is name and age which he claimed were Tui and 22, respectively -- both lies. I didn't expect much, but I was trying to get him to relax and realize how pointless running away was.

Eventually the road turned into a rocky dirt road and he couldn't ride anymore. After he starts pushing his bike he then volunteers that he's a boxer. After I asked how many fights he'd won and the told me all of them. Now this kid is in good shape, but he's no boxer. He was also quite worn out, so I gave him some of my water. Along the road there have been other people and houses. However, we were starting to get into an overgrown portion of the road and we came up on the last house I could see from the road. It was apparent he was willing to walk right into the jungle. Not feeling completely comfortable with that destination, I decided to turn back. He mentioned that he was hungry, so I gave him a can of tuna and met back with Bryan and Candice at the main road.

Bryan had found the Pule of the village (Leulumoegatuai) and a high ranking Matai. With their help, the police had been found. It turns out the guy was from the next village over. They had is name, which wasn't Tui, his mom's name, and the location of her house. Evidentially there is a trial linking the two villages close the place where I left the young man, so I guess we might have been going to his moms house though I doubt it. The cops caught him on the other side of the trail with the bike. Our safety and security officer showed up and we loaded Makas bike and our own on the vehicle and headed home.

Makas bike was recovered, and everyone but the boxer was having a pretty good day. The people from Leulumoegatuai were really helpful. We returned the next day with a couple cases of mackerel. I found it odd that the police would just give us the bike back without us even providing the initial police report of the theft. In my mind, there is no doubt that it was Makas bike, but from the perspective of the police I should think it would be prudent to hold on to the bike until some tangible evidence of ownership was provided.

The Little Things

2006-12-29T16:03:00.000-08:00

My PowerBook is the first Mac I've ever really used. Since I got it, I've found lots of really neat things that Apple thought of that really takes advantage of hardware. For example, when it is booting I can hold down the 't' key and instead of booting into OS X it will become an external hard drive. I can connect my laptop to another computer via the firewire connection and transfer files between the two computers.

Well Bryan and I are house sitting for a coworker. She has dialup on her computer at home. While I can check my email through the gmail interface, it's much more useful for me to use my computer. No worries, I've got a modem and I can use her dialup account to connect. However, Apple discontinued internal modems in their laptops, so Bryan is out of luck. I thought about it, and I was pretty sure I could set my computer up as a wireless router sharing the modem connection. I've done stuff like this in Linux, but it normally involves me poking around on the Internet for an hour or so to "remember" how to do it.

I thought, Hum I wonder if I can do this easily. I started poking around in the system preferences (like the control panel in windows). I type in 'NAT' (network address translation) and the 'Sharing' icon is highlighted. I select 'Sharing' and notice that there is an 'Internet' option which looks to do exactly what I want. I just tell the computer I want to share my connection from the 'internal modem' to computers using 'Airport'. There I have it, I have a computer setup to do wireless NAT.

Pathetic

2006-12-26T14:11:00.000-08:00

Bryan and I are sitting down to breakfast when we hear this rather meek kitten outside. At first we think our neighbors kitten has escaped, and we go outside to collect it. While they look similar, this is definitely not our neighbors cat. It has a gimpy rear leg, and is clearly starving.

It's ironic that many of Darwins observations came from an island in the South Pacific, and if anyone has a chance I'd encourage them to read Sex Lives of Cannibals. While the entire book is interesting, in this context I'm referring more specifically the part about the dogs of Kiribati which I think extrapolates well to both dogs and cats in Samoa. I think its a bit underwhelming to say that island life is less than ideal for animals that require large amounts of protein in their diet. As a result, many of the carnivores here lie on the verge of starvation, and the competition for protein can quite literally lead to a dog eat dog situation. The resulting animals are also the most robust.

So when this pathetic kitten starving and damaged arrived on my doorstep my first thought was to kill it. Unless someone is willing to step in and make up the balance of its energy deficit, that will be its eventual fate in the next week. Fortunately for this kitten, the Peace Corps is full of people who tend to anthropomorphize and get all emotional when they see a starving kitten. So my second thought was to keep the cat alive through the Christmas holiday, present it to some volunteers and tell them to take it or I'm going to snap its neck.

The cat could obviously smell our breakfast and quickly came in when I opened the door -- as quickly as a starving kitten with three fully functional legs can. Our cat Griselda, seemed to object to the little visitor. She began to grumble and hiss a bit. I assumed she was just laying down the law: "this is my house, watch yourself, etc.", something along those lines. Griselda clearly has the advantages: ten times the weight, she is healthy, flea collar, the entire place smells like her, etc. Well the kitten was, as I assume many animals who are starving to death are, undeterred. The kitten took a step forward, Griselda hissed one last time, her hair flared up, and she ran away.

In that moment Griselda redefined pathetic. This is the point where it is obvious we treat her too well. To protect Griseldas delicate self esteem, and to prevent the kitten from giving her any diseases she might have, we took the kitten outside to our shed and gave her some food. She's safe until after Christmas unless there is someone out there who wants to sponsor a cat: For just as little as a quarter a day, you too can provide this club footed cat with the life saving food and flea collars it needs to survive:

The Land of Bye Bye

2006-12-26T13:17:00.000-08:00

Prophecy: a pilgrimage will be made about the largest island of Savai'i.

My idea of a vacation typically involves moving my rather robust rear end around the edges of the country on a piece of aluminum and two tiers. As I spend more time in and around the Apia area, I really start to get restless. I am fortunate that Candice, a fellow volunteer from my training group, also has a taste for such silliness. So to quell this restlessness, I planned a trip with her to bike around Savai'i. The plan was to leave on the 15th of December and tool about in Savai'i, staying with other volunteers and corrupting the fine peoples in the far reaches. It's just our luck that such reaches are paved and sport stores which stock large quantities of water, salty snack food, and canned tuna. Of course the following sounds much more adventurous if one pictures a deserted island covered with foliage and bicycles equipped brush clearing devices. Some time between the initial planning of the trip and the time we actually left, others thought such a bike trip sounded like a good idea. I did my best to discourage them: I described the extreme dehydration, the occasional necessity of cannibalism, and the ritual sacrifice of small children along the way to the god of firm tires and overcast skys (strangely enough this duty is delegated to the same god). In the end three others would not be abated. Candice and I were joined by Jordan, Stephanie, and Jame all from group 76. Jame is pronounced like 'Jamie' except in New York City the socialists banned the letter 'i' in names hoping to reduce individualism and encourage collectivism.

On the 15th, group 76 was celebrating the birth of one of it's members, Vik, in his village Sale'auala on Savai'i. The goal was to ride from Apia to the wharf, take the ferry to Salealoga, bike up to Viks village, and enjoy some hot dogs. Well, I was focused on the hot dogs but others may have focused more on other carbon based consumables. The Upolu side of this leg is a little over 20 miles and the Savai'i portion is around 30. If one averages about 10 miles per hour, not an unreasonable number given much of the land is flat-ish, that's only five hours with a firm piece of plastic covered in faux leather crammed in ones nether-regions. Leaving at 7.30 we could be at the wharf in time to catch the 10am ferry, arrive at Savaii around 11.30 and make it to Viks around three. Well that was a plan, not 'the' plan because definite articles are to be used sparingly when planning more or less anything.

For instance there is a subset of folks who feel that leaving sharp pieces of cable in the streets of Apia to be a good idea. So we started with a flat tire about 1/4 of a mile from the Peace Corps office. This also happened to be across the street from a couple of bars and attracted the attention of a drunken individual whose slurred Samoan was especially difficult for me to understand. I balanced my time between changing the tire and intercepting his touchy feely intentions. Ten or fifteen minutes later we were back on the road and we could probably still make the ferry if we didn't stop.

The ride from Apia to the wharf is really pleasant. It runs along the coast and any changes in elevation are modest. I was expecting a relatively benign trip to the wharf. About 2/3's of the way there Jame says she needs to stop for some water. We stop, drink a bit and she says she needs to sit down. At that point she faints, though she contends she didn't faint because she never hit the ground -- next time I'll forego catching her to make it official. At this point my mind shifted from catching the 10 o-clock ferry to wondering if we should call the trip off. See, this was supposed to be the easy part, and taxi vans are easily to come by.

We sat for a while under a tree in someones front yard filling her with rehydration salts, food, and other pleasantries. She said she wanted to keep on going, so I gave her my water bladder to carry in her backpack and we trudged on. I rode in the back to keep an eye on her, and I just kept imagining her collapsing while riding. I know, I'm always called the pessimist, but really I was being an optimist. If she passed out and was run over by a car, we could use her bike for parts. Otherwise we arrive with no problems: Either way I win!

Sadly enough the rest of the trip to the wharf was uneventful. We got there in plenty of time to eat, catch the noon ferry, and get a shot of a more or less typical Samoan bicycle. Candice used her feminine wiles to convince a gentlemen with an empty truck to let us put our bikes on the back which saved us 5ST per bike. I laid down on the floor of the ferry and slept (completely socially acceptable here) most of the way there.

The wharf on Savai'i is located in Salealoga. The Peace Corps maintains a small office space across the street from the wharf. We were picking up Jordan, who made the 10am ferry, before we continued on to Viks place. When we arrived there were a few volunteers there who were cavorting about and undoubtably up to no good. It turns out a few of the guys from the new group who swore in a week or so prior cannot move into their sites until January 15th. Their organizations have put them up in a beach fale for the time being, and they were hanging out at the office where Internet access flows as freely as it can through a modem.

We ambled along towards to Viks place stopping as necessary for breaks. As we ride around the country the large roads all run through different villages. If one grew up in Arkansas or any other place where there are rural areas, and by rural I mean lacking conventional plumbing, you might appreciate the spectacle of having a bunch of non-native looking people passing in front of the house. People here are friendly, and will try to get your attention as you pass through. A common, and quite effective, method of obtaining someones attention here is to make kissing sounds. Also, it's also common to say 'fa' (the Samoan word for 'bye') as you meet someone in passing. So we pass through villages we get lots of kissing noises (from adults) and lots of 'bye bye' (from the kids). Based on anecdotal experience, the amount of 'bye bye' and kissing sounds seems more frequent on Savai'i than on Upolu. It also seems to drive some volunteers kind of crazy. I just look at it from the perspective of people who live in a small community who think "hey a white dude on a bike I'll make a kissing sound to say "what's up"" -- more or less a friendly greeting. So when we would stop for our breaks, I'd try my hand at small talk, and a lot of the people here really enjoy having their picture taken. (It's also probably useful to mention that children are sometimes told that white people will eat them.)

We rolled up at Viks, I believe, around five. At this point my arse is a little sore and I'm giving off a pungent ripe smell. The rest of group 76 is already there, and seem somewhat relieved that we made it. His house is really nice. I was a little confused by the flagpole in the front until Vik told me half of his house is going to be the first pulenu'u (village mayor) office in the country. I made a point of telling his host father/pulenu'u how nice the place was. I eventually made my way to the shower where I also washed my clothes. I then had hot dogs, baked beans, and other tasty goodness.

I think the days riding curtailed any party intentions my fellow riders may have had. I don't think they even realize it now that they rode close to 50 miles in one day which I think was quite an accomplishment. Eventually they spent most of their time laying around while Candice gave out back massages.

The following morning Neocon John (oh to be a neoconservative in the Peace Corps), inspired by the back rubs from the previous night, asked if someone would walk on his back. I was happy to oblige him.

It was decided that a break was needed and Manase, a touristy village with beach fale's for rent was just around the corner. I had made arrangements for us to spend that night with another volunteer named Maka. His family in the states owns a meat farm in upstate New York. Since he's from the rural part of the state I don't normally refer to him as a Yankee though he's probably close enough to be mistaken for Canadian. During training we are sent off for a "Volunteer Visit" where we spend a few days with a current volunteer. I spent my visit with Maka and his Samoan family. I wasn't eager to spend the 50ST on a beach fale, and I kind of wanted to hang out with Maka. So I left the ladies at the beach fales and pushed on.

I rode along the coast for a while before I headed into the mountains and eventually the road passed across a lava field made in the early 1900's after what I speculate was an unsatisfying sacrifice of some Tongans. While the first day was nice and overcast, this day was decidedly not so. I could always see storm clouds and eventually I did catch up to them, but most of this leg was bright and sunny. The benefit of this was a very picturesque ride.

Maka lives in Papa Sataua which lies above the village of Sataua on a substantial hill. I tend to stop a lot and take pictures, and I was in the process of doing this when a boy walked up and asked me where I was going. I thought to myself this is my opportunity, I could get this kid to push me up the hill. I started telling him how strong he was and asked him if he could push me up the hill. Another boy who spoke English helped me convey the message I was trying to get across. Of course I was only joking with him, but I believe he was committed to pushing me up the hill toward the end of the conversation.

At the top of the hill across the street from the road leading to Makas place is a little fale folks sit under when waiting for buses. As I approached I noticed that there were about five young men sitting around drinking. They began to take notice of me, and their first question was something to the effect of "where are the four girls?". It seems Maka had told his family and it didn't take long for the word to get out that four Peace Corps girls were coming... oh yeah and some guy. Needless to say, they were a little sad to see only me.

I arrived at Makas a little tired. After taking a shower he made some coffee and appetizers. We hung out and talked for a bit, and eventually his brother Malo showed up. The pictures below don't really do justice to his hands. Years of husking coconuts coupled with superior genetics have given him some huge hands. Malo showed up with a bottle of vodka in hand. The better part of the bottle had already been consumed with his friends, and when they passed out he snuck off with the remainder. He too was expecting some ladies. He'd already become smitten with Peta, Jordans Samoans name, even though he had never met her.

Not to be dissuaded and adapting to new conditions, Malo decided that he and Maka should share the rest of the fagu malosi (fagu=bottle, malosi=strong). As dinner rolled around, Malo decided we should eat at Makas place instead of the fale with the rest of the family, and he brought dinner out to us. It was typical Samoan food: taro, a couple different soups, and cocoa. His family tends to cook good food. As the night wore on, the strong bottle began to get the better of Malo, and he and Maka began to dance in a sitting position which I read somewhere is common among Polynesian folks.

The following day was pretty laid back. The others arrived in the afternoon to little fanfare. Maka and I rode to the bottom of the hill to provide moral support and carry any heavy stuff up the hill for them. The young men who were there waiting for me lost interest in the span of a day and were no longer there. Everyone was pretty funky so baths were in order. We had dinner with Makas family that evening and made them happy by eating large quantities of food. The best way to be a good guest here is to have seconds or thirds at meals. We stayed up late that night and slept in a bit.

Our next destination was the beach fales at Satuiatua where we were going to stay the night, but we were going to go a little out of the way and spend lunchtime at Falealupo. Falealupo is the village on the western most chunk of Samoa and it also has the distinction of being the last part of land on this side of the international date line. So many colorfully refer to sunset there as the last sunset on earth. This is where many of us are planning on spending New Years Eve, and Maka wanted to confirm reservations with the proprietor of the beach fales so he accompanied us. We spent lunch time at the fales allowing the hottest part of the day to pass us by.

One of the more interesting sights around Falealupo is the Catholic Church below. It was blown asunder, as the saying goes, along with the village around it by cyclone Ofa in 1990. After the heavy smiting the village was moved inland, but some of the more permanent structures like foundations and this church still survive.

Across the street from the church is a grave which is uncharacteristically open (as can be seen behind Candice). Inside are the remains of several people who died long enough ago such that only their bones remain. I'm not sure why this is, but I do know that Samoans look at graves a little differently than most folks back home do. Many families have graves in their front yard for highly respected members of the family. It's also common for Samoans to hang out and sleep on graves or even to use them to dry their laundry.

After leaving Falealupo, Maka returned to his village and we tooled along to the village of Satuiatua where we were planing on staying at beach fales for the evening. It was overcast and we were rained on a bit, but it was more or less uneventful. Since we didn't call ahead, all that was available for dinner was fish and chips but that didn't matter since I knew this place would have cereal for breakfast. I know it sounds strange but I never really have cereal here, and I really like the stuff. It's not lack of availability, but my own personal lack of self control -- an open box in the morning will probably be empty the next day. The cereal offerings are New Zealand/Australian variants of the standard stuff you'd get back in the States but the names are much better. Really, Frosted Miniwheats is so banal. Now Frosted Minispooners, that's a name that just rolls off your tongue.

We were planning on staying the night with a married couple, Jan and Ray, who also came with group 76. Between Satuiatua and their village is the village of Taga which is know for its blow holes. These are channels in the rocks created by cooling lava which connect breaking waves to the surface. As the waves crash into the shore the energy pushes water into these channels and forces it out the other end. Jan biked there and met us so we could all do the touristy thing together. We were charged 5ST to get in and then when we got to the blowholes a gentleman named Tofa tried to charge us 1ST per bike to "park" them. After we declined and told him we'd "park" the bikes on the road, he relented.

Dead crabs littered the beach, and I speculate they had the trip of their lives through the holes which were quite loud and impressive. After some substantial gawking we went to a fale along side the road for lunch and a nap.

The next destination was Jans place in Vaiala. It was a couple hours and a flat tire away. We stopped a few times for water and I speculate to alleviate the pressure created by the bike seats.

Jan and Ray have a nice place. Across the street is a pool where we bathed shortly after arriving. Candice and I went to the store to pick up some food so we could have French toast, or Freedom toast if one prefers, for dinner. Ray has been experimenting with the normal Samoan fare and he made some tasty meat balls with corned beef and ground taro. I must admit that I'd never eaten corned beef before coming here. My host family preferred to eat it straight out of the can which produced a gelatinous cylinder like a huge can of cat food. Being psychologically challenged by the texture, I never actually ate it until they snuck it in by putting it inside of a toasted sandwich which was actually pretty good. Though sometimes I stare into the corned beef and try to read the future like tea leaves.

Jan and Ray are interesting folks. They joined the Peace Corps 20 years ago shortly after getting married and served in Morocco. I suppose they enjoyed that experience because after their kids grew up they joined again. I really look forward to talking to these folks in the future.

That night we slept in the open fale surrounded by mosquito coils, or as I like to call them "Samoan incense", and took our leave the next morning after a satisfying breakfast of scrambled eggs and hot dogs. It was about 45 minutes to the wharf.

On Upolu, Jame and Stephanie decided the bus was better to take back to Apia. Candice, Jordan and I biked back and we made it home by around two in the afternoon. I went home to clean myself up. After almost a week of hand washing clothing and drying them on the back of my bike while we rode, I had developed a pungent, yet self assuring, smell. I also got a bit of sun and cultivated what I like to refer to as the "used car salesman tan" which qualifies me for membership in the "Rick Delkemp Fan Club".

And to provide a little contrast:

I Say Old Chap.

2006-12-12T14:40:00.000-08:00

It's time for a lovely excursion out to the countryside.

Bryan and I decided to take a trip out to see our host families and to spend some time with Josh, another volunteer living on the south eastern part of Upolu. We left Sunday morning around six so that we could get into Falevao, our training village, before church started. We made pretty good time and arrived around 7.30. Since church starts at nine, I had plenty of time to take a shower and put on my Sunday best, a white linen shirt and a nice lavalava. In the States I never go to church, and those who know me would find the following to be an understatement: I'm not a particularly religious person.

However, church seems to be pretty important to the folks here, and my host mother really seems to enjoy it when I go. I don't mind much, though some sermons can be a trial of will. Since most of the service is given in Samoan, and I understand less than my two-year-old niece, the preacher could be fomenting revolution for all I know. Since I don't have a clue about what is being said, I just sit back, think, joke with my host sister, perplex the kids out with my flexibility, and listen to the music. I like the music most of all, though my vocabulary being what it is, I really don't know the specifics. I am able to get this: God and Jesus are quite amiable folks and seem to deserve a lot of praise. The best part is that most of the songs are sung to music played by a guy using a synthesizer. I know many are not familiar with the tormented genius of Wesley Willis, but every time I hear the guy at church fire up the synthesizer, Wesley Willis is the first thing that pops into my mind. I imagine him singing something like the following (note this will only make complete sense if one is familiar with Wesley Willis is and also spent some time in Samoa):

It was a rockin' show at the Falevao lotu
The sermon really whipped the pigs ass
The faifeau really rocked the fale
He read from the book of Iosua
Fa'afetai Iesu
Fa'afetai Iesu
Fa'afetai Iesu
Fa'afetai Iesu
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago
Samoatel, Top it off.

At least that is what goes through my head, but in reality the people in the church are much more harmonious:

2006.12-samoa-upolu-5.mp3

2006.12-samoa-upolu-3a.mp3

For the village, church is the big event of the week, everyone gets gussied up. Standard fare for guys is an ie faitoga (think dress skirt), a shirt, jacket, and a tie (all white). Andrew's host family gave him a nice pink tie to wear the first time we went to church during training -- think 80's new wave band. The ladies will normally wear white dresses and large hats. These are a few pictures I took in training.

After church, we went home and had To'ana'i, the Sunday afternoon meal -- think thanksgiving-like consumption every Sunday. I subsequently passed out for an hour or so. I have a grandmother in the village who is suffering from Parkinson's disease. She has a little area of the main fale that is hers, and most people leave her alone in that area. While she seems pretty nice to me, whenever I tried to talk to her during training there was one thing I always understood: my Samoan is bad. She always seems really excited to see me. I believe this is because she is pretty lonely.

I'm told she was quite the disciplinarian back in the day. I've heard some good stories about her accuracy with rocks implying that her reach did not stop at the end of her arm. This brand of negative feedback fits in well with my own experiences outside of my family and from what I've heard from other volunteers.

Aside on child rearing
Some of the other volunteers are convinced that any form of corporal punishment for kids is just evil. I personally have no problems with it. I recall one January when my father drug me outside, stripped me to my underwear, and hung me upside down from a tree. He then went and gathered my friends and hosed me down with a water hose as they pointed and laughed... No, my dad didn't do this, but I remember threatening my sisters with this when they were younger. I'm sure the benefits from such a treatment would far outweigh any emotional scaring. Basically, I don't really have any problems with beating kids when they deserve it. It's just wrong to do it for fun. However, if you enjoy beating them when they do deserve it, well that's just part of the human condition. Basically, child rearing here hasn't been denatured like it has in the States. Of course the lady who threw a stick at her kid and killed him, it's true, I read it in the news paper, probably needs more guidance when it comes to dealing with kids.

Well, back to my grandmother in the village. I always say hello to her when I arrive. She always asks when I'll be leaving and when I'll be coming back -- of I don't feel any pressure with this ;). Old folks are taken care of pretty well here. Best I can tell, my grandmother has four daughters and one son still living. She stays at our house where my host mother's family takes care of her which is I believe how the elderly and infirm are taken care of here. Because she is the matriarch of the family, she's given a large area of the main fale. Most of the rest of the family spend time in the smaller fale where the cooking is done. For special church services there are performances (Christmas, Easter, etc.) and communion (first Sunday of the month). The church will send people out to the houses of the infirm to give them communion or perform for them. Given all of this, she still spends a significant amount of time alone. So when her grandson came over to take her out for a drive she was pretty excited. I think that was the first time I've seen her leave the house area.

After that, we had a little dinner and watched "Golden Stars", the Samoan version of star search. Following that was something with "Hiphop" in the title. This is a show where people do dance sequences to mixes of popular songs. I know this is going to date me, but if anyone who grew up in the 80's remembers the show "puttin' on the hits', combine that with "You Got Served", and throw in a little break dancing and you have the Hiphop Show. As the evening went on, kids from my end of the village started to collect around the tv. After about 45 minutes of the Hiphop Show it was time for bed. Marques was going to meet Bryan and myself, and we were going to Josh's village.

Bryan showed up at my fale around eight or half past and said that Marques had called and he was fairly close. Marques arrived a little exasperated asking for water. I gave him my spare niu which he vigorously consumed. We left Falevao around nine. Much to Marques' chagrin, we spent the first 45 minutes to an hour going uphill. After this there was another large hill before we reached Josh's village. The most humbling moment was when a sixty to seventy year old woman chopping down a tree, about a foot wide, with a machette told us how we were string bike riders.

Josh teaches carpentry at the Aleipata Secondary School which is located in the village of Saleaumua on the eastern tip of Upolu. He lives in a house at the school with two other Samoan teachers and a student. Josh is living what I would call the "Peace Corps Dream". He's living with host country nationals, electricity is uncertain, and the only running water he currently has comes from the PVC pipe in his front yard. The water is pumped from one or two villages away, and I believe the pump is broken so the water literally comes out in a trickle. I'm pretty sure the pump is at a lower elevation because if he lifts the pipe off of the ground the trickle stops. So for water Josh walks a couple houses over with a couple five gallon buckets which he uses to fill his toilet and water filter. For bathing Josh goes to the public pool which is a natural spring which mixes with sea water. See what I mean? "Peace Corps Dream"

I don't think most people appreciate how important water can be. Back home one turns the valve and it pours out of the faucet clean enough (in most cities anyways) to drink. I've been in a few situations here where I was staring at water thinking to myself: "Self, do you really see anything in there, it wont kill you. There's no such thing as microbes, it's just evil spirits. If I get sick I can just rubs some leaves in coconut oil on my belly and it will fix it". Self would always reply with sound advice protecting my intestines. Understanding the importance of water, Josh quickly filled out the paperwork for a grant for tanks to store rain runoff. As it turned out, the grants went through and he just needed a truck to get the tanks from Apia to his village.

That night Eric, another volunteer living down the road, came over. He finished training around August/September, and was living with a host family. He had been pushing for a Faleo'o, a traditional Samoan fale with a thatched roof. He had the money for it, but getting it built was something different. Matai meetings had been held and Eric said that tomorrow looked like the day. I thought this would be pretty neat to watch and possibly help out with --- westerners here are like delicate flowers and may be easily broken by physical labor.

When we showed up the next morning, Eric was out in the jungle with the fellas gathering up thatching for the roof. I sat back and watched the machette artists do their work.

As I understand it, the Swiss Army has their own knife, and I hear the generals even get one with a remote control. Really though, who needs some special attachment two open cans that's just going to get broken? The machette is a single blade of metal that can be sharpened until all that is left is a letter opener. From the day it's made in China until the last molecule of iron is oxidized it is a hammer and everything else is a nail.

Sitting in the fale with a woman named Taula (If I recall correctly) She looked to be unscrewing a copy of Street Fighter II. I asked her if it was broken and she told me they needed the tape for the roof of the faleo'o. I hope Eric appreciates the sacrifice host family was making. Honestly though, I really do appreciate how much gets reused around here. Notice the toothbrush used to thread the tape through the thatching.

By the time we had to leave, they were finishing up the outline of the roof. By the end of the day they had the skeleton of the roof finished and a good portion of the thatching. This whole process sort of reminds me of a barn raising. A communal effort to distribute the workload over several capable individuals. It would have been nice to stay a week while they finished everything.

We went to visit the head of the local church, a former language trainer for the Peace Corps. He's a Catholic, but not a priest, but like a priest except he has a wife and quite a few kids; I think the word he used was catacyst. He fed us, basically any time you go into someone's house here they feed you. The highlight was a lime juice drink sort of like limeaid.

Later, after returning to Josh's house, a truck was driving up with three water tanks and some cement. The truck from the village was having mechanical difficulties. It was just as well because it is small and would have taken three trips. The pule (short for puleaoga or principal) hired someone to transport the tanks. It worked out well, and I'm sure Josh is really excited at the prospect of having fresh water close at hand. I got Bryan to take the second picture because Heather says the only pictures she sees of me is when I'm at the beach or at a party. Yeah that's Marques taking pictures of me. See he didn't want to get his Best Buy shirt dirty. I think it was the special Windows XP release day shirt. That evening we played a mean game of scrabble and went to bed relatively early.

We left the next morning at sunrise. We rode along the cost for a bit before heading inland. Between me getting a flat tire and stopping for a snack and some water, it took us about four hours to get from Josh's place at the northern part of the eastern tip of Upolu to the cross island road by my house that bisects the island. So we started at about 100 ft above sea level at a little after ten in the morning. It took us about three hours to get up to aroud 2500 ft. Along the way the wet season caught up with us and dumped copious amounts of water from the sky. Some would say the rain gods were angry, but I actually welcomed the water over the afternoon sun. Close to the top of the hill we arrived at Papapapaitai Falls. On that day the humidity had the clouds hanging low.

I've ridden down this hill, but I've never gone up it. However, once I saw the railing on this hill I recognized it as the last hill (or the first when going down), so I paused to take a picture.

The Smell of Death

2006-12-07T13:22:00.000-08:00

Some days you're laying down on a mat in your living room and you think to yourself: "It sure smells like something died." Perhaps one of the starving dogs succumbed in the sugarcane outside your window. You may look up at the volunteer visiting you and say, "do you smell something rotting"? He replies in the negative and you think you're imagining it. As you get ready for bed, you pull off your shirt and think: "Man I'm sweating something quite fetid and rank, this just isn't normal". Ants seem to come to you where they didn't before and you think: "Have I died and just didn't realize it?". Then you notice the pillow you normally lay around on smells pretty bad, you pull the pillow case off and a decomposing lizard missing it's tail falls out. The missing tail tells you that was its last refuge taken while fleeing from the cat. All is well, you have not died and are not going slowly insane.

Everything is bigger in Texas

2006-10-04T11:59:00.000-07:00

Just look at the absentee voter ballots from Texas (my roommates) and Pennsylvania (mine).

Pleasing the gods..

2006-10-04T11:39:00.000-07:00

And my proxy did go to the far away land of New Zealand, and with her she took my poor injured laptop. After arriving at that distant place she sought out MagnumMac and upon their alter she placed my computer. After booting, the Apple sages would no doubt see the same finder icon that I faced not only a day before. It would become quite apparent that my PowerBook had, in a weakened state, succumbed to vile elements and would require powerful spells and devices not of this world to overcome them.

After throwing handfuls of bones and reading the signs hidden within, the sages concluded that several afflictions had occurred. The first such occurrence being he LCD screen which was creating a dimness that made viewing difficult on the eyes. The main logic board (MLB), being particularly susceptible, had suffered mightily such that it could use only one memory slot. Lastly, the strange and cryptic finder icon had come from an inability of the matted steel beastie to recall basic facts such as the location of its boot sector --- intermittent long term amnesia.

By reading the bones true it was determined by the Apple Service Sage Craig of Auckland that parts would be needed from the even more distant land of OZ. With only a week until the return of my compatriot, Craig of Auckland spoke to fellow sages in OZ and requested that one of the great flying beasts be used to bring the appendages needed to make this beast whole. Upon the request of Craig of Auckland, Apple OZ did dispatch with great haste the implements which arrived in Auckland but were withheld.

Fear of unknown magic and unpaid duties, emissaries of the Queen did seize upon these implements and did not allow passage to Craig of Auckland for a period of one week. Upon hearing this, I felt that a sacrifice was needed. Three young pigs would have to spill their blood so that the PowerBook would have life. It was merely a coincidence that the animal physiology class I teach was then covering the digestive system. Upon inspection of the pig viscera, I could see that the needed energy had been released, and I was sure there would be no more obstructions --- there could be no other interpretation, see for yourselves below.

Indeed this was the case, as smiles poured down from the heavens. My compatriot, having since returned from the distant land, left word with her relatives to inquire about the little PowerBook. A week after her departure, Craig of Auckland had gathered the sacred components sent from the Land of OZ and, after an intense casting session, resurrected the fragile PowerBook. Saved from the throws of death, which can last more than three years, the PowerBook would sit at the home of my compatriots family in New Zealand for two weeks before another traveler would make the great journey there and back. In which it would return to Samoa to further battle the harsh environment.

Your life in 80 Lbs

2006-09-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

This is for any volunteers who may be coming in October. I found out I was coming to Samoa about 6 weeks before my departure date. On the floating scale of preparing to leave for Samoa, I'll define the following:

1 --- represents reading the piece of paper and saying sure I'll go and not really thinking about what you'll take until about 45 minutes before staging. Bob and his anatomical model of the human ear would probably fall close to a 1
10 --- represents the person who has their English/Samoan dictionary, has read every weblog from every Peace Core in the South Pacific, and packed the day after getting the offer. Mari would probably be closer to the 10 scale

I started out at 8 or so. I thought I was going to Mexico, and I had started to learn Spanish, reading up about the region, etc.. However, after I got medical clearance, I was told that Mexico wasn't an option but they had a nice job offer in the South Pacific. I took the job but my preparedness fell off sharply --- a combination of wasting a lot of time preparing for somewhere I was going and the need to quickly box up my life and ship it back to Arkansas --- I think I was probably a 2.5-3.

After close to a year of being here, I've been noting things I thought would have been useful to be told before I came. Some of these things I thought of and some I did not. I'm sure most of this was mentioned in the information sent to us before coming, and I just missed it. Hopefully some will benefit from my shortsightedness.

Shoes

In the words of bob: I'm moving to an island, they'll have flip flops

Shipping Addresses

I have friends in the states that gather stuff for me and ship it here. Sometimes you may want to order something online and have it shipped to someone in the States. One thing to remember is that many companies wont ship stuff to addresses unless you have called your credit card company and authorized them to ship to that address. So if you have a set of friends you will have send you stuff, make sure you call your credit card company and have their addresses put on file.

Cookware

My roommate brought a really nice Teflon coated pan that we use probably use six nights a week. We each brought a nice can opener. In retrospect, I'd probably also bring a nice cast iron skillet (I know heavy), a tortilla press, and a small (two cup) French press.

Shipping Heavy Things Here

Depending on your assignment, you may wish to ship some of your stuff here. I packed up a box of text books to be shipped here. I was told by the PCB (Peace Corps Beauracrats) that I probably didn't want to receive any packages until after training. They said it may be a problem keeping up with the package while you are in training and it may be difficult getting it to your site. So I left the box with my mom so I could have it shipped later. This advice may be more applicable to different locations, but for Samoa, you can ship what ever you want before you leave. You will have access to any packages which arrive during training, they can be put in storage until after training, and it isn't really an issue getting it to your site afterwards. Things to consider with respect to shipping:

Ground shipping can realistically take up to six months to get here. I've heard stories of a package taking a year and it took a package of mine three months.
Air mail takes between three to five weeks to arrive though legends are abound about the mysterious package that took six months to arrive with customs stamps from all across the globe.

Bike Accessories

At the end of training, you will be given a bike. The bikes we got were fairly nice Treks. They are supposed to provide you with locks and a couple other things. Now, the issue is that it's not easy to get decent locks and stuff in the country. One option is to goto the hardware store and buy a chain/padlock. You can take the receipt and be reimbursed. If I would have known, I would have just brought my u-lock from the States. If you have one, and some free weight, I'd throw the bike lock in my bag.

I also brought a patch kit, small hand pump, extra tube, and a chain tool. Later on I had a rack, some extra tubes and toeclips sent. The panniers are on their way.

Tools

I brought a small tool kit (screwdriver, vice grips, dikes, etc), a set of hex wrenches, and a bike multi-tool with me. These have been pretty useful.

Clocks

Any clock worth having here is relatively expensive. Those that I can afford on my salary don't look to last too long. When I came I had an old Timex that made it most of the way through training. However, it disappeared somewhere along the way --- along with my swiss army knife. My roommate brought a nice small travel alarm clock. It's about 2 inches by 2 inches, glows in the dark, runs of a watch battery, and has a sturdy aluminum housing. I'd bring something self contained like this or a durable wristwatch.

Computer Accessories

If you have a laptop, I'd definitely bring computer speakers. Nothing really fancy, but something that can compete with the sound of rain beating down on a metal roof.
backing up

If your warranties are going to expire on things like computers and cameras, you might want to see if they can be extended for the duration of your service.
cables

Back home most cables are relatively inexpensive and when you need them and do not have them you are screwed. Some cables I could have used if I had remembered to bring them are: male to male mini-din stereo cable. Male to male audio/video cables. A stereo male mini-din to female left/right audio cables.
clothing

When you stay in the village it's going to be the beginning of the rainy season. This means that it's going to be humid all of the time. There wont be washers and dryers available, and so your clothing probably wont get very dry. My advice is to take two sets of clothing: stuff you'll wear during training and everything else. Most of my clothes from training have a unique and characteristic smell about them. There is of course my own personal oder, of which I am quite fond. This mingles nicely with the aromatic molds that are so pervasive her. I'll probably leave most of my clothing here to avoid bringing back any invasive mold species.

The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away

2006-08-26T16:42:00.000-07:00

When god created the heavens and the earth, he (or she depending on how you anthropomorphize your deity) decided to place Samoa in the middle of the ocean far enough from the equator to be livable but not so far south to have actual seasons. This created a warm --- some might say hot at times --- and humid climate. This is an ideal climate for plants to thrive, and thrive they do. This also produced a wonderful environment for the Samoan people allowing them plenty of food to thrive and flourish.

Like the Yin and the Yang, the universe demands balance. While this combination of heat and humidity is quite agreeable to the papaya trees in my front yard, it is not so ideal for electronic equipment. It is with deep regret that I report that god had some takething to do last week. My little PowerBook was called by god to the information technology convention in the sky. It was a rather slow and painful death, that I cannot recount here because it is still too emotionally troubling. Normally slow deaths are considered bad ones, however, while standing on it's last leg, my PowerBook gave me the opportunity back up all of my important data. This last effort by my little laptop resulted in very little data lost.

While looking upon the corpse of what was once my little companion with a matte metal finish, I began to think about those service centers located in distant lands. Really, the only thing separating the recently deceased and another shot at life was a little water. A little research would reveal that the closest authorized service centers (the warranty is still valid until February 2008) are in Vanuatu and Tonga. Alas, less water than that which lies between here and Australia, but more than I can bike in a day.

I began inquiring if any one I knew was planning on making any trips abroad soon. It was with great delight that I found out my Dean was heading to New Zealand on Thursday evening. I asked her if should would make this pilgrimage with my laptop and place upon the alter of an authorized apple service person for the appropriate sacrifices. When she agreed, I could see my Mac approaching the glowing doorway to the information technology convention in the sky from the dimly lit parking lot. It could hear my voice calling it back, telling it that it was not it's time.

And so that is where it things stand now. My Dean left for New Zealand on Thursday to return a week later. The poor fragile little Mac stands and the breach between an unforgiving environment and the here after. And I toil away making lectures and practical activities for next week....

PCV to Welfare Queen

2006-08-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

So while having dinner with a volunteer who will soon return, and I was posed with a question: How does one get on welfare?

This particular volunteer, we'll call her Tinkerbell, is planning on going back to school when she returns in a few months. There is going to be a ten month period before she starts school where she will be living at her parents, and any employment will be modest. When we finish up our service, we receive a readjustment allowance. The number that is advertised is somewhere between $5,500 and $6,000 --- I don't recall the specific amount. However this is considered income, and is of course taxable. I don't find this surprising. Anytime I've ever made money, the government has always taken their portion. However, Tinkerbell, finds this very frustrating. Since she's planning on having very little income, she was wondering if it would be possible for her to get on welfare, unemployment, or foodstamps during the intermission between being a Peace Corps volunteer and a graduate student. By doing this she hopes to get back the money the government will shortly abscond from her readjustment allowance.

I should point out that she is from a state that was one of the original 13 colonies. Being from the south, I just lump all of those north east coast states into one amalgamation. I simply call them all New England. Considering the situation, I asked her what kind of house her parents have. "Is it a large house", "It's got 6 bedrooms". "Really," I ask, "and how many people live there?", "Just my parents". So I picture a mailman driving up to this nice six-bedroom house in one of the New England states (did I mention it has a wraparound porch?), to deliver a welfare check. I told her that I defiantly wanted a picture of the mailman's face when he delivered it.

At one point she asks if Whole Foods takes foodstamps. My first thought is what kind of car does she drive? It's a Honda. So I picture the following:
Fade in

A nice looking Yankee girl drives to Whole Foods in her Honda. She fills her shopping cart with organic fruits and vegetables, some nice whole grain bread, 1/2 pound of fair trade coffee, humus ground by the indigenous peoples of some middle eastern country, dried mangos, Dr. Bronners magic soaps (the peppermint kind), etc. Then she takes the cart fetus (those carts are tiny) up to the exceedingly happy person at the checkout counter. The nametag reads 'Bearskat'.

Aside:
His real name was Tom (named for his grandfather who worked 65 hours a week to send his dad to college), but that was given to him by his oppressive parents who only gave him a Mercedes for a high school graduation gift when all his friends got a Lexus. Telling his parents he was going off to college, he sold his Mercedes, and started following Phish around the country. This is where he got his new moniker. One day he was high on something, and he saw some mushrooms growing out of a steaming pile of feces. Thinking these were magic mushrooms growing from a cowpie, he decided to try a couple. His hippy friends, being true hippies (meaning they left their oppressive parents the previous year and toured with Phish), knew it was no cowpie and that these were not magic mushrooms. It turns out they were poisonous fungi sprouting from fresh bear skat. Trust me, it's easy to confuse the two. They have similar viscosities and the taste is almost identical. However, Bearskat is sightly acidic while cowpies are more grainy and fiberous. The latter depending on whether the cows are free rage or forcefed corn in one of the mans cattle farm. Phish would only have their concerts on free range cattle farms, so a cowpie t would be more familiar with the fiberous variety.

Bearskat will have that cult like glow about him that is a prerequisite for working at Whole Foods and not actually acquired while working there. His nose ring will glimmer, his hair will have the pungent smell of bees wax and patchouli (moving independently on Bearskat's head like a mound of termites), and his teeth will be yellowing from a combination of smoking and because he cannot afford the Toms of Main anise flavored tooth past he prefers. As he opens his mouth to speak, the smell of cloves betrays the partial cause of his dental delima. As Tinkerbell unloads her baskets from the tiny Whole Foods cart, she will find out Bearskat's sordid history --- it's hard to maintain hippycred when you come from such rich oppressive parents, and he's constantly having to defend himself. When the total comes up, $450, she'll pull out her food stamp card and present it. Bearskat will nod approvingly, the left side of his mouth up turned, as he and his friends also try to stick it to "The Man" whenever they can. As Tinkerbell leaves, Bearskat will invite her to goto a "Greatful Ted" show --- "It's a one man band", Bearskat explains, "My friend Ted, he does Greateful Dead covers and remixes selections from Dicks Picks; volume 16 is the best."

Tinkerbell, leaving Bearskat with a nonanswer, will then load her pesticide free, non-hormone fed, fairtrade wares into the trunk of her beige Honda Accord (I'm not sure of the color or model, but this is, of course, my imagination). She will then drive to her parents six-bedroom house and unload everything from the thick cardboard, biodegradable Whole Foods paper bags --- Who actually chooses plastic in Whole Foods? They don't have plastic, they just give you the choice so you can feel good about making the right one.

The next morning, she'll get up and have a huge grapefruit from some local organic farm, some Sumatran dark roast, and a bowl of cerial that's as dense as pet food. She'll sit on her wraparound porch reading the New Republic with her digital camera by her side. As she sees the mailman approach, she'll stroll down the driveway and thank him for her welfare check, smile, and take his picture.
Fade out

I'm sure that my more conservative friends and family will appreciate someone trying to get their hard earned tax money back, all the while defeating the system from the inside out. However starving the beast doesn't seem to be doing a very good job of killing it. The beast, it seems, has a high credit limit and the ability to set interest rates. Nevertheless, cheer on Tinkerbell as she bitchslaps uncle Sam with her pixie dust.

Oh yeah, I really do like the licorice flavored toothpaste.

Lawn Care

2006-08-10T21:33:00.000-07:00

During training, I noticed how most people would mow their lawns with weedeaters or machettes. The machette kind of made sense to me: it was cheap, few moving parts which would break, didn't require gas. The weedeater, however, seemed a little odd. As with other seemingly odd things I experience, I never really asked anyone why this was. I would ponder it for a while and come up with my own solution. If it came to my mind while I was talking with a Samoa, I'd probably ask. My reason relates to the ground here. It's full of volcanic rocks poking up every where, and I assume that this geographic feature would make using a lawn mower very expensive. Weedeaters on the other hand are quite robust when it comes to striking hard surfaces.

The most noticeable aspect to me, beyond the army of men brandishing weedeaters, is what they wear to work. Now I know that a lot of dirt and dust can be kicked up with a weedeater, but they wear coveralls and face masks. I have trouble wearing pants here in the wet season, and these guys are out in the heat of the day completely covered. Of course, around lunchtime a break must be taken. With that I'll leave you with the following:

Skin Mastication with a Side Order of Ink

2006-06-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, Andrew and Mari were going to get traditional Samoan Tattoos (tatau). Being the cultural voyeur that I am, I decided to tag along. The last final was on Wednesday, Thursday was a holiday, so taking Friday off wasn't a problem. I think their tattoos turned out really well. I took lots of pictures (340+ MB), and I'm uploading them as I type this. To read their accounts you can check out their respective webspaces: Andrew and Mari.
Update:

I uploaded the pictures to my computer at Joes. No fancy photo albums, just the raw images, or a 320 Meg zip file of all the images if one prefers. The images are about 3Mb each. Be polite to Joe and Brandon, my webhosts.

The village where Suluape, the tattoo artist (tufuga ta tatau), lives is Faleasiu. Faleasiu is between Apia and the airport --- closer to the air port. We took a taxi from our flats to the Peace Corps office. I wasn't quite sure why were were going to the office, but after enquiring of Andrew I found out that the Peace Corps will have a driver drop us off. Evidentially this is part of the "cultural exchange" thing we are here to partake of. It was a rainy day, and the driver knew the village but not the house. We veered off of the main road on to a rocky dirt road. About a quarter mile inland we found the house, and after a couple stops to find out our specific destination, we arrived at Suluape's home.

As we were walking up I noticed three people surrounding an individual. I assumed it was an person, though I only saw a leg protruding at first. It became obvious fairly quickly that the man getting the tattoo was getting a pe'a. This is a traditional tattoo that Samoan males get to signify that they are ready to be responsible for and are committed to the well being of the family. The pe'a begins around the middle of the lower back and extends downward to just above the knees. It is done in stages from ten days to a few weeks. This gives the recipient time to relax and recover.

Aside: Tatau
Traditional Samoan tattoo are applied using sharpened bone or animal teeth that have been shaped into something resembling a small comb. These combs (of varying width depending on the level of detail required) are attached to the end of a stick and the stick is tapped with another stick to force the comb into the skin. This page (Samoan Sensation) provides much detail in Samoan tattoos in general and the pe'a in particular.

A part of me felt as though I was intruding, and then there was that part of me that was fascinated by the whole process. The gentleman receiving the pe'a was on day six, and hoped to finish by next Wednesday. We arrived as they were working on his right inner thigh by the groin area. He was amazingly relaxed through the whole process. I began talking to someone named Fiti, who seemed to be more of an observer. Fiti explained that the person "under the comb" was his brother. His immediate family was from American Samoa and the tattoo artist was his uncle.

Aside: Territories and Commonwealths
Since I was a small child I've know about the lands under US control such as Guam, Puerto Rico, etc. However, I never really knew what that meant, and I paid attention in my 9th grade civic class which I'm sure Mrs. Bailey will attest to. I've picked up bits and pieces over the years, and I've looked for a explicit definition of the relationship between the US and these places, but I've never really figured it out.
For example, in Puerto Rico, some federal benefits are received: some Medicare/Medicade and social security can benefits can be had by residence. While federal income taxes are not applied, other taxes are. Benefits for the US include the ability to establish military bases in these places. Citizens of these lands can carry US passports, so they can more easily travel and find employment within the US.
So that's my vague, incoherent, "The Territories and Commonwealths of the US" in a nutshell. From my grokking, I've more or less concluded that that these territories lie in limbo between "state hood" and "independent countries".

Not mentioned above, however, one of the mutual benefits of the US and the people of American Samoa is the ability to join the US military -- this provides a good paying job, as well as the educational benefits that can be few and far between for people in developing countries. Fiti has been studying history in Hawai'i. While he was planning to graduate in 2004, his Army Reserve unit was activated, "Uncle Sam Called" he commented with a welcoming smile. After spending some time in Iraq he came back and finished school this last semester.

His brother called him well into the pe'a process. Normally when this is done, someone will be with the person receiving the pe'a to provide emotional support or the other person will get the pe'a as well. Just finished with school in Hawai'i, Fiti took the next plane to Samoa to be supportive of the process. He had gone back and forth about getting the pe'a with his brother but decided against it. He felt that dropping everything to be here at this point in time was the least that he could do --- this is indicative of the strong sense of family found here in Samoa. From talking with Fiti, I developed an appreciation for his ability to balance the more traditional aspects of Samoan life and culture with the demands of the outside as he straddles the interface between the two.

Visual Fodder

2006-06-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

It seems some people like to hear from me a little more frequently. The delima is that I like to talk extensively about myself and write blog entries that are tome-like. I've been collecting different images which are interesting, but don't fit in well within any specific narrative. So I'm going to start putting up one every week or so as filler between my longer postings.

So this first piece of photographic stuffing is a picture of a centipede being born from Bryans wall. The centipedes here get rather long and I'm told, though I have yet to experience one myself, that their bite is quite painful. Bryan called me into his room one night to show me the fat centipede comeing through that pastel-blue/off-white birth canal. We tried to help it out by giving it a pencil to hold on to, but it was just too fat. After a day or so of struggling, it made it out. However, the energy expended to free itsself was too great. Like other rebirthings, this one ended fatally for out multi-legged friend. It passed away on Bryans floor a day or so later.

I rode around Savai'i with Marques and Candice last week. I'll probably put up a post about that this weekend sometime.

Da' Code

2006-05-24T12:35:00.000-07:00

As in many god fearing nations, especially those with a high Catholic contingent, the Da Vinci Code (movie and book) has gotten some people's knickers in a twist. I must admit that I haven't read the book or seen the movie (more on that below). I spoke with my roommate in grad school about it when the book was really causing a ruckus. He basically, it's a fluffy novel that is, that probably wouldn't be doing so well if it weren't for all the publicity the churches were giving it. In fact I probably wouldn't want to go see it if it weren't for all the people it was pissing off --- I really admire anyone who can challenge the proprieties of such a large swath of people.

Well I wont be seeing it here anytime soon --- at least not in the theater. It seems the government of Samoa has seen fit to protect the populace from the corruption of this devastating work of... well... fiction. Of course, being in the Peace Corps, we volunteers are not allowed to have opinions of our host countries. Well, we're allowed to have them, but we just cannot state them publicly. Fortunately, the Samoans are allowed to express such things. So I leave you with the weblog entry of a Samoan I read regularly.

Working our way around the island

2006-05-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

Easter Weekend

In Samoa, the Friday preceeding and the Monday following Easter weekend are holidays. So a four day weekend was afoot. Bryan and I haven't been to the village for a while, and his grandfather was having his 90th birthday celebration on Saturday. So the plan was to leave for Falevao on Friday. We were going to stay for the party on Saturday and possibly church on Sunday. Leaving Sunday afternoon we were going to bike around the island (sleeping at beach fales) and try to make it back by Tuesday night. Heather's planning to come in July, and I was going to take her around the island by bike. This was going to give me the opportunity to see how hard it would be... I don't think Heather and I are going to make the bike trip when she gets here.

Fa'alavelave n. Anything which interferes with normal life and calles for special activity (N.B. A wide range of events from a weeding to a canoe lost at sea is covered by this concept)

Typically birthdays are not generally celebrated here, but exceptions are made for birthdays which mark events in ones life (think 16th and 21st birthdays in the states). Evidently, 90th birthdays are such events. Bryan's grandfather, Tafili, is one of the most respected people in the village --- he's an orator, or talking chief. One of the primary roles of the orators, as best as I can surmise, is to act as negotiators for the village high chiefs when dealing with people outside the village (other villages, government officials, the Peace Corps, etc.). Typically, in terms of status, orators lie just below the high chief of the village. In some ways I believe Tafili may supersede the high chief of the village based on the experience which comes with someone of his age. Since I do not live with him, my picture of Tafili is informed by the respect my family has for him and my limited interactions. He seems like a very pious and respectful person who can really cut a rug.

So one of the most respected people in the village was having a 90th birthday --- this is a huge event. It's common for Samoans who work in New Zealand and the US and send money home; these remittances are one of the largest sources of income here. For big events like this, the extended family will fly in: I know there were groups from New Zealand and the U.S., and I wouldn't be surprised if there was also an Austrailian contengent. This many people in the house and the preperations for the fiafia (party) were really putting a strain on the resources of the family. There were 40 people staying in the fales and a group staying in Apia. Bryan's host father, Nasari, was looking very tired.

Given the over crowding it was decided that Bryan would stay with my family while we were in the village. I left Bryan at his home in the middle of the village around five Friday evening, and I headed to my family who live on the edge of the village. I came upon my mother pushing my grandmother in a wheelchair. I stopped and walked with them back to the fale --- it's like I never left. I went into the fale, stripped off my clothes, and took a shower. I've grown accustomed to bathing without hot water, and cold showers feel particularly nice after a bike ride. We chatted for a while, I had dinner, and after a while I decided it was bed time. I was reading in bed when Bryan arrived. They brought him and his bike in a car because it wasn't safe for him to ride in the dark. It's a dark 1/2 mile and the host families are all very protective of the palagis that stay with them.

The next morning we woke a little after sunrise. I headed for the bathroom and a shower. By comparision to Bryan, I'm a clean freak. I'm one sweaty, greasy, white guy, and I will take any opportunity to remove the current layer of slime from my body. Bryan took pictures while I showered, and this provided much entertainment for my family.

Bryan and I put on our formal attire: button up shirt and ia faitoga's. The fabric most clothing is made from here is synthetic. I assume one major reason for polyesters and such is that it resists the urge to attract and cohabitate with mold. Another benefit is that synthetics also tend to last longer. Nothing is perfect, and synthetic fabrics in a tropical environtment are no exception. Bryan's family made a really nice looking shirt for him out of this orange fabric --- firemen could have also used it as an insulator. By the end of the day it had combined with enough of Bryan's sweat to have probably doubled in mass.

We arrived early for the party to check out the preparations. The Samoan fale (the house with no walls) had been setup with tables and chairs. To accommodate other visitors, Tafili envited the whole village, a tent had been erected and chairs setup. The houses of the family were swarming with the extended family from overseas. A group from New Zealand had all their clothes made from matching fabric. Bryan and I sat with Nasari who still looked a little worn. He began to enumerate all that was going into the fiafia; how many pigs were cooked, the cows being slaugtered, the mealofa or gifts being prepared for each family in the village, etc.

While we were talking to Nasari, a truck arrived, and some soles came and began to unload the food. Tafilis extended families in the village had fired up their umus early in the morning and began cooking. As the morning moved on, several trucks arrived and a pile of pigs on a bed of banana leaves slowly built up. I would estimate that there were about eight to ten entire pigs lying there at one point. Bryan and I went to talk to the people doing the cooking and I wondered around to find the people slaughtering the cows. Evidentally they were doing this down by the river. I caught them just as they were carrying the meat back.

Shortly after that, the party was beginning. We were given seats at the tables in the open fale, a very respectful gesture. I took the seat closest to the outside so I could venture out and take pictures. Things started with a prayer, a short speech, and shortly there after the singing and dancing began. Different memebrs of the extended family were doing singing and dancing routines. In the beginning, Tafili was even putting his thing down.

While the fiafia was rocking, the taulealea (untitled men) were busy working in the back. Food preparations were well underway, and the gifts for the different families in the village were being prepared. These are the the woven baskets with portions of meat (the cooked pigs and slaughtered cows), corned beef, canned herring, etc. As a former gradstudent, I understand appreciate the currency of food.

Toward the end of the performances the food was served. Each person at the table was given a huge platter of food --- more food than I could possibly eat. I've eaten at several Samoan homes at this point, and each time I'm given large amounts of food. Before any food can be finished, more is placed in front of me. It's not just food either. I've been with Bryan at occasions where alcohol is imbibed, and it is common to hand him a second beer with a quarter remaining of the current beer. I've since learned to eat what I like, get good and full, and tell my hosts that I'm done. I always try to at least sample everything --- I never knew it until coming here, but beef liver is really good.

During the meal, gifts were given to honored guests. These included the Prime Minister, and two church officials (the local pastor and one of his superiors). Several fine mats, shown below, were presented to each guest. The baskets shown below were presented along with money to each family in the village. The gift giving process here is very public, with an individual designated to stand outside the fale and shout what is being given. I stood watching as the family members carry out from the falepalagi: case of canned fish, fine mat, fine mat, etc.; it is awe inspiring in a way.

And just like that, it's over. To me this was a very unique experience we were allowed to participate in. That is one of the more interesting aspects of the culture here. The people seem to genuinely want people to understand and experience their way of life. I took my platter of food --- I really couldn't eat the whole thing --- to Toa'fa. She in turn gave it to an aunt who was on her way to Apia. There is a certain fluidity here of possessions. Property is very temporal and communal, but the communal aspect is spread across several levels: immediate family, extended family, the village, etc.

Josh came with us to Falevao for Easter. Since his last visit, Josh's sister in the village had a child. Because Josh is such a great rolemodel they decided to name the baby after him. I just hop it doenst have Josh's prolific skin problems. This is a picture of Toa'fa with Josh's namesake:

Toa'fa, Bryan and I then walked to our fale at the other end of the village. When we arrived, I stripped down and headed for the shower. I was happy to put on a lavalava and a cotton tshirt. I spent the rest of the day hanging out with the family and reading. I went with my hostfather out of the village where he scaled a coconut tree and pulled down some niu for us. He tried to teach me how to husk one. It's something that will come with practice I'm sure. I still need to learn how to climb the trees. We came home and had a realaxing time that evening. Bryan, who had gone back to spend some time with his family, returned around eight. We all sat around and chatted for a while and then hit the sack.

Moving Inland

We decided that we would leave early the next morning to ride around the island. We had some friends staying at Lalomanu, and we were planning on spending Sunday lunchtime at the beach. Bryan and I got up just after sunrise on Sunday. We had some breakfast and my family filled up our water bottles with niu juice. They were also nice enough to give us a couple niu to take with us. My family lives at the base of a largish hill which leads to Le Mafa Pass. I generally prefer to start by going up hill. In my mind, I think that I'm putting the worst of it, or a good chunk of some bad stuff, behind me. This wasn't too bad, both of us were fresh, hydrated, and well fed. I think it took us about 30-35 minutes to climb that part. Since it was early, the mountain was shielding the sun for us.

This is the valley area where Falevao is located:

Mount Poutavai is south of the village

And the village is located at the base of mount Fao

After we hit the top of the pass I stopped for a bit to get some water, but more importantly to put on some sun screen. We started downhill for a while. This part always kind of freaks me out. We must be going close to 30mph, and things like pigs and dogs randomly walk across the street. I'm always a little paranoid a big sow is going to come wondering along with five or six piglets trailing behind. As a result, I tend to ride my breaks a little bit more than I should.

We came to a bit of a valley. The countryside was wide open for quite a while. Off to the left we saw something that resembeled a dam, but I just cannot imagine a dam being built up here in the hills for anything. It was kind of far off, so it would have to be investigated another time. It was at this point that we came across the second hill. I've ridden this part of the trip a couple times by car, and I remember there being a hill. What I didn't remember was it being so long.

Somewhere in the middle of the hill I spotted a piece of shade. I was getting a little thursty, so I decided to take advantage of the sunless area on an otherwise exposed road. This gave me the opportunities to get the following action shots of Bryan as he switchbacked up the road:

We made it to the top eventually. Bryan, being the dedicated smoker that he is, lit one up in victory as we got to the top. We sat there for a bit and started on our way once more. We got to the next stretch of downhills when I noticed the lake. The last time I came through here was at the beginning of the year. This was before the month of continuous rain. At that time the lake was bleak and dried up. Now it was lush and full of life. I tried to take it in and focus on the road at the same time. A little further and we rode into Lalomanu.

We arrived around eleven and found a few of the volunteers there. I don't think either of us were worn too bad, but I didn't want to be out in the sun around noon --- it sucks the life out of me during this period of the day. I took the opportunity to get a couple liters of water --- remember when you see something you want here you should buy it then. I was staring to get hungery so Bryan, Nella, and I took off to get something to eat. This is more of a tourist spot so we paid quite a bit for a fishburger and chips. We returned to the beach afterwards and I laid down and took a nap in the shade until it was time for us to head out. I guess we left there around two. I should mention now that our plan for the day was pretty ambitious. Bryan essentially wanted to make it to the base of the westernmost cross island road. We still had a long way to go on what is some very hilly roads. Since about a mile before Lalomanu, we had made it back to the coast. Riding along the coast is amazing; I can stare into the sea for hours --- as long as I listen cars and keep part of an eye out for dogs.

We rode along rolling hills that followed the coast for about an hour or so. Somewhere along the way, the road turned inland as we started to climb steadily uphill. It was at this point that I noticed my sweat was starting to smell like ammonia (Aside: Brandon was the first person to ever introduce me to the idea that sweat could have an appreciable ammonia concentration). After riding up a steady incline, we came to a fork in the road. We knew that we would have to take a left somewhere, the question was "was this the left?" When depending on a bicycle as a form of transportation, I've found it is better to ask sooner rather than later if a turn is correct. Our intention was to flag down a car and ask a local if we were going in the correct direction. The first person we stopped was a small van with three asian gentlemen. According to them, Apia was in the direction from which we came. This would have been correct if only we were willing to go around the entire planet. Bryan and I agreed that we should find a better source of information. We were not to be let down. Shortly, Bryan flagged down a family and got directions that were at least plasuable.

With confirmation we took the road which led us around the Sopoaga Falls. This was more rolling hills which led to a steady increase in elevation. The road became looked more and more unkept as we continued. It was also starting to get late. We made it through a few more villages and we entered the wilderness preserve. Along the side of the road, we found a couple fale's under construction. This was a convenient place to stop and have a snack. The last couple hills had been giving my legs a hard time. I was pretty sure that I was almost out of salt. I began to look for the rehydration salts and electrolyte pills from my medical kit. After some rummaging, I came to the realization that I had left them on the table back in Apia.

Comparing our location on the map to the position of the sun in the sky, we realized that we wouldn't be making it as far that day as we had hoped. Looking at the map, it appeard the closet set of beach fales was a surf resort. The whole time there was a little voice in the back of my head saying things like "what if the fales are fully?". After departing from the rest area, we pushed on through the wilderness reserve. Shortly after that we hit the tee intersection of the cross island road nearest to our house. The sunset was beautiful --- purple streaming up from the horizon. By congtrast, we found the turn off for the surf resort in pitch black --- the street lights here are weak and few. We took our bikes down the dirt road which spilled out near the ocean. The entire time I was hoping that I wouldn't hit a patch of sand that would send me into the dirt. While I waited with the bikes, Bryan came out and informed me that there were no fales free.

Humm, well we had a few options. We could always get a cab back to Apia. It wasn't the preferred option, but it was there none the less. My preferred option was to find a Samoan family who would let us stay with them. In the morning, we could offer a mealofa (gift) equal to the 50 tala each we were going to give the surf result. I thought it would work out well for both us and the family. Plus I thought it would be an interesting experience. Bryan had a thought. The next resort over was Coconuts a fairly upscale place. with a minimum rate of 200USD per night, it was seriously out of our price range. Bryan has had some experience working in the hotel business, and he suggested that we basically go to Coconuts, explain that we were pretty hard up, and see if the manager could cut us some slack. Honestly, I had my doubts. Hell, at this point, I smelled like I had been sprayed by a cat in heat.

We walked up to the resort and asked the Samoans working there if we could speak to the manager. Eventually, a man named Ned came out to talk to us. Being out of my element, I let Bryan do most of the talking as he relayed our situation to Ned. Ned told us that there was a room normally used by staff that they rent out for 60USD (~165 tala) a night, and he would see if it was clean. Ned returned to tell us that it was clean and that he would give it to us for 120 tala. Since we were going to spend 50 each at the surf resort, this was a great deal. We would have air conditioning and hot water --- I haven't had a hot shower in months, since training. This was really the best thing that could have happened: we had a place to stay that was affordable, and Ned was filling a room that would have been empty otherwise. Regardless, he did us a huge favor.

We each took showers and put on some clean clothes. It felt strange (think golden) to take a warm shower after all this time. After bathing, we decided to get some food. The resturat was pretty damn expensive by my volunteer standards. We spent another 50 tala each on some spaghetti and an appitizer. The dining room was very nice. The main structure seemd to be the large laqured logs. The rest of the decore was made from local materials.

After dinner, I was feeling a little thursty and beat. We returned to the room were I made some peanut butter sandwiches with crackers. I continued to drink water as I read the Life of Pi. Bryan had already passed out when I started to drift away.

I woke the next morning as the sun was coming up. My nose was a little stopped up --- this happens whenever I sleep in air conditioning. I decided to take another shower, might as well make the best of it. For breakfast, I had some more crackers and I drank some more water. With the rest of our stuff packed into the dry bag, we were ready to leave. While we waited to pay, I took a look around --- it was dark the night before. This was a really nice place. To advertise for Coconuts (jmh find link) a little bit, these are the over the water fales:

We took off around 7.30am. I was feeling very refreshed, though my arse was a little sore. Bryan said that his legs were pretty sore and he wanted to take it easy. Given my larger mass and the extra weight I was carrying on my rack, I need go down hills rather quickly. This allows me to conserve my momentum and make it as far up the next hill as possible. We decided to take the western most cross island road because I still didn't know the way to connect to the road that more or less circumscribes the island. We made it to the falealoa I stopped at the last time I passed through this part of the island by around 11.30. We stopped here to pick up some food and water and to wait out the noon sun. I spent most of the time reading under a tree as the heat of the day passed by.

Already smelling of ammonia, I left the tree around 1.30. This part was a continuous uphill. We would stop every 1/4 to 1/2 mile or so, drink some water, and push on. We hit the apex about an hour later. It was refreshing and encouraging to see the ocean. What took us a little over an hour to climb, went by in less than 10 minutes. We came out at the bottom of the cross island road and took a right turn for Apia. At this point, combined with the ride from the previous day, Bryans legs were getting pretty weak. I was feeling pretty good, but my back was starting to hurt. I would loosen my messenger bag and let it rest on the drybag which was attached to the rack. As the day went on, we started stopping more frequently. When we made it to Holly's house in Faleula, Bryans legs just quit. I stayed with him for a while, but he eventually decided that it would be better to take a cab. At that point, I gave him the dry bag and pushed pretty hard for home --- my main problems being my back and my arse. I made it home in about 40 minutes and climbed into the shower. It was a great feeling. When Bryan got back we decided what we would have on our pizzas. I called in the order and took a cab into town and picked up dinner. The hungrier you are the better it tastes...

I still need to find the route past Apolima, but that will have to wait for another day.

Postcards

2006-04-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

So the other day I got a postcard from some place in Florida. It was signed 'Aurght', and I cannot for the life of me figure out who sent it. The handwriting was similar to Heather's, but it wasn't hers. I was wondering who sent it. If you could email me that would be nice john dot m dot harrold _at_ gmail dot com. Another odd thing is that it was postmarked on the 30th of March in St. Petersburg Florida and that's the day it came in --- unbelievably fast for the mail here.

Three Day Weekend

2006-04-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

The elections were last Friday. The official Peace Corps instructions were to not goto polling places --- we maintain our objectivity by not getting involved in local politics. Originally were were planning on going to take pictures on election day, ride our bikes to the wharf, take the ferry over to Savai'i, and ride to another volunteers place. We were going to stay there Friday night and ride back on Saturday. Such are the best laid plans of mice and men in a developing country. We couldn't really determine when the ferry was leaving --- election day is a public holiday. A few volunteers showed up at our place. After hanging out until four, we determined that the Savai'i trip would have to wait. I had a long bike ride in my head, and that is something that is difficult for me to shake. I started looking at the map of Upolu (the second largest island that I live on).

Geography

Upolu is a long skinny island about four times as long as it is wide. There is road that more or less encircles the island running along the coast. There are three cross-island roads; as the name suggests, they cross the island across the thinner dimension. There is one which bisects the island close to my house. The other two cross island roads are about two thirds of the way from the road by my house to the outer points of the island.

More Plans

I looked at the map on the wall and plotted my course. I'd start by going up and down the cross island road closest to my house. After I reached the road encircling the island I'd go west up the coast. Even though there is a break in the encircling road on the map, another volunteer assured me that there is a road that can be taken there. He also mentioned that there is a bit of a hill. I should probably have asked about how to find this adjoining road. So the plan was to go around the western tip of the island and circle back to Apia.

I left around 7.30 Saturday morning with 116 oz of water, a candy bar, a package of cookies, my camera, a change of clothes and some money. I made it to the cross island road fairly quickly and started riding up it. I must be getting old because it took me for ever to get to the top of the hill. I think it took me three hours (with a 0.5 hour break at the Baha'i temple) to ride the 2.5 miles --- that's right, I was averaging one mile per hour. It was amazing at the peak of the road. This is a picture of a farm at the top with a storm sweeping in from the north: While it took me way to long to get up the hill, it only too me about 20 minutes to make it down the other side. I took a right at the tee and rode for a while. It's very surreal riding around here. Villages a laid out all along the road and everyone greets you as you pass. It was getting close to noon, and it's just not smart to ride around at noon. I decided to find a place to rest for a couple hours while the heat of the day passed. I rode up on a village playing kiki, the Samoanized version of cricket. I believe the village was called Sataoa. I took a seat in front of a closed falealoa to watch the game. I should probably mention that I ate all of my food at the Baha'i temple. At this point, I'd gone through about 70 oz of water --- I still had 30 oz in my bladder and 16 in reserve. I sat for a while watching the game and chatting with the kids that invariably gather around strangers. I entertained them with my broken Samoan, and watched the kiki game. After a while, a teenage girl told me her mom across the street wanted to talk to me. I walked over there where they had chairs set up for me. She asked if I wanted to play, and I told her that I was resting. She asked where I was going, I told her that I was going to Vaivase (the area where my house is located). She asked me where I was coming from and I told her Vaivase. I explained to her that I lived in Vaivase and I was out for a ride. I don't know, but I think she thought I was insane.

She asked me if her son could borrow my bike to pick up some rice and turkey tails. This made me a little alert, not that she wanted me to let her son borrow my bike, but that I may be invited to eat. I would normally be excited to get food, but that comes with a time commitment I couldn't make. I let her son borrow the bike. She explained that they had games every Saturday: kiki, netball, rugby, etc. There were two teams in the village: The New Testament and The Old Testament. I asked her if the Old Testament team was particularly vengeful which she found pretty funny. When her son returned, I told her that I needed to get going. This was around two in the afternoon.

I headed up the road and it turned inland. Some storms passed and were quite refreshing. I began riding uphill for a while, and at some point, I started to get hungry. I was down to the reserve water, so I need to pick up some fluids pretty soon. It's ironic, because as I was going down the cross island road there were people selling niu everywhere. Niu is the name given to immature coconuts which have between 500 and 750 ml of potable fluid inside. They are about one tala each and are cheaper than water. Now that I needed fluid, there was none to be had. Eventually, I came up on a falealoa, and pulled over --- I could smell baking bread. I got a large coke, two liters of water, and a German bun. The latter is doughnut dough wrapped around a semisweet coconut/coconut cream mixture. I know that coke dehydrates you, but I really wanted the sugar. I was starting to get really tired. I sat in front of the store, ate, drank and read part of the "Life of Pi".

Changing Plans

After a little while, I took off up the hill. I approached a road that appeared to be the continuation of the encircling road --- this is where it would have been prudent to get better directions from the other volunteer. The road I was considering went down a hill for a while, and I really didn't want to go down and have to come back up. So I decided to take the cross island road closest to the western coast. The new plan was to ride up the road to the top of the mountain. On the top of the mountain there is a road that goes along the ridge back towards Apia. So I was going up the mountain and turning right on the ridge road back home.

This is the point where I started to get tired. I'd go about a mile and pull over. I'd drink some water, wring out my shirt and go another mile. I was really wanting the rain to come back. As I made it to the top of the mountain my legs were starting to cramp. The ridge, it turns out, is pretty hilly in it's own right. After an hour or so of riding, I would normally ride standing up for 10 minutes or so. This would allow feeling to return to certain parts of my body and give my arse a rest. It now became difficult to ride standing up because my legs were beginning to cramp. At this point I stopped the bike and sat there for a couple minutes. I decided that I needed to focus on something... pizza. Yes, I'd have pizza for dinner.

The ridge was steadily increasing in elevation, but it did so as rolling hills. So I would go as fast as I could down a hill to milk as much momentum as I could from that hill to get as far as possible up the next hill. Then I'd drop down into a really low gear and use whatever energy I had to get to the top. Then I'd repeat the process all over again.

Aside

While I had plenty of water, I think I had sweated out all of the salt. I took a couple potassium supplements before I left in the morning, but I didn't have anything salty to eat. Normally I get this stuff by drinking niu. Instead I was just drinking water. Next time I'm going to take the hydration salts from our medical kits.

A Wall Lacking Substance

To me riding like this is more a mental challenge than a physical one. Riding somewhere is normally hardest for me when I'm not familiar with the terrain. Since I'd never been on this ridge before, I didn't know when it would end. From the map, I thought I'd been on one end of this road once before, however nothing looked like it was leading to familiar terrain. For me the largest challenge is in my head. Once I find something familiar, I know how far I have to go. I tooled along for what seemed like forever (in reality it was probably only an hour). So, as soon as I saw some familiar roads, it was like a cloud had been lifted from my head --- it didn't hurt that it was more or less downhill from then on. I only had to deal with my sore ass and the lack of feeling in other extremities.

The good news is that it next time it wont seem very long at all. Living in a small country is really amazing though. I like the idea that I can ride a bike pretty much anywhere in a days time. We have a break week after next, and Bryan and I are planning on circling the island. I think it will be easier because we're going to do it in three and a half days and we wont be hitting that many hills at once. His host father is having a 90th birthday party, and we're going to spend a couple days in Falevao. It should be interesting.

Pepperoni, onion, mushroom and olive.

Beyond the Bubble

2006-04-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

One of the strangest/more challenging thing for me here is being in groups where most people are not engineers. It is strange for me to think that I have spent the last 12 years more or less surrounded by engineers --- analytical types who have been conditioned to solve problems. The last five years of that was spent in graduate school. This is an environment where one chooses their words carefully because vague statements and hyperbole leave a person open to a verbal assault. Being the argumentative type, I enjoyed this environment. It left me with an appreciation for understanding a problem from various angles and choosing words that were the most explicit or exact.

Being an engineer has its drawbacks also: Antisocial tendencies coupled with never being sure where to properly place apostrophes and commas. Really though, an oncologist that I worked with in grad school frequently mentioned literary figures, artists, or musicians I'd never heard of. When I'd say "whose that?" he'd commonly reply with some variant of "do you ever get your head out of a book long enough to see what's going on around you?" There is a bit of truth to this. I remember working out my schedule as an undergraduate and noticing that we had six credits --- two, three-hour classes --- of electives.

I asked one of my professors about the lack of electives and his response was simple and pragmatic: In order to fulfill the requirements of ABET (the engineering accreditation organization) and graduate students in four years we didn't have the time for many electives. Speaking as a chemical engineer with my small sample size at the University of Arkansas, many of my fellow students were from lower to middle class families. Education was not just a way to keep ourselves busy for four years. Rather, it was a means to elevate ourselves economically. People willing to put in the time and effort at school could obtain well paying jobs with decent benefits.

What relevance does all of this have on my stay here in Samoa? Being plucked from a community of scientists --- (not just engineers) people who are very logical and practical --- and placed in the Samoan/volunteer community really makes me appreciate the incremental changes in my thinking which have occurred over the last decade.

Most problems have solutions which can accommodate constraints (physical, sociological, economic, etc.). Sometimes these problems are easy to solve. For example, when buying a new car there are hard constraints: how much money one can spend initially, recurring costs, seating requirements (family of five), automatic transmission, etc. There are also soft constraints: safety ratings, how nice the car looks, etc. On the other hand, many problems do not necessarily have clear solutions (e.g., the Israel/Palestinian conflict). To many people, problems exist in the latter category where they should/could in the former. The dilemma is being able to approach a problem and systematically break it down into manageable chunks.

This is one place where education, especially graduate school, has really helped me. When I am posed with a problem, I almost always fall into a process where each step logically follows the next. Possible solutions are eliminated until I'm left with a set of possibilities which require some qualitative assessments to be made in order arrive at a final solution. There are of course drawbacks: trying to explain new concepts that I am familiar with to people who have never seen the material before can be really difficult --- you know the primary responsibility of teachers.

I'll start out working on a lecture, say teaching protein structure (chemical and 3-d) to the students. I think to myself, this should take five to ten minutes at a maximum. As I start preparing the lecture, I come to the realization that this is a pretty abstract concept for people who have never seen this before. These are the good days --- coming to this conclusion before class. A few classes have come and gone where I realized that the last twenty minutes of class were a blur and the students did not have a clue as to what I was discussing. I try to talk to the students outside of class to probe them for what they understood. They are too embarrassed to say so in front of the class, but they will give me enough information personally to let me assess what they got from the class.

After what I will call the bad classes, I'll start the next class off by asking probing questions. This will give me a better assessment of what they picked up from the last class. If it's really bad, I'll whip out a set of notes with different and hopefully better examples. I've retaught at least one entire class and I've redone the majority of three classes. The good news is that I'm getting better at this. A challenge here is that I don't really know the students background that well. It's a balance: trying to keep them from getting bored with material they are already familiar with and not moving at a speed they cannot follow. Of course, I speak too fast also.

Dealing with the volunteers poses it's own set of challenges. When I deal with the students I approach them with a couple mental guides: they are fairly young academically and they have a different background. As an example, these guides limit analogies I can use when explaining to people and I'm not as anal about phrasing they use. When I start talking to the other volunteers, I sometimes revert back into the academic mode: statements should be precise and correct (the Bobs would be proud), overreaching or illogical statements should be called out --- it's almost habitual at this point. I'm sure I come across as being very aggressive, and I've probably rubbed a few of the volunteers the wrong way. Heather could no doubt sympathize with some of them, and that's why they are probably so easy to meet her.

When I told my grandmother (on my mothers side) that I was going to grad school, she told me that I needed to grow up and get away from "that school environment". I thanked her for her opinion, and went to grad school. I doubt joining the Peace Corps is what she meant. However, her argument did and still does have merits which I'm starting to see a little more clearly.

Alternative Lifestyles

2006-03-02T19:09:00.000-08:00

A breif history of Fa'afafine's

This is pieced together from conversations I've had with several people. Gender roles are and were fairly well defined, so certain jobs are performed primarliy by men or women. Back in the day, before the missionaries, there were families which had too few female children. The solution to this was to choose a male child to raise as a woman: dress, mannerisms, societal roles, etc. These male children, raised as women, are called Fa'afafines, or fafs. So here there are essentially three genders: male, female, and faf. I spoke with my family members in the village to get a more modern view of how this works out. Now, children who behave effeminately, are raised as women. Consider for a moment that Samoa is reported to be 98% Christian. Of course, my experience in all things Christian is limited to my upbrining in the southern part of the United States. This includes such respectible institutions as that run by reverand Phelps. So it's probably unnecessary to say that I came here with some preconceived notions of what would be considered "socially acceptable" based largely on the Samoan peoples self identification with the Christian religion. I was a little bit surprised to find a villages with a couple hundred people will commonly have several of Fa'afafines.

Dealing with the contradictions

Traditionally Samoa is run by the Matai system. In short, respected members of each family, male and female, are selected to represent the family at the village level. Rules are created by each village through some form of a consensus. Currently, Samoa is in a form of political flux. There is a national government, but the villages are largely autonomous. So when you are in a village, village law applies, and in Apia the legal system applies.

I mentioned this because it does relate to the current topic --- it is illegal for a man to dress as a member of the opposite sex. Regardless, I don't think I've been anywhere here where I haven't seen a Fa'afafine: work, the store, apia, rural villages, etc. I'm told that there are two faf bars in Apia. Working at NUS I don't deal much with the community in terms of civic projects, but there are other Peace Corps workers who do work in such capacities. I've heard from several sources that Fa'afafines are quite productive and involved in this regard --- both in Apia and in the villages. In fact, fafs are very responsive and willing to devote much time to the community.

My first inclination is to belive that a law directed at a productive portion of society because of what is essentially a sexual preference is a byproduct of the puritanical traditions of those who colonized here.

The faf show

So the weekend before last I was told that there is a bar where they have a faf show every night. I'm always up for something new so I decided to tag along. When we get there the safety and security officer --- the guy who gets us together when we have cyclones --- is singing with the band. He's acutally a pretty good singer. I'm going to try to get a copy of his cd and put some songs online. There's a pretty good sized group of us there, and we were brought by a Fijian whos married to someone with the UN. She's the real accomodating type, buying drinks for everyone. Needless to say, that made her a pretty big hit with people struggling to get drunk on a volunteers salary.

After about thrity minutes, the dance floor started to clear up and the fafshow began. It started with ladies performing traditional arrangements to techno polynesian remixes.

I think my favorite was this fine lady lipsinking to "Hey Big Spender'":

The show ended early. Evidentally the sound system was having problems. It's a shame, five tala cover and all. After a bit, my compatriots and their benefactor decided to head over to another bar. While we were waiting for the Fijian to get the car, I started talking to a faf named Brenta. She asked me if I had a car. I told her that we were not allowed to drive, but that we were given bikes. She told me she really wanted me to bring my bike over and then she grabbed my package. I grabed her package in return, told her that, while flattered, my bike only seated one and that I wasn't interested.

The other other white meat.

2006-01-26T14:40:00.000-08:00

Last week I was sitting in the office with the door open. We don't use air conditioning so the windows and door are open to get a nice draft moving through the room. I was reading either a book or something on my computer when a blur moved through my peripheral vision. The first thought was: that rat was huge and had to posses a large set in order to run around during the day. Naturally I had to see this rat. So I walked around the desk where I saw it run, and I found a kitten. Of course, I felt a kind of sympathy for the little beast. As I reached for it, I was greeted with a hiss and claws.

I reached an agreement with the kitten. I wouldn't try to befriend it, and it wouldn't try to take off part of my finger. When Jonathan came in, I told him there was a kitten by his desk. He looked at me with a questioning look. He received the same warm greeting from the little one and came to a similar conclusion. At the end of the day we locked everything up and left. The kitten was waiting for me under the desk beside mine when I returned the next morning. We fed it some milk that day, and while it seemed happy to have the food, it was still afraid of us --- not that I can hold fear of a being over a hundred times ones own size.

This is when Bryan and I began to conspire. See we have a bit of a rodent problem (rat and mouse). While I'm find of rats as pets, I don't really like sharing food with them. The have thwarted many of our traps, and I've come up with some sophisticated plots with the standard spring loaded rat traps. This cat was to be the solution to that problem. We determined that if the kitten was there the next day, we would take it home and develop a working relationship. We would provide it with food, shelter, and medical care. It would provide us with a rodent free home.

So this is our new cat:

Of course I'm living on a volunteers salary. So this means that I don't normally spend that much money on meat. And we all know that the younger the animal, the more tender and juicy the cut. So, after a couple days of feeding and fattening up the cat, I couldn't take it any longer:

It's ok, I haven't seen the Samoan branch of the People for Eating Tasty Animals.

Chicken of the sea

2006-01-13T16:36:00.000-08:00

Bryan mentioned that he was going to Falevao on Saturday morning and returning that evening. I wanted to visit my family there one more time before school starts the following Monday, so I planned to accompany him. I also wanted to bring something for my family there so that I didn't feel like I just show up there to eat --- not that they would mind if that were the case. I thought it would be nice to bring some fish, and I've been wanting to goto the fish market in the morning. We were told by many people that it's quite a site to behold at dawn. We had been told that we should get there early, around dawn. So, I got a couple other people (Andrew and Skye) to join me at five to goto the fish market. We took a taxi (five tala split 3 ways) and got there a little after five. We were the only people there...

To me, getting up at six is normal, and five is early. In my approximation, dawn is when you can see sunlight. So when there is enough light in the sky to see without the aid of artificial light, it's past dawn. My dawn happens here around 5.15am fairly consistently. However the general concepts of "early" and "dawn" are different here --- I'm also told that we should go on Sundays to get the full effect. Early and dawn are around 6.30 or seven here. So we waited at the fishmarket until a boat arrived and people began unloading ice chests full of fish. We waited until around 7.30 for enough people to get there to have a good idea of what was available.

I'm a big fan of tuna, and I will probably become mad as a hatter living here. While I understand tuna can get up to three hundred pounds, the fish they were pulling out were quite large when considering my landlocked sensabilities. The large ones were sliced up in to pieces which were about 2-3 inches thick and the smaller ones were sold whole. I had seen my family bring the smaller ones back from the market, and that was what I was looking to get. I started poking around and I noticed a bright red fish. Skye asked and the woman said it was red snapper and it cost 70 tala --- I would say this fish was pretty small, about thirteen inches long.

I was there to get fish for both my family and Bryans as well for us. If the price of the red snapper was any indication, then I wasn't going to be able to satisfy much in terms of a family gifts. After waiting around for a while, a woman showed up on a bus with some ice chests filled with smaller tuna. I was pretty happy when she started placing price tags on them. I was able to get two of the largest smaller tuna for 30 tala each. I assumed that I was still paying the palagi tax but not enough to make me feel like I was being violated:

We next went to the place where the slices were being sold. In the picture, the little girl is supposed to be dissuading the flies with the leafy branch. Though it seemed more like she was providing shade for the fish. I piked up one the slabs for 20 tala. Again I assumed I was paying the palagi tax, but $7.50 for several pounds of tuna steak was still a really good deal.

I returned home around 7.45 and woke Bryan up. I had spent 40 tala for each of us and we had gifts for our families and enough tuna for three meals. I wrapped the fish up well so our bags wouldn't reek of rotten fish after the bike ride to the village. We left our place around 8.30 and showed up in Falevao around 10.30. My family wasn't expecting me, but were happy to see me none the less. They looked surprised when I whipped the fish out of my bag. Bryan said his family just laughed at him. The general though by Samoans is that 14 miles is way to far to ride a bike and it's just plane silly to carry a fish... Bryan's family told him that the fish we got should have only been 20 tala, so the tax was 10 tala. They sad that the 70 tala red snapper was wrong and the lady should have gone to jail. While we were in the village, it started raining. My family said I should stay the night and wait until for a time when it wasn't raining. They essentially live in a rainforrest, so that translates into: you should never leave. When I got to Bryans house, it was a little over cast, but the rain looked to be over for a while. He told me that his familiy was worried we would get sick if we rode in the rain, so they called someone with a truck to take us and our bikes back. It didn't rain again until much later that night.

When we arrived at home, brian worked on dinner. I've never bought fish large portions of fish because they've always been too expensive. Bryan had bough precut fillets, but wasn't really sure how to approach this: He basically cut around the boney parts until all that was left was the meat: Then he seared each side for a minute or so. Dinner was damn good:

Three weeks in the village: Part 2 food day/Thanksgiving

2005-12-26T20:19:00.001-08:00

On Thursday the 24th of November we had food day. Because of where I live, I showed up a little late to the training village. I was accompanied by my host sister To'afa. Between us we brought several coconuts, some taro, breadfruit, and some freshwater shrimp. I say between the two of us, but she actually carried most of it. On the food day we're supposed to gain an appreciation of what goes into preparing a Samoan meal. I think the host family had already made the umu and I started by pealing bananas. They prefer to eat bananas here green and far from ripe. Before they ripen to sugary goodness, bananas largely starch. I was next handed a dirt covered taro root and part of a tin can cut off about an inch from the base of the can. The taro is placed on a stick extending about a foot and a half from the ground, and the portion of the can is used to scrape the dirt and outer skin of the taro off. I squatted by the stick scraping the taro and my sister kept telling me to stop exposing myself.

Next we pealed the freshwater shrimp (also called crayfish, crawfish, or simply crawdads in the states). I did a lot of this during my tenure at Captin D's in my highschool days. In the states we only ate the tails. We would use a machine which split the shrimp down the back removing the vein which carried feces to the rear of the shrimp for disposal. Here I'll peal the shrimp tail and eat it, and my mother will eat whatever is left (eyes, legs, etc.) when I'm done with my plate. To clean the shrimp, the carapace is removed and the thump is pressed against the meaty exposed area where the tail begins. Eventually a brown sack will squirt out by the shrimps eyes. This sack, which I believe this is it's stomach, is discarded.

I was pealing shrimp next to the pig pen when I heard some noise coming from that area behind me. It looked like it was time to prepare the pig. The pictures here are from the village cooking day and my last Sunday in the village. My brother in law Lee is doing most of the work for the latter time. The pig must first be killed. I'm told that this is traditionally done here by holding the pig down while a pole is placed over it's throat. Two people then stand on either side of the pole while the pig chokes to death. My family prefers to drown the pig in the creek which runs beside our house. Since pigs wallow around in their own feces the pig needs to be cleaned. This is done by searing the dead animal on the umu. This smells like bacon and burning hair... tasty yet nauseating all at the same time. The layers of seared flesh are then scraped off. Lee uses his hands while knives were used during the food day. Lee also likes to pull off the toenails, but I don't recall if this was done during the food day. With the outside scrubbed down it's time to eviscerate the beast. The throat of the pig is sliced and a circle is made around it's anus. A large cut is made in the belly and the major organs are then removed through that hole. Lee likes to wash it out with water. Notice the water going into the belly and out of the new and improved anus Lee made --- yes he's doing this in the family shower. The cleaned pig is then stuffed with mango leaves and hot rocks from the umu. The smoking pig is placed on the umu with the other food. The food is then covered with hot rocks followed by banana leaves and left to cook. This is the really cool part, the entire pig cooks in about 45 minutes. On the food day we cooked a pig, two umu'ed turkeys and lots of other happiness in that time.

Even though I had been around food most of the day, I hadn't eaten much. Groups will have different meetings throughout the year to check on their progress. One is the midservice conference held after a volunteers first year in service. Group 73 was having theirs on Thanksgiving and we were bringing food out to them in vavao. This is a beautiful beach that will soon be home to a resort. We went there and most people in our chowed down. When the people from group 73 showed up they also started eating. I was pretty excited to see them but that was mainly because I had seen Teuila our medical officer on Wednesday about viscosity problems. She had sent some Cipero with the trianers, and I was looking forward to digesting some food. The drugs came, and I took one almost immediately. I still couldn't eat because looking at food at this point made me feel nauseous. So I spent the day laying in the shade reading while everyone else swam in the ocean. The following day everything was flowing fine.

Three weeks in the village: Part 1

2005-12-26T20:12:00.000-08:00

The week before we returned to the village I had come back to Apia from a visit with a current volunteer in Savai'i. To get from his place to our hotel we first had to take a two hour bus ride, followed by a couple hours on the ferry, and finally another one hour on the bus. His host sister was riding into Apia also, and when we got on the bus she gave me a cup of noodles. I got up around 5 and skipped breakfast, so I was hungery. I knew it would be a while until I could eat, and I didn't want to be rude to a family member of another volunteer --- I ate the noodles. I would spend the next week pissing from my ass.=20

That night everything flowed from my body like water from a hose. We returned to the village the following Saturday for our final three week stay. The following Sunday I went to church and had To'ana'i. On Sundays there is a large meal after church called To'ana'i. Just before sunrise, around five, people will start building an umu. Volcanic rocks are placed on top of and under burning coconut husks until the rocks become red hot. At this point food is placed on a bed of rocks and then covered by the remaining rocks. This pile of food and heated stones are then covered with large banana leaves. The food is simultaneously cooked and smoked. They use this to cook everything: taro, breadfruit, palusami, pork, fish, etc. During church someone will stay home and keep an eye on the umu. After eating the To'ana'i meal, people will pass out for a couple hours like on Thanksgiving.

For this week we were to have an emergency action plan drill on Tuesday followed by a fishing expedition for the fornicating pololo worm. We were also to have food day on Thursday where we cook for the village. During the day on Tuesday we had language classes as usual. That night we went home and had dinner. In Samoa there are four major types of emergency which can effect us: tsunamis, flash floods, earth quakes, and cyclones (hurricanes). If you can see a tsunami, your chances are pretty bad. Flash floods and earthquakes are also events which have little worning. So for simulation purposes, the Peace Corps will normally have a mock storm. Sometime in the evening, the Peace Corps van pulled out and Candice stepped out. It turns out she was the person in charge of our training village. She was supposed to contact everyone and make sure they were aware of a fictious tropical depression. I went to the fale where my family was sitting, and I tried to explain in my broken Samoan that we were playing a game. I told them that some Peace Corps in Africa have to worry about things like military coups. I then had to explain what a coup was. I told them to pretend that the prices of vailima (the local beer) were raised. As a result the untitled men had stormed the parliament and were beheading government officials in protest --- hords of people with machetes are the closest thing Samoa has to a military. Everyone thought this was funny.=20

So when Candice returned, everyone looked at me and erupted into laughter. I was informed that the theoretical tropical depression was picking up speed and moving closer to Savai'i. When this happens I'm supposed to remain at my site and wait for further instructions. She later returned to another round of laughter and I was told that the mythical storm was now a cyclone and that we were moving to our regional consolodation point. My family waved good bye to me, and I drove away leaving them to fend for themselves while the make-believe downpour approached. This drill was pretty good. They managed to contact everyone on both islands within five hours. If things get pretty bad they will either evacuate us from Samoa or consolodate everyone in one of the inland hotels.

After the emergency action plan drill we left to go pololo hunting. This is accomplished by wading out into the ocean between the reef and the beach with a net, flashlight, bucket, and a desire to capture as many copulating worms as possible. My hostmother made me the net and seemed genuinly excited that I was going. While I think the worms taste pretty foul, I wanted to get as many for the family as possible since they seem to like them. Most of the evening consisted of sitting around on the beach and chatting. The colonic flows were still raging strong inside of me. I had eaten dinner, and I was starting to feel a surge coming. I found a bathroom just in time, and I made the mistake of looking in the toilet before I used it. The pile of writhing maggots made the feeling inside my stomach that much worse. At this point it was either in the toilet or my pants, so I christened this toilet the third worst toilet I had ever used. This should provide you with an idea of how bad some of the toilets I've used in the past really were. I would have to defecate twice more that evening. However I would elect to skip the toilet and walk thrity feet or so up the road --- I was getting quite good at this.

Feeling empty I went back to the beach and waited for the hunt to begin. Around three a couple Samoans started heading for the reef. Shortly after that, several people started to follow. I teamed up with brian to follow the hurd. Each of us held a net, and I took a bucket while he took Josh's flashlight. The water was shallow and cool. I was quickly learning how sharp coral could be. We made it about half way to the reef when several people decided it was far enough. We were all scooping through the water trying to catch what we could. Eventually I found a worm-like thing in the water. I asked one of our trainers and these were the worms we were looking for. Brian and I both had a new found enthusiasm. We scooped like we had broken into an ice cream shop and had only a few minutes to eat before we were giong to be caught. Around sunrise we retreated to the sand and our vehicles. When I got home I gave my bucket to my mom. She looked inside and laughed; I stayed up all night, defecated in the third worst toilet of my life, fought a loosing battle with the coral, and I managed to bring home six worms --- it takes a thousand or so to make up enough for someone to eat. I took a shower, told my host grandmother good night in Samoan --- she cackled --- a I took a nap before school started.

Village life

2005-12-26T19:53:00.000-08:00

We just spent nine days in the village.My host family is pretty cool, thought none of them speak English well enough to have any kind of conversation. I do have a cousin from American Samoa who is visiting the grandmother, and he speaks English well. Coming here, I was under the impression that a country which was 98 percent Christian would have "traditional" families. By most Christian standards my family would be considered to be pretty dysfunctional. Needless to say, it reminds me a lot of my family back home. My host mom, Sina, is 46 and married to Simati who is 29. She had a husband before that, but he left for California with one of her sons and appears to be incommunicado. I have two brothers, Fa'amafu (15) and Ieki (9), and one sister To'afa (19). To'afa is married to Lee (who was named after Bruce Lee) and they have a daughter Farina (1). When I got there I asked about my host father. They told me he was on Savi'i (the other large island). For a while I thought he was gone like the first husband, but it turns out he was only gone for an animal show.

The village, Falevao, is inland a bit at the base of Mount Fua (or Fao, something beginning F and ending in two vowels). Like many words in Samoa, Falevao has two meanings. It is the name of this village and it's also the word for outhouse. Regardless of it's namesake, the village and surrounding terrain are quite beautiful. They told us to leave expensive stuff in storage for the first week so we could determine if we feel comfortable taking it. I'll send some pictures after the next week there.

There is a main road which circumscribes each island. Villages are set up next to each other sort of like small towns of 150 to 500 people. There are about 225 people in Falevao, and the place were we have class is about a third of the way into the village if you were to take the road from Apia. My house is the farthest out, or about two thirds of the length of the village from the place were we have our language classes. I normally walk to school in the mornings, and it takes me about 25 minutes wearing flipflops.

It's a big deal to have the Peace Corps there and pretty much everyone knows my name, what I'm doing, etc. Everyone says hello to me as I walk past there houses and they all know my Samoan name (Sione). The traditional houses or fale's (pronounced fall and the letter a) are open structures. Think of a roof held up by posts four feet apart on a concrete slab. Because their seasons are the rainy and dry and the temperature is constant year round they don't really have a need for walls. In fact, houses with walls and rooms are called falepalangi --- palangi being the word for white folks. So, for example, when I walk to school, I probably pass 15 houses. Since they are open, everyone sees me and says "Malo Sione"... this is _the_ place for narcissistic (sp?) people. Every time I pass some one they try to talk to me. Sometimes a train of children will follow me asking me questions and giggling.

The first day there was the most trying. We arrived around three in the afternoon, and things began with an 'ava ceremony. This involves the people in the Peace Corps sitting on one side of a fale and the village chiefs sitting on the other side. Each side has a talking chief --- ours is Onafia --- who basically negotiates for each group. It's a bizarre formality which ends up with every one drinking a coconut shell full of 'ava (called kava in the states). We ended up forking over 30 cases of mackerel (canned fish) and they fed us. The food was... ok. They eat something called taro here which a flavorless root with a potato like texture. It's best broken apart and used to dip into food which gives it flavor. Also on the menu was breadfruit --- another flavorless food which grows on trees and is also used for dipping. There was also pork, nasty chicken, some shrimp, large pieces of pig fat. It was a traditional, yet foul meal.

After that, we met members of our host families. We were then taken to the fale's were we would be staying. We were to meet at the school fale around five to talk about our living situation. I spent the hour or so trying to get everyones name. My cousin from American Samoa wasn't there yet, so this was pretty trying. There was a lot of me trying to read stuff from the dictionary and make sentences a five-year-old Samoan child would have been ashamed of. After the meeting at school, it was about six thirty. I came home where my mother and sister were saying something about a ta'ele. Eventually I noticed that they were pointing at the shower. (aside: the shower at my house is a piece of PVC pipe attached to a stick coming out of the ground on a sloped piece of concrete with a tarp obstructing the view from the road.) So I thought that I must stink really bad. We were shown how to use the outside showers, but I didn't think I'd be pushed into using it like this. I went to my room and took off everything by my lavalava and came back to the shower. My sister gave me a towel, a bar of soap, and a washcloth. Heather will be happy to know I'm using my wash cloth while bathing in river water. Next To'afa stood there and watched me while I took a shower. She would say things that I didn't understand. She started pointing to my feet saying ta'ele. She would say it louder thinking that I would understand if I could only hear here. Eventually I realized that I hadn't done a good job of washing my feet. I washed everything and got back to the fale. I was trying to talk to my host mom when she said something to indicate that it was time for prayer. It turns out they were hurrying me up so we could pray and eat dinner. At night they have a curfew around 5.30 and another at 6.30 for Sa, the evening prayer. The cool thing is that they sing really nice songs in Samoan. I'm going to try to record some of them. Also, when we're done, we can hear families singing in the fale's around us. It's really nice.

After the first night of having to bath under the instruction of a 'healthy' Samoan woman, things were much easier to deal with. I'm eating three meals a day here, but I'm not eating too much. They have those little clamshell sandwich makers here that you can use for making grill cheese sandwiches. One morning I'll have egg sandwiches for breakfast, the next canned fish. If I don't watch them make the food, it's sort of a surprise. Dinner the first night was a little strange also. There are three structures that my host family lives in which lay on an upward slope from the road. The first is a two room building. One room is my room which has a bed and a table with a chair. The second is a room that has a freezer and one has to enter it by going to through my room. The second structure is the main fale. The front half is open and the back has three or four rooms. Back and to the right of the main fale is the cooking fale which is an open structure where they cook and do dishes. The first night they had me sit at a table in the main fale. Most people don't sit at tables here, they sit on the floor on these hand made mats which are really nice. So I sat at the table while they brought three or four plates of food: one of taro, one with breadfruit, one with sausages that resemble large hot dogs, and I don't recall the other. I sat there and took food off the plates and ate until I was more or less satisfied. The entire time I ate, everyone stared at me --- I felt like a freak at the zoo. After that, everyone went to the kitchen fale and ate their dinner. When the rest of the family finished dinner, they came back to the table where I had eaten and where I was currently working on homework. They sat around the table in the fale and stared at me for the better part of an hour and a half. At this point, I decided it was time for me to goto bed.

The next day the guy from American Samoa, Lele, showed up. I got him to get the family to let me eat in the kitchen fale. While there are many flies in this one, I don't feel like such a freak. They still feed me first and wait until I'm done to eat. It's part of fa'aSamoa, or the Samoan way, in which guests are treated really well. It feels like everything stops for me. When I'm finished eating I say: Ma'oga fa'afetai gasese (I'm full thankyou, good cooking). At this point Sina tells Ieki to get me a bowl of water and a towel on a plate. However, she does it with a great sense of urgency. To avoid eating first by myself I've started eating slower. Eventually everyone gets hungry and starts digging in. The more they get used to me I will become less of an oddity and more of a fixture.

Much of the food here is really fatty: turkey tails (the part America's don't eat), mutton chops (fat encrusted portions of ribs from old sheep), I even had fried fat one day --- no shit. I don't eat much of the fatty stuff, heck I don't think I could. In the mornings I eat papaya and boiled eggs, for lunch and dinner I try to eat what ever fish they have and the taro/breadfruit. They keep trying to feed me these bananas called faipalangi (long skinny flavorless bananas on which they put a little coconut cream)... not to be confused with the shorter, fatter, sweeter bananas called faiSamoa. They have something called palusami which is coconut cream that was pored into a taro leafs and cooked in something called an umu. The umu is made by heating up volcanic rocks until they are red hot. The rocks are then covered with large banana leafs. Taro, bread fruit, and the palusami are placed on top of the banana leaves and covered with more banana leaves. This is sort of like a smoker for cooking barbecue. Since the palusami is made from coconut oil, it's really fatty, but it tastes good if you eat it like a dip with taro or bread fruit.

One night Sina handed me a plate with some stringy bluish green stuff on it and said 'mania' which means 'good'. I asked her what it was and she said it was fish. I took a small amount and put it on my plate. After I finished my dinner, I tried it. It was pretty salty an foul. Eventually I found it it was called 'palolo' which is the name given to a worm which lives on the reefs in the Pacific Islands. They are harvested twice a year, once in October and again in November during full moons --- mating times for the worm. A person stands on the reef with a conch shell during the full moon. When the worms come out, he blows the shell and Samoans rush out to the reef to harvest the mating worms. The window of opportunity is about two hours and fine mesh nets are used to scoop up the worms from the surface of the water. If you get a couple fistfulls (the volume of your closed fist) you've made quite a catch. So, I was eating worms, sperm and sea water --- it's considered a delicacy here. I must admit that I've had better tasting sperm.

So there are good and bad food days. As they figure out what I like, I suspect the good will easily outweigh the bad. For dinner just before I left I had a great piece of fried fish. They make a dish called oka which is raw fish, normally tuna, soaked in coconut cream with onions and cucumbers. I tried it with a little apprehension, but it is damn tasty. I'm was a little weary of eating raw fish here. However, it's so fresh and it's really good. Probably worth the getting the diarrhea every once in a while. The fruit here is great: coconuts and papayas are always in season and mangos and pineapples are in season six months out of the year. I've never tasted mangos and pineapples as good as I've had here. Baby coconuts are called niu, and are the kind you drink. The picture is of a man with the traditional knee/abdomen tattoos who climbed up a tree, pulled down a few coconuts and husked them for us. A couple of the girls here thought he was a sexy beast. These pictures were taken earlier in training when we were at the beach. In the village, I tried husk one that Lele pulled down for me, but I broke it in the process. He told me he'd teach me how to climb the trees and fetch the coconuts.

Viscosity

2005-12-26T19:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I had the firmest stool since coming to Samoa. I would say that I was probably constipated or at least very close to it. I didn't go the day before and it hurt coming out. I was celebrating my body's adaption to the local cuisine.

Last night was one of the weekly bingo nights. I left with Lee and To'afa around 8PM and arrived about 35 minutes later, after stopping at Lee's sister's house. At around 9.30 my stomach started churning. Being familiar with this feeling, I took an Immodium at around 9.45. I new bingo would probably run until 10.45 or 11. Lee and To'afa were having a good time, so I decided to tough it out.

Bingo ended around 10.50, and I needed to urinate as well. To'afa said it would be a couple minutes more. It turns out that the women's committee meeting follows the bingo game. The last time I only came with Lee, so I didn't stay for it that time. I told Lee that I needed to void my bladder, and he gestured to the yard beside a step like pyramid grave. After confirming that I understood him correctly, I went to the side of the grave facing away from the other people and emptied my bladder. It was temporary relief.

At 11.30 the pressure building up in my bowels was becoming too much. I told Lee that I really needed to go. He and To'afa came with me. The pressure in my stomach was very painful. It came in waves every 45 seconds and I had about 25 minutes before we would reach the fale. After about 5 minutes, I noticed that To'afa wasn't with us. I turned back and Lee said that she also had to urinate. I noticed her squatting beside the road about 20 feet back. At this point I realized that it was socially acceptable to goto the bathroom on the side of the road. To'afa caught up to us about half a minutes later. I waved her and Lee on and told them I would catch up with them.

I found a somewhat dry area on the side of the road --- not necessarily an easy feat given the rain we have been having lately. Satisfied with my spot, I dropped my shorts to my ankles. I then pulled them forward and projected my ass out. I gave a good squeeze, and I could feel piece clear my anus. This small plug was a remnant from the morning. It was followed by a much more fluid matter which flowed quite freely. The relief I felt is difficult to describe, but I think most people have felt it. Since I had no toilet paper and no time to find a substitute, I positioned my ass to minimize spatter and skin exposure. When finished --- perhaps 20 seconds for the act and 5 to relax and enjoy myself --- I pulled up my shorts and caught up to Lee and To'afa.

When I got home, I visited the bathroom and finished the business I started at the side of the road. I don't think I've been happier or will be to see the bathroom at my fale. I went to the shower, cleaned myself off, and went to bed.

Group photo

2005-12-26T19:43:00.000-08:00

I've attached a picture of our group taken by Kevin's wife. These are the people from left to right: Top Row:

Leata (trainer)
Me (sione)
Kevin (trainer)
Julia (tala)
Sara (salai)
Mari (mari)
Andrew (anataro)
Charles (siale)
Josh (iosua)
Ryan (lani)
Falaseu (trainer)
Brian (ropeti)
Onafea (trainer) --- his right third anyway

Bottom Row:

Diana (tiana)
Candice (tise)
Holy ('oli)
Bob (robati)
Marques (matusi)

Language Training

2005-12-26T19:32:00.000-08:00

The Samoan language is challenging. It only has 14 letters and two special characters one is called a komaliliu and the other a fa'amamafa. The komaliliu is an apostrophe before a vowel as in the word fa'amamafa. The fa'amamafa is a bar that goes over a vowel. So say -a is a with a bar over it. Then a vowel can have four sounds: a, 'a, -a, and '-a. The thing that makes this challenging is that each word seems to have a different meaning depending on which vowel sound that is used. M-al-o means hello while mal-o means hard and m-alo is the word for loin cloth. I'm having a heck of a time distinguishing the vowel sounds when spoken.

They told us a story about a volunteer staying in a village who was having ear problems. The trainers told them to goto their family and ask them to massage or fof-o. He asked the family and things got really quite. They brought him a bottle of coconut oil, closed all of the windows, and went outside. He sat there in a chair for about 15 minutes wondering what was going on. See he ment fof-o, but said fufu which means to masterbate --- a very polite family if you ask me.

The language training program is very good. We spend part of our time here at the hotel and part at the village. Since we have 12 weeks to learn what we can, there are either three or four students per instructor, and the instructors are all Samoan. Our instructors name is Onafia and he is what is referred to as a talking chief --- I'll probably write something separately about the organizational structure when I better understand it. Since we jump back and forth between the village and the hotel and the funds are limited, the teaching materials need to be mobile and inexpensive. The instructors have a folder for each lesson plan with words written on cardboard that they place on a board that has paper clips at regular intervals. They also use large pieces of paper with sounds, words, etc. written on them. These are taped up as needed. The trainers also stay with us either at the hotel or at the village. I've included a picture of Onafia and Brian. It seems like a simple and pragmatic system they have developed, and it's pretty impressive.

Arrival

2005-12-26T19:29:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Apia on the 12th of October. The plane ride wasn't too bad. I slept for four hours then for two. We landed around 3am and there were a herd of people waiting here to greet us. We all got layed right there at the airport. The ride from the airport went by pretty quick partially because I was out of it and partially because the other volunteers were there to talk to us. I met one girl who was from Fayetteville. They dropped us off at the hotel in Apia where we will be spending some of our time during training. A lot of us stayed up, drank coconut juice, and watched the sunrise. Because of the jetlag, everything seemed really surreal. I took a nap around six for an hour and a half and the scheduled events started pretty late. I spaced out my sleeping such that the jetlag didn't bother me after the first day. We met the staff who are mostly Samoan, and they are really nice good natured folks. The Peace Corps has been here since 1967. They were asked to come after a cyclone/typhoon tore into the country. Since then, they have really helped build up the infrastructure. For example, to improve education volunteers will take over classes for teachers while they get higher degrees in the US or at the University here. It's all focused on sustainable development to prevent people from being dependent on foreign aid. So many of the people seem appreciative of the Peace Corps and the US.

The training period is interesting. We will spend the first ten days at a hotel in Apia, the capital. It's about the quality of an inexpensive hostel, but you know how easily I'm satisfied. After ten days, we will be going to a village to stay with a host family for a week. Evidently, there are a lot of Mormons here (I think 30% of the population), and they said one year they stuck all of the trainees in what was essentially a Mormon village. With the host family we spend our time working on our Samoan and trying to integrate ourselves into the community. This is the schedule:

Oct 12-20	Hotel
Oct 21-29	Village
Oct 30-Nov 04	Apia
Nov 05-12	Village
Nov 13-18	Apia
Nov 19-Dec 14	Village

The training finishes up on December 14th. At that point we start working at our assignments. There are fourteen of us: 5 doing information technology, two people doing social work, 4 people with vocational assignments, one person training teachers, and two people working at the university. Myself and a guy from Texas named Brian are going to work at the University of Samoa. He'll be teaching mathematics and it looks like I will be teaching chemistry. Brian managed to contact people before we got here and they told him that he and I will be living together in government housing and we will have Internet access in our apartment via a phone line. Until then I'm goto the Internet cafe and pay 15 tala/hour (2.7 tala/dollar) to connect my computer and download/send my email. Right now I'm sharing a room with Brian and another volunteer named Ryan.