A year in review

As the year is coming to an end its hard to believe that we have already been here for four months. Since this will be my last blog for a while (I don’t know if I will be able to blog in New Zealand.)  I decided I would do a recap on my time on the island. This morning while I was riding on the bus I was thinking about experience. Experience is when you step outside your comfort zone and try something new. I crave new experiences and adventures. I love being uncomfortable in new situations and seeing how much I grow from the particular experience. Living on this island has not always been easy. When looking at the pictures you see the beauty of this island but that’s just scratching the surface of what my life has been like.

Have you ever heard the saying, “ The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” I remember for the longest time that I had always wanted to live near the ocean. I had always wanted to live in a tropical climate where I would never have to deal with the snow and the bitter cold winters. As I am face timing with my family I start to become jealous because I see them wearing winter clothes all bundled up because of how cold it is. They often tell me how cold it is outside and I find it hard to believe. When chatting with them I tell them about the heat. I have never lived in heat like this for so long. I feel like I am constantly wiping sweat off of my face. I feel like I can never really cool off. The thought of even putting a sweatshirt makes me sweat a little more. I noticed that I was starting to complain about the things that really is not that important.

Experience. I have experienced so many crazy things over the past four months. I killed off rats that decided they wanted to live in our house. Virginia and I had a rat run between our legs and now we just laugh about how much it scared us. Now when I see cockroaches it doesn’t even phase me. I have gotten to play my favorite sport everyday after school with the locals. We are slowly learning the language and embracing the fact that everyone is going to laugh at us when we try and pronounce the word. We have gained a new appreciation for the convenience of everything in the states. Lastly, our students have pushed us to the limits but we still love them and can’t imagine the fact that will have to be leaving them in the upcoming months.

I want to wish everyone back home a Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year! I miss you all can’t wait to see everyone when I come back in June! J

Preparing for Christmas

Getting ready for Christmas is a little different on a tropical island than it would be in the states. Back home the temperatures would be dropping and the snow would be falling outside. Here the temperature is rising and not a snowflake is in sight. I am used to driving around at home and seeing houses covered in Christmas lights. I have seen two houses on the island that have Christmas lights and it has made us so happy. Christmas trees are also rare to find around the island. I have seen a few inside people’s houses. It’s so weird because in our house around Christmas I can find Christmas trees scattered all around our house.  The island has started getting into the Christmas spirit by playing Christmas music at the volleyball games. I have also started playing some Christmas music in the classroom to help get students excited for the Christmas season. I had also given my students a Christmas spelling list week. It was interesting hearing them talk about all of the different words because most of the time my students had no idea what I was talking about and I ended up going on Google and searching the images to show my students. For instance my students had no idea what an icicle was or a toboggan. I had a few students tell me that they were going to come visit me in Minnesota next and I had to take them for a ride on my toboggan.

At school we have also been getting into the Christmas spirit. We are currently preparing for our Christmas program, which will take place this Thursday. Unfortunately our flight for New Zealand leaves early Thursday so we will be missing the program. My class has been preparing a special dance with Level 4 &5 for the concert. They also will be singing a song. Everyday for the last couple of weeks we having been preparing for the concert. I have had the songs stuck in my head all the time and I wont miss hearing the songs on repeat all the time.

Lately, I have been catching myself going to the beach more and more. I always told myself that if I ever lived on the ocean I would be at the beach all the time. Well with everything that goes on throughout the day I sometimes forget to go to the beach and enjoy the natural beauty of it. One of my favorite things about going to the beaches here and is that I have yet to see a person on the beach with me. Sometimes one of my kids will spot me sitting on the beach and come chill for a little bit and make sure everything is okay. I love just sitting in the sand and letting the waves crash against my legs.

I can’t believe how close that Christmas is getting for us! It is still weird to think that back home is in colder temperatures. Whenever I talk to my parents they also talk about how much it is cooling off. Meanwhile they also comment about the fact that they can see sweat dripping off my face while face timing them. 

Last week I was awarded the MVT at the school. It pretty much means that I got teacher of the month. Upon receiving that I also got two cases of tuna and some soda. So if anyone has some recipes on how to make tuna I would more than love some new ideas! J

With love,

Abby

Not a typical December

When I have traveled in the past to tropical islands I had always wondered why island people used to move at a slower pace than what I was used to. In the states we live a fast paced life. It feels like we are always in a hurry to get someplace and we are constantly on the go. On tropical islands it is quite the opposite they move at a slower pace in no rush to get anywhere. After this past week on the island I completely understand why they move at slower pace than people in the states. I remember reading in blogs before coming here that the winter months are a little hot. In my mind I was thinking, “ Ehhhh it can’t get that hot outside.” Jokes on me.

            I would like to say in the past week I think I have sweated more than I do in a whole year in the states. For instance this past week I was not feeling very well and after school everyday we all three had taken like two-hour naps. We would all be trying to stay awake but it was so hot that it would just put us right to sleep. We then would all wake up just dripping in sweat. Making supper is also one of the hotter tasks we have to do here. Its usually a win in our book if we don’t sweat while preparing or eating our food. I remember at one point this week I had looked over at Virginia while we were eating our meal and could just see beads of sweat dripping down her face. I soon had gotten up only to see that I was equally as sweaty from eating my meal.

            After these few incidences we came to the realization that the hot months in the Pacific are upon us. As I am chatting with people from back home they are talking about how cold it is outside and I can’t even remember the last time that I was actually cold. I have feeling when we go to New Zealand that might change a little. I can’t believe in a little over two weeks we will be heading to New Zealand for our Christmas break. I am a little sad that we will be missing out on whatever the island does for Christmas but I can’t wait to explore another island.

            This week we have finally seen what a Samoan firework looks like. We have heard from multiple people that around the holidays they have fireworks that go off. These fireworks are a little different from what we have in the states. They take the large cans of fruit and stack them all together somehow. I haven’t really looked at the firework to closely due to the fact that our students were the ones walking around with them. All I know is that it makes a very loud boom when they set the fuse and goes off. All I know is that we saw our students carrying around this homemade firework and we decided it was in our best interest to keep a safe distance from them for the time being.

            This week was pretty laid back otherwise! Hope everyone back home is having fun preparing for the Christmas holiday! It sure doesn’t feel like Christmas because we don’t have any snow here!

My first Thanksgiving away

First of all I cannot believe that it is already time for thanksgiving. I think one of the main reasons why it doesn’t feel like thanksgiving is because it’s not cold outside. When the cooler weather comes home its starts to bring the feeling of the holidays along with it. We had a busy week at school and at our house. All three of us were worried what kind of emotions that holidays would bring us since we would be away from our families for the first time. We didn’t know how we would handle seeing them all together and not being apart of the festivities. We were also excited to see how the island celebrated the holiday and how it compared to what we do at home.

            On Wednesday we celebrated thanksgiving at school. The kids all came to school but we didn’t have to teach. Instead we had a whole day planned of activities for the kids to do. We started out the morning by doing the turkey race. The turkey race is a tradition on the island where they have 4 different races and the winner of each of the races wins a frozen turkey. We started the first race off with the lower levels, then came our turn. They had two heats for the teachers. One was for the younger teachers and the other was for the older teachers.  I was unprepared for the race and ran the mile in flip-flops. I had multiple people come up to me and tell me that I am turning into a true Samoan for doing that. After all the races were completed we had stations for each of the students to participate in. They had a sack race, water balloon toss, relays, and kick ball. I think that the students really enjoyed doing all of that. We also had a big speaker playing music all morning long. After those activities we had lunch and then the upper level classes played volleyball for the rest of the afternoon. After school was dismissed we headed home to do a deep cleaning of our house. We were having a few friends over for a thanksgiving meal.

            Being away from thanksgiving brought a lot of different feelings up. I have never missed a holiday from home so I knew that it would hard to see everyone at home while I was not there. While we were preparing our meal for thanksgiving I was making mashed potatoes. It reminded me of how for every holiday I sit in the kitchen for what seems like forever peeling potatoes for everyone. My dad would always bring me what seemed like an endless amount of potatoes and laughing at me because he knew I would be getting sick of it. My mom would moving all around the kitchen cleaning and washing dishes before we were finished using them. Its one of my biggest pet peeves because I will still be using a spoon and she would have washed it and put it away before I have even noticed it was missing. I missed all of that. On the flip side I started thinking about everything I have done here and how lucky I am for this opportunity.

            On Sunday afternoons I like to go out and just sit on the beach and watch the waves roll in. I love sitting alone and just basking in the beauty of the island. I also love playing with all the little hermit crabs that are crawling on the beach. I have never seen so many hermit crabs on a beach before. I was sitting on the beach lost in thought when I was reminded of why I spent my thanksgiving away from home. I soon felt little pokes to my side and giggles. Sure enough I was spotted on the beach and one of the kids came over to say hi and make sure I was okay. Soon after we had a few more kids show up on the beach. Virginia came over to where I was with the kids. We were all playing with hermit crabs when we decided to build a little home for them. After like a half hour of building this home in the sand we decided to head home because it was starting to get dark outside. The two boys that were with us decided they wanted to walk on the beach back to our house. They wanted to create a line in the sand of our footprints. They of course led us back on the most crazy path possible but seeing them running around and giggling with us made it all worth it. It made me realize that even though some days can be tough for us we need to focus on the good things and all positives that are going on. We need to focus on the fact that we are here for the kids and that they are all that matter.

With Love,

Abby

Nurse Abby and football

At the beginning of each week Dana, Virginia, and I always talk about what is going to happen this week to make it interesting or different. We always have something happen that is out of the ordinary and we are always trying to figure out what is going to happen. This week we first had the lice incident. I spent a majority one night taking lice out of Virginia’s hair. The next night we did my hair because I started scratching the next day in school. After school we went on a major de-licing of the house. We all consulted with our mothers on how we should get rid of it from our house. We were told that we need to wash everything in hot water. Hmmmm…. Well we don’t have hot water at the house. So we pulled out a big pot and boiled some hot water and soaked all our towels, bed sheets, and everything else that was near our heads. We are on a strict no sitting on the couch’s for three days because we think it might be in the cushions. We luckily have bar stools that we have been sitting on lately. I can’t wait until we are able to sit back down on our couches.

On Thursday night after school I was face timing my mom when Virginia came over and got me. She had told me that one of our students who had recently got bit by a dog came over because his leg was hurting. We had told him to come by the house if it was hurting and we would try and clean it out. The three of us have very little experience with dealing with this matter. Thankfully growing up on a farm led to us having a lot of accidents where we needed wounds to be cleaned. My mom is also a nurse and finds pure enjoyment out of cleaning our wounds. As my dad would say she likes to inflict pain on us when we are injured. She really finds enjoyment in cleaning out wounds. After watching her for many years I have picked up on how to clean up injuries. I have never EVER been one to clean wounds it always grosses me out. For some reason when I hear about something happening to my students I go into like a mama bear mode. I want to do whatever I can to help them. So I rolled up my sleeves and cleaned the dog bite on the student’s leg up. The next day in school the student had came up to me and thanked me for helping them because it had felt so much better after being cleaned.

I had thought after cleaning the dog bite, my duties were done but poor Virginia had gotten blisters on her scalp from the lice. The blisters were oozing puss so I tried my best to get them clean. She had also gotten bug bites that had caused her feet to swell up and the bug bites opened up and also started oozing. This is when we decided that it was time for us to head to the doctor. On Friday morning we had left school early to head to the hospital. Virginia had her wounds, Dana’s eye was infected, and one of my ear’s has been clogged feeling for the last month. We had spent 4 hours waiting in the waiting room at the hospital. The hospital here is a little different to the ones back home. We spent maybe five minutes with the doctor in our visits. We each only had to pay twenty dollars to go visit the doctor and we read that to have a baby here it will only cost you fifty dollars. Since we were in the main island we also got the opportunity to pick up our packages. I love the days in which we get to pick up packages and letters. Big shout out to my grandma for sending the pan of bars they are so good! I really do appreciate anything that comes from home. I also got some letters from back home and I love getting all the mail and hearing from everyone.  We got home from the hospital and I looked down at Virginia’s feet and noticed they never cleaned them at the hospital. She had three toes that looked super infected. So I made her sit down on the bar stool and soak them. I could see sand sitting on the top of the wounds. So after soaking and cleaning them we put bandages around them to keep the sand and dirt out of them. They had looked so much better after that and she said that they had felt a lot better. I was really surprised that the doctor’s office didn’t do anything for them.

On Saturday we headed back to the main island again. All of our friends on island were heading to the championship football game for their high school. They call it “funky” for short. I am not real sure what the actually name of the school is. They don’t have college sports on island because they only have one college, which means they make a really big deal out of the high school sports out here. We were playing Tafuana High School, which is a really big rival team. They spilt the island into east side and west side instead of having conferences like we do in the states. When the teams are in the championships they also have a competition to see which team can have the best decorations. Our side of the island was just filled with red and on the bus ride over you could just feel the excitement of the game. For the game we got there right before it had began. We had to walk in front of everyone in the stands. At home this would have been totally normal with me. When you are the only three white girls there we could just feel the eyes staring down at us. Thank goodness for our Aunuu people being at the game and having us sit with them and feel welcome. Somehow we got put in the middle of the student section for the game. You can only imagine how out of place we all felt being placed in the student section but we all embraced the opportunity and cheered for Funky. The game was also a really good game at half time we were down by quite a bit but we pulled it together and won in the end. It was fun watching all of our friends react to winning the championship. One of the big things out here is when a team loses they get really upset and throw rocks at the winning team. So after the game all the funky fans had to get on school buses and get escorted out of the game by the police. We had piled a whole bunch of fans onto a school bus and then closed the windows just in case rocks got thrown. Do you know how hot it was on that bus ride? Yeah I remember just looking around and everyone was sweating. We were on our way back when all of the sudden everyone on the bus ducked down and sure enough someone was throwing rocks at the bus. I swear we never have a boring day here. Don’t worry everyone was completely safe and no one got hurt. We finally made it back home for the night and after the busy week we are all exhausted. Thank goodness for a short week at school. We also have spirit week again this week at school and we are playing different games everyday since it is thanksgiving week!

With Love,

Abby