Opening Ceremonies

The last two days a majority of them it has been raining. Which has been a good thing and a bad thing. We had big plans to go hiking and explore the island but none of us wanted to brave the rain. This led to us having a movie day! I am not going to lie it was so nice to just be lazy for the day and not think about teaching and everything else. It actually almost felt like a normal Sunday at home. We did catch a break in the rain for a little bit and we hiked for a little bit but since it had been raining it was super slippery. Samoa has 13 national park hiking trails and its our goal to hike them all before we head back home!

This morning was a big morning for us. We had to put on our school uniforms and head to one of the high schools. At the beginning of each school year the faculty and staff of every school in American Samoa head to a high school for a ceremony. We were almost treated like celebrities at the ceremony. We tried to sit in the back row and they instantly moved us to the front row. We than had multiple people ask if they could take our pictures. Once the ceremony began they sang and had a speaker. Most of the ceremony was done in Samoan but in some parts they spoke English so we could understand what was going on. The speaker was the governor of Samoa and he did a special address towards us. He had us stand up in front of everyone and wave to the crowd. He also thanked us for stepping forward and helping the kids of Samoa. The ceremony was also filmed and they faced the camera on us multiple times. We were also warned that we will randomly find our pictures in the paper. They like to take pictures of us and put them in the paper and you don't realize it until the paper comes out.

After the ceremony we got the opportunity to meet up with our principal again. She checked in on us and said that she will be seeing us on Thursday when we come back. She also warned us to watch the water because today it was really windy. This caused the water to be rough and when its rough the boat to and from the island is closed. Hopefully we don't run into any problems with that in the near future.

We headed to a grocery strore after the ceremony to get a few groceries for the week. I was very impressed with the selection that the grocery store had. It wasn't as nice as the grocery stores back home but I can deal with it for a year. The only downfall is they don't have taco shells! Tacos is like my go to meal so I will have to start getting creative with tuna. We have a tuna plant on the island and we call it tuna land. So we have an endless supply of tuna at the stores on the island. The hardest thing to find on the island is bread. They run out of bread so quickly so we always stock up when they have it.

I have about two more days left on the main island and then I will be heading to my little island for awhile. On Thursday we are doing a huge shopping trip to get groceries for a month or two. It takes us about an hour and a half to get groceries. This also means that I will be leaving internet temporarily. The school was supposed to have it but it is still not fixed so whenever they get it fixed I will have it again.

With Love,
Abby