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

More Pictures!

Here is a picture of the sunset a couple of weeks ago. Virginia and I took our hammocks out for the night and watched the sunset and it was so pretty. Sometimes we forget the natural beauty of the island because we get so caught up in our normal life. 

Here is a picture of me sitting in the hammock enjoying the sunset. 

My students decorated our door for Halloween. 

Doing whatever we can to cool off inside the house. 

My students on Halloween!

This dog absolutely loves us whenever he sees us he comes running full speed at us. Whenever we go on walks he follows behind us. 

We realize that this is a horrible picture of us but it is a perfect depiction of how we felt that day. We had just finished school and decided to walk home. It was so hot that day and we were sweating and crabby and just wanted to be home. Our hair is all over the place and we were just hot. 

Many of the beaches here are untouched by the locals. It is so nice to just go sit on the beach and not have any one around. 

Our nights consists of sitting outside chatting with our friends at the wharf or we go for walks along the ocean. 

Meet Luci like it or not we adopted him as a friend! 

Locals always go spearfishing at night. The guys always stop them so we can look at all the different fish that they catch. The other night they caught and octopus. 

After school we always go to the volleyball games to watch everyone play and we always get swarmed with little ones. 

Social Bug

My parents always told me when I was growing up that I was a social bug. Meaning that I spent a lot of my time socializing with other and I never really stayed home. I always liked to hang out with friends and keep myself busy. I think it is safe to say that us three are turning into social bugs. I am not going to lie at first we struggled really hard with making friends. Partially due to the language barrier and well we are really different. I mean I was talking to one of my students the other day. They were telling me that they have five people that sleep in the same bedroom as them. I could never ever imagine being raised like that. It’s safe to say that I would have gone crazy being that close to my family all the time. No offence family but that would be just a little to close for comfort. We started hanging out with our friends almost every night. Since I talk about our friends all the time I will start saying their names in my blog! Also because I know I will want to look back on this and remember our friends.

Our first friends were Moki, Luci, and Lima. These three took us under their wings and introduced us to the island. They helped us make friends with a lot of the locals and helped us get acquainted to the island life. We also are really good with Joe, Vice, and Mark. We have really enjoyed getting to know them and forever thankful for all the times that they have helped us out so far.

This week we had our first case of lice in the house. For the past couple of weeks Virginia has been scratching her head. We didn’t know exactly what was going on but we figured she may have just gotten sunburned and then was peeling. Well here we are three weeks later and she has blisters on her neck and scalp. We decided we better pull out our lice treatment and take care of it before it got any worse. It was quite the experience to say the least. First of all I had never done the lice treatment before. After coating her hair in the treatment you are supposed to rinse it with warm water. Since we don’t have any warm water we got a big pot out and heated the water up. I had lost track of time and let the water get a little too hot. Do you know how hard it is to cool hot water here? It is not an easy task but we managed. The hardest part was dumping the hot water on her head. I started laughing which caused Virginia to laugh and while I was laughing the water dumped onto her face causing her to get water up her nose. To say the least it was an experience. After the hot water incident I grabbed the comb and slowly combed through each strand of her hair. By the end it grossed me out on how much lice we found in her hair. Lets just say we won’t be letting it get that bad anytime soon.

We FINALLLY made it to the mart. It only took us three weeks to get to the mart. Luckily one of the teachers drove us to the mart and dropped us off. While shopping we found some tortilla shells. I seriously can’t wait for the day I find lettuce so I can make some tacos. We were waiting for a bus to go back to the harbor to go back home. Virginia waved the bus done and it drove right past us because it was too full. The joys of public transportation out here, I cannot wait until the day I can hop in my car and get food. We were sitting outside the store when this car pulled up and asked if we needed a ride. Don’t worry mom hitch hiking is totally normal here. Little did we know that the person in the car was person who served us at the small little café three weeks ago. She had recognized us and decided to turn around and give us a ride back to the harbor. I seriously love how nice these people are to us. One of our friends told me that the Samoan way is to always help someone out because you never know when you will need help from someone else.

We have now reached our three-month mark of living in the American Samoa. Virginia, Dana, and I are more or less inseparable.  The second that we separate from each other it just doesn’t feel right. We have such an interesting relationship because we all come from different backgrounds and different lifestyles. I love hanging out with them and joking around with them. I really don’t know how we are ever going to say goodbye in June. We even have plans for the weekend we are going to a football game on Saturday morning! Our friends even got us red shirts to wear to the game. J

With Love,

Abby

Rain and cooler temps

Every since Sunday morning it has cooled way off and rained everyday since. On Monday morning it was almost stormy. Thunderstorms out here are completely different then the thunderstorms that we experience in the states. It thunders like four times and maybe lightening’s once. My students were very concerned and kept asking if I was scared and I was like no this doesn’t scare me but if we get an earthquake then you will see me get scared. I was telling them that we get thunderstorms way worse in the states. The abundance of rain has also brought cooler temperatures. First off everyone back home who is reading this might think I am crazy for saying this but it was chilly this week. The temps have been in the low 80’s. One day during class a big gust of wind blew through the classroom and everyone crossed their arms and was like that is cold. It was chilly I am not going to lie. This scares me for when I come home because if I think low 80’s is cold I am going to be in for a rude awakening.

We have started to have our own little crew that we hang out with every night. We all go outside to the Wharf around like 8:30 and just chill and talk. Last night we decided to go for a little walk. While we were walking it started to rain. So we were running around trying to find over hangs on houses to sit under. I just remember at one point we were running in a line just looking for somewhere to stand under. We would literally run house from house and every time it stopped raining we go to a different house. At one point I remember looking behind me into the house and guy was sleeping and I was like oh my we should let him sleep. The local go, “Oh no, just say hi this happens all the time.”

This week at school one of my students was reading a book about all different types of animals. He kept asking me if I had ever seen most of these animals. I was like sure I have seen a lot of these animals. I told them that I have gone to the zoo a couple of times and that is where I have seen them. After I had made that comment I got to thinking about that. My students have never been to a zoo before. They don’t have any zoos in American Samoa so they have never been to one. This seems really crazy for me because I have been to the zoo multiple times and a lot kids that go to school in the states at some point get the opportunity to go to the zoo. I told me kids if I had the chance to take the to a zoo I would love to take them there for the day.

This week we have just reached our three-month mark in America Samoa. First of all I can’t believe that we have been living here for that long already. We can really tell that we are getting accustomed to everything here. We spend at least four days a week in the water just trying to cool off. Whenever we go outside to just sit and hangout we have to have music playing. We also almost know the names of everyone and understand whom they are talking about when they say their Samoan name!

With Love,

Abby