Veteran's Day

I have been trying really hard lately to keep the blogs rolling for all of you back home. This way you have more of an idea of what is going on in my life! I can’t lie but I really enjoyed having a day off from school this week. The long weekend was very much needed. It is now Sunday morning and I am dreading the workweek already. I remember a couple of years ago when I was getting ready to go back to college and complaining about the fact that I didn’t want to go to classes. I looked at my dad and said I really hate Sunday nights because I know I have school the next. He then looked back and said it doesn’t get any better when you are done with college because then you have to work. That statement couldn’t have been any more true.

On Thursday I stayed up late so that we could go fishing for pa-low-low don’t know how to spell it in Samoan but that’s what it sounds like to me. This is a type of fish/worm that only comes out in October and November. The fish will come out a week after full moon around twelve and four in the morning. So around midnight all the locals head to the beach. It was the beach that you can find behind the school. I went with Lusi and some of his friends. We sat out on the beach with locals and looked on the beach and waited. To catch this fish you have to go in the water and net them out. The nets looked like the ones you see at the pool only hand made. The pa-low-low looks like a really really skinny worm. To me it looks really gross. Samoans take the pa-low-low and fry it with butter and eat it with rice. I have never tried it and the night we went they only caught a little bit.

On Friday you could say I was a little bit lazy. I spent most of my morning watching movies and cleaning up. So cleaning house here can be quite a task because when you clean you start to sweat so on Friday. If I started sweating I just sat down and watched a movie. Once I cooled off I continued on with the cleaning. After I finished the household chores I decided to go swimming and play with kids. I like to go swimming with the kids once in a while but sometimes I just need a break from them too.

            On Saturday I did my usual Saturday shopping I had to get some food and a new phone. I accidently washed my island on Friday and so I had to get a new one. Let me tell you getting a phone here is a lot easier then in the states. We also decided to stop by the high school football game on Saturday. The football teams are really good out here and the games are usually fun to watch. I think the best part of the football game is the fact that you can see the ocean from the field. So if I get sick of watching the game I just watch the ocean.

            On Saturday afternoon after we got back from shopping I decided to make some banana bread. The school always gives me a lot of bananas so I just froze them so I could make some bread. I really missed baking last year so this I bought all the ingredients to bake so when I feel like baking I actually can. As I was baking my banana bread I ran into a slight problem. The chocolate chips I bought had melted into a big clump. So I broke them into small pieces and put them in the batter. I then started stirring and you know what. My chocolate chips all started melting. Save to say it was really hot on Saturday!

An eventful weekend

After my last blog post my life seemed to get kind of crazy. Early on Friday morning about one a.m I got a call saying that Lusi’s grandma had passed away. I quickly got up and headed down the mountain. Seeing the way Samoan’s doing funerals is quite different than we do it in the states.  When we arrived at the house we had a short family service. Since we do not have a hospital on our island. The men in the family helped carry the body. They put the body into the back of the truck and then we headed to the wharf. We then all piled on the boat and headed across to meet the ambulance. We then took the forty-minute drive over to the hospital. At the hospital we had a service at the chapel. After that we headed for home for the day by the time I arrived back on island it was six thirty and time for me to get ready and go to school. While I was walking through the village my students were already walking to school. It was a long day at school but I survived. After school I headed over to Lusi’s house for another family service to discuss the funeral. Since a lot of people fly in for the funeral they usually wait a month to hold the funeral. On Sunday after church his family had another meeting at the house. When attending the meetings we have to sit on the floor of the house cross-legged. For Samoan’s they grew up doing this but my body is not quite used of sitting like that for a long period of time.

            With all of this going on the events just continued to roll on in. On Friday night I fell asleep very early because I was so tired from the day. I then got a phone call at about eleven from a panicked friend. She was a world teacher last year and is now a contract teacher just like me. She asked me if I felt the earthquake. I was like no I was sleeping. She continued to tell me that we just had a 6.8 earthquake about 50 miles from the island. We were put into a Tsunami watch. Me never experiencing a tsunami or earthquake, I was a little nervous. I had no idea what to expect and there is really no way to prepare for one. Luckily, we had no Tsunami and only a few after shocks, which I also did not feel. I must have been really tired.

            After all of the commotion over the weekend I was ready to head back to school and have some normal in my life. Little did I know I was in for a treat. I got to school on Sunday morning and I was informed that on Tuesday I was getting observed by the DOE, on Wednesday we had parent teacher conferences and on Thursday we were having more people from the DOE coming in. So much for a nice relaxing week, I am really hoping that this weekend will be nice and calm.

Halloween, Puppies, and More

I can’t even believe that it is already November already. Time has truly been flying by since school has started. I apologize for not getting a blog up sooner but I am soon realizing there is a slight difference between being a contract teacher and a volunteer. As I am now a veteran teacher at the school more jobs have been laid on me. By all means I love staying busy, I just don’t get nearly as much free time. My big projects right now are geography bee and history day projects. Being as I may not have paid attention as much as I should have in high school I have been doing a little bit of re-teaching on my knowledge of geography.  

            My students always seem to keep me on my toes too. I have loved every minute of teaching level five and usually enjoy all the energy they bring to the classroom. Though last week one of my students decided to bring five hermit crabs into the classroom. The student had hid the crabs in her pocket and I was in the middle of teaching and I saw hermit crabs crawling all over the classroom. At the moment I was not very happy but now that it is over I find it kind of humorous. I just never know what they are going to bring into the classroom.

            On the past Monday we received what I would call torrential rains. I woke up around five and I have never heard it rain so hard for so long in my life. I went into my kitchen to find my floors all wet and everything in the house just felt damp. I was a little nervous about walking to school since the school bus can’t make it up the mountain. Luckily, the principal came with the truck to save me from the rain. On my way home from school I had to walk through ankle deep puddles of water to get to my house. I also had mini waterfalls outside of my house.

            We got puppies. I always vowed that I would never be that person that bragged about dogs. I got two puppies for my protection as I tell the locals. They seem to think puppies will protect people. The dogs on island are not so friendly. My puppies may be a little friendly because I like to sit and play with them after school. Though the other morning one of the puppies tried to rip my skirt. The other day we decided to bring the dogs down to the ocean for a little swim. On our walk down it started to down pour so here we are walking through the village with puppies and its completely pouring outside. We then took the puppies to the water. Lusi just threw them into the water. I then asked do you think they can swim. His response. I hope so. Luckily they learned how to swim pretty quickly.

            On Halloween I decided to have a little party for my kids. I bought them some snacks and juice and we watched a movie. The perk of giving Samoan kids food they bring you your favorite food the next day. So the following day my desk was filled with snacks. Easy to say the kids really do appreciate everything I get for them. On Halloween we also had Milton’s birthday party. Milton is Lusi’s nephew that was born last year. They had the party all day but I missed most of it because I was busy at school. They decided to have the party without most of kids because otherwise it gets too loud. Which is fine because they still saved some food for me J While I was getting ready for the birthday party I got a nice little surprise. Lusi’s niece and nephew came up to the house to get me. I was in the shower and they were outside the house making noises. They also found where the water pipe is. All the water pipes are above ground here because it never gets cold. Well, they decided to turn the water on and off while I was in the shower. They seemed to think it was really funny to hear me yell at them in Samoan. Even on the top of the mountain my kids find ways to pick on me.

With Love,

Abby