One Month Down

I have officially been in American Samoa for a month and have almost completed my first month of school. Once the school year starts my year just seems to fly by with all the things that I have to do. We have some major praises in my classroom this past month. First of we have almost tackled word form for place value with decimals. Let me tell you having English Language Learners write out a math problem in words can be very difficult and we are almost done. My kids are troopers. Secondly, they have written complete paragraphs using seven words in each sentence. This was also a task but they are getting the hang of it.  Lastly, we have made improvements in our reading. I really work on fluency with my students because they just don’t know the words all of my kids were way below average when school started and some have already made it to grade level. Yay!! I was so excited to see that. We celebrated by playing games for the last hour of school today.

Next week will be a week of craziness for me. I have White Sunday practice every day. I just got asked to be a tutor after school so I have training for that across next week, master’s classes, and school. I have decided that once White Sunday is finished I will be so happy I have my nights free again! Some days I wish I could go back to the summer where I did absolutely nothing.

Through all of this craziness it finally does feel like I got my life back to normal. After a summer of moving around visiting people and trying to spend as much time as possible with everyone. Then I came back to the island and tried to clean my house and classroom before the school year began. Now as I reach the one-month mark I feel like I am back to normal. As this is my last year of being here I tend to get a little nostalgic about every thing. Lusi and I have been trying to really enjoy the island before all too soon we will be gone. One night we spent a couple of hours sitting on the rocks listening to the ocean waves and looking at the stars. If I could capture this moment for you guys I would. It is my absolute favorite. Whenever I have a bad week I go sit on the rocks and watch the waves roll in and from a distance I can see the kids playing and running around. I am really trying to take these things in before I won’t have a chance anymore.

*If anyone has books sitting around at home and has no idea what to do with them. I would love to take them off of your hands. My students love reading this year and are going through the small amount of books that I have quite fast. You can send them to

Abby Drenth

P.O. Box 2219

Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799

With Love,

Abby

P.s. I really love getting mail! ;)

White Sunday Practice

White Sunday is a very big deal in American Samoa. It is a Sunday that is specifically dedicated to the kids of the island. For about a month leading up to this particular Sunday the kids will practice songs, dances, and memory verses for White Sunday. White Sunday is very similar to our Christmas Program at church. The kids are in charge of the whole service. I think that last year it lasted three hours. I remember it being rather long. All of the kids in the church participate in it along with the youth. Which yours truly is involved in and will be performing also.

My dancing and singing skills are one of a kind to say the least. In other words I am terrible compared to everyone here. Like these kids are taught how to dance the second they learn how to walk. They got some skills. I have very little experience in the dance department. I still participate in these things for two reasons. Reason number one I get to see and hang out with the people of the village. My students that I had in previous years I can see them and give them pure entertainment. Like last night for instance. I had absolutely no idea what was going on because it was said in Samoan and then I got called out and every single one of my previous students was seen giggling at me. Reason number two is because as a teacher I like to put myself in my student’s position sometimes. See how the feel. What better way to do that then participate in something that is not in my native tongue. I know what if feels like when you just don’t understand what people are saying. They can say it five hundred times over and I still am not going to understand what’s going on.  So it helps me understand how my students feel in my classroom and how I can try and help them.

Now I am telling you these practices are some kind of interesting for me. First we have to learn the song in Samoan. We then practice for like an hour working on the correct pronunciations and such. I usually lip sing and try to learn how to say the word just in case some one asks me. After we master the song comes the dances. We spend another hour or so working on the moves. I can’t keep a beat to save my life so this also is interesting for me. And once again if you don’t do the move correctly they call you out and make you do it in front of everyone…

These practices are every night for me until the Sunday so I have been very busy working on my singing and dancing.

With Love,

Abby

Sunday Heat

Sunday’s are always the hottest day of the week here. Sunday’s are one of my favorites here because I can actually stay home. The boats do not run on Sunday unless you want to pay twenty dollars to go across each way. I usually sleep at Lusi’s house on Sunday because we have our big after church meal and it’s just easier. They already have a room made up for me. On Sunday’s typically church lasts from around an hour and a half to two hours depending on the Sunday. The church is about the same size as Bethel except they have no fellowship hall it’s just a sanctuary. It has no fans and no air conditioning. It can get rather hot if there is no breeze. It’s not uncommon for me to feel sweat dripping off my body during the service.

One of my favorite parts of the church service is the choir. They all sit together in the church and they all love to sing. I always wish I could have them come sing our Christmas cantata. They are soooo good. They tried to get me to join the choir this year but my one experience with choir led me to never want to do it. We were preparing for Lusi’s grandmas funeral last year and all the grandchildren had to sing a song. They of course persuaded me to join. While we were at practice one night, I was lip singing because it’s all in Samoan. I can’t pronounce all the words correctly so I just lip sing. Any way apparently my row was off key. So first they made the whole row sing the song. Still couldn’t figure out what was off. So they went from person to person making them sing. In front of the whole choir, well thank goodness for my island friends behind me who said don’t call on Abby she lip sings. I dodged the bullet. Every since then I have no desire to join. I will gladly enjoy the noise from the comfort of the back of the church.

During church the pastor will usually explain the sermon in a shorter version. This summer I translated all the books of the bible so I can figure out where they are reading from because now I know the books and the numbers.

After church we go home for our big Sunday meal. Which usually consists of breadfruit, fried chicken, sweet and sour chicken, and rice. After the meal everyone sleeps the day away. On Sundays you are supposed to stay home. Most people will not go outside of their homes on Sunday. You are also not allowed to swim on Sundays. Sometimes I feel like its extra hot on Sundays just because we can’t swim. Sunday’s are also my only day to do laundry. I don’t have a drier at my house so I rely on my clothesline. I have learned that you cannot do laundry at night because it usually won’t dry because of the humidity. The only time I will do laundry is if the sun is out or it’s windy. I have learned my lesson to never do it while raining. I have a little canopy thing that I put my clothes under so if it rains it won’t get wet but the air is so damp it won’t dry and it starts to smell. One time I started my laundry and then I had it hanging and started raining and didn’t stop for a whole week. My clothes didn’t every dry and I had to re wash them never again!

Have a great week!

Pray for my students and the upcoming week!

With Love,

Abby

Bring on the weekend

On Friday we had our beginning of the year staff party. When attending an event in Samoa prepare to eat a lot of food. There are only about fifteen people that attend our staff meeting since we are such a small school. Everyone gets assigned a certain thing. I got partnered with another teacher for a cake, which we just ordered. Easy for me. Before we eat our meal we had a short “Samoan” ceremony. I don’t know how to actually name it. I always just call it Samoan things. They do prayers, thank yous, and songs and not sure what else they talk about. After the ceremony we eat. Each person was given like 5 scoops of potato salad, half rack ribs, shrimp soaked in butter, 4 scoops of stir fry, 2 fried fish, like a half of a cake, and 5 scoops of ice cream and oh and soup. This may be one of Lusi’s favorite days. Because I come home from school with a lot of his favorite food. The shrimp in butter is soooo good but soooo unhealthy. So after eating my weight in food I didn’t move much after school.

On Saturday we went to town on the good old bus. We had to get up super early because the bus is easy to catch early in the morning but later in the day it can be difficult. It was fun to ride the bus because I haven’t done that in a long time. I like to put my headphones on and just watch the ocean. We put my new backpack to the test with groceries and it was perfect! Good choice mom! The rule I have for shopping is if it don’t fit in the backpack we cant take it. Taking a lot of groceries on the bus can be a pain. So I try to limit myself if possible. Luckily, I have Lusi so he takes the backpack and I take the bags. After a day of shopping I made some cookies for after church tomorrow. Every Sunday I eat with Lusi’s family and they love my cookies. So I made a batch for after church.

We also went swimming again! I like to go swimming on Saturdays because a lot of kids go. I like to actually play with the kids outside of the school setting. I can actually have fun with them and not have to worry about behavior. This one family bought their kids a whole bunch of balls I played catch with like nine different kids throwing balls at me at once and trying to climb on me. It was quite fun actually. Also someone brought a big speaker by the water and so the older kids were dancing around and having fun!

Enjoy your cooler weather we are approaching the hot season!

With Love,

Abby

Finding peace in the crazy

This has been one heck of a Tuesday. So walking to school this morning with Lusi. He always drops me off in the morning. It was super windy for here and rainy and I had said to him I really hope the teachers who have to take the boat come today. He reassured me by saying the wind was from the right direction no worries. The states have this beautiful thing called substitute teachers.  American Samoa does not. So when a teacher calls in sick the principal or vice principal will take over the class. Well we are currently understaffed which means the principal or vice principal are teaching those classes until they can fill the position. For some odd reason people don’t get as much enjoyment from the boat rides as I do. So we are low on staff. Its about five minutes until the bell rings all my students are sitting at their desk with their notebooks out talking a million miles a minute to me before school starts. The vice principal comes in to tell me that the principal, SPED, ECE, fifth, and sixth grade teachers are all gone today. Please have the level five students in your classroom today.

So instead of my nine students I jumped to 19.  Which when you are used to only have nine its quite a jump. Plus my classroom is not made for this many students. It was quite an eventful morning trying to get all of the kids settled and listening to me. I was in the middle of a lesson and it starts down pouring and rain was coming through my shutter windows and kids were moving around to stay dry and a crab goes running through the middle of the classroom. Which sends everyone running around trying to step on it to kill it. Meanwhile I’m just trying to get them quiet. After lunch I had to leave for a meeting. I felt real guilty dumping all those students onto a different teacher but I had no choice.

While on Saturday my car’s check engine light came on so it is currently at the car shop aka some mans back yard. I sent Lusi to town to go order the part. The mechanics don’t order the parts here you have to go to a NAPA store and do that on your own. Turns out NAPA is only open on weekdays and so I can’t ever make it there on time. Thankfully Lusi can. I send him and we plan on meeting up after my meeting to go home. He then starts calling me saying that none of the places will order it for some reason. So once again I hit a dead end. Hopefully we can figure something out.

On top of all that was happening today I have two MAJOR assignments due in my master’s classes. As I am riding along the coastline I can’t seem to stop all of my problems from going through my head. Then I start thinking. This morning in my devotions before school I came across something that really hit home. I have two devotions that I do at home. One that is specially for teachers and the other is just a daily one. The teacher one talked about how as a teacher you are always giving to your students. Always acknowledging them and making sure they are okay. Even though I had classroom of kids today I still found time to go to almost all of them and see how they were. The second devotion that I did this morning talked about worrying about things we cannot control. As I was watching the rainfall and the waves crash. I was thinking about how I can’t really control any of the crazy that happened today. That’s all God. I can sit here for the next couple of hours and let the worry roll through my head or I can let it go. Like the raindrops falling on the side of the car I just let the worry fall to the ground. Sometimes in the crazy I forget to sit and reflect and let it go. I know that everything happens for a reason and you just have to trust the process.

With Love,

Abby