Mom and Dad are here!!

Sorry but I have been failing at blogging lately. School has been crazy busy lately and I just haven’t had time do it! We just finished up with conferences and all of that so it should be better now! Well after a long five months I finally got reunited with my parents last night. The amount of excitement I had when I watched the plane touch down was insane. It also seemed like it took ten years from when the plane landed to when they actually came out of security. It was one of the moments where you were so excited about something and it just took forever for it to actually happen. I literally saw my parents walking through the door and ran for them. I know you are not supposed to do that buuuut I hadn’t seen them in five months and I could no longer hold the excitement. After a somewhat tearful hug with my mother we were headed for our hotel. The hotel that I had booked for us is right on the ocean it has a beach, pool, hot showers, and internet! All real exciting things for me.

Today was the first day that we got to really experience the island with them. After waking up we went to small café that I had been to a couple of times. I have always really enjoyed the food there and it was equally as good when I went there this morning. After breakfast we got the rental car for the day and that’s when the true adventure had began. We got the car and I really wanted to see this one bay where it is supposed to have really good snorkeling. Well we get on this “road” more like dirt bumpy path and I kept reassuring my parents that we were going in the right direction. Well after driving on this road for a while we come across this looked gate to the entrance of the park. I was really confused and there was a house right next door to the gate and you could walk on the lawn to get past the gate. So I was talking to her and to say the least she was not the most pleasant lady I had ever talked to. She was telling me that if I wanted to go to the park I would have to pay her five dollars to walk on her land to get to the park.  She said it in a very rude tone and I was getting really irritated in the way that she was treating us. So we decided to not pay the five dollars and just skip on the bay. On our back to the main road it started to rain. It rains here all the time but low and behold our windshield wipers were not working. So we are driving in the car with no windshield wipers in the middle of back roads in Samoa and I literally have no idea where we are at. Slowly the rain starts to let up and we decided to keep driving around the island. It was so cool to see all the different sights on the island. We also traveled to turtle and shark point on the island. It is said that if you bring a local they will sing a song and a turtle and shark will appear swimming in the water together. They say it happens every time they sing songs. After a day of traveling around the island we stopped to get pizza and milkshakes. This is a good day in my book! I never get pizza and milkshakes in the same day!

With Love,

Abby

Back at it!

After a nice long break from the island it was nice to get home and see everyone. When we got back to the island it was my birthday. My roommates made me a chocolate cake and we went swimming for the day. We have done a lot of swimming lately because it is about the only way we can cool off here. I was honestly just happy to be back to my new normal after being in New Zealand for two weeks. After my birthday it was time to get back into the swing of school. I was excited to get back to school just so that I could get back on my normal schedule for a day. I was also excited to see my students since I really hadn’t seen them since I had gotten back from New Zealand. The first day back at school felt like the first day of school all over. The students were filled with energy and excitement and were not used to sitting down all day. We had some pipe issues the first day back so we actually only had a half day the first day which was really nice.

            The rest of the week at school went pretty well. It took my students a little bit to remember what we were talking before we went on break. We also have not had the end of the semester yet. It might be a student’s worst nightmare but it is also a teacher’s worst nightmare. We had a two weeks off of school and now we are supposed to have final exams. Trying to get my students to think back to what we discussed in August is almost like pulling teeth. We have reviews for the rest of the week and then next week we will start our final exams. After all of that is over I will get a nice weeklong break while my parents come to visit the island. I am not real sure who is more excited my parents or me! This has been the longest we have ever been apart before.

            On Saturday we had the opportunity to go grocery shopping. This is a big deal for us. Shivaun called us and told us to meet her at the store and she would drive us wherever we needed to go for the day. We got a whole bunch of groceries. It was nice to restock up our fridge and I found some new foods that I am going to try out. Every time we go to the store I always find some kind of food that I want to try out. We also had the opportunity to get our packages. Big shout out to my grandma for sending me care package filled with supplies for tacos and other things! I absolutely love getting the packages. The bars are also disappearing quite quickly it seems that our friends on the island really like your bars! J

            It is now Tuesday afternoon and my students have been sent home from school for the day. We had an early out today because we are having some pipe issues at the school. The water was not working at school so the students were all sent home at noon. In the morning the vice principal came into the classroom saying that they had no water so no one was allowed to go to the bathroom. If a student had to go to the bathroom they would have to either use their bike or ask a friend to use their bike to go home and go to the bathroom. Any student that did not come back to school would receive a zero in all classes and would be counted absent for the school day. It was really amazing the second that the announcement was made my students all had to go to the bathroom. I couldn’t believe how they all of the sudden had to go to bathroom…

Hope you are all having a great week back home we are still sweating it out here in Samoa.

With Love,

Abby

I'm Baaaacck!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We have returned from New Zealand and I can’t even describe how amazing that trip was. We hit a few bumps in the road along the way but it was a great experience. I will tell you a little bit about what we all did on our trip to New Zealand. Virginia and I spent two weeks traveling around the country. We left for our trip and took a tiny plane from American Samoa to Western Samoa. The plan had about eleven or seats and we were squished inside the plane. Once we got to Western Samoa we took and hour and a half taxi ride to the international airport to catch our plane to NZ. We were so giddy when we got on the plane because we were able to watch movies. The little things really made us happy. We ended up watching a movie that was about the Samoan culture it was called, “Three Wise Cousins.” When we arrived in Auckland it was freezing for us. I remember stepping off the plane and going we need to stop and get our coats out its too cold. Sure enough people were walking around in shorts and tank tops and we had leggings and coats on. We had a little bit of culture shock upon arriving in Auckland. Auckland has about 1.7 million people in the city. That’s a lot of people after living on a small island for five months. I remember looking at Virginia and going this is just too much for me I can’t handle this. After settling into our hostel we felt a little better about the situation.

            Our first couple of days we spent exploring Auckland and going on a little shopping spree. We had to buy some warmer clothes because the clothes that we did have was not warm enough for us. We also went to a pharmacy to pick up things we needed to take back to the island. We couldn’t believe how easy it was to purchase everything. The rest of the time we just explored around Auckland. One of our favorite things to do in Auckland was to just sit in the harbor and watch people walk around and listen to some music. We also enjoyed the food a lot. We took full advantage of the fact that we finally had some American food. After spending a few days in Auckland we flew over to the South Island to Christchurch. A majority of our trip was spent on the South Island. The south island is known to be absolutely beautiful. The first major thing that we did on the south island was take a five hour train tour through the mountains. The tour that we were on was known to be one of the top five best train tours in the world. We travelled through the mountains and saw bright blue rivers, deep valleys, crystal clear lakes, and fields filled with lavender flowers. The pictures that we took throughout the trip do no justice for what we saw on the trip. On the train tour we were traveling through the Southern Alps. After we had finished our train tour we hopped onto a bus. In NZ they have multiple bus tours that go all over the island. Its one of the cheaper ways you can travel along the island. The bus will stop at scenic areas so you can takes pictures along the way. We spent on average about 5 to 6 hours on a bus when traveling. Our first bus took us to Franz Joseph this was a smaller town that was known for its glacier. We took a hike through the rain forest and made our way to the glacier we got lucky and were able to see the glacier. The clouds are almost always covering the glacier but when we were doing our hike we were able to see it.

            The next city we traveled to was Wanaka. If you ever have the chance to go to this area in NZ do it! I have never seen scenery like this in my life. I have never been speechless in my life when driving and looking around. I just looked at the window in complete awe of what was going on outside the bus. Wanaka was a smaller city not nearly as busy as the other ones, which is more of my style. Wanaka was located on a lake in between huge mountains. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip. After Wanaka we headed to Queenstown for five days. Queenstown was a big city that was very busy around Christmas time. It had very nice restaurants and this was also located on a lake. We spent Christmas on the beach with all the other locals. Everyone just goes to the beach for Christmas and has a picnic on the beach. We did a lot of walking around in Queenstown just exploring and doing some shopping. We also did a few touristy things while in Queenstown. We headed down to Milford Sound, which was a national park that was filled with waterfalls and mountains. We also took a boat ride on a lake at Milford Sound. Milford Sound is one of the most photographed areas in New Zealand. We also ended up going hang gliding. For hang gliding you are running off the top of a mountain and just flying above the ground. It was so much fun. The instructor took videos while hang gliding and I will have to show you guys when we get home.

            After Queenstown we headed to Mt. Cook, which is the tallest Mountain in New Zealand. We apparently got really lucky that day because usually the clouds are covering the mountain but we got to see it. We took a ten-mile hike that day to look around the Mt. Cook area. We came across a glacier and a lake on the hike and we saw huge chunks of ice just sitting in the lake. To end the trip we headed back to Auckland for NYE.  For NYE we stayed at a nice hotel. We felt so spoiled that night when sitting in the hotel. We had a dishwasher in our room. I forgot how much I missed the luxury of having a dishwasher. On NYE we walked around and saw fireworks getting shot off. It was an experience that I will never forget. New Zealand was an amazing trip and I never expected that I would actually get to see this country. I am also happy to be back in Samoa seeing all my kids and the familiar faces of the island. I am also very excited that I will be seeing my parents in a little over three weeks! J

With love,

Abby Drenth

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