"Everything in this Country is Sticky"

In case anyone pays attention to the titles, that is a direct quote from Brenden Cutter, one of the guys from the trip. A bunch of us went to see Despicable Me last night, and Brenden bought sour patch kids, who's sour crystal coating, after about ten seconds, soggified and stuck together. He was quite depressed. Speaking of the movie by the way, I highly recommend it.

Anyway.
The last couple of days have been intense. Tuesday we all went to PICED, the Pacific Islands Center for Educational Development. We had already been told that they are going to be one of the best resources for us here on island, both with tangible stuff like copying and access to printers and educational resources, but as a support team as well. One of their employees this year is actually a WorldTeach volunteer from last year, so she is fully aware of all the challenges we face. Still we spent about 6 hours there getting info pumped into us. All of us pretty much ate dinner and crashed.

Yesterday we had a fun random day. Out of nowhere, the AmSam DOE requested that all of us WorldTeachers attend a conference which NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) was hosting in a local high school. Now, since we are all in the employ of the DOE, when they "request" we show up, and in our new WorldTeach lavalavas and white shirt. This last bit turned out to be an issue- there was serious swapping and trying on the night before so that everyone found a white shirt which was appropriate to wear. One of the wonderful guys here, Mark, rescued me- I ended up wearing his GAP white polo from the ninth grade...Thanks Mark (he demanded a blog shout out as a return for the shirt) ! It turned out to be wonderful surprise- the conference was geared towards teaching teachers hows to teach (sorry about all the teach-es) marine and atmospheric science to all age levels. Many of us spent the day making marine themed art projects and learning about the classification of fish, sea turtles and more. The day ended with the local dance troupe giving a performance at the closing ceremony. When we went back to home base, we had a raffle of all the stuff last years volunteers left behind... I ended up with tennis rackets, external speakers for my computer, a rolling duffel bag and some space bags.

Today we all had our first teaching experience in a "real" Samoan classroom. At one o'clock, all of us trudged over to the PICED building where each of us taught a ten minute sample lesson to a group of recruited Samoan high school students. From what I could tell, most of us did pretty well. It was definitely different teaching them as opposed to the other volunteers- they are a talkative people, and at the same time, creativity has not been encourage by their previous education. They are good at regurgitating information, but their critical thinking skills and understanding of the "why" behind things is lacking. They definitely have storytelling inside them- I think it is just that in the past, it has been squashed by teachers who only wanted to teach by the book, checking off curriculum markers so that they could receive pay stubs and put as little effort into their jobs as possible.
But I digress. My lesson worked out well, once I gave some encouraging words to the students; I was teaching the sequence of decision-> action -> consequence as both a tool for analyzing real life actions, as a tool for providing structure in creative writing, and as a tool to analyze novels and break them down into understandable portions. First I introduced myself and set my only two rules- 1. Respect. 2. No talking when I talk. Then I had them all make nametags so that I could address them personally and make a connection while talking. Then I diagrammed the sequence on the board, went over its application, and introduced the activity. My activity was thus: I divided the class of 15 into two groups and made each group form a circle, and elected a starter in each one (I chose the quietest student). I gave that student a prompt with a choice in it and had them decide which action they would take. Then each student went around and added a sentence of the story, based on the sentence ahead of it. When they were done with my prompt, I had another student make up his own daily action and the cycle went again- some of the stories they started to come up with were preeeetty hilarious. My favorite though, ended with, "and after I died and went to heaven, I came back down to haunt EVERYONE!" Once they groups had completed two or three stories, I brought them out of the groups, reviewed the concepts, and DONE. I felt pretty good about it. One of the students came up to me afterwards and said he liked my lesson, so that was nice.

Tomorrow is more classes, and then some party PICED is throwing.
Saturday we move to our houses- I am super excited to nest. I am sick of living out of a suitcase and sleeping next to 8 other girls. Just living with 21 other people is exhausting.
One of my roommates and I are also debating buying a cheap car for the year and selling it back at the end... you can get a decent one for 4 or 5 thousand and it might be worth it, since public transportation stops by 5 45 everyday, runs sporadically on Saturdays, and doesn't run at all on Sundays (excluding taxis, but those would get expensive). We shall see.

Later gators! Miss you all, and I hope you are enjoying the blog... there will be more funny stories when school starts I am sure!

Mwah,
Rosa

The First W

Well, it has been a week since the last post, and there is good reason- I have been insanely busy. Orientation means class starts at 8 o clock and usually ends at about 4 or 5. Sitting in a classroom for that long is strangely exhausting, and the weird diet isn't helping. My body has also adjusted to the time, so no more hopping out of bed at 7 in the morning bursting with energy; getting up early is back to being as annoying as it ever was! I know I need to get used to it though, so I just keep plugging on.
The classes are interesting. We all have to teach one, and mine was today- I had to present Writing... and though I was nervous it turned out really well. The best activity of the day had to be when I divided the class into groups and had them create skits of sentences with dangling modifiers. Example: The mixing bowl set was specifically designed for good cooks with round bottoms for efficient beating. I'm sure all of you can imagine the kind of skit which came out of that.
I wish I could recap everything that has happened but since I can't I will just focus on a couple of the highlights, weird-lights, or just uber Samoan things.
ANTS- When you look at the floor or ground in American Samoa, you sometimes feel as if its moving. It's not. It is just the ants. They are EVERYWHERE and they come in multiple varieties. The fire ants are the same kind as in America, and thankfully they are mostly outside. Inside however, are two small kinds of black ants that are attracted to anything food, anything that looks like food, anything that smells like food, anything that might be the same color as food is, or anything in their path that might have food in it. Nothing is safe, but since so far they have not really bitten me or grossed me out, I haven't gone on any death rampages against them, though a couple of the other girls have. I am just assuming that I need to get used to them... they are certainly better housemates than mosquitoes.
Samoan Language- We are taking classes in this, and whoa buddy, it is not easy. Part of it is probably that is the opposite of Russian. There is no "to be" verb, and vowels definitely dominate the words. Example: the village we are staying in right now is Nu'uuli. Good morning is "taeao manuia." And, unlike Russian (and English) every syllable is pronounced, though some more than others (there are some accent marks which denote how to say the syllable). For almost all words, the second to last syllable is stressed.
Swimming: All the water here is clear and beautiful. The blues that it creates in the background of almost every picture are beyond belief. its all pretty shallow where you swim- It drops off after about 70 feet but no one swims all the way out there because of the currents. Snorkeling is really cool- lots of fish. We stopped by the park service here the other day and they told us there are over 900 different species of reef fish here. Even when the fish aren't around, the water is always clear and you can't beat the background scenery.
BATS- I saw a bat for the first time! Followed by about 50 others! Bats are EVERYWHERE here, and they are huge. The two most common types have wingspans of up to three feet long... and its neat to see them flying about above you in the daytime, because the sun shines through their wings.
Samoans- So far, everyone has been incredibly nice. Anyone will give you directions, offer a ride, offer help, or want to chat, and EVERYONE knows what WorldTeach is, and constantly thanks us for coming and helping. The kids are hilarious too. A lot of the adults have been off-island (as they call it) and are not phased by our extreme pale-ness. To the kids however, we are like really cool, smiley aliens. We were walking back from dinner tonight and a bunch of kids up a tree started to yell "Palangi" followed by "hi! hi!" Every reply we gave elicited fits and fits of high pitched giggles... but the best moment of the night came when, randomly, as we all were walking away, one of the kids shouted out "ADIOS AMIGOS!"

Unfortunately, that's what I must now say too. There is a group gathering to watch the Lion King, and you all know how I feel about Disney!
Love you all,
Rosa

P.S. Sorry for no pictures today... I'll take some this week!

I am already losing track of time because of the sheer amount of activity that happens each day. It definitely doesn't feel like we've all only been here 3 days, or KNOWN each other for that short of time. I guess its just the situation (think summer camp x1000) that has forced us all to get to know each other pretty well in a very short time. It doesn't hurt that we have all been with each other 24/7 either.
Yesterday was a pretty relaxed day. We were out the door at 9:30 to go on a bus tour of the island which took until about 3:00- although we did stop at a couple places. We drove up to one of the mountain villages, where we stopped to get some very cool photos (some of which will be posted below) and all the way on the east end of the island we ate lunch, ate (although really it was drank) our first coconuts of the trip, and saw a local weaving baskets from the coconut palm leaves. After we got back, a bunch of us hiked out to "Airport Beach" which is aptly named because you follow the line of the fence around the airport to get to it. The beach itself was beautiful; it was a coral beach, that dropped off to about an 8 foot depth with coral reefs growing all over. I had brought my snorkel mask, so I spent most of my time diving down to get closer looks at things. There were both so many and so many kinds of fish! I saw a three foot long needle fish, zebra fish, angel fish and a ton of tiny electric blue fish... there were more but to describe all of them would sap what little energy I have left right now. Anyway, as I said, the beach itself was beautiful... but unfortunately, the walk there was horrifying. Before coming, I had read a few pieces both online and in the travel books which commented on the litter problem that American Samoa is facing, for whatever reason, but seeing it in person blew my mind. We walked through literally a mile of trash before getting to the beach... thousands of ramen cups, flipflops, styrofoam anything, tubs, bins, toys, wrappers, even a few used syringes (we steered VERY clear of those). It was gross enough that even though the beach is beautiful, everyone that went agreed that they probably wouldn't go back. More than that, everyone was just stunned at how such a situation is accepted and continued. Maybe it is because we come from another landscape, but all the volunteers, including myself, have been in a constant state of awe because of the beauty of this place. To see such carelessness, more than anything, makes me deeply sad.
On a happier note, most of the volunteers decided to check out the local night life last night- the recommendation from a trusted local, Rex, was "Rubbles." We all bought Vailima from a local store before we went out, to save some money, and got to the "club" before nine to avoid the cover charge. Rubbles was FANTASTIC, although I think it was partly because I had already decided before we went that I was going to relax and let go, and make sure to dance my a** off. Well, mission accomplished. By the end of the night, I had danced with three fifty year old Samoan men, one of whom apparently did a warrior dance, two of the fafafine (translated as third gender... basically drag queens) a ton of Samoan women, and every member of our group who went. I was definitely the favorite palagi (white person) of the night... enough dancing that the bartender (Faith, whose sister will apparently be attending my high school) gave me a free bottle of fiji water to cool down. I should note though, that dancing in Samoan is not like at home; there is no physical contact AT ALL between those dancing, so Mom, don't worry. Especially with the older men, it was mostly a selection of rockin' seventies dance moves.
Today was more of an informational day, although I participated in an excellent game of badminton (in which Brenden, another volunteer, somehow managed to dislocate his shoulder) and Bananagrams (with one special phonetic round in honor of you Saul) in the morning. Our first World Teach Training programs started at one and went till 5:30. All I am going to say about them is that I guess they could have been worse, although they were definitely dry.
Dinner was another small adventure. A bunch of us originally set out to go to the "Green Burrito" chain, because we had been told that pretty much all restaurants but chains would be closed on Sundays, but by chance happened upon a Chinese restaurant along the way which was open. It turned out to be DELICIOUS, cheap and served Samoan sized portions, unbeknown to us.... We must have taken at least six boxes of leftovers home between the nine of us.
anyway, I need to get to sleep, as classes start at eight in the morning tomorrow. Picture time!
All of these are from the island tour:

First Impressions

Okay. Well. I just finished the first complete day of the program and I think it is safe to say that I'm in the honeymoon stage of my WorldTeach American Samoa Year program. So far the group seems awesome, the field director seems lovely, the island seems friendly and beautiful and non-threatening. I am sure that some of this will change, but right now I am going to preserve the optimism of the moment and hope that nothing will. We got in at 9:30 Samoan time last night, to be welcomed by a group of WorldTeach staff with a banner and shell necklaces- it may sound silly, but that small gesture really alleviated a lot of the tension that I felt about actually reaching the destination of my life for the next year.
Anyway, after everyone was rounded up through customs, adorned with our shells and herded back into a group, we embarked. We got taken on a schoolbus to our destination for Orientation, which turned out to be Nuuuli (yes, three u's) Vocational Technical High School, home of the apparently sub-average Wildcats, and by some stroke of cosmic luck, the school I will actually be teaching in for the next year. It's not super impressive by American standards, but its clean and well-cared for and fits all our needs nicely. We are on the second floor of one of the school buildings. The 17 girls are in 2 rooms ( foam mattresses about a foot and a half apart on the floor are our surprisingly comfortable beds), the seven guys in one, and there is a kitchen, already thoughtfully stocked by the WorldTeach staff down the hall. Since it was dark outside, I really had no idea of the surrounding area, and after what was probably the most refreshing shower of my life (shared with two other girls no less), I and everyone else succumbed to our exhaustion.
Whether because of the time difference or just the strange kinetic energy of being in a new place was the reason, pretty much all the girls and one lone male, Matt, woke up around six, before the scheduled alarms and plans. The sun was starting to rise and the site was incredibly different from the murky blackness of the night before. Directly out our windows were mountains, rising above a turquoise lagoon- the sun was rising and the clouds above the mountains were turning a delicate shade of pink. About 7 of us decided to watch the sun rise before heading to the more mundane task of eating cheerios and figuring out what to wear in the very new climate. World Teach activities started at 8:30 with a ride to another village, where we pow-wowed under a public hut by the beach and did the standard introductory activities. At eleven, the scavenger hunt began; my group's list of activities included figuring out what maketi meant (market), what f'al were (green, starchy bananas), and discovering the going price for a bunch of them at the local maketi (5 dollars for about 30 f'al). There were a few more activities, all designed to get us familiar with the aiga system and to force us to get over our awkwardness and ask locals for help. We all met back at the high school at 4:00 PM for a two hour cultural lesson, followed by a pizza dinner and subsequent after dinner shenanigans.
Highlights of the day:

• Bananagrams at 7:30 AM.
  
• the aiga bus which played Mariah Carey, followed by Backstreet Boys, Yin Yang Twins and Soldier Boy, all at a frightening decibel level... I plan on riding aigas EVERYWHERE, if only for the music.
  
• Lunch at a local lunch spot was surprisingly tasty- I got a f'al with a pork stew and one of the guys in the group got a whole tilapia which had been fried.
• A very intense game of Catchphrase following dinner.
• The start of an Assassins game for the rest of Orientation.
• Finding out Hulu works in American Samoa.

In a word: excellent. Here's to hoping it stays that way.
Smooches,
Rosa


My Digs
Just a casual view.
On one of the aiga buses.
Nom.
My Nom.
example of the coral that is everywhere, mixed with pebbles of lava rock.