Sally's Peace Corps Adventure in Samoa: October 2007

Have you ever been given a slab of cow? I have to say I feel quite honored right now for needing to call my Samoan family to come to the school to pick up 2 boxes of canned fish, 2 cans of corned beef, and 2 baskets (woven with the coconut leaves) full of cow. And yes I will continue to call it cow, because that it exactly what it is. So…. hear is the scoop.

March 13th, or something like that, the president of the PTA signed the contract with JICA (Japanese organization) to start the new school. They paid for 6 rooms, and the village raised the money for the other 5. TODAY, 8 months later, October 4, was the umusaga---the school opening! Thinking back to 8 months ago and looking at the school today, it truly is incredible. Now that I am understanding a lot more of the language and the dynamics of a village, I really am seeing all that has gone into the school, and it is not easy. We are not talking about a few huge construction trucks. We are talking about days where 50 people from the village are passing buckets of concrete down a huge line to the last person who pours it out and levels it off, about days at school where the kids haul sand in rice bags to help level out the field, and also about people who don’t even flinch when they can’t find a hammer and just pick up a piece of wood and tell me it is the “Samoan hammer.” Also we are talking about a village of 1500 people and 1 primary school, and a whole lot of people trying to figure out what they want together…that is not easy either.

I have to say I am impressed. In the last 2 weeks since I have been back from New Zealand, I have meet so many more people and really gotten close with the people working on the school. Coming back, we all knew the opening was going to be TODAY. So things needed to get done. I went with a matai to Savai’i to pick up 5 computers from the Returned Peace Corps in Hawai’i, found out my first grant was granted..Yeah!!... so I picked up the printer/copier/ scanner.. and best of all we started and completed a world map for the wall in the soon to be library (after some shelves are built). The map is a project another Peace Corps began who lives in Savai’i. She received the funds from a group of returned volunteers in America. This is probably about the 6th school with a map. When I heard about the project, I talked to the matais and they were really excited about it, so excited of course, that it needed to be done by TODAY, so we could show it off. So I went up to this guy’s house in the village who is known to be an awesome artist. And he was all into helping. So I went to the school one day and we taped off a square and the matais rolled the blue for the ocean. Then we came back at night to project the map on the wall from my computer in order to trace it. The guy was so impressed! He is quite professional---does mosaics, stained glass, wooden carvings (that I might just have to ask for one before I leave!) and was excited to be learning another way that drawings are done. He was so impressed with the projector that we used it (the Peace Corps projector) to draw the JICA logo on 2 boards…that’s how things all work together! The kids in year 7 came after it was all outlined to paint in the countries and then we touched it up and varnished. Good people, good fun. Saturday we worked all day –9 am to 9 pm, but I definitely enjoyed the whole day…great senses of humor and super laid back (we ran out of paint and he mixed it like twenty times to get it right, never even frustrated!) and we stopped for some delicious BBQ (ask my Mom, I think it is the best BBQ chicken she has ever had) in the middle and then continued.

So yesterday, the kids and teachers put balloons up everywhere to decorate the school (I never knew how much my balloon animal skills would come in handy on the other side of the world!) and then I hung around and finished up some painting…and watched the trucks rolling in. You all know those people who never want to mess up their trucks…well, you should have all seen these trucks rolling in with cows and pigs in the backs (dead, don’t worry). And they just kept on coming….and were put in the huge freezer they had rented. Of course there were the people wheeling the pigs down too in their wheelbarrows. The evening was finished with setting up the computers real quick.

SO TODAY, the actual SCHOOL OPENING. One of the pastor’s preached, the PTA president spoke, the kids performed, the ribbon was cut, and the keys were given out. HAHA just like that. You just had to be there. I can’t explain it. Well, then the fine mats were shown and given out, the pigs were slung over the shoulders and coconuts with money in the tops were handed out. All of this of course has a ton of meaning and significance but to sum it up it is all the respect, thanking everyone for what they have done. And tomorrow, world teacher’s day. So the kids come and the teachers come and we have dances or something, I will let you know.

Right now, definitely happy. Things are moving, our new school is done (well close to it anyway—we will be moving in tomorrow though), and the past 2 weeks really helped to get to know people in the village. Other volunteers have told me that after a year too, people start asking when you will be leaving, because they know you have been around for awhile, and are not exactly sure how long you are hear for. Strangely enough, this week, I have been asked A LOT. And it is strange, because in a few days from now I will have been here for a year. So when they ask, sometimes I do think about what it will be like in another year, and I know I will miss this place. There are those challenges of course, but watching the kids sing and dance today, and the carpenter give the keys, and all the guys carrying the huge pigs on their shoulders---well, it was an awesome day. Hopefully the pictures will explain some of it, or you will just have to come yourself. Well, I love you all, glad it is getting cooler for most of you (you better appreciate it and remember that we are going into the hot, humid aka nasty rainy season here!) and will write again soon. Love, Sally