Running marathons in thunderstorms and sharing air underwater...Would my Mom approve?

My first marathon!

It has been an adventurous 3 weeks off from school. Began with the region youth groups games...volleyball, cricket, and my favorite of course track and field. And the girls track and field team won! Now if a team wins in America, perhaps they would have some sort of awards ceremony afterwards...well here, we paraded the trophy back to the house where all the high chiefs were sitting, where they congratulated us. The Saturday after, there was a monsterous food feast for the youth groups from the entire region...talk about communal! People from youth groups from the whole region, those who competed, those who cheered, or even those who didn't, everyone celebrated together---ice cream and sandwiches, and not just one helping either---2 cups of ice cream and 3 sandwiches each. Unbelievable. 7 people compete, 300 people eat.

Followed by a hike up the mountain in my village. Ha. So you want to know the difference between hiking with a Samoan and hiking with an American? So I met my friend in the morning to go on the hike, and what do I bring. Peanut butter, jelly, crackers, in a backpack along with some water bottles and some nice sturdy footwear...what does he bring? A machete tied in a lava-lava that he wrapped around his shoulder (like a bandoleer according to my intelligent Peace Corps friend Shane who knows big words unlike me) and some sweet red flip flops. He got to eat yummy pb and j sandwiches and I got to drink a coconut, great combo...

Then came the day when I almost died. Well not really but well, it is not really a great situation to be underwater without air ---an apparent basic need of life. So I went scuba diving, and obviously didn't try hard enough to get the attention of the dive master when I was running out of air...so I was down to 10 bars and yikes! You can all thank Christian for being so kind enough to give me some of his air! Anyway, not so funny at the time but well after---(for the Briggs'... just think of the time Uncle Rich saved Grayson's life as he flew over the waterfall!) yes, the stories were flying. Did you hear about the time Christian saved Sally's life? Oh no, tell me more! Anyway, it was quite comical and yes, I will be going back underwater into the great unknown again the end of the month. Guess it didn't scare me enough...

To the Bahai temple---if any of you do not know about the religion, which I didn't before coming here...it was so different that any other place of worship I have ever been too. Different people read from all different religion books and there is a choir. No pastors, no rabbis, no offering and the acoustics in the building were incredible.

Soccer, singing, and Independence Day---The Under 14 boys team from our district won the soccer game! Very exciting, and the proud looks on the boys faces were priceless. Then Independence Day weekend was celebrated with lots of singing, and the parade which all the schools went to walk in.

And the MARATHON! Turrential downpour pretty much and thunder and lightning. It was pretty awesome running in the pitch black conditions with the lightning flashing over the ocean. Of course, if my Mom was here she would have been in a car in 2 seconds flat out to find me and make sure I was ok! The second half of the race though it turned to a light drizzle, so it was never hot, which was great! A bunch of volunteers came to cheer me on and there were even volunteers handing out Gatorade but best of all, GUMMY BEARS! YUM! And the free t-shirt. (I hope my Dad is reading this) The 4 hours and 13 minutes of running was certainly worth it. Afterwards there was a nice award ceremony. I ended up winning the girls division...we are not talking about Boston here though where there are a zillion people in the race, just a nice little group of 5. I got a really nice carved wooden bowl, and the best of all, a massage. Yikes I had to say a speech and was interviewed! AHHH. So 2 channels on TV in Fasito'o-tai...I guess you can figure out what that means. That there was a 50% chance in each fale, that the family would be listening to me that night ha. Aren't they lucky? The kids in the village were adorable the next day, and were really cute in congratulating me.

Okay, one more funny story. So the big rugby field in front of the school has been turned into a giganto checkerboard with 200ish boxes. Each family in the village has there own little box which they have to nicely mow, weedwack or whack with a machete---their choice. Supposing, if their box isn't mowed by a certain time they get fined by the village. I need to take a picture because it is hysterical right now---because there are 4 random sad looking boxes all alone, waiting for that machete to come crashing down on them.

So that is way too many words and no pictures, but if you got through the whole thing, congratulations and go buy yourself a special treat. I am in a goofy mood, hope ya'll have a super June. And Happy Retirement MOM. And Happy Father's Day DAD. And Love ya BRO. Sally