labor day weekend

The thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not represent those of the WorldTeach organization.

September 9th

The Swains Atoll trip was a no go. Saunoa was confused about where exactly the boat was going and I ended up just staying home in Ta’u. My roommate, Josh, had his girlfriend, Holly, over for the weekend so I stayed away exploring. If it wasn’t for all the rain we received, I probably would have only seen Holly once or twice. Unfortunately, the rain was never-ending all weekend.

Friday night I went over to Doug’s house for dinner so that I could give Holly and Josh alone time. On Saturday I went over to Leafa’s house to help her with the boat shipment. Leafa is a mid-40’s woman who owns one of the three stores in the village. A big shipment came in on Friday so I told her I would help her sort it out. When I went over on Saturday she surprised me with breakfast: eggs, sausage, and toast. Even though I already ate it was a nice surprise and filled me up until dinner time. Around 1 o’clock I left Leafa’s and decided I wanted to walk over to Fitiuta. Fitiuta is the village on the east coast of Ta’u. The walk is about two hours when there isn’t any rain. Crystal and I spent three and a half hours walking to Fitiuta! We received a few rain showers, a couple of cars stopping to ask us if we were lost (on the only road in Ta’u!), and a couple of unwanted dog followers. I believe I picked a perfect day for the walk. Due to all the rain the temperature was a bit cooler than normal which made for a pleasant stroll. Since we arrived so late in the day we decided to catch a ride back to Faleasao. For the remainder of the night the rain decided to not let up so I stayed inside.

Sunday was a huge island wide church service. The whole island met in the village of Ta’u for church. I felt as though the entire service was a competition between which church choir was better. There are three villages but since the other two villages are so large, they have two choirs each. All five choirs were present to bring their best performance. Again, I couldn’t hear a single thing the pastor said since the sound technicians never think to turn the speakers up! I did get a chance to read through the Samoan bible which was interesting but that was probably the highlight of the service. After church, I huddled into the van to head back over the mountain. Right in the beginning of the village the van stopped and I was told to get out. I didn’t really know what was going on but I followed everyone under a fale. The village of Ta’u gave us goodies to share so one by one the bags of chips, soda, and cookies were handed out among us. It was a nice way to end a long church service.

I didn’t have plans for the rest of Sunday, but knew I wanted to stay out of the house. I decided to go explore the village of Ta’u and invited Crystal and Doug along to join me. We got right in the beginning of the village when the rain came. And came. And continued for probably twenty minutes. But it wasn’t a light drizzle, it was a downpour! The three of us hid under the roof of the health clinic hoping to get invited inside, but we weren’t. Once the rain concluded we continued the walk around the village. During the course of the walk we ran into Husky. Husky is a black and white dog that follows me on my walks to school every morning. I named him Husky because he looks like a Husky. Pretty straightforward stuff here. Husky followed us back to Faleasao, followed me home, followed me to dinner at Doug’s, and then followed me home again around midnight. During the night I ran into a friend, Lionel, who informed me of Husky’s true name: Blacky. I was a little upset with this name change, but decided it was for the best since he actually listens to that name. Monday morning I woke up and Blacky was gone. The neighbor’s old, decrepit dog was mad that Blacky was coming around so I was worried for him. I found out from Blacky’s owner that he actually made it home for breakfast that morning, so all is well!

Monday morning I started out with a quick run before my fishing date with Leafa and Crystal. At 10 AM I went over to Leafa’s for our planned departure. We ended up leaving around 11 AM with one of the locals, Spanky. Spanky brought us on a hike behind my house out to the beach to go fishing. Low tide made the water much easier to deal with. The trip was a lot of fun and I was able to act like a monkey and climb all over rocks along the shore. Around 2 PM we headed back for some much needed water and food. I decided I wasn’t tired enough for the day and left after a half an hour to go play volleyball with the kids in the village. I am getting better at volleyball now and every time I go out to play they allow me to play more and more, it is very exciting! On Monday, we played with the rain pouring down on us. No one was really into playing though so we finished a little early and all ran down to the beach and jumped in! I was a little hesitant, wearing a white shirt and all, but after five minutes didn’t care and jumped in as well. For about twenty minutes we swam around until we were all called out due to sa (6 PM prayer). I was a little bummed to get out, but thought it was a great ending to the day.

It has been a great week due to it being a short school week. All the students are really pumped for our pep rally tomorrow and have been practicing all week. Hopefully I will have some cool pictures to show after tomorrow!

Love,

Gretchen