humping bus driver

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

November 14, 2010

Again, let’s break this into two blogs. This first part will be all about last week since I was unable to get around to writing about it.

Tuesday, November 2nd proved to be a pretty awful day for me. The day started out well and then it hit lunch hour. The cafeteria staff typically makes enough food for each student to consume approximately five servings worth of food. Sometimes, the students eat all five of those servings. Every day I go in after the students to see what food is left. On this particular day I was told there was no food left. I said, “Okay, thanks” and left the cafeteria. I had walked in with Crystal and Aso. Crystal and I left, but Aso stayed to search around. I didn’t think more about it until later that evening.

I heard rumors about a basketball league being played in two weekends and that people were starting to practice for it. Since I was really busy with school work, I hadn’t gotten the chance to make it home in time to play any basketball in a week. I decided to head home at the normal end of workday, 4 o’clock, to play. I arrived on the court around 4:30 and shot around for quite some time. Eventually a game started up behind me so I left to go join. When I went over a boy on the sideline said I couldn’t play because it was guys only. Of course I was real annoyed by this since I play with all the guys every day. I decided to ask one of the players and he told me to go play with the girls. This angered me even more since the girls that were playing were in sixth grade and younger! I decided to just go home because the whole situation was just making me more upset.

I went home, ate dinner with Josh, and then we sat around talking for a bit. The discussion somehow turned to lunch. I asked him what he ate for lunch that day. He said he ate the chicken nuggets in the cafeteria. I thought that was interesting so I asked him around what time he went over to the cafeteria. He said, “I don’t know, but Aso and Donna were in there eating.” I told him what happened when Crystal, Aso, and I walked in a little earlier and how Aso stayed behind…obviously food was saved for the Samoan teachers. He even said there was food enough for ten people when he went in. By this point I am really pissed off. First, the guys tell me I can’t play basketball and then I find out I am being alienated from the lunch room. I decided to call Crystal and tell her what Josh informed me. I met Crystal at her house and we decided to go over and talk to our principal, Tautua, about the incident. In the past, we have walked in with a Samoan teacher trailing behind us and the Samoan teacher had been fed over us. We didn’t make a big fuss about that, but I was tired of all the lies. When we first arrived we were preached that the food is for the kids so if we don’t get anything we can’t complain. But when the cafeteria workers are smuggling food home every night, they aren’t giving it to the kids either. It doesn’t help that every time a new shipment of food comes in, they steal a bunch before it reaches the cafeteria. They say it is for the people who helped take the food off the boat. What they are doing is stealing from the US government who is paying for all the school food. The corruption is unbearable at times. Now, back to Tautua’s place. Crystal and I walked over and talked to him for a while about it. We explained how we feel we are being alienated at the school. I never once was rude to the staff so I don’t understand why I am being treated the way I am. He lectured us on the food is for the kids over and over again. I kind of just sat there, but Crystal went off about how she sees them hide food in the back for themselves all the time. She told Tautua if it was for the kids, then it should actually be fed to the kids. The only thing I expressed to Tautua is that I don’t care if I never get fed from the cafeteria, but I am tired of being lied to. The students lie almost every day looking me square in the face and I am now realizing where it all comes from. Tautua said he had the day off on Wednesday, but he would stop by to talk with them. He held his promise and in the morning went and spoke with the staff.

On Wednesday, I stayed away from the cafeteria. I feel like his talking to them is just going to make them hate me and I couldn’t deal with their negative comments. On Thursday, we woke to lots of rain. At 3 AM I woke up because I thought the rain was leaking through the roof it was coming down so hard. All morning the rain came down. At around 6:45, Josh and I went in our raincoats to the church to wait for the bus. I was smart enough to wear different shorts for the walk over, but Josh wasn’t so smart. He had to wring out his shorts from our two minute walk through the village. As we sat to wait, no one walked by. We figured others were sitting in the elementary school next door since we were all alone at the church. At 8:15, Tautua finally came by to say school was cancelled, go home. There was a lot of flooding on the road between the high school and Fitiuta and the bus couldn’t get through. Josh and I went back home and slept. We found out later that the other teachers had to still go up to school since they were paid for the day, but Josh and I were allowed to go home since we were volunteers. :-)

Thursday ended up being a gorgeous day once the rain finally stopped around 11. The sun came out and everyone started coming out of their houses and enjoying the day. Around one, I decided to go for a run. I picked the absolute worst time to go for a run, as soon as I stretched and left the house I noticed the boat was about to dock. I promised Leafa I would help her unload the packages for the store, so my run became short lived. I only managed a ten minute run up the mountain and then turned around. When I arrived at the dock, I just stood there. I was of no use whatsoever. I did run into Spanky, whom I play basketball with. He is dating Crystal, the WorldTeach volunteer, and she told him how angry I was about basketball. He told me I should play after we finish unloading the boat. I told him maybe. I ended up doing work in the yard and by the time I finished, it was sa.

On Friday we had an elementary and high school staff picnic of sorts so school was cut short. I don’t really understand why school is cut short for these things, but once a month you can always count on it. At noon, school was over so I stayed in my room working for an hour and a half before I went out the fale on the side of campus. I arrived at the wrong time. Everyone was in the middle of playing a game. The announcer would call out “Seven ears!” in which you would need to find six other people and have each of your ears touching. When I arrived, the bus driver decided to make it a game of humping all the females. I stayed away. This is also the gentleman who offered me a joint one day when I took the bus to school. The rest of the day was filled with more games which turned out to be a great bonding experience.

Saturday turned out to be a busy day. My 50 minute morning run kept me energized all day and I couldn’t sit still. After my run, I went over to Leafa’s to do some laundry. I hadn’t done laundry in two weeks so I had a lot to do: 4 loads! While my first load was in, I went home to sweep the house. We don’t have a broom at home so whenever I get a chance to borrow one I take advantage. I decided to make it a heavy cleaning day and moved all the furniture around to sweep out the rooms. I decided to change my room around in the process. After 40 minutes, I ran over to check on my laundry and then carried it home to put out on the line. When I put my fourth and final load in, Leafa surprised me with brunch. She made me an omelet and toast. Everything was quite delicious, but didn’t seem to settle well in my stomach. Since that meal for the past week I have had a very upset stomach to deal with.

After brunch, I went back home to help Josh with the yard. We did some more weeding and setting up the garden bed. Josh got the idea to make a raised bed with the sides being trunks of banana trees. He borrowed a shovel from Leafa and trekked into the woods to find some good soil to work with. Our yard is pretty much sand and broken coral which isn’t ideal for a garden. I stayed out working in the yard until around 4 and then went and got Crystal and Doug to go for a walk to Ta’u. We explored some of the stores over there and then came back right before the sa bell. I finally settled down a bit after sa and was pretty tired from the days events.

Sunday wasn’t very eventful: went to church, ate brunch over at Tautua’s, and relaxed around the house most of the afternoon. I did have plans to walk up to Saunoa’s at some point in the day. I waited for Josh and then we walked up to the high school together. I kept walking to reach Saunoa’s. Saunoa was a little ill when I arrived. He had a bit of a cough and said he had been lying around for the past two days. We sat around for a little while talking and then he had me go and find some tools he is letting me borrow for wood carving. He had a couple of chisels, some gouges, and sand paper. After collecting the tools, we went out to check out the garden. He collected a few veggies for me. That night, I had a fresh ear of corn, some eggplant, and cucumber for dinner!

Now on to part two.

Love,
Gretchen