crazy's!

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May 20th (part 2)

Last week was pretty crazy. There were a number of fights at the school and the students were going crazy in class. There have been two fights all year prior to last week at the high school. There were four fights last week! Ta’u village consists of two different villages. There inevitably are rivalries between these two ends of Ta’u and that is what took place last week. A group of students living in Tutuila from Ta’u arrived on the plane and decided they were jealous of someone. It ended up being a big mess. On Monday night there was a big fight in the village and a mother broke it up with a gun. The next morning that same mother came up to the high school. She went to find some boy from the village to yell at him and then was escorted off campus. It was the beginning to a difficult day.

My algebra 2 class is a diverse group of students. From sophomore’s to senior’s from Fitiuta to Ta’u to Faleasao. A few of the boys that are seniors are from Ta’u from opposing villages. Of course they fought in class on Tuesday. I called for Tautua to come to my room. He came with the vice-principle and took the boys out of my class. A few minutes later, one of the boys came back. He sat for about two minutes and then left my room again. Out in the “courtyard” there were a group of boys yelling at each other. A few minutes later Francis returned and I was told to lock my classroom door. Shortly after, Rex and AJ came back to the room. Everyone was giving each other death stares and not working which made a very interesting class. There was an after school meeting to discuss the end of year schedule and I brought up the fact that I would like to have the students that fought not come back to my room that period. Tautua told me if they were to start fighting again to just send them back to the office. He has some philosophy that as long as the student is in the classroom they are learning. There is no detention or suspension of any kind at Manu’a High School. It is frustrating to deal with an attitude like that because those three boys greatly disrupted the rest of the class.

On Wednesday there was more drama on campus. Now, it was time for the girls to fight. Some girl spread a rumor that a student, Talalelei, called her on Tuesday night cursing at her. Girl’s ganged up with their buddies and everyone just started screaming at each other. On Thursday, Jasmine, one of Tala’s friends, wrote on Ano’s facebook wall (Ano was rooting for the other team). I still don’t know what she wrote but it was something that offended Ano. So now they wanted to fight each other. It just so happens that the facebook incident happened just before my algebra 2 class which they both are in. Luckily, the principal called them into his office before the bell and he spoke with them. They were both quite angry during class but they kept it inside them and didn’t fight!!! Because of all the negativity in the air I kept telling students to be happy! The rest of the week was filled with restless students that were anticipating the end of the school year probably just as badly as their teacher was.

On Friday, Josh and I held an end of year party for Upward Bound after school. We thought the idea was to hang out, listen to music, maybe watch a movie, and eat the food that everyone provided. I expected the students to stay in my room until around four o’clock. The students were there for maybe twenty minutes! They ate the food and left! It was very sad. They did manage to make my room a complete mess and didn’t clean a thing! Since they left so early, I was able to catch the end of the PTA meeting. The fundraiser from last Friday night was a bust and not enough money was raised for a yearbook. They decided to do something special for the seniors, maybe make a DVD with photos on it or something, but no concrete idea was formed.


A few months ago there was a presentation from the National Park staff. Josh spoke with one gentleman for a while. He works and lives over in Ofu and was really excited about his new position out there. Josh spoke to him about the hike we had done with the students and the gentleman was excited and said he would like to be apart of the next hike we do. A few weeks back, Josh received an e-mail and the guy informed him that a group of National Park staff were going to do some sampling and trail clearing from May 11th to May 15th at the National Park. Last Saturday, Josh and I planned a hike to walk to the waterfall to meet up with the National Park staff and watch them sample some of the fish and shrimp from the waterfall. The rules for the hike were that students needed to bring sneakers and plenty of water because it would be an intense hike. The students complained right away that they are Samoan so they can wear sandals.

Ale, the PTA president, offered to give us a ride at 9 AM. Josh and I walked up the shortcut to the high school at about 8:30 to meet all the students. While we were walking, Josh kept getting phone calls asking where we were. When we were five minutes away the students called again to say they were waiting for us. The only time people are on time or early to things are these stupid hikes! At 8:50 we jumped into the truck to drive to Fitiuta. Upon getting into the bed of the truck I found out that the students didn’t bring any sneakers! They brought a couple of bottles of water but mostly bought soda. Just a mess. At that point they were already in the car and there was no turning back. We had six out of the ten students join us on the hike. There was a lot of stopping at complaining throughout the hike. One of the girls walked the whole way barefoot and she was the most out of shape out of all the students! There were a lot of “Are we there yet?” questions.

We eventually made it to the waterfall in record timing and relaxed for a couple of hours waiting for the National Park staff. Three hours later no one showed up so we left. The walk back was much slower than the walk to the waterfall. We also got a ride all the way to the end of the eastern coast, but didn’t get a ride back. Instead we had to do an extra hour hike to get home. Since Josh stayed back for the beginning of the hike, I stayed back for the return. It was excruciatingly slow. I ended up carrying Sonya’s bag for her and we still had to stop every couple of feet. We eventually made it to Fitiuta just in time for the ride home.

On Sunday, we had a big service in Fitiuta to acknowledge all faculty and staff. It was a nice one hour service full of dancing. After the service, we were brought a tray of food. The food was awesome! There were oranges and apples and yogurt! The healthiest meal we’ve been fed since we have been here! Crystal and I decided to walk home that night working off all the good food. Three hours later we made it home and went right to bed!

Crystal has made this past week quite unbearable. Crystal is the other female volunteer out here who teaches English. She has been dating a Samoan, Spanky, throughout this year. Spanky is known as a trouble maker out here. That along with the missing front teeth and rat tail for hair would have kept me away from the guy. Spanky is also a drunk which Crystal fights with him about almost every night. About a month ago Josh noticed that Spanky hadn’t been around much and Crystl kept complaining that he wouldn’t come home and would stay drinking in Ta’u. I told her that I think he is cheating on her and she didn’t believe me. Guess what she discovered this week?! He was on the phone with his other girlfriend and wouldn’t tell her who it was. Crystal is someone I wouldn’t want on my bad side. That night her and Spanky got in a punching match. Mostly she punched him and he got annoyed and hit her in the eye and pulled her hair and left. The next day, she walks up to school with a bruised eye looking for revenge.

Throughout the school day she kept telling students that Spanky was sleeping around with some girl. She found out the girl’s number and kept asking students who it was. I was disgusted by the way she was acting. Luckily, I brought sneakers up to run home that evening and didn’t have to walk home with her. I also invited students over to my house that evening to make cookies. The plan worked and I didn’t have to listen to her complaining. Later that night, I went over to Leafa’s to find out that Crystal told Leafa and other people in the village. The next day, Thursday, was just as awful. She was still in revenge mode. At lunch time Doug, the idiot non-volunteer white teacher, made the comment, “So Crystal, I heard you had a new boyfriend?” To that she stood up lunge at him across the table cursing. She tried to throw his lunch at him but he moved out of the way. Students were staring in utter disbelief. We all continued eating nervous to talk. When Doug left to clean his tray, I followed him not realizing Crystal was close behind. As he was rinsing she comes up to him cursing at him again and threatening him and then leaves the kitchen. When I returned back to my classroom she was there complaining about Doug and I told her that she was inappropriate and she left my room.

On Thursday night I had one of my students coming over for tutoring in algebra 1. When we were finished Josh had made up some pasta and offered it to DJ. As we were eating dinner, he starts telling me all this crazy stuff. DJ is Tautua’s nephew from Alaska. He arrived in September for school. Trish once told me it was because he became very serious with some girl and his parents didn’t know what to do with him so they shipped him off to Manu’a. He starts telling me that he tried to commit suicide this year. I asked him why and he said because he ruined his families name or something of the sort. When I asked him to explain he gets all serious looks me straight in the eye and says, “I killed four people Ms. Melvin.” I laughed out loud when he said it because I couldn’t imagine him killing anyone. He is a good enough kid that has some form of ADHD but I wouldn’t consider him a killer. He goes into some story about how he was in a gang in Alaska and they would have fight to the death matches periodically. He was the fighter for some of them and ended up killing his opponent. He also went into how he dealt drugs. I asked him about his girlfriend when he told me he had a son but he died at birth. While he was saying the last part Crystal walks in. DJ and I aren’t paying her any attention but she decides to announce, “Oh it is so great I just found out she is toothless.” She found out who Spanky was sleeping around with. I guess pestering people for details of the girl was paying off. DJ and I just ignored her and then she keeps talking about it and then puts her shoes back on and leaves. Soon after, I walked with DJ back to his house.

Last night, Josh and I stayed up for a while talking about it. Josh has decided that everyone out here is a pathological liar. They lie so much that they don’t know what the truth is anymore. He thinks DJ truly thinks that those things happened but is so far off from the truth. I said that I wouldn’t be surprised about the baby thing but the rest is hard for me to believe. Who knows what the truth is. I want to ask Trish about it but I don’t want to get DJ in trouble for lying about something that substantial.

I stayed up at school today to finish writing the senior exams. Two more weeks of exams to go!!! Thank you to all of you who have sent money for Tanzania. I have a week to go and still need about $1,600 hopefully I can make it!!

Love,

Gretchen