Goodbye Falevao! (Written 12/10/05)

Today is L-Day: The day we finally leave Falevao and parting is such sweet sorrow because as much as this village has been a problem for us, it's still our family home for the next two years we are in Samoa. So we left kind of early in the morning today, at 7am, so that meant we had to have bags ready to go and have eaten breakfast before 6:45am. When I drink ava I usually have a very restful sleep which makes it that much harder to get up, so I finally woke up at about 6:05am and had to get ready to leave and eat at the same time. After getting my stuff together, I ate breakfast in the Western style house which was new because I usually eat in the kitchen where the food is made – it was strange, I was thinking 'This isn't part of my routine, what's going on!'. But I ate my last meal there with my grandmother which is what I guess their intention was. So I got done eating and got my bags in Bryan's family car which was going to the school. After that, I finally had to say my goodbyes (btw, my family gave me like 8 lavalavas and 3 shirts last night as going away gifts) and it was kinda hard because it really felt like I was leaving home – I guess when you live anywhere for 3 weeks it starts to feel like home. I especially had a hard time saying goodbye to my brothers (although Satuala was asleep when I left and he never woke up) because they're the first 'brothers' I've ever known but as I said yesterday I'll see them all soon enough. I walked to the school with my Samoan father and when we got there the place was packed with family members saying goodbye to each other.

 

There was a lot of crying going on from both the trainees and their families – like I said, for a lot of this it started feeling like home. I didn't cry but that's more because leaving my American family for 2 years was extremely hard but leaving this family for basically only like 2 weeks isn't that hard in comparison. But I did get a picture of my dad and I before I left the schoolhouse:

 

So after everyone finally said their goodbyes, we packed into the vans and started heading on our way. It was hard to get out because some of the family members were still waving goodbye on both sides of the van and in front of the van. It felt like we were rockstars – kinda strange to have the same feeling we had when we arrived be the same as when we leave for the last time as trainees. After the emotional and visual process of leaving Falevao behind, we were finally on our way to Apia. Once there we got all our belongings out of storage and left to our own devices until Monday morning. You smell that? That's the smell of freedom after 9 long weeks of pre-service training, we're close now! So what's the first thing I did once we got back to the modern city of Apia? I cut my hair and shaved – it felt great let me tell you. I let both my hair and beard grow for almost the entire 3 weeks and I felt like a changed man once I had my 'face' back. So that process basically took up the entire morning and at noon I went with a few people to go see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I thought it was a very well done movie – darker then the previous ones (because in this one someone dies on screen) but different from the book in that I didn't come out of it extremely anger like I was with the book. Not because the quality of the book was bad, just that Harry had such a hard time at school during his 4^th year that it was a mentally draining experience to read the book – but a majority of that side storyline was left out of the movie. It definitely made me want to see the next one and it was amazing realizing that I have actually seen the kids grow up on screen just like their character and since they have maintained basically the same core cast sense the beginning its starting to show fruits of that commitment (you actually believe their friends and Neville still has those buckteeth that make him so lovable). So after having dinner I finally decided to sit down and start writing the swearing-in speech. It has definitely been a while since I've written a speech, it has a different structure from a story and you not only have to convey a story but also a message in less then 10 minutes (which is how much time Silao said I would have). There was so much stuff that I could put in the speech, but of course I tried keeping it to the essentials. I'll post the speech here after I give it on Wednesday. Alright, that's it for tonight – time to get some sleep in a bed not surrounded by mosquito netting. L8r!