MJ and the Order of the Tuna (Written 4/20/06)

A friend of mine, Amy, once told me that her life at school was a lot
like Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books. While my life has not quite
attained that level of magic and intrigue, this week I got a little
closer. I have run into yet another part of the British influence on
the Samoan education system in terms of 'Houses'. All the students
have been split up into 4 houses and will compete in intra-school
competitions sometime in the next few weeks (before the end of the
first term, which is in 3 weeks! Yay!). The 4 houses are Vaana
(Hufflepuff), Fata (Ravenclaw), Tuna (Gryffindor) and Saga
(Slytherin). The teachers have also been placed into the houses as
well and I am a part of the Gryfinndor….I mean Tuna house. The only
knock against my house that I have is the fact that their color is
blue….I guess there's a little Osage in me after all. The kids are
currently practicing songs and dances to perform at Culture Day, so
its fun to see some new Samoan dances (that are very different from
the ones we learned in training) and this will mark the first time
that I have seen "traditional" Samoan dances (not dances related to a
FiaFia) since my arrival in Samoa – so even after 7 months, some
things are still new which is great.

On another note, apparently I was exercising so hard over the Easter
weekend – going up and down my mountain of doom that something
happened to the muscle in my thigh area. I started feeling it on
Sunday, but just thought it was a sore muscle so I biked to church and
then biked back up my mountain (Note: also over the weekend, I biked
all the way up to my house twice, two days in a row – I'm probably
paying for that now) and gave it a rest on Monday and Tuesday. I went
to see our PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) and what she thought it
was (a cyst or a bruise) it was not. So right now I have no idea
what's up with my leg, but I can still walk and use it but no biking
for me for at least a couple of days to see if this thing goes away. I
say all that to say – biking in Samoa is no joke. I was thinking about
trying to do the biking around the island deal when we had our two
week break in a couple of weeks (John and Brian, from my group, did it
over the weekend and it took them about 2 days to do it) so hopefully
we have this whole deal figured out by then. I'll keep you updated!