24 (Written 7/23/06)

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11:58:30pm….

11:58:31pm….

So I had a pretty good last day of being 24…enjoying the last year of my golden year (i.e. when my birthday matched my age). I got up this morning and headed to the Peace Corps office to load up some more pictures (which can be found in the Samoan Scenes section – more underwater shots). I had the volunteer lounge to myself for about 30 mins when about 9 other volunteers came in to use the internet – so my morning of solitude didn't last very long. As they were talking and stuff, I decided I still wanted some piece and quiet so I went to our upstairs lounge and just sat and watched the ocean. It's kind of funny that last year at this time I was in Arkansas, looking at a great expanse of mountains and this year I'm in Samoa, looking at a great expanse of water. God's unseen beauty can clearly be seen by what he has made – and I really just needed that kind of reminder today. So once I had my fill of solitude, it was time to go to church and Julya was in town this week for some things, so I invited her along. It's not very often she's in Apia on a Sunday (and not heading back to Savaii that day) so fortunately she accepted.

The service was about getting your spiritual heart in the right place and making sure you're feeding it with positive things. Because what you feed your heart will come out in what you do, say and how you act. It was a good sermon and it seemed like it was one that Julya needed after going through a tough stretch on Savaii. She even told me afterwards that her heart was kind drifting right now – so it was definitely a sermon she needed to hear. After the service, we decided to walk back to the Peace Corps office and it gave us a chance to talk which was cool. It's not very often I get one on one time with the Savaii folks since they usually like to hang around a lot of people at once, but you can't really talk to people and get to the heart of the matter in that kind of situation (plus, I'm kind of a recluse when it comes to big social situations) so it was fun just talking about stuff we could say to just each other without having to worry about other people listening in on our conversation. So once we returned to the Peace Corps office, we split up a bit to meet again later in the day…

While hanging around in the office, I talked to Kevin (Group 73) who is a few months away from completing his service here and instead of going straight home he's going to travel to New Zealand/Australia, work for a little bit and then make his way around the world in hopes of hitting every continent along the way. I was just amazed by his desire to traverse the globe after completing his service here, I think at this point next year my eyes will be solely focused on getting home – while the world is fun and all, family and friends are what count for me. But we talked about different things to do in Australia and New Zealand and since I'm starting to look into traveling there during the Dec/Jan break, that was cool. We also talked about computer recycling ideas because while it's great that we are bringing all these computer components into Samoa – computers break and Samoa doesn't really have the ability to deal with the waste properly (and probably no 3^rd or 2^nd world country really does) especially when it comes to the monitors. So gotta start thinking of ways to solve that problem instead of just noticing the potential problem and doing nothing about it. We'll see.

So at 2pm, Julya and I got back together and walked over to Aggie Greys to meet Mary, the RPCV from 30 years ago. It was the first time I had seen them since the 'LOST' episode so it was nice to hear about all the things they had done in their two weeks here. Since Denis and Mary are from the state of Washington, I asked them to bring some specific things for Julya (coffee and a Seahawks memorabilia) so this was an opportunity for Julya to thank them and to talk to someone new from her state. Mary told us that she had the opportunity to go out and visit the trainees from Group 76 in their village and there she met up with JC/Josephine, two fellow RPCV's from Group 12 – I think – who were in the country visiting their daughter (Tialofa). She visited the trainees on the day of their drop-off (when they are driven to various parts of the island and have to find their way back to their training village), they didn't do that when she was a trainee so it was a new experience for her to see. She said that by the time she left the training village, all the trainees hadn't returned yet – which is kind of strange, since it's impossible to get lost in Samoa. At the very least all buses lead to Apia on the island of Upolu, but I'm sure they'll have interesting stories to tell. Mary also told Julya and I something that both made all the frustrations and bad days here more bearable, and brought some relief to our hearts: she said that she definitely noticed a lot of changes in Samoa over the course of the 30 years she had been away and she felt that Peace Corps was definitely a major influence when it came to some of the changes. Every volunteer over the course of the 30 years contributed something, that while imperceptible on the small scaled, had a big effect on the grand scale. So that while we may feel we're not accomplishing a lot here at certain points – in the grand scale of time, we are definitely making Samoa a better place. Sometimes, in the day to day struggles, you can forget the bigger picture so it was definitely nice to hear. So we had lunch at the Aggie Grey's restaurant which was very nice – it was my first time inside the place – and after we ate we took a mini tour of the place trying to find some places to take pictures and look at all the pretty flowers they have. Julya made a very enlightening statement that inside the Aggie Greys fale area/pool area you could almost forget you were in Apia – there were parts of the area that we pass all the time but you never see it from the outside and can only appreciate it when you're inside the complex. It's a very nice place and that's why it's expensive!

So around 4pm we said goodbye to Mary and Denis and headed off to a barbeque for Sara, Ethan and MacBarr (Group 72) who are done with their service tomorrow. They had the barbeque over at Skye's (Group 73) house and there I got to meet her boyfriend, Charlie, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Samoa (I think his group was 71) so I got to meet two RPCV's in one day – one who COSed (Completion of Service) one year ago and one who COSed 30 years ago, so it was nice dichotomy of after PC experience. Charlie is currently working as a teacher in Chile, so apparently that urge to travel is quite strong once you leave here – maybe I'll be singing a traveling tune this time next year? One thing he asked is what has changed in Samoa in the year since he's been gone and people were able to name off at least 10 things that have happened in the course of this one year. Which got me to thinking that, again, in the day to day course of things you don't notice a lot of changes but when you look at the overall time – man, a lot HAS changed in this one year we've been here. I guess going away and coming back makes you appreciate that change even more, so we'll see how much America has changed in the two years I've been gone. So once I had my fill of the barbeque, I made my 28^th ride up to my house (2 away from my goal of 30) and sat down to write this blog entry. So not a bad final day of being 24 – oh yeah, the pastor at church also made one statement that gave me pause and should give all my family/friend's pause: next week will be the 5^th week of July (which invariably means it's the greatest month EVER!) and then we'll be into August and the year will be almost over. August 2006 looked so freakin' far away when I was a trainee, but it's approaching fast and what's also approaching fast – the one year mark. Only 3 months away – wow. But before we start thinking about that, we gotta get past tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed this final edition of 24, the countdown has begun….

11:59:57pm…..

11:59:58pm…..

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