Transitions (Written 11/12/07)

As I get closer to the end of my time here in Samoa –you would think that things would start to slow down and I could go into a little bit of a retrospective mode about the place. Get those rose colored glasses all nice and sparkly before making the big trip back home – well my friends, the past few days have proven that sentiment nothing more then a memory. Let's start at the beginning shall we…

It all began on Thursday when I helped Kevin (one of the Peace Corps training coordinators) with a session dealing with teaching in Samoa. Now originally, I thought that this session was on Friday. On Tuesday night, Kevin called me and informed me that the session was actually scheduled for Thursday. Now even though I don't have any more classes, I am responsible for watching some of the kids take their exams – so I had to get Kevin to switch some classes around for me, which he thankfully did. So on Thursday, I was able to get to the Peace Corps office around 7:30am in order to catch the van going out to the training village. Helping out with this session was Sara and myself, Amos (Group 73),Dylan and Laura (Group 77). The general gist of this session was to convey to the trainees some of the skills we have acquired over our time here in Samoa that helped improved our teaching abilities. The first thing we reminded the trainees was the fact that a majority of us teachers in Samoa have no teaching background whatsoever, so they should not let that be a hindrance for them. Even though they might feel unqualified to do the job, we just informed that they may feel that way now but once they get into a classroom that feeling will go away in a matter of days or weeks. We also just encouraged them in the fact that when they go to their site (unless a previous volunteer has been there before) they are going to have very little materials to work with for the first year – but that's part of the reason that Samoa brings Peace Corps into the country. We bring material acquisition knowledge and a commitment to our job that can literally make something out of nothing. The lack of materials (whether they be computers, welding materials or books) is just a temporary barrier that can/will be overcome once they have settled into their sites. Primarily, those were the two things Group 79 was most concerned about – lack of material and experience. We also took this time to try to explain the difference between the US educational system and the Samoan one – which would have been a great help to me when I was a trainee, because the two are just so fundamentally different. I think we kind of overloaded them with all the information we were throwing at them, but (at least for the computer teachers) the Peace Corps Computer Studies teachers have compiled a CD which contains a lot of the material that former Peace Corps volunteers have created, which makes things a bit easier for the new volunteers.

When we got back to Apia, Sara and I headed over to Air New Zealand so that I could get things settled for my ticket home. So I now have my ticket back to the states – it kind of gives this whole adventure a bit of finality now. I've been thinking about this moment for a long time, but when it's almost here it is a bit weird to think about. This was literally the first time in 2 years that I held a plane ticket with a US city on it – I was both excited and sad. The adventure is almost over folks.

On Friday, I had a visit from Dave (Group 77) who is being considered as my replacement here at Chanel. The great thing about Dave is that he understands networking and software better then me (I'm more of a hardware guy) so he could improve the operating system and stuff on the computers, while at the same time improving the junior students (Years 9-11) computer studies program as well. He's currently working at Paul VI (another Catholic school that's further out of town) and since he's been working in Samoa for a year now it would be an easier transition from me to him. Don't worry, we're not stealing him from Paul VI – I believe they would be getting a volunteer from Group 79 to replace Dave. So I showed Dave around the place and gave him the high points of the 4 Chanel College computer labs and I was talking to him about how he probably won't have to create anymore labs because we've run out of room and then he started talking about connecting the various computers around the campus by wireless – so yeah, I think he would work just fine here. Hopefully it works out and I know I will be leaving this place in good hands.

So that was the good news for Friday – the bad news actually came earlier in the day. As most of you know, I have been helping out at the newest internet café in town called ClickNet, which is run by a guy named Eugene (who's married to one of our Peace Corps bosses). It's been a lot of fun and a very rewarding experience to see a place go from conception to reality and then to sustainability in the course of only a few months. Well on Friday, I (along with all of Peace Corps Samoa) learned that Jackie (who's married to Eugene) had accepted a position (within Peace Corps) in Tanzania (which is in Africa). On one hand this was shocking to me because, while I'm excited for Jackie – it's a promotion for her – I was worried about the shop – which is Eugene's baby business. Once everyone heard about Jackie's promotion the first thing a lot of the volunteers were worried about was 'Is the shop going to close?' (and since ClickNet has the best hours and internet service, it would be a big blow). Eugene put those thoughts to rest and sent out an email stating that he would keep ownership of the shop and keep it running. So when I got to the shop later on that night, I asked how he was going to keep the shop running. His family will be leaving for Africa sometime in early December and he's going to get them settled before heading back to Samoa for the Christmas/New Years season. He wants to put Lina (his Samoan assistant manager/neighbor) in charge, but I don't know how well that's going to work – it might, you never know. But what this means is that Eugene and his family (which includes Shaka and Eva) will be leaving Samoa before I do and Eugene won't be back before I leave – so I have to say my first goodbyes earlier then I expected. I guess it was just a really bit shock to the system that I would be saying my first goodbye to a friend in Samoa in about 3 weeks instead of 6. With Jackie leaving, Kim (our country director/big boss) leaving in 2 months, Group 75 (the greatest group ever) leaving within the next month, Kevin (the current principal of Chanel) leaving Chanel College – there's a lot of transitioning going on right now. It's a time of change.

Also on Friday (it was a really busy day!) Sara, Candice and I went to Fila's (a Samoan friend of ours) birthday party. She turned 30 on Friday and wanted to celebrate the occasion with pizza and….karaoke. Yes, this is the same Fila whose family I sang Karaoke with while I was in New Zealand. I thought I left the Karaoke behind in Auckland – but it just keeps following me wherever I go! We had dinner at Giordano's (which is a pizza place owned by Alec, who attends Peace Chapel) and it lasted about 3 hours which was quite a long time. After the dinner we headed over to Insel Fehrman for the Karaoke portion of our night. As tends to be the case when I am around and folks want to do something on the silly side, people tried to get me to be one of the first ones to sing – but I'm a patient man and I wanted to wait until the end. There were about 10 people at the karaoke so I knew I could hold out for a long time. Sara sang "Old McDonald" and Candice sang "Cruisin" which were both good – but it had been a while since Sara sang "Old McDonald" because she couldn't keep up with the tune and the words on the screen were different from the ones she was singing. The Karaoke machine has a rating system attached to it and after each performance it gave each person a score between 0 – 100 (the average was around 85) and before I went up to sing the highest score was a 92. After everyone else had sung, I was the last man standing and thus had to sing. I was looking for a Boys II Men song "Hard to say Goodbye" but I couldn't find it in the list. So instead I sang "Jailhouse Rock" (Yes, I know how similar those two songs are!) and since I knew the song kinda well I was able to keep up with the tune. The machine gave me a score of 97 – and that is why I went last! Just blew the karaoke competition out of the water…and then it was time to leave.

Saturday was a day of rest and washing of clothes. Moving on…

Sunday was of course Church and my almost weekly afternoon lunch with Candice. After I left Candice's I headed straight home to change because at 4:30pm, Brother Steven and Ryan were coming to pick me up to go watch 'The Brave One" – a Jodie Foster movie. Now I'm not usually a fan of Jodie Foster movies but since Ryan was leaving on Monday (i.e. today) I thought it was important to spend as much time as possible with him. So Steve and Ryan came to pick me up first and then we picked Candice up. At the movie theater we met John and Robert (Group 77) who were there to watch the movie with us. The movie was good and didn't try to be something that it wasn't – which is like a first for a Jodie Foster film to me. It was solid acting and Terrence Howard seems to really be hitting his groove now…the man seems to be in at least 2-3 movies a year. So after watching that solid movie, we headed over to Georgie's for pizza (I think my cholesterol level jumped a lot over the past 3 days because of all this pizza). We were joined by Bryan and Sara there – so only Dianne and Julya were missing. I'm still amazed at how different all our personalities are and yet we just click together. It's pretty cool that over the course of the past 2 years, our group has become closer instead of trying to distance ourselves from each other. With each of us leaving though, comes the hard part – staying in contact with each other. As each one of us leaves, that becomes more of a concern…we definitely don't want to lose contact with each other. Hopefully the next time we see each other is for Peace Corps Samoa's 80^th anniversary. The strangest thing that hit me while I was talking to Sara, John, Bryan, Candice and Ryan was the fact that 2 years ago 4 of them smoked (Sara, Bryan, Candice and Ryan) but now they don't – they actually lost a vice while serving in Peace Corps (most people gain a vice). Anyway, after we shut the restaurant down with our dinner talk it was time to go our separate ways and I had to say goodbye to Ryan. With his departure, St. Joseph has no more volunteers – let's hope their computer studies program can stand on its own two feet now.

The times, they are a changin'. There is a real sense that this place will feel completely different in 2008. While there are parts of me that want to stay and help out here some more, a part of me knows that we are leaving at the perfect time. Come February 2008 (when Kim leaves) this post could take on an entirely new personality (care of the new country director) which would be better or worse. It's funny – I thought this place would be different a few years after I left, but it's going to change only a few weeks after I leave. Peace Corps Samoa is moving on and mentally (but not emotionally, yet) I feel it's time for me to do the same. So the countdown is on…36 days. L8r!