The MJ Peace Corps adventure

One last thing...

2008-02-09T19:02:00.001-11:00

Yes, I know I said that this would be the end of my blog - but I just found out something super sweet that I just had to tell someone about. And what better place then on this blog! Did you know there is actually an ice cream based on Samoa?! I didn't - but here's the site for it: http://edys.slowchurned.com/flavor.aspx?b=117&f=2377

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available in my area but if anyone finds this ice cream let me know where you got it. Who knows, I may luck into it and find a little piece of Samoa in Tennesee!

Readjustment (Written 1/28/08)

2008-01-28T16:49:00.001-11:00

Well, I think it's about time I got around to doing this thing. It's been well over a month since I left Samoa and the readjustment has been difficult to say the least. Not so much in the getting use to the States again – I don't truly believe I will ever be the same person I was when I left in 2005 – but just the feeling of having to prove myself again. The greatest thing about Peace Corps, which I didn't expect when I went in, is just the sense of empowerment that organization gives you. You're place into a position where people come to you for your opinion and guess what – it actually matters! You can affect a change, you can really see a difference in the impact you have on people's lives. I miss that aspect of Samoa – knowing that I'm making a difference. But anyway, what have I been up to since my last update…. *initiate flashback sequence*

Of course the first big event of my return was…seeing my friends that first week I was back in town. That was a great experience of just reconnecting with them and seeing their faces for the first time in two years. It was the first time, though, that I had trouble explaining my Peace Corps experience to someone. You see, up until that moment I had primarily been talking about Samoa with people who either read my blog or came to visit me in Samoa – but now I was dealing with folks who qualified for neither of those conditions. While I was in Samoa, I jokingly realized that I would only have like 5-10 minutes to catch folks up on what I had done in my two years in Samoa. I thought that it wouldn't bother me since I was expecting it.

I was wrong – it did bother me.

Because trying to encapsulate two years of your life in another country in 10, 30 or 60 minutes just isn't possible. I had this desire to just keep talking and talking about Samoa, but you know how people get that glazed look in their eyes when you know they've checked out of the conversation – yeah, I saw the on-set of that a few times. Now don't get me wrong, I love my friends and family but another RPCV from Samoa told me (and I agree) that you have to be measured in what you tell people about your time in Peace Corps. Not because they won't understand, but because in the early stages (which I was in, only being 5 days removed from Samoa) you have this desire to just compare everything to the country you left. While I still have that desire in me now, over a month later, it's not as strong as it was during those first weeks at home and now I feel I can give a more measured response for my time in Samoa.

So I met with my friends on the Friday before Christmas – on the Saturday before Christmas, my mom had arranged for some family and friends to come over and conduct a welcome back party of sorts. This was a nice affair in which I got to see all my family in Nashville and friends from my mom's job who had been informed of my Peace Corps tour through my mother. I thought it was a pretty cool get together, it was nice to see everyone in one fell swoop. Saturday was also the day that I finally started calling people letting them know I was back in the country – it took almost the entire week for that to settle in. One of the people I called was my Dad, but I had to talk to him about something else (he had previously called me in the week to say welcome back). When I called him, he stated that he was in a store and would call me back later.

He never did.

Instead, he showed up at my front door Saturday night with his wife, Andrea. My mom, Dad and Andrea had planned for them to fly down to surprise me during my welcome back party. It truly was a surprise – you see, when I called Dad he was actually at the airport about to get on the plane…talk about great timing! It was such a joy to see my Dad and have both parents together for my welcome back party, it brought a tear to my eyes folks. The surprises didn't end there though – two days before Christmas, my aunt, cousin, cousin's wife and Grandfather all came down from Iowa and Chicago to see me. It was truly a great Christmas – this was the first Christmas my entire family (mom's side and dad's side) have been together for since the 1990s….It was heartwarming.

The day before New Year's Eve, my travelling began. I went up to Minnesota to visit my Dad and surprise Grandpa for his birthday (which is December 31). We went to a midnight church service to welcome in the New Year and I have to admit, it's probably the safest I have felt on a New Years Eve in a long time – no need to duck down and avoid gunfire when you're in a church! But on New Years Day, I was treated to the best bowl game of the year – Tennessee vs. Wisconsin. You see, my dad is a Wisconsin alumni (former football player) and I am an alumni of the University of Tennessee – and this is the first time both teams have met in quite a while. Fortunately, my good fortune continued with UT coming away with the victory – but I was able to spend a good week up in Minneapolis just hanging out with my dad and grandpa. 3 generations of Stewart's just spending time with each other – priceless.

Oh yeah, it was also at this time that I made my first trip to a mall. On the Friday that my friends came into town, I went to Opry Mills Mall – which is considered the tourist mall – and my heart was literally racing it was just so much to take in. When I went to Minneapolis, I went to the Mall of America and my heart started racing again – the overwhelming consumerism was just a bit much. In Samoa, things are limited and I just got use to not having things – oddly enough, I was happy with the simplicity of things there. Of course there were times when having a lack of choices was annoying and frustrating, but I just learned to live without certain things. Now I come back to the states and there's just so much choice it's ridiculous. I literally have a hard time choosing things because there's just too much to choose from. And you want to know the sad thing about all the stuff I saw in the malls of Opry Mills and the Mall of America – it's just stuff. Stuff that clutters up our lives and takes up space. I remember being the type of person who just filled his life up with stuff – my stuff is usually gadget related. I love my gadgets, DVDs – basically anything tech related. But now when I see something tech related I ask myself 'Do I really need this or will be just another thing to fill my life with' and that has kept me from buying a lot of stuff I would have normally bought without thinking about it. That's probably the best change that has occurred in me during my time in Samoa.

Anyway, back to our story. I came back from Minneapolis on a Sunday, stayed in Nashville on Monday and left for Dallas on Tuesday. This was another opportunity to spend time with a friend I had not seen in two years. I got to spend almost a full week with her and it was just a great time of hanging out and just being around each other. One of the things I realized while in Samoa is that I can enjoy being around people while doing absolutely nothing – just talking or just being around each other is good for me. Unfortunately, when I came to visit folks they thought we had to go around doing tourist stuff and while all that's fun, I missed the person not the place. Except Minnesota, I missed the people there but I definitely did not miss the place – I am no longer built for the snow. It's just a bit too much for my thin tropical skin.

So after coming back from Dallas, I spent time with my Nashville friends and now I am at the longest readjustment part of being a RPCV: the job search. It took me a while to get my head back around the whole job search deal and all the details that go into it. One of the things that annoy me the most about the job search is the fact that you have to prove yourself yet again. It's just strange that after two years of establishing connections in Samoa and knowing the people to get almost any job done, I'm basically back to square one. I have the experience to get the job I want – it's just a matter of getting that first step…that one opportunity to get through the door and starting building something stateside.

So your next question is probably 'Well Marques, what do you want to do next?' – I'm pretty sure that is the number 2 question ALL Peace Corps Volunteers get ask within their first 24 hours back. The number 1 question would be 'So tell me about Samoa (in 5 minutes or less)'. My main focus is in information technology i.e. working with computer hardware and networks (basically what I was doing in Samoa). I would like to find a career which allows me to combine my love of working with kids with my love of working with computers. I have found a few positions that would fit that description – working as an IT manager for a Charter School, working at a Computer Camp, working for an organization which establishes computers in the home of underprivileged children and working for Generation Yes – an organization which empowers students to be tech ambassadors within their community (whether that be as a student tech for a school or just becoming more tech literate). All these positions sound great but as usual the problem is simple – getting that first step, that first opportunity to prove myself.

So that is my readjustment – it's a life-long process, but I know that a part of me is still left in Samoa. It has been well over a month since I left, but I can still see the palm trees, great weather and of course the people who made my time there special. While I don't know when I will return to Samoa – I know I will, I have to. It's an undeniable part of who I am and I can never thank God enough for giving me that opportunity to grow. The slogan says 'It's the hardest job you'll ever love' and while that's true it's also an 'Experience that Enriches' your mind, body and soul.

So if there is anyone who is still reading this blog, thank you for your support and kind words over the past two years. If you left a comment on the blog, trust me – I read it. As I stated all along, this blog was meant as a letter to my mom to keep her informed of what I was doing in Samoa but while doing that it accomplished another goal…the Third Goal of Peace Corps, which is to share your Peace Corps experience with the folks back home. Of course this blog reached folks all over the world and that still blows my mind. Again, thank you for your support and God bless.

Just a little extra note before I officially end this thing: while this blog will come to a close, you can still follow my thoughts and ramblings on a smaller scale. There is a min-blog platform called Twitter which allows folks to post their thoughts and rambling in a short concise 140 character format. I have established a profile on Twitter at http://twitter.com/marquesstewart and if you want to keep up with the job search, readjustment, etc that will be the place to see it at.

And oddly enough my computer – the tough warrior that it has been over the past 2 years in Samoa – started to act up almost as soon as I got back. Within a few weeks of being home, something happened to the battery where it can't hold a charge anymore and just this past week my hard drive crashed. Fortunately, I had moved a majority of my music and photos off of it (can you imagine, losing the last 6 months of pics from Samoa – that would have been devastating) but I didn't get all the important stuff off before the crash. Who knew that coming BACK to the states would result in my computer messing up on me. I do look on the positive side –at least it happened here where I was able to resolve my problem fairly quickly instead of in Samoa where it would have been a much bigger deal. I knew this variety of choice in America would be good at some point.

Fa Soifua – Manuia le aso.

The End

(The mini-adventure continues at: http://twitter.com/marquesstewart)

Peace Corps Wiki

2008-01-14T18:35:00.000-11:00

Well there might be a few curious souls still out there that read this blog and I wanted to give you something for the New Year. Yes, I know I have one more blog post to do which talks about my readjustment back to America - but I thought I would give myself a full month to reintegrate before talking about things....so it's coming. In the meanwhile, I wanted to share a website with you.

A Wiki - for those who don't know - is kind of like a specialized encyclopedia on a certain subject. But instead of being built from one primary source (like an Encyclopedia Britannica or something like that) a Wiki is created by various people who have knowledge on the subject. While that means a Wiki isn't as authoritative, it's usually more up to date.

So I ran across a Peace Corps Wiki which gives information about current Peace Corps programs around the world and other Peace Corps related facts:

http://www.peacecorpswiki.com/

To see what South Pacific Islands the Peace Corps has been at in the past and are currently serving in:

http://www.peacecorpswiki.com/index.php?title=The_Pacific_Islands

And to find out information on the Peace Corps Samoa program:

http://www.peacecorpswiki.com/index.php?title=Samoa

Enjoy!

MJTV - Samoa Series Finale

2007-12-22T21:39:00.001-11:00

The adventure may be over, but the experience lives on. For your viewing pleasure the album called "MJTV - Samoa" has been updated with a few final clips from the tropics. A few of the videos deal with my farewell ceremony at school, one is a clip of my four computer labs, one is a tour of the Internet Cafe I helped set up (and have talked about constantly on this blog) ClickNet, and the last one is a short clip from the ENLI Graduation in Samoa. Hope you enjoy it all!

Tour of the Chanel College Computer Labs

2007-12-22T21:12:00.000-11:00

During my two years in Peace Corps, I was responsible for the maintenance of two computer labs and the creation of two others. In total, Chanel went from having 30 computers in 2005 to 104 computers in 2007. Here is a video tour of the computer labs.

Pictorial Finale

2007-12-21T09:34:00.000-11:00

Alright folks - the adventure may be over, but I've got a few photos left to share. There are alot so let's get down to what they are:

In the "Chanel College 2007" album you will find photos from the Chanel College Prizegiving from this year.

In "Volunteer Life - Final Edition", you will find photos from the ENLI Graduation, more photos from the Group 75 COS Conference and photos from the Peace Chapel College Prizegiving.

In the "Manono Cleanup" album, you will find all the photos related to the Manono Island cleanup Peace Corps did a few weeks back.

In "The Wedding Album", you will find all the photos dealing with Lorna and Zonder's wedding - my last big event in Samoa (and the reason I stayed an extra week).

The "Samoan Scenes - Final Edition" album has also been updated with a few more beautiful vistas from Samoa.

Finally, in the "Final Week" album you will find the photos of Sara and I having To'ona'i at Teuila's house and my farewell to Eugene/Jackie and the kids as they headed for Tanzania.

And there you have it folks - the last batch of photos from the small island in the South Pacific. As I look at the photos, they remind me that - yes, this adventure really did happen and these folks are real. Hope you've enjoyed the 2 years of photo blogging and I've made the island life a bit more real to you.

Adios Adventure (Written 12/17/07 – 12/19/07)

2007-12-19T22:41:00.001-11:00

Note: This is a Super-sized blog post. It basically covers my last 24 hours in Samoa and my first 24 hours back in the United States. Reader discretion is advised.

Well folks, here we are – the last day of my Peace Corps Service. After two years of doing my best to serve the needs of the country of Samoa, it's time for me to leave. When I planned out today, I thought it would be a fairly easy day – not to long and I would be home by 5 at the latest….boy was I wrong.

The day began with a fairly pleasant surprise – I received a text from Eugene telling me that he and his family had arrived safely in Tanzania. They were suppose to land in Tanzania on the 17^th, but we both thought that would be the 16^th in Samoa – nope, it was the same day. So I congratulated him on completing the trip safely (they were all tired and he said the kids passed out immediately once they were home). So as their journey across the world ended, mine was just about to begin.

I began the day fairly early, awoken by Eugene's text message – so I went around to make sure everything was packed away and doing some final run through of the place to see if there were any more items that needed to go to the Peace Corps office. When the oldest group of volunteers leave, they tend to leave a few items at the Peace Corps office (i.e. books, clothes, toiletries, bike parts, etc) to help out the current and future volunteers of the post. I have been slowly taking things to the office over the past 2 weeks, but today was the day in which I took a lot of the big items down to the office (i.e. my mosquito net, medical kit, books and water filter). Last week, I arranged for a Peace Corps vehicle to come up to the school and help me move this stuff at 10am – which is the reason I woke up at 7am: Have to be prepared. So I did some final sweeping, cleaning and washing of clothes for the trip home. I was pretty much done at exactly 10am but when I went outside to see if a Peace Corps vehicle was there, it wasn't. So I called the office to reconfirm that I was scheduled for a pickup and got the confirmation – but the vehicle did not arrive until 10:30am which already put me behind my scheduled events for the day.

So I got a ride down to the office and dumped a lot of my stuff in it's proper place before running the final Peace Corps Gauntlet of paperwork. The first person I had to see was Teuila to give one last blood sample and go over the last few bits of my medical details. At this time I told Teuila I was not saying goodbye to her yet because I wanted her to be one of the last people I say goodbye to at the office. After taking care of my medical, Kim (our Country Director) came to me with some revisions that needed to be done to my Description of Service (DOS). None of the changes were major – which is very much a good thing since I was only hours away from being gone and didn't want to go through a major rewrite. So I quickly made the necessary changes to my DOS and gave it back to Kim for final approval. Once I handed in my DOS – Kim, Sara and I had our COS lunch at Roko's. Before heading to Roko's, though, we had to take care of one more major detail – closing out our bank accounts. When I closed out this account that I have been using for the past 2 years, it felt like one more nail in the coffin of my Peace Corps experience. Now, in regards to the COS lunch, I have been talking about this lunch for well over a year after I had heard that we get this free lunch from Kim when we successfully complete our service. I told her then that when we had our lunch, I would be getting a steak (my second steak in a week!). So the time had come to finally cash in on that promise – I got the Rib Eye steak at Roko's and it was absolutely delicious. Possibly one of the juiciest steaks I've ever had. During our lunch, we talked about our experience in Peace Corps over the past 2 years and it was a very relaxing, laid back conversation. We have all been through a lot during the past 2 years so it was good to get a bit of it off our chests at the end. We had a long lunch – probably about 2 hours long, but it was good and a lot of good conversation came out of it. We are the last two people (and last group) that Kim will have her COS lunch with before she steps down as Country Director of Samoa in two months. So it was a good time for her – to end have her final COS lunch with members from the greatest Peace Corps group ever. Also, Kim gave Teuila, Sara and I gifts for successfully completing our ENLI course – she was out of the country when we graduated and it was a nice gift (a personal calendar, to keep my new life in the state organized).

After our lunch, we headed back to the office for our exit interviews with Kim. During this interview we formally gave our thoughts on our Peace Corps Site (i.e. Chanel College), the future of our site, any program issues that could be improved within Peace Corps and any thoughts we had about the administration staff. Overall, I've had a pretty good experience with all of the above – so my suggestions were very minimal. At the end, though, Kim congratulated me on completing my two years and being an excellent Volunteer. While I am rough around the edges, I'm glad that my good character shined through and I'm leaving a good legacy at Chanel and within the Peace Corps community. After I was done with my exit interview, it was time to say goodbye to Teuila. Like I've said before, Teuila has been like our Peace Corps Mom – always looking after us, and always lending a kind ear to our needs. She's got a great sense of humor (which is how she can deal with me) and I love her very much. During our COS lunch, she went home and brought Rachael and Elisha to the office (Tiffany was at church) so I got to say goodbye to them one more time. I got to hang out with Rachael and Elisha a little bit more because I had to wait for Sara to come out of her Exit Interview with Kim. While I was waiting, Fila showed up to say her goodbye to me as well. It took Sara about 30 minutes to finish her interview and then I had to say my final goodbye to the girls and Teuila. I know the girls are going to miss me because they're not going to have someone to jump all over and act as sort of a big brother to them. Teuila did cry, but I didn't – mainly because it still had not hit me that I was leaving.

After leaving the Peace Corps, I had arranged to meet Zonder and Lorna at ClickNet to say my final goodbye to them. Fila drove Sara and I over to ClickNet and on the way we ran into Kirstin, who was about to start jogging. She was one of the few people I put on my list that I had to see on this last day in Samoa and I was really happy that I got the opportunity to see here one more time. She got a new look – with shorter hair – so it's just a time of transition for all of us. There were plenty of hugs given and laughing shared during our few minutes together. While we were talking to Kirstin, Zonder and Lorna showed up – so the gang was back together for one last go round. After saying goodbye to Kirstin, Fila drove me over to ClickNet so I could have one last look at the place and give the guys in charge (Tavita and Titi) one last hug and word of encouragement before heading off. Who knew a small shop could have such an impact on my life in such a small amount of time – but I'm really hoping that when I return that ClickNet will still be open. That would be nice. After we were done at the shop – this was at 7pm, only 2 hours before I was suppose to leave – I had one more ClickNet goodbye to give: Lina, the manager of ClickNet. Fila drove me over to her house so that I could give her a hug and give her a proper goodbye. After that goodbye, it was time to return home and make sure everything was in order….because there was no turning back now.

When we arrived at my house, it was time to say even MORE goodbyes…this time to Fila and Sara (Lorna and Zonder would see me off at the airport). I thanked Fila for always keeping me on my toes and taking all the tough times I gave her with a smile and grace. Then came one of the hardest goodbyes of the day – saying goodbye to Sara, the last member of Group 75 in Samoa. It was a tearful goodbye because we have spent almost the entire two years connected to each other – through Peace Chapel, the Catholic School system and ENLI. It will definitely be strange not seeing Sara on a weekly basis…and I just thanked her for being a great part of my experience in Samoa. I would not have found Peace Chapel or ENLI without her help, so I've got a lot to be thankful for when it comes to her. After the tears were settled, the four of them drove off and I felt just a bit closer to tying up all my loose ends.

When I got home, I made sure the place was nice and clean and did yet another run through of my belongings. At 8pm, Pati and Tiffany showed up to say their goodbyes. Now, earlier in the day Pati had called and said he would wait for me at the airport (he got off at 8pm and would wait until 10pm), apparently he changed his mind and decided to knock off work early in order to see me off at my house. I am super glad I got to say goodbye to Pati – he has been a great influence on my life, just being an awesome man of God, family man and still the best taxi driver I ever had in Samoa. And while Tiffany has always given me a hard time, I know it's all out of love and I will miss her very much. We talked for about an hour, just reminiscing about the last 2 years and thinking about my future return to Samoa. As we talked, Pati looked up at the sky and saw that it was a half-moon and said "The moon is half-full, which means you have to return to complete it" which I thought was a nice statement – can't leave something incomplete here….I am a completionist after all. So we talked for about an hour when Uaea showed up (on time) to give me my ride to the airport. Again, there were tears shed and yet another piece of the leaving Samoa puzzle is complete. Uaea helped me move my bags into his car and I got one last look at my house – can't believe I won't be walking into this place tomorrow. After locking the doors, I had to put the keys to the house and the lab in the place that Dave and I agreed on. Before locking the lab for the last time – I took one last look at the first computer lab…the one that started it all and said my goodbye to the labs. I then went up to the father's house and said my goodbye to Pio and wished him luck in the next year…I also told him to take care of my computers. He also cooked one last meal for me – Steak (apparently it's the meal of departure around these parts). With that goodbye, I packed into Uaea's car and began my last drive away from Chanel College as a Volunteer. We stopped a few times and I tried to picture the college in my head because it was so dark – one of the bad things about leaving at night, you don't really get one last look at your place.

The drive out to the airport took about 45 minutes and Uaea and I just talked about a variety of subjects along the way – primarily dealing with our spiritual walks and how mine has developed while being in Samoa. Uaea and I aren't like the closest of friends, but it was glad to have a familiar face see me off at the airport – it kind of sucks to leave without someone seeing you off. As one last treat to myself as a Volunteer, I decided to upgrade from the Economy class to the Business Class (the first time in my life that I have flown Business/First Class) so the check in process was pretty fast for me. Other then allowing me more comfort room, it also gave me a larger baggage allowance which was needed in order to get all of my bags back (you also get to take on two carry-on bags instead of one). This was by far the quickest check-in I have ever done – apparently this flight was not full so there were not a lot of people leaving with me. I did know six people on this particular flight though: Beth (who is leaving Peace Corps for good, like myself), Mark (who is just on vacation), Donna (who is also on vacation), Father Mika (a priest from my school who is going to the States for the first time) and Jared/Nicole (friends of Lorna/Zonder that came in for the wedding, they are flying to Nicole's home state of Kentucky).

When I got the departure tax and converting of my tala to USD, it was time to wait for my departure. I was definitely glad to have Uaea there – someone to talk to and keep my mind off the finality of the whole situation. While waiting for my flight, I also ran into the Principal of St. Mary's who didn't realize I wasa leaving tonight – so that was yet another goodbye. While I was talking to the Principal, Lorna and Zonder showed up (they came to see me off as well as Jared and Nicole). So we all sat down (Jared, Nicole, Lorna, Zonder, Uaea, myself) and had one last good time before the dreaded moment came – the time to walk through the security gates and officially say goodbye to Samoa. Before this moment came, I sent out a bunch of text messages saying goodbye to folks (in Samoa) and telling folks I'm coming home (in the States). The text message responses were just flowing in – it was amazing. I expected maybe a few people to respond back, but almost everyone I send a message also sent a response. Everyone keeps telling me how I've impacted a lot of lives here, but so many people here have impacted my life in such a deep and meaningful way that it's hard to put into words. When it was time to go to through the security gate, I gave my phone to Uaea to give to a friend and that's when it hit me…I'm leaving Samoa. Tomorrow, I will literally be someplace else.

I looked at the arrival area – the same arrival area I came through 2 years ago as a trainee – and the tears just began to flow. To sort of come full circle gave the whole thing a bit of symmetry and an appropriate ending of sorts. I was just balling at this point – and I was really glad Lorna and Zonder were there because they are one of the few people I have known my entire two years (I only met Uaea this year), so I got to hug out my two years one more time. When I was hugging Lorna she gave me some sage advice and said 'This was not a dream. You came and served this country for 2 years, don't forget that". That really hit home for me because my biggest fear about leaving was the fact that over time this could begin to feel like a dream – like I was never really here and these people didn't really exist – but with her words, I know that won't happen. I'm glad that I left Samoa in a better state then when I arrived – I hope my time here has been beneficial to Samoa in the present and for the future (through the kids). It was at this time that I really did not want to leave…I knew I had to, but it was taking a sheer force of will to keep me from just saying 'I'm staying'. But when the time came, I did go through the security doors and I did say goodbye to Samoa. Thankfully, I did not have to wait long in the lounge area – when I got there they were loading the plane already, so it was one swift move from the security checkpoint to the airplane.

For the first time in my life, I was sitting in the first two rows of the airplane – in Business Class! This was quite an experience for me because I had always thought about doing it once my service was up, but couldn't really believe that it was actually happening. I was surprised by the amenities that you get in Business Class – I got a little packet that had toothpaste, socks, earplugs and a night mask. Before taking off, the attendant came around with hot towels so that we could clean ourselves up a bit before take off. Now all of those things would mean nothing if the leg room was poor – fortunately, it was not. For the first time on an airplane I had more then enough leg room between myself and the seat in front of me – I could stretch out without placing my feet in the aisle. As I was getting use to first class, I took a look around the plane and it hit me that the last time I was on this particular flight, I was with 12 other people that I had never met before. When I was last on this plane, I was so looking forward to this trip home – but now that it's here, I am very much in the mixed emotions department. I took one last look at the airport and said my final goodbye to Samoa…my little island home away from home.

The plane ride from Samoa to LA is about 9.5 hours, so it's a fairly long flight time. In Business Class, I was served a variety of food – while I wasn't really hungry, I was doing to take advantage of this service while I could…I never know when I'll get here again. The seats recline almost all the way back and it almost felt like a bed (you could even adjust the headrest to make your head more secure). This was the first time I had ever been on a plane and didn't feel bad about reclining almost all the way back (there was more then enough room for the person behind me to get up if they had to). I had a personal video screen in front of me and could choose from 5 movies at night and 5 movies in the morning (at night, I watched Transformers again – that movie is just soooo good!) After the dinner meal (with dessert) it was time to go to bed and I have to say without a shadow of a doubt this was the best sleep I have ever had on a flight. I wasn't uncomfortable in the least bit and was able to sleep the entire flight time…I didn't wake up until it was actually time to eat breakfast. Usually when I wake up on a plane, my body aches a bit – but not this time, I woke up – went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face and I was good and refreshed.

So breakfast was served on the plane and I once again took full advantage it. After that, we were about an hour or so away from Los Angeles – and I got my first look at Continental American soil in two years. The first thing that hit me was how crowded everything looked compared to the spread out nature of Samoa. Just looking down I could feel that there were a lot of people down there even though I couldn't see them…something I didn't really notice before. When we got within range of the LA airport, we had to go into a holding pattern for 20 minutes so the airways could be cleared for our landing. When we were cleared, we began our descent and about 40 minutes after first seeing LA from the ocean I was back in the United States – Home sweet "doesn't yet feel like" Home.

Because I was in Business Class, I was one of the first people off the plane but decided to wait in the departing area for Mika to come out (since this was his first time in the states, I didn't want to leave him alone in such a big place). When he got out of the plane, I walked with him for a bit and he said he was a bit nervous when the plane first took off but other then that he was fine. So we got our passports checked and this reminded me of when I first arrived in Samoa – there were lines for citizens and a line for foreigners…this was only the second time I've been in a passport line for citizens (the first being on my trip to American Samoa). Once cleared through the passport check, we claimed our baggage. It was at this point, that I looked back at the passport check area and realized that almost every Peace Corps Samoa volunteer has come through this particular process…kind of made you feel like you were part of some unseen legacy. With the baggage in hand (and cleared of customs), I made sure Mika was safely with his family before heading to the Southwest terminal to check my bags. When I arrived at the terminal, I realized there's a reason that Southwest is one of the cheapest domestic airlines and it's not because of their great customer service. I literally saw someone leave their post (even though there was a person standing in front of them waiting to be served) just because their shift was up – I also saw the same type of deal in Samoa, so something's transcend borders. It took me almost 45 minutes to go through the check in process for Southwest but I was glad I got it out of the way.

I then went back to the Air New Zealand terminal to have one last talk with Beth and Maka, both of whom I have known my entire two years in Peace Corps. For Maka, this is his first time back in the states in 2.5 years – so we both had a few culture shock moments at the airport. The one thing we could all agree on is the fact that we did not like LAX. We talked for a bit and laughed for a bit, but as with all things Peace Corps related lately, there came a time when I had to say goodbye to them. Even though I've been pretty rough to Beth over the two years, she took it in stride and returned everything back equally and I'm glad I got to know her (she's a 2 time volunteer). While Maka and I got off to a rough patch when I first arrived (he's not a sports guy like me), our relationship got better over time and I am sad to see him go (but he is going back to Samoa). Once we did our last goodbyes, I went back over to my terminal in order to go through the security process.

And all I have to say about the security process is that it's a joke. They herd you along like cattle and make you take everything under the sun off – for your safety. It was in this line I saw something I've heard about during my two years away…how some organizations are using the fear of things to take away more freedoms and make the process of doing things even longer. We are taking off our shoes now because one guy got through? Why am I taking off my jacket – there could be something in it? There could also be something on my shirt, why not take that off as well? Or in my pants? The liquid thing is just ridiculous because I could easily have something liquid in my pocket that mixes with the water you can buy on the other side of the security check point (where the stores have signs that say 'You can take these bottled water on the plane'). While I was going through this 'process' all I saw was the simple fact that the TSA wants to give us the illusion of security but it's just that…an illusion and a major inconvenience.

Anyway, once I was past that magic show it was time to wait for the final flight home. I just hung around the hub for a bit, trying to find Jared/Nicole (who were headed to Louisville) – they were leaving an hour before my flight left so I wanted to say goodbye and see how long they were staying in the states. Apparently, they are staying for 6 weeks and this is Jared's first Christmas in the states. He's hoping for a White Christmas, which could happen but probably won't (as most southern know it tends to snow in January/February and not December). After saying goodbye to them, I made a few phone calls to let folks know I made it safely to the states and was on my way home. Once those calls were done, I had something to eat because the lack of food and jet lag were finally catching up with me and making me dizzy. One McDonald's sandwich later I was feeling a lot better and ready for the final leg.

The plane ride home was delayed like 30 minutes AND there was a layover in Phoenix (about 90% of the plane got off in Phoenix) so folks could get off and come on. During the layover, I moved to one of the first seats on the plane – so I got good leg room on my southwest flight as well. Two and a half hours later, I saw Nashville for the first time since 2005. The plane was 45 minutes late arriving but at least it arrived safely. When we landed the airport was empty – so it didn't feel like a grand return to the States. But when I got to the arrival area – where people wait to meet the folks coming off the plane – that felt like a grand return. I can spot Jonas from a mile away and I saw him standing next to my mom and a huge smile came across my face.

Now it felt like I was home and the adventure is over.

These were the same two people I left when I began this adventure 2 years ago, so it was fitting that they showed up for my arrival – even though it was so late. I knew mom would be there, but I was overjoyed that Jonas was there. So we picked up the bags and I headed to the home I haven't been in since 2005.

And there you have it…my last day in Samoa and my first day back in the states. As I write this, I'm still finding myself readjusting to my life back in America. There's a part of me that still can't believe I'm home – there's still a part of me back in Samoa, just clinging to the way things were. This will be my second to last post on this blog – my last post will come in a few days time and talk about how I have readjusted to the states. I would just like to thank everyone who has ever read this blog over the 2 years. As I have always stated, the original intent of this blog was as way to keep my mom updated on the happenings of my life in Samoa and to share with her all that I have accomplished there. Over time, though, it developed into a way for folks from the states and around the world to view what life is like on a tiny island in the south pacific. A lot of long hours went into typing up the blog posts that you have read over the last 27 months, but it was worth it – not only as a record for myself, not only as a letter to my family and friends, but because it allowed me to share the third goal of Peace Corps with you this entire time: to share the culture that we learned about with the folks back home.

It's Wednesday (12/19/07) when I'm writing this and Sara is about to leave Samoa, officially ending Group 75s time in Samoa. It has been a fun, life changing experience for me that I know I will be sharing for years to come. Thank you for reading and being a part of this once in a lifetime experience (even if I join Peace Corps again at a later age, it won't be the same as this time).

To be concluded……

The Hardest Goodbye (Written 12/16/07)

2007-12-17T00:22:00.001-11:00

Well after the wedding came the hardest part of leaving a country…the waiting. It's still strange to think that in about 24 hours I will be heading to the airport and leaving a country that I have called home for two years.

Today (Sunday) was my last Sunday at Peace Chapel – my church home in Samoa. When a member of the church leaves, Pastor Samoa usually has them come onto the stage to share their testimony with the congregation. Sara and I have seen then a dozen times and we knew that we would have to get up and share our testimony with the entire church. What made this one special is that today's service was a combined service (meaning both the Samoan and English congregation were in church at one time) which meant that we would be speaking in front of ALL of the Peace Chapel congregation. This would also be the last time that I rode my bike to church, which is just kind of a strange feeling in and of itself. Right when I was thinking about leaving to ride down to church, it began to just poor down rain extremely hard. It was basically a white wall of rain from my house all the way to the seawall – it was so bad that I couldn't even see Apia. I was like "Come on God, you know this is the one service I HAVE to go to and it would suck to have to bike down to church in a torrential downpour". Fortunately, God took mercy on me and ceased the rain about 20 minutes after it began and I was able to bike down without getting wet, which was nice indeed.

So I arrived at church and as people were slowly coming into the church, I realized that the visitors who came in for Lorna and Zonder's wedding were still here. So Sara and I would be speaking in front of not only our Peace Chapel congregation but also some of the congregation from the Every Nation church in Auckland – talk about maximum effectiveness. After worship and giving a few announcements, Pastor Samoa called us up onto the stage and allowed us to share a few words. Sara went first and shared her testimony of how when she first came to Peace Chapel, she never doubted that this was the place for her. She shared how the congregation has been a great spiritual family for her over the past two years and gave thanks to Pastor Samoa and Alesai for being her Samoan Dad and Mom. (As a side note: It never ceases to amaze me that the most effective way to be a Peace Corps volunteer and really understand the culture is to get hooked up with a family within the community. Doesn't have to be the training village family they set you up with, but just feeling like you are part of the country gives the experience greater meaning. When Sara and I first came to Peace Chapel, we weren't looking for Samoan families – they just developed over time, naturally. ) Amazingly, she did not cry while on the stage….If I were a betting man, I would have definitely lost that one. After her, it was my turn and as I stood in front of the church (for the 3^rd time in less then a month) it just kind of hit me that 'Wow, this is my last time in this church building'. When Sara and I come back, Peace Chapel should be moved into their new church across the street. I shared my testimony of how I had never been a part of a church family before coming to Peace Chapel and I thanked them for accepting me as I was. If you know me, I can be a bit sarcastic but when you get to know me – you know I'm a good guy. A lot of people in the church could have just written me off but they accepted me and saw the good in me and really nurtured that. I (as well as Sara) felt very fortunate to be a part of the church during these past two years – we have seen a great transformation in the church and know that great things are still in the making for the church. I've spoken enough over the past month, so I wanted to keep my testimony short but I ended with 'We will be back'. While we are physically leaving the church, we are taking the memory and the spiritual lessons learned here back with us to the states. I would say more then anything, Peace Chapel has had the biggest affect on our experience in Samoa and we would not have had it any other way.

After our testimony, the church service continued and ended at around 12:15pm (it was a super sized church service, lasting about 2.5 hours). Once the service was done, it was time to go around and start saying goodbye to people. It was a weird feeling saying goodbye to people I see on a regular basis here – it still hasn't hit me that I won't be seeing these folks later in the week. One of the hardest parts came when I had to say goodbye to the Pati kids (Edwina, Tiffany, Rachael, Elisha) – I have known these kids since I arrived in country in 2005 (I literally met them during my training period). I gave them the biggest hugs they had ever received from me. Notice that I said Pati kids….Teuila and Pati bolted out of the church pretty quickly – they are going to be the hardest two for Sara and I to say goodbye to (especially Teuila, whom we have known our entire Peace Corps lives and is like our Peace Corps Mom). So I went around and gave as many hugs and goodbyes as I could, trying to make sure not to miss anyone. Sara began to cry when she looked around and realized that this is the last time we will be in this particular church building. In her emotional state, she tried to hug me but I told her nope – because when we hug, I may cry because we are the last of Group 75 – and I'm saving that for our lunch on Monday (my last official day). During the process of saying goodbye and the tears, it began to pour down again.

Thankfully Uaea (Why-uh) offered me (and my bike) a lift, which meant I was not going to have to bike in the rain which is a nice change of pace. I've done it multiple times before and trust me, it sucks. Anyway, he drove me over to Paul and Vivi's house for one last meal with them. This would actually be my first Sunday To'ona'I with them since I met them – a good way to end my journey with them. It's funny, Sara went over to the Pastors house (Samoa, Alesai, David, Torrie, Sarona, Ariana, Susanna) and I went over to the Phillips house (Paul, Vivi, Jewell, Grace, Jorim) [Matilda left on Saturday to go to New Zealand, I came over yesterday to say goodbye specifically to her] – so in essence, we went to our Samoan families for one last Sunday brunch. The brunch as always was terrific and very filling…a good time was had by all. But throughout the meal, I just couldn't shake the knowledge that this would be the last time I was here as a volunteer. That stupid idea of 'This is the last time…' just affects everything these days. I spent a good portion of Sunday afternoon with them, just talking and enjoying each others company. But then the time came…it was time to go home (BTW, Paul and Vivi got my bike and Sara's bike as well – our last gift to the family that has done so much for us). I said goodbye to Tina (married to Vivi's brother, Richard) and French Penny (Vivi's mom) at the house but when it came time to leave the house, it was going to be Paul and Vivi, but the kids were like 'We're coming too so we can wait to say goodbye'. That really made me happy, because I didn't want to have to say goodbye to soon as well.

During the ride from their house back to Chanel, I was just looking at each of them and just realized that the next time I see them (and I will see them again) they will be different. Paul and Vivi might look the same, but the kids will all be older – Jewell will be at university, Matilda may be as well, Grace will be in college, Jorim will not be the jumping all over me 6 year old and Nathanial will not remember me. You know those moments that you wish you could just freeze in time and hold onto forever – that's the type of moment it was when I was riding in the car with them. Unfortunately we did eventually make it to my house and the time came to say goodbye. I gave them all hugs and told them I loved them and thanked them for looking after me for the past year. The Phillips family have been such a huge part of my experience during my time here that when I said goodbye to them it hit home that this adventure is almost over. I held back the tears as best I could and watched as they drove off – I will see them again when I return to Samoa.

When I first arrived in Samoa in 2005, I never thought I would get super connected to anyone in Samoa. Not because I didn't want to but because I couldn't really see myself getting emotionally attached to anyone here. Here I sit, 2007, and I couldn't imagine what my week would be like without a trip to the Phillips house and seeing the kids and Paul and Viv. Someone at church asked me 'Can you even imagine what your two years would have been like had you not been in Samoa?' and my honest answer is – no, I can't. This has been such an amazing, life altering, view perspective changing experience that I can't imagine what my two years would have been like away from Samoa – and without the Phillips. When they drove off, that's when the countdown clock began to run in my head…only a few more hours in Samoa and then we are done. Sad.

On my last day (Monday) I shall be finishing up some Peace Corps paper work and tying up some loose ends. I will also be giving out a few more goodbyes but after the Phillips there's only one more hard goodbye….Teuila (our PCMO). While she has said goodbye to plenty of Peace Corps over the years, Sara and I are different – and it's going to be rough. Joining Peace Corps and coming to Samoa was not easy, who would have ever imagined that leaving would be just as hard.

What I’ve Done (Written 12/16/07)

2007-12-17T00:21:00.001-11:00

When I first arrived at Chanel College, I wrote a list of things that I wanted to accomplish during my 2 years in Samoa. This was a suggestion given to us during training as a way of marking our progress in the country outside of the terms of our work assignment. With only a few more hours left in country for myself, I think I'm pretty much done with the list – so for your viewing pleasure, I present my accomplished personal goals during my 2 years in Samoa (the goals are between short term and long term):

1) * Cook at least 50 meals from Peace Corps recipe book (I may not be able to cook on my own, but I can follow directions as well as anyone)

2) * Bike around Savai'I (I've only biked around ¾ of Upolu)

3) * Visit New Zealand

4) * Read entire Old Testament (which means I have now read the entire Bible)

5) * See sunset at Falealupo

6) * Visit Manono Island

7) * Visit waterfall behind my house

8) * Visit Moamoa Theological College Church

9) * Go to Teuila Festival

* Visit American Samoa

11) * Take a picture of parliament house (Fono Fale)

12) * Visit Museum of Samoa

13) * Visit Vaiala Beach

14) * Go to Robert Louis Stevenson Museum / Mt Vaea Scenic Reserve

15) * Visit Lake Lanoto'o

16) * Visit Paradise Beach

17) * Go to Aganoa Black Sand Beach (Went to the one on Upolu and Savaii)

18) * Visit O le Pupu-Pu'e National Park

19) * Go to Togitogigia Falls

20) * Visit Tafua Peninsula Rainforest Preserve

21) * Visit Falealupo Rainforest Preserve

22) * See Alo fa'aga blowholes

23) * Bike to my house 30 times (this meant biking from my house and back up; I biked home a total of 104 times)

24) * Get a Samoan Flag (last year when I looked for this flag, it cost 250 tala and was only available in one place. I decided I would wait until the SPG came around because demand would make it more widely available. I was right and ended up only paying 100 tala for it)

Also during my time here, I have affectionately called the mountain I live on 'Mount Doom'. Over time various people have taken the 'Mount Doom Challenge' which meant they were willing to bike up to my house from town. It may sound like an easy challenge, but trust me – it's not if you're not prepared. So I would like to congratulate all the folks who took the Mount Doom Challenge and passed:

Bryan (Group 75, Rode up 3 times)

Julya (Group 75)

Candice (Group 75, Rode up 2 times)

Sara (Group 75)

John (Group 75)

Maka (Group 74)

The Wedding (Written 12/14/07)

2007-12-15T15:19:00.003-11:00

Today was the big day – the reason I stayed an extra week in Samoa. Today was Lorna and Zondervan's wedding…a great event to end my 2 years on. Now of course it was a long day for the bride and groom, but as a friend – it was amazingly long for me as well. Now if you read the previous post, you'll note that I went to bed at around 3am. I had to get up at about 8:30am to get to town and help decorate the reception hall for the wedding at Hotel Kitano. So I dragged myself out of bed, made sure I had my nice clothes for the wedding and headed off to town to help with the decorating. A part of me wanted to stop at the shop to see how things were going on the first day without Eugene, but I knew I had to be focused on the wedding today. So I went straight to the Hotel, where Teuila and Vivienne (along with Tiffany, Matilda and Jewell) were already setting up the place. When I got there, they put me straight to work in terms of wrapping some white sheets around the poles of the dining area. Vivienne was the wedding decorator (of sorts) so the place looked absolutely gorgeous once everything was setup. I got there at around 10am and we weren't done until 1pm. Since we started decorating so early, no one had eaten breakfast and that might have made us all just a step slower then normal but we got the place looking sharp. After the decorating, we went back to the Phillips house to shower and change into our nicest clothes – it's funny how people put on their finest clothes for someone else's wedding. The girls all had new dresses for this occasion. For the past few days, it has been raining on and off in Apia and today looked like it was going to be one of the bright days for the entire day but it decided to rain. It wasn't a bad rain by any means – more of a drizzle, but the sky was gray when we drove out to the wedding venue. The wedding took place at the Piula Theological College (where the Piula Cave Pool is) and this would be my first time inside the church. Jewell and I went with Junior to the church, so I had to change out of my nice clothes to avoid them getting dirty. When arrived, just like Superman, I put the nice armor back on and was ready to enjoy the event. Pastor Ken (Lorna and Zonder's pastor from the Every Nation church in Auckland) flew in just to be a part of this occasion. He wasn't able to get his wedding license for Samoa, so Pastor Samoa co-handled the wedding as well.

The Piula church was a lot smaller then I expected – from the outside, it looks absolutely huge but inside there's not a lot of space. The church was literally overflowing with people trying to find seating for the ceremony. About 20 minutes after we arrived at the church, the wedding party showed up. Zonder and his groomsmen were dressed in a sort of bright yellow shirt with ie faitaga's (the formal Samoan lavalava). But of course, all eyes were on Lorna and her stunning white dress (her bridesmaids were dressed in light yellow puletasi's). As she was walking down the aisle, I was just taken aback that this day was finally here – Zonder and Lorna are actually getting married. The ceremony was pretty short and sweet – they said their vows, had their first communion together and lit their unity candle. The funniest part came when Pastor Ken told Zonder that he could kiss the bride. At first, Zonder just gave Lorna a quick peck – it was so fast that no one could catch a picture of it. Pastor Ken had to tell Zonder to do it again so the camera's could get a shot – so he went about 5 seconds instead of 1. It's just his conservative nature coming out – hopefully he was saving the best for later. And now where two stood, only one couple stands now…I was glad to be there for the union of Mrs. Lorna Fa'alafi and Mr. Zondervan Fa'alafi. After the new couple walked down the aisle, some guy got up and started speaking to the congregation…since most of the guests are not from Samoa, they couldn't understand what he was saying and left the church to say congratulations to the new couple. He was trying to say thank you all for coming and that there were some light snacks available in the back garden of the church. But I was just ready to go and get a rest in before the reception. So Junior, Jewell and I headed back to the Phillips house for a bit before heading to the reception at 6pm.

We were one of the first people to arrive at the reception at around 5:45pm and thus we got pretty good seats towards the front of the reception area. A common feature of Samoan weddings is to have a cake that is built out of tiers (not going straight up like an American wedding, but kind of spread out)…sometimes these tiers can get out of control and you can wind up with a cake that has like 20 something tiers. Lorna and Zonder kept it simple and only had like 10 tiers which is reasonable. So we waited about 30-45 minutes for the wedding party to arrive before the reception ceremony could begin. Once they arrived, we went through the typical wedding sections – their first dance, the cutting of the cake, etc. There were a few features of the reception which were very much Samoan – Lorna and Zonder both having their families get up and doing a Samoan dance with them, the bridesmaids doing a Siva Tiene, Lorna's nieces doing a Taupo dance at the end and Lorna's year 8 students doing a special dance. The service was in both English and Samoan (but mainly Samoan, which was kind of a poor decision since most of the guests from overseas probably didn't speak Samoan) but was well done.

Overall, it was a great reception and after the reception came the party part and we all had a good time of dancing and hanging out for this special occasion. Also, my day began with putting up the directions and my night ended with us taking down the decorations during the dancing part. That was my plan all along, keep my clothes nice and clean for the majority of the day and at the end get them sweaty and dirty. This was definitely worth staying an extra week for and I'm glad to see the happy couple off – I don't know what their plans are in terms of a honeymoon or anything like that, but hopefully I will see them before I leave. With the wedding done, all that's left is the waiting….Monday is the big day, and trust me – odds are good it's going to be another amazingly busy day.

So much to do, so little time (Written 12/13/07)

2007-12-15T15:19:00.001-11:00

So today (Thursday) was actually one of those busy days where I had a lot of things to do in a relatively short amount of time. For most volunteers, this could describe their entire week leading up to leaving Samoa but fortunately for the most part I have been able to take things slowly and really enjoy my last few days in country.

In order to get everything done, I had to get an early start on the day – usually I go into town around 1-2pm, but today I went into town at about 10am. The main reason was to help out at ClickNet and spend as much time as I could with Eugene. You see, tonight is the night that Eugene and his family (Jackie, Shaka, Eva and Helen) leave Samoa and head for Tanzania (in Africa). Jackie accepted a new position there within Peace Corps and tonight they are off. Even though I've only known Eugene for a short amount of time – you know that feeling that you get when you meet someone and you automatically click with them? That's the feeling I get around Eugene – he's a fun guy and has made my last few months in country a lot more interesting. ClickNet will remain open while he is gone to help his family settle in Tanzania and he should be back in February – but of course, by that time I will be long gone. So I helped do a few odd jobs around the shop before I had to head off for lunch with Father Pio (the new principal of Chanel College).

When I headed off to have lunch with Pio, I ran into Kirstin – a member of Peace Chapel – and we had an interesting conversation about Lorna and Zonder's wedding on Friday. The main point of discussion was what to get them – in Samoa they do not have wedding registry's so that makes it amazingly hard to find the right gift for a couple. I went with the universal gift – money – but Kirstin was having trouble figuring out what to buy the couple. So we went over household goods and the traditional toaster and stuff but still couldn't come up with something concrete. Once we came to a standstill in terms of gifts to buy, I ran around town for a bit more before running into Kirstin again and this time she asked if I had ever seen her office. Kirstin is a lawyer and since I have never been in need of a lawyer in Samoa (Thank goodness), I didn't even know where her office was. It is literally right around the corner from ClickNet, so I decided I should probably see this place at least once. From the outside you would think it was a pretty small place, but once you step inside it's absolutely massive and look's just like a corporate law office back in the states – I was really impressed. So we went into Kirstin's office and saw where she spends a lot of time – she's a bit of a workaholic sometimes – and her office was huge as well. I knew she had a law degree from the University of Auckland, but I also found out she has a degree in Arts from the University of Auckland as well. Also, since Samoa has been influenced by New Zealand who in turn have been influenced by the British, a lot of the law traditions have a British background. This comes into play because I saw a robe hanging in the corner of Kirstin's office and asked her what it was for – apparently she has to wear a robe when she argues a case in court. I asked her if she had to wear those puffy white wigs and she said that they had just gotten rid of that practice not to long ago. She explained to me the background the robe and wig, but it's still interesting to see that stuff still be used in courts today.

Time was flying by so fast today that I was like 20 minutes late for our meetup at Seafood Gourmet, but I arrived just before he left to go back home. For the past week or so, Pio has been entertaining his mom and aunt from Fiji and I have been busy during the evenings most nights, so we decided to have a farewell lunch instead of farewell dinner. Since Pio said I could have anything I wanted, I got the striploin steak that Seafood Gourmet offered – this was the first time I ordered it during my two years here (even though I come to Seafood Gourmet a lot) and it was absolutely delicious. Pio and I talked about his plans for the school next year and how he will motivate the teachers – he's promoted 3 of the teachers already – and supposedly has all the teachers for next year in place already. I also found out that none of the priests coming in next year will be Samoan (the first time in a long time that has occurred). Pio will be stationed at Chanel College for at least 6 years, so if I can come back to Samoa within the next 5 years he should still be here. During my lunch with Pio, Stephanie (Group 76) came by to say goodbye. She was in town with a few of her kids from Manono – apparently she was taking them on a little adventure day in Apia as a reward for the stop students at the primary school on Manono. She took them to McDonald's, then Skippy's and to the movies – it was about 5 kids so it wasn't a cheap reward. It was strange saying goodbye to Stephanie because she's one of the first volunteers that I came into contact with through my blog first before actually meeting her. So a year and a half after her arrival, I'm leaving her and her group is now the senior group – it's the circle of Peace Corps life.

After the lunch, I went back to the shop for a bit before Eugene gave me a ride over to his house to see the kids before one last time. Man, it was surreal walking into their house and seeing all their stuff gone (their major items were packed earlier this week and will take about 3-4 weeks to get to Tanzania). The house was just bear and that's when it really began to hit me that they were moving – this wasn't a bad dream, it was really happening. Fortunately, I didn't have to say goodbye just yet – Jackie asked if I wanted to see them off at the airport and I was like 'Sure, that'll allow me not to say goodbye for a bit longer'. I had to go home though because I had a dinner appointment with Glenn and Gardenia (a couple from Peace Chapel that I am really close to). So I was dropped off at home by Jackie, got a bit of a rest and then 20 minutes later Glenn, Gardenia and Genius (Gardenia's brother) came by to pick me up. For dinner we went to my favorite restaurant of the last few days – Seafood Gourmet! I didn't go with the steak this time – I care about my health – and just went with the seafood platter. Even though I've known Glenn and Gardenia for most of my 2 years here, this was the first time that we had gone out and had dinner together. It was pretty nice and we had interesting conversations about food, social networks (Bebo is the most used social network in this part of the world) and movies (Glenn is a huge movie buff). It was a good time and a lot of fun – we went to about 10pm and literally shut Seafood Gourmet down…we're such a partying bunch! After dinner they dropped me off back home and I had about 30 minutes of downtime before I was picked up by Papu (a Peace Corps driver) to take me back down to Jackie/Eugene's house.

I arrived at the house and helped with the loading of the Peace Corps vehicles with their stuff. After doing one more run through of the house to make sure there was nothing left, we were on our way to the airport. The dividing of people into the vehicles was pretty funny – Jackie originally wanted Eva and Shaka to ride with her and Eugene and I would ride in the same vehicle. The kids were like 'We want to ride with Marques', so we had to rearrange the seating and the kids ended up riding with Eugene and I in one car. 45 minutes later we were at the airport and helping to unload their stuff. Peni and Thea, a Samoan couple Jackie and Eugene are close to also came along to the airport. I was afraid that the folks who came to the airport would drop them off and then head home (their flight did not depart until 2:30am) but fortunately, they stayed until the very end. Sii – a Peace Corps staff member – also stayed to help Jackie/Eugene get all their luggage and stuff properly onto the plane (in the states, she use to work for Delta Airlines so she's pretty knowledgeable about airplane luggage and how to get through the red tape). The Check-in process took about 30 minutes, so at around 12am we were just sitting around enjoying each others company for the last time. I really appreciated being able to spend a lot of time with kids (Shaka, Eva and Helen) – I'm going to miss them. We also noted that there is an internet café at the airport – sponsored by SamoaTel –and they charge 5 tala for 15 minutes, 10 tala for 30 minutes and 20 tala for an hour. That's just plain highway robbery right there.

After an hour and a half of waiting, the time had finally arrived. This was my first major goodbye during my time here (while it's hard to say goodbye to members of my group, I know I can/will see them again. With this family, I don't know if I will – I hope I will, but it's not guaranteed). There were a lot of tears and hugs…I will really miss Shaka, felt like he was a little brother to me. And I still remember meeting Eva for the first time during training when she would come up to me and hit me all the time (that's how I know kids like me, when they attack me for no reason). I thanked Jackie for all her help over the past 2 years and being a great and motivated APCD. Of course, the hardest goodbye was Eugene – it's going to be tough not hearing his laugh or being able to joke with him at the shop. He once said one of the main reasons he opened the shop was to get his mind working again – well, he got my mind and my excitement working again over the last few months. He wants to open a ClickNet in Tanzania – hopefully that happens and if I ever make it to Tanzania, I will check it out. If you know me, you know I don't cry to often and I was just fighting back the tears. I almost caved when Shaka turned back around to wave goodbye but I was able to hold on. It's still hard for me to believe that they are gone – that I won't be able to go to their house and see them. Such is the life of Peace Corps and man does it suck! I got home at about 3am and was just dead tired. This is of course good news because I have to get up early and help with the grand finale of my Peace Corps adventure…Lorna and Zonder's wedding.

Revisiting the 40th

2007-12-11T19:36:00.001-11:00

I found this article online recounting the return of Peace Corps Groups 1 and 2 a few months back. Thought you might find it interesting.

Here's the link: http://www.sj-r.com/News/stories/21538.asp

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PETERSBURG - When Edie Sternberg arrived in Samoa as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1967, the village of Fagali'i had dirt roads and no electricity, telephones or water system.

"It was very primitive," she said.

Returning to the Polynesian islands recently for a 40-year reunion, Sternberg, 62, found the two biggest changes in the country to be "infrastructure and technology."

"They have a cellular phone system that's terrific - better than ours," laughed Sternberg, a retired Illinois Department of Public Health administrator who operates Starhill Forest Arboretum in rural Petersburg with her husband, Guy.

Edie Sternberg was in high school when she learned about the Peace Corps, which was established in 1961 by President John Kennedy. Her grandmother's neighbor, who wrote detailed letters while serving in the Peace Corps in Africa, inspired Sternberg to volunteer for the organization after graduating from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

"I thought it sounded like an exciting thing to do," she said.

Sternberg spent two years in Samoa, teaching math and science at an all-girls Catholic high school.

"In those days, they did not have the concept of apartments or rental property. We were taken to our villages, and the village had to provide for us," Sternberg said.

Arriving in Samoa with only a duffle bag of belongings, Sternberg learned that the father of the family she was to stay with had died that day of a heart attack, leaving a pregnant wife and eight children. Because of the tragedy, it was decided that Sternberg would live with another family member.

"We generally had about 12 people in the household," she said.

Samoa's climate is tropical, with year-round temperatures typically in the 70s and 80s.

"It's extremely humid. There's a rainy season and a rainier season," Sternberg said.

A traditional Samoan house, called a "fale," has one oval-shaped room, a thatched roof and no walls. Blinds made of coconut palm fronds are lowered during the night or inclement weather.

"General toilet facilities in those days would be to go out in the bush someplace, or they had these little walkways out over the lagoon and a little white outhouse on stilts," Sternberg recalled.

Sternberg often rode her bike or took the bus to the two-story wooden school in nearby Apia, the capital. She taught college-prep courses, according to the British school system's standards, to students in grades 11-13.

She also coached girls' intramural athletics, including a softball team that won the national championship.

The most difficult aspect of living in Samoa was adapting to the lack of privacy, Sternberg said.

But she enjoyed her time there.

"The most enlightening (part) was to have a very good life experience without a lot of material things," she said. "I really got to know my students, the other teachers and volunteers and to see how people interact in a different culture. And it was very interesting living with the family."

After completing their two-year stints in Samoa, many of the volunteers kept in touch and have held several reunions in the United States. At a meeting in Philadelphia in 2005, however, the group decided to mark its 40-year anniversary by returning to Samoa this fall.

In October, 17 former Peace Corps volunteers and eight family members made the trip to Samoa, which has a population of more than 170,000.

"We kind of all felt the same way; we knew it was going to be drastically changed, and we didn't know how we would feel about those changes." Sternberg said. "But every single person in our group had a good experience in going back."

Decades ago, Peace Corps volunteers in Samoa helped with education, basic sanitation and civil engineering. Today, they're involved with computer technology, fisheries, ecology projects and more, Sternberg said. The 79th crop of volunteers arrived in Samoa a week before the reunion.

To the former volunteers' surprise, their homecoming included a special ceremony and feast, where they met Samoa's recently elected head of state, Tuiatua Tupua Tamasese Efi. The group also participated in a parade, attended parties and a special Mass, presented books to the public library, and were interviewed by reporters.

"That was fun," Sternberg said.

Some of her former students are among Samoa's most successful women, owning companies or holding prominent positions, she said.

"It's pretty amazing," she said.

Other than the clock tower and Catholic cathedral, it was hard to recognize some of the places she'd come to know in the 1960s, because hurricanes and new construction over the years have changed the landscape. However, the Sternbergs found the country to be "as clean as a whistle."

For Guy Sternberg, who is retired from the state Department of Natural Resources, the journey was a chance to learn more about Edie's adventure and see the "biology and botany of a very exotic place." But he said he "wouldn't have survived a day" in the Peace Corps.

"It takes a very special type of person to do that, and I certainly wasn't one of them," he said. "I could've camped there for a week, but I couldn't have lived there for two years."

Edie Sternberg said her Peace Corps experience helped steer her toward a career in public health.

"I think we get as much out of it as the people in the countries where we're volunteering," she said.

Coming Together (Written 12/9/07)

2007-12-10T00:38:00.001-11:00

This past weekend it finally hit me – this is my last full week in Samoa as a Peace Corps Volunteer. While it has hit me, it has not really sunk in yet and I just know that this week is going to feel like it's blowing by amazingly fast. But before we get to this final week, let me tell you what happened over this past weekend.

Earlier in the week I arranged to meet Cecil, a friend who I met through this blog and is currently living in Samoa, for lunch over the weekend. When he first arrived in country in July we were suppose to get together for lunch but it didn't work out – so before I leave, he wanted to have the lunch so we could talk. At around 10am on Saturday, he drove up to my compound and we drove into town to have lunch at Seafood Gourmet. While I have talked to Cecil in the past, this would be the first time that we sat down and had a long conversation together. I did give him my language material which I received from the Peace Corps – hopefully it will help him improve his Samoan language skills during his remaining time here. In case you don't remember, Cecil is not a Peace Corps volunteer but is working at a church on Savaii. He's been here since July and it was interesting talking to him now compared to talking to him when he first arrived – you could see that he had gained a deeper appreciation of the culture and he can now see the real Samoa…not the one tourist see when they stay here for a little bit of time or in tourist guides. We talked about many things that make up living in Samoa – it was like talking to another Peace Corps Volunteer. At first he was only thinking of staying one year, but may extend his time to two years and simulate the entire Peace Corps experience. I hope he does because I did not really appreciate Samoa until my second year and it's the experiences I have gained during my second year which will make me miss this place the most. We talked for about 1.5-2 hours but he had to leave to catch the 2pm boat so we went our separate ways at around 12pm.

While we were at the restaurant – Matilda, Jewell and Tiffany showed up for lunch. Now this was interesting because I rarely see them walking out in the streets of Samoa, so I was a bit taken aback. It was Matilda's birthday and they were taking her out to lunch…it was so special and of course I gave her the customary Marques birthday hug. After stopping by ClickNet to see how the day was going, I headed back up to my house for a little cleaning up.

On Sunday, for the first time since my mom was here I didn't bike to church. Instead I took a taxi – which leads you to ask 'Why would you do that?' I did it for 2 reasons: 1) It was raining and I didn't feel like trying to bike down a hill at a high speed in the rain and 2) I had an appointment for a special to'ona'I after church and didn't want to have to deal with transporting my bike back up to my house. So when I arrived at church, I saw Matt (Group 79) there – sitting in the front row of the church. Neither Sara or I knew he was there until he introduced himself and this was our first time seeing him at Peace Chapel. After the service, Sara and I came up to him to welcome him and see how he liked the service. He will be stationed out of the Apia town area but hopefully when he's able to come to town on a Sunday he'll come to service at Peace Chapel. Once the service was over Sara and I spent some time chatting with folks from New Zealand who are here for Lorna and Zonder's wedding at the end of the week (i.e. the main reason I am staying an extra week in Samoa). After that – Sara, Lati (a man from the Solomon Islands who goes to church with us) and I were whisked away to our special Sunday brunch.

It was a special brunch because the Phillips Family (Paul, Vivi, Jewell, Matilda, Grace, Jorim, Nathaniel) and the Pati Family (Pati, Teuila, Edwina, Tiffany, Rachael, Elisha) made it for us as a way of saying thanks for being a part of their family for the past 2 years. While we were assigned to Samoan families when we first arrived in Samoa, the Phillips and Pati families have been our real Samoan families while in Samoa – and they are a big reason it will be hard for me to leave. A part of me really wants to stay to watch these kids grow up…especially Nathaniel (who is only 4 months old). Now what made this to'ona'I extra special for Sara and I was the location: we had it at Teuila's house. Now Teuila NEVER allows Peace Corps Volunteers at her house and to not only invite Sara and I into her house but to serve us a meal – words can't describe what that meant to both of us. We were taken aback by the gesture and truly felt like we are a part of these two families. While volunteers have been over to Jackie (our former Assistant Country Director) and Kim's (our Country Director) house – Sara and I are the only volunteers to ever set foot in Teuila's house. Now that's a memory that will stay with me for a long time. Of course we had all the traditional Samoan helping of food and I was extremely stuffed – it's a good feeling to have. After the main lunch, there was of course dessert and pineapples…it was all so much and so great. We stayed there for about 2-3 hours just having a good time talking with and hanging out with one another…just like families do. Afterwards, Sara and I got a ride home from Pati.

So here I am…one week away from being done in Samoa. It's amazing really – in 2005, I was nervous being one week away from leaving my home for 2 years. Now – in 2007 – I'm nervous being one week away from leaving my home of 2 years. After the lunch, I went to do some work in the computer labs, getting them ready for next year. I went into lab 3 and just walked around it for a bit – remembering the first time I walked into this same lab after I had been sworn in as a volunteer. When I walked into that room, there were busted computers sitting on top student tables, the windows were busted and the place was just a total mess. I thought it would take me forever to get that lab up to a decent standard – it didn't. And that was when I learned that I could do a lot of things as long as I put my head down and I'm committed to the task…Lab 3 is a testament to that. One question that Cecil asked me on Saturday was 'Did you do everything you wanted to accomplish here?' I thought about it and laughed for a second and told him 'No – I did a lot more then what I wanted.' I have done things, helped people, been in situations I could never have conceived before coming here. I'm thankful that I didn't limit myself to just my job and 'being a Peace Corps Volunteer'. I became a part of the community, gained two families and a lot of friends here – I helped in the restoring a school's pride, stood as a beacon of light in a culture encroached upon by darkness (and I'm not talking about the Samoan culture), and helped a few small business along the way. Everything I wanted to accomplish was done in the first 6 months of me being here….the rest of my time has been about seeing what God has in store for me. So here we are….one week….am I ready? Probably not – but that's never stopped me before. L8r.

A Helping Hand (Written 12/7/07)

2007-12-07T20:33:00.001-11:00

It seems that as I get closer to the end, time just seems to condense and everything is happening so fast. In the back of your mind, I can sense the anticipation of leaving Samoa but at the same time I'm a bit nervous. Heck, there's even a part of me that wants to stay to see some things come to fruition: Nathaniel's first birthday, The finishing of the Peace Chapel Church, Helping Fa'atuatua start a computer lab, see ClickNet continue strong and see the possible opening of Vivienne's business – but I've got to save something for my return to Samoa. Alright, let's get you caught up shall we…

On Wednesday, Dave (Group 77) – the Peace Corps volunteer who will be replacing me – moved his stuff into my house. Amazingly enough, he didn't have a lot of items to move in (and I'm finding that I have way to much) so it was a pretty quick move in process. Peace Corps brought the truck to help Dave move in, so I decided I would use the truck to help me move some items out of my house. Specifically, the bottles that I have collected during my two year period in Samoa. These bottles mainly come from the Fiafia's that we have twice a year and I have been holding onto them until the end because I was like 'I know these things will help pay for my flight somehow'. So we loaded the bottles into the Peace Corps truck and headed down the place where you turn in the bottles. Dave gave me the lowdown on how the bottle refund process worked and in the end I got about 50 tala from the deal. Now what part of my flight did that pay for? It paid my departure tax – which is 40 tala (and yes, you have to PAY to LEAVE the country – amazing really). After we were done with the recycling, I headed back to the office for what I thought would be a quick second.

When I arrived, I dropped off a few items and was just about to head out the door when Jessica (Group 76) asked me to help her with a computer problem. The problem dealt with trying to organize music on her computer using Windows Media Player (which is almost impossible to do). After a little bit of convincing, I got her to put on Itunes (which is a better music organizer) and then we were trying to get all of her music into Itunes – it sounds like a pretty easy problem to deal with, but we only scratched the surface and she made an appointment to see me on Friday. So with one computer problem solved, I headed off to solve another problem which involved a computer.

Vivienne is going to start a crafts business sometime in the future (hopefully next year) called 'Pacific Jewell'. She wanted me to come in and help her design her logo and business card. I thought that this would be a fairly easy process, but as with anything regarding computers it was a lot harder once we got into the details of the project. Using Adobe Photoshop (which I'm decent with) we came up with a basic design for the background of her card and what her text would be, but the logo was a bit of a pain. She wanted the logo to be slightly see through so you could put it on any background. This was something I did not know how to do in Adobe Photoshop, so I was constantly going on the internet to find solutions to what I was trying to do. It was impressive to Viv because it was the first time she had seen someone run into a problem and just go online to solve it immediately (ahhh, how I love the knowledge base on the internet). So we spent a good 1.5 hours just working on getting the logo right and ended up having to postpone dealing with it until Friday because I was just getting frustrated not knowing how to do what she wanted. After working on the business stuff, we had our last homegroup of the year (and my last home group meeting at the Phillips house) which was a sad occasion – the end just keeps getting closer and closer.

Thursday was a partial day of rest. Instead of running into town during the afternoon, I decided that I needed to stay home and work on my Description of Service (DOS). The DOS is the official record Peace Corps will keep about what a volunteer did while serving in a country. It's an important document because while Country Directors will change over time, your DOS remains the same and very accurate of your accomplishments in country. Basically, it's you writing a recommendation about yourself – or it's like creating a Peace Corps-centric resume. At best, it should cover everything I have done from when I arrived in country to when I leave the country – quite a long period and a lot of jobs. I was quite impressed when I wrote down all the things I have done while serving in country…you'd be amazed at what you can get accomplished in a third world country in only 2 years. So I got that done by the afternoon and sent it to Kim (our country director/big boss) for review. Later on Thursday night, I made my way to the Hotel Kitano for a staff dinner for Fa'atuatua College. This would be the first time that I met the entire staff (I've met the principal and the secretary of the school before) so I was kind of nervous when I arrived. The Principal, Selepa, introduced me to the staff and one of the staff members said 'Wow, I didn't even know we had a computer teacher.' That's how in the shadows I was working this year. It was Fiafia night at Hotel Kitano (the same Fiafia night I came to with my mother in May) so it was an all you can eat buffet – free of charge (I could get use to working for Peace Chapel). The meal was terrific, just like last time, but the FiaFia portion of the night was terrific. The first surprise I got was when they had a couple of boys come up onto the stage and perform the Siva Afi (Fire Dance) and I noticed that one of the boys is a student in Year 12 at Chanel College (Uitime). I did not know that he could fire dance – our kids have a lot of hidden talent they don't like to show very often. The second surprise of the night was when the MC called up two people to the stage – one was an American male and the other was a Chinese female. This Fiafia was even better then the one I came to in May – primarily because of the Chinese woman. Her English was not all that great, so the MC asked her what the number 1 was in Chinese, which is 'e'. He then asked what was the number 2 in Chinese, which is 'ah'. So to say 1-2, the Chinese woman said 'e' – 'ah' which in Samoan means fish. That just had the crowd rolling in laughter and overall it was just a great show. Afterwards, the principal said a few kind words to the staff and thanked me for bring computer studies to Fa'atuatua for the first time and giving them the information necessary to bring it to the school next year (instead of at someone's house). It has been a long year of pulling double duty as a teacher (oddly enough, I did extra computer studies after school during my first year as well – it seems I was destined to teach after school) but it was great having the chance to provide these kids with a course they could not get at school. Hopefully Fa'atuatua finds someone qualified to be a Computer teacher next year (they are not getting a Peace Corps Volunteer).

Then came Friday. The weather decided to really emphasize that this is the rainy season so I had to wait for the bus in the pouring rain. It's time like this when I really wish the buses were on a regular schedule that way I would not have to wait fruitlessly for them in the rain. After waiting about 30 minutes in the rain, the bus finally came and I was headed into town (which is when the rain stopped). I stopped in ClickNet for a bit and then headed to the Peace Corps office for my appointment with Jessica. I arrived there at about 11:30am and didn't leave until 1pm – I spent about 3 hours just providing this girl with technical support. I didn't mind at all but before she had told me she had been frustrated by these computer problems for months and I was the first person to really try and help her – and it definitely showed with the 3 hour marathon. Hopefully someone is willing to give her a helping hand with computer stuff after I'm gone. Heck, even up to the last minute folks are asking me for computer assistance – this place will fall apart without me, mark my words! Anyway, after helping Jessica with her computer problems I left the Office and headed for the Phillips house. Of course at this time the rain decided it needed to get to the ground faster and just came pouring down very hard. I made it to the Philips house, but was soaking wet. I put on a lavalava (i.e. sarong) and Vivi gave me a shirt to put on. This was the first time the kids (the Pati and Phillips) had ever seen me in a lavalava, so they had a few laughs at my expense. Again, I was there to help Vivi create her business card and gift card designs. Thankfully, between Wednesday and Friday I had time to work on her logo and got it the way that she wanted it which was a great relief. After the logo was done, then came the look of the text and that took forever – not as forever as the logo, but it took quite a bit of time. Thankfully at the end of this day we were done with both designs and I have officially helped yet another small business in Samoa – not bad for an old Peace Corps Volunteer like myself.

So the last few days have been dedicated to helping as many people as I can before I leave – it's at the end that everyone wants a piece of your time. While it seems I have been super busy these past few days, you want to know what the best part about leaving – it's getting all this free food and meals. For a person like me – who can't stand to cook – it's been a Godsend. I need to leave places more often!

And another one’s gone (Written 12/4/07)

2007-12-05T00:31:00.001-11:00

Day by day, the Group known as 75 dwindles away into the history books of Peace Corps Samoa. Yesterday (Monday), Julya left the island to go to yet another island (New Zealand) and then will travel to two more islands before coming home to Samoa – who says she's tired of the island life? As I previously told you, on Saturday I said my final goodbye to Bryan and today I had to say my final goodbye to Candice.

I met up with Candice at ClickNet and just made sure that everything was squared away in terms of packing for her and Bryan's bikes. They are going to be spending 5 weeks in New Zealand just biking the island – quite an endeavor but I couldn't think of two people from my group more suited and up to the task of biking around a country. Out of all the folks in my group – next to Sara – Candice is one of the hardest ones to say goodbye to. The main reason for this is that she is one of my best friends in the Peace Corps and I always enjoyed going over to her house for Sunday lunch and just talking. When you come into the Peace Corps community, you realize two things: 1) It's very therapeutic to verbalize a lot of the things that happen to you in a foreign land and 2) You need to talk to someone you can trust. Candice fit both of those criteria for me, so it was a tough goodbye to say the least. Hopefully she will keep me updated on their progress throughout New Zealand and I will see her (and Bryan) stateside…in the country of Texas!

While I was helping out at ClickNet, Mark (Group 78) came in to use the net for a bit. Apparently he had missed the last bus back to his village and thus had to stay the night in Apia. He had no big plans for the night, so we just sat down and talked. As always the first topic most guys talk about when they sit down for a bit is sports – it's the universal male language! So we talked about the NFL for a bit before going into some other stuff about home (we're both from Tennessee) and talking about our Peace Corps experience. He's only been here for 6 months so I was able to give him some pointers on how to survive the 6 month period of being a volunteer and also told him some of the things we're trying to improve within the Peace Corps community. This was the first time I really sat down and talked to Mark (or anyone from the newer groups – 78 or 79) and we actually had a bit in common. It was almost like talking to a friend back home because he is unlike a lot of the other volunteers around here, which is nice. So as we were talking, I was checking my email and found out that Fa'atuatua College was having their prize giving tonight (Tuesday night). So I had to leave the shop for a bit and Mark wanted to know if he could join me (again, no plans) and I said 'Sure why not'. So we walked and chatted until we got to the Peace Chapel Hall (the same hall where we have Sunday service). I was glad I could be there because Fa'atuatua is like my second school and I wanted to see my 3 computer studies students and congratulate them. When we arrived, the Principal was giving a report of what has happened at the school over the past year. The program went fairly quickly: Jewell and Leilani tied for first place in Computer Studies, Jewell came third in her class (Year 12), Leilani came second in Year 12 and Uati received an award for being a House Captain. This was also the first year that Fa'atuatua College implemented Year 13 (which allows the students to receive the equivalent of a high school diploma). The Valedictorian for Fa'atuatua College was a tie – a brother/sister tie. Their names are Conrad and Rene and I believe that this is the first time in the history of schooling in Samoa that there was not only a tie for the Valedictorian (called the Dux) but that it was a brother and sister combination who won it. Each one said they were surprised to have tied but since both of them prepared speeches, you could tell that each one pushed the other to be better academically – which is a nice change of pace.

So after the graduation I went to my 2 students, Jewell and Uati (Leilani is in Australia) and congratulated them on their hard work this past year and wishing them well next year. This was the first prize giving that Mark has been to in Samoa, so I gave him a slight overview of what was going on and how everything worked (since this was my 4^th). Kind of amazing really – my night was probably going to be really slow, but just when I needed something interesting to happen it did. God has good timing. So a small conversation with Mark turned into going to church for a prize giving – never could have predicted that one.

After the prize giving we came back to ClickNet (right before it began pouring down rain – so good timing) and Mark did a little bit more surfing before heading off to the Peace Corps hostel. Something tells me that if I were staying for another year, Mark and I would get along pretty well. And this is why I avoid getting to know most of the new people – because if you see commonalities between us, then it becomes that much harder to say goodbye. And trust me – it's already going to be hard to say goodbye to this place.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) at about 12pm, Bryan and Candice will be off to yet another island for their newest adventure and then there will only be 2 left: Sara and I – the Dynamic Duo. L8r.

Hard to say goodbye (Written 12/3/07)

2007-12-03T10:17:00.001-11:00

Note: This is another long post. Reader discretion is advised.

As I head towards the end of my time in Samoa, it seems like the days are just flying by. There's just so much to do and so little time remaining – I'm doing my best to enjoy every moment that I have here so that's the reason it has been a few days since my last post. So let's get you caught up shall we….

Thursday (11/29) was an interesting day. Have you ever had that feeling where you woke up and you just knew it was going to be one of those long bad days? On Thursday I had that feeling. I was scheduled to do a few medical activities for my closing of service on Thursday and I had to be at the office at around 9am in order to start the process. Well the day started off very glum and dreary and as I was walking to catch the bus I just thought in my head, "Man, this feels like it's going to be a bad day". I got to the bus stop at around 8:15am and a bus was coming that I could catch. When I tried to catch the bus, though, it drove right past me – you see in Samoa, the bus drivers sometimes take a 'break' for a bit and there's really no way of knowing when that break will occur (you can guess, but the timing of the break is not set in stone). So if the bus had not taken a break, I would have been in town by 8:30am instead I had to wait an extra 15-20 minutes on the bus to come back around and ended up in town at around 8:45am. I then walked to the Peace Corps office (which is about a 15 minute walk) and ended up being a tad bit late for my appointment. On most days being late in Samoa doesn't really hurt you but on that day, time decided it wanted to be a very important fixture in my life. When I arrived at the office at around 9:10am, there was no driver to take me up to the hospital so that I could do my chest x-ray. So I ended up waiting around the office for about 20-30 minutes before a driver showed up to drive me up to the hospital. When we arrived at the hospital, the guy who mans the x-ray machine at the hospital was gone into town to run some errands – at 10am in the morning. I was like 'Are you kidding me?' So I waited about 30 minutes for the medical professional to come back (which he did not) before I had to go to another doctor for my physical. When I arrived at the general physicians office, he was not there (even though my appointment was at 11am, he was not there at 11am) so we had to go back to the office and wait for one of these two medical people to arrive at their spot. After waiting about 20 minutes at the office, we went back up to the x-ray hospital (Medcen) and tried waiting on the x-ray guy to return. By about 11:30am he still had not returned but the doctor who would do my physical had returned, so I left Medcen (again) and headed down to the physician. The checkup was pretty routine – I'm in fine health – and was done pretty quickly. Once I had my physical, I walked back to the Peace Corps office and got another ride up to Medcen for my x-ray. This time the 3^rd time was the charm, because when I arrived at Medcen they sent me directly to the x-ray guy and he was actually there. The x-ray didn't take long at all and at around 12:30pm I was done with all the medical things I had to do.

During the afternoon portion of Thursday, I went to Group 79s training village to do the last diversity session for them. It was Beth (Group 73) and I who were the Volunteer panel. The discussion focused on the diversity within the Peace Corps community, not so much how American diversity is seen from the Host Country National perspective (i.e. the Samoans). We talked about how race, age, sex, political backgrounds and religious backgrounds can have an effect on your time here in Samoa. This was probably my last time going out to the village – I have been the most involved in the training of this group then any other, so it was kind of weird to think the next time I see these guys will be when they are volunteers.

After running around all week I decided that on Friday (11/30) I was just going to stay home and be available in case Kevin (my principal) needed any last minute help. Throughout the course of last week, the three men I have spent my two years with have been leaving the country. Mika left last Sunday and Sione left on Wednesday morning, so Kevin was the last person I had to say goodbye to. So I just hung around all day to make sure I could get in a proper goodbye. Around 6pm was when he was ready to leave and I thanked him for being such a great boss for the past two years and he thanked me for making the last two years terrific for the school – glad I could end his time here on a high note. While saying goodbye to my group members has been tough, saying goodbye to the folks who have been part of your local community is really tough because I have no idea if I will ever see these folks again. Mika, Sione and Kevin are just being scattered to different parts of the South Pacific and Kevin is already 65, so he may not be around when I finally come back to Samoa for a visit. But it's been a great two years with Kevin at Chanel and even though I know Pio, it just won't be the same around here. When I shook hands with Kevin to say goodbye, it felt like a real changing of the guard and I really got the sense that this place will feel different next year. I headed to bed early on Friday because…

…I had to wake up at around 6am on Saturday (12/1) morning. Why would I do such a crazy thing during my vacation period in Samoa? Well I had to go to the Peace Corps office to catch the van ride out to Manono. Manono is one of the two smaller islands between Upolu (my island) and Savaii (the other big island of Western Samoa). The volunteer who is living there –Stephanie (Group 76) – organized a clean up day for the village. So I (along with Candice) went to help with that activity – there were about 15 volunteers and 4 staff members who made the drive out to Manono for this activity. It was about 8am when we arrived at the Manono wharf and I was shocked when I arrived there – Grace/Jorim (Paul and Viv's kids), Racheal/Elisha (Teuila's kids) and Shaka (Eugene's son) were all there which I was not expecting. I was talking to Teuila asking her why she was there when I saw them and they all rushed me trying to hug me…it was quite overwhelming at 8am on a Saturday morning. So of course I was playing and hanging out with the kids for the majority of the day. We arrived on the island of Manono and had the customary welcome speech by the village mayor before we were served a light breakfast of egg sandwiches and papaya. Once breakfast was over with we were split up into small groups and assigned a direction to go in and start cleaning up. My group consisted of Candice, Racheal and Grace – had to make sure those 2 girls stayed out of trouble. The funny part of this clean up was the fact that BEFORE we arrived on the island, the people there did a clean up themselves to make the place look nicer. The only way to get trash off the island is by boat and apparently before we arrived they had sent a boat full of trash back to Upolu. So the front of the houses were pretty clean when we arrived, but when we went behind the houses and near the coastline is where we found a lot of the garbage to be picked up. While I know Candice can do pretty much anything, I was surprised by tenacity that Racheal and Grace showed. They weren't afraid to pick anything up and really got into it – helping each other out and not being afraid of getting dirty. We spent about 2 hours just cleaning up a small area of the village – it would take almost a month to REALLY clean the place up but hopefully we demonstrated to them that it's important to have a clean environment (especially when you live on a small island).

Once we were done with the clean up (we sent about 2 boats filled with garbage back to Upolu), it was time to go home. So I went home, took a quick shower and then headed down to ClickNet to help out while Eugene was in Savaii. After being there for a bit Vik, Sara (Group 76), Dave (Group 77) and Bryan showed up. This was going to be the last time I saw Bryan before he and Candice head off to New Zealand on Wednesday. The best memory of Bryan that I have is our first encounter with one another – which was during staging. He was wearing a University of Texas shirt and I immediately started making fun of him for it (because I went to the University of Tennessee i.e. the REAL UT). At first Bryan was a little bit taken aback by distaste of the University of Texas, but it formed a solid bond between us and we've been friends ever since. Out of all the members of my group, I believe that Bryan will be one of the first ones I see when I get back to America – for some reason I just can't avoid Texas folk.

That brings us to Sunday (12/2). I went to church and usually after church I ride back home and try to find something to eat for lunch. On this day, Pastor Samoa invited me to his house for lunch. This would be the first time I had been over to his house since my mom was here in May. This would also be the second Sunday in a row where I went over to someone's house for To'ona'i. So I went to Pastor's house (along with Sara, Janita and Brianna) for lunch and a soccer game was on. It was the LA Galaxy for a Wellington soccer team. This match up was apparently important because it featured David Beckham playing for the LA Galaxy (a MLS/ Major League Soccer team). I think the only reason I actually watched the game was because it was an American team playing – if it were Rugby, I could care less and if I happen to be watching this at home I would probably be doing something else and have the TV as background noise. Even after two years, the 'Worlds' sport' has had no affect on me. The meal, though, was excellent as always. Once lunch was finished and I took a mini-nap it was time for me to bike back up my mountain and get ready for my night activity.

I went back down to town (by Taxi) at 6pm to go to one of my last night time services at Peace Chapel. It was a good word about relying on the Lord when you are weary (using Isaiah 40:29-31) which is especially true towards the end of the year. During the service it was just pouring down rain – it sounded like the rain was literally coming down in buckets. After the service, Brianna drove Sara and I to the pizza place called 'Giordano's' which is owned by one of the families we know from Peace Chapel. We were there to have dinner with Julya, who is leaving Monday afternoon. When we got there she was waiting for us and we went to have our last pizza together in Samoa. It was a good time of just finding out what Julya is doing after she leaves here (she's travelling to Japan and Korea for a little over 2 weeks) and how she felt about leaving. It was a very salty but good conversation and I was very sad to have to say goodbye to her. One of my favorite memories of Julya were the times during our training days when Bryan and I would have to go over to her house to 'save' her from her family. That's probably the time when we really got to know each other. I am also proud to say that despite the myriad of illnesses that Julya has had over the past 2 years, she has stuck it through when a lot of people might have quit. So I know she now realizes that if she could survive this ordeal, she can survive and live almost anywhere – which is an encouraging thing to know about yourself. After dinner we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways – to meet again on the other side of the pond.

So this week we lose Julya (on Monday) and Bryan/Candice (on Wednesday) – after that, Sara and I will be the last members of our group in Samoa. Sometimes, when I really think about it – it feels like my group is just slowly fading away. It's definitely the nature of our group not to draw to much attention to ourselves, but it's still tough to think that on Thursday there will be only 2 members of Group 75 left. The countdown clock is still ticking away….

It’s a Celebration (Written 11/25/07)

2007-11-25T22:58:00.001-11:00

Note: This is a long blog post – Viewer Discretion is advised.

This has been a crazy busy week with so many events in my life wrapping up. Of course there was the farewell ceremony on Wednesday, so let's catch up on the days after that.

Thursday was a fairly plain day. Dave (Group 77) came up to the school for a more in-depth tour of the computer lab and equipment. He will be coming to Chanel next year as the Computer Studies teacher and I really feel that he can take this program to the next level. While I focused on hardware expansion and the development of the year 12 curriculum, he will be focused on improving the curriculum for the Year 9, 10 and 11 students. We call those classes "Junior classes" and they are not as rigid as the "Senior classes" which are Years 12 and 13. Hopefully during that time, Pio (the new principal) will hire a counterpart that Dave can train next year. Chanel has to hire about 2-3 more teachers (we lost a lot this year) for next year so it might happen. Thursday was also the day when a lot of classes had their class party/picnics. There were only a few classes that held their party at the school – one of them was Year 12.2 which is Pio's current class. As I was showing Dave around the school, Pio invited us to come back and have lunch with his class later on, which we agreed to. After that invite, I showed Dave the upstairs area of the Marist community and that's when I got a Thanksgiving Day call from my Dad. It's always a great treat to hear the voice of family on an American holiday – especially on my last one in Samoa. So we chatted for about 30 minutes (with various other family members saying hello throughout the conversation) and when we (Dave and I) went back downstairs we realized that we were late for our lunch with the Year 12.2 students. They had joined two long tables together and it really looked like they were having a traditional thanksgiving dinner (except it was barbeque and sausages instead of turkey and stuffing). It took me by surprise because it was a Thanksgiving type meal on thanksgiving but Pio said it was just a coincidence. So we sat down, had some food and ice cream and then Dave headed back to town while I went and took a nap – this school year has made me very tired.

Friday was the school prizegiving which is like a high school graduation – without the fancy robes. The prizegiving was held in the FaleSamoa (my front porch) and it was the largest gathering of parents I have seen at Chanel this year (for PTA meetings and stuff like that, we usually rent a hall in town). As always, it was a great time of just seeing the students attain the awards that they have worked so hard for over the past year. The most important award the school offers at prizegiving is called 'Dux' (sounds like 'Ducks') which is kind of the valedictorian of the Year 13/Graduating Class. The Dux for this year was a girl named Denise Simeona, who was one of my Year 13 Computer Students. She's a very bright and joyful girl and I watched NFL football with her dad last year (before I knew he was Denise's father). I am very happy for her – she takes 6 subjects while most of the other year 13 take 5, so she worked extremely hard to get that award. The hardest part of the prizegiving was having to say goodbye to my Year 13 students. These are the students that I have spent my 2 years with and I care deeply about them. But as the old saying goes – you learn something new everyday. I found out that one of my brightest students, Agnes, is actually an American citizen. She was born in American Samoa and has been living in Samoa since she was 5 years old – I found this out when I asked her what she would be doing next year and she said she couldn't get a scholarship to go to the National University of Samoa (NUS) because she wasn't a Samoan citizen. Seriously, that one took me by surprise and I told her 'I knew there was a reason I liked her personality from the moment I met her'. When I come back to Samoa she will be high on the list of people to track down. After the prizegiving, it was time for the end of the year staff party which was held at the Chanel Old Students Association house located right down the street from the school. The food was curry, rice, chicken and something I can't easily name (after living here for 2 years, you just eat anything that doesn't move). It was fun time of just eating and talking – especially for the four of us leaving. Once all the staff had finally arrived, the staff presented monetary gifts to myself, Kevin, Sione, and Mika as a show of their appreciation for us. Once the gift offering was done, each of the four of us had the opportunity to say a little speech to the staff. I was the last one to speak and I just thanked for the staff for being such a great help to me during my first few months in Samoa and always being willing to help me understand how the school system worked in Samoa. I also told them the story about how I had the choice of going to St. Joseph or to Chanel College when I first arrived in Samoa, and I chose Chanel College – and I have loved working here. That killed! But it's true – there have been rough patches just like any job, but I am extremely happy that I made the choice to spend 2 years at Chanel College. I really feel like I made a difference in the life of the school and in the lives of the students I taught. During the staff dinner, I also learned something new – apparently the Prime Minister of Samoa comes from my training village – Falevao. One of the staff members told me that he holds a Matai title from that village…in my two years here, this was the first time I was hearing this shocking news. Even at the end of my time here, I'm learning new things about Samoa all the time. After the staff dinner, I went out with Kevin to meet with a group of ex-pats who usually have dinners together on Friday night. This would be Kevin's last time going to this dinner so I thought I would join in on the fun. While at the dinner I ran into Michael and John (Group 79) who might become a part of this ex-pat group once they swear in as volunteers. They were going back to the village on Saturday afternoon and just by talking to them you could see that the honeymoon period is over and they're ready to get out of training – ahhh, I remember that feeling well 2 years ago.

While we were having dinner, I spotted in the distance of the restaurant Kirstin, Charlotte, Brianna and Karissa; 4 girls who all attend Peace Chapel and were apparently having a girls night out or something like that. I didn't join them because I didn't want to leave the group I was with, but once we were all done eating (both my group and the 4 girls) the girls invited me to go on a little road trip with them across the island. It's been a while since I went to the south side of the island – and it was like 9pm at night so I had time to kill – I joined their road trip. We went over to Maninoa which is the beach resort where Tim – another Peace Chapel member – lives and works. It wasn't until we pulled up to the resort that I asked the girls if Tim knew they were coming…he didn't. So when we found Tim he was sound asleep and we woke him up – good thing Tim is a good natured person, otherwise it could have been like waking a sleeping giant. It was a beautiful full moon out and we just sat there for like an hour or so just talking and laughing. Once we were done there, we hopped back into the car and headed back to Apia – thank goodness for the Cross Island road which makes it so much easier to travel around this island. I could not imagine the amount of effort it took to get to the south side of the island before the cross island road was built – you had to travel around the island to get to the south side which could easily take like 1.5 – 2 hours, but with the cross island road it's just a 30-45 minute trip. Amazing.

And then we get to Saturday. This was a busy day. It all started on Friday when I got a text from Eugene telling me that he might have to close the store for the day because of a big party his friends were throwing for him and his family (a farewell party before they head off to Tanzania). He tried to get in contact with Dave (Group 77 – the same Dave who will take over for me at Chanel) on Friday to see if he would be willing to watch the shop for a few hours during the morning/afternoon. When I woke up on Saturday morning around 7am, I text Eugene to find out if Dave accepted the offer. He had not been able to get in contact with Dave, so I made a call to Dave and got everything all worked out. Dave agreed to watch the shop from about 9am to 2pm which was pretty nice of him. So Eugene came up to Chanel to pick me up because Dave was staying at Bryan's house and I needed to tell him how to get there. We picked Dave up at Bryan's house and then came back to the shop and opened at around 8:45am – about 5 minutes later we had our first customer – so ClickNet is definitely gaining a good reputation around here. I gave Dave a tour of all the various aspects of the business (this week I was Dave's personal tour guide. We've come to the conclusion that Dave will be literally stepping into my shoes once I leave. They are pretty comfortable shoes folks.) Now you may be asking yourself 'Marques, you usually watch the shop for Eugene, why couldn't you do it?' Well that leads me to the second event that occurred on Saturday.

For the past 2 years, I have been attending a Bible College called Every Nation Leadership Institute (ENLI). It is a bible college/leadership development course run out of an Every Nation church in Auckland, New Zealand. This was the church I went to when I was in New Zealand, I spent my new years with that congregation. During these 2 years, I have been attaining a greater depth of knowledge about the character of God, the Bible, and what it means to really live a Christian lifestyle. When I started this program last year (my first year in Samoa), I was very tempted to quit because it took a lot of effort and I thought I could be doing something better with my time and money while in Samoa. But then I remembered, before I came to Samoa – I found out that this was a Christian nation – I prayed that God would use this 2 year opportunity as a time for me to grow closer to Him and gain a better understanding of Him and His Word. This was before I knew about Peace Chapel or ENLI; and when I arrived in Samoa was when ENLI started and it was just the right amount of time for me to do it. I didn't talk about it in my blog because I wanted to complete the course before really talking about it so that I could give an accurate presentation for it. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that doing ENLI was the best thing I could have done for my own spiritual growth and I was amazed at how the character of God has just been planted deeper into my spirit over these past two years. I didn't realize how much ENLI had changed me until I was sitting at ClickNet and Eugene and I were talking. On my desktop I had a calendar which was counting down to the ENLI graduation. Eugene saw it and began asking questions about what ENLI was, so I told him it was a bible college I had been attending for the past 2 years. He then began asking very thought provoking biblical questions and I was able to respond back with the Word of God and the tools that I had acquired through ENLI. The strange thing about it was the fact that my answers were just flowing – like God was just guiding my words – there was never doubt or hesitation in my responses because I knew I was speaking from a sound biblical foundation now. 2 years ago I would not have been able to say that. While the spirit of God did dwell in me, it wasn't being enriched in the manner it needed to be – this course helped me understand how to allow God to enrich my soul and make me a better Christian. While I was talking to Eugene I didn't get angry or get flustered, which might have happened 2 years ago and it was at that moment that I realized how much God has changed me through ENLI. This comes into play later, so keep reading.

Back to Saturday. Saturday was the graduation for ENLI Years 1 and 2 (I was in Year 2) which meant that I couldn't watch the shop because I was had to go and help setup the church for the ceremony later on that night. So I stayed at the shop until about 10am and then headed over to the church to set it up – fortunately there were a lot of people there so it didn't take to long to do. Once everything was in place, I headed back to the shop to help Dave until the end of the day just in case there were any hiccups. Once I got back, that's when I realized that even though this is a small internet café it really requires 2 people to run it properly – especially now that the place has gained a good/quality reputation. So I hung out with Dave until about 2pm which is when we closed the shop and I headed home for a quick shower, shave, get nice clothes before heading back down to the church.

For the ceremony we were allowed 5 formal invitations (although we could invite as many people as we wanted). 3 of my invitations went to Paul, Vivi and Jewell (who are my Samoan family; Jewell specifically asked me to give her an invitation at the beginning of the year). The other 2 went to Eugene and Jackie – those invitations were a direct result of the conversation I had with Eugene regarding the Bible. The amazing thing is – he accepted it. I know he did it mainly because he wanted to support me and my accomplishment, but I thought it was extremely cool that he accepted. It was only the 3^rd time in a year that Eugene stepped foot in Peace Chapel, so it was a big deal to me. The ceremony started at 7:30pm and the church hall was packed. The Year 1 students were dressed in a white top and black bottoms, while the Year 2 students wore any sort of nice clothes and a blue graduation gown (we had made for this special occasion. I've graduated so much and worn so many gowns like this one that it almost feels like a second skin now). There were 28 students total for Year 1 and 2. The numbers start off extremely high in both years, but we've lost a lot of people over the course of time but the two people I'm most proud about are Sara and Teuila: we started this course together and we finished together. It's even more impressive for Teuila because she had to balance a family, an extremely demanding Peace Corps job and school work. So the ceremony started with the Year 1 students getting their certificates (of Christian Leadership) and special awards. This was followed by a video recap (made by Sara) of ENLI (years 1 and 2) over the past few months. After the video, the Year 2 students (including Sara, Teuila and I) got their certificates (of Christian Ministry) and Special Awards. Now as part of Samoan tradition at events such as this (in schools, this is called a Prizegiving, not graduation) the person receiving an award is given a necklace made of various things: sometimes it can be made of leaves, money, candy or whatever items are easily taped together and made into a necklace. One of the Year 2 students, Ruta, got overloaded with these necklaces (called an 'Ula'/'Ooh La'). She's not a very tall lady but the necklaces were literally towering over the back of her head – it was a miracle that she was able to walk with so much weight on her shoulders. When I received my certificate I got hugs from the Pati and Phillips family which was awesome – my Samoan families were very proud of me and that felt good. It felt even better when Eugene came up to me (in front of the church) and gave me a hug of congratulations – that really meant a lot to me. After we received the certificates, as I said – it came time for the special awards. There are 3 special awards in ENLI(3 a piece for Year 1 and 2): Leadership, Discipleship and Academic – Academic is the only award we (students) have control over, the other 2 are chosen by the ENLI administration (which consists of Lorna – whose wedding I am staying for – and Fila – who won 2 medals in the SPG a few months back). Last year, we only had 2 awards: Leadership and Academic which were won by Teuila and Tim, respectively. I came in second place to Tim last year in the academic award. Now Tim's a nice guy and I like him, but I hate coming in second place. So it was at last year's graduation that I was bound and determined to get the Academic award in Year 2. And if you know me, once I put my mind to something I'm like an unstoppable juggernaut. So all throughout Year 2, my main focus has been on getting the knowledge and the grades to get the academic award. When it came down to Saturday, it was a tight race between Sara, Teuila and myself for the academic award. In the end, though, I got the award by 2 points. So the graduation had an even bigger meaning for me because I got what I set my mind for. For Year 2, Teuila got the leadership award and Tim got the Discipleship award. Once the special awards were given, I had the opportunity to give my testimony about the impact ENLI has had on my life – the story I gave is very similar to my previous statements in this blog entry. I even told the story about my conversation with Eugene about the bible (but left out his name) and that got a good laugh out of him.

After the ceremony, it was time of fellowship and eating a lot of food. Oh yeah, in addition to Eugene attending the ceremony, Candice came as well and that was great. We got a picture of all of us together wearing our amazing blue. It was a fun night but I'm happy to finally be done with yet another 2 years of school. While I do not know what the future holds for me when I get back to the states, I really hope it doesn't involve another 2 years of class work – someday I want to know what it feels like to not have homework due. That should be a nice feeling.

On Sunday (today), I went to church and Pastor Todd (a pastor from the Every Nation Church in Auckland) was preaching the message for today. The regular pastor, Pastor Samoa, was in New Zealand taking care of church matters. After the service, I went over to Uaea's house – which is where Todd is staying – for To'onai (Samoan brunch). It was a guys brunch type deal – we had about 5 guys from the church over just to hang out and talk as only guys can talk. The funniest part came when it was time to eat brunch and Todd was doing something else away from the table, but all the Samoans were standing up – no one said a word. I was like 'What's going on?' because with Todd there I kind of slipped back into a Western mindset but then it hit me, in the Samoan culture the most important person at the table is the first one to dig into the food. In this situation, that important person was Todd – but Todd didn't realize this was happening. So I had to tell him that he has to get his food first before everyone else. He tried to be humble and tell everyone else to go ahead – but that doesn't work in Samoa, so he ate first. The food was great and there was a lot of it – as there tends to be at To'onai's. After the brunch, we sat and watched the movie 'Luther' which is about Martin Luther and the Protestant reformation. This was my first time seeing it in about 3 years, but it took on an even deeper meaning to me after going through ENLI. Once the movie was done, it was time to head home and bring this amazingly long and complicated week to a close.

Man, a lot has happened just in the past 4 days – it's amazing. While this week will be better in terms of not having to run around all crazy like, it will be difficult in that I have to start saying goodbye to members of the Marist Community this week. Mika left for New Zealand today so that he could pick up his Visa for the states (he's going to spend the holidays in California with his brother before heading to Fiji for further studies). Sione will be leaving on Tuesday to return to Tonga for a holiday before heading to the Solomon Islands for his next missionary assignment. Kevin will be leaving next Saturday (Dec 1) for a holiday in New Zealand and after that heading to Fiji for his next school assignment. So it's sad to think that by this time next week, the 3 men that I have been such a big part of my time here at the school will be gone. The times – they are a changin'. But that's why it's a celebration – to celebrate the joy (and hardship) that have occurred over the past 2 years. The Peace Corps slogan goes 'This is the hardest job you'll ever love' which is not true. What it should say 'This will be the hardest and most rewarding experience you'll ever love' because during my time here, the job has been secondary to the personal impact I have had here. That will last and that's worth celebrating!

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

2007-11-22T17:54:00.001-11:00

In honor of Thanksgiving, I've posted the pictures from my farewell ceremony at Chanel College. They have been placed in the Chanel College 2007 Photo Album. There's a picture of the coconut tree that I planted in front of the school - just leaving a piece of myself here, so hopefully it flourishes and I will be able to come back and see it. I'm thankful to be almost at the end of my Peace Corps Tour and I feel like I have done alot for my school and the folks I have been involved with in this country.

I'm also thankful for my family and friends back home that have been so supportive of me throughout this entire journey - one of the things that could have happened over the course of these 2 years is that I would lose contact with the folks back home, but we're just as tight as we were when I left and that's something to be really thankful for. I'm also thankful for everyone who has read and enjoyed this blog over the past 2 years, I hope I've brought a different perspective of this tiny island in the Pacific to you. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

27 Days left…. (Written 11/21/07)

2007-11-21T13:17:00.000-11:00

Twas the day before Thanksgiving and all through the nation, there was great sorrow because Chanel was saying farewell to four great men of the school. Today was the farewell program for Father Kevin, Father Sione, Father Mika and myself – it was basically a half day event. While I had some idea of what the program was for today's festivities, I didn't know the details of what was going to happen – there are so few surprises in life, why ruin this one.

The event started at around 9am with the students gathered in the FaleSamoa and the four of us waiting outside to be called into the fale. It's funny, after 2 years of seeing guests of the school go through this waiting process it was kind of strange to be on the other end of it. Before the ceremony began, a student handed each of us a green/red shirt that we were suppose to wear for the occasion – so we were all matching today. When they handed me the shirt, my first thought was 'How did they figure out my shirt size' and the answer is – they didn't. The shirt was kind of tight, thank goodness I'm trim otherwise I would have been busting out of the thing like the Hulk. Anyway, when the time arrived the four of us were called up to the fale Samoa and took our seats at the front of the students. While I was sitting there I had a flash back to my first day of school 2 years ago, when I was introduced to the school during an assembly…then it was simply a 'Hi, I'm Marques – nice to meet you' but saying goodbye is so much harder then being introduced. Once we took our seats, the students sang a song, read a word from the bible, said a prayer and then the Head Girl – Agnes – gave a small speech which basically was a word of thanks for teaching the kids over these past years and for being their heroes. At this point, the Year 13 students walked down the center aisle with banners thanking each of us by name. The most amazing thing was the fact that they spelled my name correctly – even Kevin gets it wrong sometimes. From the very beginning you could tell that a lot of thought and effort went into this special occasion and I would like to think that a part of it was because I was leaving but I'm pretty sure about 99% of the effort had to do with the fact that Kevin (the current principal) is leaving and I'm just reaping some of the reward of that. Once the banners were set, a few of the classes came up to say a speech for each of us, perform a skit and then present gifts. The skits were pretty funny because they were suppose to be flashbacks on how the kids remember us/basically what we are most famous for at the school. For Kevin, his skit was about morning assembly and how funny he is when he gives out awards at assembly. For Sione, it was about his extravagant teaching style. For Mika, his skit was about his upbeat personality and how it's reflected in his teaching. For myself, my skit was about my strict teaching style and the fact that I sometimes wear headphones when I'm working around the school (believe me, working on computers can be boring sometimes). After each of the skits, the students presented gifts to each of us. Kevin, since he's the principal, was just overrun with gifts – a majority of it he (and the other Fathers) won't be able to take with them when they leave the school within the next week. One of the great things about leaving with the 3 Fathers is that I won't be inundated with gifts, but the bad thing is that the quality of the gifts take a steep decline because the kids are providing stuff for 4 people instead of the usual one. So a lot of my gifts revolved around 3 items: lavalava's (serongs), shirts and soap – don't know what kind of message is being sent there.

Once all the gifts and skits were done, each of us had an opportunity to speak to the school. Kevin went first and chronicled all the changes that have occurred at the school during his 6 years here and charged the students with maintaining the things that have been built for them. After him – Sione, Mika and myself gave short speeches. My speech mainly consisted of thanking Chanel for giving me the opportunity to come here and do what I do best – work with computer hardware. So as we head into Thanksgiving tomorrow, I thought I would just say that I'm so thankful that I had the opportunity to work at a school and with a principal that were not only open to having computer studies at the school but had a great desire to expand the program beyond what it was when I first arrived. When I first got to Chanel College, my main concern was just getting the computers up and running. After that job was done, it was about building the 3rd computer lab. Once that was done, I had the hair brain scheme to create an internet room – and Kevin fully supported it, so that happened (although we have not been connected to the internet yet, there's hope that within the next year Chanel will be included in a nation wide school-based internet program. So we're already setup for it – all they have to do is plug us in). After that, it was all about building up the 4th computer lab. So I'm so thankful that this job kept being a challenge over the 2 years instead of just being a flat experience for me. I've definitely grown thanks to the many opportunities and challenges that have presented themselves over the past 2 years and I could not have picked a better place to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer. I also told the kids that 2 years ago, they were just a piece of paper that stated 'Work with students ages 13-18 in regards to computers' and now they are forever a part of my life and experience. My last message to them was to take care of the computers they have – I emphasized that we are the only school in Samoa who has enough computers to take care of all our students, don't take that for granted. I almost cried – almost – but I was able to hold it in.

Once the official ceremony was done, we gathered around the front of the main office and each of us (Kevin, Sione, Mika, Myself) were presented with a coconut tree to plant. In the Samoan culture, the coconut tree represents life – so there will always be a physical reminder of our time here in Samoa. So each of us go to plant a coconut tree in front of the school and when we return to Samoa, we'll be able to see how much the tree has grown. That was quite a cool idea to me – allowing us to plant a tree on the school grounds as a reminder of our time here. Now it will be interesting to see if the coconut trees are able to grow to their full stature or if they will be cut down before our returns.

After the planting, there was a big gap of time because the Year 13 students all had to rush home and prepare a lunch for the staff and us at 2pm. They had originally scheduled the meal at 4pm but the Marist community had a function at 5:30pm, so the start time for the meal was bumped up to 2pm. At about 1pm, the Year 13 students slowly began to come back to the school. They were all dressed in their best outfits, it was quite a change from their normal school attire and the casual clothes I usually see them in. I guess it was suppose to be a semi-formal affair. Before the start of the meal, there was a prayer and then Denise – a Year 13 student – stood up and gave a thank you to the four of us on behalf of the Year 13 class. The best part – at least for me – was when she said that I was be the best computer teacher she's had (granted, I'm her ONLY computer teacher but there's no need to nitpick) – it really made me feel like I had impacted at least one child, and one child can make all the difference. After her speech, we were able to chow down on the food and boy was there a lot of food. It was just an overwhelming mix of food, cake and ice cream – I think my stomach was going to explode at one point. But it was fun just being able to sit down with these year 13 students and have a bit of fun conversation with them. For me, this is the class that I started out with when I started at Chanel 2 years ago so they have a very special place in my heart and it's going to be hard to say goodbye to some of them. Our last day of school is Friday, so I'll have at least 2 more days of enjoying their presence before the scatter to the wind for the holidays.

Overall, it was a long tiring day but definitely an enjoyable one. For the past 2 years, I've been very fortunate to have my big occasions at the same time as some big person is around to celebrate the same occasion. In 2006, a former PCV (Mary) was here to celebrate my first birthday in country and in 2007, since Kevin is leaving at the same time as me I get to participate in this big hoopla to say goodbye.

As I say goodbye to the folks here, I realized a while ago that this is a different sort of goodbye from the one I said to my family and friends when I came to Samoa in 2005. The goodbyes I said in the states were more of a 'See you later' type – I knew deep down that eventually I was coming back home and I would see these folks again. When I say goodbye to people in Samoa, there's that hint of uncertainty in when I will be back. Of course I want to come back relatively soon – within 5 years would be nice – but we all know how life can sometimes get in the way. So there's a chance that I could return here relatively quickly or it could be 40 years before I head back here again (as occurred with Peace Corps Group 1 and 2 who came back last month). So every time I say goodbye, that could really be it for the rest of my natural life – it's a scary thought really. But – as of today – after serving 27 months in the Peace Corps we are down to only 27 days in country…the clock is ticking and the deluge of goodbye is right around the corner. This is going to be a touch stretch, I can tell you that. But I will enjoy my last few weeks in Samoa – at Chanel College – and know that I could not have asked for a better country, assignment and community to serve in.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Appreciating the 100th (Written 11/19/07)

2007-11-19T18:11:00.001-11:00

Last Thursday (Nov 15) it was time for me to make yet another visit out to the trainees in their village of Lalomauga. I was taking part in the third session of their teacher training sessions which mainly dealt with classroom management and corporal punishment within the Samoan school system. Helping out in this session were Jeff (Group 77), Beth (Group 73), Laura (Group 77) and myself. We covered the 4 areas that these trainees will be going into – Vocational, Adult learning, Special Needs and Computers. During the first part of the session we had little breakout sessions where the trainees could come to each of us and ask very specific questions about the areas that they would be stepping into in just a few months. There were a lot of good questions from the trainees about how to teach Samoan kids, but I did have to curb their enthusiasm a bit and state that the emphasis put on education in Samoa isn't the same as it would be in the States – at least in the schools that they would be going in. After the breakout sessions we came back together as a group and had a panel discussion about corporal punishment in Samoa and how we have dealt with it. Before the panel started, Kevin (one of the trainers) read how there is a law in Samoa against teachers physically punishing Samoan students – from what we all have experienced, that's a law that's not really enforced. We all shared our personal experience encountering corporal punishment within the school system and how we handled it – going off the handle about it and being overly aggressive about not doing does not work, for the most part we have all had to lead by example. We have all used non-physical ways of controlling our classrooms and getting our kids to be cooperative in class so hopefully in the future when these kids grow up to be the leaders of this country, they will know there is a better way to handle problems other then resorting to physical violence. I think Kevin thought that this topic wouldn't take very long, but it took up almost 90% of our discussion time – it was just that important of a topic. The main point we wanted to get across was that (unfortunately) they will encounter it in their schools and they (the trainees) need to come up with a way of handling that will improve the situation in the long term, not just temporarily (while they are at that school) or make the situation worse.

On Friday (Nov 16), I worked in my lab in the morning doing the ultra fun work of reformatting my lab hard drives and reinstalling the OS, while also cleaning lab 1 up a bit. Once I was done with that fun task (and school was done for the day, we only had a half day on Friday) I biked down to the Marist Sports Complex for the All-Volunteer Conference. This is a yearly conference where all the volunteers get together to learn how things have gone over the past year – it's been a pretty complicated, tumultuous and interesting year to say the least. We hear from Kim (our country director/main boss) about the State of the Post (which is Peace Corps Samoa), from Teuila (our medical officer) we hear about the medical statistics from the past year and from Fono (our safety and security officer) we hear about the security situation at the Samoa Post. There are also other aspects of the conference, but these are the main three points. It's basically an all-day affair and I just was not in the mood to be there all day, so I showed up at the halfway point of the conference. Since this was my third conference (one during training, one at the year mark, one at the end) I just didn't feel like being there all day for the 3^rd time. My timing was perfect, though, as I arrived just when they were serving lunch – so I got there for the most important part. After lunch, the staff performed a volunteer appreciation skit (about Samoan Peace Corps serving in America, this was actually the same skit we [Group 75] saw when we were in training) and after that they gave each of the volunteer groups a gift box. In order to get the box, you had to answer a Peace Corps related question. The question our group answered was 'What is the name of the medical form you have to take with you overseas in order to get a medical checkup'. I didn't know the answer, but we have a person in our group who is virtually a permanent resident in the medical office – Julya – and she knew the answer (I can't remember what it was, it was just some crazy combination of letters and numbers). In our gift box we got a whole bunch of laundry detergent – just what all of us needed to get our clothes clean for the next part of our journey.

Saturday (Nov 17) was the Peace Corps Thanksgiving meal at the US consulate. I didn't go because A) I wasn't in the mood for it and B) I had to move some newly bought tables and put them into the 4^th lab – just one of the few things I have to clean up before I am officially done with Chanel College. So no turkey for me this Thanksgiving – I'll make up for it at Christmas when I'm home!

Sunday (Nov 18) was a milestone moment for me. My bike ride down to church and back home was the 100^th time I have made that trip in my 2 years here. My 100^th time biking up and down Mt. Doom – wow, it has not been the easiest task in the world to do that and there have been plenty of times when I wanted to get off my bike and just walk (because this heat, combined with the humidity can do a number on trying to get oxygen into your lungs) but the perseverance has paid off. When I first began biking up and down Mt. Doom, my goal was to get to 30 (before I came to Samoa, I had no ridden a bike in years so 30 was a reasonable goal) but once I got use to biking (and got past 30) my goal was placed at 100 because it showed a commitment to completing the task and looks more impressive then 30. So I made it and every time I bike after this is just a bonus – I doubt I get up to 150 before leaving the country, but who knows….110 isn't out of the question. We'll see.

On Monday (Nov 19) we had our staff tea with the Peace Corps Staff to show our appreciation for all their help and love over the past two years. Everyone in the group made some meal for the occasion (sans me, I chipped in with moral and financial support) and we all showed up about an hour or so early. This was funny because it's one of the few times we were all gathered together in one place – I don't think this has happened since Holly's going away dinner. Most of the newer groups (78 and 79) who saw us in the office were like 'Wow, we haven't seen all of you together – ever – in the office'. Anyway, we gathered all the staff up in the kitchen area – I gave a little thank you speech on behalf of the greatest group ever/Group 75 – and then let them have at it. It was a good time of just hanging out with the staff and talking one on one with a lot of them because most of us have not been frequent visitors to the office this year (unlike last year where we showed up pretty regularly, it's all a part of being in the Corps for 2 years). This was also a farewell tea for Dianne and John who are leaving on the flight to the states tonight. It has been a great two years knowing these two folks – I'll never forget Dianna and I travelling alone together during training and John for his amazing biking abilities. With these two leaving tonight, that leaves only 5 of us left (Candice, Bryan, Julya, Sara and I). Group 75 is slowly fading away – it's kind of sad folks. But I don't look to far ahead – it makes my remaining time here that much harder. This week will be jam-packed with activities, so stay tuned. L8r.

Note: I have uploaded pictures corresponding to these events in the Group 79, Samoan Scenes and Volunteer Life. Volunteer Life is where you will find the pictures about the morning tea. Enjoy!

The Media Onslaught Continues

2007-11-12T21:55:00.000-11:00

Today we have added new photos to the Samoan Scenes (photos from Group 79's village), Group 79 pics and Volunteer Life (covering last weeks HomeGroup BBQ, the training in Lalomauga and Fila's Birthday Party). Enjoy!

Transitions (Written 11/12/07)

2007-11-12T10:10:00.001-11:00

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!

What? There's more?!

2007-11-06T22:01:00.000-11:00

You're darn right there's more! I've added even MORE pictures to the Chanel College Photo Albums (covering the End of School Mass) and Volunteer Life (more photos of the Phillips family and the Surviving Savaii Camp).

The hits just keep coming folks. L8r.

Inside the Classroom: An MJ Adventure Exclusive

2007-11-06T16:46:00.001-11:00

For your viewing pleasure, I have added a video clip of me actually teaching at Chanel College. In this clip, I am doing review work with my Year 12 Computer Studies Class. Hope you enjoy it! It has also been added to the MJTV-Samoa channel, but I thought since this is extra special I would just post it on the main site.

Tis the season....

2007-11-05T21:26:00.001-11:00

....to post a little bit of media. For your viewing pleasure, I have added new photos to Samoan Scenes, Group 79 (photos of Michael talking to my computer studies class) and Chanel College (photos of me teaching my Year 13 Computer class...that's right folks, I actually have photos of me teaching so you know I haven't wasted these two years). Also, the YouTube Channel has been updated with 2 video clips of Mike talking to my computer studies class.

Hope you enjoy the influx of new media! L8r.

Surviving Savaii (Written November 4, 2007)

2007-11-04T19:23:00.001-11:00

After a busy week at school, one would think that I would be able to dedicate this weekend to just relaxing and getting into the mindset of I don't have to teach classes anymore. Well you would be partially correct – I am in that mindset, but this weekend was only partially relaxing. Friday was Arbor Day in Samoa – a day to plant trees and do some lawn work (which is why it's a national holiday) but most people probably just took it as a day of relaxation. That's exactly what I did – just kind of decompressed from having to be a host for 3 days. On Friday morning, some members of the Next Generation group (the Peace Chapel Young Adult's ministry) headed over to Savaii for an end of the year camp. I stayed behind for 2 reasons: 1) I needed some time to myself and 2) Sara was doing something with her school on Friday and wanted someone to go over to Savaii with her. We could have gone on Friday, but that would have meant rushing to catch the last boat of the day and on a holiday that's not such a great idea – so we just decided to wait until Saturday morning.

This idea worked best for me anyway since Chanel was holding it's entrance exam on Saturday morning and Kevin wanted me to setup a few of the computer labs so the potentially new students could play around on them. Last year, when this happened I woke up to it unprepared – this year, I knew about it but I wouldn't be here to watch over the labs. So I setup Labs 2 and 3 for them to use before heading down to the food market to catch the 8am bus for the 10am boat. So it was Sara, myself and a guy named Uaea ("Why-uh") who travelled over together on the 10am boat. This was my first time taking a bus over to Savaii in about a year (the last time I travelled to Savaii was by car and before that it was by bike), so I kind of forgot how long a ride it was. Fortunately, the bus was not full at all so we weren't smashed into together like sardines which was a nice benefit of travelling on an off-day (since I presume most people going to Savaii on holiday left on Thursday or Friday). So we made it in plenty of time for the 10am boat (we took the small boat over) and the shocking thing was that there was barely anyone going over with us. In fact, this was my first trip where there were no cars travelling on the boat – coincidently, this was also the smoothest boat ride I've had during my stay in Samoa.

We arrived on Savaii at around 11:30am and Sara called Janita to find out which direction we needed to go. The camp was located in Salealoga (the wharf area in Savaii) but it would be our first time there. We walked about 10 minutes from the wharf and ran into Janita and Charlotte waiting for us at the gate to the "resort" we were staying at. I say "resort" because it is in the process of being built and still has a kind of rustic feel about it. The place doesn't have a name yet, but Junior (a Samoan friend of ours and fellow Peace Chapel member) arranged for us to use the place for our camp. Now last year we did a similar type survivor camp at Aganoa Black Sand beach on Upolu and that was truly roughing it. This place was paradise in comparison – we had a stove, enclosed area to sleep and a outdoor shower…compared to Aganoa, this place was heaven. I was most happy about the enclosed area to sleep – that way if it rained we didn't have to worry about anything. Joining us for this Peace Chapel Survivor camp was Janita, Charlotte, Uaea, Tim, Carissa & Anton (new Peace Chapel member), Sara, Junior, Justin (Group 78) and I – not quite as big as last year, but still plenty of people.

Of course the first things I did once I arrived was to get out of my clothes and go for a swim in the ocean. This was my first time being in the ocean since my mom was here in May – amazing how living on a tropical island can make you take such simple pleasures for granted. After enjoying the lagoon area I was swimming in, the group decided to go to a nearby waterfall for a dip. This would be the Olemoe falls which are located close to Julya's village. I have been there quite a few times but this was Sara's first time going to the falls. Since the last time I was at the waterfalls (which was for Group 76's Early Service Conference) they built a road that goes from the main road all the way to the waterfall, which means easier access to it and no more having to climb down a steep and dangerous cliff face. When we first drove up to it, I was thinking it was a different waterfall because I remember it being more enclosed and that being the reason why you had to climb down to it. Somehow they figured out a way to connect it to the main road and now the local Samoans are able to easily get to it (whereas before, only tourists dared climb down the steep cliff face). To Sara and I surprise, we saw Samoans we recognized at the pool: Father Joe (a Marist priest associated with the Chanel priests), Analosa (a teacher at Chanel) and Esera (the principal of a nearby Catholic high school). With this new road, the waterfalls were busier then I had ever seen them – so I guess it was a success. We hung out at the waterfall for about 2.5 hours before heading back to the campgrounds.

Once we got back to the camp, everyone took a break because we were so tired from all the swimming before doing MORE outdoor activities. Some of the folks were playing volleyball for a bit, but apparently Justin and Sara were pretty good so they had to switch games. Someone had brought a rugby ball to camp and Justin and I started throwing it around like a football (which was kind of hard, but eventually we got the hang of it) and the Kiwi's (nickname for New Zealanders) challenged us to a game of US Football (using the rugby ball). At first we (Sara, Justin and I) thought they were joking, but they were serious – so we tried to explain the rules to them as best we could and of course had to modify it because of the fact we were playing street football instead of real football. So the teams were the Americans (Sara, Justin and I) vs. the South Pacific Nations (Uaea, Janita, Carissa and Anton). I only brought a pair of flip flops with me, so I decided to play barefoot – only after living in Samoa for 2 years would I have considered that an option (especially because we were playing in an area filled with coral and rocks). The SPN team was basing all of their knowledge of the game off of what they've seen from football movies, so we had to do a bit of correction of their knowledge. We (the Americans) scored on our first drive and stopped the SPN on their first drive. But then they started to use their numbers to their advantage – with them having a one person advantage over us, whenever one person would rush the QB they would just throw it to the now open receiver. They used this tactic multiple times and at one point the score was 7-21. Now you have to keep in mind that all of their knowledge of the game of football is based off movies and (maybe) watching real NFL football – so one of the things they did well was excessive celebration. Once they scored 21 unanswered points against us, they kind of got a little bit out of hand when it came to their celebrations. It was at this point that we Americans did what we do best – take back what's ours! We realized that we could not beat them being one man down (since they would just double cover one receiver) so we recruited Tim (who's an Australian) to play for our team. He also just had a vague idea of how to play the game, so we just told him to run where he wanted to – catch the ball and then run for the end zone. On the first pass, Tim caught the ball in stride and took it to the house. I was amazed by his speed – it took everyone by surprise. And that was the spark that allowed us to come back. On the SPN's next play, we intercepted their pass and then scored. In fact, we stopped them 3 straight times and went on to score 21 unanswered points – thus winning the game. Or so we had thought? Apparently when I announced that we were playing to 28, the SPN team didn't hear me and said that we had to play to 35. We were like "okay" and played another drive. Unfortunately, that was one drive to many because on the next drive Anton tripped on a rock and tweaked his knee. In the end he was alright, but it brought the game to an abrupt end.

After shower, we had stir-fry and curry for dinner and ice cream for dessert. After dessert, we had the bible study portion of our camp (talking about how to properly face fear) and the worship portion. After that full day, I was pretty much tired and hit the bed at around 11pm.

The next morning (Sunday) I woke up kind of early and took a walk along the road just to kind of clear my head a bit. I also wanted to check on the boat times but no one was at the counter when I went to it. After my walk, I had breakfast and hung out for a bit before going to the wharf to catch the 10am boat ride back to Upolu. The other group members were leaving on either the 12pm or 2pm boat, but that was kind of late for Sara and I so that's why we took the early boat. Justin also joined us on our journey back over to the mother island. This time we took the big boat back over and it was packed with cars, but not with a lot of people. I was expecting the boat to be packed to the gills with people, but it was fairly spacious. We got back to Upolu at around 11:30pm and then we had to go our separate ways (Justin was getting off at his village, which is between the wharf and town / while we were headed to town). Again, the bus ride into town was fairly empty. It was probably the emptiest bus ride I have ever taken from the wharf to town – which means we came home at the right time.

While the break was short, it was needed – I don't know if I will have time to go over to Savaii again before I leave and I definitely needed to get out of Apia for a bit. It was also a good rejuvenation in my walk because God's amazing invisible qualities can clearly be seen by what has been made. And nothing brings that point home like watching a sunrise over a tropical island – one of the few perks I'm going to miss about being on a tropical island. We survived Savaii, now to survive the next few weeks!

OJT Classic (Written 11/2/07)

2007-11-02T11:27:00.001-11:00

This has been a very full week – from the expected and unexpected side of things. On Monday, the Apia area was scheduled to have a tsunami drill in which the main town area was basically evacuated. Everyone would have to close up shop and "head to the hills" of Apia – by walking, not driving. No one knew what time the drill was suppose to start as to give the drill a sense of unpredictability. One of the evacuation sites for the drill is Chanel College, which meant that I did not have to go anywhere for the drill. The interesting part was when people start showing up at the school – it was kind of just a few people at first and then all of a sudden we had like hundreds of people on the school grounds (we kept school going, so you know it was a major distraction). For the most part, all the people who were at the school walked up from the Apia town area which is about an hour walk. Also joining in on the walking fun today was Group 79 – since they were staying at Apia Central (instead of the village) they had to participate in the drill as well and they walked all the way up to Chanel. Now they have been to Chanel before for the Fiafia, but this was their first time coming up here during the daytime. Of course when they got here they were tired and beat up from the sun, but one of the trainers fared a bit worse. Leata, one of our language trainers, walked up with the group and got something stuck into her foot and was in a lot of pain. She said that once she started walking, she realized she should have walked in her tennis shoes and not flip-flops. So we went to my medical kit and got some bandages for her foot and I refilled her water bottle with cold water. I also keep a few ice cold bottles of water in my freezer in case of emergency and gave one to Leata, one to Onafia (another trainer) and the last one to the trainees. It was just something to help cool them down since their water was probably extremely warm by that point. The trainees also came into my lab to see what my computer labs looked like and how I interacted with my students – that's probably one of the best parts of having new volunteers visit at this time of the year. Since they are new faces, the students are automatically interested in who they are and thus their energy level goes up. Now it was also on Monday (but before folks started coming up for the tsunami drill) that we found out which of the new volunteers would be assigned to Chanel – it was a guy named Michael Curran. I didn't remember who he was when Kevin (my principal) told me about him, but he did and he told me that Michael was one of the older volunteers and the vibe that Kevin got from him was that he was more focused on vocational stuff rather then computer stuff. When Michael came up with the group for the tsunami drill, Kevin brought him into our first computer lab and you could see the kind of shocked/glazed over look that comes when someone sees something that's a bit out of their field of expertise. So when Michael came up during the afternoon, I knew that he would be coming to the school over the next 2 days to get a feel for the place and see if he belonged there.

Side Note: For the tsunami drill, we were supposed to get text messages on our cell phone to let us know that the drill was in effect and tell us when it was over. I never got a text message, even though I was expecting it. I asked HP, who had a cell phone, if he got a text message for the drill and he said no. So I'm guessing that the two main ways folks knew to start walking for the hills was by way of the radio and coconut wireless….which STILL has better coverage then any mobile carrier in this country. So there are definitely some kinks that need to be worked out of this system before a real tsunami comes.

It wasn't until later on Monday night, while I was talking to HP (the language training manager) that I found out that Michael would be staying with me for the next 3 days/2 nights. I had never heard of this being done – when I had my OJT (On the Job Training) it was come to the school during the day, go back to the hotel at night. Basically this OJT was also a volunteer visit (because Michael would be staying with me and seeing what I do once school is done). That was a bit of a shocker because since I found out at night time, there was no way for me to go shopping or given Kevin a head's up about buying food for him.

On Tuesday morning, Michael arrived by the Moamoa bus. I bet that was quite an experience simply because the bus is just so jam packed with people in the morning – I think they are packed tighter then sardines. One of the perks of being an older person in Samoa is that you will always get a seat on the bus, so even on this ultra crowded bus Michael was able to get a seat (whether or not it was comfortable is up to debate). I was there to greet him as soon as he stepped off the bus, had him drop off his stuff in my house and then we were off to class. As I was explaining to him about our class schedule and the computer lab, Michael brought up that he didn't really feel comfortable about the assignment simply because something like computers is not his primary skill. Once he said that and I revealed to him that we (Chanel) kind of felt the same way, it turned from being about teaching him how to work at Chanel to teaching him how to work with Samoan kids (i.e. we talked in more broad terms). You would have thought that since he wasn't going to work at Chanel that his interest levels would be down but instead it seemed like his interest level actually went up. During the course of the three days, I just tried to give him nuggets of wisdom that I have learned over my two years of teaching. And I learned a little bit about his background – he's primarily worked as a carpenter all of his life, he's from a town called Ogden in Utah and this is his first time outside the continent of North America (and he's over 50 years old). So Tuesday was mainly about observation and seeing how I handle a class (we are doing revision right now, so he couldn't see exactly how I teach a class) and once school was done, we did what I normally do on Tuesday night – help out at ClickNet. I wasn't able to stay as long as I usually do (because while I can find thousands of things to do online, I understand that most people can't) but it was a chance for Michael to get access to internet (since he had been in the village last week). Once we were done at ClickNet, Eugene (the owner) was kind enough to give us a ride back home. Along the way, we stopped by Don Bosco (A Catholic vocational school) to show Michael where it was located – one of the other volunteers in Group 79 is being assigned there, I think his name is John. So we got back to Chanel at around 6pm and had about an hour before dinner would be served – we ate with the Marist Fathers. After dinner we had a good long talk with Kevin about a variety of things and Michael learned a bit about what has been going on in the South Pacific Islands recently – we told him that now that he's in Samoa, the goings on of these small countries you've never heard of before will become big news.

Wednesday began with a double period for one of my year 12 classes and I used it as an opportunity for Michael to teach the class about whatever he wanted to. This was mainly done so that he could tell what his comfort level was in talking to and interacting with the class (of course with me walking around as Sheriff, things didn't get too out of control). He did a good job and improvement and comfort will come the more times he does it – but as with most of the volunteers, he's never taught before so this first test wasn't all that bad. Wednesday was also the last day of classes for this year, so I gave my students my last pep talk to get them ready for their national exams and told them that this was the last time that I would be talking with them in this class – a few of the students actually seemed surprised (I guess the staff haven't told the students I'm leaving, because the staff does know this is my last year). Next week the Senior students (Year 12 and 13) start their national exams and the junior students (Year 9, 10 and 11) start their final exams. We only had 4 periods on Wednesday; the last 3 periods were dedicated to singing practice for the closing mass on Thursday and for moving desks for the entrance exam to be held on Saturday morning. I sent Michael to the singing practice while I went around and shutdown all the computer labs. After I had done that, Michael found me and told me that Peace Corps was coming to pick him up and show him another school he could go to – I was just a tiny bit worried, because I had a tutoring session with the faatuatua kids later on that afternoon which meant if he came back late I would not be at school. He went out to Paul VI (another Catholic school) to see what their vocational program looked like and was back at Chanel in plenty of time. At around 2:30pm, Vivienne and the kids showed up to pick me up for the last tutoring session.

While Vivi and Michael were talking, she found out that he had a background in construction and of course she asked him about a particular type of house she is looking for to use in building the Phillips family dream home here. So they automatically had a talking point that interested both of them which was a great blessing because I think it helped Michael feel more at ease. Vivi also told Michael about the church building that Peace Chapel is doing (designed by her husband, Paul) and we passed it as we were driving to her house. So once we got home, they were talking about buildings while I was conducting my last tutoring session which worked out great – now I was officially done with all my school work and it is just time to pray that my students all do well on their exams in the next few weeks. After the tutoring session, it was just time to hang out with the kids until HomeGroup/Bible study later on that night. I gave Michael a book to read about Samoan history since I think he wanted something to do and since he didn't know the kids all that well, it was the best I could do. Once Paul (who is an engineer) got home, he and Michael talked for a bit about construction and that helped in Michael feeling more comfortable because it was literally someone who could speak the same jargon as him – I'm sure he didn't expect to encounter that in Samoa.

So at around 7pm folks started showing up for the bible study and were introduced to Michael. As far as I could tell he enjoyed it and he also enjoyed the fellowship that comes after the bible study i.e. the food! Before sitting down to eat though, Teuila (our Medical Officer) brought out a birthday cake for Vivienne – Tuesday (October 30) was her birthday. It was a good night overall and we got home at around 10pm.

On Thursday there was no school, but we did have to go into town for the end of school mass at the Catholic cathedral. So we left the school at around 8:15am and the service started at 9am. It was a nice affair in that a majority of the students showed up (on time to boot), we had a few former students show up as well and even students who were in school this year, but haven't been seen for a while. The Year 13 class did a dance for the school and after that we were done. It was only after we stepped out of the church and I was saying goodbye to my students that I realized for 2 straight years I have had another volunteer with me at my end of school mass – which was odd. I also later found out that 3 of my students went to ClickNet after the mass to enjoy the internet time I gave them, so there's hope folks!

After the mass, we went to check on the school magazine (it's done; last year we didn't get it until like the last week of school) and then headed back up to the college. After hanging out for a bit and enjoying the freedom that comes with the end of classes, Michael and I took a taxi down to town for lunch. We went to Seafood Gourmet (which is a sponsor of Chanel's school magazine) for lunch and had some good conversation about where Mike was from, why he joined Peace Corps and found out that scuba diving is one of his favorite activities (we have had quite a few people get their diving certificate in Samoa, so I found that interesting). After lunch, it was time to say our goodbyes – Michael went on to Apia Central while I headed to the Peace Corps office for a bit.

Overall, Monday – Thursday went pretty well…there were no big hiccups or anything like that. Like I said, once Michael and I knew that he wasn't a right fit for Chanel College we were able to focus on ways to improve him for wherever he's going. It was a good time all around. Now today (Friday) is Arbor Day, which is a national holiday in Samoa. So while Group 79 is in Apia doing their language training, I will be enjoying the quiet day. L8r.

The Week that was (Written 10/28/07)

2007-10-28T10:06:00.001-11:00

Man, time really seems to be flying as we get closer to the end of the school year. This past week just felt like it flew by – but even so, there were a few nuggets worth mentioning. On Wednesday, I went to Group 79s training village for a Survival Skill session. No, this is not a session where we focus on how to make fire or how to create a shelter out of coconut leaves – it focuses on current volunteers giving some practical advice to the trainees about how to survive in the culture and workplace of Samoa. For this session we had Aaron and Sally (Group 77), Dianne (Group 75), Michael / Louise (Australian volunteers) and I – so a pretty good range of viewpoints. Although we - the Peace Corps Volunteers that were there - are all capacity builders, we all live in very different communities and have different work environments. Fono, our security officer, had some preset questions for us to answer, such as:

How does it feel to work/live in Samoa as:

- A man

- A woman

- A young person

- An older person

- A developmental worker

- A foreigner

We tried to give a fair and balanced view of living and working in Samoa – which can be kind of difficult once you have lived here for a while. Not that living in Samoa is bad or anything, but I didn't want to impart any of my prejudices or things like that onto the volunteers – have to let them make up their own mind and have their own experiences. Amazingly, that was one of the hardest things to do – keep a balanced perspective – because you want to give them plenty of warning on what to expect but we have no idea what their community will be like so we should not have them go into their workplace with a preconceived bias. It was a pretty interesting session, lasted about an hour and a half, and I don't think we scared them to much. I believe that this was my first survival skills session during my two years in Samoa, but I'm not sure. One of the main reasons I decided to do it was because for the past 2-3 times Fono has asked me to do these sessions they are usually in the morning and always on a weekday, which meant I would have to miss a few class periods in order to do it. This time the session took place in the afternoon (so I would only need to miss 2 classes) and this would be my final time to help out – so I decided why not give it a try. Glad I did because it was a lot of fun and I got to see the training village.

The training village for Group 79 is Lalomauga which is a village located (literally) down the street from my training village of Falevao. This was the first time I had even been in that area since my mom came to visit in May – so it had been a while. While Lalomauga does not have a beach, it does have a moderately clean river that runs through the center of the village (this same river runs through Falevao, but it's much nastier because of the waste that's accumulated in it) and a suspension bridge that goes over the bridge. The training center is an old church building which is located next to the new church building. While not as beautiful as a few of the previous training villages (Group 76-78), if all of Group 79 is able to survive Lalomauga they can probably last a long time in Samoa.

Another highlight of the week came on Thursday when I handed out some prizes to my students. Around this time the students are doing nothing but review work as they prepare for their national exams – which means two things: 1) kids stop coming to school because they can't afford to pay their school fees, but they will show up for their national exams and 2) kids aren't as into school as they were towards the beginning of the school year. Both of these factors combine to make the last few weeks of teaching very tough because you have fewer students to teach (which might be construed as a good thing, but then you realize that the students who are missing classes will take the national exam, bomb it and that will reflect badly on the teacher) and they are less motivated. So for my year 13 classes I had a little quiz competition for them – using questions from the previous Year 13 national exams. For the most part, it was a success because many of the students knew the answers without having to use their notes to much. The quiz competition took place over a 5 day period (which was a good thing because of all the disruptions that took place during those 5 days) and the students seemed to enjoy it. Just like the final exam, I told them before hand that there would be a prize – but this time there would be a prize for the losing team and the winning team. Now back to Thursday, which was the day I gave out the prizes which was free internet time at ClickNet. I bought the time as a gift for my classes because we were suppose to have a working internet café at the school during this school year, but that fell through. For the losing team, I gave them 15 minutes of internet time and for the winning team, I gave them 30 minutes of internet time. Now you may say "15 minutes? That's not a lot of time" but the purpose of the prize was not to give them unlimited time but to get them to actually try the internet and find out what it's about. I gave the classes a crash course on how to use the internet, but my main advice was to go to the café and actually try it out.

Unfortunately, some of the students weren't as receptive as I would have liked. For those students that understood what the internet was (or at least had an interest in trying it), they really liked the prize. For those students who had never been on the internet (they had only heard of it), they didn't like it so much – they would much rather have candy or a flash drive (i.e. physical items) then something that they didn't understand. Hopefully they take advantage of this unique gift and don't just give it away to someone else because they do not understand how important/great the internet can be – especially if half of them go on to University next year. We'll see – I'll ask Eugene if any of my students come in and use their special codes.

Now that's the week that was, this is the week that is. Monday we are suppose to have a national tsunami drill – which should be interesting to see if it goes smoothly. Chanel College is one of the evacuation points in a tsunami, so I'm safe (and for the drill, I don't have to go anywhere). This is also the last week of school…Hooray! Wednesday is my last day of class (for Chanel and Faatuatua College) and after that I won't know what to do with myself. I'm sure I'll find something to keep me busy for my last few weeks in country. L8r!

The MJ Media Day

2007-10-23T20:35:00.001-11:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that new photos have been posted to the Photo Albums. Primarily I've added the photos from the fiafia, the visit from Peace Corps Group 1 volunteers, White Sunday, my trip to Lake Lanatoo and a few new shots of the Phillips baby (and family). Alot I know - but we aim to please here on the MJ Adventure. Also, I've been adding various clips to my YouTube Channel (Samoa) from the fiafia and White Sunday. Hope you enjoy the media! L8r.

The 40th (Written 10/20/07)

2007-10-20T18:10:00.001-11:00

The past 2 days have been a pretty exciting time in terms of the Peace Corps in Samoa. This year marks the 40^th anniversary of Peace Corps being in Samoa (and since we're the only volunteer agency mentioned in the Samoan history museum, you know it's a pretty big deal). So last week we had Group 79 come into the country. I had a diversity session with them on Wednesday and they seem like a pretty good group. This week we welcomed members of Peace Corps Samoa Groups 1 and 2 back to Samoa after being away for 40 years. This was also a special occasion for Chanel College, because some of the members of Group 1 were also teachers at Chanel College – Joe Wroblewski and Dave Willard (who also came with his wife who was a nurse at a Samoan hospital). So on Thursday morning, Joe and Dave came up to the school to see it for the first time in 40 years – I'm sure it was quite an amazing experience to return to a place you worked for 2 years. Joe had been in contact with Father Kevin (my principal) in the months prior to arriving in Samoa – so fortunately, it wasn't a huge surprise on the school. I was a bit nervous my self in anticipation of meeting these guys – it's kind of like meeting the forefathers of the US…those folks who were the first to step out on a limb and do something great for their country. Obviously, things have changed a great deal in Samoa since they left and I was interested in hearing how Chanel has changed in the 40 years the Peace Corps have been in this country. Chanel College, itself, is celebrating it's 45^th anniversary this year as well – which means the school was only 5 years old when the first two volunteers came here. As I was saying, on Thursday morning, Joe and Dave came up to the school for a visit and we had the traditional Samoan ava ceremony for them. The only change this time was when the students were serving the ava – they served Kevin, Joe, Dave and his wife first but then they mentioned my name and served me ava as well…which I was not expecting at all (usually when we have an ava ceremony, I'm close to it so that I can take pictures which meant I was close to where the ava was being served). So it was a big deal to the students and staff because I have never drank ava before in front of them and it had been a while since I drank ava myself. The kids got a kick out of seeing it, so it wasn't too bad. After the ceremony, Kevin gave a little intro to the students about the two volunteers and said how Michael (the volunteer before me) and myself were part of a Chanel-Peace Corps legacy that really made me feel like I was part of a long standing legacy. One of the good/bad parts about being a Peace Corps is that even though you are working for the US government, when you're working close to the ground like we are – you sometimes lose that perspective that you're actually part of a legacy stretching back 45 years (40 years in Samoa specifically). After Kevin's intro Dave and Joe gave speeches to the school and let the students know how Chanel has changed (it use to be a boy's boarding school and a lot of the regular school grounds use to be filled with crops that the boys would tend to) and a lot of the students were surprised at how much things have changed in only 40 years. Joe then donated some books to the school library and then went on a tour of the school. Just a little FYI, when Joe and Dave were here the place where I am currently living was not built – so they stayed in areas which are now classrooms. Joe said that when he was leaving Samoa, they had just begun building the FaleSamoa where I live – so the FaleSamoa at Chanel is pretty old but durable.

So Thursday was a small glimpse at some of the older volunteers, but Friday was the full reveal. Friday morning, Peace Corps had a march in town to celebrate the 40^th anniversary. The Prime Minister spoke and Kim (our country director/main boss) relayed a message from the Peace Corps Washington congratulating PC Samoa on 40 years of service. I was not able to attend the parade because A) I had to work and B) The fiafia was being held later on that night and someone needed to be at Chanel to make sure the decorations went well. So I stayed at school to make sure everything went smoothly and for the most part they did – since this was a big reunion/anniversary celebration/welcome fiafia, the decorations had to be a little bit more involved then usual. Instead of wrapping coconut leaves around just 2 polls like we normally do, we wrapped coconut leaves around all 6 poles in the FaleSamoa and the main pole in the entrance way to the Falesamoa (and by "we" I mean the students). Some of the students/staff even painted a Samoan Mat for us with the words "Welcome / Happy 40^th Anniversary" which was unexpected on my part. Once the main decorations were done, it was just a matter of waiting on Peace Corps to show up and help setup the final pieces of the puzzle. The first set of volunteers showed up around 4pm and it was basically non-stop running around from that point. One of the unknown things about the fiafia (when you're just a trainee) is how much works goes into it behind the scenes (before and during) to make it a success. It's literally the little things that make the bigger things successful – I've learned that lesson very well over my past 3 fiafia's. Now usually, the fiafia is held on a Saturday but Group 79 is scheduled to travel to their training village – Lalomauga (which is located very close to my training village of Falevao) – on Saturday, so that's why it was being held on a Friday (and thus added to my stress level just a little bit). So slowly over the next few hours, more food and volunteers showed up and I was running all over the place getting things for folks and making sure everything was running well. The first of the 3 groups to arrive was Group 79 and for all of them it was their first time at my house – but for one of them, this will become their assignment once they are sworn in as volunteers…so the Peace Corps legacy will continue for at least 2 more years.

And that realization – that one of the new group will be replacing me – is funny to me because 2 years ago, I was in the same position. I came up to Chanel for the fiafia and was so oblivious to the possibility that I could actually be working here…and now I can't think of working anyplace else. My how things have changed. Anyway, about 30 minutes after Group 79 arrived then members of Groups 1 and 2 started showing up and that's really when it hit me that this was a big deal. Before it just felt like a big deal because a lot of people were making such a fuss about it, but now it felt like a big deal because we had double the amount of people we usually have at a fiafia. So after a bit of mingling, we had an ava ceremony to welcome Groups 1 and 2 back to Samoa. The current/new Peace Corps volunteers sat on the left side of the fale while the former volunteers sat on the right side of the fale. Stephanie (a VBD volunteer, Group 76) prepared the ava and we had two people serving the ava to the former volunteers.

After the ava ceremony, the room was transformed into it's traditional setup for the fiafia. Usually the new volunteers sit in the first row but this time they sat in the second row? Why? Because this time we had the Head of State come to our fiafia (I was told that we would have the Prime Minister, but I was happier to have the Head of State because he's actually a friend of the College and plays tennis here on Friday nights). So Kim, the Head of State and the US Charge' sat on the front row. We had all the usual parts of the fiafia (Sasa, slap dance, haka) but this time we threw in a slide show to show the former volunteers what the current volunteers in Samoa are doing. As always, the highlight of the night is the Siva Afi. We weren't able to get Hogan this time, but we got the next best thing. Remember, a few posts back I was talking about a student at Chanel named Nuuiva (she's also in one of my YouTube videos). Well she performed at our fiafia and was a hit. I didn't tell her before hand that the Head of State was going to be in attendance – didn't want to spook her. But he seemed quite impressed by her and after the siva afi, Kevin introduced her to the Head of State (I later learned that once she was done she was totally wiped out – I guess she was a bit overwhelmed by meeting the Head of State, who is like a Samoan King). The last part of the night is always the Taupou, who is usually a female from the senior group and for this fiafia the senior group is us – Group 75 and our Taupou was Candice. She brought the sisters from St. Mary's to help her get ready and she did an amazing job. A lot of folks came up and slapped money on her and some of the sisters helped her show off her Maliue(sp?) which is the traditional Samoan woman's tattoo Candice got a few weeks back.

I think that this was the best Peace Corps fiafia I have had in Samoa – it went smoothly which is always a plus. I was running all over the place, but what would a fiafia be without me not trying to help out behind the scenes. After this fiafia, I don't know how you could possibly top it – so I won't! It was a great last fiafia. It's kind of funny – in the middle of the fiafia, I was so busy that I was just thinking about the current moment. But once everyone left and I was sitting in the Falesamoa with some of my students (who got the leftover food), that's when it hit me – this was my last fiafia. It was huge, no doubt – but this is the last one. I can remember how overwhelming the first one seemed and the last one seemed just as overwhelming, but in a different way. I was just glad to be able to provide a great atmosphere for the party and everyone went away happy – although oddly enough the best fiafia (which is this one) left me with the least amount of leftover food…so it wasn't all good in the end. :) Now the only question is – will I be coming back to Samoa in 40 years to celebrate the 80^th anniversary of Peace Corps Samoa (if they're still here)? I'll come back at some point…hopefully it'll be a lot sooner the 40 years. Last night felt like a passing of the torch kinda deal – hopefully the next person can run with it better then I did. L8r.

Two Years Later…. (Written 10/15/07)

2007-10-15T22:15:00.001-11:00

This weekend is White Sunday weekend, which means that it's a 3 day holiday – good way to get ready for the final leg of my Peace Corps adventure. So what did I do this weekend? Just a little bit of hanging around and relaxing.

On Sunday (yesterday), I went to the morning church service at Peace Chapel and they had a special production from the youth of the church. White Sunday is a day dedicated to the children of Samoa, so the kid's had the opportunity to run the morning and night service. The reason behind White Sunday (that I have heard) is that it's a special day for the children of Samoa because of all the children that died during the flu epidemic that occurred here after the first Europeans arrived – don't quote me on that though. Last year, the White Sunday service was a bit of a mish mash of songs and plays. This year, there was a theme – "Mystery World Tour" – where the kids pretended to take the church on an airplane ride across the world, stopping in various countries along the way. When we "stopped" in a country, some of the kids would do a song and dance that represented that part of the world and how God is affecting it or can affect it. They (along with the Sunday School teachers) put a lot of effort into the choreography, set design and music and it went off without a hitch – or without a lot of problems when you're dealing with 5 – 13 year olds. In case you're wondering, the countries that were represented in the play were: China, India, Iraq, Israel, USA, Brazil, South Africa and Samoa. The coolest part of the play was when the older youth (13-18) acted as stewardess and gave out in-flight refreshments. That's when the fantasy of this play set in – they gave out way more food then any airline would give you!

After the church service, I headed over to Candice's house to see her new tattoo. Candice got a Malue(sp?) which is a traditional Samoan tattoo for women located primarily around the thighs. She had it done last Sunday and this was my first time getting a really good look at it. She had been saying she would get one since our first year here, so this one wasn't a surprise to me. So she explained to me all the various parts of the tattoo and what they meant – it was quite interesting and she definitely did her research before getting it done. It took about 3.5 hours to do the whole thing which is a long time to be having your skin poked and prodded at. The funny part is that we (Group 75) consider Candice one of the toughest females in our group and she showed me the pictures of her getting the tattoo and it looks like she's just sleeping right through it – not in pain at all. She told me she was in pain but that's part of the process of getting the tattoo – no pain, no gain. After talking about the tattoo, we started talking about how strange it was that we were actually going to miss this place when we leave in a few months. All of us (Group 75) have made our own community in Samoa (away from the other Peace Corps) that we will really miss once it's time to say goodbye. That conversation got me to thinking about the two years that Peace Corps asks us to serve in a foreign land. Some people ask "Why do you have to do two years? Why not one?" and after talking to Candice, I realize why 2 years are better then one. It's only after 2 years that you really feel connected to a place – during the first year, there were times when I felt lonely and wanted to go home, there were times when I wanted to quit, there were times when I absolutely hated this place and everyone in it…that's all normal and it usually happens during the first year. So if you only stay for one year, you don't get to work past all that junk – that junk is what you remember and take back with you. But there was some point (for Candice, myself and I'm sure others as well) where we got past that point of this feeling like a foreign land and it starting to feel like home. Last year, I couldn't wait to go home – this year, I can't imagine leaving. I also asked Candice what her favorite memory of Samoa is and she said that whatever her favorite memory was, it would have something to do with the folks that she lives with (Catholic Sisters/Sara) and that's so true…my favorite memories from this place are focused around the community that has been built around me (The Marist Fathers/Phillips Family/Pati Family) – they make this place special. Folks always ask me "When you leave, are you going to miss this place?" and I always say "No, I'll miss the people." When you live in foreign land like this – it's really only after 2 years that you can say that and mean it. So as always, it was an enlightening and great conversation.

After leaving Candice's and making a stop over at St. Joe's to visit Ryan, I headed home. While at Ryan's I saw an ad in the newspaper advertising a $9 special to call the US. This is a really big deal because usually these types of offers only apply to New Zealand and Australia calls (which means nothing to me). So I decided I would call the one person who I have not talked to in a while – my mom. As it goes with my calls, it was a total surprise. She picked up the phone and it took her a while to realize that it was me. It was great to hear her voice – since the last time I heard it was in May. The call had to be limited to 30 minutes, so we crammed a lot of stuff in the conversation but during our talk she reminded me that it was two years ago that day (Sunday) that I got on a plane and headed to LA. So that made it even more special – to call on the day that I left home. (Which means that on this Tuesday, it will have been 2 years since I last stepped foot in America). So that was another good white Sunday conversation.

At 6pm, I did something I rarely ever do – I went back down to church for the evening service. This was a continuation of the morning service, which means the kids ran it again. But this time the play was about a young boy coming to Christ and trying to change his life. It was special to me because the two lead characters in this play I know – Grace (of the Phillips family) and Shaka (Eugene's son – Eugene is the owner of the ClickNet internet café and husband of Jackie, one of our country directors). So I definitely wanted to be there to support them and see how they did. I could tell that Shaka was a bit nervous – this was his first big time performance – but he did a great job and had all his lines well memorized. It was also special because Eugene, Shaka's father, actually came to the church to support his son. While Jackie has come to the church a few times (specifically for the Esther production the church did a while back), Eugene had never been – so it was a good night all around.

So you would think that after having such a semi-busy day on Sunday, that I would use Monday to relax and possibly get some work done. You would be mistaken my friend. Instead, I woke up at around 7:30am in order to head off with Kevin and Pio (two of the Marist fathers who live next door to me) to Lake Lanoto'o. Lake Lanoto'o is a fresh water crater lake that I have always wanted to visit but had yet to get around to doing it. It's definitely not a hike you want to go on alone, so being able to go with those two was a great blessing. We also stopped to pick up Sister Carmel, who works at St. Mary's College (the same college Candice and Sara work at). The entrance to the lake is located towards the top of the main cross-island road and along a 4WD road. This would be the first time Kevin, Pio and I have come to this lake – Sister Carmel had been here before, but it was 4 years ago…so basically we were hoping that the path would be clear as to where we needed to go. We got as close as we were comfortable with to the main entrance of the lake path and then walked from there. It was really a great day for a hike because it was overcast with just a bit of drizzle – so it wasn't unbearably hot. During the ride up to the entrance of the mountain, we joked about how none of us really knew the path and hopefully the path would be clear with no splits. Guess what – there was a split! There was a point where we could either go straight into the bushes or right down a clearer path. Since I knew the lake was located on a mountain, I thought going down wouldn't be the best plan – but we took the chance and took the path to the right. 13 minutes later, we came back to the split and went straight.

The main path to the lake was windy and muddy – I was really glad I didn't bring any clothes that I was fond of. I'm not the most graceful person in the world, nor am I the fastest when it comes to hiking such as this – which means I was slipping all over the place, grabbing onto the foliage as well as being the last person because I was taking my time. I had on some clothes toes sandals which were slipping and sliding on my feet, Kevin and Carmel had shoes on which were darn near destroyed by the mud and Pio took off his sandals so he could walk barefoot on the rocks. It took us about an hour to make it to the lake and it was quite a sight to behold. Lake Lanoto'o is a freshwater lake because nothing feeds into it – since it's on top of a mountain, I think the only water that keeps it filled is rain water. There were goldfish in the water as well (which is why the place is sometimes called 'Goldfish Lake'), so that just reinforced the fact that it was freshwater. It is a big lake too – it looked like it was a football field long and wide (with water, it's hard to judge distance) but it was fairly deep. I didn't go to far into the water because I wanted to save my leg strength for the walk back home but I walked out far enough to where the water came up to my neck. We had lunch there and relaxed for a bit – trying to get some of the mud off before getting some new mud on our way back. The strange thing about all that mud is that it's the dry season right now, which means that while it rains – it doesn't rain non-stop. I would not even think about trying to do this hike during the wet season, you would be slipping and sliding all over the place with no traction. According to Lonely Planet, the bottom of Lake Lanoto'o has never been found – so it's pretty deep for a Crater Lake. Once we were all rested up, we started our walk back up the mountain and as tends to be the case, the journey back didn't feel as long as the journey going towards the lake. Just as we were leaving the area it began to rain down hard, so our timing was perfect. Just to show you how varied the weather can be on a small island, up in the mountains it was cold and raining but once we got back down to sea level it was warm and not raining at all. Once we got home, the first thing I did was take a nice cold shower…it'll probably take a few showers to get all of the dirt off (ahh, what I wouldn't give for a bath right now).

So I would say that was a fairly productive 3 days rest – got to see 2 plays, had a nice reminisce, talked with mom and checked something new off of my Samoan to-do list. Not bad at all! L8r.

Taking Stock (Written 10/9/07)

2007-10-10T00:09:00.001-11:00

That time has finally come again…that time when I sit back and marvel at how far I've come in a year. Only this time, there's something just a little bit different about it – maybe realizing that this is my last year in Samoa is finally starting to dawn on me. As I write this blog entry, it's 11:36pm on Tuesday night and the newest group of Peace Corps Volunteers (Group 79) are 6 hours away from arriving in country. 6 hours before the end becomes a harsh reality. Everyone told me and it is definitely true – the second year goes by so fast. And you want to know the strangest thing – this just dawned on my today – for the first time in my life, I don't know where I will be one year from now. For as long as I could remember, I always had some idea where I would be in life a year from the time I thought about it. That's how organized I am – preplanned everything. When I applied for Peace Corps in October 2004, I knew I would be in another country in October 2005. In October 2005, I knew I would be amazed by the fact that I was about to live an entire year in a foreign land. In October 2006, I knew I would be hitting the end of the marathon known as Peace Corps by the next year. But now we arrive at October 2007, and I have no idea where or what I will be doing a year from now. Before, this type of situation would have scared me to death – not knowing things is not a natural state for me. When I came to Samoa, I was pretty organized and had to have things happen a certain way or I got kind of frustrated. But now, since I have had things go my way and I've had things not go my way – my mindset has changed and the unknown doesn't scare me as much (although, it's still scary don't get me wrong). It's amazing what throwing someone into the fire can do.

As I previously mentioned, Group 79 is currently on a plane over the Pacific headed for this small island. Normally we would have their welcome fiafia during their first week here, but not this time. Why? Because we will also be joined by a Peace Corps Samoa Group 2 Reunion and I don't think a lot of them will be in until next week – so we're delaying the fiafia until next Friday (October 19). How appropriate that the greatest group ever (Group 75) leaves after the biggest fiafia ever. If you can't top it – why try? Anyway, as before I will be involved in some training session for this group but this will be the first group where I am literally in the same position as a few of the volunteers I met when I was coming through training. By the time Group 79 gets done with their training, a lot of us Group 75ers will be gone – so for the most part we'll just be vague memories to them…kinda sad in a way. But such is the overturning life of a Peace Corps Volunteer.

One thing I have to mention though is the fact that we are now in our third term of school, which means that it's time for our kids to take their final exams and start preparing for their national exams in a few weeks. Now you would think that the students would be motivated to get good marks on their exams because it helps improve their grades – but school marks don't have the same impact as they do in the states, which means the kids don't really take them as seriously as they should (you can bomb your final exam and get a good mark on the national exam. The only one people really care about is your national exam results). So for my Year 13 students, I tend to give them a bit of a motivation to try to improve their grades and try harder – since the fear of failing is not there (seriously, kids think getting a 50 out of a 100 is actually good). For their mid-term exams, the prize was group based which worked for the most part but I didn't get the motivation I was expecting. So this time the prize was individual based which meant they were competing with each other instead of trying to bring each other up (somehow the competitiveness got their attention, but the teamwork part didn't fly at all). The prizes were given to me by the last person to send me a package in Samoa – one of my best friends, Jonas. He sent me 2 flash drives which were to small for me to use but would be big enough for my students to use. Since most of the flash drives in Samoa cost over $70 tala, getting a flash drive is a big deal – but they had to earn it by getting good scores and/or improving their mark from their midterm exam. So I had two criteria for winning the prize, one prize per year 13 class. The first criteria was the person who scored above a 95 on the exam, would get the prize. I had never seen anyone score above a 92 on any of my exams, so I wanted to be impressed before I left. If no one in the class got above a 95, then the person who had the biggest improvement from their midterm exam would win the flash drive. This was an important piece (instead of saying whoever gets the highest score – even if it's below 95 – would get the prize) because it allowed students who don't get the top marks in the class to have a shot at earning something special, when they are usually in the middle or bottom of the class. Apparently, this motivational tactic did the trick because my year 13 students were very interested in asking me tons of questions from the study guide I gave to them. I quickly graded the exams over the weekend and had one person who got above a 95 (Manipola) and one person who had the biggest change from their midterm exam (Sophia). Manipola is my top student and even though she said she didn't care about winning the flash drive, it seemed to spur her on to try harder and study more which resulted in her receiving a 96 – the highest mark of my tenure at Chanel. Sophia is an average student but she had a dramatic improvement from her midterm exams – she had improved by 30 marks. So it felt good to have people who met both criteria's so the students could see that it does pay to get better at something – even if you're not considered the best.

And with that, I am off. The next time you read a blog posting from me, this island will be filled with a ton of new faces from America. The biggest question will be – when and where will I run into them first? I usually see them at the fiafia, but since that's a week off I will either see them at ClickNet or at the diversity session next week. Either way, it's going to be hard looking this last group in the face – they literally represent the end for me. L8r.

The MJ Adventure TV - New Addition

2007-10-09T16:44:00.000-11:00

Just wanted to bring to your attention the newest addition to the MJTV portion of the photo albums on the sidebar. They now include videos from my trip to New Zealand earlier this year. Yeah, I know it only includes 5 videos but they're good. Hope you enjoy!

The end begins (Written 9/30/07)

2007-09-30T21:44:00.001-11:00

So a few entries back I was talking about how hard it's going to be to say goodbye to the community that has been built around me for the past 2 years. Well there's one community that has been with me since the very beginning of this journey – Group 75. We've gone through a lot over these past years and have seen both the good and bad sides of Samoa – together. It's always hard to say goodbye to any of our group members, but it's even harder when it's the proper time to leave. The time has come for us to start thinking about packing up our things and moving on to our next adventure – the first Group 75er to start that task is Holly. Holly will be the first member of our group to COS (Completion of Service) and thus she's the first one to officially complete all of her 2 year service. Now, the great thing about Holly making it to this point is that when we first met she didn't believe she could do it – she didn't think she could make it. A funny story I always remember is that she brought a credit card with her (when we first arrived in Samoa) just in case she decided to buy a ticket home. There have been a ton of close calls with her (she was thinking about leaving while I was in New Zealand, trying to sneak out under my nose) but I'm glad to see that she made it all the way through – she finished the race. The best part is, out of all the remaining members of Group 75 she's the one that the new people know the best…so once she's gone, Group 75 will become myths and legends because none of us really hang around the other Peace Corps volunteers a lot.

So yesterday (Saturday), the 9 members left in our group (Holly, Ryan, Julya, Sara, Dianne, Bryan, John, Candice and myself) got together – with Kim, our country director – for dinner at Chopsticks which is a Chinese restaurant located close to the Peace Corps office. This was the first get together we have had since the COS conference a few weeks back – and this was the last time we would all be together in Samoa. When we sat down at the table, it was shocking to see that there were so few of us left. We had a good time – as we always do together – and the meal was good. Kim brought her daughter, Mya, who's like 3 years old and just recently learned how to walk…so she was bouncing around everywhere. It was fun to get to hang out with Kim in a non-Peace Corps capacity because we have all been through some rough times – especially over the past year – so we just wanted to remind her that we support her and thanked her for helping us all over these past 2 years. The only bad part was that the power kept going out in the restaurant – it went off twice while the power in the buildings around us stayed on. So even in the end, nothing goes as planned for Group 75.

Today (Sunday), I went over to St. Joe's for my semi-weekly gaming/movie afternoon with Ryan and Holly – our last time to do this together. I had not been over there since the week before the South Pacific Games (St. Joseph's was used by the Samoan SPG team, so I wanted to avoid the hassle) so it was great to be able to freely go over there. When I walked in, Holly and Ryan were playing Magic (thus cementing Holly's ubernerd status) and I promptly went into Ryan's room to play Twilight Princess on the GameCube. The great thing about our group is that we can hang around each other and not need to be overly clingy – just being in each other's presence is enough for us. It definitely feels like my friendships back at home where just hanging out at the house is good recreational fun for us. After the gaming sessions, we went to the movie theaters (we picked up Candice along the way) and went to see two separate movies: Candice and I watched 'Resident Evil: Extinction' and Holly, Ryan and Brother Steven (the principal of St. Joseph's) watched 'The Kingdom'. Resident Evil 3 was good but lacked an ending, it was an enjoyable movie and I was glad that they followed the logical conclusion for Resident Evil 2. Once the movies were done, we went to Scoops for an ice cream (another movie night tradition) and then headed home. When we got to my house, I gave Holly the biggest hug to say congratulations on completing the 2 years and this would be the last time I saw her before she left (she's leaving on Thursday).

The next person in our group probably won't leave until after November 14, but now the hard part of our Peace Corps conclusion begins – saying goodbye to the group as people slowly trickle out of the country. Like I always said, it's strange that you enter the country with such a bang but you leave the country quietly. We'll see each other stateside – this place will just feel a little bit emptier as December draws closer.

Nothing New (Written 9/21/07)

2007-09-21T14:30:00.001-11:00

Well as most of you have probably noticed, there haven't been to many blog entries since the end of the South Pacific Games. All that means is that things are returning to a sense of normalcy – we're back into the swing of school and all the traffic that magically appeared during the SPG has vanished. We started school a week earlier then the government schools because we weren't involved in hosting any of the athletes at our school. Even though we announced the fact that we would be open a week early, we still had kids who skipped a whole week of school because they "forgot". Now the third term of the school year goes by extremely fast – from the start of the term, we had only 3 weeks until the senior final exams (now 2 weeks); then it's a week dedicated to the senior exams; 3.5 more weeks of regular school and then the junior final exams (Years 9-11) and the Senior national exams (School C and PSSC). So in all we only have about 6 and a half weeks of actual teaching.

When the students who missed the first week of school came back, I grilled them to find out why they skipped school. Now they could have been honest with me, but almost all of them said that they were mysteriously sick with either a head or stomach illness last week. Now if someone were really sick for a week, they would remember the details of that sickness pretty well only a week later – but when I asked what day their illness cleared up they literally had to pause for a second to think about it. And while some kids said they got well again on Wednesday of the previous week (which happened to be the last day of a festival going on in town) they said their parents kept them home for 2 days to make sure they were okay. So this has taught me that there are no original skipping school excuses under the sun – after about the 3^rd or 4^th time I had heard the same excuse it was just getting silly.

Anyway, after dealing with the closing shenanigans of school it's nice to go to ClickNet just to hang out for a bit. I'm still helping out there on Monday and Tuesday nights, which is how I have been able to start the newest addition to the blog – MJTV. It has been a great experience seeing a business start from scratch and all the finances and hard work that go into being your own boss. It's not as easy as one would think – and you throw in the whole 'Third-World' scenario and it's a whole new ball game. A lot of the problems that reared their ugly head during the SPG (such as connection losses, downgrading of the speed, etc) have seemingly been resolved now and for the past 2 weeks things have been going pretty well. Now that the SPG is over, the customers we are seeing now are potential regulars which is good for business and the word of mouth about the place has been great…almost every time I go in there, there are at least 5 or more people at the computers. Again, 2 years ago I would have never predicted I would be a part of something like this. And the best part is that for the first time in my 2 year tenure here I didn't go to the Peace Corps office for a week. Previously, the only reason I went to the office was to take advantage of the high speed internet but with ClickNet that's no longer needed – so it was pretty interesting to not have to go there at all for a week. When I went to the office yesterday it felt like I had not been there forever.

Speaking of the Peace Corps, I am now at that point in my Volunteer life cycle where I don't spend a lot of time with other volunteers (outside of the one's in my group). It's kind of like a strange version of 'Senior-itis' in which you don't make the kind of bonds with the newer volunteers that you made with the ones that came in a year or so ago. With only a few months left, I think I'm at the point where I'm like 'It's not that I don't like you – it's that I won't have enough time to get to know you' and of course with the net and email and stuff, it's much easier to keep in touch with each other. But there's just something about leaving this bubble known as Samoa (or maybe Peace Corps in general) where a few months pass before you realize that you haven't talk to any of the volunteers still at post. I think it's also a matter of shifting priorities – during the first stage of being a volunteer, you're all about getting to know the volunteer community and bonding with them. But (hopefully) over a period of time, you spend more time in your host community then you do in the volunteer community and towards the end of the journey (which I am at, amazingly enough) you spend more time with the host community then you do with the volunteer community. It's a gradual change really – one I didn't catch until a few weeks ago. I like the community I have made here and I'm really going to miss it when I leave. As more folks realize that I only have a few months left, they all ask the same question 'Can't you extend?' (to which the answer is 'I could' but like Michael Jordan, I'm going out on top) and 'Are you going to miss this place?' My response is always the same, I won't miss the place – I'll miss the people. If I could take the folks I know here and transport them to the states, leaving would be incredibly easy. But that's not possible, so it's just the fact that I could either never see these folks again or it could be a a few years before I'm able to come back which makes these last few months the most difficult.

But I will enjoy my last few months and I have a big gap of time between when school ends and when I will be heading home, so I will have more then enough time to do the whole g-thing. But for now, I've got to successfully make it to the end of this third term. While nothing in life is 'new' here anymore, this whole ending deal sucks. L8r.

Taking the Adventure to a new level

2007-09-18T22:05:00.001-11:00

Alright, now for your viewing pleasure I have added a link to a video channel where I am uploading (and collecting) videos about my time in Samoa and Samoa in general. The link can be found in the Photo Album section under the name 'MJTV - Samoa'. I hope you enjoy it and just like the photos I will place a date next to when it is updated. L8r.

SPG Live!

2007-09-17T21:55:00.001-11:00

Alright, so with my new found internet access thanks to ClickNet I thought I would join in on this whole YouTube craze. So I have uploaded a video clip from the opening ceremonies of the SPG for your enjoyment. You can access it via this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlFHoZKQs3E

Also, I talked about one of my friends (Fila) winning a gold medal at, you can see her gold medal (and Zonder's silver medal) at this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWNRTEvBiao

The SPG lives on folks!!

SPG Lives on!

2007-09-17T19:44:00.001-11:00

I know, you just can't get enough of the South Pacific Games so for your viewing pleasure I have added more pictures to my own personal SPG Photo Album. I have also added a link to what could be considered the 'Official SPG Photos' (although it's being hosted by Picasa). Enjoy the sites of the South Pacific Games 2007!

SPG Wrap-Up (Written 9/8/07)

2007-09-09T09:44:00.001-11:00

After 2 weeks of competition and congested traffic, the South Pacific Games finally come to a close. After seeing how good the opening ceremonies were, I decided to buy my ticket as far in advance of today as possible – good thing I did, I heard that they were sold out of tickets by Wednesday (tickets went on sale on Monday, I bought my ticket on Tuesday). This time I was able to get a ride from Kevin (my principal) which allowed me to leave from my house instead of having to try to find a ride to the stadium.

We left for Apia Park at around 6:30pm (the ceremonies started at 8pm) and just like for the opening ceremonies, the streets were literally packed with cars and buses trying to get to the park. Instead of trying to park close to Apia Park, Kevin and I parked in a little parking area that was close to the Peace Corps office and walked the rest of the way. It was only about a 10 minute walk from the park, but so much better then trying to make our way through the bumper to bumper traffic – plus, getting out would be so much easier for us compared to the folks trying to park inside Apia Park. Kevin had a grandstand ticket and I had a general admission ticket (same type I had for the opening ceremonies), so we went our separate ways at the gate. As soon as I walked into the park, I knew there were a lot more people here compared to the opening ceremonies. I guess everyone saw how great the opening ceremonies were and decided that they had to be at the closing ceremonies. I mean every single area where a person could stand or sit was taken – there were people literally sitting in the side rafters.

The ceremonies began with the march of nations, this time without the introductions, so the athletes just walked around the track waving at everyone. I once again got photos of Zonder, Fila and Karl with their medals which was nice. Janita, a NZ friend of Sara's, also got to walk around the track because she has been heavily involved in organizing the SPG for about a year or so now – it was quite fun seeing our friends in this sort of spotlight. As some of the countries were walking around the track, a few of them did a Haku on both sides of the park – which got the crowd super excited and pump. After all the nations marched onto the field, the athletes sat on the track to watch the closing ceremonies.

After the march, came some singing and dancing from students who performed during the opening ceremonies. It was nice and in some ways better then the one they did at the opening ceremonies. The only thing that was bad about these ceremonies was the fact that when people got up to speak (such as the Archbishop of Samoa and the SPG Samoa Chairman), they were only speaking through the speakers facing the big grandstand so the people in the small grandstand (i.e. the area I was in) were unable to hear them talk…which led to people getting restless. After the speaking and dancing, they lowered the SPG flag and handed it over to New Caledonia, who will be hosting the 2011 South Pacific Games (maybe I will reapply to Peace Corps New Caledonia?!?). They had a culture group from New Caledonia come up and perform – they literally looked like bush people. It was quite interesting but the most interesting part is the lack of excitement from the audience – there was literally dead silence, which I have never seen in Samoa when it comes to any sort of cultural dance (I've seen them get excited for things from Vanuatu, Tonga, Fiji – so it was quite different). SPG New Caledonia's gonna have its work cut out for it if this is the type of reaction they're going to get in 4 years.

Once the SPG flag was handed over to the representatives of New Caledonia, I'm thinking that the Chairman of the SPG organizing committee came up and spoke a few words (we could actually hear him). He made some interesting comments:

- There were 33 sports played during this South Pacific Games. The next SPG will only have 28 games.

- 4,400 Athletes and thousands of volunteers were taken care of during these past 2 weeks. The most amazing thing is that they were all fed and (the athletes) all had good accommodations during their time here. This is the biggest event that Samoa has ever dealt with and they came through with flying colors.

- Because of the SPG, Samoa now has the best athletic facilities in the Pacific. This is both a gift and a curse – it's a gift because it could make Samoa into one of the premier sporting nations in the Pacific region. It's a curse because of the cost of maintaining these facilities – especially the swimming pool. It's the Olympic affect on a smaller scale, hopefully Samoa will be able to maintain these great facilities and use them to bring more recognition and money into the economy.

- This was considered the best SPG ever – a far cry from the doubt that many people had about the games leading up to it. While Samoans do tend to leave things until the last possible minute, somehow they usually come through – it's an amazing cultural skill.

- The chairman spoke of how Samoa did in the first SPG (i.e. not very good) and compared to how they have improved in the 13 years since that event – Samoa ended up with 44 gold medals (their goal was 50, but before now they had never done better then 25), 33 Silvers and 50 bronze medals – they were in 3^rd place in the medal count. New Caledonia was in first place, don't know who had second place – maybe Fiji?

So these South Pacific Games were quite well done and went much better then anticipated. I didn't get to go to as many sporting events as I would have liked, but I enjoyed the overall atmosphere. I am really looking forward to when the population deflates back to its usual numbers come Monday.

Now onto the funny part of the ceremony – once the event got kind of boring, people started leaving early! I was like 'What is this, a football game?' People were literally leaving in droves – I guess the closing ceremonies weren't as exciting as the opening ceremonies….until the very end. While they were singing the SPG theme song, fireworks were shot off. These fireworks were suppose to be used for the opening ceremonies, but they didn't show up in time – so the fireworks went on for like 30 minutes…they had a lot of them! I think that's the real reason that people came out in droves, they wanted to see the fireworks (which are a rare commodity in Samoa). While everyone else was looking in awe of the fireworks, I took a video of them and photos before heading for the gate to try and beat the crowd. It wasn't to bad getting out of the park because everyone was still distracted by the fireworks. I made it back to the truck and waited for Kevin to show up. When he did, we decided to let the traffic die down for a bit before venturing into it – so we went to get some ice cream while we waited (there is a ice cream place called Scoops close to the Peace Corps office – it made a killing last night because everyone was buying ice cream). After Kevin and I got our ice cream, we sat down next to an old lady (and her daughter) who asked if we were waiting on a taxi to go home – Kevin told her we were just waiting on the traffic to die down. She then asked if she could get a ride from us and Kevin said yes – now odds are this would never happen in the states, but just goes to show the generosity that is sometimes on display in Samoa. She also lived relatively close to where we were going, so it wasn't out of our way to much. This old ladies face lit up when Kevin said that she and her daughter could come with us – she told Kevin "An angel must have sent you!" and Kevin replied "No, it was this guy over here!" (pointing to me). So we finished our ice cream and Kevin went to get the car and picked all three of us up at Scoops. We decided to take the back roads instead of the main road because there was a chance that there was less traffic there – because just like in the states, after any major event everyone seems to want to take the main way out instead of taking the back ways.

So we ran into little traffic on our drive, we dropped off the lady and her daughter and then made our way home. Overall, it has been a very relaxing 3 weeks off – sad to see it end, but we've got to get this 3^rd term started. It ends November 1 so it's not to long – plus, I've got to get my kids ready for their finals and national exams….ahh, the fun is only just beginning. Plus this term features the introduction of my last group – Group 79 and the coming of Group 2. So odds are I'm going to be looking back at these 3 weeks fondly wondering how they went by so fast! L8r.

Labor Day Special

2007-09-01T14:38:00.000-11:00

Alright since this is a long weekend for folks back in the states, I thought I would give you something to do while enjoying the last weekend before the end of summer. The Photo Albums have been updated so now you can get new photos from Volunteer Life (My Birthday party pics), Samoan Scenes, Chanel College (the Vanuatu Team's visit), more pics of Group 78 - especially their swearing in ceremony - and last but not least, I now have an album dedicated to the SPG. Hope you enjoy the plethora of new pics and have a great weekend! L8r.

The Medal Rush (Written 9/1/07)

2007-09-01T12:52:00.001-11:00

So yesterday was a pretty laid back day for the most part. Instead of just spending time at home, relaxing the day away I decided it was time for me to get out and actually do something slightly productive. I spent about half the day with Eugene's kids – Shaka and Eva – just playing a little Playstation2 with them. They are usually just sitting at home doing nothing, so it was a good time for all involved and it was definitely good to feel the sensation of a PS2 controller in my hands – only a few more months till that piece of Americana is back in my possession. After doing that, I biked home real quick and took a shower before heading out the door again to go to the weekly youth meeting at Peace Chapel – The Connexion. It has been a few weeks since I have been there due to the COS conference and the Vanuatu team last week, so it was a very much missed part of my spiritual walk. After being gone for 2 weeks, the kids were still as accepting as they have always been and I didn't feel to out of place. We talked about obedience to God and what that is suppose to look like.

Once the Connexion was done, Sara, Brianna and I headed up to the Faleata Sports area to catch a little basketball. This was my first time going up to the Sports Complex area since the games started and it was amazingly busy for night time. The game we saw was Samoa vs. Guam and we arrived with 4:35 minutes left in the 4^th quarter – basically the best time to show up (and the fact that we didn't have to pay to get in also added to the enjoyment of the event). The gym was relatively full – especially for a game that a lot of people in Samoa don't watch or care about. It was a real back and forth battle between Guam and Samoa, but the big difference came with Guam being able to not only hit all their free throws but also had good shooting from the field. In the end, both teams were separated by 3 points and Samoa had a shot but missed and the final score was Guam 76 / Samoa 73. It was actually the first time I have seen Samoa lose during the SPG so that was an interesting experience – it didn't feel like folks were to heart broken about the loss. It was only like the opening round or something like that, so no medals or anything was on the line.

I also found out yesterday that the Samoan Mixed Touch Rugby team won gold on Thursday and Fila was a part of that team – meaning that Fila is now a gold medalists and she has a silver and gold medal from the SPG. Another person who goes to Peace Chapel, Karl Adams, received a bronze medal in bodybuilding (and I saw a picture of him today in the newspaper – bodybuilding is not a pretty activity folks). Last but certainly not least, the Prime Minister of Samoa received a silver medal in archery. It's a historic moment in the SPG because I believe that Samoa's Prime Minister is the first head of government to ever participate and win in the South Pacific Games. That's it, that's all folks!

One last thing, just in case you're thinking of joining the Peace Corps - know this: when you in a country, you only get the holidays off that are valid in that country - which means I won't be taking Monday off (even though I'm already on holiday). I just bring this up because Labor Day is the start of the NFL and College football season (always a great time) and is the 2nd to last American holiday I will miss before coming home. As of today, I've got a little under 2 and a half months left. The clock is ticking!

The Process (Written 8/29/07)

2007-08-29T22:43:00.001-11:00

When I arrived in Samoa 2 years ago, we (the Group 75 trainees) received a map which had the names of all the volunteers who were currently stationed in Samoa. When I came to Chanel College in December of 2005, I placed the map on my wall and used it as sort of a countdown clock for my time in Samoa. I said to myself 'When this map is all marked out, that means its time to go' and at the time that felt like such a far off prospect. But as the weeks turned into months and the months turned into a year and a half, the names on the list slowly got marked out for various reasons: completion of service, administration separation (i.e. fired from Peace Corps), early termination and medical separation – basically the whole gamut of reasons you could leave Peace Corps service. Well of one my best friends from the group that was sworn in the same year as us (2005 / Group 74), Robyn, will be leaving tomorrow afternoon because she has successfully completed her two years. With her departure, that leaves only one more member of Group 74 in country (Mark) but since he's leaving in November/December (he extended his service for a few months) Robyn is the last official member of Group 74 to leave before Group 75 (my group) becomes the "senior" group in Peace Corps Samoa.

Which means the process of leaving Samoa begins. While a few members of Group 75 are volunteering for the SPG (Bryan, John, Dianne) a lot of us are just using this time to enjoy Samoa a bit because this is our last break before school starts up again and we start barreling towards our various COS dates. It's funny how the various obstacles that presented themselves when trying to apply to Peace Corps – the paperwork, the medical stuff, making sure everything is in order – still applies in the process of going back to the states. The main difference between coming and going that I have always found interesting is that you arrive in country with such revelry and fanfare, but you leave post with just you and your bags around you – Peace Corps doesn't throw you a big going away party. Robyn will be leaving in the middle of the afternoon, which is a much better time to leave (she's going to American Samoa), but for the majority of volunteers who leave Peace Corps they do so under the cover of dark (the Air New Zealand flight to LA leaves at 12:45am every Tuesday morning). So you literally arrive with a bang and leave with a whisper. But saying goodbye to a friend that you have known for two years is definitely hard and from this point forward it doesn't get any easier. Once the games are out of the way, we will have a little over 2 months left in our service before we head for home and the reality of what that entails (getting ourselves organized, spending as much time with our friends here as possible, etc) is starting to hit home.

As for an SPG update, I was over at Paul/Viv's for bible study and was able to watch a bit of the weightlifting and swimming on television. Samoa won 9 gold medals in weightlifting thanks to 3 people in one family. Samoa also got a bronze in the 400m swimming relay I watched on TV and it was quite amazing to see one swimmer who was so good that she had half a pool lap on the next competitor. Also, while I was watching the swimming competition I saw a few Peace Corps Volunteers: Stephanie, Jordan, Sarah Swanson, Jame (Group 76), Dianne (Group 75) and Ema (Group 77) who were officials for the swimming. Peace Corps volunteers are just all over the place for these games! L8r.

Taking in the Games (Written 8/28/07)

2007-08-29T09:12:00.001-11:00

After taking Monday off to continue enjoying the rest of my school holidays, I decided that it was time for me to go watch some games today. When I headed into town, there was a visible difference in the amount of people and cars in Apia – it kind of felt like a small town which just became a mid-sized city over the course of a couple of days. There are two main areas where the games are taking place – Apia Park (which is a stadium) and the Faleata Sports Area (which houses various sporting venues such as swimming, basketball, beach volleyball, etc). Now, in the paper they have been advertising special bus routes for the games over the past 2 weeks (including a week and a half leading up to the games). So since these routes were printed in the same area that stated the tickets for the various games and were printed in the newspaper, one would assume that these special buses were meant for the general public to use in order to make it easier for them to get to the games. Unfortunately, that sort of logic doesn't work here sometimes – but we'll get to that in a second.

My original plan was to go to the Faleata Sports area and watch Judo and maybe catch a little swimming, but then I found out that today was the last day of Touch Rugby for the individual men's and women's team – which meant it was the final games for Fila and Zonder's team (they are both competing in the mixed rugby team, but I wanted to catch them with their original teams). So I decided to just go to Apia Park and watch them compete. Fila and Zonder's team did really well when I saw them and after playing 3 games in one day – both teams made it to the finals, where they were guaranteed either a silver or gold medal. I was only able to stay for Fila's match against the Cook Islands, but unfortunately Samoa lost so Fila received a silver medal. Even though its not the gold they envisioned, just to be rewarded for her 8 months of preparation has to be a major accomplishment. After I left, I found out that Zonder (the Men's Touch rugby team) also won a silver medal – so both of my friends are now SPG medalists. Now that's cool!

Janita, a NZ friend of Sara and I, has been working for the SPG for the past year and offered to give us a ride into town – which we gladly accepted. On the ride into town, the question was asked about how are people suppose to get up to the Faleata area (since 20 of the 70+ buses on Upolu are being used on these special routes for the games) and I stated 'Oh, you just use one of those special buses located at Apia Park'. Janita then corrected me and stated that those buses were only for the SPG volunteers and athletes – if you're just a common man you have to find your own way up there. Which means either taking a bus (and finding out which bus goes up to Faleata – there are no regular bus schedules in Samoa) or taking a cab (which is $7WST one way). I was shocked because to me it doesn't make any sense to advertise bus routes in the paper that only certain people can use. So that's yet another obstacle in going to see the games – they were suppose to make this easier, not harder (it's harder because with the SPG using about 20 or so buses, there are fewer buses available for regular people to use which causes a longer wait for the buses that are still in service). So hopefully I'll get up to the Faleata complex, but probably not as often as I would have liked – the pains of not having a car!

Anyway, after finding out about the buses I went into town and went to ClickNet to help Eugene for the night. I had offered to help run his shop for a couple of nights over the next 2 weeks so that he could take a break and spend some time with his family (for the past 3 weeks, he has been at the shop from 8am to 10pm and going home very tired). Fortunately, since I had been involved since the creation of the internet café, I knew a few of the major points that needed to be made so it was a full crash course. At around 6pm, he finally left and once again I was placed into a situation that I probably not have encountered in the states – running an internet café. For about an hour or so, the place was pretty quiet and I thought it was going to be a slow night. But around 6pm, a group of Mormons came into the café to use the computers – so basically the place got super busy all at one time. These were Mormon missionaries who were helping with the games, so they were all wearing the same uniform – but you could still tell they were Mormons. The weirdest part was once they sat down, they were all using the same webmail client – which was not hotmail, gmail or yahoo – but some special Mormon webmail client. You learn something new everyday. After that group came in, the place was just busy for about the next 2.5 hours with people coming in and out at regular intervals. When I helped out at ClickNet on Monday a few of the other internet cafes in the area were still open at 4:30pm – which is the traditional closing time in Samoa – but today (Tuesday) there was only one other place open besides us and everyone was coming to ClickNet. And of course the main perk for me was to be able to have access to true broadband internet for over 3 hours – not quite like one of those SPG badges that get you access to the venues and food – but it will do. As I was sitting there watching the customers and making sure that everything was going okay, it took me back to my retail days at Kroger (a grocery store that's popular in the SouthEast portion of the states). This time instead of being a lackey, I was the boss and it felt just as hectic as being the HOD of computer studies – everything runs through you and you have to make sure everything is okay. It wasn't to much pressure but it was an interesting feeling. We literally had customers in the shop up until closing time (and like a business run in the states, we only kicked them out of the café at 10pm – not 9:50pm so that we could clean up and get out of the place at 10pm). Eugene came back to the store in order to give us a ride home but when he saw the cash from the night (he cleaned out the register before he left to go home at 6pm, so there wasn't much in there when he left – but there was a lot when he came back) he noted that it was a good night, which was definitely an improvement over Monday night when we literally had to turn people away because SamoaTel was having problems with their internet connection.

So I won't be helping on Wednesday night because of my bible study, but I'll be back in action on Thursday night. Now it's a question of will I be making the same effort to go see these games up at the Faleata area over the next few days – we'll see. L8r.

SPG Volunteer Profile: Stephanie Hsu

2007-08-28T18:06:00.001-11:00

A few of the volunteers are giving up their time to work for the SPG. Here's an article about one of them, Stephanie:

http://www.samoa2007.ws/index.php?id=98&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=95&tx_ttnews[backPid]=99&cHash=541660fa1f

…..The XIII South Pacific Games – Samoa 2007 (Written 8/25/07)

2007-08-26T08:37:00.001-11:00

Note: This is a long post. Viewer Discretion is Advised.

The day after hosting the Vanuatu team at our school, the day had finally arrived to welcome all the teams of the South Pacific Games (SPG) to Samoa – today was the opening ceremony for the games. This again was one of those weird days where it just hit me full force that the SPG has finally arrived and not only is it going to happen – but Samoa actually looks ready to hold it. But as always, let's start at the beginning of the day and build to the big finish.

So I started the day by going down to the Chanel Rugby field to see how the church sports day was going – I didn't make it down yesterday, so I just wanted to make sure everything was still going well. I ran into a lot of familiar faces from church, but the person I was looking forward to talking to was Cecil. This was my first time talking to him since he arrived in country and moved to Savaii about a month ago. I asked him how Savaii and the village life was treating him – he said he's not really living the village life right now because he's living with the pastor of the church he's working for. And if you know nothing else about Samoan culture, know this – in a village the nicest house with the most amenities usually belongs to the pastor of the village (Pastor Samoa – the pastor of Peace Chapel – is different in that he's holding off on building his nice, beautiful home until the new church is built). So Cecil is hoping to move out of that situation in a few months, once they get use to him and stop treating him like a guest. It was fun hearing about his experiences in the village because they reminded me of my first few months in country when I stayed at Falevao and he's discovering things about Samoa that I can't discuss on this blog. Yes, I know – it's shocking that I am not letting all the details about Samoa out through this blog. I have to leave something to talk about with folks when I get back home! Anyway, I chatted with him for a bit and met the pastor that he's living with. His church (Cecil) was the only one to bring youth from Savaii, so it was definitely a good opportunity to just see where he was at. He is called Tomasi (sp?) in his village because his middle name is Thomas and he was basically there to take photos and videos of the youth for the church.

After leaving Cecil, I hopped on the bus and made the highly anticipated trip into town. Since today was the opening ceremonies for the games, I knew Apia was just going to be packed with people from different pacific nations. Oh how right I was – within about 2 minutes of me stepping off the bus into town, I saw folks walking around wearing different team uniforms – some from the Solomon Islands, some from Papua New Guinea, some from the Cook Islands – it was a veritable smorgasbord of athletes from the south pacific nations. While I was walking around, I realized that all of these foreigners introduce a new problem for me – not traffic related at all, although it now feels like every car in Samoa is being utilized for the games. Before the games, I was basically stared at by Samoan because of the color of my skin – they thought I was from a Micronesian country or they have never seen a black person before in their life. Now I'm being stared at because they think I'm an athlete – I've been asked twice already what sport am I competing in. So the more things change, the more they stay the same. I took this opportunity of walking around in town to go to the movies and see 'The Simpsons Movie'. Just to show you how much Samoa doesn't 'get' the Simpsons, on the ticket to the movie it says 'Simson'…not exactly the same thing. This was also the first movie that I've gone to in Samoa where the movie actually started late and when it began the theater was not crowded at all – it was mainly filled with people from other countries. So with a low amount of Samoans in the audience, this was my opportunity to see how other Pacific Islanders would react to a movie – would they be bored to tears, would they laugh at the appropriate times – and nothing test this theory like 'The Simpsons movie' because a lot of the humor is sarcastic and there wasn't a lot of action (which are the type of movies Samoans are more attracted to). I was pretty shocked when the theater laughed at the appropriate time and they seemed to understand all the jokes in the movie. It was one of the few times I felt like I was back in a theater at home because everyone laughed at the same time instead of laughing at inappropriate points in the movie.

With the movie done – it was good, not great but after 2 years of no new Simpsons episodes it felt great – I headed to the Peace Corps office to take a little nap before heading to the opening ceremonies. I knew tonight was going to be a long one so I had to make sure that I had enough energy to get me through the night. The office was crowded with volunteers (both old and Group 78) who were waiting on the internet to start and were headed to the opening ceremonies – and if you know me, you know I don't really like crowds of people in small spaces. So at 4pm, I headed over to Lorna's place to catch a ride to the opening ceremonies and she would give me a ride home (because catching a taxi after the opening would be near impossible and I probably wouldn't get home till like 12am). When I arrived at her house, I met Naomi and Maria – two of Fila's sisters – who were visiting for the two weeks to support Fila in the games. I had previously met both of them while I was in New Zealand and their family had a karaoke night the night before New Year's Eve. So it was quite fun seeing these folks that I saw and know from New Zealand on my home turf now – where no karaoke was sung, no matter how much they tried to get me to do it. At 5pm we headed to Apia Park – where the opening would be held – and promptly ran into more traffic then I have ever seen in Samoa. Our original plan was to park at Paul/Viv's house because they live close to Apia Park and we would know that the car was safe – but the police blocked the road to their house, so that was out of the question. Instead, we parked on the side of the road outside of Apia Park and unlike almost every other sporting event I have ever been to – there was no worry about someone towing your car, they only have like 2 tow trucks in Samoa and not nearly enough space to tow all the cars that were illegally parked tonight. With the car safely parked, we headed to the park gate (Lorna, Naomi, Maria and I) where we had to split up – they bought the $20 tala tickets which were good for sitting in the grandstands while I bought the $10 tala tickes which were good for sitting in the stands opposite the grandstands. The $20 tickets placed you higher so you could see all of the activities on the field, whereas the $10 tickets placed me lower to the ground and while I didn't have a good vantage point on the field activities I was able to take better pictures of the athletes once they entered the stadium.

At 6pm, the ceremonies began and there was a sense of international flair that came from the PA system – they said everything in English and in French, so it was like one line in English, followed by one line in French. Also, while I was walking around I ran into John Harrold who is volunteering as a journalist for the games – he was walking around taking loads of pictures (might give me a run for my money one day). I also ran into Amos, Vik, Sarah Swanson, Tim and Dylan – but for the most part, I was just hanging out by myself taking as many photos/videos as I could. The first part of the program involved in the Head of State of Samoa arriving at the stadium. Now this was interesting on my part because I know he's a very humble man and probably, deep inside, he probably felt like the whole process was a bit much but it was just funny seeing a white limo drive up to the grandstands across from me, let the Head of State out of the car and then watch him walk up to his seat in the grandstands – why he didn't have a seat closer to the ground, I don't know. After the welcoming of the Head of State, they sang the national anthem and followed that with the opening prayer. It was at this point that thousands of kids ran out onto the field to perform the opening dance – these school kids were provided by various secondary schools in Samoa but the two that stood out to me were St. Mary's (Sara and Candice's school) and Don Bosco (Jeff's – Group 77 – school). After their opening dance number, the announcer introduced the ava ceremony to the foreigners and then they actually performed an ava ceremony at the opening – it was quite amazing. The first person they served that ava to was the Head of State, who was up in the grand stands, so a guy had to run from the field to the middle of the grandstands and then back down again – again, don't know why they didn't give the Head of State a lower seat but oh well. I think the next people that were served were the Prime Minister, the CEO of games from Samoa and the President of the SPG. With the ava ceremony done, they told two Samoan stories through dance – one involved Sina and Tuna (A girl and a fish) and the other involved Afi/Nafanua (Fire and the Samoan god that welcomed Christianity to Samoa). During the second dance, they performed actual fire dancing on the field and had kids holding a bunch of lit torches – which led me to thinking, did they have a plan B if it was raining during the ceremonies? Once the dance numbers were done, it was time for the March of Nations – if you've ever seen the Olympics, you've seen this – where the nations who are participating in the games march around the stadium. Watching all these athletes from the south pacific made me realize how important this event is to them – it's kind of like a true mini-olympics for them. I think a lot of these countries will participate in Beijing next year during the Olympics but not all of them, so this may be their only chance to compete on an international stage. It was at the moment that I was happy to be a part of this event – to be standing in the audience, cheering these south pacific nations on. It seemed like every country in the South Pacific (excluding Australia and New Zealand) were represented at the games and a few of them had quite a large delegation of athletes (probably to compete in every sport the games offer). So I'm going to list the countries that are competing – so get out a map and try to find them all:

Fiji (Large Delegation)

American Samoa

Cook Islands

French Polynesia/Tahiti (Large Delegation)

Micronesia

Guam

Kiribati

Marshall Islands

New Caledonia (Large Delegation)

Nauru

Niue

Norfolk Islands

Palau

Papua New Guinea (Large Delegation)

Northern Marianas

Solomon Islands (Large Delegation)

Tokelau

Tonga (Large Delegation)

Tuvalu

Vanuatu

Wallace & Fatuna

Samoa (Large Delegation)

So you take a guess as to who got the largest cheer from the audience? The stadium literally exploded when Team Samoa was introduced, so you know that had to feel like a great sensation for the athletes. Tonga also got a big reaction as well but I think that's because, other then Fiji, that's probably the only other nation a lot of the Samoans recognized. Watching the athletes walk around the stadium, you could definitely feel their excitement and joy to be participating in the games – they were dancing with the kids, joking with the audience – it was just a great amount of energy in the stadium from them. A few of the large delegations took a while to get around the stadium because they were messing around so much, but the best country (other then Samoa) was definitely Tahiti – they were all just having so much fun, it was palpable. Of course, once Team Samoa started walking around the stadium everyone got up and started applauding them. Now this is when something unexpected happen for me – as you notice from the list above, American Samoa is part of the games which means that the US is represented here (they even had the American flag along side the American Samoa flag) and I thought I would be super happy to cheer for them….but it didn't happen. It was like 'Yeah, American Samoa….alright, next' (which was the same reaction from a lot of Samoans). But once Team Samoa came out, that's when I cheered the loudest and got excited – it definitely felt to me like they were my home country team. I don't know if that's good or bad – after 2 years, is this place starting to feel like home and it took an event like this to make me realize that? I don't know but it was definitely an unexpected moment. The best part of welcoming out Team Samoa was that I actually know people who are on the team – primarily Zonder and Fila who are playing Touch Rugby. Fila is the captain of the Women's touch rugby team, so that was just an added bonus on top of being able to represent her country in the games. I felt bad for the drummers of the games though, they were drumming for the entire March of Nations, which had to be like 45 mins to an hour long…so imagine drumming for almost an hour straight with no pauses in between and you'll understand why I felt sorry for them.

During the March of Nations, as each country completed their march they brought their flag up to the main stage to be held there in conjunction with the other flags of the South Pacific. Once this was done – and all the countries had marched out – the official flag of the SPG was brought out and raised above all the other flags. The SPG flag is solid blue with a light blue globe in the middle and in the middle of the globe is a torch – so not really as iconic as the Olympic rings, but it works. After the flag came the athletes and officials oath to uphold the rules of the game. Following that came the official speeches from the Prime Minister of Samoa, the CEO of the Samoa SPG Committee and then the President of the SPG. All of these men talked for what seemed like forever and then after they talked, the commentator had to summarize their speech in French – so this portion seemed to drag on forever. The last person to speak was the Head of State, and remember how I said he was humble and didn't get caught in the glitz of it all, well he just stood up – basically said 'I now open the games' (in less then 3 minutes) and then sat down…short and sweet baby! The last part of the ceremonies involved the torch being brought into the stadium and run around before heading to the main stage to light the official torch to start the games. So that took a few minutes and the final person in the torch relay road a sail boat to the main stage (I found out later that Lorna and them had seen people constructing the sail float up until a few minutes before they actually used it). With the lighting of the torch, the ceremonies were closed and the games officially began.

Overall, I would say that the opening ceremonies were a great success – it went a lot smoother then I had imagined and even though a few parts weren't clear as to how they related to the games (the dancing parts), it was still a great showcase of the Samoan culture and their dedication to making sure that these South Pacific Games are the best ever. This is only the second time that Samoa has hosted the SPG, so you know they want to make sure they are selected for a 3^rd time relatively soon (the games are in New Caledonia in 2011). Now of course, after having such a great time at the opening, something had to go wrong – right? Well when we got back to the car, a very rude woman came up to us and told us that we owed her $5 for parking on private property. In fact we were just parked on the side of the road, not actually parked on any property and there was no sign out when we parked there. Her reply was 'Everyone knows this is private property so we don't need a sign' which was just a stupid comment in and of itself. This exchange only demonstrated the ugly side of Samoa that may come out during the games – people taking advantage of tourists because they don't know the Samoan 'rules'. So we paid her the $5 just to get rid of her but then gave her the helpful advice to put up a sign next time and in true 'I know everything and don't care about you' attitude, just blew us off. So even though Samoa has a reputation for being nice and friendly – during the next two weeks, there will be some folks who will throw that reputation out the window just to make a quick buck.

So here we are – the 2007 South Pacific Games are upon us. There will be no sports played on Sunday (the games will encounter two Sundays), so all the sports officially begin on Monday. And of course you may be asking yourself 'Marques, what sports are being played at the South Pacific Games'? Glad you asked, because I have the answers you're looking for. The games that will be played over the next two weeks are:

Archery – Week 1

Athletics (Track & Field) – Week 2

Badminton – Week 2

Baseball – Week 1 & 2

Basketball – Week 1 & 2

Beach Volleyball – Week 1

Bodybuilding – Week 1

Boxing – Week 2

Cricket – Week 1 & 2

Soccer – Week 1 & 2

Golf – Week 1

Hockey – Week 1

Judo – Week 1

Lawn Bowling – Week 1 & 2

Netball – Week 1

Powerlifting – Week 2

Rugby 7s – Week 1

Rugby League 9s – Week 2

Sailing – Week 1 & 2

Shooting – Week 1

Softball – Week 1

Squash – Week 1 & 2

Surfing – Week 1 (This is the only SPG event taking place on Savaii)

Swimming – Week 1 & 2

Table Tennis – Week 1

Taekwondo – Week 1

Tennis – Week 1 & 2

Touch Rugby – Week 1

Triathlon – Week 1

Boat Racing – Week 2

Volleyball – Week 1 & 2

Weightlifting – Week 1

Wrestling – Week 2

So those are all the sports that will be played over the next two weeks and the weeks that they will be played in. One last thing, there will be shuttles that leave from Apia Park and take folks to the various complexes around town in which the games are being held. The most interesting thing that I noticed while in Apia Park is that they actually have bus stop signs now – that's like a first in Samoa. Usually you just flag down the bus you want to ride on, but it's good to have a designated spot – Samoa may become a modern country yet. I haven't decided which games I am going to attend, but with tickets only being $5 it's not expensive to go to them. Remember, if you want to keep up with the various events just head over to www.samoa2007.ws for more details. L8r.

Here it comes….. (Written 8/24/07)

2007-08-25T08:09:00.000-11:00

Pop Quiz: Let's say you get a call on Thursday at 6pm informing you that in less then 24 hours time, your school will be responsible for hosting 109 athletes and coaches from a foreign nation. You are to provide food and entertainment to these people and by the way…your school is on break for the holiday in a country where you can not easily just call the students up and tell them to come to school. How would you pull off such an event?

I don't know how you would either but somehow we were able to pull it off tonight. A lot of the secondary schools in Samoa are currently being used to house the athletes involved in the South Pacific games – those schools that are not being used were charged with hosting a country on their first night in-country (i.e. in Samoa). Chanel was charged with hosting Vanuatu – which is appropriate because one of the priests who lived here last year – Denis – was from Vanuatu. For weeks and weeks we waited for any piece of information which would actually help us prepare for the Vanuatu athletes – but the organization in charge of this particular program didn't have their act together. So before school ended last week, we told a select few students to come in over the first week of the holiday (we have 3 weeks off; 1 week before the games and 2 weeks for the games) to help prepare some items if the team was still coming. So in true South Pacific fashion, it wasn't until the last minute that we got the crucial piece of information that yes the athletes were coming to our school and we would have to feed and entertain them. So starting from about 8am on Friday, the entire day was dedicated to getting the place and food ready for the athletes arrival at 6pm that night.

That wasn't the only thing going on at Chanel on Friday, we also had a whole bunch of kids use our Rugby field for some kind of National Youth Sports day or something like that. It involved about 300 kids from different church groups and schools. The people running the event are from my church (Peace Chapel) and they were very fortunate to have access to our fields because almost every other Rugby field in the country (or in the Apia area) is being used for the South Pacific Games. Because we are so 'far' out of town we aren't being used for anything SPG related (other then the dinner) so it was no problem to have them use our field. Cecil, the American I mentioned a few weeks back who is living in Samoa for a year, was also at this sports day event and I was hoping to meet up with him but our paths didn't cross yesterday – they are suppose to be coming back on Saturday, so maybe I will see him then.

Over the course of the day, though, the FaleSamoa was transformed into a dinner hall to feed 109 people. The food was bought from a restaurant called Penati's which is fortunately capable of providing a lot of food on very short notice. So come 5pm, a majority of the big pieces were in place and everything looked very nice and well done. The athletes began to arrive at around 5:51pm and I was like 'Wow, not only are they on time – they actually arrived early!' but then I remembered that it was 109 people we were serving and they were bringing them up in mini-vans which could only hold like 15 people per vehicle…which meant it took forever for all of the athletes to get here. It was not until 7pm when we had everyone there and could start the event. Fortunately (and unexpectedly), we had a Marist priest from Vanuatu in country at this time so he was invited to MC the ceremony in the language of Vanuatu. That was pretty cool because he was able to explain everything in a way that they understood it and we knew that they would know what was going on. I told Kevin that this was probably the first time for many of the Samoans at our school that they were in our boat – hearing a language they don't understand and not knowing what was going on/being said. While there were over 100 athletes there, the VIPs of this little entourage were the head coach of the overall team, the Prime Minister of Sports (or the Prime Minister of Vanuatu, I wasn't exactly clear on what his position was) and the First Lady (of what, I have no idea). You may not know this but Vanuatu is a Micronesian culture – which means the majority of residents are black (Samoa is Polynesian, which means they are more brown in color). So basically this was probably the largest contingent of black people ever gathered at Chanel College – and yet I still felt as though people were watching me (the kind of looks I get every day in Samoa). So something's never change.

The first piece of entertainment for the night was for some of our students to sing the Vanuatu national anthem as well as the Samoan national anthem. Then we had the ava ceremony to officially welcome our guests to Samoa. This was when it got interesting because people were literally getting up to see what this ceremony was all about – which led me to believe that they don't do the ava ceremony in Vanuatu (I know it's done in Fiji and Tonga). This theory was given more evidence when the Prime Minister was served a cup of ava. During the ava ceremony, the highest ranking person on the visiting side is served a cup of ava first to show respect. He was suppose to drink it (alone) and then give the cup back. Well, when the Prime Minister was served he had no idea what to do with the cup (even though it was being explained to him in his native tongue). Once he figured out that he was to drink from the cup, he drank but then passed it on to a man sitting next to him (who might be something like deputy prime minister). All the Samoans had a good laugh at this because it has never been done in an ava ceremony before. So they went though the process of serving the head guests from Vanuatu and then it got to the first lady and she didn't even want to take a sip of the ava – she took the cup, held it for a second and then just gave it back. That was the first time I actually saw someone reject ava on the first try – even I will drink ava on the first offer, even though I don't like it – so I thought that was a bit on the rude side.

Anyway, after the ava ceremony the food was finally served and amazingly enough we had more then enough food for everyone – we ran out of plates – but we had more then enough food. Once everyone had their plate of food, we resumed the entertainment with a few dance items and then – of course – the most anticipated item, the Siva Afi (Fire Dance). Now, last Friday we had our Mrs. Chanel day (it was the Friday I went to my COS conference) and one of our students performed Siva Afi at the event – it was the first time she had demonstrated this skill at school and everyone thought she was great…so she was invited back tonight to perform for the athletes. Now of course I didn't see her perform but when I was told that this Year 9 girl – Niuiva – was going to be doing Siva Afi, it jogged something in my memory. I had seen a girl – about her age – perform Siva Afi somewhere else before…or had I? I thought it might have been a case of mistaken identity – until I saw her mother. I had previously seen her mother – who's name is Ana and is Samoan – last year during our Early Service Conference at Boomerang Creek. I then text Sara to try to remember what the owner's name is from Boomerang – it's Steve Harrison…Nuuiva's last name is Harrison. So with all the pieces in place I asked if Steve was her dad and was it the same Steve that owned Boomerang Creek – it was. So during our ESC a year ago, I did see Nuuiva perform the fire dance right in front of me and it wasn't until this moment that I made the connection. She's in year 9 so I don't have much interaction with her which is another reason why things didn't connect until tonight. After the Siva Afi, the Prime Minister and Head Coach came up to present some gifts to the school in appreciation for hosting the team. We received a nice little plaque and some Vanuatu flags to give out to the students who will be cheering for Vanuatu during the games (each of the secondary schools hosting a team will be charged with going to their events and cheering them on).

One of the most interesting parts of the night came at the end in regards to the final two dances of the night. The first dance used what I would consider traditional Samoan music, which would easily bring people out onto the dance floor and get them into the spirit of dancing and having a good time. The people from Vanuatu had to be coaxed into coming out onto the dance floor and dancing when this music played. The next piece of music, I'm guessing, was a more Vanuatu based piece of music and they literally jumped out of their seats to get on the dance floor and dance. The Samoans, on the other hand, got off the dance floor because they weren't comfortable / familiar with the music. I thought that was an interesting dichotomy of how different the two cultures are – even though they are both South Pacific nations, their music taste and cultures are so different from each other and it was just fun to see a little microcosm of that play out in those two songs.

After those two songs, it was time to go home and we called the night a great success. The school came across well and the Vanuatu team had a good time which is what's really important. Also, a little side note – we were provided with a banner to welcome the team to the school. The banner read 'Halo Team Vanuatu'. So 'Halo' must mean 'Welcome' in whatever language is spoken in Vanuatu. I just thought that was interesting.

One more note – I know, I know, I keep saying that – anyway, it was a strange feeling for me, once the athletes started showing up, that the SPG was literally right around the corner and was actually happening. Our group (Group 75) has been talking about this event for 2 years now…ever since we found out we would be here for it towards the end of our service…and it's just amazing that this huge event is actually here, it's actually going to happen. After all the construction and problems that have arisen from the preparation for the games – in 24 hours time, it will begin. Hopefully I will be able to go the opening ceremonies tomorrow but if not, I'll watch it on TV. Just in case you're interested in keeping up with the event – Samoa is trying to win 50 medals during these games, the highest they have gone before is 25 – then just visit the official SPG (www.samao2007.ws) website. See you on the other side of the opening ceremonies…

All is well

2007-08-22T17:41:00.001-11:00

Just a mini-update. For those who don't know, today is the day that Group 78 swore in as volunteer. So now we head towards my last trainee group - Group 79 - in October. Also, wanted to let everyone know that I am finally fully recovered from the illness that kept me from enjoying my COS conference over the weekend. Last but not least, I have updated the photo albums again - this time the KODAK ones! How did I do that? With the help of the fine folks at ClickNet - with the fastest internet speed in Samoa - I was able to upload pics for the Samoan Scenes Albums and Volunteer Life. In the Volunteer Life album, you will see a few 'wallpapers'. These were created by the son of the pastor of Peace Chapel - David Unoi. They are for the youth ministry of the church called 'The Connexion' or CNXN for short. Hope you enjoy them! L8r.

Rex's Little Helpers

2007-08-22T10:50:00.001-11:00

Not a good sign for the Bears when the Chicago Sun-Times' lead
football article Wednesday morning is about fifth-graders giving Rex
Grossman advice about taking snaps from center.

''It's very easy to take snaps,'' said fifth-grader Jimmy Smolik, 10,
a quarterback for the St. Linus Hawks in Oak Lawn. ''Just open your
hands and wait for the ball, and then you close your hands.''

But Rex could learn a thing or two from coach Daniel Terrini, who
helps coach 8- and 9-year-olds on the Wheaton Rams.

"We tell our quarterback to make sure he gets his hands under the
center's butt."

COS Conference (Written 8/19/07)

2007-08-19T20:04:00.001-11:00

Note: This is a long post – so you may want to set aside some time read it. Viewer Discretion is advised.

It has been an interesting weekend to say the least, and not necessarily for the good. It all began on Thursday when I came down with some weird flu/cold that produced intermittent coughing and a headache. I thought it was only a temporary thing – but it wasn't. I think it was a combination of a lack of sleep and the stress from the Year 13 CAT that kind of made my body susceptible to getting sick, but that's neither here nor there. On Friday morning, I hopped into a taxi and made my way to the Peace Corps office to join my group in the last conference of our service – our Close of Service (COS) Conference. I got to the office around 8am and was surprised to see that even though all of our group was there (all 9 of us left), we weren't ready to go. The instructions we got said that we should be at the office by 8am in order to make it to the resort by 8:30am. So after running around, trying to figure out what was going on we were finally on our way at 9am. So where did we have our conference at? At the $300USD a night Sinalei beach resort (this would be my first time staying there even though I have been to the resort before). We got to the resort at around 9:45am and thought we would be able to check in as soon as we arrived – but apparently this resort doesn't abide by the 10am check-in rule that most hotels use. So we had to leave our bags at the front desk while we waited for our rooms to be ready. Just as a side note, this was the first conference we have been to where things didn't go as planned…it's also the first conference that Ryan was able to participate in (after missing our Early Service and Mid-Service conferences). Coincidence? I think not!

Anyway, we went to the conference room area of the resort and was promptly engulfed by air-conditioning. Now under normal circumstances, I would have appreciated the air conditioned room we were in – but when you have the flu, AC sucks! I was literally freezing for the majority of the day (and going in and out of the AC room didn't exactly help improve my health). So the conference started off with Esera (our "Peace Corps boss") introducing us to the purpose of the conference and letting us know what the program was going to be like over the weekend. After that introduction, Teuila (our medical officer) gave us a rundown of all the medical items we have to take care of in order to be medically cleared to leave the country. So before I go to much further, you may be asking 'What's the point of the COS conference?' Well the main point of the COS conference is to get us ready for the transition back into the US culture. I know you're probably saying 'Oh it shouldn't be that hard to readjust to the states. It's your home, after all.' But you have to realize that after being out of the states for 2 years, it's going to require the same kind of transition it took to adjust to living in Samoa. Probably not as long as it took to adjust to Samoa (it took me about 6 months to adjust to living in Samoa, in the states it may take only 2 to 3 months). The COS conference is also meant to let us know what paperwork needs to be done in order to successfully complete our contract with Peace Corps and the benefits that are available to RPCVs (Return Peace Corps Volunteers) once we come back to the states. So with that understanding in hand, let's continue.

The next thing we covered was Security issues – not only with security towards the end of our service in Samoa but also when we move back to the states. In Samoa, for the most part, you can be a little bit more trusting then you could back in the states – so just being aware that the culture we are going back to is nothing like the culture we have been living in for the past 2 years. After security, came the part of how to say goodbye to our friends and adopted families here in Samoa – and that's definitely going to be the hardest part of the transition. We've spent 2 years making strong bonds with folks here and over the course of a week or so, we have to say goodbye to them with the knowledge that we may never see them again. Kind of a tough pill to swallow – so we just got tips on how to say goodbye in Samoa and gift ideas and stuff like that. Must of us work at schools, so we know our schools are going to give us big going away parties and we just needed to know how to reciprocate the gift giving (a speech was the most accepted answer, since we can't possibly get enough gifts for an entire school). The next part dealt with mentally going back through the whole Peace Corps experience, starting from Staging all the way up to our COS conference – and coming up with ways that the overall volunteer experience (both training and placement) could be improved for future groups. I thought we came up with some pretty good ideas on how things could be improved without delving into being overly negative/jaded about the program – which tends to happen with the 'older' volunteer groups. And finally we closed the day off talking about our 'Description of Service' which is a document which chronicles our entire experience in Samoa – what we have done, accomplished, how much language we have learned, etc. It's an important document because it's the only record that Peace Corps keeps about a volunteers experience at their post (i.e. Samoa is my 'post'). Think of it as an official reference from Peace Corps. So once we got done with going over what our DOS should look like (we write the DOS, not Peace Corps) it was finally time to take a break and enjoy the resort a bit.

Except I couldn't enjoy the amenities of the resort because I was so dead tired and sick. The flu apparently decided it needed to get worst, so I not only had a runny nose all the time, I also had a headache and my body was aching all over. As soon as we were done with our afternoon sessions, I went straight to my room and took a nap. I was literally out like a light for 2 hours and had John not come and woke me up, I would have slept through dinner.

Speaking of dinner, the food at Sinalei was 'interesting' to say the least. For the most part it was more show than substance – I was told that this was based on how the French do their meals: big plates and small portions. If I were feeling better, I probably would not have felt as full as I did – but because I was sick, my stomach shrank and thus I got full a lot quicker. The portions they gave us to eat were very tasty and – just to show how connected we are in this country – Candice used her connections from St. Mary's to get us some free sushi. Who says being a volunteer doesn't have it's perks? After dinner, I promptly went back to my room and slept for a good 8 hours. The 8 hours of sleep seemed to make me feel a bit better, but I still had a lot of residual illness the next day.

So on day 2 (Saturday), I woke up at about 7:30am and took a nice hot shower. And I'm talking about a really nice, like in the states, hot shower – it felt so good. The only 'strange' thing about it was the fact that the shower (and bathroom area) were 'outside' meaning that there were walls on all four sides but no ceiling. It was definitely an interesting motif and would have made for an intriguing shower experience had it been raining while I was showering (taking a hot shower in the cold rain). After dragging myself away from the warm shower, I went to breakfast and tried to eat as much as possible but my stomach was still small from me being sick. Now this conference, so far, had been unlike any of our other conferences in that it was literally made up of a lot of meetings – we were expecting to have a lot of free time to enjoy the resort, but that wasn't to be – it kind of felt like 'Man, we've been waiting 2 years for this conference and NOW you keep us in meetings all day!' but it was all good because we know that it's all done to make sure we don't have a mental breakdown when we leave Peace Corps. Anyway, the first session of the day dealt with our aspirations and anxieties of going back to the states – it's the same activity we did in staging in LA in 2005, but instead it was focused on our aspirations and anxieties of going to Samoa (Sharks were a big concern back then – which didn't affect us at all; and apparently Julya was afraid she would be the only 75er on Savaii – which did happen). So I think the most common anxiety we all had was the lack of money when we come back to the states and getting caught up in the materialism/capitalism that's so prevalent in the states. Here we have learned to live without – and while we are definitely looking forward to having choices again – there's such a thing as too much choice (some might call it over indulgence). As for my own aspirations, I can't wait to finally be able to see US sports again at a regular time instead of having to figure out a weird international schedule and hoping against hope that the screen isn't to blurry for me to see the action.

After the aspiration/anxieties session came the coolest part of the conference: 2 years ago, Kevin (our Technical trainer) had all of us write letters to ourselves after only being in the country 2 days. I didn't remember writing the letters at all (and a lot of our group didn't remember writing them as well) so it was quite a surprise to see what our mindset was like back in October 2005. We were definitely all nervous about the language and overwhelmed by the weather. The most interesting parts of my letter were these two sections:

"I'm looking forward to seeing which Marques will read this letter – one that quit or one that persevered?"

"I hope that this experience has changed you like no other and I pray you're a better Christian because of this."

So obviously, the persevering Marques is the one that read that letter – but it's funny how there was a twinge of doubt back in 2005. As many people in my group will tell you, I was the biggest cheerleader for all the members of our group making it to the COS conference, so there was no way I was going to quit (and if you know me, you know I'm not a quitter by any definition). This experience has definitely changed me – made me a better man and worker – but has also reaffirmed my Christian foundations. Not only through the church I go to (Peace Chapel) but the spiritual families I have adopted here (the Pati's and the Phillip's). So it was just surprising to see that things that I prayed and hoped for 2 years ago have come to fruition even though I didn't really keep them on the forefront of my mind. After the letter reading session, we had a few RPCVs come in and let us know about their experience in readjusting back to the American way of life. Each of them basically said take your time and don't just rush into doing something – don't just follow the quick buck. But they also emphasized something that I've known for a long time (and is one of the main reasons I keep this blog updated) once we get home, there will be very few people who are interested in hearing our stories. It's sad but true – everyone in the states has been living their own lives for the past 2 years and while they missed us, they know us for who we were 2 years ago. Fortunately, if you've been keeping up – even marginally – with me for the past 2 years, you can see how I've changed from January 2006 (when I first moved to Chanel College and was on my own after training) to August 2007 (where I'm officially part of the 'senior' Peace Corps group in Samoa). So while I realized a while ago that I have a limited window in which to convey my Peace Corps experience, it's good to have that reaffirmation that I wasn't just being pragmatic. It was after this session that we were finally free to enjoy all the amenities of Sinalei and you know what I did? I went right back to bed and slept for another 5 hours! You wanna know how sick I was? I was sleeping in a room that most would consider hot and I was just cool for about the first hour or so. It wasn't until about 2-3 hours after going to sleep that my body started to return to its normal temperature and I could finally say the room was getting warm. At about 5pm, I was finally feeling much better then I had at any point during the weekend and was able to mingle with my friends. On our first night, we only had dinner with our group but on the second night (Saturday) we had dinner with Kim and Beth (who was part of the RPCV session earlier in the day, she had previously served in PC Iran and this was her second time being a Peace Corps Volunteer). So it was fun talking to Kim and getting to know her a bit better – she revealed to us that we were her last COS group since she will be leaving her job as Country Director in February. So she saved the best for last! And I always have a fun time talking with and messing with Beth, who is a 3^rd year volunteer here in Samoa, so the conversation was light hearted and fun.

Once we were done with dinner, we gathered one more time in the conference room and had our last reflection on Peace Corps Samoa Group 75. What life after Samoa holds for us an individuals and as a group. Will we ever meet again as a group once we go our separate ways? How will we keep in touch? What does life hold for us 2 or 5 or 10 years down the line? It was during this reflection session that we realized how close a group we actually are – everyone gets along with everyone, there's no animosity between any of us. It's also when we realized that a lot of group have roomed with each other through out the course of the 2 years: Candice lived with Charles and then with Sara, Bryan and John have been together since the beginning (literally), Dianne once roomed with Holly, Ryan has lived with Charles and Holly, Julya lived next to Bob, and Mari and Andrew lived with each other until they left. The only people in our group who didn't live with another person from our group was Josh and I. So the fact that a majority of us lived close to each other and we hang out with each other pretty regularly probably helped keep the bonds between us strong over the last 2 years. So we'll definitely keep in touch once it's all said and done. We still hold the label as 'Best Group Ever' despite our decimation of numbers.

So on Sunday, I finally felt so much better but of course it was time to go. So at no point did I get into the water at Sinalei – but that's okay. I think I was very much faled our by my trip with Mom in May that really it was more about relaxing and just hanging with my group (as much as I could, considering the illness) that was most important. The only strange thing about Sinalei was the fact that it didn't have the atmosphere that most of the beach fales I go to have – it felt a lot more isolated (but not as isolated or as crappy as Virgin Cove) and subdued. I guess the fact that they don't allow children 12 and under at the resort allows them to maintain a quiet environment. The one thing that kept coming to mind as I stayed at this resort was the fact that a lot of people probably come here (to Sinalei) and that's all they see/experience of Samoa…and I think 'that's a shame'. While it's a nice place, after living here for 2 years and knowing how much this island has to offer (and how different it is from the 'sanitized' version offered by Sinalei) I never really felt comfortable there. I guess I'm truly a native now.

And that's that – with the COS conference behind us we are heading for the endgame. Over the next few months (probably starting in Novemeber) the various pieces of Group 75 will slowly start leaving the island and we shall go from being volunteers to only a memory. It's definitely an exciting and yet nerve wrecking time because there's still so much we have to do – in terms of projects and PC documentation – that has to be done over the next few months. But there was a ton of paperwork to get into Peace Corps, so it's only appropriate that there be a ton of paperwork to get out. Somethings never change! L8r.

Final Round (Written 8/16/07)

2007-08-16T22:56:00.001-11:00

Alright, so in the Marques vs. Electricity post – the last count was at 1 vs. 2, with the advantage going to Electricity. So on Monday, there was no power outage because it was a holiday and thus everyone had the day off – so no problems, although it would have been better had they worked on Monday because they could have gotten the job out of the way. Anyway, Tuesday comes and I'm going about my routine of teaching classes when I run into Kevin and he asks me if I've heard if the power was going off today (Tuesday). I hadn't heard anything and no one mentioned it to me (and I've constantly reminded my students to tell me if they hear about the power going out on the radio). Well at this point it was about 10:45am, so I went back to my class and asked them – 'Did anyone of you listen to the radio today?' and what was the answer I got? No – it was the one day that no one seemed to listen to the radio. I even went up to the teachers and none of them had listened to the radio as well – so I had two choices, try to shut down 80+ computers in 10 minutes or hope the power didn't go off at 11am. I decided to wait and see – I wasn't going to be able to shut down the computers in time anyway. So I waited in my classroom for that fateful hour – 11am – and you know what happened? The power went off yet again! So that makes it 1 vs. 3 to Electricity. Fortunately, I got a majority of my Year 13 classes through (they were scheduled to have a CAT on Wednesday, so Tuesday was their last day to practice) before the power went out so I wouldn't have to hold a lot of kids back until the power came back on. This whole blackout deal was getting ridiculous so we decided to call EPC (Electric Power Company) and ask them if the power was going to be on Wednesday and when was the power coming back on (on Tuesday). They said the power would be back on (Tuesday) at 3:30pm – it came back on at 4:30pm! But they did say that Tuesday was the last day for the power outage but of course I didn't believe them, better to be skeptical and proven wrong then trust and be proven right. So when the power came back on at 4:30pm, I had one Year 13 student come and get some extra tutoring – so I was basically working until about 6:30pm just doing tutoring.

So Wednesday morning comes and being the nice guy that I am, I actually open up the first computer lab (the senior computer lab/my office) early – meaning I opened it at about 7am. Some of my year 13 students said they wanted to come in during the early morning to get in some last minute practice – so how could I refuse? I was actually surprised when I had students waiting for me when I opened the lab – I didn't expect them to show up at 7am, but they did. This year 13 CAT was different from the CATs that the Year 12 students take in that it combined Access, Excel and Word into one big test – the kids have a hard time doing those task separately, just imagine the chaos involved in trying to get them to use all 3 pieces of software at the same time. It just seems like the Year 13 CAT went from being good last year to just plain awful this year – it was overly complex even by my standards. But I didn't envision the train wreck that would occur later that (Wednesday) morning. So I had the Year 13 computer students split into two groups: 2 classes would take the test from 8:15am to 9:15am and the next 2 classes would take the test from 9:30am to 10:30am – meaning we would be done with the whole thing before 11am – just in case EPC lied. The CAT was split up between answering questions in a word document and creating new files from Excel and Word – a majority of my students didn't even get past the answering questions part. The whole CAT had a total of 80 marks: 20 marks came from the questions and 60 marks came from the new files that were suppose to be created….so I'm in store for some very low scores. In all, I probably had only 3 students out of 45 actually complete the entire CAT – and I haven't marked them yet, so I have no idea if they actually will receive high marks. I just envision this CAT presenting unprecedented failure for my students – and it makes up 30% of their overall grade for the course – so I'm going to leave the grading until after I come back from my mini-vacation this weekend. I've also talked to Sara and Ryan about their CAT results and both had similar success rates to mine – so overall, a lot of kids are going to be failing this test. Great job PSSC!

Anyway, moving on – oddly enough, 11am came and went and the power was still on, so EPC was able to do something right. After school, I went into town and visited ClickNet (the internet café I helped setup) and saw that it was actually busy. It had only been a day since the official opening (the first paying customer came in on Tuesday, and I visited it on Wednesday) and Eugene told me that he already had repeat customers – so it's off to a good start. I decided to give the ole fast internet a whirl (I can't wait to get home and have access to this kind of speed all the time) and while I was in there a few new customers came in – who were obviously tourists – and they asked about the prices for the prices and were kind of impressed. But then they asked 'What time do you close? 4:30pm?' and Eugene told them the café was open until 10pm – they literally almost jumped off the floor with excitement. So if he's getting that kind of response on day 2 and the internet speed is still fast, then things are definitely looking up.

And now it is Thursday when I'm writing this – the CAT is firmly behind me and in front of me is a nice 3 day stay at one of the best beach resorts in Samoa: Sinalei. It's time for our COS (Close of Service) conference where our group comes together one more time to talk about our overall Peace Corps experience and find out what we need to do in order to prepare for our life after Peace Corps Samoa. Like I said before, 2 years ago this conference felt like it was so far away – but now it's literally only a day away. Everyone in the group is excited about it – mainly because of the free food and plush accommodations. It's the reward for sticking these two years out and we're all definitely looking forward to it. The only problem is that I am going to miss my end of term school function which is the Ms. Chanel pageant and miss the end of term staff lunch – but something tells me kicking back on the beach will ease my pain. Talk to you on Sunday! L8r.

Pics abound!

2007-08-15T17:35:00.001-11:00

And we're back with more pictures for your enjoyment. I have uploaded some new Samoan Scenes, Group 78 and some pics from the opening of ClickNet and the Rhema graduation. Enjoy!

Hangin’ Out (Written 8/12/07)

2007-08-12T20:15:00.001-11:00

Today was a nice day of relaxation and not having to get up at an extremely early time in order to do something – my first time doing that in about 6 days! Anyway, I went to church today and found out some great news….the name of the Phillips new baby. They dedicated the baby during the Samoan service this morning (Peace Chapel has two services, one is Samoan at 8:30am and the other is English at 10:30am) and his name is now Nathaniel Phillips. So of course everyone will promptly call him Nathan or Nate but it's good to finally have a name to call him instead of 'The Nameless One'.

After the service, it was time to go around and mingle with some of my fellow group members I have not seen in a while. So I biked over to Candice, who just recently returned from the states (with stuff for me – officially my last package while I'm here in Samoa) and we caught up on the past two weeks of things happening in the states and things going on in Samoa. It was definitely nice to be able to shoot the breeze with her and just hang out for a bit. Once I was done at Candice's, I biked over to St. Joseph to see Holly/Ryan/Charles. Charles will be leaving us on Monday night so I definitely wanted to see him before he left – his going away party took place yesterday (Saturday) but I was at the Rhema graduation (and they told me there wasn't a lot of drinking, but showing up at a party at 10:30pm when it started at 7pm might be a little to late). So I got to say my goodbyes to him and wish him well on the next leg of his journey. But of course I had to point out to him that had he waited ONE week (until next Monday) we could have been one of those rare groups that goes into their COS (Close of Service) conference with double digit numbers (with Charles leaving, we are down to 9 people). So I hung out a St. Joseph for the majority of the day and then Ryan/Charles/Brother Steven and I went to the movies to see 'Next'. It's a movie starring Nicolas Cage and it's the first new movie we've had here in two weeks – the last movie to come out here was Harry Potter and it came out the same day as everywhere else in the world.

I was willing to give the movie a chance even though I had heard some not great reviews about it and the movie was going well until the last 5 minutes when things just got screwy. It was the most anti-climatic film I had ever seen – I left the movie feeling they had robbed me of an actual movie ending. Perhaps there was more after the credits rolled, but the pain was just too much. It has probably come and gone in the states, but it definitely didn't feel like a movie worthy of even my 6 tala.

Overall though, the movie notwithstanding, it was a great day of just renewing those bonds with folks I haven't seen in a couple of weeks. I wanted to do it this week while we all had one on one time together, because next weekend we all get packed into a van and head to Sinalei resort for our COS conference – which officially marks the last 3 months of our service in Samoa. In October 2005, it felt like our COS conference was years away and now – it's only 5 days away. Crazy really, but good times await us at the end of the week. We start the week with a holiday (Monday there is no school) and end the week at a beach resort…tough week folks, tough week! L8r.

Marques vs. Electricity (Written 8/11/07)

2007-08-11T23:31:00.001-11:00

Note: This is a long one folks....you might want to set aside some time before you read this one. Viewer Discretion is Advised

Now sit down and let me tell you a great tale…a tale that has withstood the test of time and shows how one man would not be deterred by the evil entity known as electricity. This is a tale of perseverance, hope and beating the machine known as the power company. It all began a long time ago, on an island far far away……

The past two days have just been jam packed with stuff to do – I mean its crazy the amount of things I've done in just a small 24 hour period. I'll try to lay it all out for you, but it's been a doozy. So on Friday, we had the final CAT (Common Assessment Task) for Year 12 computers. What this meant is that the task required the students to work on the computer – which meant we needed power for all of Friday. Now one class of Year 12 students successfully completed the task with no problem – they had the test during the first period of the day. The next two periods (period 2 and 3) were my Year 13 classes – so they got to use the computers, no problem. Period 4 was the second of my three Year 12 computer classes and with only 15 minutes left in the class the power went off. Now the power has been going off quite frequently at the school and while we don't know the reason why these blackouts keep happening, they are scheduled. How do we know they're scheduled? Because they're announced on the radio – but neither Kevin, myself or my counterpart listen to the radio so we had no idea about the scheduled blackout. I had previously told me students that if they hear about a blackout on the radio, to tell me – apparently they forgot this little message. So I had to come up with a decision real quick – and my first instinct was to delay the CAT until next Tuesday (because Monday is a holiday, it's Father's Day here) but, in agreement with my Year 12 counterpart and Father Kevin, we decided to keep the kids after school so that they would finish the CAT today. The power was 'suppose' to come back on at 3pm – so we thought we would only be holding the kids for about an hour and a half after school. They were not happy about this arrangement, but then I emphasized to them that if they decided to leave the school they could not retake the test – today was the only day they could do it. Now some students tried to get out of it by telling me that they lived far away and needed to catch the bus, but my counterpart is Samoan so I just brought her in to find out the truth for me – only 2 people actually needed to go home on Friday in order to make the bus. They would then come in on Saturday morning in order to complete their test (one declined this option and decided to do it on Friday). So the power was off from 11am until the end of school which meant no computer classes for those few hours. Fortunately, I had something to keep me busy – the rest of our computer monitors came in before the power went out. So while the power was off I put the monitors in their proper places and (hopefully) this means we will now have all our computers fully functional and working – so we're up to 104 computers for our students and have dedicated labs for the Junior students and the Senior students. So at the end of school at 2pm, the power is still not on so I went to take a shower, eat some lunch and then go to my classroom to read the fantasy football magazine my dad sent me as a birthday gift (NFL, oh how I miss thee). So of course since my room is open I have students coming in periodically asking me if they could go because they're tired and they want to do it tomorrow – but I know that if I let them go they won't be back tomorrow (Saturday) and would have some excuse on Tuesday for why they couldn't come – I wasn't about to cave in to their flimsy excuses. But come 3pm the power still was not on – in the back of my mind though, I knew the power would not be on at 3pm like the radio said but would come back on at 3:30pm (they'll turn it off on time but turn it back on late). So at around 3:15pm I had a lot of students trying to come in and guilt me into letting them go, but I stood my ground that the power would be back on today. Then 3:30pm came and the power was still off – so I was beginning to wonder if I was wrong about the power coming back on. It was at 3:30pm that my counterpart and I decided to let the students go and tell them to come back on Saturday…when at 3:35pm the power suddenly came back on! So after turning the server on and making sure all the computers were functioning, we got the students into the computer labs and was able to complete the CAT on Friday. Thank God, because on Saturday I would not have had the room to hold them and my Year 13 class at the same time.

Now the reason that I showered before the restart of the CAT was because I knew that once the test was done I would need to get to town right away. Well the last person was done with their CAT around 4:30pm which meant that if I took the bus I would be lucky to make it their by 5:30pm on the last bus of the day. Fortunately, Kevin offered to drive me into town so I didn't have to worry about the whole bus deal which was nice. Why did I want to go into town so late you ask? Well its because I wanted to continue working – that's why! This time though, it was working for fun instead of trying to teach people. The husband – Eugene - of one of our APCDs (Assistant Peace Corps Director) – Jackie – was starting a new internet café in town and I have been sort of a technical advisor/sounding board for him over the past couple of months. I have been amazed by the whole process because it was only like a few months ago I talked to him about the idea of creating a new internet café and I told him that it was possible as long as he brought an American business mindset to the deal (which meant better prices, longer hours and better internet speed). It took him a while to find a good place – but the location of the café is perfect, it's right in downtown Apia. It's in the same location as two other very popular internet cafes – so he's basically going toe to toe with his competition right off the bat. The most impressive thing about the café was the fact that the internet speed is truly fast – it felt like broadband instead of just DSL. In fact, the speed is so good that I was able to play YouTube videos without any problem – I can't even do that at the Peace Corps office. So what's the name of this new internet café…it's called Click Net ( www.clicknet.ws ). So on Friday night, I was helping to put the final touches on setting up the operating systems correctly and making sure the look of the cables were nice and basically just helping out anyway I can. This is one of those projects that I could have never seen myself doing a year ago, but I'm so glad I got the opportunity to be part of a brand new business in Samoa – that's why I was more then willing to give up my Friday night to make sure everything was good for the grand opening on Saturday morning. Now Eugene (the owner) basically got this whole internet café setup within a two week time period because he wanted to make sure everything was working properly before the South Pacific Games when a lot of athletes and foreigners will be in-country. If the internet speed holds to being as fast as it is right now, Click Net without a doubt has the fastest internet connection (via SamoaTel) and should easily beat the competition (because the other 2 cafes close at 4:30pm whereas ClickNet will be open till 10pm). I wasn't finished helping with the store until about 11:30pm, so I was absolutely dead tired. Which meant that I just went home and went to bed….

…..just to wake up on Saturday at 7am. Why did I wake up so early? You're just full of questions today! Anyway, I woke up so early to open the computer labs for my Year 13 students. On this Wednesday, they are going to have their one and only CAT of the year, which is a practical/on the computer test which is worth 30% of their overall school grade. So it's a pretty big deal and I felt I needed to give them some extra class time in order to make sure they had a shot at doing well on the actual CAT – this is especially true for the Year 13 class which was not taught by me. Their teacher basically taught them nothing over the past couple of weeks, so I was working from scratch – I can't even begin to tell you how pissed I was that this teacher was screwing these kids over simply because she didn't want to teach the class (although we asked her if she wanted to in the first place, which is why she was selected after Adam left). So for the most part, I have my two Year 13 classes ready but the third Year 13 class REALLY needed help. So I opened the computer lab at 8am and waited for students to show up. At first, they were slow to come in and I thought 'Oh well, if they don't care enough to come then I can't really help them'. Well by 9am, I had almost every Year 13 student who was taking computers in my classroom – I had to open another lab in order to handle the overflow and make sure that everyone had their own computer to work with. Just to reinforce how serious we are about the CAT and to make sure the power doesn't screw with us again, on Wednesday we're going to have all of the Year 13 CATs done before 11am – that way if the power decides to go off again it won't be such a crushing blow like it was for the Year 12. So back to this morning – I was basically running between 2 computer labs helping about 28 Year 13 students…it was madness. Was I able to help everyone? Of course not – but at least I got them started and on Tuesday we can work out as many kinks as possible before the rest test on Wednesday (Electricity permitting). I had the lab open from 8am to 10:50am – at 10:50am I began the process of getting the students out of the lab and shutting down all the computers properly. I got the whole process done by 10:55am and then I went to check on all the other computers in the school to make sure they were all off properly. Why was I being so paranoid? Because at the start of the day I asked the kids when the power was going off again today and they told me the radio said it would be off at 11am. So I got everything shut down properly at 10:58am and then I headed home for a nap and before I got to my front door, the power went off at 11:01am – this time I was ready for it! No nasty surprises this time!

After I was done taking my power nap, I had to head into town and be there by 1pm for the grand opening of Click Net internet café. I pushed it but fortunately I made it to town before the 1pm deadline but in true South Pacific fashion, the ceremony didn't start until 1:30pm anyway. There was an official ribbon cutting ceremony and everything- so it was a pretty nice deal. There were about 20-25 guests and family members, mainly people who had a had in building/realizing the dream of this internet café. Obviously Jackie was there, but Teuila and Kim also showed up as well – but I was the only Peace Corps Volunteer there, which was different but nice. While I got to enjoy the free net for a bit, my main (unofficial) job was to guide folks through the process of being able to log onto the computers through the internet café software Eugene is using and letting them know what options are available to them. It was during this test run that I realized a few kinks still have to be worked out of the system but for the most part it was a relatively smooth opening. After the grand opening, everyone went to Eugene/Jackie's house for a little celebration party and there was a ton of food. Unfortunately, I got full off the sweets and chips they served before the actual meal – I was so full that I couldn't really eat the main meal at the time. This was my first time at Jackie's house even though she lives really close to me (about a 5 minute drive from me) in Sinamoga (Sin-Ah-Mun-Ga). Per the Samoan tradition, I was sent home with a plate of food so that was going to be my dinner for the night. Fortunately, I was able to get a lift to the Peace Corps office from Kim (my country director i.e. Ultimate Boss) because I had one more event to complete in town before my day was done.

I arrived at the Peace Corps office around 5:30pm and I had to wait until at least 6:30pm before I would start heading to my last event of the day. So I spent a little time on the net at the office – and it just felt slow compared to Click Net's speed. Once you've been spoiled with good internet speed, it's hard to go back! Got a few things done on the net and then had dinner before I left the office at around 6:45pm. Now there were two competing events for the 7pm timeslot – I could go to the farewell party for Charles or I could go to the Rhema Bible College graduation (where I had 3 friends graduating). Since I didn't want to partake of drinking tonight and these 3 friends only graduate once, I decided to go to the Rhema graduation which was held in the big hall in the middle of town – about a 25 or 30 minute walk from the Peace Corps office. So I left at around 6:45pm and arrived at the hall at 7:05pm and the place just jam packed full of people. So Rhema is a local bible college which houses students from all over the world learning about God's word. The three friends I had graduating were Junior, Viv (Samoans) and Erin (New Zealand) – so a pretty diverse group. With well over a 100 people at this event, it felt like a big deal and almost everywhere I looked I saw people from Peace Chapel so I was glad I was able to come here and join in supporting my friends. Junior, Viv and Erin all completed their 2 year degrees so they got to be in the full red graduation garb and looked pretty snazzy. The oddest thing happened during the keynote speech, though. With the Prime Minister sitting in the front row of this event, the power went off to the entire building. Now we know that it was an isolated blackout because the hall was the only place without power – all the other buildings around the hall still had power. The power was off for a good 30 minutes and it was just funny to realize that as powerful as the Prime Minister is, he couldn't just call someone up and get the power turned back on right away? Anyway, the blackout bug just continues to follow me wherever I go – it's quite scary really. I think I may have super powers I didn't know about. Eventually the power did come back on and we were able to get through the rest of the graduation program without a hitch.

After the graduation, I was tired and was able to get a rid home which is always nice. Now here I sit, trying to stay awake so that I can finish this blog entry. It has felt and been a long day – fortunately, I have Monday off which is nice for relaxation but the stress comes back on Tuesday. Right now, the score is Marques (1) vs. Electricity (2). Can I beat this unstoppable force? Stay tuned

BTW, ClickNet will also be a true cafe in that it will serve fresh coffee and food products to patron. But the coolest side business is the fact that in the back is a game room where he's going to set up two game consoles and have people purchase time for playing the system - again competing with another business that is right across the street from him. The best part about the game console area is that it only has a PS2 in it right now - there was also going to be an Xbox console as well, but just like its bigger brother the Xbox 360 - it was broken and wouldn't work. Long live Sony!

The Full Baby Monty

2007-08-10T20:59:00.001-11:00

After hours and hours of uploading, all of the baby pictures of Paul and Viv's new baby are online in the Volunteer Life 2 photo album. Enjoy the new bundle of life to the family and hopefully sometimes this week I can tell you what his name is...hopefully!

A Runny Day (Written 8/7/07)

2007-08-07T22:49:00.001-11:00

Today was one of those days where it seemed I fit a lot of things into a short amount of time. As always on a weekday, things started at school where I really only had to teach about three classes for the day. One of the classes that I taught was the year 13 computer class which I handed off to another teacher to teach because I was taking care of the Year 12 students in the same class time. This was important for me because their teacher has not been showing up for the past couple of days and as usual, gave no warning as to why she was gone or how long she will be gone from school. So I went into this Year 13 class and asked them what they have been doing over the last couple of days – in my Year 13 classes we have been covering Access in order to get them ready for their major CAT (i.e. their big test) next Wednesday. When I asked them kids if they had covered ANY of the material I was talking about they said no – so basically, they were getting the shaft because the teacher was to lazy to actually teach. So in a 45 minute class I had to cram as much information in as possible just to get these students STARTED on learning Access which should have begun last week. I felt bad for them because I know it's not their fault that they don't know the material but I'm responsible for assigning this particular teacher to these Year 13 students (I really only had two choices of teachers who could take over the Year 12 and 13 classes once Adam left a few months ago; the Year 12 teacher is working out great and the kids are actually learning but obviously the Year 13 students are being neglected). I felt so bad that I actually apologized to the students for their lack of teaching and now that Year 12 is almost done with their course work for the year (the last thing they have to do is a project – but they can do that on their own) I'm going to try to take a more active role in teaching these neglected Year 13 students because I know they will suffer if I don't try to get them at least partially ready. So that was probably the most frustrating part of my day – knowing these students were being left behind and not being able to do a lot about it in one day.

After 4 classes, I had to leave school and get to the Peace Corps office as quickly as possible in order to run a diversity session for the training group. Now unlike a lot of teachers at my school, I do give my principal warning when I'm not going to be there and I try to arrange it so my kids have something to do while I'm going. The students are starting to practice for the end of year Ms. Chanel show – so that meant that periods 6 and 7 were being committed to that. So when I left, that meant that I only had to have period 5 covered…and I felt very comfortable in letting the Year 12 teacher who assists me run my class while I was gone. It made me wish I had two of her so I could have her commitment to doing a job well done in the Year 13 class – my Year 12 co-teacher is a rare find folks…rare indeed. So I hopped into a cab and headed down to the Peace Corps office to arrive at 11:59am my time (12:01pm by Kevin's time). About a month or so back, I helped run the first diversity session with Group 78 with Candice. Today was the second and final diversity session for the group (they only have about a week and a half left of being in the village and then they come into town for their swearing in ceremony). This also marked the first time that I would be able to go to their training village – Manunu.

So we get out to the training village and it's actually quite beautiful but not as beautiful as the village for Group 77 (there was no bay area situated right next to the training village). This was also the first time I had been around the trainers in a village since Group 77, so it was nice to hang out with them and laugh for a bit. Catch up on old and new times. I played Suipi (a samoan card game) with Leata and I realized that I had not played Suipi since my mid-service conference over a year ago…which meant that she thoroughly beat me in every hand. But it was fun and we had a good time before the training session began. After discussing some Peace Corps business, we finally started the session at about 2:30pm. This session dealt with an activity called 'Reincarnation'. In this activity, the trainees select a card from a playing deck (there are 16 volunteers so there were only 16 cards to choose from) and something about them would change based on the suit of the card. So if they got a spade, their gender changed. If they got a club, their race changed. If they got a heart, their sexual orientation changed. If they got a diamond, they were physically disabled – and for the purposes of this activity we limited the handicap to being blind. The point of this activity is to get the trainees to a point where they can attempt to see things from someone else's perspective (i.e. putting yourself in someone else's shoes). We want to emphasize how important empathy is within the Peace Corps community – even though we are by our very nature a diverse group, even within this diverse group there is more diversity beyond our skills and knowledge. So the trainees chimed in on their thoughts about how their life would be different if one of the four changes happened to them and Kevin and I thought that trainees were very considerate and understood the underlying theme of the session. So it wasn't quite as 'fun' as the diversity map session, but it felt like this session had a lot more substance to it and is more applicable for when these trainees join the volunteer community within a few weeks.

One thing I did find out while hanging out with Kevin (our Life & Work coordinator) today is that I will be living the country on the same day he left the country as a volunteer in 2000. While I will not reveal the exact date I'm leaving, it has been 7 years since Kevin left Peace Corps Samoa as a volunteer and thus this particular day has cycled through all 6 days of the week to once again arrive on a Monday. I was shocked when he told me – maybe that means I'll come back here in a few years as a trainer of some sort.

After finishing up at the village, we headed back to town and I had Kevin drop me off at Paul/Viv's house for my tutoring session with the Faatuatua kids. Our session started at around 4:30pm instead of the normal 3:30pm start time. The only thing they had to do today was work on a Practice CAT to prepare them for their real one tomorrow. Once again, they made me realize how important these Practice CATs are in getting the poor marks out of them now so they can get good marks on their real test – preparation is key folks! And just in case you're wondering, the baby still does not have a name. I'm going to start calling him 'The Nameless One'…he's suppose to be dedicated this Sunday at church, so maybe he will have a name by that point. As you know, I usually have Tuesday dinner with the Phillips as part of my 'fee', but this time there were a lot of plates set at the table and as far as I knew it wasn't a special day (although today was Junior's birthday, he was spending it with his immediate family tonight). So I asked Paul what all the plates were for and he told me that Pastor Samoa and his wife, Alesi, plus their family was coming over for dinner tonight. This would be the first time that Alesi has seen the new baby since she was in New Zealand when he was born last week. So we had a HUGE meal with pizza, steak, eggs, cooked bananas, potatoes and fruit cocktails – it was quite a surprising feast. They keep this up, I'm going to start expecting huge feasts every Tuesday: two Tuesdays ago was the feast for my birthday, last Tuesday we went to Giordano's, this Tuesday was a big feast for Pastor – what will next week hold?!?! Anyway, after getting in some quality PS2 time playing the original Jak & Daxter and Need for Speed Underground, it was time to go home – so Dave and Torrie(Samoa's two boys) gave me a ride home. So after leaving the school at around 11:30am this morning I finally arrived back home at 10pm – and I did a lot of running/traveling in between. It's amazing (and tiresome) what you can accomplish in one day….only a few more days of school left!

The Baby Edition

2007-08-05T09:55:00.000-11:00

I have updated the Volunteer Life 2 photo album to now include pictures of Paul/Viv's new baby. These aren't the only photos I have, but just wanted everyone to get a look at the new addition. It's still unnamed though - which is kinda wierd. L8r.

It’s a Boy! (Written 8/1/07)

2007-08-01T22:54:00.001-11:00

Today was a busy day to say the least. It all began with a sea of chaos and kind of became calmer (and a lot more fun) during the course of the day. The chaos began during the school day in which a lot of the year 13 students had to finish typing their major projects for their accounting and economics classes. Now, what a lot of the students do is that they come in to my class to type during their option (meaning non-major subject) classes – but today, it seemed like every teacher was letting them out of their subjects to finish two papers. This would not have been such a problem had it only been like 2 or 3 students, but it was over 15 kids constant bugging me to use the computer labs. What compounded my annoyance with this situation was the thought that these kids have had weeks to finish their assignment – but they ALL wait until the last minute to turn it in (and unlike in the states where teachers set a deadline and students HAVE to stick to it, it seems that here a lot of deadlines are really just 'suggestions' for the students). Unfortunately, for my students I come from the school of thinking that says when you're in school you are taught – you do your assignments and stuff on your own time. So I was dealing with a constant onslaught of last minute typing and printing (since students have to print in the computer lab instead of going to the office) and by the end of the day – with students wanting to skip MY class in order to do their IA on the computers…that was almost the straw that broke the camel's back. I wasn't going to let them ditch my work (which leads to a test they will have in a week's time that I have to get them ready for – but that's apparently to far in the future for them) to do someone else's work. It started off as one of those days when you just want to go bang your head up against a wall. But then I got some great/surprising news which brought happiness back to me.

The family that I spend a lot of time with, The Phillips, got a new addition to the family today. Vivienne gave birth to a healthy baby boy at 11:55am this morning but I only found out about it around 1:30pm when Viv was scheduled to come pick me up for the Faatuatua kids tutoring session. I was in the middle of class when I received a call from Tiffany Pati (Teuila's daughter) telling me that Teuila was going to pick me up instead of Viv because she had just given birth to the baby. I was a bit taken aback because just the night before I had dinner with Paul/Viv and the family and we were joking about her having the baby NEXT week (when the baby was scheduled to be delivered) and she goes and has the baby the next day. Apparently Viv started having contractions at around 1am this morning and Paul took her to the hospital at around 10am and at 11:55am, the baby boy was born. Now the coolest thing about this situation is that Paul/Viv have been praying and proclaiming that this baby was going to be a boy from the time of conception until now – they never got a x-ray to see what the sex of the baby was, they just believed that God would provide them with a baby boy. They held onto that faith for 9 months…and God provided them with a baby boy – now that's a great testimony about having faith in God. Now you may notice that I keep calling it 'a baby boy', the reason for that is because they don't have a name for the baby yet. So once I know the name of this new addition to the Phillips family, I'll let you know. The craziest thing about the whole situation was that Viv was able to come home the same day she gave birth – so she gave birth at around 12pm and was home (with the baby) by 5pm. I was quite surprised because in the states the hospital usually keeps the baby and mother for at least a complete day, but since both the baby and Viv were healthy (and their home is cleaner then the National hospital) she was allowed to bring the baby home. So I first saw the baby when she brought him home – and he's amazingly small. Now of course all the women say that he's the cutest thing but to me he just looks like a baby – nothing really unique about him right now. Maybe in a few months he'll start to develop his features and THEN he could be called cute…but right now, he just looks like a baby (and yes, when I get the chance I will post pictures for you – no worries). After bringing him home, Viv gave the baby a nice washing, fed him and then put him down for a nap. During this process the baby cried a few times and Paul stated that it had been a while since he heard that sound (their last child – before this one – was born 6 years ago) and it's going to take some getting use to. It'll definitely take some getting use to having a 5^th child in the Phillips family, but it's cool because now while I have been in Samoa I have experienced 2 of lifes biggest events: A Samoan funeral (The Archbishop & Head of State), a birth (Paul/Viv's boy) and come December I will experience a Samoan wedding.

Now before Viv gave birth to the baby, our home group/bible study was originally planning to do a photo scavenger hunt around downtown Apia – Viv was suppose to be the coordinator for it, but she was kind of indisposed. So Jewell (her eldest daughter) became the organizer instead – it was a scavenger hunt with our home group and the Next Generation home group (which is a new homegroup that split from my current homegroup and has grown a lot in only a few months). We broke up into teams (each one had at least one kid under 8) and had to take various pictures of the team doing things around downtown Apia. It involved a lot of walking but it was a lot of fun – the kids especially liked it because they got to be out in town at night, which they don't usually get to do. After the scavenger hunt, we all met at a Samoan fast food place called Penati's and had our meal their – we talked about all the photos we took and how we got them. It just showed what a creative bunch we are and provided a lot of good stories, exercise and fellowship. But in a way, it was good for Viv because this hunt got all the kids out of the house for a few hours – so she had time to get some good shut eye in before the baby starts crying throughout the night. It's the start of a new chapter in the Phillips family and I'm glad that I was there to be a part of it. It was just another part of feeling like being part of the family and it's definitely an experience I'll cherish from my time here. I'm just glad to be able to say "It's a boy!" and be genuinely surprised not only by the birth but the faith as well. Now all we need is a name! He already has a middle name (which is Samoan) and a last name (which is Phillips) but we need that oh so critical first name. Everyone is anxiously awaiting it!

The Fantastic Four (Written 7/30/07)

2007-07-30T20:21:00.001-11:00

Today was a very special day for me and for Chanel College. After coming up with the idea for a fourth computer lab in January, I was finally able to open it up for service today. Hooray! Now, the fourth lab is not currently working at full capacity – it has room for 28 computers but we only have about 17 up and running (we're still waiting on monitors for the rest of them). The week before the exams, I was finally able to get all the networking stuff (and thanks to Mom, all of the required keyboards/mice) that I needed in order to actually complete the project. In a way though, it was a bit anti-climatic for me. After all that hard work and waiting, no grand opening or anything like that – I just let the kids into the class and hoped for the best. With this new lab complete, I was finally able to set a stable computer lab schedule for all 4 computer labs. Labs 1 and 2 are going to be used primarily by the senior students (Years 12 and 13), while Labs 3 and 4 will be used by the junior students (Years 9, 10 and 11). This way if the junior students damage a computer (and trust me, kids are very inventive when it comes to ways to harm these computers), it won't have to much of an affect on the senior students – who have to have working computers almost all the time.

Now I have a listing of where each of the classes should be and it helps me know which labs need to be locked/unlocked at certain times – so security for the labs has increased dramatically! It's funny though, when I came for my On The Job training back in November 2005 the former volunteer here (Michael) spoke of just getting the 3^rd lab up and running – that way we would have 3 labs and 60 working computers. At the time, we only had about 20-30 working computers…the others were just waiting to fall over and die. Now here I stand – almost two years later – and we have not only passed the 3^rd computer lab mark, we also will soon have over 100 working computers in the labs. So you can probably say my time here has been characterized by expansion and growth of the Computer Studies program. It has cost a lot of time and money, but it's worth it to make sure that every student at the school has a computer class everyday. Still have a bit of tidying up to do, but I am going to take a break to handle some other things I need to complete here.

So after running through my first semi-organized day of running 4 computer labs, I had lunch with Dennis, Moira and a friend of theirs named Karen. In case you forgot, I met Dennis and Moira last year through their son Cecil – who now lives on Savaii in a village called Iva. So it was nice to spend time with them and talk about how things have changed within the past year for me. It's kind of funny that last year I didn't really know them at all, but this year it kind of felt like they were old friends and we were talking like we had known each other for a while – so in all, they were good people who provided good conversation. I was able to pick their brains on some of the travel issues I am going to face when I come back home in December – so it was nice to have forewarning on some of the things to avoid doing in order to make the travel process a lot smoother for myself. They will be headed home on Air New Zealand flight to LA later tonight, so I was glad to be able to hang out with them before they left. They only live in Clarksville – which isn't to far from my city of Nashville/Hermitage – so I'll definitely be seeing them once I get back.

So to continue the theme of 4 – opened the 4^th computer lab today; when Dennis, Moria, Karen and myself had lunch there were 4 of us – and now as we head into August we are now at the 4 month mark of my time remaining in Samoa. It's kind of strange – after waiting 23 months for this moment to arrive, its coming a lot quicker then I expected. It's kind of like a rollercoaster – you wait and wait to get to the apex and then before you know it, you're going downhill at a high velocity. So we enter a very busy August – filled with meetings, conferences, drafts, exams, two culture days and a little thing known as the South Pacific Games. Fun times folks, fun times! Just call me Mr. Fantastic!

And the hits keep coming...

2007-07-27T17:41:00.001-11:00

As my gift to you for giving me such a great gift on my birthday (whatever it was), I bestow upon you pictures from Chanel College. The Chanel College Photo Album has been updated with pics from Champ of Champs. L8r!

Family Matters (Written 7/24/07)

2007-07-24T21:51:00.001-11:00

Well that special and most wonderful day of the year has finally arrived again…no, not the start of the NFL season (the start of training camp though is exciting) but it's once again time for my birthday. So today was my last birthday in Samoa – next year, we're throwing a good ole American bash!

So the day started off the best way it could – with me not having to teach a single class today. Chanel's mid-term exams started today and all I had to do was supervise a class for 3 hours (that's right, our year 12 and 13 students have to sit 3 hour exams! I didn't take my first 3 hour exam until university). So once that was out of the way, I had the rest of the day free – so I continued working on fixing up our 4^th computer lab. At around 2:30pm, Viv and Tina picked me up to take me to the tutoring session for my Faatuatua kids – little did I know that my true birthday surprises were just around the corner.

Now if you know me – while I'm a little brash sometimes, I really don't like making a big deal about myself. It's just not my style – which is why no one at school knew that it was my birthday today. So I didn't get my first official 'verbal' Happy birthday until I got into the car with Viv/Tina and the kids. On the drive to Viv's house, we stopped by the Peace Corps office to see if there was a package waiting for me (when I checked, they hadn't gone to check the mail yet). The weird thing was when I went into the administration office, everyone told me 'Happy Birthday'. I was like 'What? How did you know it was my birthday?' Teuila (our medical officer) was the first one to say it to me – that would be important later on as to how she knew it was my bday. So I couldn't help but smile because this was the second year in a row that Peace Corps actually recognized my birthday….like I was all special or something!

So I went and did my tutoring session with Jewell and Uati. As we were finishing up, I got a call from one of my friends in the states who was just calling to wish me a happy birthday – this day was evolving into a bigger deal then I could ever imagine. Uati was happy that I got the call because that meant I cut my tutoring session short, but he'll make up for it tomorrow…no worries. So I talked to my friend for over an hour and couldn't help but smile because it was just so cool to actually get a call from someone from home on my birthday. And the coup de jour was when I got a text from my mom wishing me a happy birthday (before now, I could text her but she couldn't text me back). So all in all, at that point the day could have been over and I would have been an extremely happy birthday boy! Heck, even Jorim gave me a birthday 'present' which was just a birthday mask that read 'Happpy Birthday, Marques'. So cute!

So every Tuesday I have dinner at the Phillips (Paul/Viv's) house as part of my tutoring payment. So when Viv was putting a lot of effort into the meal, I thought she was just going to be making something super special for dinner. Then around 6pm, I turned around and saw Sara and Robyn walk by – which caught me by surprise because I didn't tell either one of them about this dinner tonight. So that was my first clue that something was up for tonight – that the dinner might be a little special. But it wasn't until Teuila/Pati and their kids showed up that I was like 'This is a surprise birthday party!' and it was truly a surprise because I had no idea Viv was going to go through so much effort. So in all I had a combination of the 3 family's that have had a big impact on my time in Samoa: The Phillips (Paul, Viv, Jewell, Matilda, Grace and Jorim)/Richie and Tina, The Pati's (Pati, Teuila, Tiffany, Rachel and Elisha) and the Peace Corps (Sara and Robin) – that was just a cool gathering that I just didn't expect to happen. All of a sudden there was a ton of food on the table and I could see that a lot of effort went into this dinner – for little ole' me. If I could I think I would have been blushing from all the attention. There was even a birthday cake and they sang 3 versions of 'Happy Birthday' – sooo much attention.

And when I sat down to have dinner, it just kind of hit me that these folks represented my family in Samoa. I just loved being around these folks and talking and just fellowshipping with them. I was glad that Viv went through the effort because heaven knows I wouldn't have done it for myself – but when we were all there together I was like 'I like this family!' and it just kind of reminded me how much better my experience here has improved since I've become involved with these folks. As Viv/Paul are fond of saying 'You're no longer a guest, you're part of the family' and tonight was one of those nights where it really felt like that. It's funny how I told Viv about my birthday last Tuesday and this Tuesday she was able to pull together a feast – impressive really. And I'll always remember this as being my first big surprise party. All in all, it has been a great day…in case you're wondering, I'm now 26. Funny thing is, last year had you told me that I would be spending my 26^th birthday with a Samoan family…I probably would have said 'Yeah right', but my how things change (and people grow closer) in only a year. Lovin' 26 already!!! L8r.

An ‘Old’ Friend (Written 7/18/07)

2007-07-18T23:15:00.001-11:00

Just a quick update about something special that happened today. A few days ago, I finally bought the last pieces of equipment I need in order to get the 4^th lab up and running (I needed network cable and plugs, which are quite expensive here). My year 13 class is doing a project which doesn't require me to be watching them all the time, so I was moving between doing my normal classes and finishing up the cabling in the 4^th lab. While I was moving between labs 1 and 4, I heard someone call my name from behind. I turned around and I saw Dennis and another young man I had never 'met' before. If you don't remember, last Friday I ran into Dennis and his wife Moira – who are missionaries from TN who were here last year. So today, when Dennis visited me at school he brought the person who first introduced us – his son, Cecil. Cecil found my website about a year and a half ago, when I started working at Chanel, and we have been in contact with each other kind of regularly through email. He's moving to Samoa (not as a Peace Corps Volunteer – more like a missionary) for a year to help a local church here. He wanted to join Peace Corps, but was unable to get Samoa as a choice – but where there's a will, there's a way. His mom, Moira, is Samoan – so he had a good reason for at least trying to get to this small island in the South Pacific.

It was definitely a strange experience meeting someone who I primarily met through email and yet I kind of feel like I know him. When he told me he would be moving to Samoa – he'll be living out in a village on Savaii called Iva – I gave him the contact info of some Volunteers currently living in that area. Just another way we volunteers go out of our way to help folks out. His experience will be a lot different from mine because he won't have the advantage of getting slowly acclimated to the culture nor the 2.5 months of language/culture training – so I can't wait to hear his perspective on adjusting to the Samoan way of life. I'll be meeting with Cecil, Dennis and Moira sometime next week – so then we can have a nice full conversation and I can find out what Cecil's expectations are while he lives here. The upshot to not being associated with the Peace Corps, for Cecil, is that he can drive and own a car – I'm so jealous! L8r.

The Connexion Champs (Written 7/13/07)

2007-07-13T22:23:00.001-11:00

Today was a beautiful day in Samoa – not only did it not rain, but today was a day off for me because it was time for the 'Champ of Champs'. The Champ of Champs is the 3^rd leg of school athletics for the 2^nd term: We began with inter-house athletics, then moved onto Zones and now we were at the third part of the trilogy. As before, I used this opportunity to do the best thing possible – sleep in. I woke up a little bit later then usual but I had to get in town by 9am. Yesterday, when I went to the Peace Corps office I found out that I had a package waiting for me at the post office and since Friday is kind of busy around town, I wanted to get it and get out of town as quickly as possible.

So I went and tried to catch a bus, but as is usually the case when you want a bus to be there – it's not there. Instead, I got a ride into town from a Samoan woman who I didn't even know – she just saw me waiting for the bus and kindly offered me a ride. I think that's the 2^nd time I've gotten a ride from someone I didn't know in this country – one per year. So with the ride, I got to the post office at around 9:03am. Now I was hoping against hope that this would be a quick in and out kind of deal – but I quickly remembered where I was and knew it wasn't going to happen as quickly as I wanted it to. On the card they give us, it says we can pick up packages between 9am-11am and 1pm-3pm (so only a 4 hour window to pick up your packages). Well in order to pick up your package, a customs agent has to be there to – I don't really know WHY they have to be there. They never do anything other then look at the slip and have us sign something (I think if I wasn't with the Peace Corps I would have to pay a duty for getting the package – but the regular post office folks could handle that). So even though I arrived there when the card stated, the customs agent wasn't there – so I had to wait. About 15 minutes after I arrived Meghan (Group 77) arrived to also pickup a package – so we waited together for another 15 minutes. Now around this time, one of the regular post office workers saw that we were kinda getting impatient and went to get our packages for us – but he couldn't give them to us until the 'all-seeing' customs agent arrived. The funny thing Meghan and I realized is that the customs agent would show up at 9:30am but probably still leave at 11pm (changing the start time but keep the same finishing time and inconvenience folks in the process). A few minutes before the customs agent came in, Liva – a Peace Corps driver – also rolled into the post office to pick up a package. Apparently, he got the memo that the custom agent arrives at 9:30am despite what the card says. So the agent did finally arrive and as I stated all they did was look at the slip that came with package, had me sign a book and I got my package – not exactly a reason to have one 'trained' person for the task. Anyway, neither of the packages were for me but intended to help folks in Samoa. One was for Josh's Samoan family and the other were some keyboards/mice for my school which came from my mom's law firm – these were greatly needed because our last shipment of computers didn't come with mice and keyboards (and thus has kind of hindered the improvement of the fourth lab). So with Liva picking up a package as well, Meghan and I were able to catch a ride back to the Peace Corps office instead of having to take a taxi – which was a greatly blessing, because it was HOT today.

So after spending a bit of time at the office, I also ran into Sara and Holly. So all 4 of us (Meghan, Holly, Sara and myself) headed to Apia Park for the Champ of Champs. There were a ton of kids there – but oddly enough it wasn't as packed as I thought it would be. Every secondary school in Samoa was represented there – which meant that a lot of Peace Corps who worked at those schools were also at the Park – Dylan, Robert, Amos, Aaron. Now during the Zones I talked about a school that was flying around the American flag – and I didn't get that at all. They were back this time but I found out who they were – they were Lefifi College and apparently they are known as the Eagles (and apparently the US is the only country with an eagle as their national bird). This time their athletes were also wearing blue shirts with a US Shield on the chest (think of the shield that Captain America might use). So it was good to find out why Samoans would be flying my flag at an athletic event. The strangest part is how my perspective on the games might have been different last year (Champ of Champs didn't happen last year because Apia Park was being renovated for the South Pacific Games this year) since the only school I knew was my own. But this year I know kids from my school, Faatuatua College (the kids I tutor for computer go there), Samoa College (a lot of kids from Peace Chapel go to Samoa College), St Mary's College and St. Joseph's College (our fellow catholic schools). It was definitely quite an experience, but I was a bit tracked out after the Zones and there was nothing really new happening in these events. We got there at about 11am – some students had been there since 5am – and the sun was just blazing hot. But I did what I set out to do – show my face to my students, let them know I was here and supporting them and took some pictures. When I went to take pictures of one of our students doing the discus, I ran into a former student of mine from Year 12 last year – Kuwait. He is currently going to Lefifi College (the one with the American flag) so it was good to see him again – he was one of my better students from last year and I had always wondered what happened to him. Thank goodness he's still going to college!

After about an hour and a half, I was kind of burned out and had enough track & field for the day – so Candice, Sara, myself and a teacher from St. Mary's went to have lunch at Seafood Gourmet (the one near the Peace Corps office – which mom really liked on her visit here). When we walked into the restaurant, I got the surprise of the day – I ran into Dennis and Moira Wilson. If you don't remember them, I met them last year while they were visiting Samoa. I know them through their son, Cecil, who reads my blog and will be coming to Samoa next week to start working here for a while. It was quite amazing encountering them because they had literally just got in the country on Wednesday and were planning to come up and see me when Cecil arrived. The strange part was that it felt like I was seeing an old friend – because when they left last year they said 'We'll see you next year' and I was like 'Ok, sure' but here we are a year later and they not only remember me but Moira gave me a mom like hug which was just awesome. So good times and can't wait to finally meet Cecil. Anyways – Sara, Candice, myself and the St. Mary's teacher all had fish burgers and Seafood Gourmet has one of the best fish burgers in the country – so it was a good filling lunch. After lunch, the three ladies went back to St. Mary's while I headed to the Peace Corps office – I had to do something later in the day, so it made no sense for me to go back home.

So since I was hanging out at the Peace Corps office after a sweaty, muggy athletic day…that meant only one thing: a hot shower! While it wasn't quite as hot as it usually is, it was so much better then the freezing cold shower I would have taken back at my house. So I basically hung out the office and rested for the majority of the day until about 6pm.

Then at 6pm, I headed to Peace Chapel for a youth ministry rally called 'The Connexion'. The Peace Chapel youth are starting to grow, so this event tonight was about bringing their non-believing friends to the rally to show them what being a Christian is all about. This was my first time going to the youth ministry for Peace Chapel, but it definitely felt welcoming and just reconfirmed the love that I have for kids – and helping them grow in their faith. While a lot of the kids there were from Peace Chapel, they did bring their non-Christian friends and one of the kids there was a boy named Shaka. Shaka is the son of Jackie, one of our assistant country directors, and is about 12 or 13 years old. Since he doesn't regularly go to Peace Chapel, he doesn't know a lot of our kids so I went over to hang out with him during parts of the service. The cool thing was he didn't know I was coming, so when I sat down next to him he gave me like one of the biggest smiles you could ever imagine – that was just cool to see that look of happiness from him. Alesi gave the Word, speaking about how God has a unique purpose for each of us and after the Word was given, she gave some of the kids an opportunity to give their lives to Christ. The first person up for the altar call was Shaka – I was so happy for him. We've got a new member to the Christian family! Definitely made coming to this youth rally worth it just to see him come to Christ. So odds are I'll be helping out with the youth ministry on Friday nights – gotta be a good example for the next generation of Christians.

All in all, I have to say it was probably the best Friday the 13^th I have ever had. Instead of being a day of doom and gloom, it felt like a day of connecting and renewal. Definitely a day – and a smile – worth remembering. L8r.

Just added...

2007-07-13T17:59:00.001-11:00

New photos have been added to the photo album collection on the sidebar. Just a note - I am using Picasa (Google's Photo Album service) for this one because I'm having trouble with getting Kodak to work on the Peace Corps computers. So enjoy the new pics! L8r.

ID4.0 (Written 7/4/07)

2007-07-04T23:25:00.001-11:00

"We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on – we're going to survive. Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"

- Bill Pullman, ID4

And thus goes one of my favorite Independence Day speeches of all time. Just makes you want to get up and represent the red, white and blue proudly. Today has been a strange independence day for me simply because it doesn't feel like a national holiday – but of course that goes with the territory of being in a foreign country during an American holiday. I did get a few "Happy Independence Day" from folks, but the majority of folks didn't know it was a special day for me. Oh well… I'll start off this post with what I did today and follow it up with a more introspective post.

After getting done with school, I headed into town to run some errands and hang out at the Peace Corps office until it was time to go to my home group. Now, home group is Peace Chapel's version of a bible study – there are two categories of home group: Samoan and English (guess which one I'm in). Tonight was special because all the home groups – Samoan and English – came together at the church for a little bible quiz competition. This was the second time this year that all the home groups have been together and the first one since the creation of the new home group led by Sara, Janita and Tim (which split off from my home group). On Sunday, Pastor Samoa gave each of the homegroups scriptures to study (Colossians 3 & 4 / Ephesians 4) for tonight's quiz. I was originally suppose to compete but was pulled out and Zonder, Ofa, Gardenia and Glenn ended up competing instead. Now what I like about my homegroup is the creative nature that exists within it – we all wore the same color (black) – even the kids participated and the kids made flags to wave during the competition (our team name was 'Team Levi' – we did not wear any jeans). For the preliminary matchup, the English homegroups competed against each other followed by the Samoan homegroups competing against each other. For the finals, Samoan and English homegroups competed against each other and in the end – an English homegroup won. But the most important thing is that it was really a fun time of just fellowship and hanging out with the members from the other homegroups whom we usually only see on Sunday. Pastor wants to make this an annual event – so next year I'll have to send my spirit here in order to support my homegroup!

When I applied for the Peace Corps, one of my main reasons for wanting to join was the fact that I am patriotic. I love my country very much and I wanted to do something for my country – but not get killed. I am an only child after all, so can't be doing something that'll endanger me before I have kids. So I thought that Peace Corps would allow me an opportunity to reach out to people in the global community and show them not only the diversity of America (because, let's be honest – there aren't a lot of African Americans doing this) but also help combat some of the negative press we Americans get in the national media. So after being in Samoa for 2 years, I think I have definitely had to combat some of the wrong perceptions of America that people have – such as everyone in America is rich (especially if we can afford to come to a place like Samoa – which costs a lot of money; saving is a foreign concept to some here), everyone in America is white, America is a war monger (that's foreign policy, not the general choice of all Americans) and so on and so forth. Sometimes it feels like it's a 9-5 job combating some of the misconceptions the world has about us American – but then I realize that even though I am on a small island in the south pacific I am making a difference in how this portion of the world looks at Americans. And that's why a few weeks back, I began to think – what is it that I would want on my tombstone when I die? I could have 'He was a patriot!' but I'm not being nearly as patriotic as the men and women who are serving in our armed forces. 'He lived a good life' – nice, but it doesn't really give you something to aspire to. And that's when it hit me…'He made a difference' (which was the statement on my diversity chart). That encapsulates so much in those 4 little words – it not only speaks of what I have done here in the present but gives me something to strive for in the future. I look around at the students, kids and adults whose lives I have touched and (hopefully) made a little better – I've brought a unique experience into their lives that will echo with them forever (just as they will echo in my life forever). I look at the 4 computer labs and all the computers inside and I realize that I really have made a difference here at Chanel College by improving the Computer Studies program as best I could and taking it to a higher level then it was when I first got here. I look at the Peace Corps Volunteer community and I (hopefully) have made a difference in bringing some technical know how to their world and finding ways to make it easier for computers to be brought into Samoa (or at least documenting the process as best I could). All these things come together in that one simple statement – 'He made a difference'. So that is my American Dream – not the big house, a lot of money, the 2.5 kids with a white picket fence – my American Dream is to be able to live a life worthy of having that statement on my tombstone. And I'm just blessed to be born in a country that gives me the opportunity to not only apply that statement on a domestic level but on an international level as well. So 231 years ago, our founding fathers got together and made a difference…how could I not live up to the standard they set? Happy ID4!