Q: How many hours behind the US is Samoa?
A: Samoa is 4hrs behind Pacific, 5hrs behind Mtn, 6hrs behind Central and 7hrs behind Eastern. So basically when its morning here it's the afternoon or evening in the US. It blows my mind sometimes that if I go to bed at midnight here, one of my friends/family in the States could be getting up and going to work.
Q: Why don't you post more pics?
A: Because the internet here is nothing like it is in the states – not to say that its horrible or anything, its just slow no matter what. The reason for this is that Samoa is obviously not getting their internet through a landline like we do in the states – their internet signal comes from a satellite (which may or may not be specifically pointed at Samoa). Thus, the internet is very slow here at times and during training the only internet access we have comes from the internet café's – which in turn cost money. So if I wanted to post a lot of pics, that could take a while with this internet connection and I'm always in a hurry so as not to run out of time or run up to much time. Also, our schedule during training is very rigid and time is precious (even in paradise) so that's another reason. Once we become volunteers I'll do my best to post my pics. No worries!
Q: Why are phone calls to the states so expensive?
A: I don't know. There's basically only one telephone company in Samoa called SamoaTel. SamoaTel redefines the word monopoly because I think it also owns the internet signal as well, but don't quote me on that. Either way, its very expensive to call from Samoa to the states, but its not as expensive to call from the States to Samoa. 'But why not just do collect calling?' – the reason we try not to do long conversations by calling collect is that it can be as high as $2 a min calling collect and after a while that starts to add up. One Volunteer heard called home collect a lot and ran up a $1000 phone bill for her parents – not something you want to encounter. So the best thing to probably do is get a phone card that makes it cheap to call to Samoa or get on a phone plan that makes it cheap to call to Samoa and then arrange the call through emails. Also, I think we've found out that cell phones can't accept collect calls – funny how we become so dependent on those and there's still some things cell phones can't do.
Q: How would you describe the geography/environment of Samoa?
A: One Word: Tropical. Many Words: It's a great looking island. As you can see in some of the pics I've posted its very mountainous and covered in trees, but at the same time its moving towards being a modern country. Almost everyone has a cell phone (Even though the coverage isn't all that great) and a lot of Samoans are slowly learning to accept the internet. Because of how the traditional fale is built (with no walls) it may be a while before we see a lot of Samoans with PCs and laptops in their homes (although some do). It is always warm here – its amazing. It's a place where it can be slightly cool in the morning and then amazingly hot the rest of the day. Another interesting note is that you can see rain storms coming from miles away. One day a couple of volunteers and I were standing on the sea wall and we literally saw a rain cloud move in the sky – it was amazing. There are two types of seasons here – Wet and Dry (the seasons are not split up into four groups like it is in the states). We are currently in the wet season – so it rains here almost every day, but the cool thing about the rain is that it only lasts for a few minutes and then its gone. While back in the states, when it rains it can rain for at least a full day or half a day – here, we get like maybe 2 or 3 10 minutes rain spouts a day and the rest of the day is just bright and sunny. We are currently staying on the island of Upolu, so I don't know much about Savaii yet, but as far as we can tell it shouldn't take you more then an hour to drive from any one point on the island to Apia.
Q: Where is your training village located?
A: We are training in the village of Falevao and while I can't give you specific info on where we will be staying (security reasons) I can say that the village is to the east of Apia, located near the Falefa River and close to the Falefa Waterfall (which we may get the opportunity to see while we make our visits to the village). It's about a 45 min drive from Apia to our training village If you're looking at a map of Upolu, we will be located close to Fagaloa Bay (but not past it). Hope that helps!
Q: What's the typical training schedule like?
A: Well funny that you ask because here it is:
8am: Check-In (This is when we first meet up in the morning and talk about things we learned during the previous day – any questions we have about new words we heard)
8:15am: Language
10:00am: Tea (You can see the influence of British culture in this 'break' time)
10:30am: Language
12:00pm Lunch (We've eaten at almost every restaurant in Apia – so if you want to know of some place good but cheap to eat at, we're your experts!)
1:30pm Language
3:00pm Tea
3:30pm (Workshop)
5:00pm Malolo [means rest/end of day]
So as you can see we've got a pretty busy schedule from morning to evening during training. Now this isn't our schedule every day, sometimes there are fewer activities and instead of a language class we'll have a workshop but this is basically how it works out almost everyday. The weekends are sometimes different in that we may spend time studying or be with our Samoan families on Sunday (because in all Samoan villages everyone goes to church).
Q: Are there any Samoan holidays?
A: Why yes there are and we happen to get them off, amazingly enough. Now a few don't correspond to US holidays and I don't know the significance of all the holidays (especially White Sunday).
January 1st – New Years Day
January 4th – Head of State's Birthday
March 25th – Good Friday
March 28th – Easter Monday
April 25th – ANZAC Day
May 9th – Mother's Day
June 1st – Independence Day
August 1st – Labour Day
October 10th – White Sunday
November 4th – Arbour Day [Our first holiday in Samoa]
December 25th – Christmas
December 27th – Boxing Day
Q: How was the flight to Samoa?
A: It was a smooth ride for the most part – not to bumpy. It was the first time that I've been on a plane so long that I was able to watch 2 movies, a british comedy, an episode of 'Everybody Loves Raymond' and an episode of 'Seinfeld' (The movies were Fantastic Four and The Longest Yard). Its also very hard to sleep on a plane if you're not next to the window – nothing to lay your head on. But the meals were really good and there were a lot of Samoans on the flight. They even had some of the flight information translated into Samoan for those passengers. It was strange that a lot of us were thinking that in two years time we're going to be able to read what that information is and understand the conversations that other Samoans around us are having. That kinda tripped a few of us out!
Q: Are we still wearing the LavaLava's daily?
A: In all honesty, not really – but we have a good reason. According to other PCVs when we go to our training village, our host families will give us more lavalavas (maybe 2 or 3 more) which will really negate the reason to get anymore lavalavas until the end of PST. Wearing the same flower-like lavalava everyday really gets to you after about a week (its not like wearing shorts or pants over and over – people can easily tell it's the same thing you wore the day before). Once we get a few lavalavas to spice up our lives a bit (and that actually have some meaning in comparison to the touristy lavalavas that say 'samoa' on them) I'm sure we'll start wearing them almost every day – they just have to have pockets! J
Q: What was the weather like when you arrived in Samoa?
A: It was humid – but not as humid as I was expecting. When I got off the plane I was expecting to start dripping sweat almost immediately, but it wasn't like that at all. It was kind of a cool humidity that you would feel on a nice cool fall day in the states. Its not really dangerous to electronics (like I was fearing) and this is considered the wet season – so this should be as humid as its going to get during out stay in Samoa.
Q: Since most Fales don't have walls, how do the residents deal with bad weather?
A: We don't know yet, we'll learn that when we go to the training village but what I believe they do is they may have some kind of tarp like material (but not as hard or rugged as tarp) that acts as a temporary barrier against high winds mixed with water (because rain is not really a concern if its just going downward).
Q: How excited are you that the White Sox made the World Series?
A: I'm stoked! If they win I want someone to send me a White Sox World Series champ hat! Almost any news from the states is greatly appreciated here because without TVs or consistent internet access here its hard to keep up with what's going on beyond the shores of our island paradise.
Well hopefully these answers provide some level of comfort for those of you reading it back at home. I know I didn't answer every possible question you all may have – but hey, it's a start. Keep the questions up and I'll do this kind of thing again. L8r.
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