First Day In Samoa

Malo (Hi!) everyone, I’ve finally made it to Samoa and boy has it been an experience. We got into Apia, Samoa (the capital city of Samoa) at about 3am Samoan time which would be about 9am CST – so we had ourselves a very long and arduous flight. Once we arrived, we were greeted by the Peace Corps Samoa staff who were very surprised how wide awake and coherent we were after a 10 hour plane ride. But you’d be surprised how much energy you can muster up when you come into a new country. While Samoa is humid, its not unbearably humid which is what I was fearing – but it’s a nice cool type of humid. We were also greeted at the airport by some of the current PC Samoa volunteers who gave us lai’s as a welcome gift. Once we got to the hotel we are staying at for the next week and a half, I just crashed – the time difference really took a lot out of me but we had to get up for breakfast a few hours after arrival, so it was more of a nap then an actual resting period. After our short ‘nap’, we woke up at about 7am (which was 1pm CST) and had breakfast with our language trainers. It was strange to just start up and learning this new language first thing in the morning, but by mid day we had a few of the basic words down. It’s hard to imagine that as I write this, I’ve really only been in Samoa for one day but it feels like we’ve crammed so much stuff into this one day that it feels like two. But from talking to current volunteers, the training period will be the most intensive and structured period we have during our service here – so it helps give you some kind of perspective when you think of it that way. So I know the big question is – ‘are you glad you made this decision?’ and I have to say yes. There wasn’t this big momentous transition period that I was kind of expecting, we just sort of arrived here and got the ball rolling in terms of integrating into the culture. So right now, its an adventure that doesn’t really feel like an adventure. Maybe once we go to our training village, then it will finally sink in that I’m actually going to try to make an impact here with this people. And I do miss my family and friends like crazy, but as I told a special friend we’re all looking at the same sky no matter where we are on the planet – so that helps me stay grounded. One of the things that I have to get use to is a form of dress called a lavalava which would be considered a skirt in the states – but everyone in this country wears them because pants are kind of impractical in this heat and shorts are worn kind of infrequently (You see them more in Apia then in the village because it’s the capital city), so if you want to be comfortable you wear a lavalava. I’m still trying to figure out how to post pics so once I get that done I’ll try posting some of me wearing this Samoan form of dress. And for those of you who are curious (which is probably everyone reading this) the Samoan form of my name is Matusi. So as you can see from this post, our first day here has been pretty jam packed – can’t wait for the next 24 hours! I’ll write back soon! Fa! (Bye).

PS - for those who saw that episode of the Simpsons where they went to Australia, the toilets down here really do not spiral when they are flushed!And I'll post pics as soon as I can, but it might be a while. Sorry! Love ya all.