Today we had our water safety day, in which we were talked to about how do deal with potential hazards and sea creatures we may experience during our two year stay in Samoa. We were especially warned about the dangers of cliff jumping from the waterfalls around Samoa (on both islands) – apparently the rocks underneath the waterfall can shift around and it can be a lot shallower then it looks to the naked eye. I hope to see a couple of the waterfalls in Savaii and Upolu during my stay, but cliff jumping is definitely not in the cards for me – I don't like tempting fate that much! Unfortunately we could not go out into the ocean to practice water safety (the boat wasn't feeling well), so instead we went to the marine reserve known as Palolo Deep – its about a 20min walk from our hotel in Apia. If anyone ever comes to visit me, this is probably one of the first 'beach like' areas I would take you to because its close to Apia and it's a great place to start snorkeling. It's the first place I ever snorkeled! So this was again one of those 'first' days – my first time snorkeling in the ocean. It was a great experience because I was able to see clearly in the water and was able to stay underwater longer (man can only hold his breath for so long). Palolo Deep is cool in that the first part of the beach is made up of coral and other sea creatures that stick to the sea floor but its not that deep. Off in the distance though you can see a dark blue circle which is the 'deep' part of it. Once you reach a certain spot in the reef, you come to a 30 foot drop off into the sea and that's when you see the really cool stuff. It was just amazing to just float above these sea creatures and see them in their natural habitat without having to go up for air every 10 seconds. This was also the first time that I saw a sponge in person – I had only read about them in science books. They look extremely cool and weird up close and personal. Floating over these sea creatures just makes you stand in awe of the beauty that we take for granted in our everyday surroundings. Nella, the PCV marine biologist that was with us, said that its new trainees like me who have never seen this type of sea life before that reminds her of the awesomeness of the ocean. I hope I keep having that same kind of awestruck feeling at every new beach and environment I see. We don't have views like this back in Tennessee!
So if anyone decides to come visit Apia, definitely bring some snorkel equipment – it won't go to waste here.
On a different note though, I had an interesting encounter with a Samoan at our hotel named Tai. He was going through his bible reading 1st Timothy 5:1-5 and had some difficulty understanding what the text was talking about. So this was my first opportunity to kind of share my understanding of the Bible with a Samoan and while Christianity is prevalent here, its still good to have the opportunity to kind of share my faith openly with a native. Its also goes to show how much more comfortable I am in my faith now compared to how I was two years ago when I was first thinking about joining the PC – I definitely would not have been ready then. A lot can change about a person in two years, so we'll see how I turn out once I'm done here (but don't worry, the root of a person never changes!)
Camp Ozark Moment of the Day: Today we played the sheet game where you have two people sit on either side of the sheet, drop the sheet and then whoever remembers the other persons name first wins. In this version we played using our Samoan names, so it was definitely a hard game to win. That was my Camp Ozark moment of the day! L8r.
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