The Village Life (Written Oct 22 2005)

It's our second night in the village and all the trainees have apparently settled into our respective families quite well. While health is a big issue here (a lot of kids have open sores) I think that if we watch what we eat and where we walk we'll be alright. Hopefully! Apparently, in the village the day starts at 5am (before the sun comes up) so I was awakened by a lot of noises from both people and roosters around the fale. Being the vigilant person that I am I stayed asleep until almost 6:30am and started getting ready for school (on a Saturday). When I was getting ready to leave for school, I saw Bryan and my eyes lit up. According to him it looked like I wanted to give him a big hug and I did because he was the first person since the night before I could talk to without speaking Samoan. It was also a chance to find out how his family was doing. Once we got into language class we all just started sharing various about our new Samoan families – it was definitely an overwhelming experience. It was also the first time we were all excited about language class because the only way to have a conversation with these people is to speak Samoan. I also learned that I am very popular for some reason – a few volunteers said they heard their aigas (families) talk about me. Wish I could understand what they were saying though. After school, I went back home and then took a walk with my brother to the end of Falevao. While walking I constantly asked him how to say things in Samoan – thank goodness my family is patient. I learned that the mother of the family lives in New Zealand, the father has passed away, there are 4 brothers in this family (3 abroad & 1 in Samoa). I also learned that my brother-in-law's name is Tusi and he played Rugby and volleyball at Alavae College. After that long walk I walked with Tara (Julya) and Ropati to some of the other trainees house and you can already tell that we will all have different experiences from this experiment. After getting back from that walk I went to choir practice/evening prayer with my sister-in-law. There I had a chance to meet the village pastor and he was very impressed by the amount of Samoan I had learned in a week and a half. He also invited me back for tea the next day (apparently, I was the only trainee to accept the invite to choir practice). So it definitely was a full day, unfortunately I spent about half of it with fellow trainees. I know that's bad but every time I'm around my Samoan family my brain has to be in translate mode (and since they speak in the k language and we learn in the T language that means double translation) and that gets tiring very after a while. Maybe one we get to our 3 week stretch I'll feel a lot more comfortable with the language but right now I can understand what they're talking about but I sometimes can't remember how to respond. But I at least half way know what they're talking about, and knowing is half the battle! Also today, my youngest brother (about a month old) was renamed after me (apparently that's very common) which was both an honor and kind of scary. Apparently within only a couple of hours I made such a good impression that they would name a child after me. Stepping into this village has definitely been an experience and I have a new respect for the PCVs that live in a village – the village life is not for me. I'm a city boy at heart and somethings (no matter where you are) never change. Talofa le soifua!