A Jam-Packed Day (Written 12/19/05)

The View from my front porch

My bike on my porch

It was quite a busy day yesterday – from start till finish (which occurred early this morning). On Sunday morning I got one of the best phone calls a person so far away from home can get – a call from home. My mom called me at my new place and it was so great to hear her voice again – something that reminded me of home. While it was a short conversation considering I haven't "talked" to her in 3 months – it was just good to have the chance to talk to a piece of my American family. I also got to talk to my uncle, aunt and cousins – so it was definitely a packed call but well worth it. If that's not a good way to kick off the day, then I don't know what it! After that, I got dressed real quick and rode my bike to Sara's house. Luckily, I caught her before she went to church (she was walking by as I rode to her place). So I went with her to a nearby church, called Peace Chapel, and let me tell you – it was awesome! It felt like a worship back home and it was definitely a rejuvenating experience. It wasn't as dry and unenergetic as the church service in Falevao – people were singing loudly, upbeat and hands were in the air. They also sang contemporary songs (like "Blessed Be Your Name") which was great. Thankfully, this church isn't to far from where I live (considering where I live) so I think I'll be going back there with Sara a lot – it was definitely a spiritually renewing experience. AND it wasn't hot – this place had open windows and ceiling fans! And the Pastor did his sermon mainly in English so I actually understood him and got a lot out of the service. There was definitely a mix of people there from Samoans, Australians, Indians (from India), Americans and New Zealanders – so all around it was also a culturally rewarding experience. Well once church was over I high tailed it to the Kofi Haus to watch some football and there I met up with some of the guys from Group 74 (Danany, Mike and David) and just hung out with them watching the stinker of a game between Oakland and the Browns. But a crappy game just gave us an opportunity to talk and hang out before they go to New Zealand on Wednesday. The bar closed before the Sunday night game came on (because a lot of the customers left) so I didn't get to see the one game I actually wanted to see Chicago vs. Atlanta, but I know Chicago won – and they're one step closer to a playoff spot! Chicago's on a roll this year if they can get into the playoffs. So we went back to the office for a bit and there I met up with Ryan and Charles and just caught up on what our houses are like and getting adjusted to being an actual volunteer. At 3pm, we went over to another volunteers house for a little Group 75 reunion of sorts to catch up and exchange phone numbers for those who had them. Mari, Andrew, Dianne, Candice, Charles, Sara, Ryan and myself all showed up – so a pretty good showing. Sara, the volunteer who invited us over, gave us some chips, spaghetti and brownies to eat while we were over – it was literally the best food I've had since I became a volunteer! I gotta learn how to cook fast otherwise Ramen and PB&J are going to become my staple foods. We stayed there for a good couple of hours just picking Sara's brain on how things work in Samoa (even though she's part of Group 74 and has only been here 6 months, she stills knows more about this place then we do). So at around 6:30pm Candice, Ryan and myself decided it was time to find Holly since she hadn't called anyone and we didn't know exactly where she lived. So we started biking from Apia to Faleula which is on the way to the wharf. It was the longest bike ride I have ever been on and it definitely felt like it. It took us about a good 45 minutes to an hour to get to her village and we were really expect it to only be about 20-30 minutes but she definitely lives far away from the rest of us. So once we got to the village, we started asking people around if they had seen her and unfortunately, Holly doesn't make friends that fast so we encountered a lot of blank stares. We rode from one end of the village to the other looking for her – we had a basic idea of what her place looked like, but she never gave us a description of the outside or what it was close to. Finally, we found Peter – a volunteer from Group 73 that lives in the same village – and he decided to ride with us to find her. With him, we went down a rode we probably would not have gone down were he not with us and we talked to a lady who saw Holly at church earlier that morning (her words were "I saw a palagi wearing a pulatasi – does she wear those?" and we were like "That's her!") so we knew she was somewhere close by. So we went to the Catholic church nearby and stopped at the store across from it. There we happened to run into a lady who knew exactly where she was and led us straight to Holly's house (she knew we were Peace Corps because of our bikes). Holly was very much surprised to see us but her place is extremely nice and feels very much like a grandmother's house back in the states. It was almost sunset when we arrived in the village and it was dark when we found Holly – so biking back was going to be a real problem if we couldn't stay with her. Fortunately her neighbors said it was okay and we stayed the night over there – so our first major bike ride and our first sleep over. We biked back to Apia this morning at about 7am and there was definitely an increase in vehicle traffic compared to Sunday (on Sunday there are virtually no cars driving around) but for some reason the ride went faster because we made it back in about 30 mins. So it's harder to get to Holly's then it is to get back from her house – next time we go out there it may be by bus. So within the last 12 hours, I've gotten quite a bit of exercise to make up for those 3 months of stagnation. So now, after a nice cold shower, I get to start my Monday. Woohoo! L8r.

12 days of Homestay:

On the 7^th day of homestay, my family gave to me:

Fitu Mamoe

Ono sa'evae

Lima Vailima

Fa ula vai

Tolu ofu tino

Lua lavalava

And pea soupo ma le mulipipi