Talking on Christmas Eve (Written 12/24/05)

As far as Christmas Eve’s go, this has to be considered one of the better ones – especially because this is my first one in Samoa. It was made even more special by the fact that I got to talk to my dad today – but not by phone. No, instead we used Google Talk to chat and after a little bit of tinkering between Andrea and myself we finally got it to work – and it was a great experience to be able to talk to someone back home without worry of running up a $300 phone bill (it really only cost me .99 sene an hour plus the .11 sene to make the phone call – not bad compared to the normal international phone rate). We chatted for over an hour just catching up on what has been going on both here and at home for the past 3 months (surprisingly enough, we here in Samoa really do like to hear about what’s going on back in the states – guess its just a case of the grass being greener on the other side). And if that wasn’t enough, I also got to talk to my Grandpa by way of phone over Google Talk. So in all, from Samoa I was able to talk to my dad in Minnesota and talk to my grandfather in Chicago – if that’s not a great gift to receive when you’re far away from home then I don’t know what is. It will definitely go down as a memorable moment for me and now I’ve found a cheap way to talk to people back home (especially those who don’t want to take the hit to the wallet an international phone call will make). So that just started the day off right and it only got better. Mika came back from visiting with his family today and I told him about my oven not having a propane tank. He gave me his propane tank (since he’s going to be gone until Monday) so I was finally able to cook a meal! He took me into town and I picked up a few items from the store before they closed, but it was at that moment that I realized even though I can actually cook now that doesn’t mean I actually know how to cook – so it was like a wild goose chase for me in the store. So what was my first official meal? It was rice and some mixed vegetables from a can. ( It was by no means the best meal I have ever had, but it was great to have something that wasn’t noodles for dinner and I made food that left leftovers. Leftovers! Like I told my dad while I was talking to him – for a little bit of time, it actually felt like Christmas here: talking to family and having the Christmas Eve dinner – I almost got chills. So Google has been pretty good to me so far – they provide the blog and the IM client through which I can connect home. Now if they could just find a way to get me some new computers in Samoa, I might actually declare Google the best technology company ever – they’ve got two years to come through on that deal. ( Anyway, have a Merry Christmas Eve where you’re reading this from. Love ya. L8r.

12 Days of Homestay:
On the 11th day of Homestay, my family gave to me:
Sefulu Tasi taro
Sefulu pulatasi
Iva palusami
Valu fasimoli
Fitu Mamoe
Ono sa’evae
Lima Vailima
Fa ula vai
Tolu ofu tino
Lua lavalava
And pea soupo ma le mulipipi