The Final Load (Written 6/4/07)

Well this week already feels like it's going to go by fast. First of all, during the course of Sunday – 17 people from across America flew into Los Angeles for their staging. These folks will make up the newest group of Peace Corps Samoa Volunteers – Group 78 (1 away from my final group). Whenever a new group comes around it always makes us remember what our training experience was like and how far we have come as individuals and as a group since then – it's been one heck of a ride. At this point, sometimes it feels like I've been in Samoa forever (in both a good and bad sense) but I've enjoyed my time immensely and it'll be fun to have some new faces. There's supposedly another African-American in the group – we may get up to 3 African Americans on the island…woohoo! Anyway, they will arrive here in on Wednesday morning flight (I have to work, so I won't be seeing them at the airpot) and their fiafia (or welcoming party) will be held on Saturday. So I'll get my first look at these new beings then…but until that time comes, I've got a whole week to get through.

And that week started off with a bang. Every Monday, we have an assembly (students and staff) to get the students up to date on the latest goings on over the weekend and for the upcoming week. Well today, we had to get some sports photos done (rugby and netball) which meant that I had to get on the mic and talk to the students – it was definitely a weird feeling. While I'm perfectly comfortable speaking in front of my students now, speaking in front of the whole school was just a tad bit nerve wrecking. But my voice didn't crack and we got the job done. Last year, this whole process of getting the sports photos was very unorganized and it took forever to actually get them done – ahh, the difference a year makes. While it took a while to organize them into their proper teams, once that was done the photos went through like clock work. Thankfully, the weather decided to cooperate today and we didn't have any rain (although the folks were complaining about having to stand with the sun aiming towards them – they know nothing of how to take a good photo! j/k). Anyway, once that was done I was sweating like it was going out of style and then had to run and teach a class.

After my first two classes of the day (which were my Year 13 classes), I had a year 12 class come in. And just as I was about to start teaching them, I got pulled away to fill out some survey evaluating the secondary (high school) curriculum – so basically by the halfway mark of the day I had only taught 2 classes out of 4! I wasn't to pleased about getting pulled away from class to work on a survey, but I had no choice. Just so you know – no I couldn't just leave the class in place, fill out the survey, then come back – the survey took longer then the allotted class time and I wanted to make sure all the computer labs were locked and secure. So once I got the survey out of the way, I went downstairs to make sure everything was okay with the labs when a flatbed truck drove up to the school. What did this flatbed truck contain? Why it held all the computers and monitors needed to set up the fourth lab (remember the fourth lab – which was first discussed in JANUARY/FEBRUARY! – welcome to a third world country folks.) So I directed them down to the proper lab in order to unload the equipment (had to wrangle up some boys to help get them into the room as the driver and I unloaded the bed). So once again, I was sweating up a storm and still had to go through with my teaching day (by the way, I'm doing all this sweating in a business casual outfit – not shorts and a t-shirt). Fortunately, I didn't have a class after unloading the computers so I got a mini break but I did have to take some student photos for the magazine/yearbook.

BTW, before the end of the 1^st term a bunch of the year 13 kids came to me and asked if I could form a magazine committee for them. This was totally unsolicited help from them and I was just kind of taken aback by the request. Last year, I had to do everything for the magazine/yearbook myself and while it got done in time – it wore me out (on top of setting up labs 2 and 3), so I was more then happy to take them up on their offer. Once I explained what the job entailed, I got about 14 people who wanted to do it. So last Wednesday we had our first meeting where I assigned them all to a certain class to make sure the students in those classes were properly represented in the photos – I knew the job would get done quicker if the students did it compared to if I did it by myself. So when I took the student photos for the magazine today, one of my committee members (Logotaeao) brought the kids to me in order for me to take their pictures – so the system works! I didn't have to run around chasing students down (and after being in the sun for so long, I don't think I would have had the energy anyway). So hopefully we'll have the majority of the magazine done before the end of term 2 (last year it was done a few weeks before the end of the school year – a difference of about 8-9 weeks).

So, this Monday went by extremely fast to me. I only taught 3 classes today (1 class was for 2 periods) but I did a lot of heavy lifting and side jobs – ahh well, it's just another day in the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer. You're assigned to do one thing but you end up doing soooooo much more! L8r.