Who would have thought that brushing teeth could be so funny?

I thought I would throw up a quick post today in light of a hilarious
event during our personal hygiene education session out in the tsunami
affected area today. As part of the personal hygiene session we talk
about brushing your teeth. At the end of the teeth brushing portion
of the lesson we ask a few kids to come up and help me demonstrate
proper teeth brushing. We were at our second school of the day,
Lotopu'e Primary and we got three volunteers from the class, a few
from grades 3 and 4 and one from the kindergarten (called year 1
here). We told the kids to watch me closely and do exactly what I do
to brush their teeth correctly. The little kindergartner was a cute
little boy, the type of little kid that still has a bit of the baby
fat and huge chubby cheeks. Well, as we start brushing you can tell
he is focused on watching me and brushing his teeth exactly the way he
should. This was great, except as time went on, the foam from the
toothpaste was building up and began to drip out of his mouth. It
started as a few drips and before you know it he has a white goatee
and from there gravity did it's job and half of this little kid's
shirt is covered in toothpaste by the time we are done. The entire
class of 80 kids were dying laughing as were all the volunteer
teachers with me. I tried my best to hold back but eventually I even
let out a few laughs (along with tears from trying so hard not to
laugh!). No it would be a sad story if the kid felt bad or
embarrassed but he was so young and so intently focused on following
my lead he was oblivious to the whole thing, including the tooth paste
cascading out of his mouth.

Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of this session as I forgot
my camera today but Jewel, one of the other volunteer teachers, did
get some shots on her camera phone. I will see if I can get those
downloaded and post them. I am sure you will get a kick out of them.

In case you are wondering about my Thanksgiving day plans, it will be
business as usual on Thursday but the Charge De Affairs for the US
Embassy is going to have Thanksgiving at her house again this year on
the Saturday following so I am really looking forward to that. The
only problem is that I will be having a Thanksgiving dinner on
Saturday followed by To'onai on Sunday, which is like a weekly
Thanksgiving dinner. Better pencil in some extra exercise time. Gotta
look good for my girl when I get back after all!

Soooooooo busy!

It's starting to get a bit crazy around here, the responsibilities and
hats I am wearing are starting to pile up. Now, I'm not really
complaining but just venting a bit as I adjust to the increase in
workload. Of course this is temporary. We have the WASHE program
continuing for the next two weeks which was keeping me adequately
busy, I do have to still try and keep the website updated and respond
to inquiries, I have been asked to try and develop a database for
volunteer registration and tracking (which my old bro, Dave is being
awesome and helping me with) and we have begun developing a plan of
action for the next year which is taking the current plan and
developing more specifics and adjusting it for special considerations
in the tsunami affected population. Then throw on the duties as
president of Avanoa Tutusa (the Peace Corps Samoa NGO) and helping the
activities coordinator at the gym I have an overflowing plate!

As I said though, this is temporary. As the WASHE program winds down
a lot of time will be freed up, temporarily of course. Also, as far
as the website goes I need to start working with a volunteer on that
to teach them how to update it and maintain the site. Once they have
gotten a handle on it I am hoping to drop that responsibility all
together. I am thinking early next year some time. The planning we
are doing right now will definitely help to prevent an overflow like
this as well. We have started strong and over the next few weeks we
will be addressing all aspects of the health section's work and have a
clear picture of responsibilities and the direction. It is going to
be great.

We had our meeting today to try and finalize the Avanoa Tutusa project
coming up on Friday. Avanoa Tutusa, the Peace Corps Samoa NGO, is
going to be going out into the affected areas to do a water tank
painting project. The goal of the project is to promote water
conservation in the villages. This has been identified as a very
important public awareness topic due to the reliance of these people
on water delivered in a truck and stored in tanks. We are planning
the project in the village of Satitoa. There is a large group of
families living around a 5000L water tank inland. We are planning to
go out to this area, give the high school students a short lesson on
water conservation and then work with them to paint water conservation
themes on the water tank. if the program works well and the youth
respond positively then we may do the program in other villages in the
near future.

Besides that, there is not much going on. My hair is starting to get
ridiculously long, I have to admit I can't remember when my last
haircut was. I wanted to get it cut this week/weekend but due to the
combination of my long work hours and the inconvenient hours of the
barbershops here I have had no luck thus far. I am thinking maybe
this Saturday. It's got to happen soon, that's for sure.

We are going to be having Thanksgiving again this year. The Charge de
Affairs, Robin Jager, from the US embassy is going to host
Thanksgiving again this year which is awesome. She is really nice to
do that for all us home sick Americans. There will be turkey,
stuffing and all the other good stuff you would expect from
Thanksgiving. Now I just have to figure out what I am going to bring.
(It's pot luck style, with some of the key foods provided, like
turkey of course)

The countdown continues as I am now officially under a month until I
return home. I am thinking about leaving my laptop and credit card
here so I have the extra incentive to come back! It will be tough
coming back, but I have no doubt I will. I didn't wait through that
fantastically crappy situation earlier in the year just to bail when I
actually have a chance to make a difference.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week but I hope the description of my
work load helps to explain why (and fosters feelings of generosity for
all those back home in the form of free meals and drinks! I like
Chili's, authentic mexican food, italian food, hot wings, tequila and
dark beer just incase you were wondering).

Fa'afeafea one sefe le vai

Translation: how to save water. That is the topic off the lesson
segment I stumbled through today as part of our WASHE program. This
week's lesson is about water conservation and I didn't have time to
get some tips for the first two days but I managed to get some help
yesterday afternoon and I jumped in with two feet today.

My primary issues with speaking in Samoan are constructing the
sentences and those tricky little words other than the nouns,
adjectives and verbs, that make the sentence sound correct. I managed
to get a few sentences constructed properly to use as the basic
information for my lesson. Once the basic message was stated clearly
the I began my incoherent Samoan rambling trying to elaborate and
provide examples. All in all I feel pretty good about the whole
experience. I think the kids really enjoyed it, I couldn't really
tell you because I was so focused on the words I needed to say I
couldn't tell if they were really getting any of it! It's also tough
to keep your mind on the lesson an what comes next when you have to
think so hard about just making a sentence. I am confident though,
that as I do this more often my Samoan is going to drastically
improve. Erin from group 81 teaches at the school we were at today,
Saleilua, so she got the opportunity to get a laugh from my
floundering through the lesson.

Tomorrow we have one more school for the water conservation, Lepa
primary, then it's on to personal hygiene next week.

Over the weekend I had a chance to attend a wedding, one of Misa and
Leilani's sons got married at Le Vasa resort. The wedding wasn't a
100% traditional Samoan wedding because the bride is from New
Zealand. The wedding had the groom's men and bride's maids, the men
were wearing Samoan attire including ie lavalavas and the bride's
maids were wearing semi casual dresses, no pulatasi for the New
Zealand girls! They did have a Samoan minister but the service was in
english.

Some times I forget how loving and accepting the people are here.
When they were taking family pictures after the wedding I was included
in the pictures. And I can't remember how many times I was referred
to as Tai's (the groom's) brother. Though I had a rough start here, I
have to say I am extremely lucky to have such a great family to be a
part of during my time here.

Following the wedding was the usual feast and then dancing. The food
was great and was a mix of traditional Samoan and some more palagi-
like dishes. There was no hokey-pokey, chicken dance or YMCA played
though. I had to explain the chicken dance to Leilani and I was out
there on the dance floor doing the chicken dance to a Chris Brown
remix. (Sorry I can't remember the exact song but I think it's
ridiculous no matter what, right?) The height of the entertainment
for the night was when Joseph, one of Leilani's nephews (I think), and
who is a faafafine (which I guess would make him, well, her, Leilani's
niece. Did you follow all that?), performed a Beyonce dance out on
the dance floor all by himself, um, I mean herself.

Running a bit long here so I will wrap it up but after much debate I
have decided to mention the following which I am sure will disappoint
my mom. I figure it's not the first time I have disappointed her and
in all reality my track record has probably conditioned her well for
this and any future, inevitable disappointments. I have scheduled my
Samoan tattoo for December 7th. Doing it old school style with the
combs because, after all, why come to Samoa, one of the birth places
of tattoo culture, and get it done with a boring gun? I will try to
get more information on the history of the tattoo here and I will
provide you all with more specifics on the process as well.

Sorry mom!

Hump-day, I don't think there is a Samoan word for that...

Look at me go, yet another post. We went out to the schools again today for another vector control lesson with positive results. It seems that the lesson plans are just long enough and have just the right amount of activities to keep the kids engaged. Our team this week is made up of:

Myself, the stunningly handsome peace corps volunteer who is also quite brilliant and has been working for the Red Cross for close to two months

Marjorie, a young lady from the US here with her husband. She has been volunteering for the Red Cross here for about a year. (I think that's right)

And Rodney, a young Samoan gentleman who has been volunteering for the Red Cross for quite sometime and has been taking the lead with the primary school lessons.

Rodney while tentative at first has really settled in to the teaching role. Which is great to see considering my Samoan is still subpar and the kids would leave the lesson with more questions than answers. Who knows if I lead the lesson in Samoan the kids would probably leave the session with the information on how to start a mosquito farm and the belief that it is a good idea! I am planning on getting some of the information together for our future lessons and work with my landlord to translate the information so I can deliver more of the lesson to the kids and take some of the pressure off Rodney. Plus I think that will be a great way to learn more Samoan!

My Samoan has been improving some over the last few weeks but I do need to get in the habit of writing new words down since I am 100% not an auditory learner. The main thing I need to work on for teaching kids is my sentence structure. I can piece a sentence together with Samoan words but it's usually in an order that makes sense in english but sounds ridiculous in Samoan.

We are heading out again tomorrow and we will be going to a secondary school so I will be able to use some english to teach which will be nice but it does have its difficulties because sometimes you can get to comfortable and talk to fast or use words that may be outside the vocabulary of the students.

If the next 3 weeks go like this one is time is going to fly and I am really going to enjoy myself. I am sure I will post on the weekend but as always no promises.

Uneventful weekend

Doing pretty good so far on the frequency of my posts so I am giving myself a well-deserved pat on the back.  Unfortunately it was an uneventful weekend for the most part.  I went into work to get a few things organized for the first day of the vector control education we will be doing in the schools.  Naturally, since it was a Saturday made sure to sleep in and take my sweet time getting into the office.  

After my work was done and I talked to Whitney on skype (god bless skype!), I got some grocery shopping done.  I went to Farmer Joe's and got some of the basic processed stuff us Americans know and love so much.  After that I stopped at the market to pick up some more healthy food options to help balance out my diet.  The good news about that trip is, avocados are back in season, yes!  I also got a, and I don't know if I am spelling this right, soursop.  It is an odd looking fruit that varies in size, I suppose a decent example would be the smaller one are about the size of a cantaloupe and they can grow to roughly twice that size.  Sorry, that's fairly crappy description but it's tough to compare it's size because it doesn't really have a shape.  I suppose a decent shape to compare it to is a human heart.  I know that doesn't sound appetizing but it's not too far off in shape.  The skin if green and has spiny projections and the pulp inside (the part you eat) is white and there are large black seeds.  It's quite good though I can't think of anything to compare it's taste with, but it has a delicious sweet taste.  I also picked up some bananas, papaya and green beans at the little roadside stand about a quarter mile from my house.  The couple that owns the stand are very nice people and they always seem to get a kick out of my Samoan.  (as bad as it may be)

The evening was nice, my friend HP (if you don't remember he was our training manager for Peace Corps) took me out to dinner at Roko's.  It's a nice little restaurant just down the road from where I work at the Red Cross.  From the front is it deceptively small but the back of the restaurant opens up to a balcony seating area that overlooks a valley and you can catch glimpses of the ocean.  The food we good, I had the cajun yellowfin tuna with a fruit salsa.  Much better than my usual reheated left overs or spaghetti.  

Of course, Sunday was Sunday.  Nothing going on, had the usual to'onai with Misa, Lelani and family, talked to Whitney and my parents and sat around watching movies and reading all day.  I tried to find the drive to grade the final exams for my course but I suppose I will be putting those off until the last minute considering my only motivation for that is the actual deadline to get grades in.  And then, I should be done with that for good!  Whoo-hoo!  

Hopefully by mid-week I will have some interesting things to post on regarding the education program we are doing.  I'm sure that will be a much better read than the peak into my boring weekend this post provided.   No promises though.