you don't really have a job there is really no sense in having a
routine, right? That is unless you are exceptionally strict about how
you go about killing time. My parents have arrived safely back in the
US for those of you who were concerned. There time here was great and
it was a welcome break from the issues i have been dealing with.
We went to quite a few places around Samoa including Lalomanu Beach,
Togitogiga National Park, Afu aau Falls, the blowholes, Manase Beach
among other places. I gave them the tour of Apia of course and we
spent some time in Savaii. We stayed at Stevensons in Manase, the
same place I stayed with my bro when he came. This time we stayed
some beach fales which were nice. They had a balcony facing the ocean
and actually had a bed, as opposed to the usual beach fales here that
have a foam mat on the floor. Also, Stevensons has pretty good food
which for breakfast and dinner which are included in the price ($80
per person per night) which is an awesome price. Of course going to
and coming back from Savaii requires a boat trip. My mom, get motion
sickness. She made it ok the way over, the return trip was another
story. The water was really rough on the trip back and her along with
about a dozen other people (at least) had a rough trip back and I'll
leave it at that. They were also here for the Samoa Perimeter Relay
Race which Peace Corps had a team run in.
The race was a 64 mile relay around half of Upolo. Check out the
website: www.samoarunnings.net for all the info. Chris Jager (another
volunteer) and I painted the team shirts with this kick ass logo.
You'll have to check out my pictures, the shirts came out really
nice. I would like to give a shout out to Running Wild in Cedar
Rapids, IA by the way. The awesome running store that donated the
shirts for our team. Thanks a ton guys! We got up at 4:30am and
drove across the island to the start location and were on the road by
6:00am. AJ started the race, followed by Trent, then Erin, Me, Jim
and Matt. We each ran roughly 5K then handed off to the next runner.
The weather was great, overcast and cool, you couldn't ask for
anything better. The day flew by and everyone had a great time and
best of all, no injuries! After all the times were tallied up we came
in second overall, not bad for some amateurs, eh? The team that beat
us was a team of Samoan runners and they were pretty fast. They
finished in about 7 hours and 30 minutes while we finished in about 8
hours and 30 minutes. (sorry I can't remember the exact times off the
top of my head) The only thing that sucked was they didn't have an
award for second overall or even mentioned we got second overall at
the awards. Granted we were also in the volunteer group competition
in which we destroyed the Japanese volunteer team! But second overall
still deserves props! WTF? We are definitely looking forward to next
years race though.
On to the topic of the earthquake, yeah there was a big earthquake
while they were here. There are little ones all the time that you
might not even notice most of the time but this was a big one! The
info I received was that it was a 6.6 quake about 150 Km southwest of
Apia. It was the biggest quake I've been in and it happened at like
4:30am. It woke me, my parents and Misa and Lelani up. Luckily there
was no tsunami as a result. I'm still not sure why some underwater
earthquakes create tsunamis and some don't. Ah well, I should just be
thankful there wasn't one.
Been rambling for a while so I'll give you the update and then shut
up. There are some glimmers on the horizon, I met with Lepa at the
Red Cross yesterday and it sounds like they can use me but it was hard
to come by some specifics. I will be stopping by their office next
week to try and talk to the secretary general to get specifics. It
sounds promising. Other than that the Ministry of Health sounds like
there may be something there as well however a meeting I was supposed
to have didn't work out (because I was supposed to meet with someone
else evidently despite what I was told). i have been trying to call
them to reschedule a meeting but the person I am supposed to meet with
has been impossible to reach. Which really if it's that hard to just
get them on the phone to offer free help I am seriously questioning if
it is somewhere I could have a viable position. My application for
Jamaica is in so my fall back is in the works as well. I feel I have
said this before but, I will hopefully know more next week and let you
know what I find out. Yeah, definitely said that before. Ok, I'm off
to the internet cafe to talk to Whit! (Oh I forgot to mention I'm
going to the internet cafe because I didn't go to NUS today. I
realized yesterday going there just reminds me of the crappy situation
I am in so after a few days there this week I decided to do some work
in the Peace Corps office instead which was much better on the stress
levels and really because I don't need to be there!)
Still working on getting the new pictures posted. Reminder for those
looking at the picture slideshow to the right, if you click on the
slide show it will take you to my picasawebalbum site where you can
view all the pictures. Tofa!
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