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jayscoh - Julia & Ed

Julia & Ed Obviously a year in Fiji wasn't enough, so we're now heading off on our next Pacific adventure, to Samoa! Here's looking forward to more sun, coconut palms and Island Time, and less dalo, centipedes and military coups.
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Joined on: March 31st 2006
Last Login: November 15th 2008

Blog Entries: 29
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by jayscoh, order by Date newest first.

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Weekend at Vavau
Weekend at Vavau
This water was amazingly clear even for Vavau
A couple of weekends ago we farewelled a group of volunteers, our friends, who had finished their year here and were heading home. It was something of a milestone, as it was the first group we have seen leave that we were also here to greet as they arrived in country. Previous volunteers have left but they had all arrived before us; we’re now the longest-serving Aussie volunteers in Samoa. (See the pics of the farewell weekend at Vavau, complete with coconut tree climbing demonstrations). We certainly know the island inside out by now, helped by a recent flush of visitors. [View Full Entry]

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792 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 36 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: October 19th 2008 | 80 Views | [diary=334435]

Weekend at Vavau
Weekend at Vavau
Gender training

By jayscoh
August 20th 2008

The Other Samoa

 Oceania » Samoa » Tutuila
I know you’ve all heard our exciting news by now, but I can’t write a Pacific-life blog and not include the story of a very Pacific engagement. I think we bombarded most of your inboxes with an account of the proposal already, but we omitted most of the rest of the wonderful trip to American Samoa, so I should add that in here. It was a surprise anniversary trip that Ed had planned, and I was expecting to maybe end up on the ferry to Savaii (the other main island of Samoa), so when we suddenly turned into the airport I [View Full Entry]

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1648 Words | 3 Comment(s) | 32 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: August 20th 2008 | 144 Views | [diary=314062]

Our fancy accom
Beautiful coast
Hurrah!

Handicraft market
Handicraft market
The women discussing pricing at a meeting the day before the market
Here's the second instalment of my trip to Tokelau for their series of women's events in March. See the first instalment for the painful boat trip and an intro to the intriguing atolls of Tokelau. Day six - Saturday I rose early to get to the handicrafts market; the main event of the economic summit. Tokelauan handicrafts are quite coveted, several of my Samoan colleagues asked me to pick them up a fan or two while I was there. Of course there was another opening ceremony, with many speeches and some singing, but then it was a free-for-all at the stalls. [View Full Entry]

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2771 Words | 3 Comment(s) | 29 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: April 26th 2008 | 503 Views | [diary=270058]

Handicraft market
Handicraft market
Morning tea at the market

The boat trip
The boat trip
The MV Tokelau
Tokelau trip, 3rd to 15th March 2008 Hands up who’s heard of Tokelau. Didn’t think so. In fact it wasn't even one of the options for 'location' on this travelblog site, I had to specially request that they add it. Tokelau is actually a country, but the reason you probably haven’t heard of it is that it’s made up of three tiny coral atolls in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with a population of about 1400. It’s administered by New Zealand, but the only way to get there is a two-day boat trip from Samoa - no aeroplanes. And this [View Full Entry]

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3450 Words | 1 Comment(s) | 24 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: April 11th 2008 | 126 Views | [diary=262502]

The boat trip
Fakaofo
Fakaofo

By jayscoh
February 13th 2008

Visitors galore and Australia Day

 Oceania » Samoa » Upolu » Apia
Nomes and Ben's visit
Nomes and Ben's visit
We really don't do this all the time :)
Hello, Julia here - and a very belated Happy New Year to all! I recently joined a local soccer team, having been invited by a colleague who plays with a bunch of his former workmates from a previous job. It’s 11 a side with a minimum of five girls on field at any time, and we get to play on the fields from the South Pacific Games so the set up is pretty good. I’m the only palagi (foreigner) on the team, and everyone speaks in Samoan so I’ve spent a bit of time nodding along to the pre-game pep talks [View Full Entry]

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1388 Words | 4 Comment(s) | 24 Photo(s) | 1 Video(s)
Published: February 13th 2008 | 158 Views | [diary=245792]

Jumping Off Things!
Soccer
Hannah and Dave

le Puy de Dome
le Puy de Dome
Well actually, it's a photo of a cloud. This is the mountain that apparently has a fantastic view from the top. We'll take the guidebook's word for it.
So, where was I? Oh that’s right, the best meal in the world, prior to heading to the Massif Central region. Well, the Massif Central is supposed to be, you guessed it, massive. And it would have been, if it wasn’t completely covered in cloud. We headed first for le Puy de Dome, one of the mountains that is supposed to be great to drive up for a fantastic view, but unfortunately the view would have been to about three feet in front of us. So we ditched that idea and instead headed for the town of Mt Dore, a cute [View Full Entry]

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2035 Words | 3 Comment(s) | 45 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: December 4th 2007 | 415 Views | [diary=225171]

Sarlat-le-Caneda
Dordogne
Dordogne

Eiffel Tower
Eiffel Tower
We were looking at it and all of a sudden it started sparkling all over with lights - quite a sight
Who would have thought life in Samoa could get so busy! Excuses aside, I’ve finally written the first instalment of our trip to the other side of the world. Europe really is on the other side from Samoa, you can go either way around and it takes about the same time. So here you go: Having barely spent three months settling in to our new island home, Ed and I suddenly decided it would be a really good idea to jump up and leave again for three weeks to Europe. I’d been hatching the plan for a little while, but it [View Full Entry]

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1168 Words | 2 Comment(s) | 34 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: November 8th 2007 | 175 Views | [diary=217980]

The happy couple
Paris wanderings
Sacre Couer

Meet the Wild Thang
Meet the Wild Thang
A menacing beast
With your skulls & bling, You make everything…groovy! Meet our new (1993) “Suzuki Sidekick” - a belittling model name for a car, I know - but this badass is no shrinking violet. We now cruise the streets of Apia with ferocious looking skulls lining both doors, “Wild Thang” plastered down the sides, and the piece de resistance, a diamante-studded dollar sign on the front grille! It may have a few mechanical woes which had us stranded in the middle of the island on Day 2 of ownership, and be lacking internal door handles so that we have to wind down th [View Full Entry]

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497 Words | 5 Comment(s) | 11 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: October 18th 2007 | 312 Views | [diary=211913]

Nasty skulls
Beautiful bling
WT on location at Vavau

By jayscoh
July 24th 2007

Snorkelling is hard work

 Oceania » Samoa » Upolu » Apia
Julia here - thought I'd give you the rundown on my work. The office is a bit ramshackle; the roof leaks, the floor is wonky and it hasn’t been renovated since it was built a good forty years ago at least, but I have plenty of daylight streaming in and behind me through the window I can see away to the mountains. (Although I'll be playing musical desks a bit for the next couple of months). The work environment is interesting - it’s an odd cross between Pacific style (nobody ever does anything quickly or when you ask them to and [View Full Entry]

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1091 Words | 3 Comment(s) | 15 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: August 9th 2007 | 186 Views | [diary=185188]

The UN Compound
Savaia
The UNDP Office

By jayscoh
July 10th 2007

Home, Sweet Home

 Oceania » Samoa » Upolu » Apia
Welcome to our balcony house
Welcome to our balcony house
Kitchen and duty free stash...
So far so good with work for both me and Julia, but we might as well write about that later when we know a bit more about what we’re actually doing here, so for now, I’ll tell you about home, sweet home. We’ve moved into an old 2-storey German colonial house, which has been recently extended and redone to make four 2bd units. We’ve got one of the top ones that overlooks a lush overgrown veggie garden/forest which is exploding with ripe pumpkins, pawpaw, coconuts and even a Hawaiian guava tree. I went for a fresh coconut mission with crazy little [View Full Entry]

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621 Words | 2 Comment(s) | 15 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: August 9th 2007 | 195 Views | [diary=179884]

With mozzie screen walls
...and giant geckos
Dinner table and living area



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