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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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