13.11.07 Tine woke up reasonably early, wonderfully re-freshened. We succeeded in cooling our room to a comfortable temperature after we arrived and then we fell a sleep immediately. But - one thing is a cooled room another is reality when you step out into the tropical heat and then in the rainy season. You could cut through the air, it was so humid. Tine had a look around. Our room was just next to the pool area and the Old Fale restaurant. Very nicely made with lots of palm trees and blooming trees and bushes. A Fale is the name of [View Full Entry]

---

---

This was my first trip to Samoa and I was determined to make the most of it. I was rapidly realising that even though I lived in the Pacific, visiting the many hundreds of islands in it within the next year was going to be tricky, so every opportunity had to be grabbed by the horns (so to speak). Samoa for me conjured up images of fierce warriors, tribal tattoos and, more recently, a pretty decent rugby team in the World Cup. I had this image of the ultimate Pacific experience, a quite undefined and vague concept and yet I was [View Full Entry]

---

---

This weekend I went to Ma'asina, a village in Fagaloa Bay, which is absolutely beautiful. There are no hotels or anything, no restaurants, just hospitable people. I love going there. When I go, I take oso, a small gift of some sort of food, usually peanut butter, cookies or lollies, chips, some kind of fruit that's easier to get in town like pineapple, Milo (kind of like ovaltine, but tastes better), and I give it to my family that I stay with as soon as I get there. It's best if I do it right away, and give it to the [View Full Entry]

---

---

Even though we've been back a couple of weeks I thought I'd put a blog on to let everyone know what a great place and what a wonderful time we had in Samoa. We spent the first 3 nights at a place called Vigin Cove on the main island of Upolu, we arrived in Samoa at midnight so had no idea what we were going to find till we awoke on our first morning and we weren't disapointed, it was incredible as the sun came up. We had booked the honeymoon Fale (Fale "far-lay" basically a floor raised off the ground [View Full Entry]

---

---

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]

---

---

I think it is going to rain again. The rainy season seems to have started as soon as September finished. Last Sunday as I started walking home after to'ona'i (the reason I don't miss Thanksgiving: every Sunday is a Thanksgiving in Samoa; I am going to get so fat), the sky ripped its belly open and I was immediately soaked. I decided to walk the rest of the way home. On my way, I saw a sign for Samoan Prayer House. I was intrigued. I followed the signs up a hill, past a church youth practice, some faleoloa, and lots of [View Full Entry]

---

---

On Tuesday I decided to go buy a mango. They are incredible and they are just coming into season. So I went to the market. Samoa is riddled with tiny stores (faleoloa) that sell snacks like Twisties (comparable to cheese puffs) or loaves of fresh white bread or sugar, tea, matches, tuna, crackers, oil, onions, ice cakes, and any number of things, differing greatly from store to store, of course, but very few if any will have fresh fruit or vegetables. So instead of going to one of the 4 faleoloa in the 10-minute walk between my house and my school, [View Full Entry]

---

---

As I walk to school in the morning, I pass a house whose gardener my roommate and I affectionately call "the bean man." This tiny, wiry old man gives us long beans (pi u'umi) or tomatoes or cucumbers because he says "there's no one to look after you." He talks to his plants, and he yells at them if they aren't giving flowers or fruit. I asked him about it one day and he said, "oh, that's how you get them to do what you want. I'm always talking to my flowers." He used to work on a cattle farm and [View Full Entry]

---

---

I came to Samoa in October 2006 to work as a music teacher and Peace Corps volunteer. They gave me a Samoan name, Moli. It means orange. Samoa is an amazing country, without hunger or homeless, that takes great pride in its culture. In my classes, I've had the opportunity to ask my students what they think the most important thing about being Samoan is, and I've had answers that range from God to family to having fun, but most people say it's the culture. I'm still learning what that means. It's not simply the ceremonies or the legends or being [View Full Entry]

---

---

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]

---

---