Time is on our side.

Time

As my housemate Jason says, “Timing is everything, I just wish I owned a Samoan watch.” There is no real “time” for anything.  If someone says 2:00 it could mean anywhere from 1:00 - 4:00.  You could ask five people what time something begins and you will get five different answers.  Our time runs on bells that are manually rung.  Not bells exactly, they are giant oxygen tanks that they hit with a metal stick.  These ring throughout the village telling when school, church, and sa begin and end.  And they never ring at the same time.  For example, the first week in the village we were trying to figure out what time church began.  We were told by one guy 8:00, and then we double checked a day later and he told us 8:30.  We were told there is a warning bell and a bell that rings when church starts.  So, on Sunday, we left the house when we heard the warning bell at 8:25.  As it turns out that was the starting bell and we were late to church.  Great way to make a good impression on our first week.    This past week we decided to get there early.  We got to church at 8:15 and the service didn’t start until almost nine.  But that’s just the way it is here.

Also, I have no idea when my school day ends.  My schedule says 2:30.  Has my school day ever ended at 2:30?  Once…maybe.  Our school day depends on the high school.  If they decide to have a half day, we get a surprise half day.  If they decide to have the students stay an extra hour to play volleyball then our school day goes an hour longer…yes this actually happened.  Basically my school day goes from 7:30-?  There are some days when I have my students standing around with their backpacks on for 30 minutes because I think the bus is going to come.  Yesterday, my students were doing a collage for science.  And at 1:45 the bell rings. My kids sprint out of the classroom and I am left to clean up magazine pieces all over the floor.  It definitely keeps us on our toes.   

Teaching

Teaching

“We must give to life at least as much as we receive from it.  Every moment one lives is different from the next.  The good, the bad, the hardship, the joy, the tragedy, love and happiness are all interwoven into one single indescribable whole that is called life.  You cannot separate the good from the bad.  And, perhaps there is no need to do so either.”

-Jackie O

Ready for my first day of school!

Teaching is an incredible experience.  There are days when I come home and I wonder why I ever decided to become a teacher and then there are days when I know that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.  I’ve already grown attached to my six kids.  With a small class it’s easy to get to know them well.  I know their personalities very well even though we can’t communicate verbally.  I’m learning how to teach to their needs and they are learning what I expect of them.  Oh, but they swear alll the time.  In both Samoan and English.  I can’t go an hour without one of my first graders coming up to me and saying, “so and so said, “Fucking ass.”’  The kid doesn’t know “tree” but he knows “fucking ass” …awesome.  They are also really, really violent, punching each other, screaming at each other, throwing stuff at each other.   This has been something that the other Worldteachers and I have found hard to change because it’s such a big part of their culture.  As long as I keep them engaged in the work they are great and eager to please, but as soon as they have a free second all hell breaks loose.  The classroom management is the easiest part at this point.  The hardest part is figuring out what the hell I’m doing.   I really have no idea.  It’s easy sitting in class and thinking about what I will do for my theoretical classroom but now that I have my own, I see that it’s much more of a challenge.  I have changed everything from lesson plans, to procedures, to the arrangement of my classroom countless amounts of times since being here.  Now that I know my class really well, I think we can finally settle into a steady routine.   The biggest problem is that I have 6 kids, all on 6 different levels.   I can’t teach anything whole group because the levels are too extreme, so I have been training my students on how to do centers.  This has been difficult because they have never done independent work, but they are finally starting to get it.  The resources have also been a problem.  I have everything I could possibly want for first grade, but my students aren’t on a first grade level.  I’ve been taking a lot from the kindergarten standards, but I don’t have any resources to work with. For the past two weeks I have been working on days of the week with them.  They have them memorized in order but they don’t have any concept of what a day is.  This has been very tricky to teach with the language barrier.  I’m starting to realize that a lot of classes here have been taught by just having student memorize.  This is even prevalent in reading.  I have two girls that can read at a second grade level but they have no idea what any of it means because they don’t speak any English.  Though its difficult and time consuming, I’m really enjoying it.  I have all the time in the world here so I never feel stressed. It’s amazing how much more time I seem to have without Facebook or television.  Through the chaos, I really like how things are going.  

How can you possibly be stressed when you have this to look at every night?

Did I mention that this is my front yard?

Oh the food.

Speaking of food…Nothing is more Samoan than food.  It is what everything revolves around.  At our meetings in the states, you might get a couple doughnuts or some chips, if you’re lucky.  Not here.  At staff meetings here you get a full-meal. No not just a meal, you get a thanksgiving feast.  Here is the plate of food I, one single person, received at our staff meeting. 

List of food per person: (not a fabrication)

6 hotdogs

3 chicken drumlegs

6 chicken thighs

One large bowl of crab potato salad

2 pounds of chop suey

One breadfruit (about the size of a cantaloupe)

One thing of taro (also the size of a cantaloupe)

3 sodas

2 bottles of water. 

My housemates and I now have enough left-over food to last us until Christmas.

And it wasn’t served on a plate, the entire meal was served to each person in a box.  How awesome is that. 

One Samoan serving size.  (Diana was a vegetarian for 8 years before she came here)

Diana, my housemate, and I thought we would be kind and bake a cake for the staff meeting.  Well, they never served it because they said that one cake was not enough for ten people, so they gave the whole thing to one person instead.  Now we know that next time we make a cake we need to make one-per person or it won’t be enough.  

Coconuts!

Saturday, after snorkeling, I decided that I was going to channel my inner Samoan and open a coconut.  They do it in movies all the time so how hard could it be? Answer: really, really hard.  I got my big coconut retrieving stick and started jabbing at the coconut tree (in our front yard).  No matter how hard I poked, the coconut would not come down.  I’m sure I looked like a fool waving the stick back and forth because I turned around and there was my neighbor sitting in her front yard laughing at me.  She asked multiple times if I needed help, but I was determined to get this coconut down on my own.  Finally she decided that this was a hopeless endeavor and called her husband in.  Within three swift pokes, he has about 7 coconuts rolling around on the ground.  At least I don’t live on a small island where everyone would hear about the palagi’s foolish attempt at coconut retrieving…oh wait…Well anyways….  I think my neighbor deemed me completely incompetent at this point because he decided that he was going to complete the rest of the coconut process for me.   He took a giant stick with a sharpened edge and shoved it in the ground.  Then he took the coconut and started banging it against the sharp edge.  Pretty soon he has had shucked the coconut for me.  All that was standing between me and the delicious coconut water was the top of the coconut, which could easily be cut off with a knife, according to my neighbor….wrong again.  Apparently dollar store knives and coconuts don’t mix.  (I’m blame my inability to cut the coconut on the knives because my self-esteem is pretty low at this point.)  Finally after about 30 minutes and one big mess later, my housemate and I managed to open the coconut.  Was it worth it?  For fresh coconut water and meat right off the coconut tree, I’d gladly go through it all again.  

Our coconut tree!

Our neighbor to the rescue!

Success!

Snorkeling!

What a great week! I finally left the classroom and ventured out to explore the island.  We drove the entire length of the island (it took about 15 minutes) in the back of a pick-up truck, which of course is the only way to ride.  

Here we are in the pick-up truck!

We got to see our friends, two other WorldTeach volunteers, on the other side of the island!  A little background on the island:

Our island, Ta’u, is the biggest of the three Manu’a islands, or outer islands, in American Samoa.  The other two outer islands are Olesega and Ofu.  Ta’u is about 6 miles long.  The majority of Ta’u is a jungle but there is civilization on the coast of one side of the island.  There is one road going through the entire island, no side roads.  Our house is at the beginning of the road;  It is at the end of the village Faleasao. There are three villages in Ta’u.  Faleasao is the smallest village with about 100 people living in it. After traveling through Faleasao, you hit the second village of Ta’u.  This is a much bigger village and is where the high school is located.  It’s not too far from us, about a 45 minute walk or a 20 minute run, lots and lots of hills.  The farthest and largest village is Fitiuta it is about 6 miles away and way too many hills to run up, but the other volunteers and I are determined to run it.   The ride to Fitiuta is beautiful, beach on one side jungle on the other. Simply amazing. 

Here is my village, Faleasao, from above!

The jungle on the right side! 

This was what we saw on our left on the drive down to Fitiuta

Saturday we got to go swimming and snorkeling and just enjoy the island.  You wouldn’t believe how blue the water is here! While snorkeling I saw these beautiful neon blue fish and fluorescent coral!  Volunteers in the past have seen turtles and even sharks! That would be amazing!  One person told us to watch out for the tiger sharks, but I’m pretty sure they were just messing with us…at least I hope.  The water is so warm, much warmer than our showers at least! Once schoolwork slows down I plan to be in the water everyday after school snorkeling and swimming and even spear fishing heeyyy!

Garrett and Jason swimming in the crazy blue ocean

Those are the islands Olesega and Ofu in the background