I see that this blog has become a messageboard for people formerly connected with LFC, and that makes me very happy. Even though my time in Samoa has come to an end, I hope that this blog will remain a living testament to that experience. Samoa remains on my mind even now. This was a [...]
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The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping [...]
Here’s another group of pictures for you guys to mull over:
With my service ramping down, I’ve got to do all those things I’ve been saving up because “I’m gonna be here for two years” and do it in the next two and a half month. Having said that, I was fortunate enough to visit Manono during the holiday weekend (In Samoa this weekend is White [...]
So group 83 arrived in Samoa, and I will now offer you exclusive pictures of them safe and sound. I’m not really feeling like writing anything, as per usual, and since I am currently on skype with the loud one and it is taking up most of my attention, I will let the pictures do [...]
On saturday I was able to strike something else off of my bucket list, the To Sua trench! Thanks to Emilie who took her friend out there and took me and summer along with them. It has been a busy couple of weeks with school starting back up and me needing to finalize student’s grades and [...]
Shortly after writing my bucket list we went to COS. COS was located at le Uaina resort, which happens to be right next to the cave pools. Although COS was mostly a waste of time, it was nice to see everyone from group 81 together again. And it also provided me a chance to get [...]
Havn’t posted in a while, so here goes. School had been really busy, but now I am on break and I’m getting a little time to relax. I’m in the final strech of my peace corps experience. Next week is our Close of Service conference, which will hopefully prepare us for after peace corps. Not [...]
This weekend was Father’s Day in Samoa. Monday is a public holiday, so for the long weekend I joined the JICA volunteers on an outing to Namu’a Island. Namu’a is a small island off the coast of Lalomanu, on Upolu’s east coast. It isn’t counted amoung Samoa’s inhabited islands, but there is a beach fale [...]
On Friday was the champ of champs. Champ of Champs is the championship meet of track and field for Samoan secondary schools. My school finished first in the senior girls division! This also means that we are finally finished with athletics and can focus on school work for the remaining 3 weeks of the second [...]
I give my year 10 English class a weekly journal to write. My parents had wanted a recipe for how to make coconut cream, so I asked them to write it for me. This is also to show you the level of English in my class. I’ve tried not to alter the students work, but [...]
I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing blogs, and at this point I don’t really feel like it, but I finally got a card reader so I’ll post some of the pictures that have been missing.
Here’s the first round of pictures from my holiday in New Zealand with Summer and Aleks.
The last batch of pictures came from chris’ camera. These pictures are from Natsuyo’s camera. Enjoy:
Just when you think you’re about to be over some kind of hurdle, Samoa manages to throw another one right back at you. Recently Samoa has been instituting some kind of electricity rationing. They shut off the power in various parts of Samoa for a certain amount of time. Starting last week, and continuing into [...]
This last month, I’ve been faced with many technology issues. A constant issue has been the computers in my lab that I have to do regular maintence on. More recently Samoa’s heat, humidity and general distatse for things electronic has hit me on a more person level. Upon arriving in Samoa, my computer’s screen has [...]
It’s been a while so I figured I’d give you a picture to mull over while I prepare the next entry.
I know that its been a while since I’ve posted anything, and I am sorry. I have been very busy with school, and I don’t usually make it out to Apia until the weekends. Unfortunately none of the pictures of scuba diving I tried to develop came out well (which I am really pissed about).
School [...]
The first week of school has come to and end, but I have yet to teach a single class. The hold up has been the renovations, which are ongoing, and encompassing C block, which is where my computer lab is. I’ve included some pictures of the lab I took today. I doubt we will be [...]
Well I made it back in one piece, which should be nice for all of you to hear. Thanks for everyone that showed me a good time back in the USofA. Although I’ve only been back for about a week, it has been super busy. There’s been conferences, including AllVol and a church school meeting, [...]
The major adjustment that I’ve needed to take while in the states has been to the temperature. Although it remains around 80 degrees in Samoa, up in New England its been in the 20s. Although I do enjoy skiing, the cold is an obsticle to over come. My grandfather came out to visit while I [...]
I’ve made it back to the states for a short vacation. I have been feeling like a fish out of water lately, but I’ve also been taking advantage of being in “civilization.” My first stop in LA was at a chipotle, feeding the need for mexican food that samoa fails to satisfy. This morning I [...]
I’m in the office today to make final preparations before I leave for home. I am very excited about getting away from my peace corps experience for a month and enjoying kirisimasi and new years at home. I am going back to my site later tonight, and I expect to stay there until my flight [...]
Katie and Carrie expressed excitment with my gardening, so I figured I would show you some of the fruits of my labor. So far these are the sugar cane I planted last year and the pineapple I just planted this week. In other news, my teacher’s held a function the other night to celebrate the [...]
Today at my school was prizegiving, which is the Samoan equivalent to graduation. The students were assembled in the hall, and prizes were given to students for various achievements, such as: top subject students, best academic, sportsman/woman, etc. I was responsible for getting the prizes for the top performers in my classes, and I got [...]
This post may be coming a little late, but I’ve had a pretty eventful weekend. This weekend on Saturday Peace Corps celebrated traditional American holiday. Robin, the Charge d’Affairs, hosted a pot luck at her house, an event which we have been waiting all year for. We were not disappointed, food was great and so [...]
With school coming to a close, I have had alot of free time on my hands. I havn’t taught classes in about a month, and this week is exam week. I have had to supervise some of the exams and so I’ve gotten alot of reading done. I’ve also had a lot of time to [...]
Fellow PCV, Ben, put up a number of videos from the fiafia. I think pictures are good and fine, but the videos are like being there. Ben even added some of his own commentary. Check out the link here:
http://ben-in-samoa.blogspot.com/
P.S. Ben wants all of you to know that his blog is Five Star Quality.
[...]
So my brother sent me a package for my birthday that included a silly hat. The story behind the hat isn’t that interesting, he preordered a video game and it came with the preorder. The hat itself however has been very perplexing to other peace corps who think it has some secret significance. When he [...]
So a peace corps tradition is that the new group is welcomed in by the current volunteers with a traditional fiafia. Fiafia is Samoan for party, and it includes a variety of dances and skits that are performed for guests. We had one when we first arrived, and I remember it as being one of [...]
So I was prepared today to have an exclusive post, including the first pictures of group 82 in Samoa. While I still have the exclusive, the events of today made for a little more excitement than originally expected. The group arrived, and we had the welcoming ava ceremony as planned, more on ava ceremonies later. [...]
So last week was a very trying week. This week things seemed to have returned to normal. School was back in session, which meant that us volunteers had to go back to our other obligations (i.e. our job!) once again. I did spend my Saturday last week volunteering with the Red Cross in the tsunami [...]
I wanted to take this post to reflect on the events that have effected Samoa this week. I noticed that the traffic to my website has jumped up, so I feel the need to reassure everyone that I am alright. The area of Samoa, where I live was unaffected by the earthquake and tsunami, and [...]
So my friends have left, and things have started to go back to normal. School is in session, and now I have that to worry about. The third term is mainly for test prep, I’m supposed to have already taught all the new material in the first two terms. They have two major exams, one [...]
Sorry for not posting for the majority of September, but I have had quite a busy month. We had a school break in this month and I thought it would be the best time for some of my college friends from home to come and visit. First I was visited by Mike and Martin (f’a'aSamoa: [...]
With my second school term drawing to a close, I am looking forward to the upcoming break. This last month has been both testing and rewarding for me. With the acquisition of the new computers, my school has been very accommodating to me, and has promised me an air conditioner among other things. The matter [...]
Well it’s been a pretty boring couple of weeks what with school out and me with nothing much to do. I had been planning this (and other) photo tours for a while and I was bored one afternoon. So in the other direction from Utuali’i are Malua and Saleimoa. The good thing about Saleimoa is [...]
So its been a very slow week, what with the kids out of school again this week on account of the flu pandemic. This week it was the ministry of health that shut down the schools, so the year 12 and 13 students that were showing up last week aren’t coming this week. So I [...]
Thanks to a generous donation by the ARK computer company in New Zealand, and the tireless efforts of Sara and Cale, my school has acquired 15 new (well new to me) computers, bringing our total up from 5 to 20! Oh Happy Day. The computers arrived on Saturday, and its been quite a hectic couple [...]
By popular demand I have included in this post a picture of the boil. Thankfully the antiboitics did their very best and it eventually was reabsorbed. I don’t think the picture looks very bad, as from stories from other volunteers (Sara), mine was nothing compared how bad it could have been.
This Thursday was the regional [...]
I know its been a long time since I’ve posted, but my mobility has been decreased because of a painful boil thats developed on my foot. A boil is an infection at the base of a hair follicle. The body sections the infected area away from the rest of the body and it continues to [...]
As I said before, this friday was the inter-church athletics competition. We held it at Apia Park, which was built for the Pacific Games, and so is very large. There was 6 Schools competing: Leulumoega Fou, Maluafou(where matt is stationed), Tausivi (where Phil is stationed), Nuosala (sp?), Congregational Senior College and Paupauta Girls College. There [...]
I just thought I’d update you guys on my plans for Independence Day. This week is going to be a short week for me, but not by my own design. On Thursday there will be an HOD (Head of Department) meeting for the EFKS schools in Apia. Then on Friday my school will be participating [...]
Last friday, the school put on a track and field competition. The winners of this tournament will go on to face competitors from the EFKS school system, and then theres also a “Champ of Champs” which is a Samoan wide competition. It was also an excuse for the teachers to have a bbq afterwards.
Here are [...]
So now when I have to discipline the kids I sentence them to hard labor. There is a tree in my front yard and it just constantly rains leaves. So in order to kill two birds with one stone (since the principal has scoled me and told me I have to keep my yard clean) [...]
So Utuali’i is the closet village to where I live, and tends to be where I go to buy my bread and coke. All the children in the village used to yell “bye bye palagi” when I would walk through, but then I confronted one of them and told them that my name was “Toa” [...]
So here we are, the last edition of Pictures from my parent’s trip. This week has been a relaxed week. Next week school will start again, although as usual we will have a full week of cleaning, and then it’ll probably take some time to figure out the proper schedules. Term 2 looks more loaded [...]
On June 1st was the Samoan independence day, which meant that samoa was effectively shutdown on monday and yesterday. Monday there were some kind of festivities, involving a parade and a boat race, which I didn’t attend, mostly because it required getting up too early and hoping to catch a bus. No fireworks, which I’m [...]
Here’s the second batch of pictures, Part 3 will include pictures from when my parents went to the home village, and then Part 4 will probably be the last one. Enjoy:
So my parents came and left already, but they left me with alot of pictures. I’m going to try and post some of them, but this will have to be a multipart series. So here goes the first round:
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