Saul and Chelsia: Over the Moon and Back: It's Not All Beaches and Sunshine

So we have been here for a almost a week now and we are finally starting to settle in. We are getting used to the freezing cold showers, the separate bedrooms, and the on again, off again rain. Okay, getting used to them may be an understatement… but that’s the price of getting to live in paradise.

I have to rant for a minute about the showers. I know this is going to be a lot of complaining, and this is not at all a reflection of my entire experience. I love it here, but I loathe the showers. Here we go…

The showers are disgusting. After being out all day and sticky from a nauseating mixture of sweat, bug spray, and sunblock the idea of a shower should be the most appealing thing, right? Not in this case. The showers are in a dimly lit annex bathroom on the school grounds. The annex bathroom has a urinal that is essentially a concrete trough built into the ground that you have to turn on a hose to clean after you use, two sinks, two toilets in stalls without doors, and in the back two “shower stalls.” They try to call the two shower stalls four by separating them with a thin plastic sheet hung on yarn that is stapled to the wall. Most of the bathroom is covered in pink tile, or at least was at one time. Half of the tiles are now missing, and only dirt covered concrete remains. There are also bugs everywhere. Thankfully they are only the flying variety. They like to congregate mostly around the showers and the toilet closest to the shower. I haven’t seen much of the crawling variety of bugs around in there yet other than ants.

The larger of the two shower stalls is set in about half a foot below the other stall and has an entirely concrete floor. The drain in that shower is partially clogged, so it floods as soon as you turn on the water to any of the showers. The flooding, concrete surface, and overall grimy appearance of this shower have led us to deem it “the cave.” Needless to say we don’t use “the cave.”

The water in the showers comes out of PVC pipes that are attached to the walls. The top has an elbow connector that would usually connect to another pipe, but in this case is left open so we can spray ourselves with cold water at the end of the day. It feels like someone is spraying you down in a dirty garage with a hose—kind of like a human car wash from hell. There isn’t anywhere to put your things while you are in the shower either so you are forced to choose between putting them on the disgusting ground outside of the shower or on the wooden frame at the top of the shower. I honestly have a hard time choosing between the two and have now tried both. This insight has all been of the boy’s bathroom, but I have looked inside the girl’s bathroom when it was Chelsia and my turn to clean and I can tell you it isn’t any better. The only thing missing is the urinal. Their "cave" is actually worse because it doesn't have light!

Other than the showers I really do like it here. Orientation is starting to pick up. We have already had a few language lessons. They are a blast! For the most part things are easy to pronounce. I have to admit that although it is easy in theory and I totally get it inside my head, it just doesn’t sound right coming out of my mouth yet. You essentially say every vowel in the word. Vowel combinations don’t combine to make a different sound like they do in English. For example, the city we are going to live in is Leone, pronounced “lay-o-nay” instead of “lee-own” like you would expect. I’m having particular trouble with the sound that the “g” makes.

The other classes we have had in orientation aren’t as fun as language classes, but they are not difficult by any stretch. Teaching seems to be straight forward enough. We have gone over how to write lesson plans, syllabi, teaching with visual aids and introducing new material so far (…not so fun stuff!). We also went over Gardner’s multiple intelligences. I think all of us had studied it before in college at some point, but it was interesting seeing how we would have to apply it here. We were told that Samoan’s retain more when you incorporate kinesthetic activities (you get them moving around) and by making things visual. This also helps since they all have different levels of English proficiency. The instructor had us trying to think of ways to get our students up and moving around and using visual tools. It’s not too bad for some of the subjects, but it’s tough for us since we are teaching math!

The thing I’m most worried about is classroom management. We keep hearing horror stories about how misbehaved the kids are here which makes me the most anxious. The fact that the “kids” will also most likely all be bigger than me also has me a bit worried. I hope they don’t try to fight with me. My school (Tafuna High School) is also known for how rough it is, particularly with fighting. When I was first researching the school I came across the fights but didn't think anything of it; the first thing that Google auto fills when you start to type in “Tafuna High” is actually “Tafuna High School Fights.” Every time I talk to a local one of the questions they ask is, “where are you teaching?” When I tell them Tafuna the first thing they say is, “that’s a rough school.” Oh joy. They also say that they can’t believe they would have me teach in Tafuna when my wife is teaching in Leone and we are both living way over in Leone. That is a rant for another time.

A few random thoughts:

The rain here is a trip. At first it seemed like it would just randomly start, but I’m starting to get a sense for when it’s coming. The sky starts to get dark, then you look out at the lagoon and it starts to get really choppy. Then the wind picks up a bit and you know that it’s about to rain. Maybe it’s because I’m from California, but I never heard rain “roll in” before until I got here. It’s pretty awesome hearing the rainfall hitting roof tops in the distance then watching it slowly make its way toward you.

The bugs are ubiquitous. They are everywhere. And they bite. I have so many mosquito bites right now I look like I have chicken pox. I think this is the first time I have as many bites as Chels does. She is usually the one who gets bit on vacation, but I guess the Samoan mosquitoes like me more than other mosquitoes. Not only do they bite more here, but their bites swell up and hurt. Bad. They also itch. EXTREMELY BAD.

Wearing a dress isn’t so bad. Men have to wear what is called an ie faitage, which is a type of knee length dress to formal occasions. I wore one to meet the folks at the Department of Education the other day and I have to admit it’s kind of comfortable. Granted I was wearing basketball shorts under it. We were actually told that Samoan guys don’t go commando with their ie’s, so don’t judge.

Our language teachers are amazing. They are so nice, helpful, and thoughtful. The male teacher, Api, is actually a Matai over in Western Samoa. Today he found out that Chelsia and I were married and decided to sing us a wedding song at the end of class today. He translated it in the back of the class while Remari, our other teacher who is also awesome, was teaching the class. I swear everyone here can sing, and sing wonderfully at that.

Enough of my blabbing, now for the good stuff!

A shot of my beautiful wife cooking breakfast in the morning.

Okay, now that I'm looking at this picture it really doesn't do my bites justice.

This is my room.

And this is the girls room (hi Chels!)

The stray dogs here are sooooo friendly. I don't get why past volunteers were so scared of them.

Even the Samoan's say to stay away from packs of dogs like this though.

This what the buses here look like. They cost $1 each way, and bump music the whole ride. The best kind is the American pop song remakes with Samoan auto-tune.