Saul and Chelsia: Over the Moon and Back: December 2013

November has come and gone. There are no signs of fall here in American Samoa as we’re getting deeper into summer (we’re on the other side of the equator). The weather is getting warmer and progressively rainier. Not the most ideal weather but we’re without a doubt adjusting.

Earlier in November we trekked out to Nu’uuli to go to Regal Twin Cinemas. That’s right folks, we have a movie theater with only two screens. We saw Catching Fire, which was so very epic (but this isn’t a movie review so I’ll go on). We knew AmSam was right for us when we heard we’d still be able to see Catching Fire. It gets better; movie tickets are only $5.50 which I haven’t seen on the mainland since I was in something like 7^th grade. Watching a movie in AmSam is a cultural experience in itself. The ticket sellers don’t show up until about 10 minutes until show time, kissing on screen generates lots of giggles, everyone reclines super deep into their chairs (so it’s never an issue seeing the screen), and if the word “cheeky” is mentioned on-screen (which it so cleverly was in Catching Fire) the whole theater erupts into cheers. It’s really something every expat on island should experience at some point.

Back to the holiday cheer. Every time there is a holiday there is also some kind of celebration at school to go along with it. For Thanksgiving, it’s the infamous Turkey Run and a day of activities on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. At our class meetings a couple week before the run, the senior class and our Vice Principal nominated Saul and I to be the male and female advisors running for the senior class. We’ve been working out six days a week for something like 9 weeks now so we’re like uhh we should be able to handle a 5K (about 3 miles) and accepted the nomination. We figured we could use the free turkeys that the winners of the race get. We came to find out the race is actually 7.24K (4.5 miles) and panic definitely set in.

The race starts at 5am so the morning of the race we were up at 3:50am to stretch, eat and walk down to school in pure darkness. The dogs were extra rambunctious which only made the anticipation worse. There was a pretty large turn out at the race, which I definitely hadn’t expected. The race started a bit after 5am and we were off! We made sure to pace ourselves and not burn all of our energy sprinting at the start like the majority of the racers did. Water stations were set up all along the route manned by teachers and students so that was definitely a nice touch. We got to one of the stations (probably about half way through the race) and I found out that I was the first girl to pass. Woo-hoo. We kept going at a pretty decent pace and eventually ended up playing yo-yo with one of my students and his friend. They would sprint and then walk and Saul and I would just keep the pace. Eventually we left them behind and took off towards the finish line. With about a half mile to go Saul took off to clock a better time and I came a little after.

There are different categories for the run (Professional, Amateur, Advisor, Students, Power Walkers). Turns out that I ended up being the first girl on the entire island to finish across all categories and Saul was the first advisor to finish. Note: there was definitely stiffer competition in the professional males category than for the females but still! J I was shocked. I’m not a long distance runner and never have been; same with Saul. We ended up getting two turkeys and impressing our students. Well worth the effort and definitely marks one of the more memorable Thanksgiving activities in my 24 years of living. After the run, which pretty much everyone finished by 7am, Zumba began in true Samoan fashion. All students had to show up to school by 7am to get their Zumba on. After Zumba, there was a mini-Maketi (the Samoan open-air market) where the students had fruits, veggies and different Samoan food (like Cocoa Rice) for everyone. The principal provided ice cream and popsicles (at 8am) and Thanksgiving relay type races etc. ensued. This was definitely one of my favorite (if not my single favorite day) here in AmSam. Simply amazing and I felt so very fortunate to have been a part of it.

After school, which was let out at noon we began to defrost our turkeys and I made a double-layer cream cheese and pumpkin pie for our feast the next day. Some of the other expats here on island had a Thanksgiving dinner but Saul and I figured this was probably one of the only times we would get to try to make it on our own.

Thanksgiving morning, we got up pretty early and started to cook. Saul manned the turkey (cleaned it, put butter under the skin, seasoned it and got it in the oven). We tried this technique where you cook the turkey upside down for the first half and then flip it at the end. It was seriously the most juicy delicious turkey breast we’ve ever had. While he was doing that, I was making homemade mac n’ cheese, garlic and lemon fresh green beans and sweet potato rolls from scratch (these turned out incredible!). After Saul got the turkey in the oven, he made the candied yams and stuffing (can you say amazing f-ing husband?!). We topped it off with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce along with gravy from the Turkey scraping and our Thanksgiving feast was ready.

It turned out better than we could have ever hoped for. Everything was delicious and we made cranberry-lime-champagne cocktails (with the limes from our tree) to boot. I’m pretty sure it was the best first Thanksgiving as a married couple we could have asked for.

We went and saw Frozen on Black-Friday and pretty much relaxed and ate leftovers for the rest of the weekend. I had to explain to my kids why Black-Friday is called Black-Friday. The only thing they really knew about it was that people fight and get shot when they go to Wal-Mart. I had to nip their racial stereotypes in the bud and explain that it’s called Black-Friday because it’s dark out when the stores open. -_-

Anyways this is turning into a novel. So I’ll go ahead and leave you with the words of one of my Algebra 1 students and Saul’s Computer Application’s students, Sherry, Happy Danksgiving!!

-C