First Impressions

Since our arrival we have been in classes every day from 8:00am to 5:00pm. Some are on safety, PC policies, cultural integration, and medical information but the majority of the time has been spent in language classes. I am finding I do not learn a new language as easily as I once did. I can see the words on paper and pronounce them but my feeble old brain doesn't seem to be able to remember them from one day to the next. Hopefully that will change soon.

We have been finding our way around town bit by bit. It is really crazy. There are taxis everywhere and everyone drives like they own the road. The roads are narrow and very crowded and pedestrians definitely do NOT have the right of way here. There are also these funky buses that are always overloaded. They fill up all the seats and then start putting smaller people in larger people's laps. I haven't quite had the nerve to try the bus yet! Here in Apia there are a lot of people who seem to do a lot of hanging out - not particularly causing trouble, just standing or sitting around.

I really should describe my room. It is a typical (sort of) hotel room. One double bed (mine) and one single bed (my roomie's). The floors are all tile. There is nowhere to hang up your clothes so we are still living out of suitcases. We do have a couple of shelving units we can put some things on but for two of us it really isn't enough. We have two chairs made of bamboo with a cushion on them- very uncomfortable unless you use a pillow from the bed. The beds are actually quite comfortable. The room is air-conditioned, thank goodness. There is a bathroom with a shower and we have hot and cold running water. There is also a small refrigerator.

We are on our own for lunch and dinner. The first couple of times we went and ate in restaurants but our budget is limited so I decided to get food at the store so I could eat in my room. There is a grocery store down the street a couple of blocks and there is an open air vegetable market around the corner from the hotel. Man, they have things in there that I have never seen before. Lots and lots of bananas of various kinds, cocoanuts, papayas, mangos, etc. - oh, and today I even found carrots! I also found another store today that carries a lot of US products, toiletries, soaps, chips, etc., imported most likely from Hawaii. It is impossible to find lunch meat unless it is canned and the only cheese comes from New Zealand. It's not bad but pretty expensive. If you go down one block and turn left you come to Mr. LavaLava, purveyor of (guess what?) lava lavas. Those are the skirt/sarongs that men and women wear. I bought two to add to the one that PC gave us our first day here. All they are is a piece of fabric finished on all four sides and you wrap it around yourself and tuck it in and hope it stays put! I brought safety pins for just such an occasion.

Down the street the other direction is the "laundromat" where you take your clothes and put them in the washer, then the proprietress washes them, drys them and folds them for you. You pay your money and you are on your way. Nice!

So far the weather has not been as bad as I imagined it would be. It is very warm and very humid but not horribly so, plus with the tradewinds blowing if you stand in the shade and catch a breeze it is actually fairly comfortable. However, today for the first time my glasses fogged up when I left my air-conditioned room and stepped outside. That was a real trip. Usually they fog up if you go from a warm room to cold outdoors - I didn't know it worked the other way too.

Hey, guess what I found out. You can see the Big Dipper from here! and you can also see the Southern Cross! although I haven't had the opportunity to check it out. We are right in town and it is a bit bright for star gazing.

Tonight we had a party in our honor given by the current volunteers. They entertained us first, dressed in traditional Samoan attire performing ceremonial dances. Then we had a professional fire dancer. He was truly amazing. I guess PC doesn't think fire dancing fits into their safety and security protocols so they wouldn't let a volunteer do it. We got to meet most of the current volunteers and ate a ton of food. They make this coconut cream stuff that you put on taro that is wicked. Taro by itself is really bleagh!

Oh yeah - the pig pictures! One of the volunteers helped get a new primary school started in one of the villages, and today the village thanked PC by gifting them with two roast pigs - The lady leaning over the smaller one is one of the language teachers and some of my trainee group are gathered around the big pig. These pigs were cooked in the traditional "umu" which is an above ground fire pit covered with palm branches. They didn't quite get done though so we couldn't have them for our party. Apparently they frequently "don't quite get done" but they eat them anyway. Ummmmmmm! We'll see.

Tomorrow we get to go to the beach. I'll let you know all about that next time I talk to you.

Lets see. I know there are probably other things I meant to mention but I guess this is long enough for now. I will try to keep you up to date but it is really hard to get to the internet cafe before it closes during the week and on Saturday and it's not open on Sunday. I want to try to get my picture page back up and working but that is pretty time consuming so I don't know if I will be able to. Until then I'll just keep sticking them in with the entries. You just won't get as many pictures.

Bye for now.