Funny Things that Have Crossed the Ocean

Jeggings- Jean Leggings… Since these things really shouldn’t exist in America, who would have thought they would make it to this secluded island but they’re everywhere.

Girls Rule the World- This Beyonce song is epic and has become huge here! After it was shown on American Idol, which is a huge deal in Samoa, this turned into a country wide obsession. Also the Bruno Marz song “I just don’t feel like doing anything.”

Energy Drinks- This is crazy to me. A country that only has one bottling company is now selling energy drinks. One of the major pillars of Samoan society is just chilling, everything takes time, nobody is in a rush, and major energy is never really exerted. I have no idea how or why but there it is, Samoan Bottling Company is now selling energy drinks, and people are buying them!

Salad in Samoa! It’s Contagious

The most incredible thing has happened… My family is eating salad. This sound absolutely ridiculous I know. In Samoa vegetable are very rare and the once that do appear are always totally boiled to death in soaps. There are definitely no native Samoan dishes that include raw vegetables. I have now been in Samoa for nine months and have slowly been bringing new foods and different ways to prepare foods into my house. The salad has been a bit of a slow process but recently it has been appearing at least three times a week. I don’t have a lot of control over my meals as they are prepared by my host sister, but I do a little shopping once a week and bring back things that I like to eat mostly fruit and vegetables. In the beginning this just translated into a lot of cucumber, cabbage, and carrots in my chicken soap, but after a lot of dropped hints things are turning around. Salad! The coolest part is once I talked about how healthy vegetable are my host family started eating it too. I am super grateful for all that my family does for me especially that they feed me and take the time to prepare food for me. I know they make an effort to cook things for me that I will like and want me to be as comfortable and happy as possible. I can’t imagine my experience here without them and if exposing them to vegetable or listening to me talk about healthy foods mean they will be around a little long I couldn’t be happier.

Fourth of July

What a weekend! Four days of good old American fun or at least as close as we can get from this side of the Pacific. The marathon weekend began on Friday afternoon. Since we only get together about once a month we group our birthdays, and since we were all going to be in town for Fourth of July, we decided to celebrate all the July Birthdays while we were at it. Friday was a group party for Lindsay, Sarah, Katie, and Natalie. We treated ourselves to a fancy Italian dinner then headed to this really cool converted house up in the hills called Apeula Heights. It was gorgeous and had a wonderful huge balcony that showed the whole eastern side of the island. The view of the stars was epic. A great night of good company, awesome DJing on the part of Jenny, and even a little musical-chairs ensued. Saturday we headed to the new American residency (the small version of an embassy). It’s this crazy modern contraption of lots of curvy steel and glass. Very cool looking but definitely out of place here in Samoa, but hey different strokes for different folks. We had a potluck chill session out on the porch with all the Americans living here in Samoa. Tasty food and good company again, always a recipe of fun. Then Saturday night we had a chill dinner at the Yacht club (actually nowhere near as fancy as it sounds, but still my favorite restaurant in Apia) and then to see the third Pirates of the Caribbean. Sunday was spent laying by the pool at a resort and taking advantage of a drinks-special that means we can actually drink a beer other than Vaillima… SOL! Can you believe it! Then the big day rolled around, Monday the formal celebration of Fourth of July. It was held at the new American Residency again and was quite an affair. Lots of Samoans with high government positions were there and even the head of state. The Apia orchestra, assisted by some of the Peace Corps, performed two thirty minute sets, some volunteers performed songs, and I myself performed in a skit to promote the Health Challenge. Who would have thought my drama background would have come in handy in Samoa. There were delicious appetizers and even an American Flag Peace Corp cake! Three times during the evening tears came to my eyes. Once when we sang the national anthem, once when the MC asked anyone whose lives had been effected by a Peace Corp to stand, and then when we light sparklers! It was a great weekend and well needed. It seems like somehow there is one of these big events every three months or so right when everyone is wearing thin. Now back to the village for mid-year exams and the rest of term three. The next celebration… the joint August and September birthdays!! Guess who will be turning 23!

Pearl Nail Polish

My Grandmother on the Oklahoma side always wore this shade of pearl nail polish. She went once a week to get her hair and nails done. She was extremely beautiful and the definition of a lady. I will never forget holding her hand so thin and fragile. The skin translucent and look so beautiful to me with that pearl nail polish. I looked down the other day and realized the color I have been wearing on my hand for the last eight months or so is the same shade. My sister only sent me two colors and the other is red, a little crazy for the village, so I only pull it out for special occasions. So pretty much my whole time here I have been wearing my grandmothers signature shade of nail polish. Life’s a crazy thing.

Health Challenge Gets Going

Well since my initial attempt at registering people for the health challenge things have really picked up. I have now registered thirty five people, including myself. One of my teams still never really made a showing but the team formed by the church my family goes to has really pulled through. I think after my morning registration kind of flopped word got out in the village because all of a sudden people started coming up to me asking register because they wanted to support me and the program. It was such a boost. I mean it would be better if the registered because they really wanted to lose weight but hey beggars can’t be choosers. Monday was my first day of walking for the challenge and I saw ten participants out walking. I couldn’t have been prouder. These are women that exercise never been part of their lives but here they were out walking the plantation road like I had been for the last couple months. Yesterday it was kind of raining and I thought we were doomed; rain is pretty much an excuse out of anything here in Samoa. If it rains you can skip out on school, work, and all chores….definitely exercise. Excuses in general are pretty abundant here but rain has got to be the number one. I poked my head out at four thirty the set time for the meet and it looked like it had stopped. My sister who is doing the challenge said I should go walk and that no one would come. It had been a long day at school and need to get out anyway so I decided to go anyway. Low and behold there were four women walking. It was such a nice surprise. It is becoming clear that I have at least four or five women who are really devoted to the exercise and a couple more who are at least half way there. They even asked if I could get zumba or jazz tapes so we could have exercise class. My mom the aerobics and yoga instructor would be so proud. Things are looking up and so now I just have to keep up the motivation as the challenge continues. Wish me luck!!

Selling the House

My parents have sold my house back in America. It has been on the market for a couple months and they have been doing everything possible to get it to sell. It had been a while and there hadn’t really been any serious interest so I hadn’t really thought about it. Then a couple days ago my sister just says “oh hey we sold the house today.” I know I probably been more prepared for this exact message but I have to say it took me completely by surprise. As I have written before my family has moved around a lot and home has always been more about the five of us then any physical house. But… we had owned this house for almost eight years. That is almost triple any other home my family has ever owned. I lived there for four years of high school and then come home to it all through college. If there was any house I had ever thought of as home it was this one. My parents had cleaned out and packed up my room a while ago so it wasn’t my bedroom I was sad to loose. It was definitely the family spaces; eating dinner together at the table, chatting and snacking in the kitchen, watching TV together in the living room, talking about life in the hot tub, chilling on the big love sac with my friends, Sunday lunch out on the patio. We have some incredible memories in that house. This is the right move for my family and my parents are building their dream house in Texas, so I will have a base to come back to when my service is over.  It’s just quite something to wrap my head around that when I come “home” it’s going to be to a completely different house, and that I will never again sit on that couch with the dogs or unwrap Christmas presents next to that fire. Thanks house, for all the memories. Now, on to a new house and new memories to be made.

The Health Challenge

Peace Corp Samoa has joined forces with the Ministry of Health to head up a program called Samoa Health Challenge. This is the third year they have done the health challenge and they have switched up the format a little in hopes to reach more Samoans. This year the volunteers are supposed to organize teams in the village. The challenge last four weeks and it is basically a competition between the villages to lose weight, but the emphasis is on healthy living this year and not as competition centered. Each participant is encouraged to eat healthy and walk every day making small sustainable changes toward a healthier lifestyle. We have all been a little nervous about this challenge as the volunteers before us faced a lot of challenges and reluctance last year. Also most of us have no health background and aren’t necessarily living the healthiest lives ourselves. Being obese is just so common place in Samoa and there is no preexisting emphasis in the culture on diet or exercise, it’s just not part of the Samoan mind set. I am not saying everyone here is happy with their bodies, they are definitely not. Trying to get Samoans living in the rural villages to eat less and walk ones a day many not seem like much of a challenge but it has turned out to be just that. I started the process of making teams and setting up for the challenge about three weeks ago. I found one team leader at the church my family goes to and one of my teachers. Both seemed very enthusiastic and even asked for an additional twenty packets for their teams. This morning was registration. I showed up at the designated time and place and registered nine people in two and a half hours. One team leader didn’t even show up. I know this is just part of working in Samoa but I can say I wasn’t a little disappointed. I sure that more people really did show interest but it’s just the way things go here. Everyone says yes to your face but the truth is a whole different thing. Some people were probably too scared, some had something come up at home, and some were probably just too lazy to leave the house on a Saturday. There is so much talk but not very much action. It’s the same at school with two meetings a week, during what should be class time, meant to help improve our school but it barely ever makes it in to the classroom. So new game plan: one- lower my expectations a little and remember I can’t look at this though my American eyes, two- be persistent. I am going to keep registration open two more days and carry the scale around with me so anybody that asks I can just whip it out and register them on the spot. Wish me luck!!