Labor Day Weekend

Well it was quite the weekend here in American Samoa. With three full days off in a row us volunteers knew we wanted to explore the island as much as possible. We had to take advantage of a relaxing and for the most part good weekend of weather to get a break from the grind of lesson planning.

On Saturday we woke up around 8am so we could take a bus over to Vatia where we would begin a long hike up and over Mt. Alava back into the "city" of Pago Pago. When we began, our group consisted of Mike, Leslie, Kelly, Eric, April, Brenden, Rosa, Jenn, Mark, Ethan, Bret and myself. We took a bus to the wall in Aua in hopes of finding a bus over the mountain to Vatia.



We waited. I laid down on the road because I was so tired and sick. And we waited some more. Finally a nice man came up in his pickup truck to tell us that he didn't think the buses were running on Saturday to Vatia but he could send a bus down for us that would take us over the mountain for $2.50 a person. Since it was only $.50 more than we expected to pay, we agreed. A couple minutes later a bus came and took us over to Vatia. Vatia is a beautiful village on the north side of Tutuila that has a gorgeous bay. Jenn and Leslie live there and after we packed some lunches, used the lu we set off on our hike over the mountain. With our group down to 10 palagi's we started the rigorous climb.

It was quite a steep and daunting climb up this side of the mountain. We had to take many breaks for water and deep breaths. We were warned that their would be many ladders while hiking up but I don't think any of us were prepared for the sheer amount of them that we encountered. This is by no means an accurate number but I'm convinced we climbed at least 40 of these ladders at some point. Here is one of them.



The 10 of us finally reached the top a little under 2 hours. We took a group picture and enjoyed a great lunch of PB&J sandwiches and some snacks that Jenn (thanks Jenn!) packed for us. A little after 1pm we began our decent. To be honest it was way more boring but far less treacherous than the climb up because we were going down the front side of the mountain which was basically an old truck route. At the top of the mountain is an old or maybe still working radio tower so trucks or something at one point had to get up there. Anyway, after 2 hours of careful walking we made our way back down and were almost home. It was quite an adventure. One for sure that we will complete again.



Sunday was a nice relaxing day at Tisa's Barefoot beach. Unfortunately only a couple of us made it there due to no buses running on Sunday and a couple rides falling through. But those of us that made it there had a nice couple of hours in the water.

On Monday we again set out early to head to a place called Sliding Rock. It is on the west side of the island near Leone, which is the town that I teach in. I'll let the picture describe it best. We had been warned by many locals that Sliding Rock can be quite scary and treacherous if you are not careful. As we led the group over the rocks to a place that I had previously been to that has amazing tide pools, we stopped and explored the beauty of the waves crashing over the rocks.



A couple of girls were standing on a rock ledge that separated two little pools of water. A minute earlier I was standing with them but had left to find out if anyone had wanted to climb higher to another big rock. Right then a gigantic wave came crashing over the rocks and swept 4 of our friends off their feet, sent them flying in the air and threw them against a rock wall. Luckily everyone was pretty much okay except for some major scrapes and blood. It was quite a scary sight but I am so glad that nothing more serious happened to anyone.



After sending the injured home in a car with our dear friend Jessie, the rest of us continued to swim in a calmer pool and enjoy the beautiful weather. Some of us thought it would be a good idea to try and get to that higher rock that I had wanted to go to before the wave that hurt our friends came a-crash-in. So a few of us ran across the rocks as quickly as we could and made it to the top of this beautiful rock that overlooked the crashing water. On our way back, we again had to navigate the waves that swept our friends away so we could make it back to safety. We made it and started our walk back to catch the bus. A scary trip but beautiful in its own right. I guess when I told the ocean to "bring it" earlier in the day, it did. I will not test it again. But I will certainly visit one of the most beautiful places that I have discovered on this island again.



An exhilarating, exciting, strenuous and fun weekend came to a close. And today we were back to our jobs being the wonderful teachers that we came here to be. ;)

Journals

So everyday at the beginning of class, I have my kids write in their journals. Each Day I pose a question to them. This week we have been talking about their home lives, families, church, etc. Their main complaint seems to be about doing so many chores around the house.

Here are two of my kids journal entries from today. One heartbreaking, the other slightly amazing and amusing but also a little sad. The first comes from a pretty shy guy in class who only speaks when I call on him. The latter is from a pretty outgoing guy who's awesome, smart and has a huge Afro with a comb always stuck in it.

Today's journal question was..."Something I hate doing is.....because....."

"I hate being alone, meaning I hate being alone everyday because I don't have a sister or brother, it's just me and my grandparents. I hate it because it's boring, no one to talk to me, and I don't have someone to play with at home. Everyday I always think of having a brother or sister to play with."

"Something I hate doing is breaking up with girls. Out of all the girls I've been with I was always the one to break up the relationship. I broke a lot of girls hearts. I just wonder what would happen to me when a girl breaks up with me. I think I can handle it because i did it a lot. Now that I'm with this special girl, I'm afraid of her breaking up our relationship. I'm really afraid of getting that broken up feeling like all my ex girlfriends. I don't want to have that feeling cause I'm not use to it. I guess it's true, 'whats goes around, comes around.'"

Need I say more?!!?

I LOVE THESE KIDS!

First Week/Nu'uuli Falls

Well, I made it through my first week of school unharmed. It actually turned out to be quite a great week. I would say overall there are 3 classes that I absolutely love. The kids are great. Sure they're rowdy but they're still fun and for the most part listen to me when I speak. I think by the end of the week they really started to become comfortable with me and I with them. We played some really fun games in class that they enjoyed, though I think they assume that we're always going to play games since I'm a drama major. But I will be saving them for special occasions.

I still have one trouble class that I cant seem to get on the same page with. No matter what I do they don't want to listen. I did have one of the local teachers from the Science department who students are a little scared of come into my class on Friday to give them a little pep talk. I didn't want to have to resort to another teacher coming in but I think because these kids have such a low level understanding of English, it helped to have someone come in and speak in Samoan to them about their behavior.



All in all it was a good week. I'm spending the majority of this week assessing their levels on reading, writing and speaking so that I can better tailor my semester syllabus for them. We're working on small autobiographies that they will hopefully present to the class at the end of the week. Unless of course our Friday gets shortened by the possible "Welcome Back to School Dance" I heard about rumbling around the school today.

Over the weekend we visited an awesome waterfall in Nu'uuli. It was so cool. We had to ask permission to go because it is on someones private land. All the land here is privately and communally owned so you always have to ask someone before you do anything. However, they rarely say No.



Posted amongst the blog are some pictures from the Falls. It was really cool. Fresh water falling off the mountain. Cold water that after a while made you want to get out and warm up from the hot air. It just seemed like it was one of those secret treasures on the island that most locals haven't been to, though there are a lot of kids in these pictures, people that I talked to have not been before. It is definitely a place that we will return to because it was such a nice and relaxing scene.

The First Day of School

Monday was the first official day of school here in American Samoa for the public schools. And what a day it was. The day started with an hour long assembly to welcome all the students back to school. The other volunteers and I sat with the other teachers as Viper, one of your VP's greeted the students and got them to do some Leone cheers. It was quite intense. After welcoming the freshmen to the school and giving them the "you're not the big fish in the small pond anymore" speech, we were tasked with handing out the students schedules. As we the palagi teachers didnt know any of the students we just stood back and watched.

I should preface this next part by saying, that for those of you that don't know, I am teaching 5 classes of 11th grade English. 4 (that number was 3 until today when they changed it unbeknownst to me) are proficient level which is like Advanced in the states. I also teach 1 class of mainstream level which is like General in the states.

Because it was the first day of school we were going to see each period for 35 minutes. Periods 1 and 2 are my proficient classes and they were generally pretty good. Samoan kids are loud. Samoan kids like to speak in Samoan in front of a palagi teacher because we have no idea what they're saying. Samoan kids like to laugh and tease each other, but "it's all in good fun." Samoan kids don't want to be asked to work to hard. Samoan kinds truly have hearts of gold underneath all of those exteriors.



After having my first prep period, periods 4 and 5 were my not so easy classes. The kids were more talkative, less attentive and less willing to listen to what I had to say. I realized that with one of my classes, it is going to be a battle for the remainder of the year. In fact today, on the third day of school, I had to hold back 2 students at the end of class because they broke some of my cardinal rules that we had just spoken about only a couple minutes ago. But don't all teachers experience a class like this. I mean, that's what I've been told at least.

Finishing off with period 6 was not so good either but only because it was the last class of the first day of school and the kids were in no mood to be in school anymore. But I know now after three days that these kids are good and fun and we are going to have a great year.

All in all its been a good couple of days teaching. Hard but good. I tip my hat to all those teachers out there because it is much harder than people give them credit for. I will have to constantly think outside the box to come up with lessons that are creative and engaging for my kids. But I am up for the challenge.



Anyone out there who has any fabulous advice on classroom management for rowdy high schoolers should shoot me an email.

Included are some random pictures to make this a less boring post. MWAH!

Leone High School

So after a month of training and months of thinking about this moment, tomorrow (or today, depending on when you read this) I will be teaching my first day of school at Leone High School in American Samoa.

Last week we spent the majority of our week at our school training, having staff and department meeting and setting up our classroom. Luckily, the English and Science departments are in the newer building while the rest of the departments are in these huge Fale's. Below is a picture of what this fale looks like. It is split up into 6 or so classrooms.



Even though I have a pretty nice classroom compared to others, I still had a lot of cleaning to do before it was ready. There was so much crap and dirt everywhere. Also one of my closets, which is made up of wooden shelves was half eaten by termites. So awesome. But I pulled up my sleeves and cleaned away. I swept, mopped, wiped down desks and shelves and books and what not. I also threw away a lot of stuff that was just hanging out in my desk. I even found an unused diaper in my desk. Anyhoo below are 2 pictures of my clean room. I think I am ready to teach tomorrow.





So I found out on Thursday that I will be teaching 5 classes of 11th grade English. 3 classes of proficient which is like advanced in the states, and 2 of mainstream which is like general. I find it interesting that I am teaching this grade level because it was the first English class that I took when I moved to the states. American Literature. What does a Canadian know about American Lit?! Kidding. Thankfully I have a text book to teach from and a head full of memories from Mrs. Hollaman's class. Was that her name?

But I am looking forward to putting my input into the curriculum because I have so many ideas that I hope will get the kids active and willing to learn. We're supposed to study the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. It is one of my favorites so I can't wait to see what I can come up with for that.

On unrelated note, kind of, the high school football season started on Saturday. Leone was up first. 9am game against some private school on the island who's name I cannot remember. Anyway, the game was a blowout. As you can the Leone Lions gave the other team a smackdown. It was pretty awesome to watch. These kids play hard and play awesome. Cannot wait to watch some more exciting games as the season goes on.



I'm off for now. I will blog sometime this week to let you know how the first few days of school are going.

Love to all.

Tide Pool

Now no laughing at this video.

We were invited to this private beach last Sunday by a woman in the Department of Education. Her family owns a huge plot of land with greenery's, multiple homes and a private beach. They also have this amazing tide pool that one of her kids took us to. It was quite a trek through the jungle to get there but it was definitely worth it. Mind you, I do not recommend hiking in the jungle with flip flops because you will inevitably have to take them off because your feet will slip and then you'll end up walking barefoot.

The whole day was just another example of how kind and generous the people here in American Samoa are. They want us to feel welcome and loved. They also enjoy showing us everything they can about their land and culture.

Fa'asamoa

The Samoan Way.

Fa'asamoa is an all encompassing concept that dictates how Samoans are meant to act. It refers to the obligations that a Samoan owes their family, community and church and their sense of Samoan identity. The concept of respect is also very important.

This usually translates into the people of American Samoa being very kind and generous. Not only are most Samoans we meet extremely grateful that we are here to teach their children but they want us to feel like a part of their culture and family. Everyone goes out of there way to make us feel comfortable in our new environment. Everyone from the Taxi driver who drove us home from the Costco-like grocery store, to the librarian who gave me a ride home after snorkeling the other day, to the woman in the DOE Quality Education office who greeted us at the airport.

The Samoan culture is a very conservative one as religion plays a huge part in their life. Every village has a large number of churches which pretty much everyone on the island goes to. Christianity is the main religion but there are also a large number of Mormons as well. In fact, the village where I live has a very strong Mormon population.

My village has "Sa" which is a time for prayer. At 5 minutes to 6pm a warning bell rings throughout the village. The "bell" is like a old gas tank. Then at 6pm another bell rings which signals the commencement of Sa. During the next 7 minutes most people are inside their houses praying and offering thanks for their day. If you are out and about in the village you must stop and sit down until Sa is over. Then at 6:07 the last bell rings signaling that Sa is over and you can continue with your evening.

Then comes curfew. At 9pm the first curfew bell rings which means that all people under the age of 18 must be in their homes. At 10pm another bell rings which means that everyone should be in their homes. It is not a hard fast rule though, if you need to leave the village and go somewhere you can. You just can't be walking around the village. I'm not sure if it's for safety or just to keep everyone living a proper life.

Not all villages participate in these curfews but a majority of the smaller ones do. It is an interesting facet of this culture. I am so excited to learn more about how they live their lives here. I imagine that everything will continue to be an amazing learning experience.

No pictures in this blog but check out some on facebook, if you have it.

Malo!