Peace...Love...Samoa: Jolly July

July was a month of constant climb, climbing back to the top. As you all know, June was a low point. Thankfully, each day in July got better. Like I said I would do, I took the pressure off myself. I opened my mind back up to the culture, and in return fell in love with it again. Most importantly, I took time for me. When you choose to do something like this with your life sometimes people mistake giving yourself with giving up yourself. I am giving my time, patience, help, knowledge, love and compassion to these people. I needed to remember at no time did I say I would forget myself, give up who I was to do this. What made me… well me. I think what made me come back to a high point was remembering myself, I was giving all of the love, compassion and help to the people here but not giving it to myself and gradually I stopped giving it to them without even realizing it. My goal for July, work on myself. In the end working on myself made me a better person, volunteer and teacher and most importantly I was so much happier.

So to recap July for you all….

As you all know we had a beautiful program for the 4^th of July. Go America. School was going well. I felt my bond with the teachers and students growing stronger. I saw improvement in the school and students. My reading program is going well, the days that I could actually do it. There are still the struggles of dealing with such an irregular school schedule, different mindsets between me and the teachers. I try to take in the small changes I see day to day. I also realized I am not just here to teach and change the lives of these students; they are changing my life and teaching me things about myself and the world. We are putting on an English program at the end of term 2 (end of august). Each class is preparing some kind of performance, all done in English. Parents and friends come to watch the event. I along with neighboring PCV’s will be the judges, because somewhere along the way it turned into a competition. There is a small obsession with trophies here.

We did lose our first 83er. It was hard for me to lose such a close friend, especially in this situation. It was the right decision for her, and I am proud of her. A good thing did come out of her early departure; it made me realize that this is where I need to be and where I want to be.

Me and Liv ready for our advenmture

The rest of July is kind of a bore. Rob and Olivia spent a weekend at my house. We enjoyed dinner at our favorite pizza place on Savaii, the only pizza place, Seki a Pizza. Rob built me a bookshelf which just changed my bedroom drastically. We also took an adventure to Nancy’s house for lunch one day. I use the word adventure to make it sound, well adventurous. The truth is we walked for 15 minutes to a nearby bakery and sat for an hour waiting for the bread, which wasn’t done in time to catch the bus. So we gave up on the bread and caught the bus. Enjoyed a delicious American meal of Kraft Mac n Cheese. I did wear a cool hat to look more adventurous.