My Year 8 Divas

Dont Mess with Da Best

JV boys getting ready

Samauga Soccer moms are the best

ENELIKO....Star Varsity player...if you couldnt tell just by looking at him

Uma A'oga

Coco Samoa anyone?

6 Months

            I remember the night before I left. I was still packing, which isn’t unusual for a procrastinator like me. Packing for two years seems pretty unrealistic. It was like things kept popping into my head that I thought I had to have. I look back now and realize how different I would have done the whole packing thing. That last day was painful, saying goodbye to my family and best friends, thinking that for most of them it will be two years before I see them again. That last night I sat there just thinking I can’t believe it’s actually here. It was my parents, Kenny, and Steph who took me to the airport the next morning. We had Starbucks coffee and sat there making sure I didn’t forget anything and pretending like this wasn’t one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. We didn’t leave time for a big dramatic goodbye. When it was time everyone slipped on their sunglasses and we gave our hugs and I gave my words of love and they gave their words of encouragement. No turning back…

            6 months….that was all 6 months ago. It feels like a lifetime ago. If I could sum up these past six months in one word it would be”rollercoaster”. Emotionally, mentally, physically this whole experience has been a rollercoaster ride. You are away from the people that mean most to you, slowly you feel disconnected from your life at home and all while you’re in a foreign country with complete strangers. Group 83 quickly built a relationship and it grows stronger every day, and now I couldn’t imagine this experience or my life without them. These people are my support system. There are just some things that we aren’t able to write home about and are lucky to have one another for that. Each one of us is so unique and different, all having different stories and different reasons for being here.

            I look back over the past six months and remember my reasons for doing this. I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to not just travel but live in a different country. I wanted to do something completely on my own and climb the ladder of independence. Well check, check, and check.

So what new things have I learned or done in the past six months?

1.      Made 20 amazing new relationships

2.      How to kill a chicken and pluck it

3.      Some of the Samoan language

4.      How to ride a bus when its doubled its maximum capacity

5.      I have mastered the art of eating with your hands

6.      Eating a fish still accompanied by its scales, head, and bones

7.      I am a certified scuba diver

8.      I have learned that food can sit out way longer than 4 hours…J…I still haven’t gotten any stomach problems…knock on wood

9.      Living on your own gives you way too much time to think and ponder your past and your future and that very moment

10.  Everything tastes better with coconut cream

11.  Other volunteers will refute this but palagi chicken is a million times better than Moa Samoa…

12.  How to make coconut cream

13.  Roosters do not just make noise when the sunrises. Actually I have yet to find a time when there not making noise

14.  Punctuality is extremely overrated

15.  Air conditioning is extremely underrated

16.  How to successfully do laundry in a bucket

17.  Reading has become a favorite hobby

18.  Cold showers have become tolerable

19.  Not lost my camera

20.  This is new as of today…have my first infected wound! Don’t worry its no big deal…

Fun and silly as those things may seem above, there are a lot more, but those are the ones off the top of my head. This experience has made me confront different emotions and problems that I haven’t experienced. I do think I am a different person from the girl that left home on October 4. There is a lot more to learn, a lot more to do, a lot more to see, and a lot more to become. Looking forward to the next year and a half.

Peace and Love

           

Its Been a While...Sorry

I will try to catch you all up on this month events. It’s been quite a rollercoaster of a month…

 I look forward to March every year. On the 5^th of this month every year since 1988 I and loved ones get to celebrate the day I came into this wonderful world. Steph was the first one to call me. She realized it was still the 4^th over here but followed it up by saying “hey, it’s your birthday here in your homeland”. The next day I woke up to many texts from my “homeland” all saying the same message “Happy Birthday. Miss and Love You”. Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Twenty three is usually one of those unexciting birthdays…but I got to spend my 23^rd birthday on an Island and I was getting scuba certified. Which bring me to my first topic…..

Scuba Diving

I am unfortunately still not certified. Due to weather conditions our schedule was pushed back a day which left us with two dives to come back and do another time. I however, still have three dives to do before I get my certification. Don’t dive when you have a head cold. Your ears won’t equalize and you will come up to the surface with your French instructor, Fabian, saying “don’t worry but you have blood coming out of your nose”. I attempted to do dive number two after my first dive but my ears didn’t want to. So I hung out on the boat with the two Samoan mates and had to endure through the standard fesilis by samoan tama (questions from samoan boys). Where you come from? You like Samoa? How long will you be here? (which is always followed up by a wow that’s long time) and then you will get asked one of the following…or all of the following: You like Samoan boys? Do you have a boyfriend? You want a Samoan friend?....and then they laugh really hard with their friends for 15 minutes. By the age of 13 these boys know these questions and will ask any palagi girl. I make up different answers every time now.

Anyways…so the diving I did do was great. It was really awkward at first and I kept confusing the signal for going up (thumbs up) with the okay signal (could also be mistaken for a bad word in some countries). I use the thumbs up every day, it signals “all good” or “yes” never do I use it to say I am going to ascend. Fabian became frustrated with me but the best part about scuba is you can’t talk, so he couldn’t yell at me.

            I live two villages away from the dive place so I should be able to finish up  my certification by the end of April.

Next Order of business…”Your Birthday is not until next Friday”

My great friends were very concerned that we couldn’t celebrate my birthday together. So we designated the following weekend to be my Birthday. My dear friend Rachel didn’t even call me on my birthday, her response was “your birthday is not until next Friday”. If you knew Rachel then you know its nothing to be offended by. My birthday on March 11 was amazing. A group of us got together and had a wonderful time catching up and talking/venting about village life.

 I hear everything everything is good in three’s. Me Rachael and Lindsey have become close and sometimes it sucks having them on the other Island. But Digicel is so great and I will usually use my  30 free texts on them. I also didn’t get their permission to write their names on my blogs, but I hear they have been talking about me too.

And now lets talk about the Aoga….School

I finally feel like I am getting through to the students…well that’s how I feel today. It truly is hard work trying to figure out what works. So far my list of what doesn’t work trumps the list of what does. I think I am handling it well though, I realize that this semester is all about trial and error. Well hopefully it is just this semester. I have finally taken over year seven English. The teacher was a little confused as to why I wasn’t using the curriculum. But uh  I can’t say the things I want on here about that. My first goal was classroom management, my first and hardest goal to achieve. It’s hard to find something that works for students who are used to getting hit when they do something wrong or when they don’t do something wrong. I am still a bit confused at times when I see the punishments going on. But for me,I have found that embarrassment works. Sometimes I make the year 8 boys come up and hold my hand while I’m teaching. The worst is if I kick you out. No one wants to leave let alone be kicked out of the “cool” teacher’s class. The good news is, I am finding things that work.

Now for all you teachers out there…I am sure you have heard of co-teaching. For all you non teachers out there; co-teaching is a variety of methods to teach a class with two teachers. I have discovered a new co-teaching method…

Introducing: One Teach One gives a self Mani Pedi

A couple days ago I was doing a English lesson and the other teacher was supposed to be observing me so we could review my lesson and discuss it. Ten minutes in I looked over and she had her foot on her lap and was scraping and filing her toenails. Twenty minutes later I went to ask her a question and she had switched to her finger nails. I think this method came from some grad students doing research at the cosmetology university. I just don’t know why  we didn’t learn about this method in our training.

I love the laid back free spirit attitudes of my fellow teachers. They are so generous as well. They generously made me the soccer coach of the school. Now don’t get me wrong. I am up for competition and I love soccer. However, these kids don’t play soccer, never have. So with my limited Samoan, I must teach these kids how to play. No Problem….especially since I was just informed that the only rules are handball and out of bounds. That makes it easy. These kids should fell honored to have HFS MVP soccer play as their coach. Two weeks until our first competition. Samauga will be number 1.

..now if anyone wants to donate soccer shoes…that would be greatJ

So life is good. I am healthy and well. I will try to update more often. Trips into town have been limited this month.

Enjoy the pictures

Peace and Love

Im Okay!

The Scuba Crew

Our lovely instructor Fabian...likes to look like a mime when he goes for a dive

KPOD

Year 7 doing their English Centers

Year3

Writers Block

I have never been a writer…so my solution to writers block is just closing Microsoft word and hope that I get some kind of motivation to write later.

I need some topics people. Comment on this post with some ideas of what to write about. That would be very helpful. In the mean time I will update you on the past two weeks…

For all you teachers out there who hate sloppy work from a student….come to Samoa. Students spend whole class periods making their paper look perfect. Copying down the notes or format for the assignment (since there are no copy machines at our school the students have to copy down the worksheet by hand) takes FOREVER. Most of the students don’t even do the work. There is a art form to this too. They use their rulers to create the lines for the title, even though they are doing on loose-leaf which as you know already contains lines. The lines are usually in red. Then the heading is in blue and the directions and questions are in black. You should see how concentrated the kids are while doing this. It gets exciting when someone messes up and they run around the room looking for someone who has whiteout to fix their mistake. It’s such a process, one that I can’t stand.

Jenny’s Classroom Rules

NO RULERS

NO WHITEOUT

BLACK PEN ONLY

Sometimes the simplest changes are the biggest….

I got my classroom taken away. I was marking the year 6 books during interval one day and noticed there was a lot of noise, more than usual, outside. I saw all of the desks and table being moved out of all the classrooms. I assumed that they were going to be clean, and another excuse to end school early. When I asked a teacher what was going on she told me that they were switching all of the classrooms, and year two was being split into two classes because it was so big. Its not a big deal, I just have to travel to each classroom instead of them coming to me. The problem with the big move was I had just organized the library, which is now piled in the year 2 room….

On a more positive note I have been working on a reading program with the year 7 and 8’s. It has been going very well. The students are starting to understand the routine, and even the lower students seemed to be getting something out of it. I am happy when the “lazy” boys come into my class excited to do the work! You can usually find this group of boys roaming around school or in the bathroom. They are my favorite and are determined to make me a fluent Samoan speaker.

In a week I will start seeing every class at least two times a week. I will be very busy but it beats observing all day long!

Last  weekend myself and other 83’s went to a beautiful waterfall. We had a great time swimming and jumping into the fresh water. It’s always a fun time when we get together. We sat around talking about school experiences trying to be positive for each other. It’s nice to have a group of people I can relate with and not feel so bad if things aren’t going perfect at my school.

In other news….

Next weekend I will hopefully be getting SCUBA certified. The weather has been wonderfully sunny and hot for the past two weeks. Knock on wood….

Stay tuned for pictures….

Peace and Love

TEVI AND RIVKA

ME AND MY GIRL RACH

CHRIS AND HIS P90X BOD WITH TEV AND MIKA

Pictures

My new kitty Penelope

Walking up on the first day

Kids doing their first assignment of the year

Administration :)

My little sister Sarai on her first day

Be Cool Stay in School

It is Wednesday February 9. There have been 7 other days of school since the first day. The first week of school was basically a repeat of the first day. Tuesday and Friday were official “working” days which I thought meant the teachers would actually be teaching? A working day here means kids dress in old clothes to do more cleaning and work on the school. At least they weren’t getting their uniforms dirty. There is still no official start time of school. Everything gets started around 8:30 or so and we get done between 11 and 12. School is supposed to go until 2, but that has yet to happen. I do think a routine will eventually be made, I suppose there is still some logistical stuff to be done. I am taking this down time in the school to get to know the children and look through the English curriculum. I do have my own classroom which also serves as the library. I am starting to decorate it and trying to fade out the browns grays and dust colors.

            Wednesday the teachers fast to show their thanks to God. I was walking down the hallway taking a sip of water when a teacher poked me in the stomach and said “hey! Today we fast”. I didn’t know fasting included water, what they didn’t know is I made myself a wonderful breakfast this morning. Now don’t go thinking these Samoan women fast all day long. We fast until twelve and then a prayer is said to close the fast and it’s time for lunch. It also is another excuse to end school early.

            What we deal with in these schools from time to time is lack of motivation from teachers students. I am not going point any fingers, but I do know my work is cut out for me. It’s not just my school that is like this, looking for excuses to end school early. Any reason can work, from fasting to too much rain (which the kids have to walk home in, so it’s better to stay in school right?). I was talking to another PCV today and her teachers left school early because it was payday and they wanted to go to Apia. There are so many issues to tackle but we must take it one day at a time. My biggest priority right now is establishing good relationships with my teachers and students.

            At the end of last week I was disappointed. Over the weekend I realized that it was not a waste and if anything I spent time with my students and the other teachers. So life is good. Penelope finally used her litter box, I’m a proud mommy. I went for my first bike ride and didn’t get attacked by a dog.

When we first got here the staff would talk to us about being flexible. I couldn’t count how many times we heard “being a part of the Peace Corps, you have to be flexible”. The word I realize we use the most when talking amongst other PCV’s is patience. In this country, you won’t survive without it. Anyway what I am getting at is I found this great quote from Mother Teresa that is perfect. I found it reading “Three Cups of Tea” that I just recently finished. I have been told for like 5 years now that I need to read it, and I am glad I did. I definitely recommend it!

Peace and Love

“Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything”- Mother Teresa

First Day of School

When I think back about all my first days of elementary school I remember a neat new (sometimes) uniform and putting on my new school shoes. I remember the odd excitement I had of filling up my new backpack with my new school supplies, including a sweet new trapper keeper that I spent an abnormal amount of time picking out. I wonder why I had such a strange fascination for school supplies, maybe it’s because while all the other kids back to school shopping consisted of new outfits, my highlight was shoes that had very specific guidelines but I felt such freedom being able to pick out my own shoes in hopes to have different ones from everyone else in my class. The best part of the first day of school was waiting for the morning bell and catching up with friends and their summer vacations. Well, I would think it’s the best part; I never got to experience this because my driver was notorious for being late. My “driver” may or may not be my mommy. Anyways so once I got in the classroom I would always have butterflies in my stomach wondering where my desk was going to be and more importantly who it would be by. The day would be full of organization of our supplies, distribution of schedules, and usually a writing piece on our summer vacation. The day would go by fast and stress free for the most part and before I knew it I would be waiting outside with my other family members where we may or may not have been the last ones picked up.

            So how is the first day of school different for children at Samauga Primary?....

            I was told by my Pule (principal) that school starts at 7:30, and I should arrive around 7. I woke up to a downpour of rain at 6 and automatically knew that this would make everyone late. I took my time getting ready, made breakfast and coffee, then put on my green Puletasi. Around 7:30 it had stopped raining and I decided to start my 5 minute walk to school. It was quiet, too quiet. Where were all the people? There were some of the high school children waiting for the bus. I walked up to the school and wasn’t all that surprised to find I was the very first person at the school. I waited for about 20 minutes and then my Pule showed up with her children. More children and teachers started to stroll in around 8:30. The students do have uniform, red bottoms and white tops. Some had new backpacks but chances are there was nothing in them. I watched my Pule enroll new students while the children mingled. The first order of business was to weed the field. In their brand new uniforms, the students were weeding the muddy field and saying goodbye to those stainless clean white shirts. It started to rain so the students moved on to the next task, moving the furniture into the classrooms. I tried to help, but one of the challenges I still face is being treated like an equal, instead of a Palagi. Once all the rooms had their furniture the day was over for the students. The teachers had a meeting after school which was in Samoan, so my participation was minimal. I spoke up when they told me I was teaching year 1-8 everyday, which isn’t even possible because of the length of their school day. Once the meeting was over it was time to go home and kafaou.

I can’t say I was surprised about the day. I was warned by group 82 volunteers to not set my expectations to high for the first week or so of school. I spoke with other 83’s about their day and we all had similar experiences. We were all so anxious for this big day that turned out not so big, but I have learned that patience is key but it’s a whole new level of patience that I didn’t think was possible to reach, but I am slowly climbing that ladder to the very top.