Term two is officially over, meaning I’ve survived half the
school year! That’s crazy. I’m almost at 9 months in Samoa and it does not seem
possible. It somehow turned out to be a busy term, so this will be a rather
long post. It’s going against everything I believe in blog posts because I
would never sit and read this long of a post, but here we go anyways. Thanks
for reading!
School had some exciting moments this term. The U.S. Embassy
contacted me and arranged to bring the dance group iLuminate to visit! They
came in third place on America’s Got Talent. They’re the group who dances in
the dark with lights on their costumes. Anywho, it was awesome! They came and
performed at my school and then my students got to teach them some Samoan
dances. It was one of those surreal moments seeing two cultures come together
through dance.
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| My students dancing with iLuminate! |
I was also busy this term when I got invited to work with
the Ministry of Education, Sports, and Culture (MESC). It’s an honor to be
attending meetings with the directors of education for an entire country! MESC
is bringing six of us volunteers on board to do professional development. We’ll
be training teachers on literacy and numeracy along with creating assessments
to be used with both. It’s pretty crazy to think that I’m involved in creating
a math assessment for an entire country!! I’ve been missing my math, so this is
the perfect cure.
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| MESC professional development team. |
More exciting school news came when I attended a training
with SolarSPELL. Professor Laura Hosman and Bruce Baikie flew all the way to
Samoa with solar paneled digital libraries and tablets for all Peace Corps
Group 87 volunteers. This library requires no Internet connection or
electricity! It is pre-programed with all different resources targeted for
developing countries, and more specifically, Samoa! There are teaching
resources for every subject as well as Wikipedia and a Medical Dictionary. I am
amazed at how much time and energy was put into designing the contents and
hand-building each SolarSPELL that was brought to Samoa! I’ve already begun
professional developments in my school to train my teachers how to use it and
I’m excited to see what the rest of the year will bring.
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| Thanks Dr. Hosman!! |
Along with school life, my family life was also quite busy
recently. My host cousin got married!! I was able to attend a wedding with my
Sa’anapu family during training, but it wasn’t a real Samoan wedding because
the bride was from New Zealand. This time I got the full experience! The pre
and post wedding ceremonies were all held on my family compound, so we had lots
of weeding and painting to do to prepare! My Kingsley Pines professional
painting skills came in handy as I painted every chair and bench in our four
family houses. I’ve never seen more fine mats, pigs, cows, and corned beef than
I did the week of the wedding, and the ceremony hadn’t even happened yet! To my
surprise, I was chosen as a bridesmaid, which was such an honor. Of course, I
had no clue what this meant. The night before the wedding was the dress
rehearsal, where my partner and I perfected our walk down the aisle. He had to
kneel and I had to put beads on his head! Don’t worry, I crushed it. At around
midnight I saw my dress for the first time and had my dress fitting. I’m not
sure what we would have done if it didn’t fit since the wedding was 8 hours
away, but all worked out. I guess it’s tradition to not sleep before the
wedding because that night we also learned four new dances to be performed.
Needless to say, I was quite exhausted when the actual wedding came around. I
seemed to do everything right and as far as I can tell my host cousin got
married. Of course I didn’t understand much, so it’s still unclear. After the
church ceremony, there was lots of food, cake, and dancing. All in all, it was
a very fun experience and I’m super happy I was able to be part of it!
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| All pink everything!! |
To finish off this massive blog post, I also had family
visitors!!! My real, American cousin came to Samoa with her husband and four
kids. Her husband is Samoan, so that just happened to work out in my favor. I
went to stay on their family compound in Lotofaga, Upolu and then they were
able to come to Sili! My host family was ecstatic and we had a dance night
where my real family showed Hawaiian dances and my host family showed Samoan
dances. It was another neat instance of two cultures coming together through
dance! Having family visitors is so incredible – thank you, Maile!
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| My American/Samoan visitors! |
