Twenty three

Hello from the older and wiser Sala! I am now officially 23 (and still the youngest volunteer). My 22^nd year of life involved more change than I ever imagined possible, but I’m excited to see what year 23 has in store for me.

I’ve done quite a substantial amount of exploring since my last Samoan blog post. This country really is gorgeous! I was able to see the Papase’ea Sliding Rocks. They’re pretty nifty waterfalls that you can slide down. It was gorgeous!! Of course, me being me, I didn’t end up sliding down any but I figure I still have a while here to try that if I so choose. I also made it back to the Taga Blowholes, which never fail to amaze me. It’s such a gorgeous coastline with water blasting into the air every time there’s a wave!

I'm obsessed!

While my cousin visited, we went all the way to the end of my island. We got to see the last sunset in the country from Fale’alupo. Also down that coast is the Lover’s Leap, which is a legend about a mother and daughter jumping off this very steep and gorgeous cliff. I don’t want to die, so I will never actually jump, but it’s a pretty spot on the coast. We got to see another Samoan legend, Moso’s footprint. The legend is that his right foot is here in Savai’i and his left foot is in Fiji. It was essentially just an indent in the lava rock, but hey it works. One really neat spot at the end of this coast is the Canopy Walk. It involves crossing a bridge made out of ladders connected with cable ties, so it’s a little iffy. We all luckily made it. Once you cross and walk up into the trees, you get a gorgeous view of no man’s land Samoa.

Undeveloped Samoan land.

Along with exploring, I did quite a lot of integrating this summer. I was finally accepted as one of the boys in my family (and super proud of myself for this accomplishment)! As one of the boys, I got to go to our two different plantations. One is rather close, maybe a mile away, and is where we get our coconuts to feed the pigs. I wasn’t allowed to climb the trees (which was a very smart restriction by my family), but I was allowed to carry coconuts back! I brought back 8 coconuts on a stick on my shoulder. My brothers each carry around 20, but 8 was plenty for me. Don’t judge, they’re heavier than they look! Our other plantation is our taro plantation. It’s about 5 miles into the Samoan bush! I honestly would’ve never made it home. There’s so much land that is completely undeveloped here, it would be so easy to be lost for weeks! I’m thankful I had my tour guides (although they decided I couldn’t go to the plantation without my morning tea so yes, they carried a full teapot 5 miles there and 5 miles back, and no I don’t like tea). At the taro plantation, I wasn’t allowed to pick the taro, but I was allowed to weed. I like to tell myself that I saved about 100 taro plants that day. The truth is, they probably would’ve survived even with the vines around them, but I’ll keep telling myself that I helped my family!

I didn't have a camera at the plantation, but here's some of the family!

Once I proved myself at the plantations, my brothers decided it was time to take me fishing! I was ecstatic!! Keep in mind, I am scared of fish, so this was really quite the scene. Our fishing rod was a bamboo stick with mosquito wire tied to it. First, we had to go in the river and catch crawfish for bait. This part wasn’t too bad, but then I was in charge of holding the LIVE crawfish. I had to break them open (still alive) and pull out the meat to use for bait. I tried to be manly, but was definitely out of my comfort zone. Catching the fish was surprisingly easy!! They love crawfish meat, I guess. We caught a total of 6 fish! The one time I was in charge of the bamboo pole, I accidentally flung the pole up and the fish got caught in a tree (oops). Needless to say I wasn’t the best fisherwoman, but I held my own! The fishing trip came to a halt when I caught an eel. Remember how I’m scared of fish? Well, just imagine how I am with eels! One word: no. I held it together pretty well until the eel scenario. Once I pulled up the bamboo and saw the eel, I flung it around and started screaming. The eel got off the hook and essentially became a snake in the grass! This didn’t help the situation and during my panic I actually mis-stepped and nearly fell into the river. My brother ended up tackling me and then finding the eel (heaven forbid we go home without it). So, all in all, we came back with 5 fish, 1 eel, and a couple bruises.

My fishing partner, our fishing rod, and our catch!

To finish off this summer, I had an amazing birthday celebration!! Myself and ten other volunteers rented an island (CASUAL)! Samoa has a bunch of smaller, uninhabited islands and one off the coast of Upulu has huts on it and can be rented. The island is called Namu’a and it is actual paradise. There’s no electricity and you sleep in open huts right on the sand. It was literally just the 11 of us – we actually had our own private island! We made bonfires on the beach at night and went snorkeling in the crystal clear water during the day. We made homemade kanjam and had card games going as well. It was such an incredible celebration! There’s a makeshift path up to the top of the island that we walked up. At the top, you can see 3 other Samoan islands; it’s absolutely breathtaking! There’s also a colony of bats that live up there, which weren’t exactly my favorite. Namu’a is small and secluded, but actually turns out to be bigger than you would think. We thought it would be awesome to walk around our own private island (duh), but that idea didn’t turn out so well. We made it about halfway around when we realized how dangerous it was with the tide coming in. It was us against the Pacific Ocean, which didn’t seem like a good battle to fight so we turned around and luckily made it back safely. Maybe one day at low tide I’ll make it fully around!

Not a bad way to spend a 23rd birthday!

In conclusion, Samoa is beautiful and I had a wonderful first birthday here! I’ve still been teaching all summer and we currently have 2 weeks left of the term. Unfortunately, we lost 5 volunteers this summer. Four went back to the States for medical reasons, but it’s still sad to lose members of our group. I lost my best friend, who I went to New Zealand with, so the rest of my time will be different without her. We now have 14 volunteers left and only 5 on my island.

Forever missing my Samoan twin.

Here we go, year 23!