July 20th

I got up around 5:30a.m. American Samoa time (mostly because I was still on California time) but I was in the right place because the sun came up about 5 minutes to 6:00 and the island lit up. Every picture I take and everything I see is what I would dream paradise to be. It is relatively warm out and very muggy. It rains a little every day, the humidity makes it a little difficult to breathe. I will definitely be taking everything very slow.
We went to a cultural museum for 3 hours today and watched the children and participated in the Samoan Arts of: wood working (carving wooden blocks to be used in fabric prints), weaving tree bark (this was awesome and I can definitely see myself meditating while doing this, kind of like making hemp necklaces from back in the day), painting (patterns painted on wood bark from mulberry trees), and Dancing (this was by far the hardest for me). We participated in all of the events with the children that had been working on their projects for the past three weeks. They were such awesome kids, I know our classes will be great if we have such wonderful children in them.
Before we left we were treated to a traditional dance (that we were trying to learn earlier in the day). The students did a fantastic job. During this ceremony, one of the children said to me that she thought I looked like a real Samoan, so I’ll take that as a compliment.
After the Cultural Museum the palagi (said Pah-lahng-ee, meaning tourist / white/ American/ non-Samoan) went on tour. We rode in a school bus to the far east side of the island where we saw where we were going to live and teach. We passed by my high school’s football team “The Vikings” and I yelled to them garnering a great cheer from the boys! It reminded me of the good old Patrick Henry football days.
When we got back this afternoon we had some time before dinner which I filled with swimming and tossing the Frisbee in a cove right across the street from the Technical School where we are staying. Did you think it would take me more than 24 hours to jump in the water here? I know you didn’t doubt me. We had a meeting this evening discussing some of the more administrative sides to our program, but the mood was lightened by embarrassing stories and pizza.
Insider info: there is a Pizza Hut, KFC, Carl’s Jr. (this is a Hardee’s restaurant for those not in the know), and a NAPA auto parts store not far from where we are staying in the country’s capitol. When we move out to the small town of Faga’itua (pronounced Fahng-ah-ee-too-ah) we can still access the shops and modern conveniences for a fee of $1.50 and a 20 minute bus ride.
I am so terribly tired so I shall retire for the evening. I hope everyone is doing well, I’ll try to keep the posts more concise in the future for both our sakes.
~Charlie & Jess