Where were we? September 28th

Hey wonderful blog followers!!! Jess and I are doing fine, thanks again for the wonderful packages that we keep receiving. It makes it feel like Christmas here! We got to go swimming this weekend and the dog who is now part of the family came too. His name is "ooch" and he's been dubbed "ooch the pooch." I think that living as we do, so far on the east side of Tutuila island keeps us seperated from the noise and havoc of the west coast. But, then again, we are also far away from fresh food and other fun things. We do have local stores that allow us to purchase dry and canned goods, but vegetables are a rarity. We are also dealing with a mini-fridge that makes us constantly rearrange things so that we can fit leftovers, etc. and it makes it hard to keep food that we might normally keep for a while.
The insect problem has not been very bad here. I did have a run-in with a wasp that was very ill-tempered and he left me a nice welt. Apart from that, the mosquitos are only out at night and don't tend to bother us very much.
School is keeping us both very busy, writing lesson plans and continually adapting them to meet our students' needs is hectic work. We do enjoy our students and I am really hoping that we've made a small difference so far.
I've gotten everyone on campus using Google Earth, it is a trip to see all of the teachers looking for their houses and their families with this. I've also been lucky enough to have a projector in my class and we've been doing all of my lessons with PowerPoint! My students are in the process of painting their favorite author's portraits on my classroom walls. I've definitely got some future Picasso's and Cezanne's.
I know what everyone wants to see is our new pad. You will have to wait until we get it nice and clean before I attempt photo postings of this. As it turns out video posting is not feasible due to firewalls set up at our school. I'd use a bypass proxy but I'm really trying not to get into trouble here. So, no video or pics of our home, but I hope you like these photos.








The first photo was taken a short walk from our new home,








there is another of a tiny roommate of ours (a very well behaved gecko),










another shows jess getting ready for our snorkeling adventure this past weekend, lastly you can see Ooch as he wanted to go swimming too.









We love you and miss you folks bunches,
Charlie & Jess

September 8, 2009

Hey Folks!!!! This is just a test. If this works you should see a video that you can play. It is a short guided tour of our new digs here in Am. Sam. I hope all is well with everyone, and we thank you for all of your support and packages you've sent. Thanks again, Charlie & Jess

9/1/09

Whoa, has it been that long? Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I've been stressed out at school, just trying to accomplish a lot with a little. Amazingly I just got a digital projector for my classroom and I think I'll be doing great from here on out! I've got so many lesson plans that are written for projectors from my years of experience working with Dare county. Thank you all for your warm wishes. Jess and I are in our new digs and we love it. We are in a clean place, the weather is not killing us, the neighbors are very quiet (and not too close), and we are very comfortable there.

School is getting a little better for Jess too. She is on a roll with her lesson planning. Even though math and science are still difficult subjects for her to plan for; she is working extra hard and it appears to be paying off.

I hope all is well with you! Thank you very much for sending packages. It really makes us feel that we are not so very far away. We miss you all very much. I will try to keep you posted on upcoming events and I'm still trying to add photos and video.

Much love,
Charlie & Jess

August 13th

Whoa! It has been a while hasn't it? Sorry for the delay on my part. I have been trying to work out a schedule to bring my laptop to school and have it coincide with the internet allowing me to access this blog.

Everything has been well since my last post. Jess was a little under the weather with a cough that has cleared up nicely. She does have to get up at 5:00a.m. every morning to catch a bus to her elementary school. I do not envy her in the least. I have had some minor knee pain due to the dislocation that I had way back in 2003. The knee has acted like a gravel mixer in it's noises and feelings, most recently causing some irritation. I think the more I walk and excersize, the more it will clear up.

We do appreciate those of you who have sent care packages! We hope to receive them soon. We have yet to move into the "resort" as I like to call it. The construction portion (adding doors and windows, a stove, and a refrigerator) should be complete by the end of this week. The rest of the house's contents may not be complete for a couple of days after the construction. The both of us are very excited about getting into the new place and settling down. It seems like we've been living out of our luggage for quite some time now. We don't yet know if we'll need any other supplies sent, but we'll let you know if something comes up.

Jess and I are approaching the end of our first week of school. It has been very good for the both of us. We are a little bit more informed about the way the classes and the schools are run. My school has a rather large pep rally this Friday. We are also participating in our first football games of the season this Friday and Saturday. If I were to place a bet it would be on our team!

Sorry for the lack of pictures. Right now the school computer does not allow me to upload images. I'll try to put them on another site and then attach the link to the blog. We hope everything is going well with all of you!

~Charlie & Jess

July 30th

Hey folks,

Sorry It's been a while since the last post. It has been raining and we have been in classes for the past two days so no pictures and nothing really to report on those days.

Today Jess went into town and taught her first lesson to some Samoan students and Bobby and I rode public transport out to the east side of the island to check out our future accommodations.

It looks to be a great year for us! The room and bathrooms and everything look like we are staying at another resort!!! Let the pictures do the talking. We are about 15 minutes out of the small village of Alofau (pronounced "Ah-loh-fow"). It is up on top of a hill so the breeze is very cool so we won't be sweating all of the time. All in all it looks great.

We have some great views from our "resort".

The school that I'll be teaching in has approximately 600 students and I believe it to be the smallest one on our island. We are the Faga'itua Vikings (pronounced "Fahn-gah-ee-two-ah")

We are also the island / state champion football team here too. Our principle's name is Elvis and our Vice Principle's name is Pooch. Pooch is also the head coach of our mighty Viking team. It seems to be a very small, but very cool school.

Bobby will be staying in the village, and until our rooms get furnished, we'll be staying with them for a while. He is staying on a woman named Maria's property. She has two awesome sons named Alex and Rain. Her sons and their friends Mos and Frank went with us up to the site where we were staying and filled us in on some of the local legends.

I'm getting ready to go to our "tea time" session so I'll sign off for the moment. I'll let you know about the living situation as soon as there is anymore movement.

Much love,

~Charlie & Jess

July 27th

Today was our first "day of rest". In Am. Sam. we are supposed to pretty much lay low on Sundays here. The culture is very religious and Sundays are a strict "rest" day. People are pretty much supposed to go to church and do things that they feel are relaxing. To Jess and I it was needed.

We walked to get some vegetables (these are kind of rare in fresh form here), and while we were trekking we passed by the local KFC and Pizza Hut. To me they look a little out of place next to the absolutely gorgeous backdrop of the mountains. It is just part of the Americanization that has taken over certain aspects here. I for one prefer the cooking we ate the other night. I do understand that barbecues such as that are much more expensive and more time is involved in the production so a fast food joint with cheap prices can replace the traditional methods of eating. But at what cost?

We had a meeting this afternoon at a fale (pronounced "fah-lay") that was a little hut in the park across the street, next to the water. It felt so great to have the wind blowing this afternoon after the severe heat I felt this morning. The meeting had a lot to do with what we are to expect for the rest of this week of orientation as well as the upcoming year. We also confirmed our living arrangements for this year. We read an interesting article about calling it Oceania instead of the Pacific Islands, it's pretty deep so I won't go into it here. I did take a photo of some of the other guys in our group that looked pretty funny while reading it though. The fellow in the front is Bobby and he'll be living in the same town as Jess and me. The fellow in the back is Matt and he is a trip too! He lived in the Marshall Islands last year and of the entire group, I think he's the most prepared for this year.

I didn't take a lot of photos today as we didn't really do much else. We have been having evening "Tea Time" lessons where each of us have assigned groups and subjects that we have been teaching each other and our group taught about teaching writing lessons. I learned a lot about other peoples' styles through how they teach during these times, as well as their responses.

We are finally reunited back in our original room. Jess had moved out (due to the illness that had permeated my room) and now that the two-day flu has passed through everyone's system we are back together! We miss you guys bunches. We'd love emails of some pictures of what you are up to as well. I know you guys are enjoying your summer and you're getting ready for school too. I can't wait to share my teaching experiences with you. I think Jess is a little nervous about teaching math, but I know she'll be great.

Sorry no interesting stuff today, it was as it should be, relaxing.

Much love,

Charlie & Jess

July 26th

I was told that you wanted more pictures so I'll try to keep things going like this while I have the time.

Jess and I started the day by heading to the local library and getting our library cards. Normally I wouldn't consider such a thing an adventure. When you get to ride on the public transport here though it becames an awesome trip. The vocational school we're staying at is probably a 30 to 4o minute drive. The local bus or "family" bus is driven by a man who likes to play his music REALLY loud. It is so cool to ride in a small vehicle playing some real Samoan music (sometimes mixed with U.S. Hip Hop, R&B, and almost anything with bass) and drive around paradise.

It was cool to see the Wyland painting he had just finished this past year. For those who don't know about Wyland, he's the fellow who likes to paint whales everywhere. American Samoa just happens to be one of the world's largest spawning grounds for the mighty humpback, so it was very fitting that he came here to paint.

We wandered around Pago Pago harbor for a little while before hopping on another bus back towards Tafuna. We got off and purchased our new cell phone service!!!!! If you need to contact us now it is absolutely free for us to receive your calls but it does cost us to call you. Our parents have our number and I don't feel comfortable posting it here on this public site.

We then had a sweet time walking for about 45 minutes through a very garbage ridden route to some secluded beaches! It was fantastic when we got there though. The other married couple (John and Cynthia Delaporte) are so cool and they got pretty far down the trail before they had enough of the trek. After they got turned around by a local who told them that there was another 40 minutes of the not too easy trip they split, but Jess and I pressed on. In only 5 minutes we came on a quiet beach that we got to snorkel on and we saw TONS of tiny little fish. (Hunter said she'd send us some disposable waterproof cameras and we'll get more pictures of that sort for you then). But we kept moving even farther away from our "home" and found a group of our buds that had found the BEST snorkel spot. 15 feet of crystal clear water, lots of fish, starfish, beautiful coral (and the guys we met there said they had seen a couple of large rays there too)!!!! To make it all surreal the beach is called "airport beach". It is pretty straight forward. Even the locals claim that the best snorkeling on Tutuila island is at "airport beach" approximately 50 feet from one of the runways. I kid you not, we looked down on an amazing aquatic ecosystem, then looked up and saw garbage and a fence that went around the circumference of the airport. Needless to say it was a long trip back and I'm really sore right now. It was totally worth it and I'd do it again tomorrow.

Samoan tradition does forbid swimming on Sundays (I don't know how I'm going to deal with that one...)

Much love,

~Charlie & Jess

(This is where we left John and Cynthia)

(This is the first secluded beach we came across)

(We only got about 15 minutes at the really nice diving spot)