Sunday, November 17, 2013

They say you can't do it, but I did it. I went home again. Twice.

A hot cup of apple cider. A white afghan. Blueberry muffins just out of the oven. These are the things that surround me as I write.

A year ago at this moment, I was sleeping in my American bed for the first time in quite some time. My time in the Peace Corps came to end an exactly one year ago. However, my time in Samoa did not. Oh that’s right, dear reader, I went back. Back to the place that haunted my dreams. The best thing that came from going back? Closure. Closure that wouldn’t have come without it.

When I realized it had almost been a year, I couldn’t help but think of what I was doing last year. Who I was with. What I had already done. And who had already left my life. How it all actually feels so distant.

I couldn’t help but read some of my blogs from that last year. I couldn’t help but see how confused I was about who I was. A year later, I again have found myself. And once again, I feel like a year has changed who I am.

This is the first thing I wrote in my journal when I went back to Samoa last June: "Third day in Samoa and I don't know how I'll be able to go home again. My heart is so full. It feels like I could have just been here last weekend and simultaneously I know I might never come back. This might be the most bittersweet moment of my life. This place is my home. It's like all of this isn't real; like it's just another one of my dreams, but it's also like, 'Of course you're here. You never really left. Everything in between was the dream.' And maybe that's the truth."

In the year in between I was accepted to a few grad school programs and decided to go to American University in Washington, DC, for International Peace and Conflict Resolution. However, with things as they stood in July, there was no way I could financially make grad school happen this year. So I deferred my admission and will begin grad school next year. It’s nice to cool my jets for the first time in my life.

I worked a year of odd jobs. I answered angry calls from angry people in a call center. I changed poopy diapers on poopy toddlers at a daycare. And fell in love with some of those little boogers in the process. I worked a second job as a cashier in the town I grew up in. (Who knew my local celebrity status wouldn’t change so much after leaving Samoa?) And now, a year later, I’m a reporter. So finally, writing is my career and I’m learning all the time. For the first time in my life, I have a big girl job. Not even a job, but a career.

If I hadn’t gone back to Samoa in June, it would have always been on my mind. A dream that seemed too far in the future. But going back allows you to move on.

Moving backward to move forward.
And now all that’s ahead of me is the future.  

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Never-Forgotten Goodbyes

Not everything can be documented with a picture. There are two goodbyes I had in Samoa that fit that description. The first was with one of my students, Josephine. After my last day at school, she, Toto’a and Ina came over to my house to kafao (hang out). We chilled in my kitchen, watched a short movie, looked at pictures on my camera, and talked a little. Eventually, the girls gave me their last hugs and went home. However, every time Josephine left, she’d come back for another goodbye. I’m not going to hide it, Josephine was my favorite. She came back because her mom told her to come back “because it’s the last time I’ll see you.” Here she started crying a little bit. So I let her help me pack some of my stuff and I, of course, let her have a bag-full of things. We said goodbye again, and she came back again. This time her face was red and her eyes were full of tears. “I can’t say goodbye because I’ll never see you again.” I knelt down and gave her a hug. I started tearing up too. I wrote her a short note. It said that I had to write it because otherwise I would start crying. It also said that she was my best friend in Falefa. Maybe that’s sad for a twenty-five year old’s best friend to be a thirteen year old girl, but she was and I’m not embarrassed by that. I gave her the letter and we both cried and hugged. She went home, came back again. She said her parents wanted me to come over for dinner. That was an invitation I shouldn’t have declined, but I did, mostly because I felt we’d already said our goodbye and I couldn’t do it again. Josephine went home again, and came back again, this time with other students to say goodbye. Eventually I told her she could come back tomorrow, but that it was late and she should go home. That was the hardest goodbye I had while in Samoa. I miss a lot of people now, but that goodbye was tough. It’s even harder to think about now because of what happened the next day. Josephine came over the next day to spend time with me, but I needed to work on things that she couldn’t help with, I had things going on with my host family, and I honestly didn’t want to have to say goodbye to her again. Eventually, after trying to explain that she couldn’t help me, that I wasn’t packing anymore, I raised my voice and just told her to go home. It makes me sad even thinking about this now and I’m ashamed that I couldn’t just go outside and hug her one last time. I hope she doesn’t hate me for this.

 
A few days later I was headed out to Taufua for what would be my last few days in paradise. I took the bus from Apia, which meant I would be going through Falefa one last time. The bus stopped three times in Falefa and each time students saw me in the window and ran up to the bus to talk to me. I loved this! Toward the end of my village two students got on the bus to go visit family out near Taufua. Palepa saw me and pushed her way through the standing passengers to get back to me so she could sit on my lap. It was fun to talk to her and to see her make fun of men who were looking at me. Eventually she and her brother Saumani got off the bus. Saumani hadn’t seen me yet, but Palepa jumped up and down and made sure he saw me before the bus went on its way. When we all left Taufua a few days later, our cab didn’t go through Falefa, which really disappointed me since I wanted to see it one last time. But I am so glad that my last moment in Falefa was my students running up to the bus window to talk to me.

 
I am dying to go back to Samoa. That adventure was the most amazing thing of my life. It’s really hard to not live that life anymore. If I went back, I don’t know if I could say goodbye all over again. Misia oe Samoa!


When Do You Take a Stand?

When a boy comes to school with a black eye and a cut on his cheek, what would you, as a teacher, do? When a man is physically assaulting his wife outside of a night club, what would you, as a bystander, do?

These are two situations I found myself in while in Samoa. I’ll say it again: Samoa tested everything I had in me. Sometimes I acted nobly, like when I stepped between that drunken man and his wife and tried to get her in a cab. Other times, I listened to the powers that be, and did nothing, like when one of my students came to school with bruises from his father.  Snap decisions one makes in these situations cannot be controlled by society; it is completely up to the person in that moment. I can’t say how I acted in these situations was the smart thing to do or the right thing, but I would like to offer them for you to think about what you would do.

 (Also, these situations should in no way be taken to represent Samoa as a whole.)

 Outside of Club X can be quite the drunken scene late on a Friday or Saturday night. Well, on one of these nights, I decided, for better or worse, to wait for a friend outside the club. This one hour was quite eventful. I decided not to stand by my friend Sio, the bouncer, but to stand over to the side. This resulted in my getting harassed, which wasn’t unusual in Samoa. What was unusual was that I stopped holding my tongue. As readers of my blog know, corporal punishment is widely practiced in Samoa and Peace Corps’ response (unofficial and not worldwide, I’m sure) is to ‘lead by example,’ meaning we shouldn’t tell teachers or parents that beating kids is wrong, but that we should just not hit kids ourselves, and hopefully, through some sort of passive magic, people would do the same. I hope you too, reader, see the fault in that logic. Anyway, after nearly two years of rarely addressing corporal punishment directly (such as when I told one of my teachers not to hit kids with a stick or lecturing some of my students about why I don’t hit them) I was tired of ignoring these types of things. Well, standing alone outside of a club: probably not the best decision anywhere in the world. However, I felt like I could handle it. Besides, Sio was mere feet away. That did not stop one Samoan man from rolling a large rock at me to get my attention. Of course, after this he proceeded to harass me with catcalls. Another man saw what was going on and came over to talk to me. He was very polite. “Please, I know you’re a volunteer. Please forgive him. Don’t go back to your country with bad feelings about Samoa. Please forgive him.” My response was that I shouldn’t have to forgive a man for hitting me with a rock and sexually harassing me. He should learn to be respectful in the first place and forgiveness wouldn’t be necessary. This man, as good as his intentions probably were, wouldn’t leave me alone after that. He went on to quote Martin Luther King, which was comical when I asked him if he knew who King was. “I know he was African American.” But that was all. Finally, I was left alone to stand in “peace.” However, my moment of solitude was swept away when I noticed an older man harassing his younger wife. He was yelling at her, pushing her, grabbing her. He tore the strap on her dress leaving one of her breasts hanging out briefly before she realized her dress was ruined. I watched while no one did anything. Ahem, Sio, isn’t it your job to get that under control? As the man continued to abuse his wife, I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. I walked up to him. “Hey! Hey! Stop.” I put myself between him and his wife and tried to tell him, in Samoan, to stop. I said, “Is this how Samoan men treat their women?” “Yes!” the wife firmly replied. Once I stepped in, it got the attention of other bystanders and some white guys even stepped in and starting speaking to the man in Samoan too. This gave me the opportunity to put my arm around the woman, flag down a cab, and try to get her away from him. “Are you OK to go home? You know where you’re going? OK, I’m putting you in this cab and you’re going home without him.” After the door opened, though, her husband was right there. Sio, finally taking action himself, came over and pulled me away from them. “Sam, let it be. They always fight like this.” A US Navy man from Columbia who had talked to me earlier in the night came over too. “You need to be careful! If he had hit you, I would have had to hit him.” Shortly after, the man and his wife, meekly trying to keep her dress up with the broken strap, go into the club. I was visibly upset by all this. Sio came over to try to console me. “I’m sorry Sam. I know this doesn’t happen in America.” “No, it happens there too. But I wouldn’t have had to stop it. Somebody else would have stepped in too.” After that moment of excitement I walked back to the same spot I was standing before. And again, my presence drew a lot of attention. Eventually another man came over to ask if I was OK. Samoa has this saying about sisters being the pearl in their brothers’ eye. This man told me that and said, “Don’t take this the wrong way. But you’re my sister right now and so I’m going to stay here to make sure no one bothers you.” Which he did. He told me I just shouldn’t stand where I was standing. “But is it really a matter of where I’m standing? Don’t I have a right to stand wherever I want?” Eventually he was going to leave, but Sio had gone inside and since he seemed to be the only other person who would protect me if need be, I asked this man to wait at least until Sio came back so no one else would bother me. When Sio came back, he told me to go sit with Sio. Finally I listened. It was a night of standing up for others and having others stand up for me. I can’t say I tried to help that woman because I thought it was the right thing to do. I just knew that nobody else was helping, so I had too. I also thought that since I was a young white girl that the man would stop, out of shame or who knows. That was probably stupid; I could have taken a punch. But that didn’t cross my mind at all. But I ask, why was my involvement in that situation the only thing that got anyone else involved?

 Club X was the scene of a lot of drama. Don’t get me wrong; I love that place. This blog is not meant to glorify my actions; it’s also to say thanks to people who helped me. Another night outside of Club X I was extremely upset and crying, about what is no longer important. Who knows what I looked like or what people thought, but one woman came over to me to console me and to make sure I was alright. She stood with me for a while until other people I knew came over to me. There’s nothing wrong with asking if someone is OK when you see that they are visibly upset. Sometime just seeing that another person, whether or not you even know them, is helpful.

What do you do when a student comes to school with a black eye and a swollen face? I asked my other students what happened. “His dad hit him.” Later in the day I found out that not only did his father beat him, but that he used a thick stick to do it, a stick that the Samoan teachers and students cringed to hear was used. This was one of those situations where Peace Corps instructed us to stay out of it, for our own safety. But even back home, you do something about this. I didn’t know what to do, so I asked our Peace Corps nurse. She told me, of course, to stay out of it, but to keep an eye on the situation. My getting involved could make the situation worse. She also said to talk to my principal about doing something. I didn’t have to. Mesepa publicly asked the boy what happened. When he mentioned the stick, the students gasped. Mesepa said if it ever happened again, she would report the boy’s father to Samoa Victim Support and he would go to jail. Good for Mesepa; I have no doubt that she would do this since she reported a student’s family member the year before for sexual abuse. However, why wait until the next time for the boy to get beaten before doing anything? That being said, why didn’t I just report him to Victim Support?

Around the same time this happened, one of my best students came to me during morning assembly when all the students are outside marching and praying. She had been sweeping the cement floor, so she sort of had a pass. She came to me to tell me she might not be in school next term. She started crying. “My parents were fighting last night and my dad kicked my mom out of the house. We might move to Savaii after this term.” Samoan students never cry to their teachers about things like this. I was honored in a way that she felt comfortable enough to come to me with this. I told her that parents fight sometimes; all parents. “I bet after a few days your mom and dad will miss each other and you’ll go back to your house and it will be OK. Maybe you’ll go to Savaii for a while too, but I think you’ll be here for school next term.” I tried to console her the best I could. She said her dad was really drunk. I guess I didn’t really know what to say. Her and her mom did move back to their house and she finished the school year at Falefa. However, a week later, some of the students came to me with reports that other students were drinking behind the school that morning. I did some detective work to find out who it was and what they were drinking. Apparently it was two year-eight boys who were notorious troublemakers and my year-seven girl who had cried to me a week earlier. I called them in to talk to me too. Eventually they all lowered their eyes and nodded that yes, they were drinking. Unfortunately, my Samoan wasn’t good enough to give them a proper talking to, so I told Mesepa about what had happened. And luckily, that year-seven girl had good enough English that I could talk to her about why she shouldn’t drink. Two weeks later she was one of the five students I brought to Girls Leading Our World. Moral of the story: parents, don’t think your kids don’t see what you do.

For some reason, I have this notion that my presence alone can deflect problem situations. I was like this as a kid too. There was a night in Samoa when I was at a neighbor’s house vising the mother and kids. The father came home drunk, more drunk than I’d ever seen him. He started verbally harassing the mother and even asked if I knew if she’d been visiting any other men that day. He started putting lotion on his hands and then rubbed some on his kids’ arms. My thought here was, “He better not touch me with that.” He did. I pulled away and said, “Don’t touch me.” He backed off. Even though I knew I shouldn’t be there, I stuck around, worried that if I left that the kids might be in danger. I wanted to stay either until the kids went to bed or he went to bed. After maybe forty-five minutes more, it was clear that nobody felt like sleeping and the thought that my safety might be in danger wouldn’t leave my head, so I left their house. After that night I decided not to put myself in situations like that one anymore. I didn’t want to be the Peace Corps volunteer you hear about that gets kidnapped, or raped. My safety would come first.

Again, I want to say that these vignettes in no way stand for all of Samoa. As a matter of fact, one of the most physically imposing moments I encountered with a drunk male was with a tourist from New Zealand. After successfully welcoming the new group of volunteers with a fiafia party, we took them out to a nearby bar. Here, we all quickly realized there were two drunken New Zealanders who had had way more to drink than anyone else. Eventually one of these guys made his way into our group. He stood next to me and towered over me. I turned to him. “You need to get out of my space. You’re in my space and you need to go stand somewhere else. See, we’re all in a group here and you’re kind of ruining it.” He backed off. Kiri, one of the new girls said, “That was better than any skit we could have had in training.”

When a girl on a bus is being verbally harassed by another drunk passenger, what would you do? When your teacher is being embarrassed by a drunk man, what would you do? What if you are that girl and you are that teacher? And no one stands up for you?

Yes, you need to pick your battles. I think I tried to point that out with the previous stories. But what about when you’re on a bus and a girl, your Peace Corps volunteer, is being harassed by drunk men? Well, no one ever stood up for me in these moments and it would have been really nice if someone had. There was one time when I was the last person to get on a packed bus. A drunk old man sat across from me, near the bus driver. He even had a bottle of vodka in hand. “You’re pretty.” He wasn’t speaking quietly, and other people were even giggling. I just nodded and tried to focus elsewhere. “Pisikoa oe?” (“You’re a Peace Corps volunteer?”) “I love you. Nice body.” More giggles. Then when he realized I was ignoring him, he became more vocal. “Hey! Palagi!” His calls subsided for a while. But eventually he remembered I was there. He yelled at the top of his lungs, “Palagi! I love you!” Embarrassing as this was, and disrespectful too, no one said anything to him. On a different bus once I sat toward the back of the bus because a man got up to give me his seat. I usually never sat near the back of the bus because usually it was full of men and it was kind of like Peace Corps Samoa 101 to not, as a female, sit in the back of the bus. But this time I did. It resulted in me being harassed by yet another drunken man. It started with just him asking if I was OK, but the more this questioned is asked, the more annoyed you get with it. I just kept saying, “Yes, I’m fine.” He escalated, eventually trying to grab me, and making kissing noises toward me. Two of my students were in the seat across from me, which only made me more embarrassed. This guy was relentless though, and I eventually said, “You are being really disrespectful now and you need to stop.” A friend of mine from the village was standing next to me and wrote me messages on his phone, “Sorry about that guy. U OK?” After I again told the drunken man he needed to stop, he pretended to cry, which got a loud laugh from everyone on the bus. Only when he started grabbing another woman’s arm, did anyone finally say anything. She told him to stop too. But that was it. No one told him to leave me alone or be more respectful, which was really disappointing to me since it was one of my village busses and people knew who I was. And I was being disrespected in front of a few of my students. Maybe that’s why I was more vocal with him.

The point of this post is in no way to make Samoa or its people look bad. I would go back to Samoa tomorrow if I could. The point is to make you think about what you would do in a situation where a young girl is being harassed, or someone who doesn’t look like you, who isn’t “from around here” is visibly upset. Do you stand up for them? Ask if they’re ok, if they need help? Do you put your safety first? And when should you do that? Or do you turn a blind eye of purposeful ignorance?

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Breaking Up with Evan


On September 29, 2009, Samoa was devastated by a tsunami that killed many. On December 13, 2012, Samoa was rocked by Hurricane Evan which has killed three and left eight more missing. I moved to Samoa in October of 2010, a year after the tsunami. I left Samoa on November 17, 2012, almost a month to the day before my very own beachfront fale was damaged by Evan. I escaped both Samoan tragedies unscathed. However, it seems I may have left my heart in that eternal Samoan summer.

            Since I’ve returned to Minnesota I’ve done a little research about the tsunami that hit the south side of Upolu. Little did I know the damage it caused. I didn’t know how many people (including tourists vacationing in paradise) were killed. I didn’t know that one of my closest friends, Tele, saved a woman’s life or that he almost died himself. I didn’t know that one of my favorite places in the world, Taufua Beach Fales, was literally washed away. Then just a few weeks after I said tofa soifua to Samoa, nature decided to hit Samoa again. This post is about what it’s like to not be where you want to be, to not be with people you care about, to check Facebook too many times a day for updates, pictures, anything letting you know that your November goodbye wasn’t officially the last goodbye you would ever have with that place and those people.

            Un-eloquently, it’s hard to be here and not there. Readjustment is hard. Being in cold, boring Minnesota is hard. Give me hot, boring, everyday Samoa. That boredom now doesn’t seem so boring. There was something about the adventure that was the Peace Corps that I miss every day. I see group 84’s (the newest group of Peace Corps volunteers) pictures online and I’m jealous. I’m jealous that they are just starting this adventure and that my life is utterly unexciting now with no solid plans for the future and the feeling that I’m not living a life anymore, the feeling that I’m just biding my time. The feeling that I’m not doing anything with my life anymore. It’s tough and I’m sure it’s what a lot of Returned Peace Corps volunteers feel. Perhaps my feelings are all the more poignant because I evolved from being a person who hated Samoa to someone who just wants to get back there. I think my fellow volunteers and some close friends back home who kept in touch over the last two years would be surprised about my feelings. Even as of last September I was still pondering whether or not going to Samoa might have been the worst decision I ever made. It wasn’t. I can say that now with 95% certainty. With all the drama, pain, and tears I experienced, I wouldn’t trade it for a happier, vanilla experience. Pieces of my heart still seem to be scattered throughout Samoa. Thankfully, those places and those people all seem to have fared well throughout Cyclone Evan. Everyone is alive, even though it seems that every fale has been damaged (including my own).

            Moving on and readjustment will happen once I’m finally distracted again by my own life. After washing my clothes in my Samoan host family’s washing machine, I would hang up my laundry on my clothesline mere feet from the South Pacific. Leaving Samoa is sort of like breaking up with someone. Cheesy, right? But true. These next few lines from a break-up poem fit so poignantly.

                        I give up my clothes which are walls that blow in the wind

                        And I give up the ghost that lives in them.

-          Mark Strand, “Giving Myself Up

Evan, you did not make the ‘moving-on’ process any easier.

 

 

            Most of the following pictures come from Seti Afoa’s Facebook page, a man who has done an incredible job keeping Samoans abroad updated through photos. And yes, ou a’u teine Samoa taimi nei. (I am a Samoan girl now.) You can’t live in a place for two years and experience some of the most extreme emotions without becoming attached to a place. A few photos I took myself. Other photos come from everyone’s friend, Google.

This is a link to a video taken by Kyle Kincaid, an RPCV currently living in Samoa. His village was Sauano, just up the mountian past Falefa. The video starts about 1/4 of the way into Falefa and goes over the bridge at Falefa Falls. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajFOaLuoeB0
View of Apia from Central Bank--Before

After--The pulu trees in front of Central Bank

Central Bank

The bridge near the Peace Corps office and Aggie Grey's Hotel
Log Jam from the River
This river is the reason for the deaths
Burst it's Banks


The same river as seen from Pasefika Inn--Before

The Pool behind Pasefika Inn--Before


After

After the Flood Drained
Pasefika Inn and the Peace Corps Office next to KK Mart--Before

Cleaning Up--After

Cleaning Out the Peace Corps Office

The following pictures effectively create a map to my village of Falefa
This picture comes from Lauli'i

Cone marking a downed power line


Ingenious use of hubcaps (Hubcaps?)

The bridge in Luatuanu'u

Filling the Hole

This house was just built within the last few months
It is directly across from the ocean

Near Solosolo-another Peace Corps village
The banana palms look chopped in half

In my home of Falefa
This tree fell right on a faleoloa (shop) right next to one of my
student's houses


The tree has been removed and it looks like only minor damage to the roof

The vaita'ele (pool) and falefono (meeting house)
across the street from where I usually waited for the bus
after a day at school to go to town

My usual walk home after school
Mose's Shop--where I did all my village shopping

Right in front of my family's church
Atalani and Salote (two girls who lived at my host family's house)
safe and sound, walking to the faleoloa
My house is just past the car on the road
My Fale--Before
During


After
 


After
The big white thing toward the right of the picture--
I think that is part of my kitchen that ripped from the house--
waiting for more pictures of my fale

Go Da Manu House--Before

After
Falefa Falls--Perhaps During or Slightly Before

This woman said hi to me every morning on my way to school

In the middle is my student Gabriel

Home of the Lady Ashleigh Bus--
One of my favorite buses to take to town thanks to the nice bus driver

Where Falefa turns into Falevao

View of Falefa from the mountain
The biggest building is the Catholic Church
Toward the right of the picture is the EFKS church (my family's church),
the church hall, host-family's house, and my fale


Headed East
The palms are decimated

Lemafa Pass
Land Slide

Near Lalomanu
The tree saved the faleoloa from the electicity pole

Tis the Season
to sell taro after a cyclone while wearing a Santa hat

Playing voli (volleyball) in the road



Togitogiga Falls


The Church in Mulivai--another Peace Corps Village

Tafitoala--my training village
 


Ever-Smiling Samoan Children

 

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Raised By Wolves - Published

Unfortunately, I must remove my original blog post entitled "Raised by Wolves."

Fortunately, I'm removing it because a more polished version has been published with the online travel magazine Hackwriters.

Check it out!
http://www.hackwriters.com/WolvesS.htm

(Copy and pasted below is the comment the original blog post recieved.)

(That was a really intriguing read Samantha. As a Samoan born and raised in NZ, I can confirm that we live much the same way as the Samoans described in your post: extended family, internal adoption, multiple offspring, financial support for parents etc. Although it's easier in NZ to have your own money and live separately, we are often obliged to still support our parents. I can also confirm your perceptions are correct – those are probably exactly the thoughts Samoans have when asking you those questions. But perceptions are made to be broken. As a Samoan in NZ I can see the positives and negatives of having only one child. The more they see you and your sharing heart, the more likely they will change their perception of Western children from a one-child family. Keep up the great work. Soifua!)

Monday, October 8, 2012

Bridges are Burning

Two years in and I now know how to tie my lavalava: just tuck the damn thing into your shorts.

With only thirty-nine days left in Samoa, I think it’s time for a little waxing and waning. Not like I haven’t been doing that during this entire adventure, but now it’s time to put the last year (or two) in a nutshell.

First things first, it’s still really hard being here. Samoa did not stop testing and challenging me this second year. Second things second, I’m going to miss this place a lot when I go home.

Where to start? Regrets? Not becoming fluent in Samoan; not being able to have a conversation about meaningful things in Samoan. I’ve got enough to get by, but one of the reasons I set out on this excursion was to become fluent in a third language. I regret not participating more in my village. I regret that I’m too serious and that that characteristic held me back from being an active participant in the village lifestyle. I regret that I put so much weight on the happiness derived from the wrong places. I regret that I let myself need one particular person so much; that I couldn’t completely do this on my own….maybe that last bit isn’t anything to regret—everybody wants someone rooting in their corner. I regret that I’m not sure of myself anymore…I think two years in a foreign culture might do that to anyone.

…as I try to nutshell the past year, nothing jumps forward and I find myself staring out my window at the ocean and the only thoughts that come are of what I will miss. I will miss that ocean, that ocean that is only feet from my house. I will miss the smell my clothes have after they’ve dried on the line just feet from a small cliff next to the ocean. I bet those ocean breeze candles won’t even come close. I’ll miss the stars on the south side. I’ll miss the silver blue of the ocean at Lusia’s. Walking on the beach at Lalomanu. I’ll miss dancing at Club X. I’ll miss sitting outside of Italiano’s sharing a pizza on random school days, looking at the harbor across the way. I’ll miss CCK finds. Hanging out at the pool at Hotel Elisa. The view of the ocean as I take a bus to Apia. Killing time at Aggie Grey’s. Certain people at certain places. Sun tans. Pseudo-celebrity status. Samoan smiles. My year seven girls. It was all for you. Talking in Samoan. Talking to people who know what I’m talking about—no offense anyone back home, but talking to you about this place, these last two years of my life, won’t be the same as talking to anyone who has been a part of it, anyone who knows these places, who can picture what this is. Maybe I’ll even miss the drama that seemed to surround me this last year.

Or maybe I won’t miss the drama: falling in love, having my heart shattered, yelling at a New Zealand tourist, trying to break up a physical fight between a man and his wife outside of the club, meeting a boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, running into an ex-boyfriend’s current girlfriend, being harassed on the bus by drunk creepy men, dating a fire dancer and a bouncer and everything those relationships entailed, being told that my host-father was ashamed of me, other volunteers flirting with my boyfriends, being told by a random Samoan man that Samoa doesn’t need America’s help, basically any interaction with my principal, being continually let-down.

Another volunteer once said to me, “Sam, you may think Samoa had a negative impact on you, and even if it did, you still had a positive impact on Samoa.” Because of me, twelve year five students who were illiterate last January can now read basic English. They were left behind and I am the only reason they can now read. That’s not me being arrogant; that’s just the truth. Yes, it’s taken almost a year for them to learn phonics that they should have mastered in year two, but now they have it. Hopefully they can take those tools and continue to teach themselves how to read after I leave. My year seven girls have asked me multiple times if Falefa will get a new pisikoa after I leave. No, Falefa will not have a pisikoa any time soon. The girls pout and say, “But who will teach us English? You are the only person who really taught us.”

“When you go back to America, will you ever come back to Samoa?” This is the one question everyone asks: students, teachers, villagers, taxi drivers, friends. It seems to be the curse of a place filled with ephemeral people; people who come and go; people that Samoans are afraid to love or depend on because it’s all transient. I would like to come back, but my response is always, “Leiloa.” I don’t know. And that answer satisfies no one. And truth be told, I’m afraid to go back to what I’m supposed to know. I’m afraid to go home. There’s so much uncertainty there. Who will I be? Who I was? Who I am now? An amalgamation of both? It could be easier just to stay. But I know my life isn’t in Samoa. Now I’m not sure my life is back where home was either though.

Group 84 arrived in Samoa yesterday. I will meet them on Friday when we throw a welcome fiafia for them. It’s time to pass on the proverbial torch, or siva afi (fire dancing) stick, and while they are saying hello and getting acquainted with all things Samoa, it is time to say goodbye.

Because I’m not sure how to do that yet, I’ll end with some words already spoken that fit the tail-end of this adventure.

“And the traveler who looks back
Runs the grave risk
That his shadow will not follow him.”
            -From the poem “Letters from the Poet Who Sleeps in a Chair” by Nicanor Parra

“…People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
            -Maya Angelou

“The day is changed…when you take a swim. And that day is bound to be marked out from all the rest.”
            -Ian McEwan Saturday

“What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell.”
            -Yann Martel Life of Pi

“You can’t just sashay into the jungle aiming to change it all over…without expecting the jungle to change you right back.”
            -Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Fa’amalolosi. Strength.
Tofa soifua. The most respectful goodbye in Samoan.
Misi ia oe Samoa. Fei loa’i.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

A Girl, a Ghost, and a Girdle

What people consider normal or aberrant is defined by their culture; any anthropology 101 class teaches you that. And this typically leads to debates about universalism versus cultural relativism. And this historically leads to disagreements, war, and mass slaughter. However, this next story of defining “crazy” won’t go that far.
I asked a Samoan friend of mine the other day to tell me some Samoan ghost stories. Having lived through the tsunami that devastated his village in September 2009 and working at a resort in which seven guests were killed, he has now had plenty of spine-tingling moments. Nevertheless, the ghost story I want to share is one from when he was a child. Tele told me of a strange girl with whom he went to primary school. She didn’t have many friends and just didn’t fit in. There was one place where she always hung out after school: on a particular rock. Of course, this wasn’t just any rock (or this wouldn’t be a ghost story), it was someone’s gravestone. Well, after frequenting this location for some time, weird things started happening to her. All the villagers blamed it on her sitting on the grave. (Side note: sitting on people’s graves is not usually a strange thing in Samoa. People are often buried right on their family’s front porch and it becomes a seat or a bench.) Finally, one night all the students went on a field trip of sorts and the boys’ sleeping quarters were separated from the girls’. When the girl woke up in the morning, her bra and panties were on backwards. Everyone swore they didn’t do it to her. There were also things written on her body; Tele didn’t tell me what. So at this point in the story I say, “That’s weird. Maybe she did it herself.” “No, Sam. We aren’t crazy like that. It was the ghost.”
And that’s it. That’s all he had to say. What would be crazy was if the girl switched her underwear around and then lied about it. Clearly the logical explanation was that a ghost or spirit did it to her. Traditionally in Western culture, the most logical answer is the simplest answer; therefore of course I jumped to the conclusion that she did it herself. There is no proof of ghosts, and empirically it would follow that the girl had played the trick herself. But to Tele, a spirit was the most logical explanation.
So what’s really crazy? Turning your underwear backwards in the night and making people believe it was a ghost, or that a spirit did, in fact, put your panties in a twist?