Big city life

I've been living in Apia, the capitol of Samoa, for about 2 months now. The holidays came and went. I spent them travelling in New Zealand. I returned to Samoa the first week of January. The new group of volunteers had another 2 weeks of training that some other volunteers and I helped out with. Afterwards, it was time to start working at the National University of Samoa (NUS).
Chris and I worked together to update the English Support Program which he introduced to the campus last year. We developed an assessment tool and a 10-week course for new Bachelor of Education students. The goal is to increase the level of English of student teachers so that they can enter the field more fluent in the language than teachers in the past have been. It's been nice to use what I studied at Gonzaga more directly. We finished giving the assessment and are in the process of starting the classes. Hopefully one more week to get students signed up and then we'll start the class the 4th week of class.
I've also been teaching an art class for first year students. It's an intro to art course and the lead art instructor has told me here biggest goal with the class is to get students interested in art so they take more art classes. So far I've been doing activities to help the students draw from observation. Hopefully next week we'll start some more "fun" projects using more than their pencils.

White Sunday

White Sunday (also known as Children's Day) is possibly the most popular holiday in Samoa. Family come from all over the country and even abroad to celebrate. The children are in charge of the church services and are supposed to be served food first (though Samoans in my experience rarely actually follow this custom--if you had an in-house servant would you give them up on a holiday?) Everyone dresses in their best whites and goes to church. I spent 7 hours in church that Sunday. Seven. Hours. Anyone who knows me knows how hard that was for me. That's more church than I've been to in the last 16 years before coming to Samoa. It was fun to see the kids excited about performing and getting to eat candy and celebrate simply being a kid. It doesn't happen often here in Samoa. Mostly kids are servants for their families until they get married and have kids of their own to make servants. I went to 2 different churches--one very conservative service and one more upbeat. It was fun to experience.

Fao getting dressed for church

The kids make their way to the church

Younger kids performing

The older kids perform their skits

Samoans pretty much only know one plot line: drinking is bad. All of their skits and movies are inevitably about this.

The kids line up for the afternoon service

More skits about alcohol

The soon-to-be Assembly of God Church. They currently meet in a little hall to the left.

Too cool for school

Inside the current AoG church

Extended Family

Here's a few pictures of some of my "extended" family in my village. I actually spend most of my time at their house and eat dinner with them almost every night. They are great people and I love hanging out with them.

Mose preparing the Samoan oven

The oven next to the heating kettle in the fale kuka (cooking house)

Lagi watching Mose work

Karisi and I

Eating like a king

Mose and I eating with the family across from Vaoa, Karisi's father

My family's church which is right behind their house

The back of my family's house

The front of their house

The interior during Sunday lunch

Zach Jr. (No seriously. He's named after me.)

Their backyard. Samoans bury their dead in graves on their property, often in their front yards

Zach Jr. and Fao

Baptisms

There were two baptisms in my Samoan family recently. Here's a few pictures!

My host mom with here beautiful baby, Toaiva

Here's Eterone Zach!

Community Day

The Ministry of Education, Sports, and Culture (MESC) developed a project called "Community Day" for all the elementary schools here in Samoa. It was a day for parents and other family to come to school and watch some lessons, talk with the teachers, and generally see what the students do on a given day. Granted, the teachers decorated their classes and had projects that they don't normally ever do just to show off. But it was still a very fun day that ended with some awesome dances by students (and even some parents)!