Some More of Samoa: On TV, First Week of School

Patamea; Sunday, January 27th-Thursday, January 31st

Currently reading: Contact by Carl Sagan

So, I was on Samoan TV on Sunday. Part of being a PCV in Samoa means attending church as religion is a huge part of the culture here. It would be very difficult to accomplish much if the members of the community saw a PCV refusing to be involved in religious activities. So I’ve been attending my host family’s church. I’ve also joined the choir and have been going to practices regularly. I have a horrible singing voice but it’s drowned out by the amazing voices of the people around me. Singing is a much larger part of everyday life in Samoa than in the U.S so most (all?) Samoans have amazing singing voices. Now church services in Samoa, in addition to normally happening twice on Sunday (in the morning and afternoon and people usually attend both services), different churches from around Samoa are filmed and played on TV between the other services. So you can go to church all day! Yay! On this particular Sunday, our church was being filmed. So the choir was busy practicing several songs for the filming. The night before we were filmed singing a few of the songs in front of the church. Then the whole service was filmed on Sunday and played later that afternoon. There were even a few close ups of me. It was a pretty unique experience especially for a PCV seeing as though the last time this church had been filmed was in 2000.

My first week of classes as a Peace Corps Volunteer is coming to an end. This has been months, years really, in the coming. Starting school is the culmination of year-long application process, 26+ graduate-level credits, and more than two months of in-country training. However, it hasn’t been quite what I expected.

In my experience as a student and teacher in various contexts, the first week of school is normally rather hectic. Students are searching for their classrooms, teachers are busy printing, handing out syllabi, and previewing the next year of the students’ lives. The hustle inside of American school buildings or in the halls of a Korean hagwon are absent in my village here in Samoa. Instead, the teachers are often found around the meeting room table sipping tea, eating, and talking. The students perform various tasks in and around the school.

For instance, the first day of class, the students picked up “rubbish” around the school yard when they first arrived. Now, you might think that this means that they were picking up wrappers, used cans and bottles, crumpled paper, or other rubbishy items. You would be wrong, though. Rubbish in Samoa is actually dried leaves, mostly from the ubiquitous breadfruit trees. The leaves are about the size of dinner plate (although shaped more leaf-like and less plate-like). They dry out and fall from the trees at the rate of about 5-10 per day and can add up quickly. While the children normally spend the first few minutes of their mornings at home removing the fallen leaves from their yards while leaving what you and I might consider rubbish they are also responsible for this task at school. The rest of the day was spent in the classrooms sweeping, picking up “actual” rubbish, and playing.

The days since that have mostly involved giving the students a simple task of copying introductions off the board while the teachers divided our supplies, set our schedules, and had staff meetings to go over changes for the year (e.g. the new four-term system which will replace the three-term system of years past), rules, and responsibilities. There was also a meeting with most of the parents in the village with the principal, vice principal, and school committee. This meeting took place on a rainy morning during downpour with winds of 25-35 mph. So, when the time came for me to introduce myself to the parents I wasn’t able to hear anything and just sat there as about 50 pairs of eyes hinted that I had missed a cue and was supposed to be doing something. Additionally, I hadn’t known beforehand that I was to introduce myself at this meeting so it was like a surprise within a surprise—a boxed present wrapped and put inside of another wrapped box of surprises!

As I write this, it is Thursday, January 31st. Tomorrow, we are to come in everyday clothes which means an ‘ie lavalava (basically a sarong) around shorts and a shirt rather than the typical school clothes of a puletasi (Samoan-style dress) for women or a button-up shirt and ‘ie faitoga (formal men’s skirt) for men. We’ll be wearing ordinary clothes because the day will be spent pulling weeds, trimming hedges, and general beautification of the schoolyard. Hopefully next week we’ll start classes.

I’m going to be co-teaching with years 4-6 (3-5 in America) on Mondays and Tuesdays. The rest of the week will be spent with smaller groups from within each of these classes teaching literacy. My challenge will be to work towards a sustainable set-up so that the teachers can continue working on English literacy even after I’m gone.

After school tomorrow I’ll be headed to a neighboring village to meet up with three other Volunteers for a night before we head to another nearby village on Saturday to meet up with some more Volunteers to help one of them celebrate their birthday at a resort on the beach. It sounds luxurious, and normally, I assure you, it would be. Unfortunately, this weekend (the majority of the last week) the islands are surrounded by storms clouds and rain. We’re still getting together, though. Many of us are feeling down after the intense high of the honeymoon phase people tend to experience during their first few months in a new culture. I’m sure the rain isn’t helping. It is the rainy season but the Country Director who’s been in-country for 5 years claims this to be the rainiest rainy season he’s experienced here yet. It will be nice to get together.