Top of the World

I have been in Samoa for a little over 2 months now, and in Ta’u for just over a month. Time is playing tricks on me. It seems like years have passed since I first met my WorldTeach family in LA. At the same time, I can’t believe that the last time I went snorkeling was a whole 2 weeks ago! I think in the islands, time move according to its own agenda… sometimes, it seems like an hour (or a 50 minute class) lasts an eternity, but sometimes it seems like time is flying by and I have to grab on to it while I can.

In the last month, I’ve started teaching (my kids are taking their first test on Tuesday! Yikes!) and am beginning to get the hang of it, I think. I’ve also started getting used to daily life on a tiny tropical island. A lot has happened, a lot has changed, and life is certainly not what it used to be. But, instead of focusing on the past, I want to focus on the future. 2 months have gone by (sometimes crawling, sometimes flying), which means I have 9 months left here… and I have to remind myself that I can’t put everything off, because time does pass, even here!

So, Jackie and I came up with a Bucket List!

Jackie and Sasha’s Samoa Bucket List:

1.     Help cook in an umu (traditional Samoan underground oven) 

2.     Visit Ofu (a neighboring island with one of the world’s best beaches)

3.     Do the National Park Hike to the top of Mt. Lata (the highest point in AmSam)

4.     Swim with a shark (this is mine… Jackie says she’ll pass)

5.     See a whale (they migrate past our island… past our village!! in September and October… so hopefully this happens soon!)

6.     See a sea turtle! (also mine, since Jackie sees them all the time… ughhh)

7.     Catch a fish (with our spear!)

8.     Eat pololo (little worms that live in the reef and only come out a few times a year)… yummm!

Probably more will be added, eventually, but we figured this would be a good start… AND we’ve already put a dent in it!!!! #3!

On Saturday, probably my favorite weekend on Ta’u so far, we hiked Mount Lata with Rudy, a biologist with the Department of Marine Wildlife, who is studying birds on the island (also, he was born in the DR and is getting his masters from Northeastern!!!! Boston Pride!). He’s done the hike tons of times, so he was a very helpful guide! Maneuvering up (and especially down!) 300 meters of slippery, mossy rocks took some skills, but we all survived! And, afterwards, one of our fellow teachers, Joe, invited us to his family’s beach… by beach, he meant a small bay surrounded by rocks with just a small gap through which big waves would pummel through. The bay itself was like a natural wave pool, and we took turns jumping of the rocks as the waves came through… SO FUN! It definitely makes my list of Top 10 Favorite Places in Ta’u!  That night, we had dinner at Rudy’s (with chicken breast!!! And wine!!!! What?!? Is this Samoa?!?), and then headed back home, absolutely exhausted. It was a good day, and it was fun to spend it with some new friends! We spend so much time around high school kids, having to act like adults, that it’s nice to be able to play for a bit… especially on a real-life jungle gym (I never before thought about why the playground toy was called that… but it’s accurate!) and wave pool!

Group photo at the summit, for posterity.

View from the top... not much to see, since we were inside a cloud!

Coming down from the summit... it started to clear up!

All-natural wave pool! 

(Mini) cliff jumping! Awesome!

Wave pool from above!

Tale of the Death Cry Bird

Things die in Manu’a, especially if they’re little and cute. That isn’t a condemnation, it’s just a fact of life. And, sure, things die everywhere (even cute and little ones), but we’ve been warned that in Manu’a, it happens a lot. If five puppies are born in a litter, one might survive. Or not. And if it does, it might get shot a few years later. Honestly, that’s probably a good thing- if every puppy and kitten born on this island survived to reproduce and live a long life, we’d all be in trouble. As Americans, though, we’re not used to the Law of the Jungle, so we get warned about it a lot. That’s why when we don’t see our favorite little brown puppy (called Puppy, because naming things is probably bad luck) for a few days, I don’t get too heartbroken when I assume she’s dead*. It’s why, a few weeks ago when I went out stargazing and looking for the kitten Jackie brought me and found it sitting on the path, only to be dragged away by a bigger cat a second later, I just shrugged and kept walking**. I’m not heartless. I just get it: big things need to eat, too, and just because they’re not as cute doesn’t mean I can play God. It’s the natural order of things.

So that’s why, when I woke up a week ago at 5:15am (my first alarm of the morning, followed by 3 more… anyone who has ever roomed with me knows how that goes) and heard the sound of something dying a very painful and violent death outside my window, I just pulled my pillow over my head and went back to sleep. The adjustment curve here has been pretty steep. The next morning, when the thing was dying again, still at 5:15, I was annoyed. Why outside my window?? Why so early?? Then it happened the next morning. And the next. So now I’m pretty sure that, actually, it’s just a bird with the worst bird song EVER. I was so, so happy to learn that the Car Alarm Bird of Tutuila never migrated over to Manu’a… however, the Death Cry Bird of Manu’a may just be it’s even more terrible cousin. But hey, at least now I’m pretty sure kittens aren’t being murdered outside my window every morning like clockwork… so that’s something.

*Puppy has now, apparently, been renamed Princess, and is living the life with our principal and her family, who, recently being left short a few dogs, were kind enough to adopt this one. Lucky dog!

**Actually, what happened is the cat dragged the kitten onto the beach. Apparently, the kitten dove into the ocean, and, once the other cat left, crawled out, soaking and covered in sand but otherwise unharmed, making it basically the coolest kitten ever. Except that it’s probably not a kitten, but a full-grown cat, since they stay pretty small here. It was still alive and well the next morning, when our neighbor boy attempted to bring it to school with him.  It’s been about a week now, though, so who knows…

*** This is following my Horrible Spider story, so I feel like this blog can be viewed as having taken a negative turn. I swear, spiders and dying things are not my life here! It’s just that I assume that you don’t all really want to know that on Labor Day I had a lovely breakfast of eggs, toast and coffee, and was greeted by a huge hug and a “HAPPY LABOR DAY COME TO OUR FEAST” by my favorite 8-year-old neighbor, or that later that afternoon we hiked over some treacherous rocks and got to the most beautiful beach I have ever seen (without any of my electronics being destroyed in the process, even though they all got soaking wet in the tide). Or that last weekend I went snorkeling and didn’t see a single shark (I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing). Or that all my classes are going well, I’m getting more and more used to teaching, and I got a SMARTboard last week and almost know how to use it! Or maybe you do want to hear about it, but it’s no fun to write, so I’m sorry. But I haven’t given up and come home yet, so you can assume I am having a great time, despite the spiders and the Death Bird!

Nothing good ever happens...

According to How I Met Your Mother (and HIMYM is always right), nothing good happens after 2am. In America, that may be true. In Samoa, though, the nothing good apparently starts happening much earlier, which is why we are usually in bed by 9. This weekend, however, was Labor Day, so we went a little crazy here in the little house at the edge of Faleasao. On Sunday night, Jackie and I were out until 11 (11!!! PM!!! Out!!!). Obviously we got home exhausted, wanting only cookies and fruit snacks, and maybe a quick shower before bed. That’s when the trouble started, because everyone knows you never go into a tarantula-infested bathroom at a time when nothing good can happen.

Jackie made her Jackie noise, and told me to go get the other broom and come in carefully, sticking close to the door, away from the wall, where the humongous tarantula was poised, ready to strike. I decided to take the extra precaution of closing both our bedroom doors, and as I did so, A CRAB FELL ON ME. The crab obviously came from the bathroom, because it had been living there for the past three weeks behind the sink cabinet. But I guess it decided to finally climb out, scale a wall, AND NINJA JUMP ON ME WHILE I WAS TRYING NOT TO GET KILLED BY A HUMONGOUS TARANTULA. All this happened because it was after 11, and we should have been asleep for hours already, letting the crab and the tarantula do whatever it is they do all over our house in those hours.

Jackie is less afraid of crabs than spiders (I am too, I think, because spiders can move any which way but crabs only move sideways, which while scary is at least predictable) so she was able to trap it using a pitcher and a spoon and take it outside, where, thank God, our 15-year-old neighbor was hanging out with her friend. Sabrina told us, no, of course she’s not scared of spiders! They don’t bite! They’re her friends! So we handed her the Spider-Killing Broom and sent her into the bathroom, telling her she could kill it or keep it as a pet but it needed to get out of our bathroom NOW. Sabrina gave it a good whack, which dropped the spider from the wall, when it promptly RAN UNDER THE DOOR TO MY ROOM making this, actually, THE WORST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME. Sabrina reminded us, again, that spiders don’t bite, then opened my door and proceeded to pulverize the thing until every single leg had separated from its body. This was wonderful, but a bit disconcerting since she had just declared spiders as her friends a minute and a half ago. Still, the spider is gone, and I am happy. Sabrina was happy, too, since we gifted her with cookies, a flash-drive, and a Victoria’s Secret duffel bag. She said she was always available if we needed help, so it’s a win-win for everyone.

And now it’s 11:45, which is dangerously close to midnight, and I refuse to see what new horrors await that hour, so I need to fall asleep as quickly as possible. And never, ever stay up this late again…

I'm really missing my spider-less bathrooms in Boston and Minnesota right about now...

(UGH. Spiders SUCK)