Easter Updateroo

Just to fill everyone in on the lastest in my life here. I guess the biggest and most recent event was Easter. Easter was a blast.

On Friday before Easter (Good Friday) the country shut down like any old Sunday. Usually this wouldn't have phased me, but Sara (from my group) and her friend Janita were coming for a visit and I needed to make it to the wharf to greet them. Usually I would just tell people what bus to take, but lately my bus hasn't been saying my village name, or it hasn't been coming when the boats come in. However, since it was a holiday and like a Sunday (a day my bus only runs at the end of the day for those coming from Apia), I needed to get to Salelologa somehow before noon. I finally went to our bus station and got a ride on a bus going away from my village. We went through 3 villages not even close to my area and by some very round about ways and not usual routes (and 2 hours later) made it to the wharf. I thanked the driver for the trip and he didn't charge me anything since the bus was empty for most of the time. He was just running errands around the villages for family members. Fun trip for me, and I made it to the wharf on time.

Their visit was a blast. We hung out, watched movies, were fed by Laupama on her birthday (birthdays aren't a big thing here... sorry dad). They left Saturday afternoon. Saturday was a chill afternoon. I helped Laupama weed her garden, fixed a few computers in the lab, and did some laundry. In the afternoon Laupama's 2 girls stopped by and I showed them how to color Easter eggs. Dad had sent a kit over and I thought it would be fun to share that part of my Easter as a kid with them. Well, now Laupama tells me that her daughters won't eat them, they thought they were so pretty that the girls brought them to school for show and tell the next week. I keep telling them to eat them, and we will make more later, but they wont. I guess your first Easter egg is a big deal. I promised to send them the coloring kits every year once I go back. They didn't hide them or anything. I do love coloring eggs. So, I guess that's sustainability here, isnt it? :) Fun to share a little part of the fun stuff from Easter even if it doesn't reflect the true holiday at all.

Church service Sunday started like regular church. It lasted the usual time (2 1/2 to 3 hours) and right when church was released it started pouring rain. The church is a good 15 minute walk from my house so some of the faifeau offered to give me a ride home. I had the big to'ona'i (sunday meal) at Laupama and Viliamu's house with them. They had a lot of fish and palusami and taro. It was good. I think I ate 3 of the little fish. Don't know what kind, the ones with lots of bones, red color and good. :) For the next couple hours I napped at my place. Around 5pm Laumapa called me and asked me if I wanted to go to Talavo with her and the family. That is where all the church youth groups in the area (covering about 5-6 villages) get together and each put on a performance. I really wanted to go and it was a blast. It was a few villages over so I went in the car with them. It was really fun because I also got to see a lot of old students I haven't seen since last year. Students that transferred, graduated or just didn't make it to the next level. I exchanged cell numbers with a few of them (isn't technology amazing?) and then watched the rest of the show. Afterwards Laupama invited me back to her place for a late evening (since we didn't have school Monday - Day After Easter Holiday) of pancakes and cocoa samoa. It was fun. We watched Spiderman 2 and talked about my parents coming to visit.

I guess in other news, school has been a little on the frustrating side lately. About a month ago, one of my students brought his i-pod to class (the only student i have with one). He told me that it wasn't working so well and wanted me to check it on my computer. Since I haven't taught the viruses lesson yet, I was a little hestiant to put it on my laptop, so I put it on one of my school computers I rarely use to check it. Nothing seemed to be wrong and Norton didn't catch any viruses. I left the i-pod in the computer to charge it up a bit. That day the year 12 students had their Common Assessment Task (CAT). I didn't want them to use the computer I was charging it on, but one of our other computers froze up, so we had to put a student on it. After the task we went around and collected all of the tasks onto my jump drive (thereby unknowingly spreading the virus to most of my school computers). I then took my jump drive (still not knowing it had the virus) and put it into my laptop to read over and grade them... thus spreading the virus to my computer which I was trying to avoid doing in the first place. So, today I am online trying to figure out how to remove it from them and tomorrow I am teaching the virus lesson...

Right now my Year 13 students are working on Photoshop for their Internal Assessment and Systems Management for their upcoming practice CAT. My Tech 1 class is working on typing. I am also trying to get the "new" computers up and running. Some didn't come with any RAM (thanks to dad for buying me some in the states for cheap) and very old graphics cards which won't run Photoshop (the program they all are using right now). Also, the hard drives are 3 gigs so they won't run the programs I need plus Encarta which is a huge program. I like Encarta because it teaches students to use encyclopedias. In a culture that is traditionally an oral based culture, it is hard to get the students to want to go to the library and use the encylopedia's there, but to come to the computer classroom that is air conditioned... oh! They love that. :)

What else? I might be moving soon. I have had some issues with my place lately and I think I would really enjoying moving in with Laupama and her family. She is like family to me anyways and they feed me most meals and I hang out there every evening. So it wouldn't be that much of a move. I think for my last year here in country I would really enjoy living with her family.

Lately, I have just been getting ready for my parents to come. Thinking of what I would like them to bring (too bad they can't bring a Mexican restaurant with them) and what I would like them to take back with them. I am really looking forward to sharing my life here with them and giving them the chance to finally see what it is I am always talking about here. The only condition dad had was that my water was fixed by the time they come. It isn't permantly fixed, but it's good enough. He wants to live like I do right? :)

Until next time...