Welcome back to the story of a volunteer worker in Samoa. I haven’t posted anything for a several months because I’ve been occupied with many different things. So now that I have a breather I’m sitting down to put my current situation in words for all you interested readers.
I believe the last time we got together I had mentioned that I had just turned in a couple grants. This was on May 1st. The first and “big daddy” of the grants was for a new primary school which the school committee and I submitted to JICA (Japanese aid agency). Five days later I received a call from my JICA contact who informed me that the proposal had been accepted. An enormous amount of excitement and a very long sigh of relief came upon me as soon as I got of the phone. I immediately spread the word to committee members who replied “good Simi”. (Simi is my samoan name). Let’s just say a Samoan’s reaction to good news is quite subdued compared to an American’s. Now, the way this process works is we still have to submit another proposal. This one includes a design of the proposed school, an estimate of goods and services, letter support from the government, and a strong argument of why we need the new school. The first proposal only included the strong argument. We still had our work cut out for us. Over several meetings May, the committee and I worked on getting the letter from the government and figuring out who would design the school and what it would look like. I have a friend who is also a volunteer that has an architectural background. She would not be able to come until the beginning of June to assist us in designing the school. No problem I thought, JICA did not give us a deadline. Ya see, my parents had planned a vacation from the 22th of May to the 1st of June. During this time we would be traveling to New Zealand. So on the 20th I made a random trip to Salelologa (village where office is) to print some stuff for my host brother. I also checked my email to find that JICA was now giving us a deadline to turn in everything on May 29th. All of the relief and excitement I felt a few weeks earlier melted into very explicit jibberish. Initially I didn’t think it was possible to put together a school design, come up with all the materials and prices, and get the letter of support from the government all in a day and a half. So I did what we Americans do best. Multi-task and get on the phone. Luckily I knew another volunteer who is good on adobe photoshop. He designed the school. I also knew the carpenter of the village. He and several others made a list of all the materials we would need. My host brother knew a guy who worked for the government who could get us the letter quickly. I am perfectly willing to admit that I know squat about desigining a school. But as you just learned, I do know who does. The next day we got the quotes from suppliers and I made it on the boat to the main island just in time. My parents would arrive early the next morning. We went straight to the beach were they could relax and I could stress more about organizing the proposal before submitting. To wrap up this story I was able to turn everything in to the JICA office and enjoy my time with my parents in New Zealand.
In pertaining to the other proposal, which was for sewing machines for the women’s committee, that was also accepted. The women are very excited to start learning how to use them and ready to make me some more clothes.
I think I may have found my niche here. During my first few months here you may remember that I was very busy gardening. I used compost basically because there is so much stuff here that decomposes. Lots of animals and vegatation. So I made some pretty good dirt. The same volunteer who came to my rescue on the school design is working with a group of women on a communal vegetable garden. He asked me to do a seminar on compost. So together we did a presentation which went over very well. I have become familiar with a guy from the Ministry of Agriculture who is interested in us doing more seminars in other villages.
Well that’s enough. I’m tired of typing and you’re tired of reading. Take care all and good luck.
I also want to wish a big thanks to all of you who sent books.
Jim
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