There's a new guy in town

That's right the village finally has new pastor. Samauga has been without a shepard since February when the previous pastor and his family moved. The village has been busy preparing the church and house. New paint job and everything. When they arrived there was a big gathering with lots and lots of food. I was told by my family that day that I would be eating with the pastor and family from now on. After furthur questioning it was understood that I would eat with them for the first 2 weeks. Each family is responsible for 3 meals while the family gets settled in. And since I"m the village peace corps it was a good opportunity for the village to feed me lots of food. Cause that's what they love to do. So for the past two weeks I've been having enormous meals. The pig, which is a very important part of the culture here, was served every night. The point is that I ate very heavily and gained 7 pounds. For those of you who know me, you know that I can eat and eat and not gain weight. I mean I've been 150 lbs. since my senior year of high school. I've finally found my tipping point. Pig.

The Marathon

Myself and 5 other Peace Corps volunteers are competing in the annual marathon tomorrow. It is a 64 mile race in which we will divide into six. Each runner runs about 2 or 3 miles, depending on the incline, at a time before handing off the baton to the next runner. We start at 5:00 a.m. and don't anticipate being done until 1:00 pm. It will be gruelling. So wish us luck, please.

Hey Chuck Noland, I can spear fish too!!

Friends and Family,

One year down, one to go. Time is going incredibly fast. The time has almost come when I have to decide what I’m going to do after Samoa. The answer as of now. I have no clue. It’s winter here so things haven’t been as hot. But its definitely not cold. I adopted a cat who keeps me company during down time. I would have preferred a dog but they are not allowed in Samauga. Apparently they were eating the pigs. And we can’t have that now. Here is an update on the proposal for a new primary school. It has been unofficially accepted. I only say unofficial because paperwork has not been signed. The donor, Japan, employs a consulting agency to oversee the project from here on out. So basically they take over my job. I went to Apia last week to finalize things with the consulting agency. The project is officially out of my hands. What happens now is they will put our proposal together to fit the Japanese format. Everything is sent to Tokyo for final approval. Which according to the consulting firm and JICA, is just a mere formality that takes a long time. In other projects the library is up and running thanks to those of you who sent books. We are getting a few computers this week so I’ll be teaching some basic computer classes to primary school students.

Unfortunately a good friend and volunteer whom we call “Nico” has ended his two years and is going back to the great state of Minnesota. In the last six months Nico has been working with local nurses doing screenings for diabetes and hypertension. The project started just by testing a few people in his village and continued on to having formal screenings. The objective was to give people a chance to get screened and be referred to the hospital to see a doctor if the results suggested. The levels of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension are extremely high here in Samoa. A good number of volunteers including myself assisted Nico in these screenings and are planning on continuing working with nurses in their community outreach program.

I’ve started spear fishing lately. It is not easy. The method I’m using is a sling shot with a 4 ft. long ¼” thick rod. You could also call it bow and arrow style too. So far I’ve stayed within the reef so I haven’t seen too many big fish yet. I got my first two the other day. Nothing to put on the wall or anything. In fact everybody I showed them to in the village just laughed. It’s a good thing I don’t have a family to feed. I hope to get some pictures up soon.

Eye Doctor for a Week

A group of ophthalmologist students from the University of Hawaii have been traveling around Samoa in the last 3 weeks providing free eye exams. They were a little short handed last week and asked if I could help. So for the last several days I've been playing eye doctor. My job was to test people for glaucoma. Using a "tonopen" you touch the persons pupil until you get a reading. Even though we only found a couple cases of glaucoma I got up close and personal with Samoan eyes. I have never seen such damage as a result of the sun. But, every patient got a free pair of shades and glasses if their prescription was available. All in all it was a very successful project and I learned a lot about eyes.

All Dialed Up in Samauga

The day has come. I have dial up internet in my little hut. This will save me some trips into the office every couple of weeks to check and send out emails for work and staying in touch with all of you. I will admit, when you are away from cnn for a year and finally have it again it really makes u realize how depressing the media is. So I hope you are all coping with the death of Michael Jackson and haven't become addicted to the news because of it.

This coconuts for MJ......

Happy 4th

We all got a little break from work this weekend with a 4th of July BBQ and softball game against the navy. They are in country doing some humanitarian work for a month. They were a little intimidating during warm-ups but when it came to game time the Peace Corps took it to them. We won 14-4. It was solid defense and line drives to the holes that made the difference. After the game we ate "ball park" hotdogs, baked beans, cole slaw, bbq chicken, with all the fixins. The navy jazz band played which was a great addition. Live music has been a long time coming.

So Happy Birthday America. You are still the best!!

Too Busy for Bloggin

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