The G Force

I’ve always been a fan of analogies, but even more so since being in Samoa. I guess they help explain this new life I’m living. I recently wrote my sister a letter where I compared my life here to a rollercoaster ride. Here’s how it goes:

If you’ve ever ridden a rollercoaster before you might have experienced some hesitation before you got on and were strapped in. I know I have. Well Peace Corps is definitely something I hesitated doing. I had actually been contemplating Peace Corps since my sophomore year in college. It takes some guts to leave the comforts of home, just as it takes guts to ride the steel tracks of a rollercoaster.

A rollercoaster also has such a diverse group of people who ride it. Some are young, some are old. Some close their eyes; others stretch their arms above their heads. The Peace Corps also has a dynamic and varying group of people. I’ve met some wonderful individuals through this organization, people with drive and determination.

You might have seen this next one coming and it’s a bit clichéd, but there are highs and lows throughout the Peace Corps life. Just like that rollercoaster, there are times in the journey where you feel like your on top of the world, so comfortable you feel you can stretch your arms out like those die-hard rollercoaster fans and still feel safe. But there are other days where you feel scared, confused, and maybe a little lost, as if you don’t know which way is up or you’ve entered one of those tunnels that the track runs through.

For some who’ve ridden a rollercoaster, there might have been times when you wondered if you were completely safe. Those hard turns and upside down loops can play with your mind. For me, I’ve looked for the tight embrace of God on my challenging days and have found Him to be like the safety harness that locks in tight over your shoulders. God is bracing me and holding me on those upside-down days, making sure I make it to the end of the track.

At some point the ride does come to an end. Some will say it went by fast, while others will think it took forever to be finished. However, a lot of people who may have hesitated to board in the first place find themselves exhilarated, or at least proud of their taking on a new challenge. As a Peace Corps volunteer, I’m trying to enjoy all the moments of this ride. I’m trying to learn about myself and others around me. Just like those on the rollercoaster, I’m trying to step away from my comfort zone to experience the view from another angle, a new height. As the rollercoaster reaches the peak of the highest drop, I’m hoping I have the courage to raise my hands up, keep my eyes open and enjoy the next challenge before me.

He said “Thank You,” and I cried

After two months of teaching in the Samoan classroom, I shed my first tears at school the other day. However, they weren’t tears of frustration or sadness, they were tears of happiness.

For reasons I can’t discuss in this blog, one of my year 7 students missed three weeks of school, and left me wondering about him each day. Wednesday was his first day back at school and he came into my class with a smile I’ll never forget. I could tell he was excited to be back, and maybe even excited to learn.

We were talking about verbs that day and I had the students play “verb bingo” by looking for the verbs on the grid as I called out the different words. When the bell rang for lunch, I had the kids give me their bingo chips and boards as I walked around to their seats. When I got to the boy’s seat who had been gone, he handed me his papers, looked straight into my eyes and said "thank you" with a huge smile on his face. He reached his hand out to shake mine and I started getting tears in my eyes. I said "your welcome" and told him he was doing a good job. He was the last one in the room and before he left, I had to go to the corner and face away from him so he wouldn’t see me crying. He said, “have a nice day.” I managed to respond to his polite comment and told him to have a nice day as well.

At that point, for the first time since being in this country, I truly realized what my purpose is here. I felt as though I had been lifted out of this fog and could see my future here so much more clearly. This student’s simple remark of “thank you” and the smile that came with it, made all the hardships of the past six months worth it.

My mom has been a teacher for 30 years and my sister for nine years. I’ve heard them tell countless stories over the years of those students who said or did the most amazing things that reminded them why they love teaching. It’s not a job they took for the summer vacations or snow days, it’s a job they took to change a child’s life. After all these years of hearing their stories and not completely being able to relate to them, today I’m happy that I can.

The next day that is challenging, frustrating, and leaves me wondering what I’m doing here, I hope I can remind myself the way I felt this week and the way I made that boy feel after his time in my class.

Those Brave Enough

Remember those paper American flags that came in local newspapers in the weeks and months following September 11, 2001? They could be seen on people’s front doors and behind the counters of the local coffee shops. They served as reminders of our true love for country and most deserved recognition of those men and women fighting to keep it free.

As heart felt as those flags were, the paper they were printed on soon faded and for many, including me, the true understanding of sacrifice made by those men and women off at war.

I’ve now been living and working in Samoa for my Peace Corps service for nearly six months. During that time, I have been able to gain a deeper appreciation for those men and women who put themselves in harms way to protect our country.

Of course, I supported our troops before I left for the Peace Corps. However, being here away from family, in another country, with another language, culture, climate and life, has made that respect I’ve always had for them gain this new pulse. When I’m having one of those bad days or weeks, and feel discouraged, I try to remember that I’m not being shot at and having to wear bullit proof vests, glasses, and walk around in the dark with night vision goggles. I’m living in a country so peaceful that it doesn’t even have its own army. I may live in a remote village with limited phone and internet access in the country, but I have them and I can always go into town to watch a movie at the theater and grab a burger and fries.

I now know the gut-wrenching feeling of having to say goodbye to family for two years and then living my most challenging days ever, without them here at my side. But the one thing I can’t wrap my head around is the sacrifice that those men and women with children make when they leave for war. The bravery of their mission begins the moment they hug and kiss their three year old son or daughter goodbye, with the prayers that they’ll be reunited.

Not everyone is meant to join a service organization such as the Peace Corps or a domestic program such as Teach For America, and not all of us are called to serve our country in uniform to keep it safe. Nonetheless, I’ve realized that whatever sacrifices you may have to make in your life, whatever hardships you may face, you can stop and try to relate to those men and women who are brave enough to sacrifice their own lives for ours.

16 Random Things I Thought You Should Know:

1. Ants are more coordinated at carrying a dead bug down a vertical wall than across the horizontal floor.

2. While playing cards at my neighbor’s the 12 year old boy accidentally touched the bottom of my bare feet with his hand and got this grin on his face and started to laugh. It took me a few minutes to figure out he was fascinated at how smooth the bottom of my feet were. Samoans have calluses that allow them to walk on anything, including broken glass (I’ve seen it happen).

3. There have been two babies in my village that have received the name “Kyle” since my arrival. Just a coincidence? I don’t think so—in which case I’m honored.

4. If a Samoan say it’s going to rain, it’s going to rain. If they say it isn’t, it isn’t. They have this special awareness of nature,
something the weather forecasters in Michigan could use.

5. Bread left out of the refrigerator will start to mold within two days of its purchase.

6. Driving is done on the left hand side of the road. It had been the right as recent as September 2009, when the controversial
switch occurred.

7. 70-80 earthquakes occur each day, although most of them are too small to be felt. The big earthquake which caused the
devastating tsunami on 9/29/09 was an 8.3.

8. Samoa is made up of 9 islands, with two major islands, Upolu and Savai’i. The combined land area is roughly the size of Rhode Island.

9. I have this tropical shirt I bought back in 9th grade for a “tropical dress-up day.” Somehow it still fits 10 years later and who
would have thought I would be living in a place where it looks completely normal.

10. Samoa is the 10th country I’ve set foot in, outside of the United States.

11. If you ask a Samoan a question, you may just receive the “Samoan Yes,” which often can be translated to “I don’t know
what you’re talking about.”

12. The island nations of the South Pacific have a special phone service called the “coconut wireless.” If you buy a candy bar in
Apia at 9a.m. on Saturday morning, your host village will know about it before you return at 1p.m. the same day.

13. Cockroaches are as plentiful here as the common housefly back home. The nicest most modern homes still have cockroaches
that find their way inside to torture the homeowners.

14. Cockroaches are plentiful, but aunts are worse. They can be broken down into about three sizes. There are really small ones
that can find their way into ANYTHING, and there is a medium and large size. The larger black ants can bite and I hear
cause a little pain.

15. There is a very nice public library here in Samoa, but Samoans aren't allowed to check books out. On the other hand, foreigners, like me, are allowed to. Samoans don't
have a great history of returning borrowed items.

16. The prisoners here in Samoa are let out for the weekends (no joke). One of the most serious
offenders said he needed to visit his traditional healer and was permited to
leave, never to return. I'm not sure if he's been captured since.

Picture Blog

So this is a spider that lives in my bathroom. I plan on having an 8x10 made and placing the following caption below the picture: "He hasn't bit me yet, but then again, I'm not company."

Another possible quote might be borrowed from the great movie, "The Shinning." "Here's Johnny!"

Amazing Grace

On the first day of school, Feb. 1st 2010

On Wednesday, February 24, I was the only teacher from my school who showed up to work. There were about 90 kids running around the school like wild animals and I knew I had to do something to reward them for their efforts in showing up at 7:30a.m. I also wanted to do something to take control of the situation so that I could prove to myself, my ability to manage a group of kids, despite a language barrier.


I had the kids (grades 1-8) come into the school and sit for morning prayer and songs. Some of the older kids were invaluable in helping lead this and they really stepped up to the challenge. They could see I was in need of a helping hand. I will return the favor in the near future. After morning prayer and songs, I asked them to continue some songs that they knew. They started singing more up-beat fast paced songs that I never heard them sing before with the principal or other teachers around. They were pounding out beats on their backpacks and swaying side to side. They had smiles on their faces and they were having fun. I just smiled at the whole situation. Here I’ve been in the classroom for less than a month and I’m running this school by myself like a well oiled machine.

Well as the time passed, some of the grease began to dry up and things started getting a little loud. I tried asking them to be quiet in Samoan—that didn’t work. I tried asking them in English—that too didn’t work. As I stood there in the noise of a foreign language, I felt as if they were starting to tie me up in knots. I was becoming frustrated at the situation and had no better idea than to start singing. The first song that came to mind was Amazing Grace, and it was by the grace of God that they all turned their heads in amazement and stopped talking. They just sat there and listened and I didn’t even have to raise my voice one bit—I just had to stay in tune. I almost stopped singing in amazement of the change in their behavior. They didn’t understand all the words, but they understood the tone had changed in the room. I followed up with an encore of the Star Spangled Banner. I started to lose them at “whose broad stripes and bright stars…” but finished it off in the true American spirit.

I introduced some housekeeping issues: 1.) Turn off the water at the pipe outside when you are done with the water. 2.) Throw your rubbish in the rubbish pile. 3.) Don’t hit other students. 4.) Don’t throw things in the classroom. They have a long ways to go on this, but I hope to model by my behavior the proper ways to act and continue asking them to change.

I ended up letting grades 1-4 go home at 9:30a.m. because the older kids wanted to play a noun game I had taught them last week. We played for about 30 minutes before I started to lose them too. I didn’t want to press my luck to the breaking point, and decided that them going to school until 10a.m. was still better than not going at all, and I let them go home.

I learned a lot from the experience. I learned that I have enough patience and confidence to tackle such a situation. I’ve learned to be prepared for similar events in the future. I learned that the children can really enjoy school, even in challenging situations. I also learned that they look at me as a teacher figure, and that can only help as I continue my two years of service. This experience wasn’t without pot holes, but I’m at least happy we traveled the road, otherwise they would have missed out on Amazing Grace!

Cyclone Rene

Cyclone Rene has been showing her force here in Samoa. Cyclones are the equivalent of a hurricane, just given a different name in the South Pacific. Rene was a category 2 Cyclone and passed just to the east of Samoa. The winds began gusting early Friday morning and school was let out early at 10:30a.m. Peace Corps had given us warning of the storm on Thursday and advised us to prepare our emergency kits. I was boiling water all of Thursday night in preparation, as well as charging electronic devices. That has come to be a smart choice, considering the fact I lost power early Saturday morning around 2a.m. When I woke up this morning, I found that a tree had fallen down next to my house. The wind came in strong bursts and was blowing papers around the house and slamming doors. My neighbors had to reinforce their roof by placing tires on top of the metal roof. The rain came in heavy down pours that would last for several minutes and then let up. Today the weather seems to be improving. Now let’s hope my power comes on soon!