Eugene, the owner of ClickNet Internet Cafe, extended an invitation to
the 1 year anniverary party on Saturday. It was an informal gathering
of about 25 people… until the PM arrived in a taxi. Some of you that
have been reading this blog for a while might remember an entry from a
year ago when he gave me a lift to Apia in his pickup (I didn’t know
who it was at the time). His arrival caught Eugene off guard a little
too but all turned out well.

Aaron and I got a chance to relax with Jim, our Peace Corps Regional
Director part of the afternoon under the Peace Corps “Third Party
Exception” which was nice. I took advantage of his time in Thailand as
a volunteer for my upcoming trip in November. Lots of good advice in
that guy’s head.

Another PC connection that night was a phone call from Jackie. She is
the former Associate Peace Corps Director and Eugene’s wife. She’s now
APCD in Tanzania so it was good to hear how things are going since the
move.

All in all, it was a fun night, though Eugene’s nerves are probably
still a little frazzled and his pocket book still a little light.

This Friday, it’s a party at The Yacht Club (I’m not joking) to raise
money for the youth sailing school. Samoa used to be known as the
Navigator Islands because me thier sea faring skills, something that
has almost been lost in time. Anyway, I’m supposed to dress like a
pirate. Arrr!

–
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Coffee, Fat and Rice

Coffee
This morning a teacher brought in her computer for me to look at. I was reassembling it when she asked, “Mr. Dave. Is that your ‘coffee’?” She indicated she was asking about the clear all-in-one coffee-press-slash-coffee-cup my sister gave me last Christmas. It was sitting on my desk, a clear cup with a plunger and dark, liquidy goodness inside. “Yes,” I replied. “Just black?” she asked as her mouth contorted like she was just forced to chew on rubber bands. This was no ordinary black. It was double black. Velvet Elvis black. It was the last of my coffee (let me repeat that, THE LAST OF MY COFFEE)* and there was enough to make one and a half normal strength cups, one now and a half later… or one really strong cup this time. I chose the latter, my coffea arabica swan song. “Yes, that’s my coffee. You want some?” Her face changed from disgusted to disapproving, as if to say ‘That’s not the way we do things here.’

And she would be right. To my buds, Samoan style coffee is nearly indistinguishable from Samoan style tea. It’s weak, a light shade of tan. Depending on the taste of the person preparing it, milk or sugar plays center stage and the “cofftea” is a flavoring. The teachers have about a gallon size kettle of this “blah” every day during “interval” (lunch break). When it’s tea, the entire gallon is made with just 4 or 5 tea bags. What’s nice for me is no one wants to share my pilagi style coffee, dark, hot, and strong. I get it all to myself… until it runs out, WHICH IS NOW!*

Fat
I suppose one could say my palate is not as sophisticated, not as delicate as the average Samoans. I like to have my tongue assaulted with a flavor that demands to be recognized, distinct. But I could say there is definitely too much sugar in Samoan drinks. Unfortunately, “Suka Ma’i” or “sugar sickness” (diabetes) is very high here. I think it’s was reported to us as around one-third of the population has one form or the other.

While Samoan taste for sugar is their own doing, I’m afraid the West has contributed significantly to the other large health problem, obesity. Obesity is a sign of prosperity in other countries. It was true in America once too. But there is apparently too much prosperity here to be healthy. Last year the World Health Organization reported that Samoa has the 6th highest per capita rate of obesity in the world. Although many of the vegetables grown here are starchy, the other half of the problem is fatty meats. Without land to graze animals, where does it come from?

When your mom in America makes that turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, have you noticed there’s a hole in the ass-end of it? No tail? It probably didn’t grow that way. It’s just a piece of cartilage with some skin and fat on it. Butterball (or whoever) probably cleaned, packaged, froze and shipped the tail to one of the Pacific Island nations, like Samoa. Also arriving on the menu the same way are mutton flaps and corned beef that is significantly higher in fat and grizzle than what you can buy at Safeway. The tinned fish is also lower quality — I’m often picking scales, skin and bones from my teeth after a sandwich. Fish is always oil packed, never in water, adding to the high-fat problem. But none of this is cheap. It’s even expensive when converted into USD. Twelve ounces of salty, grissley pisupo (corned beef) from New Zealand will run about $12 WST or around $5 USD.

These canned meat products have the benefit of shelf life in a place where the high heat and humidity and the limited access to refrigeration cause everything to spoil quickly or attract pests. Cases of meat are “traded” in the fa’alavelave as gifts and it has become part of the culture, I suppose because of the the convenience.

Last year after some critical international press, the Ministry of Health implemented plans to phase out turkey tail and mutton flaps. There was some backlash and you can still get these items on the black-market barbeque. There’s no plans to reduce the consumption of tinned meats yet. That problem probably has to be solved culturally before it can be tackled dietetically (yes, that’s a word).

Rice
Condoleezza Rice came to Samoa.

*My sister has since sent more coffee… the patient is recovering.

Business in Samoa

Things are different here but I’m often amazed by the similarity of some business names here and some back home. While there are a few “real” places such as McDonald’s, Ace Hardware and Napa Auto Parts (that’s about it, by the way) there are many more “almost real” places with “almost famous” names. There is Farmer Joe’s (Trader Joe’s), K K Mart (K-mart) and Taro King (Burger King). Until recently, there was a lingerie store called Victoria’s Passion — it’s now a place called Under Gear with a logo that looks a lot like the UA from Under Armor. Maybe these are all coincidences but….

There are a lot of knock-offs, not fashion items like Rolex watches or Prada bags (or whatever Prada sells), but gear people really. Many shops and nearly every video store has something. In one shop I found Nike shorts for $10 WST, that’s about $3.85 USD. Too good to be true? Well, right next to them were more shorts, exactly the same design and price only with the Adidas logo. Because I was there shopping for shorts, and because those were the only ones available, I purchased them. The crotch ripped out the first time I wore them. In fact, every pair I purchased from that shop ripped out or the zipper came unglued (yes, glued) so I don’t shop there anymore.

Picking up a movie is a bit of a challenge. You have to inspect the display case and, based on the quality, decide whether you want to take a chance that it is or isn’t a bootleg. I’ve brought home quite a few movies that are “screeners” (when someone sneaks a camcorder into a theater), or the movie switched into the Russian language half way through, or were videotaped off of the television — complete with commercials, or they just wouldn’t play because they were bad copies. In one screener I was watching, the videocam got bumped during the opening credits so most of the movie was a shot of the theater wall.

As for the signs, I’ll just quote some: “Pot Plant Sales”, “Cars is Our Lives Too”, “Chopstick Restaurant” (there is no singular form of the word “chopsticks” in English or Japanese).

If you’ve ever driven through the American mid-west, you probably noticed a lot of road side businesses will pull double duty, like selling gas and furniture. They do the same thing here, but in even more unexpected combinations. For instance, a place near the vegetable market does international exchange trading, sells frozen beef and has car parts. Not far away, Just Sports sells sporting equipment, refrigerators and rents videos (not one of the video stores I mention above). And if you are pressed for time, you can get that tattoo and a new cellphone in one-stop-shopping at several places in town.

Ouch!

We just lost the office computer today. It has all of the financial records on it: payroll, accounts payable, student fees, etc. Not only that, it has all of the correspondence for the school.

It was one of my two worst fears for the school come true. The other fear would be if the server died and that already happened, months ago. I was able to build a make-shift server with spare parts to help bridge the time until we got a new one — only a new one still hasn’t been ordered.

To make matters worse, we have 34 fewer student computers than when the year started.

Now, this isn’t for a lack on my part. I’ve built or repaired 26 computers out of spare parts and dead computers, but this loaves and fishes thing has gone on too long and I have no more spare power supplies and hard drives to make anything else. At this rate I will have to curtail teaching years 9, 10 and possibly 11 before the next term starts in order to concentrate resources on the senior classes 12 and 13.

The administration has known about the problem and “impending failures” since I was on medical leave when I sent my first of three letters, gentle reminders that we have a ticking time bomb. The last of the three letters I drafted last Thursday but was too ill to come to school on Monday and Tuesday so it has yet to be delivered. Almost good timing on my part.

In defense of the administration, when resources are scarce, you do what you can when you must. You can’t plan ahead too far. So when something fails, that’s when you fix or replace it. There isn’t much you can do in advance because something else is always squeaking just as loud or louder.

One curiosity is that the two previous volunteers were able to get funds to purchase batches of used computers. Maybe it was because both were here for two years, and I’ve been here for only one, or maybe they did something that I haven’t. Maybe Marques or Michael will respond to this post.

Putting the call out: To anyone back home is reading, if you have spare parts, complete computers (except for monitors) I’ll take just about anything that works. I’m not picky at this point. Many of my computers have hard drives with manufacture dates going back to 97 and 98. Pentium II and III running with 48 and 64 MB of RAM and 2 and 4 GB hard drives. Contact me here (I’ll keep your email off the site) to open a discussion, I’ll forward you my email address if you need it.

As we say in Samoa, “Fa’amolemole!”

Middle of the Year

[Note: I wrote this a week ago.] It’s the trifecta of business at Chanel. Last week was our “mid-year” exams. This is probably the roughest time for students and teachers alike. The exams (that we write) take between 2 and 3 hours to complete. There are two exam sessions a day starting on Monday and going through Friday… except… Friday was also the SchoolC exam day for computers. The SchoolC is Samoa’s own standardized assessment for Year 12 students. It is the factor that decides whether a student may go on to Year 13, repeat Year 12 or drops out. So the Year 12 mid-year exams were moved to Saturday. Friday, the SchoolC; Saturday, the mid-year.

The thing with all trifecetas is they have three parts, and our third part is PSSC examination. The PSSC is the Pacific region’s standardized curriculum set in Fiji. Fiji uses the New Zealand\Australian curriculum but sets it for Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Kiribati, and others. This time *we* are being examined. A number of visitors from Fiji will arrive next week to examine our facilities, records and students. Our principal wants the planbooks, marks (grades) and everything else in line for their visit.

Two weeks ago I wrote exams for Computers Years 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 and Chemistry Year 13. Last week I moderated exams on a variety of subject. By Friday, (today) I’m supposed to have them all graded plus prepare and deliver the SchoolC results to the head office, and prepare Year 13 Computers and Chemistry paperwork, and still handle a full class load.

It’s not all going to get done on time. That’s just not going to happen, not even with my counterpart, Sister Lavalea’s considerable help, not even if I skip the 4h of July celebration at the Old Embassy.

In America, I can plan ahead for times like these, but it’s more difficult here. At the beginning of the year at Chanel, we’re given a calendar of events but really only about half the important things are on it. It has special days like St. Chanel Feast Day and the teacher’s retreat but a lot of other things just come up. I suppose if I had a second year here, I might start to develop a sense of rhythm about it and be more prepared.