Today three trainees (Tai, Sitivi, and Keke), a trainer (Kevini) and myself hopped the ferry to Savai’i to visit the villages we’ve been assigned and meet the people we’ll be working with. Ta’ala, my school’s puli (principal) met me at the gate and within a few minutes we were riding in a borrowed pickup up to Iva, the village where I’ll be working for the next two years. It’s a fairly large village with somewhere between one and two thousand people, very clean and picturesque. Ta’ala turned the pickup off the main road and we headed up to the school. I couldn’t see the school from the road because hedges line the rugby field that sits in front of the school. He made another turn into the yard of the school board president. I kicked my sandals off and we stepped inside the president’s fale. It was a small seating room with a large high table that filled most of the room. Two large steps lead up to a larger room where two children, a teen girl, and his wife were sleeping. It was the rest time after to’ona’i. Most of Aso To’ona’i (Saturday) is spent preparing the Sunday meal (to’ona’i). Samoan’s treat literally the Aso Sa (Sunday) as a day of rest.

Ta’ala introduced me and from what Samoan I could understand, explained why I came, what I needed to do while in Iva, and my schedule for the following two days. After a minute or two the president’s wife emerged wearing a green floral print pulatasi and she was brandishing a fan. She smiled, waved it at my head twice, creating a strong breeze, and then put the fan down on the table in front of me. I wondered if it was a gift or a loan. Not wanting to offend, I didn’t touch it and pretended not to notice. One of the children put glasses of chilled water in front of us, but I did not drink. I didn’t want to take the chance of getting sick, having just gotten over giardia. (Teauila, our nurse practitioner suggested that I’ve just become asymptomatic but still have the little buggers floating around my digestive tract, like most Samoans.) A cellphone rang and one of the younger kids tried to wake the teen sleeping under the window. She eventually got up and had a quiet conversation with whomever was on the other end.

Later, on the way to Ta’ala’s house in a village further north, he told me of the two volunteers that came to Iva before me. Nick was the last one, in 2004 but left after only a short while. Before that was a woman who everyone liked. She did wonderful work and extended another year. When her third year was over, she made arrangements for one of her students to go back to America with her, where they married. The student was the son of the president.

Ta’ala and I continued up the coast in the pickup. Rain began to fall. I looked out the right window to the white sand beaches, turquoise water, the breakers out by the reef, and the navy blue water beyond, and I realized I hadn’t said goodbye to Meka. My head still hurt from the two parties after the Thanksgiving dinner at the Charge de Affair’s residence. We all gathered at a club once called Paddles and when that closed we took cabs to a volunteer’s house (I won’t mention names). Fortunately, there was a guitar there and Kilisi picked it up. It only took about 45 before a very large, very angry, very tired looking Samoan man was standing inside the door with a large flashlight in his hand. Noise complaints. No problem. We just moved again to (a place I can’t mention). Someone used whiteboard markers to draw twister spaces on the floor tiles and Big John called out the moves. Four people at a time. My group was quite good and no one fell down. I remember having to lick Texas’ hair (there was a square that said, “Lick you nearest neighbor”) because her head was closest to my mouth. Someone licked my forearm, it might have been Texas but we were all jumbled up and I couldn’t tell what body part belonged to who. Meka was half sleeping and Moli was stroking her hair. I gave a scalp massage to Cecilia and another to Moli. I like giving them because I know how good it feels, probably like how a dog feels when you pet it the right way and get its back leg moving, and it makes me laugh to see how wild I can make someone’s hair. We took a cab back to our hotel and everyone went to bed immediately.

The pickup turned off the road and up to another fale, this one was Ta’ala’s, the place where he was born and grew up in. It was very pretty from the outside with white coral gravel leading up to the freshly painted fale and the flower garden Ta’ala’s wife has been growing for some time.

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