No really I did
We had cultural cooking day and we had to cook a large meal from scratch like the Samoans do. It was wacky wacky wacky.
Anyway I am just in town briefly to do some reasearch for my big TDA presentation so I can’t right much. But let me just say that things in the training village are interesting… I am doing well… and I miss you all.
I have been writing up a storm so I will have plenty of funny stories to post once we are done in the village in about 2 weeks.
Tofa!
I had sort of planned to spend last night with my laptop writing all the amazing stories that are building up in my head. My creative juices seem to flow much easier here and writing is really a joy. However instead of an intimate evening with my laptop and my brain, I went to a party and had a great time. I even wore sparkly glitter.
So nothing has been written, and I don't have much time left to get something posted so this entry will have to do.
In a few hours we leave for Thanksgiving lunch at the Country Directors house. Afterwards we go directly to Siufaga, our training village. Were we will be for three weeks. Which pretty much means I will be completely out of contact for three weeks. I haven't been without internet access for that long since 1993 when I got my first e-mail account at ERAU.
My cold is getting better, the PCMO has me on antibiotics. I am having a great time, but Training sucks and I can't wait to be done with it and actually BE a Peace Corps Volunteer.
Many people have asked if I need anything and I am putting together a formal wish list to post but... in the meantime what I would love is Post cards from home (or wherever it is that you live.)
If you don't mind picking up a cheep postcard of your city (San Francisco, Mountain View, San Jose, Eugene, or wherever) and writing a quick note and sending it to me that would RULE! Mail takes about 15 days to get here.
Ok, I have to run, have a great three weeks!
Dorie "mosquitoes love to eat me" Peterson
Which means I have no spell check so we will see what this looks like.
this will be my last entry for a week. We leave for Siufanga for a week friday morning at 11:00, and it is a public holiday friday as well so the shops will all be closed (Arbor day in case you were wondering). The Samoans have a lot of holidays I guess. I must admit I am less than looking forward to the next week as it means
1. back to full time language lessons (which are hard)
2. no more air conditoned hotel room
3. I am a city girl and love the city, Siufnaga is the sticks.
It is pretty tho and my family lets me do just about whatever I want. So usually my little 8 year old "sister" and I go swimming in the ocean a lot.
I am debating wherther or not to bring "gifts" this time as we are supposed to wait until the end... but some volunteers are bringing small things now. Maybe I will bring the silly groucho marks plastic glass I baught for the kids, and leave everything else.
Oh oh, I got my first Pulotasi today. It is the traidional formal female dress. My psudo boss had her tailor make me one and I picked it up today.
I promise to put up pictures next week when I am back in town. I have about 200 mgs of picts to sort through and figure out what to post, and what to delete.
Anyway I hope everyone has a great week!
Tofa
I didn’t take to Samoan food right off. After a week with my host family however I have become a big fan. My host mother and father (interestingly enough they seem to pretty equally share the cooking duties, but more on that later) are amazing cooks.
One of the first traditional dishes we had was something called Palusami. At first it appeared to be some sort of spinach wrapped around a white ricotta like cheese. In fact it is nothing of the sort. It is a tarot leaf (which looks surprisingly like spinach) wrapped around a thick coconut crème with onions in it. I know this sounds sweet but it’s only slightly sweet and amazingly rich and yummy! My host mother makes the most kick ass Palusami. The best on the island so far (and I am becoming quite the coinsure).
Another traditional dish is steamed white fish. They steam it with hot rocks or something similar just long enough to cook it but not too long so that it is dry. It is moist and yummy and absolutely perfect. I have no idea what it is called but I eat all I can when I can get it. And my host parents (along with most Samoans) are excellent observers so they pick up what you like and don’t pretty quickly.
Surprisingly I have been eating a lot of chicken. They bake it, fry it, cook it in soup with veggies, BBQ it, and even slow roast it over open fires. I try to avoid it fried but other than that it is great protein for me. I have had a few run in’s with Beef and Pork and I can’t say I am terribly fond of them. For these reasons I believe I may go “no red meat” while I am here. I considered veggie, but beans are not existent here, and cheese is expensive (as are most dairy products). Which would pretty much leave me with peanut butter for protein and anyone who knows me, knows I can’t stand the stuff. So it looks like I won’t be going veggie anytime soon.
The other thing I eat a ton of is fresh fruit. Wacky fresh fruit too. Mangos, Esi (papaya), pineapple, bananas of all shapes and sizes and apples (which they import I think from New Zealand but they are still reasonable).
I will be moving into my house (yes I get a house! Yay!) December 18 and 19. I can’t wait to see what my kitchen will be like. My host mother makes the best food in an open fale (Fall-eh. Samoan for house) over s simple gas stove so I figure I can get her to teach me a few of her secrets.
On another note, I am getting a ton of exercise. A friend and I walk in the morning before the sun is fully risen and beginning to be oppressive. Then through the course of my day I walk every where else I need to go (since we can’t drive, have no cars anyway, the buses are still a bit too scary, and taxis can get expensive). I figure that today I walked around 6 or 7 miles. Which is good because I will need to work off all the rich fatty coconut crème I plan to eat next week when we are back in the village.
Last Friday they took us to a small village on the other side of the island called Siufaga (Sea-you-fanga). We spent a week there living with host families. I believe the purpose of these village stays is to give us a chance to see Samoan life and culture up close and to give us some intensive language training. My host family for example spoke no English and so the first few days were mildly traumatic (no worries tho it got much better as the week wore on) and roaring hilarious.
The fashion of Fa’asamoa does not concern it’s self with things like matching t-shirts and lava lava’s. It is more prone to putting the brightest and most contrasting colors together. I am guessing this is to make you stand out more, that or colorblindness is prevalent here. Anyway, just as we had preconceived notions of them, they had many of us. One of these idea’s being that all palangie must have matching outfits.
When my friend Mika (Mike) got dressed for his first day of classes in the village on Monday morning he put on a grey t-shirt and a red, white and yellow lava. He didn’t think much about it because we have all just given up on attempting to coordinate anything we wear. It’s really very freeing. His host mother (who must have heard about our obsession with matching outfits) took one look at him and insisted that he wear a red shirt which, she would provide him. We assume she simply intended to help him feel more comfortable by dressing him to fit in with his peers. Mika being a great guy and very easy going took the red shirt and put it on. Shortly to his horror he discovered that the front of the shirt said “Deep Throat” and was clearly promotional material for the 70’s cult classic porn movie. Being a good sport and not wanting to embarrass his host mother he wore it to class anyway, and we all had a good laugh with him (or maybe at him, I’m not sure).
The ironic part of this story is that when his father came to San Francisco from Korea in the 70’s this was the first American Movie he saw. So Mika thinks he may send the shirt to his dad as a gift.
The Samoans have been labeled “A Happy People”, and so far from what I have seen this is very true. It is rare to see anyone here not sporting a grin from ear to ear. I have one (of many I’m sure) theory ass to why. They have a funny sounding language. Here are a few examples.
1. Fa’amolemole (fa-a- mo-lay-mo-lay) Which means Please. And when said quickly three times is guarantied to make you giggle. Unless of course you are Samoan and the speaker is Plaganie (foreign white person, and not at all a derogatory term), in which case you burst out with in big, loud, uncontrollable yet somehow loving bouts of laughter.
2. Faigaluega (phi–gna-lu-wang-a) meaning place of work. The G sound in Samoan is this guttural back of the throat GNA kind f sound which is difficult for palanie to reproduce as we have no such sound in our alphabet. Anytime we say it Samoans laugh. Anytime Andy (great guy in our group) says it, we all laugh.
3. Fa’aipoipo (fa-a-eepo-eepo) meaning to be married. To get the pronunciation of this word correct I had to say hippo without the h and with a sharp e sound instead of i. And now anytime I ask someone if they are married in Samoan it makes me think of hippopotamuses. Which is funny.
Another interesting and funny thing about Samoan is that “Samoan” is not actually a Samoan word. Let me explain. One of their unconditional language rules is that no word can end in a consonant. Hence the word Samoan, ending in an n can not be a Samoan word. Instead they use the term Fa’aSamoa (fa-a-SAW-moa) which means “the Samoan way” and can cover many topics from society and culture to language.
So despite the difficulty of the language it keeps me continually amused.
Tofa Soifua!
Yesterday we returned to the capitol city Apia, from a week long stay in a remote village on the other side of the island. It was a great learning experience, but I am glad to be back in the capitol. I will post more about the village stay later when I can write without my valuable and expensive Internet minuets ticking away.
The IT volunteers got our job assignments yesterday. I will be working at Samoa Electric Power Company as a LAN/WAN consultant. We start on the job training Monday and I am excited about that.
Anyway I hope everyone is safe and un-scorched back at home. Have a great week!