Wackyfish

A little of this and a little of that

I didn’t wake up this morning until about 6:30. Normally I have a 5:45 wake up call from my puppy. She usually wants to go outside about that time. This morning however she didn’t get up until almost 7. She must still be hurting from her surgery yesterday. Hopefully I will have my bright bouncy puppy back soon.

It looks like I have my costume for Saturday night’s big Halloween shindig squared away. I hope to remember to get pictures. I am terrible about getting pictures.

It is another cloudy day but the sun is peeping through the clouds in large patches. My water hasn’t gone off since last Saturday (knock on wood) but I know we are not in the clear yet, ration wise. Although once again, I would like the opportunity to do some laundry this weekend, and a few hours of sunshine would be nice. I really should look into getting some domestic help, and soon. First with my ankle busted and now with my knee giving me problems, my increasing gimppiness has resulted in my home being a wreck. I just need to remind myself that it is OK to ask for help.

All of the Aunties are back. Some time around August they started drifting out of town for vacations and what not. A month ago my morning coffee sessions were down to Auntie Lea and I. I adore auntie Lea so it was nice to have her to myself, but I am glad everyone is back. It was like old times again this morning. Auntie Beatrice brought me a flower for my hair. Pisa adjusted my Pulotasi. Auntie Juno had the latest gossip in town. Auntie Ili said I looked like I had put on weight and asked when was my “male friend” coming to visit? And even Auntie Diane who runs the Samoa Observer (the major paper here) was even there this morning. Usually when she shows up she is sniffing out a story. I have to wonder what story she was sniffing out this morning. I have to say, knowing I am going to see all the Aunties every morning really helps me out of bed. (In spite of the appearance critiques and comments.)

My laptop is dead. I tried to start it up this weekend and got the hard disk not found message. Which isn’t surprising given that it had been making that tell tale click clicking noise for several months. I don’t think there is much on it that I will miss. Some random MP3 ‘s maybe. But if there is then it is my own fault for not backing them up sooner. Humidity 1 Electronics 0 I guess it is just one less thing to worry about.

Misses Mia

My puppy had a big day. This morning I (along with several other volunteers who brought there dogs in from Kua) took her up to APS for her de-sexing operation and puppy shots. (On a side note… I know they used to be able to come out to your house and do the operation, but they got a new clinic and now they want to do it all there. Which is more of a pain for us without transport, but apparently better for the animals.)
The vet said she was very good. She was still real groggy when I left her and I can tell that when she comes out of the anesthetic she will be pretty upset with me. She is a big drama queen dog that way.
I want thank the friend who pretty much paid for it all (you know who you are, and thank you!). Not only did Mia have her operation, and puppy shots, but I also got heartworm treatment pills, two more treatments of puppy de-worming, and next months frontline application.
The people at work think I am nuts for spending so much time and money on a dog. One of my co-workers even called me “mean” for having her de-sexed. I try to explain that were I come from it is common for people to spend money on the health of their animals. And that the operation is actually very humane as the animal then has a much better quality of life afterwards. Still they all think I am crazy… and that I probably spend to much time alone and that I verge on the edge of crazy since I am so attached to this dog.
The perspective on Dogs and Cats here is so much different than what I am used to. And having a puppy of my own has really brought it to light for me. It makes me sad, and at the same time I can see the logic in their detachment. Dogs live shorter and painful lives here. Why would you want to be attached to something that was in pain likely to be hurt or maimed?

Tomorrow may rain so…

I walked out of the six story downtown building were I work last night at about 4:40. It had just begun to sprinkle. I contemplated splurging on a taxi home. After all it was raining and my ankle is still sore after the sprain. Instead I stood for a few minutes and watched steam rise from the pavement as the rain cooled down the black surface of Beach road. As the rain steadily increased the whole area seemed to grow shrouded in mist. I was delighted with the spookiness of it all.
And then shortly thereafter my bus arrived.
I climbed onto the bus and sat in the first seat on the passenger side. As the bus lurched forward on it’s way, I put down the window so I could continue to watch, smell and feel the rain. Not long after I got on the bus a nice large “woman” got on and sat next to me. I scooted all the way over to the window and put my bag on my lap to make room. She chatted me up in English and I attempted to respond in FaaSamoa. We talked about our day, and the rain, and the fact that our village has to many mean dogs. And unbeknownst to me at the time, she paid my fare as well when she got off the bus before I did. Sometimes the generosity of the people here still blows my mind.
The bus came to a screeching halt at my stop and the driver turned and gave me a “just get off, she already paid for you” nod. Unfortunately I am still not great at interpreting the body language and I thought he meant, “Hey get of the bus, this is your stop” so when I tried to hand him money he had to explain it to me. I know I turned red all over because after I figured it out I was suddenly very hot. Every time it seems like I may have just come a long way in the integration department I do something silly that makes me stick out as the “Dumb Palagie” again. But maybe this is the fate of all ex-pats everywhere. Determining the meaning of a FaaSamoa head nod is almost as difficult as divinating the meaning in tea leaves or mastering quantum physics.
So embarrassed yet still laughing at myself I climbed off the bus and headed up the small hill to my house. The rain had stopped and the air smelled like what I imagine a tropical rainforest smells like. Fresh and wet and alive. The sides of the street that I live on are lush with tropic vegetation that seems to have sprung up overnight. Cold-water drops from the tress above fell on my warm face. I left the road to enter my compound and shifted my very full bag on my shoulder. Mia spotted me coming and ran at me full speed with a sloppy wet greeting.
It was a beautiful evening.
I have a great dog.
I was home.

Shes got a ticket to ride

I am coming to believe that there are no right or wrong answers to life. Ever.
That life is not a continuous path as much as a continuous series of forks in the road.
I stand at yet another fork and look at my options. I see all the potential paths and each one holds a special significance for me. But when it comes right down to it, I can only walk one path. At first this saddens me and causes a panicked attempt to merge all the paths into one, accommodating a plethora of choices into an amalgam that aspires them all but never quite reaches any. I quickly realize that this is NOT something I want and I will just have to choose one path. There is loss in this realization. Choosing one means letting go of the others. And as I have said they all hold special significance, it is not an easy choice. But the positive spin is, that the choices is up to me and my decision gets to be selected from many (both positive and even a few negative) options. As opposed to my mother, or grandmother who didn’t have the same variety of options available to her. It makes choosing a path a very exciting prospect.
And speaking of positive and negative choices, I’m not sure there really are any (even tho I just used them in the previous paragraph). I can certainly see that some decisions I have made for myself are wiser and in the end more beneficial than others. But at the same time I can see paths taken in the past there were decidedly un-wise, yet lead to a greater understanding of myself and significant personal growth. So were they really negative if the end result (after pain and suffering and other negative experiences) was greater wisdom?

In other news, due to a freaky (tho not uncommon) set of circumstances that I won’t get into, Mia has yet to get her puppy shots. I did however get to meet the Vet last night and we are tentatively planning a trip up to APS for Mia on Thursday morning. The Vet wants to not only give her shots but… take care of the de-sexing. It will be a big day for the puppy girl. That is if it happens.

So I will ask you once again..

When the wind rustles in the tress outside my bathroom window it often sounds like rain on my roof. And while sometimes the blowing wind is a precursor to rain, it is sometimes just a teaser. We had a lot of rain last week, but this week we haven’t had much more than the sporadic shower here and there. My neighbor who is an EPC engineer said that it would need to rain hard 24 hours a day for four weeks in a row to completely fill up our reservoirs. And this is why even though we have had some rain lately, we are still in water rationing conditions.
And I now I find myself conflicted between wanting it to rain all weekend so we can be done with rationing and wanting it to be sunny at least one day so I can do my laundry (which needs sun to dry).

In other news, I have a new wacky ailment. I have heat rash ALL OVER my scalp. At first I thought the increased itchiness was a sign that I had got a nasty bug in my dreads but upon examination the Med officer says it is heat rash. The cure is…. Don’t scratch it. That’s all I can do. It sucks.

Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly…

I have been looking at the person I was a year ago and who I am now and comparing the differences and similarities. A lot of this is spurned on by the trainees as I see reflections of the self I was in them. They react similarly to things I remember from my own training experience. Things that now I have come to accept as part of this place.

The most drastic change seems to be in my view of what it really means to “save the world”. I seem to have gone from someone who believed in self-sacrifice and enduring difficulties for the “greater good”, to someone who thinks I cannot influence anyone covered in the “greater good” but myself. I certainly can help my neighbor here and there and it still makes me feel great to do so. But experience is teaching me that ultimately I am the one who benefits most from those helping experiences long term. And that “Helping” is a much more complicated task that it seems.
I can see that I am the same in that I still value experience as the best means of gaining knowledge of anything. And the recognition of that consistency in myself is nice and very affirming. Ideals different, and the same.

Also I find my self-creeping more towards the center. Politically speaking anyway. A year ago I used to say (and believe) crazy things like “YAY Socialism” which is pretty far left. And while I am not even remotely going anywhere near “conservative” in my thinking, I have a lot more admiration of the power of consequences.
It is not just politics, it is lifestyle too. I saw a tourist woman on Beach Road (the main drag) the other day wearing shorts that were WAY to short. I turned to Mo and said; “Now that is just obscene!” A year ago I probably wouldn’t have even blinked. Now it bugs me when Palagie or tourists dress in a culturally inappropriate manner. My previous perspective was that dress and style are a freedom of expression and even if yours doesn’t fall in to my own personal esthetic I respect your right to express yourself, however distasteful I may find it personally. The shift in perspective I have experienced lately is that dressing modestly is a sign of respect for the native Samoans around me. Shame is such a powerful part of the culture here that I would never want to bring it down upon anyone I was seen with. So I dress appropriately as a sign that I respect those around me and the culture we live in.

I am conscious that I have at other times in my life experienced major change; it is just wacky at me to look back and see it all.

You say yes, I say no...

Things are busy.
I want to put in the time to write something interesting or funny or pretty but for now that just isn't going to happen.
I spent the bulk of the past two days on my couch reading or watching movies that other people had brought me. And despite my boredom I had excellent care. Mo and Mikaele came over on Monday night to (yell at me every time I got up and) make me dinner. Thanks guys!
While I was out from work, the network seems to have exploded with viruses. We have virus protection but somehow someone managed to get an internet connection on the one machine in the building without virus protection and now I am trying to eradicate several fun viruses from the network. Everyone is panicky around here, but I think my just being back in the office has quelled and calmed people. So maybe now is a good time to start a discussion (ideally with my management) about sustainability. I really only have a year left here. What then?
Tonight I am hosting the female trainees at my home for the "Village Girl Talk" session. We are going to get Pizza and sit around and talk girly stuff. It should be fun.
Anyway there is more but I don't have time to write it now.
Hope everyone is well.

I hurt myself

I sprained my ankle. Last night I went downstairs and it was dark and wet and I missed the makeshift step and fell on the ground, bruising my bottom and spraining my ankle.
It is bad enough that Dr. Fia Fia (Atherton) and Tequila our Med officer want me to stay home from work and off of it for a few days.
This is just after falling out of a chair (it was one of those plastic lawn chairs and unbeknownst to me the back legs were broken) at the Fia Fia on Saturday. I managed to walk away not only having made a huge fool of myself, but with a nice big skin rash on my elbow.
Uggg... Maybe I should get the “Twirly Mc Falls Alot” title now.

Best joke I have found all day….

The Taco Bell Chihuahua, a Doberman and a Bulldog are in a bar having adrink when a great-looking female Collie comes up to them and says, "Whoever can say liver and cheese in a sentence can have me."
So the Doberman says, "I love liver and cheese." The Collie replies, "That's not good enough."
The Bulldog says, "I hate liver and cheese." She says, "That's not creative enough."
Finally, the Chihuahua says, "Liver alone . . . cheese mine."

I spent some time looking up jokes for the FiaFia tomorrow. I am MCEEing again and I am feeling the pressure to be funny.

Thank …George?

It is raining! It started yesterday afternoon sometime and has been raining on and off since. Thank Buddah, Goddess, Allah, Jesus and whatever else is out there!

We had a lovely one-year anniversary dinner with group 71 last nights. Then we went to the airport in the middle of the night to meet the new group. They all have that shocked “deer in the headlights” look that is really cool to watch. I look forward to getting to know them, and re-live vicariously through all the firsts they will go through here. Training is a fun (and hard) time.

It has been a while so this is a long one...

It is 6 am on Sunday morning. The ringing church bells accompany the sun as it moves over the horizon and in to the sky. Mia is awake and tugging at my dreads to let me know she needs to get outside. To her it doesn’t really matter that it is a weekend and I get to sleep in. So I get out of the bed and stumble to the door to let her out.
I fall back into bed and let the Sunday morning symphony of church bells, choir practice, dogs barking, roosters crowing, children laughing and or screaming lull me back to sleep.

It is 8 when I wake up again. The Sun has come fully into the sky and the cool breezy morning is beginning to burn off under its heat. Once again I stumble out of my bed and into the kitchen. I manage to get a pot of coffee brewed and wander out to my front patio with a cup, where Mia is lazing in a sunny spot. I can tell from the sudden thwapping of her tail she is happy I have joined her. We sit for a few minuets in the last of the cool morning breezes.

Eventually the moment is over and Mia gets up and stretches. She gives me the “Hey lady, feed me already” look and we both go inside. I find her some breakfast and then hunt for something to feed myself. I find expired yogurt, and an orange.

If today had been any other Sunday I may have continued lazing around my house. Maybe I would have gone back to bed, or curled up with a book. But it is “White Sunday” or “Lotu Tamiti” (Children’s Church) today and I don’t want to miss the festivities. It is a big holiday here and I am going to church with one of my neighbor families. Traditionally everyone wears white to church on this day, so I had a white Pulotasi made last week. After I put on my white Pulotasi I am reminded why I rarely wear white. I haven’t even had it on two min before I have managed to spill something on it. I am big clutz.

The church is filled with flowers and music. The children perform songs and dances and skits. I don’t understand most of it, but the basic message of joy is clear. After church my neighbors invite me back to their home for toonai’i (Big Sunday lunch). When we get home their house smells like an Umu (this underground oven baking outdoor fire thing, that they cook the meal in and is weird to explain). There is a Pua’a (pig), some ia (fish), Palusami (sort of spinach and coconut crème dish), Talo (taro), Ulu (breadfruit) and supo Moa (chicken soup). Of course I eat too much.

Once lunch is over and I have given the kids the lollies (candy) I brought them, I wander home for a nap. Mia is happy to see me coming. She jumps up and puts a nice pair of dirty paw prints on my new “I’ll never get it clean enough to wear it again” white pulotasi. I get out of my good clothes and curl up on the couch with my book for a nap. Mia lays at my feet and begins to gently snore.

I woke at about 5, just as the sun was beginning its final stages of decent. There was about an hour and a half left of light, but the heat had subsided and another cool breeze had kicked up. I figured this would be the perfect time to take care of some gardening I meant to do this weekend. I got up and put on some grungy shorts and an old ratty tank top. Armed with sun hat, gardening gloves and my little shovel I planted 22 tomato seedlings, 24 basil, and two sunflower plants.
It was a good Sunday.

On a different note… Pisa is back from New Zealand. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am. I think I am slipping back into a place were I get thrown off when the routine of people in my life are altered. Pisa is my closest friend that is a Samoana National. Having her gone left me… disoriented and sad. Also Pele moved out to her new village yesterday and Mia and I missed her very much last night. We just got used to having her around and now she is gone. So I am wondering if this people routine is something I should pay more attention to.

And lastly…. One year ago today I left SF. I can’t believe it was a year ago. How times flies.

Super Mia Roach Killer

First let me say that I am aware that this is the fourth entry in a row about my dog. But, I am infatuated. I can’t help it.

So I’ll cut it just in case you could care less.

Last night after play time and diner and cleanup, I laid down with my book to settle in for bed. Mia had, had a lot of exercise and was tired so she came in and laid down on the floor next to me. We had been happily chilling out for about thirty min when Mia perked up her head and looked around. She obviously had heard something in the house. The next thing I know she is jumping around chasing something. So I get up to see why my dog just went haywire. By the time I got to her to investigate she had a roach pinned down under her paw. I pressed her paw into the floor and we heard him go * pop*. I give her some praise for catching it and go find the broom to sweep the dead bug outside. By the time I get back to sweep it up… Mia has found another and caught it under her paw. I help her squash the bug (I don’t actually have to touch it… she does, and she doesn’t mind as much as I do). In the course of the next hour she catches 3 more. After the first two she begins to play with them a bit. She will trap it under her paw. Let it go, chase it, and then catch it again. After she had vanquished them all I gave her a treat and made sure to give her lots of praise. And then I washed her paws.
She is defiantly has some sort of hunter breed of dog in her. And I am pretty pleased that she is exorcising it on one my most hated forms of bugs. (Roaches are #2, right behind Mosquito.)
Of course it is her fault in the first place that there were so many in the house last night. She has ripped the screen off my screen door so when the hard door is open they can come right it. I leave the big door open so Mia can come and go inside and outside (were she does her business) at will. But I think it is mighty helpful of her to be working on fixing one of the problems she created.
What a considerate dog.

My dog is a freak

I came home yesterday and found a pair on my underwear and a bra at random places in my living room. Mia must have dug them out of the laundry basket in my closet and spread them around. Also, while not as weird as my underwear, she took one shoe and left it in the kitchen and the other shoe and left it in my bedroom at the other end of the house. I think she maybe trying to drive me crazy. Or maybe she missed me and wanted to find things that smelled like me… Freaky dog.
In other news, it looks like we (Mia and I) are losing our flat mate. It was only temporary but still. Pele has a new village to go live in and it looks like she will be moving on soon. We are very happy for her but, we will miss her. She has been nice to have around

I have become that person who can’t shut up about her dog.

No need to worry about not being able to get out of bed in the mornings anymore. My dog has taken care of that. She is awake by about 5:45am every morning and by 6 if I am not getting out of bed she is letting me know how unacceptable that is. This morning she barked at me. I don’t think I had actually heard her bark until then. Her other “get Dorie out of bed” tricks so far have been to 1. Bite and pull her dreads. 2. try to bite Dorie’s face.
So this morning I got up and let her out. And then I tried to do yoga…
She seems to interpret yoga as play time, I think because I am down on the floor.
I want her to get used to me doing yoga, so I guess I need to just bear with it.
In other news, last night she performed the only two things we have been working on training wise, for a house full of people. We have been working on sau (come) and nofo (sit), and like a perfect little angel she came and sat on command. She must have known she was “on”. I am begging to think that she is smarter than I gave her credit for. Maybe I am the one being trained.

I got a god.. I mean dog

Last Friday I got a dog. APS called me at about 1:30 and said “We have a short haired female puppy, just like you wanted. If you want her you need to come get her now.”
So I did, and there she was, and now we belong to each other. Her name is Mia. She is five months old, weighs about 20 pounds and seems to be pretty smart. She does real well with her training lessons when it is just she and I. However as soon as anyone else is around she seems to get excited and lose any ability (or desire) to recognize her name or any commands. But I guess that is expected of a puppy.
She has these big puppy feet that she hasn’t yet grown into. Which is funny. Also she doesn’t seem to understand the concept of speed and traction. She goes skidding around my linoleum like floors and ends up banging herself into walls and furniture. It would be funnier if I didn’t feel so bad for her.

Some of my friends have already started referring to her as “Princess Mia”, which may end up being very accurate. Rest assured it was unintended. Anyway, here she is.

She has her own pictures album here if you want to see more.

Went downstairs and grabbed a cup…

It is about 10 am. I have been at work for about 2 hours and not yet had a chance to stop putting out fires and do some actual work. Archie my “tech in training” finds me in the admin office and says “Tea”. I get up and high tail it out of the admin office and back to our main IT room. He has prepared coffee for himself and our new boss (whom I like) and made me with a cup of hot water for herbal tea. I find my green tea bags and plop one into my cup as I plop down in one of the “comfy” chairs in the tech room. I pull a package of cookies out of my bag, open it and take one. I pass the rest to the guys.
We sit for the next 30 min. We talk about stuff going on with the company, with IT, with the employees, and with our village. We all freakishly live in the same village, so the lack of water is a big topic. I reach over and steal back another cookie even tho I have promised myself I will only have one. Our boss comments that Samoan girls are prettier because they are not afraid to eat. We all laugh. Then we laugh some more.

The FaaSamoa for what we are doing is “Kafau” (well Tafau really, but who speaks proper FaaSamoa anymore?). It means to hang out and visit. It is very important here. I can’t say that I mind. I work hard, so Kafau at morning tea is a nice little perk. Tho once again it leads to concerns that I am becoming more and more unfit for western life.