Christmas spirit

Hi all

I have some beautiful photos to share which pretty much up sum up the hecticity (I made that word up) of the last couple of weeks.

Last night was the ANZ Christmas do at Moana o Sina, a beautiful hotel/function place on the rocks. The spray last night was particularly impressive, crashing against the rocks and sending showers way into the air. It wasn't so much fun when I had to keep cleaning my glasses. We'd decided that we'd go the matching traditional outfits route, after being so impressed by how glamourous the staff looked at other events. I know, it's particularly corny, but we had to do it once. Well, we looked gorgeous, but the other staff all showed up in party frocks, so maybe we need to figure out the dress code first. I love the way you just go into one of the local sewing shops, say I want it to look like this and this, and go back a week later (or more likely the week you asked for + several days of "come back tomorrow") and there it is. The party was lovely, although there was some confusion over what time it started so the dancing girls were ready by 6.30 when we were the only ones there. I came home early to pick up Taine from the neighbours and Matt came home sometime in the early morning, after his first ride on the back of a truck (ute). Again, one of those local customs you've just got to do.

Matt had just got back from his week on Guam to check out the bank there for his new role of Chief Operating Officer for there as well as here. He really enjoyed it, said the island was lovely and very civilized (designer shops and 9 golf courses), although his photos were mostly of gun emplacements and cows with big horns.

While he was away, we had our school Xmas do (Jane and I have to keep explaining that word to Americans) at the principal's house. It was a pot luck, and Americans do pot luck a bit differently to us. There was lots of salsa and corn chips, and yummy buffalo chicken dip, but no sausage rolls and mini quiches. Lots of good seafood though. For presents, we did a Yankee raffle, where the first person drawn picks a present, unwraps it, then the next person can either take their present or a new one, and so on. Was lots of fun, although my lovely vase got taken right at the end :(

Taine had his Xmas concert where his class sang two songs, all in their matching Xmas lavalavas and Santa hats (note to self for next year - matching Xmas outfits!). He's the golden blond on the left.

The next day was the swimming carnival. Taine swam three races: 20m freestyle, back stroke and breast stroke and got three third place ribbons, so he was pretty pleased. I tried to take a video of one of his races for Matt to see, but there's a definite art to sports photography, and I don't have it. I'm sure a few more years of watching children play sport and I'll develop it (ha ha). I've also got to remember not to giggle half way through.

Now school is finished for three weeks, we're counting down on two advent calendars (and forgetting both of them for days at a time), the presents under the tree are growing, although they seem to be all for one little person, and one night soon we'll go and check out the Xmas lights. That's a big thing here, and some of the displays are supposed to be awesome.

If I don't talk to you before Christmas, hope you all have a merry one, and we'll catch up in the New Year. We're back in NZ from Dec 31 - Jan 11, in Tauranga and Wellington. I still have my mobile number: 027 337 1394.

The Hunts

Deck the Halls with Fronds and Coconuts

Dad has been mocking our choice of Christmas tree, so I thought I should post photos for everyone else to admire. We think it's a visual symphony.

The Young American

We seem to have had some uniquely American experiences over the last couple of weeks, so I thought I'd better prepare you for the Kiwi/American blend that is Taine.

Halloween was the first event, and what an event it was. Taine, Matt and I all had dress ups at work and school. There were heaps of kids costumes in the shops, but very few adult costumes, so there was going to be a fair bit of DIY involved. I'd bought Taine an Optimus Prime outfit which he was very excited about, but his teacher (quite rightly) emphasised that the kids needed to be able to go to the bathroom in their costume. So his one-piece bodysuit would need to be altered. No worries, take it down to the nearest sewing shop. And they butchered it. His costume came back with a 4 inch waist and a non-stretchy extension to go round his tummy. The sewer was going to charge me $10 if I slipped her the cash, but because I didn't have change, I had to pay $20 at the front desk - more than the costume was worth! Matt did some running repairs that night and all was fine in the morning, thank goodness!

They had lots of fun at school, with photos, games, and lots and lots of candy - Tootsie Rolls and Reese's Peanut Butter cups!

Taine and Noah wanted to go trick or treating too, but unfortunately everyone in the compound was out that evening. They still had fun knocking on the doors. All the neighbours had given the security guards some candy, so they handled the busloads of children who came to the "rich" neighbourhood from around the island.

My and Matt's costumes were more problematic. Matt had brought over a Speight's coverall (I got hassled for bringing towels and photos, and he brought that!) which we altered to make Mario Bros, and I borrowed a sewing machine, cut a piece of leopard print fabric in half, sewed up the sides and cut a hole for the neck - one Cavegirl, roaring to go!

The day after Halloween, the Christmas decorations came out, but Thanksgiving is the next big event. Taine came home yesterday singing about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower. I asked him who the Pilgrims were, and he said they discovered Thanksgiving, which I guess is close enough. I'm sure he'll win a pub quiz one night for knowing "they anchored there in 1620". I just asked him the line from the song, and he informed me that they left in September and got to America sometime in November. Good to know! It is funny that the Pilgrim song is sung to the same tune as the Halloween song, so I'm guessing there'll be a Christmas "Skip to my Loo" version too.

Last night we went over to the Tradewinds to listen to the Hawaii Air Force band, who are here performing for Veterans' Day (11/11 - today). 3 guitars and a ukelele doing modern covers, and they were pretty good for the crowd of 20. Our Kiwi table didn't get into the cheering everytime "our forces" and "our country" were mentioned - I think there was a bit more eye-rolling instead. Veterans' Day is normally a big celebration, but it's all very quiet this year, post-tsunami and all.

Seeing we're not going to be here for Thanksgiving, Matt cooked a turkey last weekend. I went over to the neighbours' and drank wine while he basted, roasted and served. Was delicious, and only took 3 1/2 hours on the BBQ. As any of you who have ever cooked a turkey before are probably thinking, yes we did have turkey pizza on Monday and turkey sandwiches on Tuesday, before we decided enough was enough. I even had good intentions of making turkey stock, but that disappeared fairly quickly. There was no cranberry sauce on island, so I had a go at making it from dried cranberries, which was a bit hit and miss. Must add it to the shopping list for Auckland in two weeks!

After vowing that I would get on no committees while I was here, I'm now on the swimming committee and the school soccer committee. The swimming's fine, but the soccer's been hard work. The local association was going to help out, but all their gear got lost in the tsunami, so I've had to buy balls, find grounds ... There's over 40 kids that want to play - not bad for a roll of 100. Matt's going to help with the coaching, and there's some other dads who will coach too. I'll let you know how it goes.

So we're away in two weeks, back for a week before Matt goes to Guam for ten days, he's back for a week and then we all go to Samoa and back to NZ! Oh, and the Christmas concert, the swimming carnival, my birthday (that's very important!) and some work events are all in there somewhere! Luckily the online shopping is going well to cover all the outfits and presents! Our neighbours have their Christmas tree up already, but I thnk we'll wait until we come back. Cost U Less has a great selection, and the Lions are starting to sell real trees this weekend (shipped in a refrigerated container from the mainland). I've got my eye on the tree shaped like a palm tree - well, where else would you have one?

The Week After

I've been putting off writing this, because I don't feel I'm a real witness to all that's been happening here. We go to school and work, I go shopping at Cost U Less, drink coffee and watch TV. Tafuna is pretty much unscathed and I'm still not quite over my disaster-tourism phobia, so I haven't ventured too far away.
Back to the beginning. Last Tuesday, 7am. I'm bouncing along to Cardio Overdrive, Taine's watching TV, Matt's gone to work. The blinds start shaking, and I'm thinking I'm not that much of an elephant, when the rumbling started. I got Taine and we stood/clutched under the kitchen doorway for what seemed like forever. I was watching the clock waiting for the quake to end, and it didn't for at least a minute. It was the worst quake by far I've ever been in - really shallow rolling.
Matt rang almost straight away to say he was on the road round the harbour when it happened. Some rocks had fallen down the cliff but hadn't landed on any cars. He said there was no tsunami warning at the moment but to listen to the radio. So I stood there, gulped down some breakfast and mentally scrolled through the survival kit. Matt rang again 10 minutes later to say there was a tsunami warning (police had driven through Fagatogo with loudspeakers) and to get out. So I grabbed Taine and the survival kit and water and ran. Although we had to go via neighbour Heidi's place as I knew she didn't have a car and her husband was at work at the canneries. I rang Heidi's bell, told her we were going, she asked if she had time to get dressed, she took one look at my face and got in the car.
Driving along the road to go up the hill, and we're listening to the radio. The announcers were sort of calm-ish, then the woman started screaming "Run for the hills and Pray", which made me lose it momentarily. We realised later that's when the wave got up to the second storey window of their studio and she could see her car floating past. There was lots of traffic on the road, but also a lot of people walking to school and driving towards the water. I only overtook once (why would you go 5mph in an evacuation), and 10 minutes later we were up at David and Sue's at Pavai'iai'i (spelling!) On the way we saw all the village bells being struck with a stick (local tsunami warning) and there were lots of cars heading up the hill.
Matt had rung while we were driving to say he was safe up the hill with all the staff (only 4 of them) so I didn't have to worry about him so much. Cell phone coverage was very intermittent for the rest of the day and poor Heidi couldn't get in touch with Willem until lunchtime.
We stayed at the Whitby's for the rest of the morning watching Australian ABC's coverage, getting phone calls every so often. Internet connection was fine, so we were able to let people know we were safe and to follow news and weather coverage. From the empty house next door to where we were, David and Sue had been watching the sea go in and out, and it was still very big surf over the blowholes when we were there. Taine was fine through all of this. He wasn't scared at all and only fretted because he wanted to go to school.
We eventually headed home once the warning had been lifted. And then to do what? Matt rang every hour or so to keep me updated, and I didn't move very far from the radio. Jane and Noah came round for a coffee/play as the power was out at their house. One by one all the other husbands came home but my intrepid explorer was out searching for the ATM that had gone missing from Pago Plaza, one of the destroyed buildings. He was right in the thick of things for that first day. The ATM was later discovered in the Social Security office at the other side of the plaza, all money intact, but they'd combed the harbour for it first.
Matt eventually got home about 7, absolutely exhausted. He said it was a mission to get everyone out of the building, as anyone who's ever been a fire warden can attest to; "herding cats" were his exact words. But they were safe up the hill for the three hours they were there. The water came up to the bottom of the branch in town but didn't get in. They could see people looting from shops even between the waves, and that's one of the really depressing things to come out from this. Although it's easy to be sanctimonious and critical, I bet it would happen anywhere.
So the water pipe breaking downstairs when Matt went to have a shower at 9pm (I'd filled all the baths and sinks with water, good Girl Guide, but our plugs are not particularly effective) was the last straw. It was like Huka Falls in there with the mighty Waikato snaking its way across the carpet and into the hallway. It took 10 minutes to get the water off (do you know where your water main is?) then we called the landlord, and the lovely reverend and Inga the Winger's brother came to fix it. Staying up till 2.30am for them to finish wasn't at all what I felt like doing, but I was very grateful our problems could be fixed so easily.
And so to the cleanup (ours was fine, the rest of the island's had problems). I got inspired on wednesday and rounded up old clothes and bought some supplies to donate to the Red cross which they then wouldn"t take> sorry my keyboard has lost the plot and the shift key"s doing the opposite of what it should> I realise that they don't want every Tom Dick and Harry showing up with their rubbish, but they should make it easy for people who do want to give.
There are a couple of problems. FEMA and aid arrived relatively quickly on island, but they took a long time to actually get out to the villages. Rumour has it the Governor had to give permission to them because it's not official US territory and he didn't until Friday night, but that just seems too ridiculous to be true (so it probably is). And villages can't start cleanup until FEMA has been to take photos, and some villages still hadn't been seen yesterday. Friends are being very active and loading their car and heading off all over the island but I just wouldn't know where to start. And another problem is the hierarchy/family connections things here. It's hard to be completely sure that what you give will actually get to the people who need it and not get siphoned off to the family of the person who collects the aid or people in positions.
There is masses of aid here, both people and things. The radio reported 3,500 people in shelters who are getting three meals a day, but others in the villages are getting nothing. Apparently FEMA has a very nice office though.
We did go for a drive out to the west of the island on Sunday to see for ourselves the damage (me really, Matt's seen Pago). It's very sudden - you're driving down the hill and everything's fine, then turn a corner and there's a fale with no roof and a car up a tree. Villages are devastated. Things like cars, furniture, clothes have just been picked up by the waves and dropped somewhere else completely. Many buildings have lost windows, walls and roofs. It's going to take a massive cleanup effort just to get places habitable.
I see on NZ websites that there are lots of collections going on. The American Red Cross doesn't seem very popular with its counterparts in other countries so that's affecting what aid gets here too. Like I say, we want to give, but it's very hard to know where to give it too.
So in summary, we are all fine. A large section of the island is devastated and the cleanup is going to take months. And I will probably continue to feel guilty about not doing enough for months too! But we feel very very lucky.
And people that go to the beach to watch tsunamis are stupid beyond belief.

You know you're a blogger when ...

instead of falling apart when things go wrong, you think "How can I make this sound funny on the blog?" Admittedly, my version of falling apart isn't very major. I was at the walking track on Wednesday, huffing along, when I started talking to Al, my Samoan walking buddy. He commented that he hadn't seen me for a while, and then said "I wasn't sure if it was you, because when you started coming here you were skinny and now you're fat". End of sentence. Walked away. And instead of crumbling into a snivelling heap, I turned up Pump Up the Volume Volume 1, and strode away, mentally composing this entry. By the end of the day, I'd bought a diet book, new exercise clothes (gotta look good), more fruit and veges, thrown out the rest of the butter chicken I was going to have for lunch, and most importantly, got out Trinny and Susannah to at least dress to disguise my shape better! And it's working. The book I found (the only one at the shop) is actually really good, and admits coffee is a food group and 30 minutes a day of walking is just fine. I've stuck to it for 5 whole days now, a personal record, and I'm feeling great. Matt called from Seattle last night, and said he's put on kilos just eating nice food again. So it may be a family effort - Taine can suffer with the rest of us too.
Matt's having lots of fun in Seattle at banking school. He found the first couple of days not too stressful as, because of the size of ANZ, he'd dealt with lots of things that those from the smaller banks had no idea about. There's 120 in his year (it's a 3 year course) and they're already planning their Las Vegas trip at the end of the three years. He went to a Seattle Seahawks baseball game yesterday and is off to a football game next week. Says Seattle is very pretty, so we'll all have to go next year.
I've been "busy" working. One hour a day really cuts into your day! My class of 6 quiet girls is just lovely, although a little more talking would be nice. I've had to watch my spelling: organize, color, analyze, but they seem to be coping with my nzisms.
Taine's settled into school really well. I worked out he had been at school for 14 weeks in 2009 before the term started, which isn't really enough for a know-it-all 6 year old. The homework's piling in already. 30 minutes a day, every day? Seems a bit much to me.
Our internet has been off at home for over two weeks, despite my calling the service provider at least once a day. I know I could just go over the drive to one of the three Blue Sky families, but then we may have people banging on our door complaining about bank fees. We're also out of printer ink, and coloured ink is really expensive on island, so with no computer, no scrapbooking and rubbish tv, I've missed Matt even more!
The coffee machine has finally arrived, and it's just lovely. I've got the milk frothing and creaming going well, but I'm still having trouble mastering the grinder and therefore the crema. Luckily I've had lots of critiques over the last couple of weeks - people just seem to drop in!
It's very windy here this week, so between the wind, the party at Tradewinds last night and the earthquake at 4am (a nasty rocking one), it's going to be an early night tonight. Hope everyone is well and not too upset at the Silver Ferns' capitulations during the week. I'm not looking forward to the tests this week - think we're going to get thrashed. S

Here comes the bride

There are new expectations for weddings, in particular what the
guests get out of it. Matt and I went to one of his team's weddings on
Saturday, and it was a spectacle. The invitation came in a beautiful
scroll with ribbons and flowers.
The ceremony was at 10.30 and the reception
at 1.00. We'd been warned that the
ceremony could take a while (and the
bride's father was the minister), so we
decided to just go to the reception
- quite standard practice. As the wedding
got closer, Matt kept coming home
with new information. So we knew to give money
as a present, we'd be the
only palagi there, there would be no alcohol except
for toasts and there
would be 500 people at the reception!

It was a stinking hot day, and we (with David and Sue) arrived at the school gymnasium (thankfully with just a roof and open sides) at 12.45. Sue and I were the only ladies not in puletasi (the matching skirts and tops all the ladies wear) but David and Matt had on their aloha shirts. The tables were arranged in a giant horseshoe, with seats only on one side of the table, all facing inwards. The decorations. My goodness. There was a banner with a photo of the couple and good wishes, the ribbons were all printed with the names and date, every tablecloth was screenprinted with the names and date, on the tables were engraved coconut shells filled with lollies. And the cakes on the dias. Not one, not two, but 29 cakes were arranged on tiers. These were to go with the 29 female attendants and 29 male attendants. I guess 60 (including the couple) is a nice round number! So's 4!

So we sat fanning ourselves, gulping water, for an hour, listening to the band play a mixture of traditional music and rock n roll standards very loudly, before the attendants started parading in which took 10 minutes. The bride wore a heavy white meringue and the groom looked very tired in a suit jacket. The attendants were in white and pale lime green, and looked very pretty.

I think there was an opening speech, but it was all in Samoan, so he may have been saying Don't eat too much for all I know. Fat chance. Then the food started coming in.

A note on the operational side. These families know how to run an event. Every female between 10 and 70 and every male between 10 and 40 was outfitted in the village colours and they ran. Delivering drinks to everyone, picking up cans, giving everyone their own individual tray of fo0d twice not to mention cooking and preparing every thing. There were a couple of matriarchs running the show, and you didn't mess with them.

We all had salads, tuna and rolls to begin with, which was a nice light snack. Then the trays came. We've had these before at the 1st birthday party, so it was with dread as we watched them being delivered, hoping that maybe this time we could share. But no. Imagine a sectioned tray the size of a bike tyre. On each tray there is a lamb chop, two chicken thighs, some octopus, a hunk of pork, a piece of battered fish, some breadfruit, and some taro. All luke warm and tasting of bbq and not much else. And there's 500 of these.

After everyone had picked at their food (usually you just have a nibble then take it home), the gift giving started. Now in NZ, guests give the bride and groom presents. But we've seen the other side, and I tell you, we have new expectations. It took well over an hour for every high chief, village chief, respected elder and bank manager to be given their presents. The matriarchs organised the young ones from the two villages (the bride and groom's) to run in with a collection of fine mats, a box of crackers, a big tin and a tray of tins of corned beef, and a can of soda with a dollar note stuck to the top. We did have fun trying to guess the significance of all this: general wealth and plentitude I guess. When we realised that we were going to be included in all of this, there were some horrified looks at each other, wondering what on earth we were going to do with 12 fine mats. David rang Pati, the guru to all things Samoan, and he said keep them, but I think we're supposed to give them back to anyone who we give a gift to. One friend said her father (a chief) had a room full of them, all still wrapped up, and they just get rotated around the island. Or not - guess what everyone's getting for Christmas.

By this stage, we were muttering about going to the Equator for a beer, and Sue and I had checked out all the pule tasi and designed our own for the Christmas party. Finally, it was time for some attention to be given to the bride and groom. There's this song that's like the Samoan version of Ten Guitars; everyone knows it and it's played everywhere you go. Or at this wedding, 6 times in a row. The band plays the intro, everyone starts whooping, the bride gets up and starts dancing, the groom and the male attendants start swaying and clapping in the background, and some people get up and dance too, throwing money at the bride. Honestly, 6 times in a row. The band timed it beautifully, so the bride would just get herself an inch from sitting down, and she'd have to get up again. I think it was all the different family groups who would have their own dance. There wasn't an ANZ group, although we were half expecting one. By this time, the bride's in her second dress. Each family gives her a wedding dress, and she wears one for the ceremony and one for the reception. Another beautiful satin number.

I hadn't considered the best ratio of cakes to bridesmaids at a wedding before, but 29 to 29 worked beautifully. A couple of the senior attendants cut the base cakes into pieces, and the others delivered the cakes to the same respected guests who had the other presents. So we got a cake too.

That was pretty much the end, and we were all fairly hot and tired. It had been a lovely afternoon, and we felt very honoured. The whole "It's all about me (the bride)" attitude would not go down very well here at all. It's much more about the wealth and position of the families, to be able to show what good stock the couple come from, and to show their respect for others in the community. I hope the bride and groom have a nice honeymoon though - it was a marathon event.

I forgot the pigs! As the gift giving was going on, 7 whole roast pigs, whole as in with heads, tails, four legs, were carried through the gym. No idea where they went, but we had visions of one being tied on to the roof of the car when we went out! Now that would have been a photo ...

Under the grill

It's so nice to be warm again. Not that Canberra wasn't lovely, in a depths of winter kind of way, but it was 33 degrees today, and we spent the afternoon in the pool.

Taine and I had a great time with the Ducker-Fallens. The only drama on the way there was landing at the wrong airport in Samoa. Who knew Apia had two airports? I'd heard a vague discussion on the radio that the airport closest to Apia was reopening, but I'd assumed that the airline would contact passengers who were affected. What was I thinking? It is very disconcerting to see the airplane descend into a village when you're expecting a gentle sea view. And of course, there was the manic 45 minute taxi ride across the island to get to our connecting flight at the other airport. Samoan taxi drivers rival Kuala Lumpur taxi drivers for their overtaking on blind corners past three cars and a bus "skills". Taine lay down with his head on my lap - wish I could have done the same.

Once we got to Canberra, Taine ran into the family room with Doug and Gabe and started playing, and didn't stop until the day before we left (when everyone just needed some quiet time). We went to the Raiders game, to Tidbinbilla, walked for 5ks round Lake Burley Griffin, Questacon, the gardens, shopping, coffee-cake, and all the other things you do on holidays. Lynley and Brad satisfied all our meal requirements, although they were a bit taken aback by the demands for cheerios. They're more proscuitto and pancetta people.

I tried many, many times to take photos of the cousins, but as you can see, they're all going through that silly pose stage (except for Gabe who just puffs out his cheeks and smiles sweetly).

Matt had his own trip to Fiji while we were away. He had to go via Auckland on the way over, so caught up with friends and froze, then had 4 nights at the Sheraton Denerau. Work he says, but I'm not convinced. I don't think he was either; his tolerance for marketing and branding jargon is not high. The symbolism of ANZ blue, anyone? He did get a very nice ANZ Pacific shirt.

The best thing about going away was coming home. Mele the housekeeper had taken advantage of our absence and emptied, cleaned and organised all the cupboards and drawers, including individually folding all Taine's undies, washed the windows and my car, and generally scrubbed the house from top to bottom.

So, only one more week until Helen and John arrive. They're here for two weeks, then one more week until school starts and Matt goes to Seattle. I had better get on with some lesson planning, but I don't quite feel the urge yet. Matt and I have been invited to a wedding at the beginning of August. The ceremony starts at 10.30 before the wedding breakfast at 1pm. The father of the bride is a minister, so it could be a long haul. We had strong advice from Matt's predecessor to avoid weddings: if you go to one, you'll be invited to everything, but I guess we'll learn the hard way.

It's very quiet on island at the moment, well, amongst the ex-pat community at least. All the neighbours are coming and going, and many Kiwis have headed home. There are endless complaints on Facebook about the cold! Taine's a bit starved for company at the moment. Matt bought a trampoline while we were away, so Taine's enjoying bouncing on that, but I seem to have lost my knack for multiple sit-twists. Be prepared for the next post to be complaining about a "sporting" injury!

Hope all the kids made it through the holidays without driving parents and grandparents mad. Book for your next winter escape now!

The Tourist Part 1

Finally a chance to catch up the waiting masses on our first visitor. Dad arrived last Tuesday after the usual whirlwind tour of Apia in the middle of the night. We knew Survivor is filming two series in Samoa and has fully booked the main hotel closest to the airport for four months (the day spa is still open though) but someone else has been having a lot of whanau to stay, as all the hotels between the airport and Apia were booked too. At least Dad did get into some motel out the back of beyond; the swim coach from Australia ended up staying at the taxi driver's aunt's place because his booking fell through (true story).

So, Dad has been our guinea pig visitor: what he has done, so will the rest of you. The first couple of days were spent introducing him to the wonders of grocery shopping and finishing the barrel of pork rinds. Thursday, we went to lunch at Maliu Mai and walked along the rocks by the airport to admire the blowholes. At one stage, a truck drove along the inside of the airport fence very slowly, checking to see which way the cameras were pointing - making sure we weren't taking photos of the stealth bombers on their secret mission (sorry, an in joke. The radio station's April Fools prank, telling everyone there were stealth bombers parked at the airport. A surprising number of people rang in to say they'd heard strange loud noises the night before, and now they knew what it was). Dad's photos of Maliu Mai are very flattering; it almost looks like a real holiday resort, and not some seedy dilapidated shack with big men nursing 750ml bottles of Vailima in the corners.

Jane was horrified at how little I'd seen of the island, so the next day we all took off to Vatia and the Cock's Comb. It took about 90 minutes to get there, by the time we stopped at McDs for coffee, dropped off a pair of shorts for Matt and his community cleaning that afternoon, and stopped at a vantage point to take the attached photo of Pago Harbour. It was very picturesque, although Taine has to learn he doesn't have to do a silly pose in every photo. When will he grow out of that - 17? The road was very windy and bumpy, and only one mad garbage truck careening round a corner on the other side of the road.

Once we got to Cock's Comb, we stumbled across the rocks to see the end, had morning tea, and turned round to come back again. There was an element of haste as I'd foolishly volunteered us to look after 11 children that afternoon when the swimming coach was teaching the coaches. It went as well as could be expected. I did like the 9 year old boy who brought his book, sat on the corner of the couch and stirred two hours later.

Saturday was a very rainy day so Dad got to wear his rain jacket. We went to Ace to buy a Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter and was most disgusted that the infomercial lied, and you had to buy the tomatos separately. Of course we didn't discover this until we'd got the thing home. As we were driving home, a driver pulled out in front of Matt and got called a plonker. Taine piped up from the back seat, "How did you know his name? Is that Mr Plonker?" And the rest of the day was mooching. We've introduced and converted Dad to Mah Jong. It's been funny listening to Taine teach him the rules. He's got them all right but there's not a lot of logic in the way he tells them. Helen: Taine can add up his own score and work out his doubling tiles! Makes up for watching him play rock paper scissors with himself: "It's ok, I'm not cheating, I'll close my eyes".

Sunday Dad ventured out to the golf course with some of the local businessmen. Jason's comment of "he's not bad for an old guy" summed it up I think. Dad can give you more details, but I don't think he'll be rushing back to play for the club champs.

Today we shopped! Well, marvelled at the weird and wacky things you can buy, but decided we really wouldn't bother.

Tomorrow we're off to Sailele after swimming lessons, for a swim at the beach. Then it's really just fitting in meals for the rest of the week. So many great restaurants to try, so little time (that's a joke).

Sorry to Dad for ruining his holiday stories. Luckily he's got heaps of photos instead. The next blog will be suggestions for what visitors need to bring; watch this space. And I promise I'll learn how to use punctuation properly too.

The Big 6 Year Old

My goodness, a month since my last post. I must be settling in and not gawking at every new/odd thing I see.

Taine is now a big 6 year old! Thank you for all your presents and messages. He is a very lucky boy. We had 6 friends round for a cowboy party (note to self: check availability of party accessories before committing to a theme) on the Saturday before his birthday. They played pass the parcel, musical spoons, shooting and a treasure hunt round the compound, where I seriously misjudged the ability and willingness of young children to run from slide to pool to gate to tree in the midday sun. Never mind, they all came back eventually, although one boy was walking round all the houses looking for a prize while the other kids were gathered round the table for lunch. We'd decided that cowboys eat tacos (sure they do) which we thought would be a fairly fool-proof lunch because the kids could make their own. Well, good idea in theory, but we didn't count on the first dear saying "I don't like tacos, can I have a sandwich" and the second repeating him and so on. Even Taine, the monster. But Mean Mum told them to have tacos or go hungry so everyone eventually ate something. Of course I overcatered so we were eating nachos, bean dip, burritos, ... for the rest of the weekend. The pinada cake didn't happen but Taine was happy with the result.

Sunday was a quiet day playing with lego and testing out the new goggles, then Monday was Taine Can Do Anything He Wants Day, which was fun for all. We went out for dinner at Sadie's By The Sea, which was decidedly average, but all visitors will get taken there anyway because the view is pretty.

Taine started swimming lessons on Tuesday, and is making super progress. Today he did a width of freestyle and a width of backstroke. The coach is very direct, and as Taine likes to follow instructions (given by anyone apart from his parents), he listens and does as he's told. Then he went back to Noah's to play and I started to plan my World History course. Just use the textbook, the director said, but the textbook starts with cave men and finishes in 1990 with 800 pages in between. So I downloaded the NZ topics, and may just use them.

My Auckland trip was fantastic. I just needed to get it out of my system and now I feel much better. The worst part was 8 hours at Apia airport on the way over. Luckily I made friends with two Australians who were on the same flights, so at least we could watch each other's bags if we needed to go to the bathroom. No early checkin! I wasn't too tired to manage a full day shopping at St Lukes on Thursday, a coffee lesson with Kyla and visit to Atomic Cafe to get the barista essentials, lunch and shopping with Jenni and Anna on Friday - we took Anna to her first scrap-booking shop but I think she recovered - , dinner and drinking and dancing with the girls on Friday night, lunch and shopping with Kate on Saturday before collapsing for a quiet night in dining and drinking and gossiping. Then a very early flight on Sunday morning to be home by afternoon tea on Saturday. I hope nothing earth-shattering happened on Wednesday because I missed it. Like the double weekend though. It was good to know nothing had changed, and everything will still be there when I go back. I didn't check on the house but I assume the agent would let us know if it had fallen down. Matt and Taine seemed to have fun without me - certainly don't seem to have missed me in any way :(

The last week of school went fine. Taine got a good report although the comment said he could be a bit sensitive and sometimes had problems sharing. And he still didn't know his calendar. It's graduation madness here. The school had a graduation for the kindergarten kids, with gowns and diplomas and all the works. The Tradewinds hotel over the road from us seems to have ceremonies and proms every night, which has made for some difficulty getting to sleep as another version of Dancing Queen pounds across the street.

Matt's busy at work. His IT guy went back to Guam this week, so we went and got his furniture for our place. I now have two scrapbooking desks and Taine has bunk beds which he's very excited about. His usual pattern is to go to bed in the top bunk but go to sleep in the bottom. Fine except for when it comes to making the beds in the morning. Matt did have a round of golf last weekend, but he's not rushing back. He reckons he got every 3rd shot to go in the general direction he wanted it to. And all the carts were recharging so they had to walk, which is tiring in 30+ heat.

Helen commented on Taine's accent when we were skyping this week. He got me yesterday when he was asking for a wrench sandwich. Took me a long time to work out he wanted ranch dressing.

We went to see Up yesterday. It was very good, much better than Monster vs Alien. Taine was really enjoying the house flying across continents by helium balloons, talking birds, mad scientists ... until he whispered "This is silly, dogs can't fly airplanes".

A different kind of winter

After seeing the pictures on the news of people snowboarding at Papamoa, I thought I 'd tell you about our winter. It's dropped to 30 degrees rather than 35, even getting as low as 25 first thing in the morning. It's lovely. We went to Tisa's last Sunday, and the host warned us about the nip in the air, straight off the Antarctic. Whatever. You do see people wandering around in jeans and jackets but I'm still in shorts and singlets. It rained all day Sunday, and while we were mooching inside watching movies and playing games, feeling like it was cold, it was a shock to go outside and discover it was still tropical.

And it's winter, because I've got a cold. I'm sure it's not swine flu (feels just like a normal cold, responds to drugs) but because I have to get on planes in a week, and Samoa are being particularly picky about who they let through, for a change, I'm off to the doctor today. One of Matt's workers is going to arrange it for me - he's the guy who knows everyone. If I can't get back into the country, I'll call Pati and he'll get me in. Our immigration hearing has been postponed twice because they can't get a quorum, and there's only three people on the board. Maybe this week.

The big talk on island has been the closing of one of the two tuna canneries. It employed 2000 people, and will close in September. The other big businesses are murmuring too, and so it looks like the recession has finally hit here. 6 of the 8 ladies playing mah jong here yesterday will be gone by the end of the year, so it's a real time of change. Matt's job is safe so we'll still be here.

Taine's cowboy performance went well. It was the usual disorganised school concert with the requisite sound problems and unenthusiastic teenagers, but the Starfish class were by far the best-drilled. My photos didn't really turn out as the children kept moving so I had to get Taine in costume afterwards.

I've been put in touch with the Simply Stampin' consultant on island, so I'm about to order even more scrapbooking stuff. There really is nothing to spend money on here incidentally, so I feel quite justified in spending more on big stuff.

Matt's played tennis with our neighbour a couple of times, and he almost played golf on Saturday. He's missing the gym, but with his hours, there's not a lot of time to exercise. I went to the walking track last week, started about 30 m behind a 9 month pregnant lady, and it took me 3 laps to catch up to her! And she had a pram! Her excuse was she was doing anything she could to get this baby out, so I don't feel too bad.

And for a last thought, one of the two supermarkets was closed for Mothers Day!

More creepy-crawlies

The only frogs I can find are the squashed ones on the driveway, which I don't think would make very appetising photos, but here a huge cockroach I found scuttling across the lounge yesterday and one of the dreaded milipedes. They have claws or jaws that leave you in agony for hours apparently. I'll take their word for it because it doesn't look that threatening.

We had a lovely Anzac Day celebration. The men played cricket, although it was so hot that they could only last about 15 minutes before needing a restorative beer. The ladies sat in the shade with their restorative wines and the kids jumped on the trampoline and generally hooned around. The hitting-over-the-fence-on-the-full-automatic-out was even more problematic with the tropical jungle claiming several tennis balls and a few small children. The pie-off was superb as this photo of the savoury section shows. My Aussie meat pie was fantastic. Although there is only so much pie you can eat in one sitting.

And this is a random photo of my fridge.

I love these cocktail mixers. for those of you with less than 20/20 vision, they're bottles of mai tai, pina colada and daiquiri mix. Add white rum, ice, frozen fruit and you're away, and it's even one of your 5+ for the day! (You take them anyway you can get them here).

Taine's starting to fret about his concert tonight. I found him doing his line dance in the shower the other night, saying left, behind, left, slap, kick and turn. It's hilarious how he can't just show you a part, it has to be the whole dance from beginning to end. We got his vest made ok - gotta love these sewing shops. I'm hoping the video function on our camera will last to get the song and dance, and there's a flag thing too. Great Friday night entertainment.

Nothing else much to report. We've finally got to the end of the bulk boxes of popcorn, roll-ups and crackers, and we never want to see another one again. Unfortunately popcorn is the snack of choice, so I get offered, and eat it, at least three days a week.

Go the Warriors!

Globe Trotters

Just a quick note to say Taine and I are going to Canberra from the 2 - 15 July, then Matt is off to Seattle from the 22 August to 6 September. Taine and I go back to school on August 19. Yes that's right, me too. I went to see the principal on Wednesday, opened with "I'm a teacher" and her reply was "Yes, I've already heard that through the grapevine and I was hoping you'd come and see me". So, I'm tentatively teaching World History for two hours a day to the high school next academic year. Matt's comment was knowing lots of trivial pursuit questions doesn't mean you can teach that, but I explained I had taught History before, my minor was American History, and anyway, I can read faster than high school students! It feels great to have a job again, like a real weight is off my shoulders. How's that for contradictory? Just as long as the two hours isn't at the same time as MahJong, breakfast and painting of course.

I've also managed a shopping/cafe weekend in Auckland in late May. Poly Blue have very cheap fares at the moment; I think it's costing me just over $300NZ return Apia/Auckland. Still haven't worked out the Pago/Apia leg though.

The Case of the Missing Bananas

Remember that photo from last time of Matt pointing proudly at our bananas? The next day, I went out to inspect them and they were gone! All that was left was a stalk, drooping forlornly on the grass. The gardeners are the chief suspects but I have no proof. It could have been anyone as there's a road on the other side of the fence, but I have learnt to either specifically say these bananas are ours or cut them down as soon as I see them. Bummer.

This week's highlight was Flag Day, 109 years since the American flag was raised on Am Sam. It's a very big deal. As Matt's boss is off island, he'd picked up the invitation to the Governor's box, but when we realised this included church on Thursday night, breakfast in the box at the stadium on Friday morning, and watching a full day of celebrations, we gracefully declined. Matt decided instead to march with the ANZ Amerika Samoa group. He left just before 7am on Friday morning, sat in the sun in the middle of the athletic track listening to speeches until 10, walked for 200 metres, then hightailed it to the bank for a BBQ. He said it was very, very, very hot. Taine had a sleepover the previous night at Noah's (it was our wedding anniversary, so we'd gone over to Trade Winds for a meal - the most beautiful pulled pork and Matt had various exotic seafood), so I picked him up at 12 and joined the party. Taine was exhausted (they'd got up at 5am) so he crashed on the seats inside the branch, along with half a dozen others. Some of the bank staff had spent half the night marinating 42 chickens for the BBQ. The maintenance men had set up the coal BBQ, then turned it over to 4 teenage boys who spent the next 4 hours cooking the chickens. Beautiful, but far, far, far too much for 40 people. I had my first taste of kava. Hopefully my last, but the man offering was a very nice ex-gang member from NYC. It just didn't feel mannerly to refuse.

Another highlight of Flag Day weekend are the fautasi races. These are the big canoes, with 50 paddlers in each, racing from 5 miles out at sea into Pago. The paper in the last week has been full of the politics, which team isn't returning the trophy, which village has spent $140,000 USD on innovations to their boat ... They had the heats on Friday. The visiting team from Samoa had their rudder break, but because everyone knew they were a fast team, they were let through in to the finals anyway. Unfortunately the team that forgot to take their rudder with them weren't so lucky. I watched the final on TV on Saturday morning and they did the 5 miles in about 25 minutes. Watching the start just about made me seasick, as the horizon on the picture was going up and down and up and down. Apparently they don't worry too much about a start time or a start line. As soon as the boats are sort of in a line, it doesn't matter if a slow boat is a little bit in front, or a fast boat is a little bit behind., and that's when it starts.

Saturday was a quiet day, we finally watched the Warriors win. The Thomas came round to watch, so we planned the ANZAC day party for next weekend. There will be a pie off (although the email said an executive decision had been made and sausage rolls were also acceptable). So this morning I rushed to KS Mart to get some pastry. Bet it's all sold out by tomorrow. I think there were 14 Kiwi families/couples and 1 Aussie couple on the list, so we'll have fun eating pie and playing cricket and drinking beer.

Sunday we were going to head to the beach, but I locked us out of the house again (3rd time in 2 months) and it was a very tense three hours before we could get hold of the property manager to let us back in. Sundays are not good days to contact locals, as church and lunch take priority. Then as I was on my way out, I ran over Taine's bike and crushed the wheel. We didn't feel like going to the beach after that, but Taine and I went out for icecream to calm us both down.

I'm building up an album of nature photos, so here's a teaser: it is Taine's jandal, but that's still a whopper snail. They are very pooy creatures, as our front wall can attest to. Taine thinks it's hilarious (what a boy). The frogs are next and I'm working on a dragonfly, lizard and these cool birds.

Taine has another field trip on Thursday, this time to the library. I think I'm transporting again. Each time, his teacher warns me about some of the other rambunctious kids, and it's my son who is the loudest and most obnoxious. I did like the notice that said "All children must be belted". I'll get the Anti-Smacking group onto them - ha, that's me!

He brought home a notice last week and a length of fabric. Please get a vest made for the Cultural Day concert on 1 May. Luckily there are sewing shops on every corner, but there was a brief moment of panic. His class' act is a line dance and singing "Deep in the Heart of Texas". Not quite the culture I was expecting.

This morning, I've dropped Taine off, gone to McDs for a coffee and to read the paper, got groceries at the two supermarkets but still need to go to several more to find dried coriander, and I will go to the hardware store to get some keys cut (thanks to all the people who have suggested I should have keys hidden outside somewhere. Yes, I should) and to the travel agent to sort out our Canberra holiday. It may just be easier to come via Auckland (better planes, more convenient times, not that much more expensive) but it's all very complicated to work out.

Goodness, I can ramble about not very much! Thanks for getting to the end. S

Easter

Talofa

A peaceful day at last, although yesterday wasn't too stressful either. The long weekend was a busy one, in a Samoan way. Good Friday we went exploring to the far western side of the island. There's only one road which winded (wound?) through Leone, a biggish village which used to be the main centre, then through progressively smaller and smaller villages. The villages got smaller because the land between the sea and the mountain got narrower. There's no building on the hills. The road got windier and windier, and narrower and narrower as it climbed up and over mountains. An hour later, we drove into the village at the end of the road. The men sitting in the fale and the kids playing basketball looked at us briefly as we turned the car round in a beautiful 10 point turn, changed drivers, and headed back the way we came. If it was anywhere but here, you'd almost expect bandits with shotguns to be eying you from the bushes, but here you can just see the Samoans rolling their eyes and muttering something about mad palagi. We did stop to take photos at one point, but forgot to let the camera acclimitise, so there's a mist covering the lens. Happens with glasses all the time: you go from air conditioned car to outside and fog up completely.

We were coming back from the pool in the afternoon and got invited in to the neighbours' for a drink. Keith and Cheryl are with McConnell Dowell, a Christchurch based engineering firm that do all the road construction and are also involved with putting in the new fibre optic cable. They were hosting a team of Kiwi divers so we drank beer and talked rugby for an hour or so.

Saturday was a quiet day, then Taine and I went to an Easter egg hunt at an American lady's house who I hadn't met, but hey, if we get an invitation, we're there. Matt was going to come reluctantly, but then decided to stay home and watch the Warriors. He needed a quiet day, especially as Taine does not stop talking! Anyway, this village was up in the hills, and was just lovely. Where we are is the most populated part of the island, and you forget about all the other places off the main strip. The party was mostly Americans. Very different from the Kiwis. What is it about Americans that makes them so clean and sparkly? Mind you, they all seemed to be here with either the church or the Environmental Protection Agency. And no alcohol. Lots of children and babies too. Everyone was very friendly, and Taine had some friends from school there. The men were all quite jealous of Matt being allowed to stay home and watch sport by himself.

Sunday we had the Mah Jong families and a few others here for an Easter egg hunt. We gathered in the fale by the pool and the kids swam, played, hunted eggs and ate. Jane is going to be taking the K5/Grade 1 class next year, which Taine and about 3 other children there are going to be in, so the mums had lots of suggestions for what she could/should do with them. The Easter egg hunts were a bit of an anti-climax for Taine, as the candy here is so awful (the non-chocolate candy especially). Lots of things have nuts, and there's a weird fruit punch/cherry flavour in a lot of things, almost almondy. Speaking of nuts, Noah came to play after school yesterday, and I'd forgotten what a hassle it is feeding a child with allergies! He's allergic to dairy, and the stress of reading every label, and trying to remember all the ways dairy is labelled. My apologies for putting you through this with Taine!

Today, I've been for my 5 lap walk, talked to Helen on Skype, will go to the one cafe for a coffee and to read a three month old magazine, then I'm going to play with my new machine, the Cricut Personal Cutter. Three weeks for an envelope from NZ, but only six days for a big box from the states, including over Easter. It's very cool. Here's Matt with a big bunch of bananas growing in our back yard. They're the tiny ladyfingers, and just lovely. I've asked around, and apparently you cut them while they're still green and let them ripen inside. And you can only cut off a few at a time, thank goodness. I'll go see the gardeners and get them to do it for me with their trusty machetes. Their version of gardening is to attack everything with a machete so it's the same size. My kind of place.

Sharyn

Photos finally

Although I haven't taken many in the last few weeks. Here we go:

Here's Taine walking back from the pool. There's 8 houses in the compound, all reasonably separate with lots of space around them. There's two different styles, one with all the bedrooms upstairs and a very odd layout downstairs, and ours with the master suite downstairs, the rest of the bedrooms upstairs and spacious living downstairs. It's by far the nicest compound on island - we're very lucky. It's just been sold to one of the churches, and there are rumours we'll all be kicked out but everyone says not to worry until it actually happens.

This is our green house. The others are all muted greys and browns. The colour must have been on sale. The round window is the stairwell. Our bedroom is upstairs on the left, and my studio is the right. Taine's room is the other side. There is a "busy" corner behind the house but there's plenty of foliage to muffle all but the boom of the buses. There seem to be two gardeners working fairly much full time, with a midday siesta. There are coconuts all around, but apparently by the time they fall down, they're old and dry.

Taine and his friends on the field trip to the supermarket. They have another trip on Thursday to their teacher's house for an Easter party and egg hunt. The notice says to bring a dozen (12) plastic eggs with things inside to be hidden. Do not put in chocolate, as they will be hidden outside! I'm new at this egg hunt thing, so I may have to ask the ladies at breakfast or go look at the display at the supermarket (not up to your standard, Jenny). The class are all getting the school lunch (pizza and cookies) on Thursday. No bring a plate here.

The ANZ Amerika Samoa soccer team. Spot the lone palagi in the back. Gives you an idea of the landscape: a village with a church surrounded by lush foliage with a mountain in the background. The football ground (Pago Park) is the other side of the harbour, about a 30 minute drive from here. There's the Veterans Stadium near us where they play American football . It has a grandstand on each side.

And finally, a food shot (again, Olivia, not up to your food styling standard). You've got to love the fat to meat ratio. Bacon is super cheap, and fried at home is just gorgeous, if incredibly unhealthy. At diners, they must deep fry it, as it comes out rock hard and flat. I think we had this for breakfast with waffles and maple syrup. I trid to ask for waffles at Deluxe Diner last week, and it took 4 tries to translate wofles to waarrffles. Water is also problematic! We had people round for a BBQ on Saturday, and Sue and I were trying to explain the difference between a Kiwi and an Australian accent to an American. He didn't get it at all! Matt finally tried the whole chicken straddling a beer can cooked under the hood on the BBQ. Was delicious, but looked slightly threatening while it was cooking.

Have a happy Easter everyone. The only chocolate eggs you can get are English creme eggs, with solidified creme. I just heard an ad on The Rock for caramello eggs. If only! Oops - this isn't a hint to send us some. By the time they stood on the port for a week, I don't think they'd be in a fit state. Helen sent us a parcel last week which took 19 days. Apparently that's very quick. I ordered a package from Amazon yesterday (a Cricut creative cutter for all you scrapbookers out there. Taine and I watched the infomercial open-mouthed, and it's less than half the price than in NZ shops) so we'll see how long that takes to get here.

Have an extra chocolate dose for us.

Sharyn

Same things, different country

Hi all
First of all, Skype is wonderful. We're all set up with the webcam, and last night I talked to Dad for half an hour. He could show off his pot plants, and I could watch a league game on TV. Everyone's happy! If you do get it, please let me know, and we can set up a time to chat. It will take a while for Taine to get comfortable using it, as he was happier giggling and hiding behind the chair rather than talking. Knowing the amount he talks, I'm sure it won't be long before he's yarning for hours.
This morning I went to the OMV (Office of Motor Vehicles) to get my drivers licence and change the ownership on the car. They made me sit a test! How the hell do I know what the alcohol blood limit is, or how many feet you have to indicate for before turning (it's 100 actually). There were some trick True False questions, like if a police officer asks you to stop, it's ok to run away, and one specifically aimed at palagi who don't like doing the DUI tests. I went for the government answer for that, rather than the answer based on everyone's stories. I had a very nice man supervising me, who kindly told me some of the answers when I didn't know the difference between a curve and a turn.
And then when I got the temporary licence (no Social Security Number yet, or proper residence permit, but that's another story), I may as well have made it myself on some of my blue cardstock and saved myself the bother! Not very high tech. Of course the car salesman hadn't given me the right forms, so I'll have to go back to him. Some professions are the same everywhere (apologies to any car salesmen reading this, and taxi drivers should feel singled out too).
Now it's off to the Leafou Shopping Mall (6 shops) as I've heard a rumour there are coffee plungers at the photo and gift shop. Of course.
We made an effort to get out at the weekend, with some success. Some of Matt's workmates are going to Apia for a team-building weekend (another thing that doesn't change -read drinking holiday) and had a fund-raising car wash. Car washes are everywhere. Every weekend and public holiday, and actually one opposite the supermarket on Monday morning, every church, youth group, family has a car wash. There'll be a dozen kids standing on the side of the road with signs yelling at you, and a few in the background armed with hoses and brushes. I thought wow, everyone on the island must have clean cars, but the standard MO is to just throw a couple of dollar notes out the window which the kids run on to the road to pick up before they blow away, or another car drives over them. Everyone's happy.
We didn't figure this out until we actually made the team clean the car, while Matt and Taine squirted each other with the hose. The funniest thing about this car wash was the complete lack of safety. On the busiest (only) road to Pago, the team had an extension cord running from inside the house, over the road, to get the stereo going on the other side of the road.
After the car wash, we went over the hill from Pago to Fagasa, a little bay over the hill. Nothing else there except for a little village, and you really do just go up the hill and down the hill. Nice views.
Sunday we all went to the walking track in the morning, Matt and I walking, Taine on his bike. All was going well until Taine tried to go up the hill. We were watching him from 100m away, wondering if his little legs could carry him, and if he had enough momentum. He didn't. In slow motion, the bike went up, then came down, Taine screaming at the top of his lungs as his bike slowly skiided right and he ended up down a bank, bike on top of boy. Poor boy was quite traumatised and sat under a tree for the next 3 laps. In the afternoon, Taine and I went to see Monsters vs Aliens, along with most of the palagi on the island. Tickets were only $13 for the two of us, but the candy counter was ridiculously expensive. Mind you, the size of those popcorns and sodas could feed a family of 4 for a week. Movie ok, nothing special at all. Kids laughed.
I went to Painting on Thursday. A group of 50-something ladies gossiping, talking about their children and grandchildren, having a lovely time doing their own artistic thing. Felt very Altrusa-y. I'm going back next week. Might even do something this time.
Matt's soccer team got in to the semifinals, which we went to watch on Thursday evening. They lost, and Matt injured himself as goalie diving for a ball. He said the instinct was still there, but the body couldn't quite do it. I'm not sure what the next sport will be.
Must be end of term soon. Hope everyone, teacher and students, have had good terms, and aren't getting scratchy yet.
S

Skype

We have joined up with Skype so if you join up too, we can talk on the "phone" for free. All you need is a headset/microphone/webcam (or so the bank IT guy tells us).
Our user name is Matt.Sharyn.Hunt (because Matt still thinks he's the boss).
Let us know if you sign up too. Otherwise we have to pay 2.1 cents a minute to talk to you.

A Night Out

Had to write a post today about our fabulous night out last night.

The occasion was Fashionista, with entertainment from the Island Divas, over the road at Trade Winds hotel.

The opening act (only 45 minutes late) was the Divas, a group of 12 fafafines dressed in their skimpiest day dresses. The most beautiful, weirdest group of individuals I've ever seen. Great taste in shoes though, even if they were size 12 minimum.

In complete contrast, the demure, shy Samoan girls and guys modelling the latest in church wear, pule tasis (the matching outfits) and day wear were much more refined. We are just going to have to get our selves a set of matching outfits. The guys all wear their shirts completely oversized, so they made Matt's work shirt look miniscule in comparison.

The models were superb as everytime they came out, the heavens opened, but they still kept smiling and posing as they were getting absolutely drenched.

A highlight was the commentary by the MCs: an older diva who still looked as if she'd give the younger ones a run for their money and who instructed the the sound guy to "Always leave my microphone on, honey" and a local radio announcer. His description of every outfit was along the lines of "and here's Sele looking beautiful in a purplish top matching beautifully a purplish skirt, with a flower pattern going from right to left, no left to right, which highlights the middle section of the skirt" and so on!

In between the models, we were entertained by a guitar trio of palagi who started with a 14th century tune, then descended to self-penned blues: "Come and have some kava kava and loosen up your lava lava". What are the chances of these guys finding each other on a rock in the middle of the Pacific? And then there was the glamourous Miss Bianca Del Terra (or something like that) who lip synched and gyrated to some obscure Hindi/Chinese tune. Truly.

The divas came back a couple of times, for the sports wear and the evening dress (but thankfully no swim wear). The sports wear was best, as they all dressed up in a different sports uniform-fafa style. So the volleyballer stripped off normal shorts for the teeny-weeny variety, and the basketballer wore high heels, and the tennis player did very unusual things with a racquet. But boy could they move. Three of them worked the splits into their routine although they did have some trouble getting back up again, the very large karate fafa could do back flips, and the boxer's high kicks were impressive.

The event was raising money for the American Samoa National Olympic Committee, and a table ticket got you wine and nibbles. The wine was the most revolting thing I've ever tasted, since the days of Blue Nun and Wohnseidler. Nasty, nasty sweet Californian drivel. And the nibbles were cold, deep fried pork, chicken, fish, meatballs and wontons. Luckily the beer was cold and it kept coming, sometimes two rounds at a time when the boys got confused.

Our lovely "housegirl", Mele, was babysitting, and it was bliss to be able to walk home afterwards to a tidy house (she'd emptied the dishwasher, tidied the kitchen, folded the washing). We ignored the savage dog attacks outside the hotel this week that had seen an American tourist get 12 stitches. I'm sure all the dogs were in bed by then.

So, our first experience of a night out Samoan style! While I think if you've seen one fafa show, you've seen them all, it was definitely a great night, and if you happen to be visiting when there's a show on, prepare to be entertained.

Miss Sharyna

The Tsunami that Wasn't

I eagerly logged on this afternoon to check all the emails of concern I thought would be flooding in (ha ha) from you all. Where's the concern, people? Weren't you worried we may be lying under metres of water?

It was a dramatic start to the day. Jane rang about 8.15 to ask if I'd been listening to the radio. No, I'd only just emerged (Taine had been up for hours) and was just about to eat breakfast. There's a tsunami warning out, it's going to strike at 8.23, we'll pick you up in 5 minutes. (Jane, Jason, Noah and Tahlia)

OK, 5 minutes to throw together a survival pack, including togs (I thought we may end up in a pool), water (good one), passports (just how far was this wave going to take us?). Sure enough, 5 minutes later, we're heading for the hills, literally. We went up, and up, and up and ended up on top of one of the mountains, where you could actually see Samoa out the other side of the island. Beautiful view - all you visitors will be taken up there.

On the way, we passed school buses offloading kids and lots of people standing around, and cars of palagi driving really fast upwards. At this stage, I called Matt and he was very unimpressed by the whole palaver. I'm sure you can all imagine his underwhelmedness. He thought his building would be safe if a tsunami hits. Not sure why.

Anyway, we sat enjoying the view for half an hour, watching more and more cars/vans/rubbish trucks speed up the hill. One car pulled up in front of us, and we could see their cat peering back at us very suspiciously from the dashboard. There were two ships out to see which were going round in circles, so they obviously didn't want to come into the harbour just in case. All this time, the radio was going between tsunami warnings, the upcoming Cash Cube draw, requests, birthday calls, which schools were closing ... The highlight was listening to the 9 oclock news and they didnt' mention it!

So an hour after we left, we decided to go back and get a coffee. There were still masses of cars on the road (good for an evacuation plan - we know which roads will be blocked) and we did feel a bit silly heading in the opposite direction from everyone else again. Luckily McDs was still open so we had breakfast and coffee finally. I did have visions of climbing the playland in a hurry when the wave came, and I could see the irony of being caught with a coffee in my hand. Matt rang to say the warning had been called off.

To recover, we all went for a swim for an hour or so, the kids played on the computer, Taine got a blood nose and all is well again! The lessons learnt have been have a survival kit ready at all times, listen to the radio, and don't worry about what everyone else is doing. There are times when Island Time is negotiable!

apart from that, spring break is going. I've been sick all week, just generally feeling grotty, which has made for some long days. Mah Jong by the pool on Monday was great, Taine had a swimming assessment on Tuesday and will start classes as soon as there's a vacancy, breakfast yesterday and MJ again tomorrow.

Our stuff is still sitting in a container at Pago Pago. There were some issues over payment (nothing to do with else, Melbourne's problem) and the contact for releasing the paperwork has been mysteriously out of the office everytime I call.

We have a weevil problem with some dry goods. Did you know boiling them doesn't kill them? You should have seem them come crawling out of the lasagne sheets. I went looking for some rice to replace the contaminated bag, and did you think I could find a bag that was under 10lb? I will keep looking. Poor Matt came home to no dinner on Tuesday because I was feeling so crappy, then no dinner last night because of the rice situation so I'm feeling bad that I only have one job to do each day and I can't even get that right! Obviously stirfry to use up the bok choy wasn't meant to be. never mind, I think we will be eating a lot of boy choy over the next 3 years.

Enjoy the weekend everyone.
S

The award goes to ...

Well, it's almost been a month, and it's time to do Sharyn's pick of the bunch.

Most relief: Meeting with Taine's teacher today and getting a report that says he's doing really well, reading well above his age and settling in with all the other kids. She also commented (very, very loudly - she's from Texas) on how he was a role model for the other kids for sitting properly and listening carefully. No, never seen that child before.

Feeling stupid 1: But she commented on his maths that he hadn't come across some of the concepts like AB patterns and sorting. What's an AB pattern we both asked? (Blue, red, blue red as opposed to ABB blue, red, red and ABC blue, red, yellow, blue, red ...) Would explain why Taine spends hours (well, it seems like it when you're supervising) colouring/coloring squares on his maths worksheets. They're even doing graphs!

Best adrenalin rush: driving the mighty 8 seater Nissan Pathfinder through huge puddles that come up to the doors, on the wrong side of the road, bouncing over potholes. It's not really even the wrong side of the road, as if there's a puddle or a pothole (90% ofthe road) you just drive round it, even it that takes you to the other side. The other cars just wait. The trick is to not splash the beautifully dressed locals walking to church at the same time. There's a reason the speed limit is only 25mph here.

It's starting to feel like home 1: buying the desk and chair for Sharyn's Scrapbooking Studio and working out where I'm going to put all my bits and pieces. It's going upstairs in the spare bedroom, so that the GUEST SUITE is left free. Did I mention the GUEST SUITE has its own bathroom and walk-in wardrobe? And air-con and a fan? And a deck?

Fraudster of the month: Moving my book, Sudoku and coffee from room to room to avoid getting in the way of the housekeeper. Twice a week, no less. Last week, she ironed everything in our wardrobes.

Some things never change 1: I've started going to yoga, and I reckon I have a quarter of the flexibility of the other 2 in the class. It sure aint graceful when I go into Downward Dog.

Feeling stupid 2: having to be shown how to fill out a cheque/check by the nice lady at Cost U Less. They have an extra line!!! How was I supposed to know what to put on it?

Feeling stupid 3: asking in 3 different shops for hair bobbles, or even hair ties and getting shown to completely different products each time. What else do you call them?

It's starting to feel like home 2: I didn't come last at Mah Jong on Monday. I even could add up my own score.

Crisis of the month /Feeling stupid 4: Thinking, no knowing, there was something moving in the car, while I was in it. I burst into tears at the school, so another nice Kiwi mum searched under the seat for me. It must have scampered away while I had the door open. She even pretended that a frog could possibly have clambered up from the tyres/tires while Matt was at soccer.

Decision of the month: it is pointless to plan a menu for the week then go and get the ingredients, like all the domestic goddess books say to do. Here, you have to go to the first shop, look at their produce, look at their meat, end up in front of the frozen corn dogs, go the second shop, and so on (I think that's an ABC pattern). I was getting very frustrated and depressed not being able to do proper meals, but now I'll just have to go shopping every day. Matt did a beautiful chili squid at the weekend, so it is possible.

Party of the month / Odd bureaucracy: there's only been one, but Taine had a great time. One of his class mates' 6 birthday at McDonalds. In line with school policy, and yes, this is actually in the information we got, everyone in the class was invited to the party. You can invite all the boys, all the girls or the whole class if you give out the invitations at school. If you want to be choosy, you need to email or phone instead.

Feeling stupid 5: I felt this in sympathy. I'd noticed that the petrol gauge in the car didn't seem to be moving, but I had to go into Pago to fill it. Matt took the car to transport the visitors with the ANZ Head guy last week (I think I wrote he'd been cleaning it last time). And of course, it conked out a mile down the road, with the HR Head and a couple of others in the car. Matt tried to call people on his phone, no one answered, but luckily someone from the branc driving down the road saw him. See there are advantages to everyone knowing who you are! Matt was rather annoyed.

Fraudster of the month 2: Matt was in the paper twice on one day last week. "Matthew" was seen holding a gift given to the big guy, in his lovely staff floral shirt, and then was in the sports pages dribbling the ball during a soccer game. I think he was dribbling, but his arms were at funny angles and he had his cheeks puffed out. We're going to go watch him tomorrow. They play 3 times a week, but the season only goes for a month. That seems to be typical.

Some things never change 2: so many channels, nothing to watch. There are endless marathons of Top Chef, Real Housewives, Extreme Home Makeover and Wife Swap. Will and Grace and Frasier are on for an hour every night. I miss the Living Channel! There's no guide to what's on, and the programmes are 2 weeks and 3 hours out. The Oscars just happened three days ago and the 9oclock movies start at 6. They're advertising for programmes coming up on 3 March. We do get One News every night (at 7), the odd Super 14 game if anyone on island has paid for it and some Australian news channel. Some news is current, and some is old.

OK, normal stuff now. We're still thinking about what to do for the long, long summer holiday. Taine's birthday is the first day of the break (big hint for grandparents), and if there are going to be parties in June we may come back to NZ then for a bit. If you're planning on coming over to stay in the GUEST SUITE, then let us know and we'll roll out the red carpet!

Hope everyone's good. We are.