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