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