Antici...pation

Greetings from the Apia Central Hotel. The past few days have been mostly full of language, language, and language. With a little language thrown in for good measure. We are heading off for our first week-long stay in the village tomorrow and I think the goal is to get us to the point where we can at least ask people what their names are and say “I don’t understand” (the #1 most useful phrase at this point in my opinion) by the time we get there. I know at least for myself it’s very exciting and a little nerve-wracking. I’ve been anticipating getting my first exposure to actually integrating into the Samoan way of life for so long and now it’s finally here. The past week has been really great and really intense and completely full of constant exposure to a gamut of new experiences, but at the end of the day we’re really kind of a bunch of palagi’s (foreigners, white people) staying in a hotel here and hanging out with each other. Only once we have to sink or swim in a fully Samoan environment will we be able to get our first taste of what life here is really like. I’m enjoying the language and getting to learn it, although my biggest frustration is that it feels a bit overwhelming to be trying to process everything that is so new and different that’s going on simultaneously, and learning a language is not a minor component in that. I wish that I had more time and resources to donate to being a geek and making myself flashcards and drilling myself and cementing it all in my brain, but I keep trying to tell myself that I can be patient, because I will get there eventually. My guess is this first week is going to involve a lot of grunting and pointing and interesting misunderstandings. I can’t wait! It amuses me how excited I am about being completely incapable of communicating with those around me, but there you have it. In other news, I am very proud of myself- two days ago I did my first ever load of bucket laundry. All my clothes are kinda stiff and probably still dirty but it was my milestone inaugural experience and it’s still exciting to me. Yesterday we went out to the ocean to do our water safety training and we were supposed to go out on a boat but apparently the boat decided it had other plans so we ended up snorkeling around on the edge of a really beautiful reef instead at the Palolo Deep marine preserve. Some of the current volunteers are working on fisheries projects there and they have set up pens where there are giant clams growing that are unbelievable… I’m not sure I have ever seen them in the ocean before in any of the places I have gone snorkeling or diving. Absolutely spectacular. It was a nice break and a change up from the couple of days before it where we were in training here at the hotel all day. Today we have a block of time off this afternoon to prepare for our departure tomorrow. What does one bring to go live in an entirely different manner that is completely foreign to them for eight days? All of the women in our group decided to get traditional dresses (called puletasi: a shirt and a wrap-around skirt, aka lavalava, that are made out of the same fabric) made so that we can wear them to our village. We are expected to dress much more conservatively in the village than in Apia, where we are expected to dress much more conservatively than in the US. We are picking them up this afternoon and are all very excited about our first Samoan formal attire. So this afternoon the plan is to figure out how little I need to throw in a bag for the next week and then all of the rest of the stuff will be stored at the Peace Corps office here in Apia. Tonight we are meeting with current female volunteers while the men meet with current male volunteers for our boy/girl talks. Should be a good forum for getting to bring up obscure female questions like how do you shower from a bucket while wearing a lavalava… And then tomorrow we’re off! I won’t be able to type while in the village but we will be coming back to Apia next weekend for another week here so my guess is you will hear from me then. Try not to pee your pants with the suspense.