Fun With Parasites (The Return of The Village)

Week two in the village: we went back to our village host families last Saturday for our second week-long stint. That afternoon I took an amazing hike along the road that winds inland up into the mountains with Ofisa, my father. We hiked probably halfway up the mountain (in the sun in 85 degree heat and humidity it felt as though we might as well have been trekking Everest) and when we turned around to look down we could see the most amazing sight. You see all of the valley area where our village Falevao is located covered in lush green foliage, (there is a bit of a monochrome theme going on in Samoa... fortunately for me my favorite color happens to be green so I'm in heaven with it!) the mountains on all sides of you, and off in the distance a couple of miles the ocean. It is breathtaking, both physiologically to climb there and psychologically once you're there. It was one of those moments (of which I have been fortunate enough to have many since arriving here) where I stood in amazement and said "Holy cow. I actually live here. This is my home." The next day I got up early and raced Andrew's brother to the ocean- he kept me honest, which is scary because he was going for our morning run BAREFOOT. Americans are SO not hardcore compared to Samoans. When we got back I got to help my family make the umu (outdoor oven where they cook food on hot rocks covered by banana leaves) for the big sunday meal. I learned how to weave a basket out of a palm frond to carry the food in, and I even got to make the palusami (my favorite Samoan food). Then we went to church and came home and ate all the food we made and hung out being lazy the rest of the day. We went back to class on Monday and got back into the swing of language study which I had felt like it was hard to be focused on when we were back in Apia. I have taken to being more adventurous and asking my family if I can try different foods when they have them since they tend to serve me pretty much the same thing at every meal. On monday evening this strategy came back to bite me in the butt when I unknowingly asked to try something that had not been cooked called miti made from cocount cream and salt water with onions. A couple of hours later I got quite sick and spent a fun night and next couple of days with a very high fever. We think what might have happened is I got an infection from something that got into the food that wasn"t boiled away. Oops. So the majority of the rest of my week in the village was spent kind of out of it and I had to miss a few days of classes. I felt back to myself by thursday or friday in time for our family day to work at the plantation on friday. I asked Ofisa on friday morning if we were going to the plantation and he told me it was too hot so we ended up just hanging around tafaoing (to relax or hang out). In the afternoon there was a big fiafia (party) at the house of one of the villagers because it was his fiftieth birthday so we went and ate a lot of food and danced a lot and had a good time. Then on saturday morning we had classes and came back into Apia for the night. So there was my week. I must say there are large portions of it I don"t particularly remember clearly but the parts that I wasn"t sick I enjoyed a good deal. And now I can say I have had my first of what I am sure will be many bouts with foreign bacteria in my system over the next two years. Hooray for my weak American immune system!