Farewell Falevao

This morning group 75 hugged their families goodbye and got in the Peace Corps van one last time to return to Apia from Falevao- our village stay is officially over. Yesterday afternoon the village matai (titled men, kinda like chiefs) held a farewell ava ceremony for us. During the ceremony the village trickled in bit by bit until pretty much everyone we knew was at my house surrounding the fale where we were sitting. Some of the young men in the village got up and danced for us and then we performed our fiafia for everyone. This mainly consisted of us attempting to replicate traditional Samoan siva (dance) in its various forms- hopefully not too much was lost in translation. We also put on a play in Samoan to show our gratitude to the village. Then everyone went home to spend the evenings having private farewells with their families. I hung out with my sisters goofing around teaching each other different sivas, and with my family talking about our time together and my trying to convince them not to be too sad, that I'll be back in only two weeks for Christmas. Even so it was a very emotional experience- it's a little overwhelming to realize how long we really lived there and it has been the one place we've been able to call home the whole time we've been in Samoa, and now that chapter is at a close and we have to say goodbye and leave it behind us. This morning we were supposed to meet at 7 and the entire village seemed to gather as we all said our farewells and it was time to go. It was really heartwarming to experience the outpouring of love and kindness that everyone has shown for us over the past two months and really feel it this morning on our way out. It is exciting to be moving on to the next step in this process but it is hard to know that in order to go down that path I have to say goodbye to my family here... at least temporarily.