Field Trip!

Yesterday our school went on a field trip to the nutrition center. Part of the goal of the school is to get the students involved in activities that develop functional independent living skills. We have an area in the yard that is designated as our garden, but in the recent past it has been taken over by creeping sweet potato vines at the expense of everything else, so we decided to remove the existing items and start over. The nutrition center is very generous in providing and arranging free tours for students and free clippings and seeds of plants that can be brought back and planted. So yesterday we loaded up in our school bus and went across town where despite a bit of rain we explored the garden and learned about all of the different types of plants available for consumption. The students had a great time and we came back with bags full of cuttings to transfer to our own little garden. Everyone worked together to plant everything upon our return. I went down to check on things this morning and all of the plants look a bit wilted because in our flurry of action we forgot to water the plants yesterday after they were placed in the ground (oops). Hopefully that will be remedied by a bit of care today and down the road we can look forward to all kinds of exciting new vegetables appearing in the school lunches. The nutrition center mission is quite important as vegetables, particularly leafy greens, are used quite minimally in the Samoan diet which tends to be high in starchy carbohydrates, fat and meat. Many Samoans are suffering from an extremely high national rate of diabetes and obesity and the nutrition center is striving to create awareness of a healthy and well-balanced diet that includes the intake of a much higher quantity of fruits and vegetables. Hopefully their work will continue to educate and inform the community in ways that will lead to the inclusion of vegetables in many more Samoan dishes and eventually changes towards healthier eating lifestyles will begin to manifest themselves country-wide. And on a smaller and more immediate scale, these changes would be a welcome addition to the diets of the students right here at Aoga Fiamalamalama. Not to mention the fact that having a constant supply of fresh basil downstairs could hardly help but drastically increase my quality of life :)