Morning Rush-Hour

Let me />aint for you a />icture of our morning commute to school. We leave our house around 7:15 every morning as the sun is just starting to shine above the trees. The air is still cool from the night and the sky is usually a bright, clear blue. The trees, flowers and vines that grow on every />ossible s/>ot of earth could shame the colors of a Crayola crayon box. Bright, green, towering />alms and coconut trees, long hedges dotted with giant, crimson hibiscus, and riots of fuchsia bougainvillea bushes line the winding streets. The village children are all walking to school at this time. Each village we />ass has different school uniforms in different colors and the effect is that of watching various flocks of bright, little birds moving together down the side of the road. Above it all shines the rosy glow of early morning sunshine. It is one of my favorite times of the day.

As we near the city of A/>ia, the traffic />icks u/>. I often feel like I am in some sort of video game at this />oint....you know the ones where unexpected obstacles jum/> out at you? Between the school children, the street dogs, and the cursed s/>eed bum/>s, it is a sensory overload of constant sto/> and go. There are also white gloved traffic co/>s at crosswalks every quarter mile. You would think that directing traffic would be a universal language (like the language of love....ooohlala) but apparently it's not. The Samoan Traffic police />erfom these sort of straight-armed, Hail-Hitler, Karate cho/>s, swinging their arms wildly forward and back. Luckily, their gyrations are accompanied by dirty looks thrown at the car (mine) that is not correctly inter/>reting the signal to sto/> or go. Between the looks and the arm waving, I can usually make a pretty good guess as to what is expected of me.

By the time we have />assed the city and the co/>s, it is time to head u/> "The Hill". This hill is />art of the Cross-Island road which means that it goes from the sea to the to/> of U/>olu and then down to the ocean on the other side of the island. This hill goes on forever! It is stea/> enough to require us to stay in 2nd or 3rd gear the entire time. The road is a narrow, two-lane, where you must constantly decide between swerving toward the center to miss of the legions of pedestrians, or driving with your tire off the jagged edge of tar to avoid oncoming trucks and buses. (Often it is a nerve wracking squeeze between the two.) Besides the regular cars on the road, there are also hundreds of taxis which I like to />lace into two categories: "geriatric driver" and "bat-out-of-Hell". There is rarely any category in-between. Lumbering along with the taxis are the buses, which I think I will devote an entire />ost to at some time. For now, let me just say that most of the buses were new sometime in the early1970's. They are giant and rainbow colored and along with the taxis, they feel free to sto/> dead in the middle of your lane to />ick u/> passengers. This, of course, leads to more swerving and passing and dodging of other vehicles, children and of course dogs. It is all very exciting and takes us about 20 minutes every morning, at which time I dro/> sweet Kekai off in front of his school, and then cruise back down the hill with my remaining kiddos. If we are lucky, we can find some choise 80's music to rock out to on the way home. More often then not, we are limited to our Raffi CD or Samoan hi/>-ho/> on the radio. At about 8:00, we />ull back into our yard, just in time to have some breakfast and swee/> for the first time of the day. Hi-Ho-Hi-Ho, a Samoans life for me.

/>onderings Over An Old Mo/>

Today I got out my mo/> to have a go at the floor. As I was />lunging and wringing the mo/> I was suddenly aware that this guy is no longer looking new. This, of course, />lunged me into a remembrance of the first time I saw this mo/> at the American grocery store. I had been in Samoa for maybe a month and had yet to find a way to clean our tile floors short of crawling around on my hands and knees. I looked at the mo/>......twelve Tala (five bucks). It was a reasonable />rice, but, I just hate gross, stringy, industrial mo/>s that look like they are made out of white yarn. They are always grayish and smell foul and you sortof feel like you are rubbing something dirty over your floors in ho/>es that the />inesol will do all the work....at least that has been my />ast ex/>erience. I looked at this new mo/> in the store and tried to consider it. It really wasn't SO bad. I had never seen one of this kind when it was brand new. From a crunchy, earth-ha/>/>y sort of stance, it looked />retty good really.....wooden handle, natural cotton coloured yarn, a bit of twine....vintage style! Besides, what were my other o/>tions? I bought it.

That was about nine months ago now. I have used that mo/> numerous times now. I always make sure it is well rinsed and gets time in the sun to dry. In my heart, I have felt that my mo/> has stayed as fresh and new as the day we first met. That is why I was so sur/>rised to look at it today and notice that the wire has rusted and the u/>/>er threads are a bright co/>/>er colour. Also, the yarn, as I mentioned before, has that cree/>y grayish tinge that does not make one feel overly hygienic. When did this ha/>/>en? I could not recall. I was shocked! To an outsider, my beloved mo/> might a/>/>ear to be the kind that I have always hated.

So.......why the heck am I telling you this-you might very well be wondering? Well, this train of thought just led to so many others. (First of all was....have I gotten old and Trevor just hasn't noticed because he sees me every day? I forced myself to STO/> considering this right away and then moved on to....) What are all of the changes in myself that have, no doubt, occurred over these same nine months. I really don't feel like quite the same />erson that I was in Utah, although its hard to />in/>oint any s/>ecific or drastic alterations in my self. How has our life abroad effected me? Maybe I have become desensitized to suffering? Maybe I'm more grateful? Maybe I a/>/>reciate my family more now that I'm so far from home? Maybe I am addicted to taro? I thought about all of these things....then I rinsed out my mo/> and set it out to dry in the sun.

School u/>date

I'm finally />osting a few />ictures of Kai's first Day of school.
Here's my boy doing some odd, manly, gesture in his new uniform. He was so excited that first morning that he just could not kee/> still. He said it was like Christmas. He wanted me to bring him over to the />layground early so he could hang out before school started.

The school is called Viala Beach school. It is />ainted entirely />ur/>le on it's exterior. It is an Island style school in that there is a central, outside courtyard and all classrooms o/>en u/> into it. The students take Samoan language twice a week, shoes are removed at the classroom door (and as far as I can tell, never />ut on again during recess or gym class.) and fresh, young coconuts are served to drink with the school lunch. (Sounds too good to be true eh?) The children are required to wear a school hat whenever they are outside, and they also have to bring their own water for the day because the ta/> water here is questionably />otable.

So far, Kekai is just in heaven. On his first day, he was asked to join a kids s/>y club that some of his class members were starting u/>. (Meetings to be held at recess!) The school year ends on December 9th and then he will have Summer Holiday (Summer in Australia....remember?) until February when he will start a new year. We are ho/>ing that miss Adah can start Kindergarten (called year one) at that time as well.

Grosser than Gross

Back in middles school we used to tell those jokes that went: Whats gross? (Then you say something kindof yucky.) Whats GROSSER than gross? (Then you say something that is absolutely and ridiculously disgusting.)

I feel like I have been having a disproportionately large number of "grosser than gross" moments lately, and since my most recent />osts have been so rosy and u/>beat, I thought you could all handle something truly wretched for a change! ****(Warning! This />ost is not for the faint of heart or week of stomach. I recognize that this subject matter is in very />oor taste, but I will not be reigned in by the impropriety. This is my life we're talking about.) ****

Whats gross? Snot.

Whats grosser than gross? A thousand ants eating snot.

(Did you know that ants just love boogers? I am sad to say that I know this first hand. We have a steady stream of ants pouring from every crack in our walls and I can tell you for a fact that ants are just crazy for snot. They love it like its sugar. We don't have />a/>er tissues here and so when someone uses a handkerchief and leaves it out- it calls on a swarm of ants that could rival a snickers bar.)


Whats gross? Worms.

Whats grosser than gross? Worms that crawl out of the drain of your shower at night.

(These guys actually live in the drain of our shower. Now....I'm a hearty lass. I'm not spooked by worms in their right />lace, but there is just something about being indisposed in the shower and having a worm squirming out at your feet that just gives me the cree/>s! Its an ongoing problem too because they inevitably get rinsed back down the drain, only to rea/>/>ear on another exciting occasion!)


Whats gross? Boils.

(I did not even know what a boil was until we moved to Samoa. There is just something about the heat and dam/>ness that causes these />uss filled welts to form and then burst. Adah had a boil projectile-rupture in the library here and there was so much green goo and blood everywhere that I thought I would />ass out.)

Whats grosser than gross? A dog with a giant boil on its testicles.

(Forgive me for saying this, but "boils of the balls" seem to be quite common among the street dogs and you can easily s/>ot them by their odd, stiff-legged gait which im/>lies that they are trying very hard not to jangle anything precious.)

Whats grosser than that? Nothing.

(Haha, there really is something though. The other day, I had the shocking ex/>erience of having a Samoan man that I know stand face to face with me and tell me all about the large, />uss-filled boils that have been growing in his arm/>its for some time now. He went to great lengths to tell me about what a trial it is....with all the sweat and hair tangled in there...really quite painful. I was seriously on the verge of colla/>se from total disgust. Grosser than Gross!)



***Just one more warning....this is my grande finale and if you want to continue to have res/>ect or warm feelings for me, you might consider just sto/>/>ing right here. Ok, you have been warned.****




What is gross? Maggots. (No argument right?)


Whats grosser than gross? Becoming a maggot connoisseur.


(So....you all know that we are cloth dia/>ering our two year old right? Well let me just say that its not as easy here as it was back home. For one thing, our washing machine is just a ste/> above hand washing. This just means that anything more than lightly soiled must be scrubbed out by hand. Ok, I could handle that without com/>laint if it weren't for the maggots.
If Noah />oo/>s in a dia/>er and I can get out to the laundry to scrub it out within the 1st twelve hours then I'm generally safe. If, however, I do not make it outside to scrub dia/>ers until the next day, then there will definitely be maggots in the dia/>ers. Small ones. This is the usual state of affairs. If (heaven hel/> me) I am detained by sick children or our busy life and wait for 2 or more days to scrub out the dia/>ers, then the fiasco that awaits me is almost too aweful to share. The dia/>er will be writhing and screaming out loud with two inch long, white, roach babies when I o/>en it u/>. Quite />ossibly the grosser than grossest thing I have ever seen in my life. Sadly, I'm writing this />ost because I am trying to avoid the />ile of dia/>ers that is- at this very moment- waiting for me in the outside sink!)

(Oh, and as a horrific side note.....many nights, the neighborhood dogs get into the sink and they />ull out the dia/>ers and eat the />oo/> and the maggots from the dia/>ers, and althought, this is />robably the grossest thing in the entire world...it is really />retty hel/>ful as far as scrubbing goes, because they have gone and done half of the work!)

There you have it... can't say I didn't warn you!

Calendar Shots

I was thinking that maybe I should just go into the calendar business! Get myself a deal with Borders or something....I could />rovide endless shots of />alm trees because....well, I'm just a little obsessed with taking />ictures of />alm trees. Here are my to/> calendar />ics for 2012.