What to expect in Samoa...

So I've been reading more of the blogs from past WorldTeachers, both to prepare me and just for fun.  But it's actually freaking me out more than anything else...so I might stop reading soon!!  One of the girls' blogs I've been reading who was in my placement last year wrote the following on her last night in AmSam. Ohhhhh boy.  What is the next year going to entail?!

Sometimes when I break down my life in Samoa, it seems a little insane. What have I done during my year in Samoa?

·         I joined a gang. (TAP BOYZ!)

·         I broke up some fights.

·         I learned how to swear in Samoan.

·         I got a tattoo in a rusted out shipping container.

·         I’ve eaten eggs that have sat out in the store unrefrigerated for a couple of days.

·         I’ve poured out a bowl of cereal, seen that there were ants in it, shrugged, and ate around the ants.

·         I shook my thing to the Pussycat Dolls in front of an entire school.

·         I learned how to Wobble, and have failed miserably at doing the Dougie.

·         I learned how to open a coconut on a door jam.

·         I am no longer fazed in the least by seven-year-olds running around carrying machetes.

·         I got a neurotoxic disease caused by eating poisonous fish.

·         Consequently, I’ve learned not to eat the red fish.

·         I’ve gotten scars on my legs because open wounds never really heal here.

·         I’ve learned the proper way to tie a lavalava.

·         I’ve become absolutely immune to rain. Like, sometimes I don’t even notice I’m standing in it.

·         I’ve created a Sweat-o-meter, which 1 being a normal amount of sweat for your average summer day of grueling work in the States, and 10 being OH MY GOD MY CORE TEMPERATURE IS 300 DEGREES AND I AM  GOING TO MELT.

·         If I feel something crawling on me, I casually look down, and as long as it’s not something deadly, I generally ignore it.

·         I’ve accepted that expiration dates are really more like suggestions.

·         I’ve full on beat dogs with umbrellas, sticks, and rocks to keep them from biting me.

Of course, I’m not the only one who has changed. I’ve seen Abby eat around a bug that was baked into her donut. Quinn can now expertly judge when a banana plant is ripe for the picking. I’ve heard Amanda debate how exactly how smelly a shirt must be before it is TOO smelly. I’ve seen Rosa barely raise an eyebrow after being informed that the boat from Aunu’u might sink and she might have to swim to shore.

Actually, that last one pretty much sums up life here.

This is Samoa. Sink or swim.