NEMO'S GOING TO THE DROP OFF!!

    Just a quick recap on an awesome weekend!!!!  So Friday was our welcome assembly at school, in which we all got beautiful hand-made leis.  Here, leis are not plastic. They're real flowers. And they smell so good!!!! All the new teachers also have to dance in front of the entire school at the welcome assembly, so we did that as well.  In the states, music is very censored in high school as many of you remember, but here, not only can the students run around blaring rap music throughout campus on their speakers, but the faculty and staff usually play it at the assemblies :)

So, we danced to a few mildly inappropriate songs (and I thought freestyling in my hip hop class at UVM was embarrassing) but most of the attention was thankfully taken away from me when the lunch lady grabbed Josh and began to grind up on him.  Perfect.  Wish I had a picture/video of it, but I'm sure most of our students do by now. It's probably gone viral.  To say the least, Josh gets free lunch for the rest of the year.

We had our 2nd football on Friday night under the lights, which was awesome, but our varsity team lost to Samoana.  We got a ride home from a football coach since the buses stop running around 6, and went to bed fairly early.  Saturday morning we woke up and made the trip into town to pick up packages...yayy!!!!! I got my rice krispy treats from Grammy...mmmmm.  Made with love.

Leone Lions vs Samoana Sharks

We met up with the WorldTeachers who live in town- Dan, Beth, and Sarah Foley, and went for a short hike up Blunt's Point again (but further this time) and then a snorkel.  The hike was gorgeous as usual, not too hot either.

the treacherous slopes

But the snorkel was AMAZING. I've done my fair share of snorkeling and diving, but I've never seen a drop off like the one in Pago harbor. And such a short distance from shore!!  We snorkeled out over some shallow reef and saw awesome triggerfish, and then hit the edge.  I'm hoping by the end of the year I'll have the guts to swim out over it, but it literally looks like the hole to the center of the earth. Pure abyss.  It reminded me of the scene in Nemo when he goes to the drop off!!!  None of us having the courage to go past it yet! EXCEPT, for the sea turtle we saw!!!  I saw it and yelled the way I had learned to yell my heart out last year when we saw really exciting animals while snorkeling in Honduras, and tried to catch some of it on my GoPro. Little did I know my camera was on picture mode rather than video, but I still got some decent shots of it.  I couldn't tell what kind of turtle it was- maybe some of you can tell from the pictures, but I think either Hawksbill or Green.

We got amazing ice cream after our snorkel, and had lunch again at the fish market that Dan's landlord owns.  They have fried fish, fried chicken, rice, and bananas that are cooked in coconut milk (I think).  since it was the end of the day, the lovely man gave us free Oka (freshly caught tuna in a spicy coconut milk juice, is kind of like sushi a little bit--- don't worry, I'm looking into the longlining that goes on here to get a better idea about the tuna!) and fried fish, since we all got chicken.  PJK's is the only place I've liked the oka so far, so I may get one of their "got oka?" stickers- since the got milk one's are kind of outdated.

Jill and I got a ride home from such a nice man who wasn't even really going in our direction- he offered a ride since he said we'd be waiting forever for a bus, and I told him it was okay because we had to the go the whole way out to Leone but he insisted.  So he drove us to Leone- about 20-30 mins out of his way, just because. He lived in the US for 20 years after growing up here and his parents always told him to give rides to the teachers and other palagis on the island.  He said the students have changed so much since he went to high school here- he doesn't understand why they all fight and don't respect their teachers and people who visit the island.  He asked us if we were hungry even though we had just had dinner, and explained to us that it is a huge part of Samoan culture to make sure that visitors, teachers, anyone! have enough food, rides to places, etc.  If you ever want to feel welcomed somewhere, come to American Samoa.

This morning- got to skype with Mom for her bday!!!  Mom, I think I ate better than you did on your big day- Moana had us over for an umu lunch again- breadfruit, taro, ribs, chicken veggie stirfry, fish cooked inside coconuts, and many other Samoan foods.  She also had carrot cake, and Jill made banana bread. Kristina and I walked to the bakery to get fresh bread and donuts (I mean.... uhh.... broccoli...) and then Kristina tried boiling her own breadfruit!  It was really good so now we know how to make one thing on our own and we can use breadfruit for a lot of things since it's like potatoes.

HAVE to start running this week so I can be in shape enough for the running club that I'm going to start in September-- and sadly, I'm sore from our little hike we did so I better start running ASAP!

Next weekend is labor day- long weekend!!!! Not sure what my final plans will be yet, but I'm sure we'll do something fun and adventurous since we have more time. May go visit Reina and Bethany on the north side!

There's always lots more to say, but I've been sick the past few days and need to keep catching up on rest, so goodnight!!