The Seven C's: Cleavers, Coconuts, Cockroaches, Centipedes, Church, Circuses, and Chaos

Coconuts and Cockroaches
A few weeks ago, Kristina and I decided to have a real exciting Saturday night.  We wanted to get some coconuts, maybe add a little pineapple juice and rum, and eat some wonderful coconut meat and have delicious drinks while watching Boy Meets World.  Well, it sounded so easy and relaxing.  We first needed to find a coconut.  This seemed like a simple step to our plan, as they grow all over our yard.  We went outside where Tau (a man who works for the Purcells) was picking breadfruit, went to the tree next to him, and I started jumping up and down trying to pull down a coconut from the tree without having any fall on my head and knock me out.  Tau walked over to us, and in his broken English said, "So....what do you plan on doing with that once you get it down?"  in his sweet, innocent Samoan accent.  Samoans will never straight out tell you that you're doing something wrong, but they will just make you seem like a total idiot and make you realize you are totally incompetent and have no idea what you're doing because you're a stupid American.  :)

If Maveaga was still around, (Tau's 8 year old brother) he would be appalled that we do not know how to open a coconut at our age.  Apparently last year he laughed at the world teachers while they tried to open a coconut, and then walked over, gave it one good hack with a machete, and went on his way.

For those of you who don't know your coconut anatomy, coconuts have a VERY hard outer shell, and then another VERY hard but not quiiiiite as difficult to crack inner shell before you get to the coco milk and meat.  Tau said we should just give him 20 minutes and he'd be back with coconuts for us, instead of watching us miserably fail.  We told him that next time we wanted a lesson.

Finally- success!!

Soon enough, Tau was knocking on our door with 2 beautiful coconuts with the outermost layer gone.  Seemed like from there we could get it.  Hah.  Kristina and I spent another 25 minutes using every sharp item in the house to get the damn thing open.  We had opened coconuts before, by just slamming them on our cement porch, but it was late and we didn't want to be too loud, and we wanted to not be total fools opening coconuts like cave men.We used a cleaver (actually.... it took 2 cleavers to open the coconut if you think about it), 3 knives, chopsticks, and a few other obscure tools to open our coconuts.  We even had to look up 5 different ways to open coconuts online.  If only Tau had been there to see us....

Just another Samoan Saturday night :)

I then proceeded to look for straws in our forbidden cupboard (which has about every time of insect living in it and more), head something scurrying around and saw 2 cockroaches.  I decided to get my headlamp, a bottle of Raid, and a spatula to get the little shits out of there.  I got one, the other got away.  It was officially the most Samoan night we have had.  

Centipedes

Amber (was a world teacher in Leone last year and has come back to teach on contract) has bad luck- bears, bugs, illnesses- everything seems to find her when she travels.  She got bit by centipedes last year, and this year they're already coming for her. The centipede bite is apparently like 9824183921 times worse than a bee sting, and lasts for a few days.  Amber went into the bathroom at LHS the other day and was followed by a centipede.  After playing a game of "avoid the centipede" with her feet, she made it out alive.  But I am now nervous to ever use that bathroom.  Then, I had my very own centipede experience, finding one right next to my bed.  This one wasn't very big (so I am told), but it was big enough to totally freak me out about trying to sleep.  Needless to say, I am petrified.

The culprit.

Church
 Went to a student's special church service a few weeks ago- it was specifically a service where the kids sang the whole time.  It was AWESOME!   A few of my students were in it- and it was awesome to see the quiet ones open up and belt their soul in front of an entire congregation- and have so much fun doing it.  They sang church songs to the tunes of Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, oldies, Azonto, and many other hilarious songs that made me smile and laugh to hear them singing church songs to, even though it was in Samoan and I couldn't understand a lot of it.  

The Circus
  The other night we chose to go to the Magic Circus of Samoa!  It was pretty entertaining- unbelievable talents! There were foot jugglers from Uzbekistan (both men, I can't imagine how it didn't hurt certain vulnerable parts of their male bodies......), trapeze boys, other crazy kinds of jugglers, rhythmic drummers, etc.  Typical circus - though I don't know if I had ever been to one before!  (One of the circus guys apparently gave his number to a friend so she could give it to me.... although they all had nice muscles, I'll resist the temptation.)

Tidbits from Leone High
1) The other day there was a frog in my classroom.  There was a fire in Kristina’s.

2) Today, I showed the students I was subbing for example models of cells on the internet.  One girl asked me if the examples were from “off island”.  

3) We had an assembly for Mr. and Ms. Taumafai- kind of like prom king and queen.  There were 4 girl contestants and 4 boys, they have to create a puletasi and faitaga using school colors, do a traditional Samoan dance, show some special talent, and answer questions in front of the school.  One of my students was a contestant.  It's times like our assemblies that I forget that having 16-17 year olds all oiled up and half naked dancing on stage during school hours is not normal.  Also, it becomes more interesting when I remember I am in the most religious places I've ever lived.  Hypocrisy? Nah, just Samoa. I have one senior (who actually reminds me of a combination between my first boyfriend and Raffi Sweet) who is just absolutely ridiculous.  He is on both the football and volleyball teams (which yes, practice at the same time), is a crazy dancer, and just runs on attention.  At every assembly, whether he was asked to or not, he will be on stage doing something ridiculous. At this assembly, he danced to Azonto, Grease Lightning, and Barbie Girl.  It was soooo hilariously inappropriate to say the least.  Love it. If only I could get him into drama school.

All the contestants for Mr. and Ms. Taumafai

My insane student Rhys doing the Azonto (on the left)

My student (Kuresa) is on the right

4) I had my observation day last week- we were supposed to have the field director observe our "best" and "worst" classes.  Like there's a difference.   During my "good" class (who actually sucked up to Veronica while she was there - acting like little angels) a brand new student (6 weeks into school) showed up to class about 15 minutes into the lesson.  I took her admit slip, and had her sit down so I could continue with my lesson I was already a bit nervous about since I was being observed.  I begin to hear this loud chirping, look over to the new girl, and see what's going on. She decided to bring with her a chick. Yes, a baby chicken. Her first day in class.  The day of my observation.  I asked her (politely) what the heck was that, she said a chick, I asked her where she got it, she said the side of the road.  I was like uhhh so go put it back outside?!?!  She said she couldn't because she needed to observe it for another class (I know BS when I hear it).  Either way, I realized if she put it outside it would either be eaten by the dogs that hang out at school or trampled to death by teenagers.  So, I grabbed a box from the back of the classroom, had her put the chick in it, and continued on with the loud chick chirping all class while I gave my lesson.  Only on observation day.

My other class that was being observed, my "worst" class-lived up to their name. Once the bell rang, everyone ran out, and I walked over to Veronica, kind of taking a huge breath and rolling my eyes like- help.  She honestly stated,"Yeah, that class was a total shitshow."  Hahahah.  At least they were honest about being my worst class, and didn't change their behavior just because a stranger was there.  I had the boys asking where Veronica was the next day (they were cheeky to her all class). I told them they were so bad she was never coming back.  they proceeded to tell me that she winked at them first. More BS. I have students who now try to steal my phone and get my phone number out of it.  I think today may have been the breaking point because I left it unattended when the running club came.  We'll see if they'll really follow through with the threats they have of calling me at 7 and 9pm tonight.  I made sure to tell them my phone would be off at those times.

Cheeky Boy Quotes of the Week 
-"When you're Mom comes to visit, I am going to tell her I am your boyfriend".

-boy: "You don't have a husband!?!?!"
 me: "no, if I did I would have had to leave him at home to come here!"
 boy: "ohhhh... so you are looking for a Samoan husband?"

-boy brings guitar into classroom, another starts singing Enrique Iglesias "Hero" to me.

-And my all time favorite: (this one is from a student Kristina was subbing for)
     "Do you have a hall pass?" "No? Can I carry you then?"

Thought you all might like some pictures of my classroom- finally!! (unless I already put these up and I'm just totally losing it). I still need to get pictures of my classes though-- but we need all the time we can get right now to try to FOCUS in the classroom!!  These pics are kind of old- there's lots of new stuff up in the room since then!  I'll post more sometime :)



















And a random note I thought I should share:  This was the way the bus driver shifted gears in one of the aiga buses we rode on into town:

Go Lions!

WORDS TO LIVE BY:

One of the fellow WorldTeachers let me in on a concept that she applies in her classroom and I have chosen to live by at Leone.  You know that show Whose Line Is It Anyway- the one that Drew Carey hosts?  They're line is- "everything is made up and the points don't matter".  Well, my new slogan is- "Welcome to Leone- where the grades are made up, and the points don't matter".  Sad, but true.  Again, love it.

At Sliding Rock

Pep Rallies and Ants

        So, we had our first pep rally on Friday at Leone High School.  Having never been to a pep rally before, I was excited, but I was also excited because of all that I had heard about Leone’s pep rallies.  (Which, apparently are called “prep” rallies by at least half the student body and the administration.  Since they are in “preparation” for football games, I guess it does make sense to call them “prep” rallies.  It’s not like Leone students ever need any kind of “pepping” up to begin with!)

One of my bio students (left) holding their sophomore class banner
that these girls' families helped them make in one night!
This banner won.... I was happy :)  MUFASAAAA

            Everyone should experience an LHS pep rally.  Since we are the Leone Lions (not really sure why that is the mascot of our high school on this small island where other mascots are warriors, or sharks….things that make sense), much of the pep rally was Lion King themed.  So I automatically more than enjoyed it.  The first pep rally (and maybe more of them, I’m not sure) consists of all the grades competing against one another in cheers, banners, and some sort of theatrical piece.  They only had about 2 weeks to put this one together (there have been daily class meetings during the school day in which classes get together and work on their cheers, and they usually work during lunch as well).  Trying to explain the pep rally wouldn’t do it justice.  But high school students back in the states could never do what these students can accomplish in less than 2 weeks.  All the athletes are also called up, and the football players do this Samoan chant/ tribal warrior demonstration too, which was so cool.

tribal/warrior thing done by the football teams...very intimidating!!
You should see the video!

Junior class banners...yes, those are my shirtless students.

Additionally, my computer has now become a source of food for ants.  I guess after surviving 4 years of college and almost 2 months in American Samoa, computers probably aren’t the cleanest of objects, and when I get on my computer now I not only get wrapped up in trying to get internet access but I am also entertained by watching ants try to find their way through the maze that is the keyboard.  I have a theory, that computers here don’t die simply because of the humidity; they die because too many ants get smushed under the keys or fried while journeying into the inner workings of macbooks.  There are too many places for ants to hide (and find crumbs) within the broken edges or openings of this computer to think that they are not making their own colony in my hard drive.  On that note, gonna make sure the kitchen is clean and there are no crumbs anywhere in my room.  Otherwise there will be a party somewhere in the house tonight, and I didn’t invite anyone! 

Football teams up front at the pep rally..check out these backpacks!!!