First Full Day on the Island

Realized today that the school we are staying in for orientation is in the village/town of Tafuna. We actually are not too far away from the high school I have been assigned. Sounds like we might have driven past it on our way to orientation when we arrived late last night at Tafuna International Airport. Later this week, we are taking a tour of the main island getting the chance to see most of the schools our volunteers are placed. I am 1 of 30 volunteers here with WorldTeach in American Samoa. This is the second largest group WorldTeach has placed in this country. We talked about a bit of the history of WorldTeach in American Samoa this morning in Pango Harbor. WorldTeach only enters a country when invited by the Department of Education or Ministry of Education of the area. It was nice and cool in the harbor this morning. I learned all the names of my fellow volunteers and know which ones will be teaching at the same school as me.

After introductions and some discussion on the program history we broke into groups for a little scavenger hunt to get us out in the area and make us ask locals questions. Ate some lunch from a family owned food stand. They were really nice to talk to. I had the lunch special - turkey tails, potato salad, boiled bananas, and cucumbers. It was good.

Part of the scavenger hunt included purchasing what is called a "lavalava" here. Some of you back home may recognize them as "sarongs". This is a photo with Andrea, who will be teaching English at Tafuna High School, and she is from Lincoln, NE. Go Big Red :-) It was a nice walk. We even walked down to the National Park visitor center, and the lady we spoke with was very nice. All sorts of ideas on things I can use in class, and the NPS is there as a resource. In addition to some walking we took the bus back on the main road from Fagatago to Tafuna. The buses here fit the description I had read about and was told by our field director - loud music the whole way, but it was cool.

3:15pm local time as I finish this post, and I have a little down time before we meet back up for some more orientation and dinner.