Thursday night got our stuff moved over to the new place in the village of Malaeimi. I am definitely feeling a little spoiled if you will where I am now. Brandon and Brian, our friends from Nashville, TN, helped transport our stuff in their vehicle. Very nice of them, and we are thankful. It didn't take us too long, and I don't think I have really acquired that much stuff while living here for 7 months.
This is a view of our new building from the main road. Note the beautiful mountain tops in the background. Hannah and I live in the 2-bedroom unit farthest to the left, and my other three roommates from the old place live in the 3-bedroom unit next door to us. These are set up more like townhouses - kitchen and living space downstairs with bedrooms upstairs.
We have garages so Melanie and I each have our own workout space now. Garage = workout space.
You can see how close we are to the main road. We were still right up there with it at the old place but tucked back in the rainforest more. This photo was taken looking out from the inside of my garage. It is a bit noisier where we are, a different type of noisy I guess. Hear the cars, the kids that live in the units next door, and some loud dogs at night a ways in the back, but I'm getting used to it.
No real living space in the old place minus our porch where we hung hammocks, but check this out. There's a little couch, a kitchen table, and area rugs.
Here is the kitchen counter area. These little townhouses were built with the option of having families live there so there is way more space than we need to store things. I had almost forgotten what it is like to have a microwave. Now I can have water ready for tea in 2 minutes rather than 10. Crazy conveniences. First time I've used a microwave in 7 months. Wowza. Our new landlord also went above and beyond when he furnished the places, as he provided some dishes, cookware, and utensils. Very thankful and fortunate.
My room is on the back side of the complex, so I have the beautiful mountains to look at out my windows. Ahhhh :-)
Hannah and I both used one of our days off on Friday as we could use a little break and decided it would be nice to settle in a bit into the new place. I set up my little "shrine" in the corner with some photos, books, and little things that are simply me or remind me of home.
Also with our day off we made some phone calls and office visits trying to figure out what transportation options may exist to pay our friends who live on one of the outer islands a visit. We have a little info but won't really know until the week of whether or not it will be doable. The schedules fluctuate and there are several factors, but at least we have direct contacts. We grabbed some breakfast at Matai Restaurant before heading back to the new place.
This is probably the biggest bedroom I have had to myself - told you I'm feeling a bit spoiled these last few months minus no hot water. I am being reminded how much of a luxury hot water is, but it is more than doable without it. No complaining there since I have gained so much. I also have my own bathroom, but my favorite part is how we can walk to school now. This is looking out into the hallway from my room.
Hannah put this little guy in our dining area.
Oh, and I have a walk-in closet. Craziness.
I took this photo while laying in my bed. This is what aI wake up to in the morning. I may miss being slightly secluded and being rather surrounded by the rainforest with many bats flying overhead, but this little mountain view is a nice change of pace. I feel very fortunate that I get to experience something a little different now for these last 3 months.
A few touches of decor in the kitchen.
We have a full fridge with a real freezer! Bye bye mini-fridge for 3 people. We were able to buy little tubs of ice cream and place them in our freezer. How exciting! Saving a little money rather than paying a $1 every time I go in for a scoop. Plain ole vanilla ice cream, straight from Auckland, New Zealand. Good stuff.
One of my little Husker bears has made home in the corner of the kitchen counter near the bread. There is a nice store right across the street and another good one a few minutes up the road.
My Husker throw is hanging nicely between my two windows in my bedroom. Did I mention this is the biggest bedroom I have had to myself. Unnecessary, but it is nice.
We tried out the Sualua's branch in town, which we heard was set up a little different. Nice little place, and the menu was slightly different. Did I mention that the one we usually go to is now within a 5 minute walk of our living quarters? Rock on! Saves us money and time on Saturdays now when we go in for our little breakfasts or brunches. That is not where this photo was taken. We may make our first walk to Sualua's this coming Saturday. I timed it when I walked that way to shop at a produce stand. The closest laundromat is right over there, too.
I really had no particular reason to go in and check mail, but I had nothing better to do and decided against going on a hike for the day. Good thing I did decide to go to town and join Hannah for breakfast and mail check. Turns out the island-wide championship wrestling tournament was going on that day. I had just been telling Hannah at breakfast that I really needed to try to find out some more information on the wrestling program here. If I hadn't joined her in town, I would have missed my opportunity.
So, there is only one mat that they have on the island. One of the roll-up kind, but that meant all the matches were taking place one after the other. Only 1 minute periods, 73 total wrestlers, and 14 weight brackets. My first time spending most of a Saturday at a wrestling meet in a while. It was fun for me to take note of some differences and how this program is developing. I met the president of the American Samoa Wrestling Association, and he told me he grew up in Iowa. This is only the third year they have had high school wrestling on the island.
I found it interesting to sit behind a yellow caution tape in this outdoor gym with a cement floor, so that is what this photo represents. As close as I could get to the action.
When I went and checked out the brackets on the wall, I found a student named "Shelton". What are the odds? haha
So no tape for the mats, so they were constantly sliding apart, and the boys would shift them back. The circle was never a perfect circle, though.
This is competition, not practice, but they are in shorts, t-shirts, and barefeet as they lack equipment.
One boy did have shoes and headgear. A few others had shoes, but only a few. Sounds like they may have come from the president - Ethan. As he was chatting me up he mentioned maybe I could get some rounded up back home and mail down to help them out. When he heard I was from Nebraska, he said "Oh, so you definitely know about wrestling." Yeppers, been watching it for at least 14 years of my life.
Rather interesting day. They are definitely learning some technique but some still pretty scrappy. A developing program, though. I'm glad I happened to be in town and found out this was going on. A few of my students actually wrestle, and I told them how I've been watching since my brother was in Kindergarten, and they couldn't believe it. I chatted with my dad on Sunday telling him all the mental notes I had taken on the wrestling I had witnessed on Saturday. I wasn't able to stay all day as I wanted to make sure I got a bus back, and I was rather wore out. Plus, I was there by myself so no one really to chat, and I really didn't know that many boys that were actually wrestling. It started rather late, and a lot still needed to happen. After the medal rounds, they were handing out medals for 1-3 and trophies for team points, so I bowed out around 5:15. Good experience for me. Glad things worked out as I ended up in the right place at the right time.
Walked to school Monday morning. All the way! In 30 minutes. Fantastic. Yes, a little sweaty but hey I'm going to save on bus fare and get some extra exercise. This is probably one of my favorite things about the new place - being within walking distance of work and other things (like my favorite cafe to eat breakfast at on Saturdays).
Opened my classroom door to find the fans on, some trash on the floor I don't recall being there when I left on Thursday, some posters falling down, and my projector screen (a white sheet) on my desk. Alright, someone turned the fans on, the posters sorta fall from too much breeze sometimes, but the white sheet does not make it all the way over to my desk on it's own. Right away big red flag went up that it appeared someone had been in my room. I've had my suspicions before, and I knew that this happens somewhat frequently on this island. Anyways, nothing stolen. I don't leave anything valuable at school, but my projector screen was ripped. Once again, not something it could have simply done on its own. A whole chunk was ripped off. Yeah, I definitely think someone must have came in my room Friday without my knowing and decided to have a little fun. Could have been much worse, but my suspicions have been further validated.
The Internet did not get turned on at our new place over the weekend, so I intended to find a few news articles first thing when I made it to school Monday morning. My Ethernet wouldn't even connect and I finally got the teacher who is also IT to help. She had to assign my computer a new IP Address. Glad we got it fixed, but I ran out of time to find articles. Decided on a review assignment for the students to do independently, which has been running rather smoothly all day. Thank goodness! I finish writing this post as I am on my lunch break at school, one more class to go, my prep period, a staff meeting, walk home and make a few stops, exercise, and then do some things for fun. I spent some time over the weekend working on a puzzle, reading, coloring, watching movies, and listening to music. Nice and relaxing.
Today was the beginning of Week 9 of the Insanity Program. Almost done with this goal. Hard to believe I've been doing it 6 days a week for the past 8 weeks. Going to feel so accomplished when I'm done. I've really enjoyed it, and I am already planning on round 2 of the program (doing it a second time through) after a few weeks off. After completing it, I will be one week away from flying back to Nebraska. This is our last week before mid-terms, and then the last quarter is shorter and broken up with some different things. Time... a relative thing.
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