Talofa from Samoa - January 27

Hello from Samoa.  We are enjoying a hot summer with lots of rain.  We are still trying to catch up on the last 3 or 4 months and it comes a step at a time.  These next pictures are of our Culture Day in Vaiola.  This year they celebrated four different cultures: Hawaii, India, Mexico, and South Africa.  The students are divided into 4 houses for all events throughout the year.  Each house was assigned one of the countries and they had to learn their national anthems and songs and dances from each country.

This is a picture of our students as they gather on the outdoor basketball court  at the beginning of the day.

This is the flag raising ceremony where each house sang the national anthem for the appropriate country as their flag was raised on the flag pole..

These are girls from the senior class doing a dance.  A number of the students participated in several different dances and they needed 5 or 6 different costumes.  They love to dress in different costumes.  These girls are all wearing blue puletasi's.

These are the boys from the senior class doing their dance.  They too, have to have a number of costumes to perform in.

This is the food the cafeteria prepared for the students and spectators for lunch.  They are big hotdogs with a pop.  It still tasted good anyhow.

This is some traditional food served on a traditional plate.  They make these plates and place some flat leaves in the bottom to put your food on.  One problem is that if the food is greasy or has a sauce on it it will leak through onto your lap and creates extra laundry.  The food was very good, it had a very sweet taste and we couldn't tell what it was.

This is another traditional food made in the big pots and it is served in half a coconut shell.  It is kind of a thick soup and it tasted good.

 This is the principal on the left, Siaskaone (Jack) Taleni and Paogo Niupulusu (teacher in charge of the event) sitting at the head table.









It rains a lot here in Vaiola.  Around the campus every house has a big water storage tank.  When the tank is full the water pour out of a little hole at the top of the tank causing a water spout.  It also runs out of the top when the tanks are too full. Here are some pictures of our water spout.

This is the tank for our neighbors house and it is raining and just starting to over flow.

This is a picture from inside our house.  Its pouring outside and the tank is just starting to over flow.

I went outside in the rain and took this picture.  The stream is shooting out about 6 feet and the water is also pouring out of the top as well.








Each year the senior class picks a project they want to do for the school.  They usually pick something the school needs that will also leave a legacy for the class.  Last year they made cement steps up to the top of Vaiola hill and this year made 5 water fountains around the campus.

This is the start.  They make a wood cribbing then fill it with iron bars and big rocks before they put in the cement.

This what it looks like from the outside when they are building. They put quite a few rocks before adding the cement.

This is how they make their cement.  They mix dry ravel and dry cement in a pile then pour water on the top and start mixing.  For what they have they do a great job.

They continually add water till they get the right mix.

They shovel it into a wheel barrow and take it over to the fountain.

Its labor intensive and it is quite hot so they wear whatever they can to cover their head.

 This is the forms when they are filled with cement.

This is a fountain to the first stage of cement.

These are the forms they used.  They had to last for all 5 fountains.

Cement with the forms removed.

They had to build up the center so that it would function properly.

This is the first one that they put the base on.

They are forming a circular top so the senior class can be identified.

Once they got the base poured, then they cemented some flat lava rocks on the out side of the cement.

This is what it looks like with most of the cement covered with lava rock.

They are working hard so that it is all done on time.  These are members of the senior class and the rugby team.

After putting the lava rock on, they are putting tiles on the top so the water will run off the fountain.

This is a partially finished fountain.

This is what a finished water fountain looks like.  It is pretty impressive considering how it was constructed.  You can't read the writing on the top in this photo.

Here is the finished version and it actually works.

The lettering on top was made of poured cement and then cemented to the top.  Impressive isn't it?








This next set of pictures deal with plants and trees here in Samoa.  Most of these I had never heard of before so they are interesting to me.

This is another attempt at being a farmer.  I know it doesn't look like much but this is an avocado tree that I planted from a the big pit.  I have planted 3 avocado trees that will produce in 5 or 10 years so somebody in the future will be very happy that I was here.

Here is Mom holding some green beans that Bro Fafai (our school counselor) gave us.  They are huge and they grow quite fast.

We have an Indian Apple tree that has these huge fruits.  Nobody here eats them but one of our teachers is from the Philippines and he says the East Indians eat them but nobody else. 

Look at the size of the fruit.

I don't think anyone here has any ideas of what to do with the fruit.

This is a picture of some Koko Beans which is what they make koko Samoa from.  The koko beans grow from any part of the tree, the trunk, or the branches.

This is my attempt at being a potato farmer.  I had 5 tires stacked up and when I harvested it I got 2 potatoes, one about half the size of a golf ball and the other was smaller than my thumb nail. So I am taking a break for a month or so.

This is a picture of a Nonu tree.  They make a juice from the fruit that they sell in pharmacies here.  Jo says it tastes bad but it doesn't taste too bad to me.  

The first time we saw the Nonu fruit was when our school secretary brought some over.  You let it get ripe and then you rub it on your hands and your feet. It seemed to work okay for me but it burned Jo's hands as it has some kind of acid in it.  The fruit looks weird but it is interesting.

Each tree produces a lot of fruit and it (the ripe fruit)  smells kind of nice, almost like a lemony smell.

These are papaya trees and they are planted around the temple housing units.  This tree is just behind the temple in Apia and right close to House 7 where we sometimes stay.

Look at how big these papaya are, they look like small watermelons.

These are pineapples grown by our dorm girls.  They are going to be good when they are ready to pick.   Notice the little growths around the pineapple, if you use these to start your next plants, they grow much faster than using the top of the pineapple when you cut it off.

 It takes about 1 year for a pineapple grow from a top and about half the time from a plant shoot.

This is a nice one that is getting to the right size but it needs to ripen a bit.









This is all for now, hope you have a good day!!!!

January 14 - Hello from Samoa

Hello from Samoa, this is the second post in a number covering fro September to December of 2014.  The first part is some pictures from Vaiola Hill.

This is a picture of our campus without the rugby field.

Our house has the little red car parked beside it.  The house to the right is one they use for visitors to stay in.  The next one on the right is our cafeteria.








Lano Beach

This is Lano Beach about one half hour from where we live.  It has beautiful white sand and you can snorkel out to the coral not far out.

In Samoa you can always find a game of volleyball and the beach is no different than anywhere else.  In this picture they had to find someone to hold up the stick to act as a net.

The rest of these pictures are of a starfish like fish called a "Crown of Thorns".  The underside is a bunch of succors that they hook onto things like the coral.  The top side is a bunch of spikes that look like thorns and the fish is circular in nature thus the name "Crown of Thorns".  They are poisonous if you step on them.

In this picture you can see the underside more clearly.  They are ugly little suckers and dangerous too.

One of the workers  uses a snorkel and goes down and pokes them with a stick and the crown of thorns hold onto the stick.  The worker comes to the surface and dumps them into his outrigger canoe.  When he gets enough they bring them to shore and the dig a hole in the sand and bury them.   It take about 3 days for them to die.

These two girls were there when the outrigger came in.  They took a stick and poked it and it stuck to the stick. They are holding it out in front of them.

The worker was out in the coral and in 20 minutes he picked up about 30 

Hope this video clip works.  You can see all the little suckers moving.  Kind of gross.







Here on of the great sites in Apia, a McDonald's

This is the only McDonalds in Western Samoa.  I know that American Samoa has two but here here is only one.  If you knew how many times we had to trick our kids to keep them from seeing a McDonald's sign when we were traveling so we wouldn't have to stop there to eat.  It has become a favored restaurant and we stop by there more than we should.  

It is a busy place but there ice cream machine broke down about a month and a half ago and it is still not fixed.  Welcome to repairs in Samoa.









We have a prison about three quarters of a mile from us.  When we walk in the morning we often walk right through a group them as them are sitting on the ground or walking to where they work.  They are often carrying big bush knife and many times they are sent over to get coconuts, bananas, or pick leaves off teh lemon tree for their tea.  Sometimes it is a bit unnerving to walk through them when they all have these big bush knives but all the people here say they are good prisoners and not too worry about them.  I think they have guards but I am never sure which ones are the guards and which ones are the prisoners.

This is the road into the prison.  At the end of the road you can see their volleyball net and when we walk in the evening we can see them playing volleyball. 

Here you can see them having a meal in their fale.  Notice all the protecting wire fences and gates surrounding the prison making sure they cannot escape. The white truck is one of their transport vehicles.

Here is the prison looking across the road from our turnoff.  You can see part of the prison herd,  they have to grow and produce their own food.  A few months ago Joanne was walking by and one of the guards pulled out his rifle and shot one of the cows.  They were butchering the cow much like we would field dress a deer.

Oh sorry, we forgot to show the fence surrounding the prison, well here it is.  I believe there is one more wire on the bottom but as you can see it is certainly enough to keep the prisoners from escaping.  We were trying to get a picture of the guard towers but we must have missed that picture.