Real Gangsta Shoulderz

I have never understood why we had both a C and K in the English language. I feel like the C could do everything the K does and vise versa. Sure, we have been conditioned to be familiar with Cs and Ks in their proper places. If I spelled "break," "breac" instead, your brain would not be happy with it. But what is the real problem there? It should sound the same right? 

It really gets me when we double up on the CK. I mean would "snack" sound any different if it was "snac" or "snak?" I think not, just ask all the snack food companies that spell it one of those ways so it will seem hip and cool for the kids. 

Personally, I am leaning towards the K. It can do all the things the C does and in most instances, it looks better, has a better feel. "Kreek?' No problem. "Kat?" Works for me. "Sukkeed?"  Maybe a little weird. I start to trip up when I insert the K into the "Ch" situation. "Khurch?" This is not working for me. Also, the practise of beginning all normally C words with Ks feels very Ku Klux Klanny to me, and there is no way I want to have anything in common with that group. 

Maybe I should go the other way around and drop the K and replace it with the C. The only trouble there is all those silent Ks at the beginning of words, "knife," "know." We didn't need those Ks anyway. They were silent for a reason.

What, in the name of god, is your point Sara?

The Samoan alphabet does not have a C. However, it does have a K. So one would think that they could simply substitute the K in all instances where a C is used in English. It would help solve small issues, like pronouncing Cale's name. Kale sounds the same as Cale and happens to be a common misspelling of his name anyway, since that is how the vegetable is spelled.

However, Samoans do not interchange the C and K. Instead, they use the G for C words. I assume because a G and a C look the same. So Cale becomes Gale. Things start to get a little tricky when you realize that the G in the Samoan alphabet does not sound the same as the English G, but instead is a NG sound (like at the end of sing or sung). Except, as far as I can hear, when Cale is called Gale it is with the English pronunciation of the G. My head is spinning.

What implications does this C, G interchangeability have? Well, as with the rest of the world, American gangsta culture is quite popular in Samoa. Last year I had a student that named all this files Gangsta....something. I have a student this year who writes his name as 2p@c (that's Tupac for those of you at home) on all his assignments. Rap music is insanely popular, as are gangsta fashions (when they aren't in school uniform). Things like Blood and Bloodz show up in students artwork all the time. And thanks to the interchangeable C and G, we have seen more than one Samoan with an elaborate, gothic script tattoo across his arm or back declaring "Grips." You know, the American gang? Switch the G with a C? Crips! Now you got it.

— Sara

PS. As long as I am talking about interchangeable. There is no B in the Samoan alphabet either. But there is a P and it is interchangeable with the B. It is so prevalent that I find myself misspelling words with Ps instead of Bs. I had a 10 minute conversation trying to figure out what a netball "pip" was until I realized we were talking about "bibs," the uniform netball players wear.

PPS. I should probably explain the post title. Real Gangsta Shoulderz is a piece of graffiti in town. We are pretty sure they want to be Real Gangsta Soldiers. 

First Real Bike Accident

Sunday Cale and I biked into Apia, as we normally do. We were on beach road, on our way to the office. Just before we reached Aggie Gray's, a taxi passed us on the road. We were biking on the right-most edge of the road and the taxi passed us on the left. Then he pulled over to the side of the road and up onto the sidewalk in front of the Aggie Grey shop, as if he was going to park or pick someone up. Cale veered left a little to go around the taxi and I followed suit.

At that exact moment, the taxi driver pulled back on to the road with no warning, turn signal or indication. Cale had to come to an abrupt halt to avoid being hit by the taxi. I gripped down hard on both my brakes in a desperate attempt to avoid ramming into Cale.

What followed was sort of slow motion. I came to an abrupt stop and slowly realized that my back end was not stopping with me. It reached the point of no return and I knew the bike was coming up over me and I was going over the handle bars, so I jumped off the bike.

I some how managed to hit my chest on the handle bars just at diaphragm level and slam my left shin into the handlebars or some other part of the bike. I got up and hauled myself and my bike over to the sidewalk (after throwing the taxi driver a sarcastic "Thanks a lot." Though I wonder if sarcasm travels across language barriers or if he honestly thought I was thanking him).

Once on the sidewalk I realized I was having trouble breathing, but that slowly faded. My shin instantly swelled up and was looking pretty nasty. Once I had my breath back we finished the bike ride to the office where I put ice on my shin. It still hurts today, but there is little-to-no noticeable bruising or swelling.

It is strange that it took us this long to experience our first real dog problem and bike accident. We've almost finished our two years and we have only had the one dog bite and now the bike incident. Typically these are high problem areas for volunteers, so we have been very lucky. Plus both incidents were very mild and neither of us was seriously injured. So good on us.

— Sara

50,000 Cars in Samoa? I Think Not.

It is strange the random places Samoa pops up now that we are more inclined to notice it's mention.

Cale was watching The Land of the Dead, a particularly bad zombie flick, when this scene occurred:

Pillsbury: Yellow to red!

Motown: What the fuck does a Samoan know about hot-wiring a fucking car?

Pillsbury: 50,000 cars stolen in Samoa every year.

Motown: Well, a million in Detroit.

Pillsbury: Detroit has 50 million cars. Samoa, 50,000. Every one stolen.

*Taken from wikiquote.org.

What an insanely random skill to attribute to a Samoan and then to back it up with a widely inaccurate fact about the country. I knew before I even googled it there was no way there were 50,000 cars in Samoa and I was right.

According to the Samoa Bureau of Statistics there were just over 14,000 vehicles registered in Samoa in 2005 (and that includes tractors). Unless something dramatic happened, more then doubling the number of cars in the country in four years, there is no way there is anything close to 50,000 cars in Samoa right now. And, given that The Land of the Dead came out in 2005, the year of my most recent statistics, 14,000 is a much closer number.

Let's forget about my nitpicking inaccuracies in a zombie flick and talk about car theft in Samoa for a moment. I cannot imagine how you could steal a car in this country. Unless after stealing it you hid it somewhere and never drove it.

Samoa is just too small for someone to steal something as identifiable as a car and not be caught. Everyone knows everyone. If your car went missing and suddenly another person was driving it, everyone would know. Also, I think it might be possible to count the number of gas stations on the two islands on two hands. Since all the gas stations are full-service, I imagine that the gas jockeys of Samoa know each and every car and it's owner.

When Cale and I rented a van on the Tuesday before my parents' arrival the next day, we drove it to the beach. When we returned it to the rental company in Apia on Wednesday, they asked us if we had a good time at the beach on Tuesday. Friends of the family had seen the van drive over the mountain and passed the information on to the car owners.

In this sort of close-knit environment how could anyone steal a car? I would like to propose that car-theft is impossible in Samoa. I invite our readers to provide any knowledge of previous instances to prove my theory wrong.

— Sara

* I would also like to point out that it appears (based the actor's name) that the man playing the Samoan in The Land of the Dead was Hispanic.

Cale Reacts to Sara's Scandalous Knees

"Those are cute shorts. Why don't you were those shorts?"

"I don't own them anymore."

"Well, what about those shorts?"

"Don't own them either."

"Why not?"

— Sara

Please Excuse My Scandalous Knees

This pictures comes for Florida before we left to join the Peace Corps in Samoa. I am wearing perfectly reasonably lengthed shorts. In fact, in comparison to my sisters, I am wearing super conservative grannie shorts. 

Yet look at all the leg that is visible! Not only can you see my knees (shock and gasp) but you can see a significant portion of thigh. (that's me in the front of the canoe, in case you haven't figured that out).

There is nothing scandalous about these shorts. Yet looking at them makes me cringe. My legs are all bare and in public! Holy cow, if you look on the flickr back before we came to Samoa you can see pictures of me in a bikini in public. That's right, just putting my thighs and midriff right out there for all the world to see. Hussy!

When we first arrived in Samoa I was hyper-conscious of the acceptable social norms for female attire. I covered my shoulders and my knees. The picture above is a pretty fair representation of acceptable attire.

No where was I more sensitive than at the beach.

Before we left the States, I had special ordered from Victoria Secrets what I considered to be an extremely modest one-piece bathing suit. It was very retro, it was very black, it made me feel very much like I was getting ready for a pair of mom jeans as well.

I discovered quite quickly that there was nothing modest about this bathing suit and despite the fact I had covered what felt like a large portion of my body in America in black stretchy fabric, I was in fact practically nekkid in Samoa. I took to wearing shorts over the suit when I was out of the water. I quickly switched to board shorts and a t-shirt or tank top.

My adherence to the strict dress code has been waning. Cale made me that super scandalous puletasi last year. Granted, my knees are only revealed when I walk, but look at all those shoulders. Then for Christmas my parents sent me a pair of jean shorts that have quickly become my favourites. However, the first time I put them on, I felt dangerous. I was showing the world my knees. Now, I walk around town in them all the time without a second thought. Look at all that knee I am showing in the picture below. Shocking.

Beachwear is my greatest evolution. I went from Victoria Secret's one-piece, to board shorts and t-shirt, to ie as dress to bikini and shorts. When we are in a vacation spot, such as Jane's in Manase, I don't have a problem wearing my bikini and a pair of shorts (says the girl who was so judgmental of the tourists in bikinis when she first got here). However, I tried wearing that at FaoFao not that long ago and I felt wrong. It wasn't the same. FaoFao isn't as touristy and I know the people who work there. I felt inappropriate. Also, when I got somewhere I know is popular with Samoans, I also regress to the board shorts and shirt. I have rules like that for clothes as well. I wear my jean shorts all over town in Apia, but I cover with an ie when I am riding the bus in Savaii. 

What does all this clothing evolution say about Samoa or me? I have no idea. What I do know is I still spend most of my time covered from shoulders to ankles in a puletasi, like the one seen on my at prize-giving last year below.

I still think "whore" when I see a girl in a short skirt here in Samoa (skirts that a probably acceptable business attire in America [thanks Ally McBeal]). 

And I cannot imagine how I am going to go back to America and wear normal length shorts that let the world see my thighs again.

— Sara

Mini-Field Trip

In 2005 my school had two Peace Corps Volunteers (one teaching computers) and the same principal that came back at the end of last year. In 2005 the previous volunteer and some of the other computer teachers produced a school magazine (which is what they call a yearbook here). The returned principal wants to do it again this year and has put me in charge. 

Strangely, someone is actually asking me to do something I am trained to do. 

However, rather than simply put the magazine together myself, I decided that we would have a magazine staff and the students would do all the work. I have a collection of editors (Editor-in-Chief, School Work, Student Life, Sports, Photography, Design, Etc.) and so far we have had three meetings. The first meeting was to introduce them to the concept of the magazine and get volunteers for the editor positions. The second meeting was to talk to the editors and give them assignments to work on (Sports Editor, go find out the record for the sports teams. Student Life Editor, decide what it is you are going to put in your section). 

The third meeting was headed by the Editor-in-Chief and I mostly had no idea what was going on, because they held the meeting in Samoan. But good on them, why should they have the meeting in English for my benefit? I just pretended that I knew what was being said and interjected thoughts when I could infer enough to guess the topic of conversation. I made the EIC write me up a report on the meeting later.

Monday after school the Business Editor called the Methodist Printing Press to schedule a meeting to talk about the cost of printing the magazine. She was supposed to ask for a meeting after school, preferably on Thursday, but definitely not on Tuesday. When she hung up the phone, she told me the meeting was for tomorrow morning.

"But we have school tomorrow morning," I pointed out.

"They said it was the only time they were available," she replied.

Ok, granted, but it was a really short conversation and I have a hard time believing that she did any negotiating on this meeting time or mentioned that she was a student and was unavailable weekday mornings. I think it is cultural for a student to simply accept what an adult says and not question it or she could have been nervous or not thought about it at all.

Anyway, we go over to look at the timetable and see that her first period class will be cancelled tomorrow because the teacher is away at the Methodist Women's Conference. We will make our field trip in the morning. Now I have to get the principal's permission. When it was going to be after school, it wasn't a big deal, but now I have to take a student out of school.

Luckily, Tuesday morning, the principal was agreeable to the idea and reiterated to me that he wants to try to print at least 700 copies of the magazine (one for each student) and he wants it to have more pages than the one in 2005 (which had 52 pages) because we have so many good photographs this year.

So Tuesday, my Business Editor and the Assistant Business Editor hopped on a bus and went into town. At the Methodist Printing Press the editor did an excellent job. We talked the day before about what information she needed to gather and I could tell that she was gathering it. The problem was the printing press guy was saying, you give us your magazine on a flash and we will tell you how much to print it. What I wanted to know was an estimate on printing costs now, the magazine isn't going to be completed for several months. We had with us the 2005 magazine. So I stepped in and insisted that he give us an estimate assuming we were going to print the exact same magazine again.

After some discussion in the back room, he came back with about $26 per magazine. If we print 700 copies, that is just over $18,000. I could see my students eyes getting bigger as they did the math on a calculator quickly. The senior students had agreed to raise $50 each for this project. We have 53 seniors, so they were looking at a budget of almost $2,700. Not quite $18,000. 

This is where I think Samoan culture will take over a little. The guy at the printing press kept our copy of last year's magazine to give to the manager. The manager is supposed to come out to our school to talk to the principal about possible "discounts" and what not. Seeing as they are both Methodist ministers and know each other. I think that something will be worked out. However, whatever is worked out, it is not going to bring the cost of printing down to $2,700. Even if we sell ads in the magazine, as planned, we are still going to have to come up with an alternative revenue stream.

This is something I will have to discuss with the students in our meeting today. That and deadlines. Definitely deadlines. What they are. How we might want to think about setting some. How if there is a deadline, you might want to meet it. Like that.

— Sara

Happy Birthday America

Dear America,

Hey. How are you? Long time, no see. How are things? I hear you've been having some financial troubles. I hope you get that all worked out. Stuff's about the same here. Teaching kids computers, trying to have a fun.

I just wanted you to know I was thinking of you on your birthday. In fact, a whole bunch of us in Samoa were thinking about you. We even threw you a party. We knew you couldn't make it, but you were here in spirit.

We started out with a softer version of your national pastime, slow-pitch softball. It was Peace Corps vs. Navy and despite some earlier Peace Corps concerns that led to the great gender-equality debacle*, the PCVs spanked the Navy a resounding 14-4. There was some question on whether or not we had an unfair advantage by living on land most of the time and being able to have a practice before hand.

Next we mingled with dignitaries that included the Head of State, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister of Samoa (talk about a star-studded event). Miss Samoa even made an appearance and sang the US National Anthem (with a great deal of assistance from her sister).

After that we feasted on true American delicacies: baked beans, hot dogs (with real Heinz ketchup and French's mustard), coleslaw, potato salad (every palagi's favorite food) and beer (well, this wasn't an American delicacy, it was Vaillima). For dessert we finished off with ice cream cones.

We finished up your birthday celebration with sparklers and the Navy band.

Just a thought America, you might want to send Robin (the Charge) a little thank you note. She put on an excellent party in your honor, even if you couldn't make it.

Anyway, talk to you later.

— Sara

* So at some point in the softball preparations word got out that the Peace Corps guys didn't want Peace Corps girls on the team. They assumed the Navy team would have few to no girls and that they would have an advantage with their big, burly all-male team. Rumor has it the PC boys were determined to win and thought that girls would, well, throw like a girl. Great troubles were gone to to have an equal-opportunity game, with the suggestion even made that PC girls put their name in a hat and be assigned to either the PC or Navy team until there was gender-equality. However, as it turned out, it was a a misunderstanding. In the end, the Navy had more girls than the PC (one).