Welcome to Samoa!

So I survived the flights (barely!) and made it to Samoa!!! It’s been kind of intense so far, but everything has been so wonderful it makes up for the many hours of training we are going through each day.  The Peace Corps really takes care of its volunteers—reassuring me that I made a great decision in deciding to join the PC! We were met at the airport with the PC Staff and some of the current PC volunteers with a big sign welcoming us.  It was very nice. They took our photo as we came off the plane and then it was published in a local newspaper announcing our arrival.  I’ll try to find a way to put a picture of it on here when I figure out how to do that. It has been a very warm welcome. 

The Peace Corps has been in Samoa since 1967 and most Samoans have been positively affected by the PC in some way.  The Samoan word for Peace Corps (pisi koa) is synonymous with volunteer.  That kind of touched me because It made me realize how much the PC has really done in Samoa and to be a part of that is incredibly humbling.  I learned all of this at the ‘ava ceremony that was held for us our first morning here to officially welcome us into our village.  ‘Ava is a drink that is made of a root from an ‘ava tree and mixed with water. Traditionally it was used at cultural ceremonies and is a very traditional drink.  So we were welcomed with this ceremony, in which we all went around and drank the ‘ava and said (in Samoan of course!) “This is your ‘ava, God.” There were many speeches given, none of which I understood because they were all in Samoan.  Despite not being able to understand, I felt the love of the people and I felt very blessed to be here.

Other than the ‘ava ceremony, nothing too terribly exciting has happened. It’s beautiful here and I will never cease to be amazed by the beauty that is all around.  I ate fish at a seafood restaurant last night, and it was delicious! We are staying in a hotel this week while we are doing our Survival 101 week of training so I’m really excited to go and meet my host family in the village we will be living in for the next  9 weeks of training.  My favorite part of being in a new culture is meeting the natives and being immersed in the culture, so I feel like being with a host family will be a fabulous experience! 

The other volunteers are all really fabulous! They are such great people. It’s so fun being around people that have been so many different places.  We have some pretty impressive world travelers around here!  Anyways, we are leaving for the training village tomorrow where we will be for the next 8 weeks. I’ll be living with a host family while we are learning the language and getting technical training on TESL, so I’m really excited about that!!! J  We will not have internet access while we are there so it’ll be a month or so before my next post, but I’m sure I will have lots to report then.

One funny story, we learned how to shower out in public covering ourselves with a lavalava today. We learned from a women over 50 years old, who demonstrated in the shower, with no clothes on! It was very impressive, I will be a multi-talented woman when I return to the states!

I hope to post pictures somewhat soon, but we will see how that goes. Until then....

The Analogy of the keys....and other tidbits of wisdom.

Did you pick up the sarcasm in that? There most likely is not much wisdom in anything that I say...at least not yet (maybe the Peace Corps will impart more wisdom on me over the next 27 months). We leave Los Angeles in less than four hours, so It's kind of getting real finally. We have done a little bit of training, more like basic introductions, over the past 24 hours.  We turned in all of our paper work, and when she announced this morning "Congratulations. You are officially in the system of the U.S. government as a Peace Corps Volunteer," I almost cried with excitement! But as I left Kentucky, I almost cried when I left my house key at the Anderson's house. Why? Because that was my last key!!! I sold my car a couple of months ago so I no longer had my car keys. I gave my grandmother back her car key (because she was being so kind and letting me use it since I sold mine).  I gave my parent's back their house key. And then my last key, my house key, was officially going to be returned to the Andersons! It was a very sad experience because I looked at my two bags and 75 lb backpack, and thought, this is pretty much everything I own in the world. I don't know why getting rid of my keys became such a deep experience for me, but it was in that moment that I realized, you know we give up a lot of material possessions and money and whatever else to go to the Peace Corps and serve as volunteers, but what we will get out of this experience will be so much more than our worldly possessions could ever bring to us.  I'm so excited! In less than 24 hours I will be in Samoa. Apparently, we will be greeted with the press from the US Embassy and a paparazzi of sorts as we walk off of the plane, so that's kind of intimidating. And as my mom can attest, I don't love the attention so much in big groups and in the form of news media, but I think it will be a warm welcome which will make the experience that much better from the start.