I LOVE LOVE LOVE SAMOA!!!

So it took me a really long time to post this because of not being able to walk beyond the convent because of my boil, then marine ecology started [got an A!] and then we had to get ready for stuff cuz TODAY i'm leaving for a nine day vacation to hike/kayak/aquataxi through Able Tasman National Park. GORGEOUS. Can't wait. I leave in like 2 hours. Much to do before then.

 

So the last 2 weeks I've been in Samoa [pronounce SAW-moa rather than the American way of suh-MOA]. The older people don't speak english there, especially in the more remote village areas of Savaii, which made it quite fun. My homestay family spoke some english but didn't understand me a lot of the time and vice versa. One of my brothers was convinced I spoke samoan, along with my grandma, so I'd just respond with "uh", something they say all the time, and it actually worked quite well.  Of course I learned some. The essentials, of course. Like "No, I'm full, thanks" which is "Wa o ma ona fa'afitailava" or Play the music "Key le la ou fa'amolemole" I used those one a lot. Fa’amolemole is my fav word in Samoan. I’d yell it at everyone. Anyways, i must go, i would write more but i feel the pics tell more of a story. Oh and as always the pics are way out of chronological order. All mixed up. But they're great anyways. Enjoy!!!

Jungle faces?

My grandpa, the high chief, doing a dance at the fia fia

our huts [fales] were on the sand
Imada, my sister, coming back from school. I love her!!

The leis they gave us were absolutely beautiful

If you look real close at the top, i'm flying off the edge, jumping off the cliff.

still falling.

STILL falling. At that point your heart begins to freak out. I made that jump twice.

Westmont girls at the waterfall

Rosa and Kari & I in our pulitassis before the fia fia

I love these kids. They are my brothers and sisters. They followed us around everywhere. 

:)

FIA FIA!
My Faga family and kari and i the night of the fia fia, an honorary song and dance party night, while wearing our pulitassis she made us.

Sunrise out of our hut on the first day

Ants were everywhere. So annoying. So i fed them my boogers and was very entertained. They actually ate them.
I paid 6 tala for these cookies. The ants kept eating them but i ate them anyways. With the ants. So if i'm feeding boogers to my ants and then eating the ants does that mean i'm eating my boogers?
Me with my brothers and sisters. They'd always peek into our fale and hang out there
LOVE THEM.

Morning sun in our hut. I just slept in a lava lava every night cuz it was hot, esp once the sun rose and shined on us.

Me with Kari's antidiarrheal medicine. Saved my life.

The beach outside of our hut where we stayed. Simply paradise.

palm tree seat out of my hut [they call it a fale, pronounced fawlay]

Our beach for the week- outside of our fale. The water was SOOO clear

the sunrise directly outside of our fale

Zoomed in

We dangled our feet over the fale while watching the sun come up. My roomies: Kari and Heidi

The view I woke up to every day while staying in the High Chief's hut in Faga village. GORGEOUS sunrise.

Chris and his daughter Siu. We lived with them and their family in Safua Hotel.

I was taught the Samoan women's dance. I looked like a dying bird.

The family we stayed with in Safua Hotel got us fire dancers to honor us....SOOOO AMAZING!

THE SUNSETS THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!!!!

God is such an amazing artist.

Kat and I looking for flying foxes in the crater of the volcano. We found like 5. It's the only place in the world where they exist. They look like a bird w/ a fox head. So weird.

HUGE spider in the rainforest. I was scared just gettin this close to take this pic. Knowing my luck it would jump over and eat me. I thank the Lord it didn't.

Chris

Samoan traditions
Toouh, Chris [our host's] son. he is SOOO cute. Always screaming Pulongi, or something like that, which means foreigner hahaha

THE western most part of the world. Right thur.

The tree outside our room

We drank/ate coconuts all the time. ONly 1 tala. That's thirty cents!!!!!! So amazing.

The gorgeous waterfall we swam in

There were some gorgeous black sand beaches we visited

I never took notes. I carried a notebook though, just incase

Me on the coast, sitting on cliffs of lava

The busses in Samoa have the funniest stickers

The most western bathroom on the planet. I used it.

The island we live on most of the time, Savaii. We traveled all around it during the day

Jo and I in the lava jungle
The lava lavas we wore were so pretty. I'd always pick a plumeria for my hair too. They were everywhere
We had a DD, Daily Double, which was a double scoop icecream cone, every single day. Only 2 tala! That's like 75 cents in american
Sinave and Kat and I. He taught us Samoan every day in the back of the bus as we annoyed him 

They eat chicken flavored stuff. Like chicken potato chips. Yum!!!

The beach where we lived/snorkeled.
The guys we lived with in Safua Hotel, part of the family who owns it and lives there, made up the band that played for us every night.
The lava fields. So gorgeous! These went on for kilometers and kilometers before reaching the beach
EAting Noni, a fruit that grows out of the lava fields and tastes EXACTLY like barf. I HATED it. So gross. But it is an experience.

Boil from Samoa

Ok so I'm gradually working on a post and putting together pics from Samoa but for now this will due...recent news of my lovely friend on my foot. So I got a boil on my foot while in Samoa, but it didn't become full of puss or unbearably painful till now. It is right next to my ankle and it's driving me crazy. So today I couldn't flex my foot and I had to walk on my toes, then after dinner Sara cleaned it out which was SO painful I screamed into a pillow. It was horrible. I had to soak it in HOT HOT HOT water for a while to let the pus and fluid ooze out. Then we had to apply pressure to the whole area for a while, as I continued to scream into the pillow, and then we had to pierce it with a needle, more pressure, then scrub it down. SO PAINFUL! This is my lovely routine for a while, 3x a day. FUN FUN!!! I'm so thankful Sara does it for me though; couldn't do it on my own.  Anyways, i gotta go, but an extensive samoa post is on its way!!

On my way to Samoa...with a giant gash in my leg

Sooooo it might come to a surprise to you that i'm accident-prone. Ha. Or I guess you might just say that stuff like that happens to me quite often. I chose to play the role of the victim. Anyways,  tonight we were supposed to have our bags packed and out in the trailer by 11 pm. We are leaving at 4:15 in the morning to go on a 2.5  hour drive to Christchurch, then flight to Auckland, 5-7 hour layover, then like 5 hours to Samoa. Fun!! So I just had to pack my shampoo, conditioner and soap and then bring out my backpack. It was 10:45 pm and I wanted to take a shower tonight so I needed my toiletries, so I decided to take a shower in the remaining time, pack it, double check everything, and make it out by 11. Obviously, I had to rush. So I was in the shower and decided to shave my legs, but I was in a hurry so I was doing it SUPER fast with a new razor. Well, I accidentally cut myself. It wasn't just a usual razor nick, though. I was going vertically and I guess applied too much pressure, scraped about two and a half inches of skin off my bottom leg, as if peeling a carrot. It made a scratching sound, which immediately caught my attention, and sent me screaming once the water hit it. Blood started filling the bottom of the shower but I continued to shower on. When I felt a strange feeling from my razor I looked and found the lengthy piece of fresh skin, which was about as thick as a slice of ginger you'd get at a sushi restaurant. I saved the skin. Still, the shower filled with blood and I got a little concerned because this didn't look like any kind of cut I've gotten from shaving before. I realized I had to do something about it, so I started yelling my roommates' names but they were out of the room. The girl next door, Juliette, was in bed, and said for me to go in there and show her. But I was stuck in the shower because of the blood. Finally one of my roomies Sarah walked by and I yelled for help. When she saw my ankle she started screaming [a lot of the blood in the shower had gone down the drain by this time]. All the girls from around the house ran in and then went and got their cameras and started taking pics. I posed for the pics with my piece of skin hahaha. Unfortunately it wasn't as gnarly looking when the cameras got there as it was previously. Anyways, we couldn't figure out what to do with the blood, my friend Kat tried rinsing it off with the shower head but I started screaming on the top of my lungs...it hurt SO bad! My friends had to help dress me, apply pressure to it, and then one of the leaders came with gauze since no bandaid was big enough. We applied pressure for several minutes then cleaned it and wiped away the blood, which was difficult because it kept coming. She had me apply white antibiotic ointment, but immediately upon doing that the blood started flowing and just made a mess of a thick paint-like pinkish substance that was uncontrollable, so we just wiped it off, applied gauze and taped it off. Sucks this happened right before Samoa cuz now I have to watch it really closely while I'm there. Whatever, i've had worse in Cambodia. But now my whole left foot has like numbing pain hahahah. Annoying. IT HURTS! There will SO be pictures up once I get them from my friends. 

Anyways, today was my last day of the first segment of Sustainable Community Development. The class was incredibly interesting and challenging, and our professor Mick Duncan was so fascinating. His teaching style is less structurally academic, but instead is more tangible, with lots of stories and discussion. I got a lot more out of this class because of this way of learning, and because I was challenged to think critically and out of the box on many issues that most people sweep under the rug. I can't wait for the second week of it in November. Very interesting, edifying, challenging, and intriguing. GREAT class. Amazing. 

Well, I 'wake up' for samoa in less than 3 hours, so I better get to bed so I can atleast have some sleep before I go. It will be a long time of travel, considering how close it is to here. We leave at 4:15 am and get there at 9:45 pm. Yay. It's going to be an AMAZING time of living in a traditional setting. I am more excited than I can express. I don't think I'll have internet there so I prob won't be able to post anything till like October 4th ish. Soooooooooo catch you then!!! Cheers.

Pictures of the good life :)

So here are some pictures from Christchurch.....It was way fun and so beautiful, as you will find out. 

Ok so this one wasn't my idea, but I didn't hate it. I just thought I'd throw this one up for kicks.

Botanic Gardens smiling flower :)

Richie McCaw, #7 on the All Blacks. One reason why the rugby game was amazing. He is incredibly dreamy. Thank you New Zealand.

Art on the walls. NZ is very edgy. 

I love the night
The Cathedral is absolutely stunning at night

Chillin with Heidi, Sarah and Kathryn

The Botanic Gardens were breathtaking!!

River through the botanic gardens, and the duck that looks like an eagle. They are quite popular here.

Botanic gardens as the evening was ending....

Inside the cathedral

I found koala bear treats, you know the one with the chocolate on the inside. SO LOVE THOSE!

The river going through Christchurch!

Beautiful artwork on the walls throughout the city

The Westmont ladies on our way out on Friday in Christchurch!!

Pony Pony does his little dance. LOVE IT!!! So cute.

My new fav thing: the mochaccino. I like taking pics of the different kinds at each place cuz they each have their own little artsy look. 

I like this. It's funny. Though I don't entirely agree. But I like it.

Mom, this is for you, to eradicate one of the reasons on your list, you know what I mean. Here you go, there IS a Starbucks here. Ha!

In the center of the city they have a giant chess board!!! How exciting!

CHRISTCHURCH, BABY!!

So class starts in a wee bit, like in 45 min, but we had the most FUN weekend ever on our student trips. Originally people were going their own ways, whether it be backpacking, hotsprings, whatever. Three girls and I were gonna go to Christchurch because we really wanted to be in a city and look cute at night and go out. Well, in the end the entire group ended up coming to Christchurch as well and it was SOOO much fun. We went shopping, wandered around the city looking for rugby games, went dancing, went to the botanic gardens [BEAUTIFUL] and much much more. Saturday night was a HUGE highlight. We went to the Holy Grail, an amazing sports bar in downtown Christchurch, and watched the Australia/NZ rugby game. It was an amazing game, super close, and in the end the All Blacks defeated the Wallabies. It made for a very exciting night because everyone was screaming through the streets because of the awesome win. We went dancing and then I got a Kebab at 2 am [ssooooo delicious] in honor of the Most Beautiful Girl song from Flight of the Conchords. Lamb kebab. So delish. I loved it. The botanical gardens were absolutely breathtaking- I can see why they received a national award. We also went to the art museum, which you know I totally love art, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. The last day there was absolutely beautiful- really sunny and warm. I so can't wait to put up pics [we can't upload at the convent]. The pictures say way more than I can tell you. It was a spectacular weekend. Sun. Rugby. City. Beautiful.