Week One in Iva

8/30/07

What is it like? You may ask. Well, living here can be compared to tent camping in a crowded public campground in the middle of a hot, humid summer, filled with lots of Latinos, kids and pets. No privacy, noise, activity everywhere, and bad food. Your best friend is toilet paper. You compete with ants and flies during the day for space and food. Now add to that the fact that you are trying to set up your house and can’t find even a Phillips screwdriver anywhere. Common things you have taken for granted, just don’t exist, or if they do are cheaply made and expensive. A person could get stressed out, and we have, at times. We have to remind ourselves that this is exactly why we volunteered.

We are on the compound of the village mayor or pulenu’u. He has a large Catholic family of ten children, six of whom live here, ages 20 – 8, along with a baby grandchild of a daughter who lives in Apia. The adults speak little English, but the oldest girl here speaks good English and is our teacher. Also living in other houses on the compound are various other relatives, most of whom seem to be women with children. It may take us a while to figure the relationships out. The children are great and are always around wanting to help, or simply just to sit and stare at us.

Some of Our Guests

Our Samoan is rapidly improving. I guess this is total immersion. We are both grateful for the language and culture lessons we received during our training weeks. Our language trainers really helped prepare us to at least survive one week.

We have already been put to work as Peace Corps, measuring for a 1,000 meter fence proposal for a new school, and going with the women’s committee to inspect houses to make sure they are clean and sanitary. This village has been waiting for a Peace Corps Volunteer. Just how we can meet all their requests remains to be seen. At least, it isn’t like we don’t have anything to do.

Whereas everything in the training village of Manunu was supervised, the villagers on their best behavior, and the Peace Corps the focus of attention, life in Iva is almost the opposite. We have to figure things out for ourselves, the villagers go about their daily activities without concern about us, and we are more an oddity than anything else.

There are lots of little things to complain about if we were someplace else, but..