"Taps" for Samoa

12/21/09

My last Samoan sunset from Aggie Grey's Resort where the sun disappears into tomorrow, on the other side of the International Date Line.

It is time to sound "Taps". My Peace Corps adventure and mission in Samoa is over. It is time to return home, knowing that something has happened by coming here for both my wife and me, but not to understand or appreciate the totality of the experience.

I don't think much harm has been done, maybe even some good. Man's quest to seek greener pastures seems universal, never satisfied that being alive is enough quest by itself.

I am glad and fulfilled to have returned a second time, to follow-up, and to know it is time to move on and call it a day. Then again, there is the adventure of tomorrow.

As with any adventure, it is the people who linger in your memory. Here are just a few:

Group 78
Our Peace Corps Trainers still label our Group 78 as one of the best ever. Maybe they see something that the rest of us missed. Certainly we hold the highest rate for early terminations. The group is now dispersed throughout the world. The road of life is a long one, Samoa just a chapter.

Leaving LAX bound for Samoa (June, 2007).

Front: Crystal Ochoa , Safiya Mitchell, Mary Shuraleff, Hannah Goldman, Erin Jenkins, Renee Moog, Kaitlin Everett

Rear: Shane Twilla, Justin Newum,NickShuraleff , Jacob Burney, Mark Miller, Benjamin Harding, Christian Heath, Paul Sylvester, Donna Barr

Prior to Group 78's Samoan Dances at Training Village Graduation (August, 2007)

End of Service Conference (May, 2009)

Training Village, Manunu

Training villages are a special place for Peace Corps, and ours is no different. The small mountain village of 100 people, Manunu, is where our impressions of our Samoan life formed. Manunu has since become the training village for Group 82 and is rumored to be the training village for more groups in the future.

Manunu Village Green

Saniatu Waterfall, a short walk from Manunu, the most beautiful place on earth

Our Iva Host Family, the Kapeli's

Living two years with a family of a different culture is the true test of adaptability for them and you. There needs to be a willingness by both parties to roll with the peculiarities, a respect for each other, and a bonding, which neither can fully understand.

Since Samoan families are ever evolving, changing, and related, there is no way to get a picture of the same people at different times

September, 2007

August, 2009

December, 2009

Our namesakes, baby Nicholas and Mary with Kapeli daughter, Easter, and father, Visi.
August, 2009

The Children of Samoa

No one can leave this place without the vision of children dancing in your dreams. It is a magical time of life in a magical place. May the magic stay with them as they mature, for they have given me a magic I wish all could share.

Baby sitting sisters

Sisters, with a cousin or two

Boys at play

Mango season

South Pacific innocence

Death of a sister

Children at work, selling fish

Iva rugby team, future matai (heads of households)

Adult snapshots

Ross, Mayor of Lalomalava, with son bidding my farewell at ferry.

Fia in her cabbage patch

George, the tragic Samoan chief

With my alter-ego, the President of the Women's Committee

Leona with donated bike

Ah, the good life! A Vailima beer, and a friend at the break of day.

Conclusion

There is no way one can capture or try to convey experience. It is up to the imagination and memories to reconstruct the past. As for the future, it has to drag along the past. We all have a book to write. I guess I am not ready to write mine. So it is goodbye to our Peace Corps adventure, the morn is at hand for a new adventure.

Tomb for Ashes

12/21/09
Before I left in August, I privately sprinkled my parent's ashes in the flower garden next to our little house. Several days later my host mother asked what the Grey stuff was on the black volcanic soil. I told her, never realizing the impact of my actions. To think that I thought it important to leave a remnant of them and ergo me. It resulted in my host family saying they were going to build a small stone marker over the spot for remembrance and to protect the soil from pigs. Some may wonder why it is hard to leave this place. It is just to painful to stay.

Desperate School Teachers

12/20/09

I learned my bedroom was used by the primary school teachers while I was gone to house the school's computer and copy machine as the old school was being torn down. They had a wonderful time laying on the bed joking about me as they worked into the night. A cheeky group indeed!

Return Trip Summary

12/20/09

Here is a follow-up summary of what I found about my Peace Corps projects upon returning to Samoa in December:

Health

Jim Metz (80) donating blood pressure monitors to Head Doctor and Nurse at Tuasivi Hospital on Savaii

What a joy to find that Jim Metz (80) and the Peace Corps are expanding volunteer involvement in the area of obesity/diabetes/hypertension. They are putting together a program in conjunction with the Samoan National Health Service for a in depth health program for twelve rural villages, centering on weight control and the relationship between weight and health. This program includes skits, dietary education, weigh-ins, and screening villagers.

New Peace Corps Volunteers whose primary job is to teach English in rural primary schools will have secondary health projects in their villages. Since schools offer an excellent venue to introduce children to health issues, but also is a great way to educate parents on life-style related diseases.

Over twenty blood pressure monitors were donated by various manufactures in the U.S. to the hospital at Tuasivi, Savaii. Jim Metz simply emailed them and asked if they would donate. It was that easy, but took the initiative of Jim to get it done.

The dozen scales which I had donated and distributed to other Peace Corps Volunteers and organizations on Savaii are being used, more or less. However, it was discovered that simply putting scales for people to weigh themselves is not enough. More emphasis needs to be put on the benefits of weight control, especially with those who already show signs of diabetes and hypertension.

In my own village of Iva, I was totally surprised to discover how many people are doing things differently because of the health clinics conducted earlier. You just never know what effects you may have.

I met with Dr. Stephen McGarvey from Brown University about his coming 2010 research project. His research team plans to screen 3,000 Samoans to see if their is a genetic component to account for the high degree of obesity. I have since discovered that a niece of a fellow Minnesota book club member is going to be part of the research team.

Note: I never was able to get my picture taken with the Minister of Health. In fact, I was advised not to per sue the matter.

Vegetable Gardens

Host mother in garden, December 2009

Garden 2008

The garden Mary and I worked to clear in the back of our host family's house is still producing. In fact the family has grown and sold several crops of cabbage and peanuts since I left. Although weeds have taken over a lot of the garden, I realize that my host family just doesn't have the time or resources to maintain its size. Nonetheless, the garden was the first things I was shown when I returned. They continue to grow okra and have discovered the joy of cooking with hot green peppers.

Much to my delight, the mayor of neighboring village of Lalomalava showed me his own garden and said that most of the twenty families who took part in the village's home garden project still have active gardens. These vegetables are sold at the mayor's vegetable stand.

Trent Lobdell (80) reported his village's community garden has really taken off, now that the Women's Committee realizes they can make money.

Sewing Machines

The machines are still safely locked in the back of Iva's Women's Committee house. In a conversation with her, she said that they had recently been oiled and that after the first of the year she was going to let selected older ladies take the machines to their homes where they can teach sewing to younger members of their families. Not quite what I had envisioned, but maybe a small step towards their wider use.

Talent Show
The 50 act, village wide talent show bringing together all churches and open to all villagers that Mary and I helped to organize in December 2007 was not be be repeated. However, several of the Iva churches organized talent shows for their own young organizations and with other similar denomination churches during the Christmas periods of 2008 and 2009. This just illustrates the degree of difficulty in organizing events within a community governed more by religious factors than secular ones.

Primary School

Sticks and stones last. Maybe the new primary school and its dedication the day after my departure ends up being the lasting legacy of our Peace Corps experience. The important thing is the school is built. Soon over 400 desks arrive from New Zealand to fill the larger, better ventilated classrooms in hopes that education can help Samoans adjust to life's pressures without losing their own identity.

Church Dedication, Salelologa

12/17/09

Ceremony is very important in Samoa and one of the most important is the dedication of a new church. I have been watching the construction of the Catholic Church in the neighboring village of Salelologa over the past year. The Catholic Church dominates the “skyline” as you approach on the ferry, eclipsing the once dominant Methodist Church. This morning is the giving of gifts. Well kind of, gifts of pigs, cows, canned corned beef, frozen mutton flaps, and fine mats move back and forth between giver and receiver, money goes in just one direction.

The ceremony goes something like this. Each village is lead by a dancer who can be man, woman, or child. The lead dancer is an important honor. This is followed by elaborate introductions and words of praise in formal language by an orator from the guest village with responses from an orator representing the church’s village. There then is the presentation of gifts. Tonight is a party at the church (Thank goodness Catholic’s do not ban beer). The first mass is tomorrow morning.

New Catholic Church, Salelologa

Dancer, Man (My host Matai)

Dancer, Man

Dancers, Women

Dancer, Child

Host Orator

Orator, Iva

Orator, Woman

Fresh Beef

Church While Under Construction

Primary School Dedication

12/16/09

The main reason for my return to Samoa is to be present for the dedication of the new primary school and supposedly to be honored for my efforts in helping the village get the funds from the Japanese agency, JICA. The school has three separate buildings on a ten-acre site, making a campus with the adjacent Mata ae Vave High School and Prince Edward Park.

In this convoluted place, nothing is, as it seems. The school dedication, for which the village children are practicing songs/dances and feast preparations, is to be held on December 22^nd, after being told December 20^th and me buying a return ticket for December 21^st. If there is going to be a monument to recognize me or the renaming of the school, it may have to wait until after the dedication, the finishing of the second toilet, the construction of a new assembly hall, the clearing of the rugby field, the acceptance of my proposal for a new fence, and the collection of money to pay all the creditors. By that time, people may say, “Niko, who is he?” That’s the way I would bet.

Entrance from Prince Edward Park.

School Front View

School Front View

School Rear View

Porch View of Two Buildings

School Committee Members

They took an active role in construction

Old School

Materials were used from old school for new school. Existing buildings to be used for construction of assembly hall.

Samoan Beauties

12/15/09

Times are a little different than whaling days, Gaugan, and before the arrival of missionaries when sailors jumped ships. However, this has not stopped men from losing their hearts to South Pacific beauties. These are some who live around me.

“Scoop”

12/14/09
“Prostitution in Samoa”, this headline, subsequent expose, plus the shock of the police chief to learn that prostitution exists in Samoa became the most widely read story of the year. The undercover reporter, Tia/Roselina Kapeli, is a member of my host family, a journalism student, and part-time employee of the newspaper. She is now a minor celebrity and needs to be driven or take cabs after one of the prostitutes beat her up when she was discovered to be a reporter. Prostitution is punishable by five years in prison.

You can read her story at www.samoanobserver.ws. (Paper editor did not use her name in byline to protect her). I am really proud of her. Who knows what lies ahead?