We got fun and games! And mosquitos.  And palm trees.  And pigs and roosters.  And a school called Avele College. 

 

Avele, one of the best schools in Samoa, is located inland, just off the cross island road. It is up in the mountains – it is literally in the jungle.  This is the school where I work and live!  The school’s nickname is The Jungle.  Here is the sign at the gate of the school:

 

The campus is about a 10 minute drive from “downtown” Apia. 

You know on the McGill campus how much I sucked to hike up to MacMed?  Well from my house to the computer lab isn’t that bad, it’s more like from Arts building to Stuart Bio.  One improvement though is that there is no snow or ice!  But there is 90F heat and about 100% humidity so I am uncomfortably sweaty by the time I get there.  My lab is the only airconditioned room in the school though, so that’s nice. It’s not exactly cool in the room like you might expect, but it is less dreadfully hot. 

Enough about the lab, I want to talk about my new house!

At one point, there were 3 PCVs living here working at Avele, so there is no shortage of space for me.  There is a large living room, a kitchen with stove and fridge, a shower, bathroom and 3 bedrooms (currently only 1 bedroom is in use). 

When I first moved in there were lots of cockroaches, worms, slugs, spiders and a few small centipedes (the crazy tropical ones that can send you to the hospital from 1 bite if they are big enough – these were only 6 inches or so).  I really dislike the work “cockroach” so I am going to use the Samoan word “mogamoga.”  After spraying Mortein (illegal in the US) one night, I woke up to about 25 dead mogamogas.  It took a while to sweep every dead bug out, but I haven’t had much bug activity since.  I sleep under a mosquito net every night even though there are very few mosquitoes in my house. I think I do it because it is comforting more than because it is useful. 

There are 8 other teachers and the Principal living on the compound with me.  Most people live on the main road of the compound, but the principal and I live slightly off it.  I am surrounded by jungle just 10-30 feet from the house on all 4 sides.  The principal lives with her family pretty close by - just a 1 minute jungle trek away. She has been extremely welcoming and generous and I am very happy to have her here. 

My Principal came to my swearing in ceremony and presented me with a garland made of Puataunofo flowers – the official Avele flower:

Of the other 8 teachers living on the campus, 4 of them are married and live with their families here.  The other 4 are single and live alone. A lot of them are on vacation right now (it’s summer break here), so I have yet to meet them.  There is also a hostel on campus where 50 school boys live during the school year (for boys from far away without family nearby to live with). The campus is pretty quiet during January but I expect it to be a happening place after school starts in February. 

The only time I met a lot of the other staff – which we refer to as “the family”- was when we all went to a wedding of two former teachers.  Here are some of the members of the family:

And here is the wedding cake!

I have made friends with two of the single teachers here.  They brought me food on the first night.  Since then, I have been brought food two more nights by other people from the compound, but I am not sure from who…I still have a lot of people to meet.  All the teachers speak fluent English and prefer to speak to me in English, but there are a lot of kids and staff here who are not teachers who speak to me in Samoan.  That makes me happy because I want to keep up my Samoan.  Working so close to Apia at this great school, it would be easy to speak English at all times, which I don’t want to happen.

My first impressions of my school and house are all positive – I am pretty lucky here.  Obviously things will change a lot when school starts, so I’ll keep you updated!