Fiafia Night: Seniors Shakin' it for Money

I walked into the school library this morning to see the sophomores making the faculty members grilled cheese sandwiches with a waffle maker. For breakfast.

This slight randomness prompted me to write a blog, not really about grilled cheese at all. Lol.

Hard to believe that May is just about half way over. Abby and I counted only 12 school days left. And the seniors only have 7. In fact, this is the last week of actual classes I have with the seniors, as next week they take their finals and the week after that is Senior Week, where they go do fun things like beach BBQs and such. AND, only 28 days until I leave The Rock…and in 30 days I’ll be in Sweet Home Alabama. I simply cannot believe I’ve been here for almost a year.

I am so excited to go home. I miss my family and I miss America. I love Samoa, of course, but I’m excited for driving, and speed limits over 25 and being able to go more than 19 miles without hitting an ocean. I’m excited for 24 hour convenience stores. And real milk, not the long shelf life kind.

I’m excited for a lot of things, but I’ll get to THAT in a later blog.

THIS blog, I want to talk about Fiafia Night. Fiafia Night is a fundraising night put on by the seniors to raise money for Senior Week and Prom, etc. Basically, each village is assigned a “country” (Hawaii and Africa are not countries, but whatevs), and the seniors from that village perform a dance from that country. It was so much fun! I mean, everyone knows I love the seniors anyway, but it was just so cool to see all the different dances. The breakdown of villages and countries was as follows:

Malaeloa: Africa

Poloa, Fagamalo, and the far west villages: India

ATL (Amanave to Leone): New Zealand (Maori)

Mesepa and Faleniu: Fiji

Aoloau (Alaska) and Mapasaga: Hawai’i

Leone: Jamaica

Pava’i’ai: Mexico

Taputimu and Vailoa (holla!): Tahiti

Here are some photos from each village:



The villages from the End of the Road (Poloa, Fagamalo) performing as India,




My Tap Boyz rockin' it Tahitian style!
(That's my field director in the orange shirt. He just went up and threw money at them. That's what they do here in AmSam: throw money at people like they are strippers.)




ATL doing their Maori thing.




Viva Mexico!




Quinn's Snow Boyz and girls from the village of Aoloau. They were the "country" of Hawai'i. Lol




Mesepa and Faleniu as Fiji. They did really well.




Vailoa and Taputimu for the win!




My Tap Girls...shaking it like the Tahitians.




Sili! And House!




Jamaica...this was the point that they were passing around a giant fake joint.
You know, to properly represent Jamaican culture.
Only in Samoa can you get away with that at a school fuction. Lol.




Malaeloa doing their Africa thing.




One more of Tahiti.
Man, I'm going to miss boys wearing flowers in their hair.



I have to say that of course I like Tahiti the best, because Tap is my honorary village, and Vailoa is home to a lot of my favorites. The boys were of course hilarious, but I was actually really impressed with the girls. Tahiti is where that fast hipshaking type of Polynesian dancing comes from, and I was really impressed with the girls ability to shake it. I could tell some of them were a little shy about it, though, since it’s so different from traditional Samoan dancing, which is much more fluid.

Okay, I'm going to try to upload a video of Fiafia Night later. For now, enjoy the pics!

Hospitals, Homesickness and Holidays: April Adventures



Some of my Tap Boyz. I shall miss them.



It is raining so hard right now, and it kind of mirrors my mood. For the last few weeks, I’ve been in weird mood, sad for two opposite reasons: 1) I’m homesick and I miss my family, my mom, dad, sister, nephew and 2) I leaving Samoa in a month and I don’t want to because I’m going to miss my students so much.

As you can see, it’s quite a conundrum. Lol. I guess I SHOULD be looking at it as 1) Excited to see my family in one month and 2) Happy to still have a month left to spend with my students.



Lunchtime Naptime



Anyway. Sorry for no posts in April, but it has been insane. The first week of April was awful, because there were a HUGE fight in my classroom (broken desk, blood everywhere), and that caused all sorts of drama for the rest of the week. I actually broke down and cried during break one day, which was awful, because there are always students in my room during break, and they all saw me crying. BUT, I have to say, they were so, SO sweet about it. As soon as they noticed I was crying, they all moved their desks over to me and surrounded me and were like, “It’s okay, Miss. It’s okay.” And they didn’t even know why I was crying. Lol. So cute. I hate to cry in front of people, but at least it was in front of my faves, and not the students that caused the crying.

I WOULD like to say that I’ve been through some crap in my class, especially in the beginning, and I had some major issues with classroom management, especially with the second period, which is all my worst kids (and like two of my best, God Bless ‘Em.) But I have NEVER cried at school, until this month. Sucked. But! It’s all over now, and everything has gone back to normal.

THEN, the second week of April, I started throwing up, and having these awful pains in side of my lower back. At first I thought I was just sick and had pulled a muscle, but after three days, I finally went into the LBJ Tropical Medical Center (yes, named after THAT LBJ. He’s the only president to ever visit American Samoa. No one ever comes here. Hillary Clinton refueled here a few months ago, but she didn’t even bother to get off the plane. Anyway. Tangent.) So, I went to the “hospital.” They try, but it’s really very sketchy. Blood on the walls and that sort of thing. I was really sick, though, so I headed over there.

Well! As it turned out, I had a kidney stone, apparently caused by dehydration. I do drink a lot of water, but I also sweat a lot, apparently more than I drink.  Anyway, the kidney stone was kind of big, so they thought I might have to go off island (probably to Hawaii) to get it zapped, because they don’t have the technology here. They gave me some drugs to help, and LUCKILY, it passed without me having to go off island. (Off island, by the way, is the generic term Samoans used for anywhere that is not this particular Rock. As in, “Miss, I’m going off island tomorrow to California.”)

Let me tell you…passing that kidney stone was pretty much the worst thing ever, except for that one time my ear drum ruptured. For almost two days I felt like I was getting stabbed in the side, and it was just NOT a good time. After all was said and done, I ended up missing an entire week of school. My kids were all very confused about why I was missing. I heard various rumors as explanations, ranging from I was pregnant (I’m not) to I was fired (I wasn’t.) But this is Samoa. If they don’t know the real reason, they’ll make one up. Lol. All the Taputimu kids that usually hang out in my room were at a loss. Apparently they just wandered around all week, unsure about where to go. Lol.



Some of my senior girls lining up for the Flag Day Parade.



The upside of all of this was that the whole week, I got various messages from kids telling me how much they missed me. A group of them pooled all their money together to put money on their cell phone so they could call me to make sure I was alive. Did I mention I love my students?

Anyway. The week after Kidney Week, as it shall henceforth be known, was Flag Day week. Flag Day in American Samoa is April 17, which is the day that the U.S. Navy first raised the United States flag in American Samoa. Or, I guess you could say it’s the day Eastern Samoa became American Samoa. Anyway, it is a big deal here, and we got Tuesday and Wednesday off for the festivities. This meant we had Monday, Thursday and Friday at school, but it was pretty much a useless week. Most of the kids did not even come to school that week, so my classes were missing at least half of the kids. We did nothing but watch movies and play games.

Tuesday was the official Flag Day ceremony, so all the Leone seniors and most of the teachers participated in the “parade” at the stadium. I was the only Leone WorldTeacher to go, and basically involved about four hours of sitting and six minutes of parading. But they kids go to be on TV, so they were excited. Plus, it wasn’t so bad because I like the seniors and it was amusing to hang out with them for the day.

Some of Leone teachers getting ready for the parade.

After the ceremony, I headed to the airport with Sili and his mom to get his plane ticket to come to States this summer. I had to be there, since he is traveling with me. Of course, some of the Tap Boyz came with us, because, well, they tend to do stuff in groups. Moral support and all that. Lol. Anyway, Sili officially has his ticket, and Peni is getting his this week, so I guess that is really happening. They are both really excited to see the United States. I was talking to them about the differences between Alabama and Samoa, and they were at first horrified by the fact that there are no breadfruit trees or mango trees in Alabama.

Conversation:

“Are there breadfruit trees in Alabama or Pennsylvania?”

“No.”

“Mango?”

“No.”

“Taro?”

“No.”

<disbelief>

“Do you at least have coconuts?”

“Nope.”

“So WHAT DO YOU EAT?”

Lol.

So then I explained we had apple trees and blueberries and strawberries.

“There are APPLE TREES?!?!”

Hahahaha. It’s going to be a hilarious summer.

Fale and the Volcano

Hey, peeps. Long time no blog.

(Let me just say, I'm gonna edit this and add more pictures when I get to school tomorrow. The net is too freaking slow at home, but I wanted to get this posted.)

This semester has just been crazy. We were told ahead of time that spring (technically fall since it’s the southern hemisphere) semester would be insanity and they were not wrong. First we had a month of Samoan Day practice, then Samoan Day. And March has been nuts. First of all, Kelly, my friend from Mount Rushmore, came to visit with her friend Jill. It was super fun and time just flew. So there went the first week of March. Then there was Spring Break. I did absolutely nothing, and it was AMAZING. I just hung out on The Rock and slept in and did nothing productive and it was awesome.

Anyway. There went the second week of March. And then last week was just insanity preparing for accreditation, which is this week. For those of you not in the education field (which was me a few months ago), schools have to go through accreditation every so often to make sure they are still legitimate schools and kids are actually learning. It’s a pretty big deal, because if they don’t get accredited, then the kid’s diplomas don’t count, because they won’t be from an accredited school. So colleges won’t accept them, etc.

Anyway, everyone has been going crazy preparing for this thing. Last week, I got the genius idea to let me kids paint my walls with Marine Science and Earth Science murals. This sounds like a good idea in principle, but the problem was I had oil based paint, which does NOT come out of stuff or off the desk and floors very easily. Plus, kids were just careless and not at all as excited to be painting as I thought they’d be. So they just painted the stupidest stuff, and it looked really bad. PLUS, there was paint ALL OVER THE FLOOR, and I had no idea how to get it off. Even my mom, the Painter Extraordinaire, was basically like, “Yeah, you’re screwed.”

Anyway, I had this vague idea that if I got paint stripper it would come off the floor. So, I bribed some of my favorites with food (the Samoan appetite should never be underestimated) to come and help me on Saturday. I took them to Carl’s Jr for lunch, and they were basically my slaves for the entire day. First I went to the soccer game at 8 am, and then three of the boys that are on the soccer team and were also helping me got off the school bus with me at Ace Hardware on the way home. There then followed a grand shopping adventure with Miss Amber and Her Teenage Boys. The store actually has a “no minors” rule unless with an adult, so I had to be like, “They’re mine.” You should have seen the disbelieving look the door lady was giving me. I had this trail of Samoan teenagers behind me, and people kept asking me if they were bothering me. I kept having to explain that they weren’t following me with nefarious intent, but were actually helping me. One guy that happened to be there actually taught at Leone last year, and he could not believe my little hoodlums were volunteering their Saturday to help me. But as I’ve said before, I like the kids other teachers don’t like, and in return those students have my back. They take a while to win over, but they will do pretty much anything for me now. They are super loyal once they are yours.

Anyway, after Ace we headed over to the high school, which was in full swing of people getting ready for accreditation. Seriously, I couldn’t believe how many people were at school on Saturday in order to get ready. I ended up with a half a dozen kids helping me (Eneliko/Kasi, Panweichi, Sean, Stan, Epitacio, Paulo, Justin, and Fale). We had a freaking blast. We were there from around noon to eight thirty, just painting and trying to get the paint off the floor. The resulting mural is AMAZING. Kasi, Sean and Fale are especially amazing artists. Fale (who isn’t even my student, we’re just buds because he hangs out with Peni a lot) just like picks up a paintbrush and whips up a volcano. It’s astounding.

Fale and his volcano

Samoan teenagers. This is about the time they started complaining about how hungry they were.

Sean and Fale consulting about what to paint in the corner. Everytime I made a suggestion they gave me a scornful look and proceded to ignore me.



Anyway, one would think that after spending all week with them, I would be sick of them and not want to spend all of Saturday with them, too. But in all actuality, and even though I’m not supposed to say this, they are more than just my students. They are my friends, and I like hanging out with them. So spending nine hours with them on a Saturday was actually really fun. We took a break in the middle to go get lunch, and on the way back I told them just because I fed them didn’t mean they got to go home now. They still had to come help me. So on the bus ride back, I got off the bus and realized none of them wear following me. I looked on the bus and they were all cracking up, acting like they weren’t going to get off the bus. It was funny. I really enjoy them. It’s not that unexpected that I would like them as people. They are not that much younger than me, when it comes down to it. They are eighteen, which makes them the same age as my cousin Jocelyn, and she’s one of my favorite people in the world.

ANYWAY. We stayed at school until around 8:30 at night, and then two of the boys acted as my bodyguards on the way home, so I wouldn’t get attacked by dogs. (Our field director just got attacked by dogs, and he was all bleeding and unable to walk and out of work for a few weeks. Island dogs are not to be trifled with.) It was a pretty successful day, and no major incidences of any kind. Although I did notice on Monday that SOMEONE had taken blue paint and tagged “TAP” on the sidewalk with a paint roller. (TAP is Taputimu, the village were most of my hooligans are from). I can’t say for certain whom it was, but I’ve a pretty good guess. Had to have been someone with access to blue paint and a paint roller, at a time with no one else was around on campus. Just reminds me that I haven’t completely reformed the little delinquents. Lol.

Kasi painting his island

Fale painting the sunset they decided on for the corner

Fale and Kasi working hard

Kasi and Justin

The Samoan-est Day of Them All

All the seniors are gone today for a field trip to the Fono (Congress type thing), so I just have some free time, which is great, especially since I haven't been feeling the greatest. I think my body is really trying to fight something off. Anyway, I thought I'd take this time, and take advantage of the school's fast internet, to post some pictures from Samoan Day.

Samoan Day is a day that the students spend a month practicing for, where they do their traditional dances and 'ava ceremony and cook traditional food like pulesami and taro. Seriously, for an entire month, we missed an hour of class to practice, and then the last two weeks we missed two hours a day. It was madness. I was a sophomore class advisor, and I really think they had the best dance. But the seniors won it (they always do). I'm okay with that, because I love the seniors.

It was pretty much the best day ever. It was so cool to see all the kids in something other than their school uniforms, and also to see them in their traditional wear. Of course, Samoan high schoolers hit the 12th grade and start looking like their are 25, my mom saw some of these pictures, and was like, "who are those Samoan men you are with?" I'm like, "Um...Mom. Those are my students.

Anyway. Pictures. (Some of these are not mine, but credit belongs to Fausaga, one of the seniors, and Abby, my roommate.)

The seniors boys. The kid with the fro and the red marks on his face is Aladdin, one of my favorite seniors.

Senior boys again



Paulo, one of my juniors.

Junior boys. Students that I have in this photo are Mark (with the braids), Lauaki (in the front with the red marks), and Jeff (tall kid in the back.)

Petelo in the front and Elama in the back, my juniors.

He with the fro is Eneliko, and the kid with the ipod just chillaxing beside him is Rafe. They are two of my seniors. The girl on the right is Lynn, also my senior.

Noke. Not one of my students, but we're pals. He hangs out in my room a lot.

Peni, one of my faves. (I know you're not supposed to say that, but we've all got 'em.)

Sophomore girls. Don't they look beautiful?

Peni and Fale, showing off their muscles.

Joseph and Gabriel, tow of my most cheeky juniors. They wanted to get this picture by this "ride" as they called it.

Esera and Paisano from left to right. I don't have Esera, but I sub for his class a lot. Paisano is one of my seniors.

Me and some of my boys. This is the picture my mom decided was "inappropriate." I'm like, "What, this isn't what the students wear at your school?" lol.

Sophomores for the win!

Anyway. I've already made a kid clean up the mess from his coconut he was drinking from, and had to confiscate a ukulele from another kid who wouldn't stop playing it. It's shaping up to be one of those This is Samoa days.

Be My Valentine

Sometimes I sit down to write this blog and I just get so overwhelmed with all the stuff I want to say. Instead of going in order, I’ll just jump right in.

I just got off the phone with one of my favorite student’s Dad. The reason for this is not because the student is in trouble, but because he is coming home with me this summer. Yeah, you read that right. I’m bringing some Samoan teenagers home with me this summer. (This is, of course, only if Mom says okay. She’s technically holding out still, but she let it slip that she went looking for bunk beds for the spare room, so I’m pretty sure she’ll come through. Because she’s awesome like that (hi, Mom!)).

This all come about because of something that I’m not sure I’ve ever mentioned in this blog, which is weird, because it pretty much takes up most of my spare time. For the last few months, I’ve been working really hard with some of my students to help them get into college. I register them for the SAT, get their SAT Fee Waivers (they can’t afford to pay), bought them SAT books, tutor them, call colleges about application fee waivers, print and send the applications, help them fill out the applications, call college coaches about football scholarships, get all their tax info from their parents, fill out their FAFSA, help them write their essays, send in their housing requests, etc, etc. And since This is Samoa, getting any of this done is a slow and often frustrating affair. And since I have what you might call, how shall we say, the less-than-perfectly-behaved students, I am doing all this while reminding them that it IS actually necessary for them to go to Math Class if they want to graduate and go to the colleges we just worked so hard to apply to. Anyway, a few of my kids got into college in the States, and while I was talking about their plane tickets, one of them asked why they couldn’t just leave Samoa when I leave, and stay with me and my parents for the summer, and then go to college in August. I thought about it. I mean, why not? My parents are super cool about such things. Next thing I know, I’m on the phone with their parents, planning the details. And that’s how the 2012 Samoan Invasion of Alabama came about. These kids have never left a 19 mile wide island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It’s gonna be a hilarious and crazy awesome adventure. I can’t freaking WAIT.

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but students in American Samoa are divided into two groups in high school: Proficient and Mainstream. Proficient kids are your English-speaking, mostly well-behaved, sometimes Honors students who take classes like Physics and Pre-Calculus. Mainstream kids are the all the other ones, whose main flaw seems to be not a lack of intelligence, but a lack of English speaking ability. Unfortunately, this lack of English is often mistaken for stupidity, which is just NOT THE CASE. It infuriates me, how the Mainstream kids are treated like they are dumb and will never be able to go to college, because I am convinced some of these kids are SO SMART, they just don’t a very good grasp of English, which is the language of instruction since it’s an American territory. Imagine trying to go to high school where the language of instruction is a language you didn’t learn to speak until you got there. That’s how it is with some of these kids.

Mainstream kids are also the ones who get into trouble more, that much is true. When I told my Department Head at the beginning of the year that I wanted to teach Earth and Space, which is Mainstream juniors and seniors, I should have maybe realized they agreed a little too readily. Lol. It’s funny, because a friend from Off-Island (read: everywhere in the world that is not Samoa) asked me the other day if my kids were “bad.”

I thought about it. There’s a full-on fight at least every other week in my one of my classes. I have had kids throw desks. They talk all the time, even when they aren’t supposed to. They skip class. Three of my seniors are pregnant. They swear in English and Samoan. At least three of my students are on probation, one’s in jail for dealing drugs, and another just spent the last night in jail for beating someone up. One of my students was forced to move here from California because he had joined a gang (Sons of Samoa, it’s a real thing). They are all super cheeky. They ask me inappropriate questions. They write all over the desks. They hardly ever do their homework. Basically, they are every nightmare I had before I got here.

So how’d I answer my friend? “Oh, they’re not that bad.”

Because here’s the thing: I love them. I seriously love almost every single one of my misbehaving, wannabe gangsters. They are so funny. They are the most loyal people I have ever meant. They love their families. They are amazing singers and artists. Most of the genuinely want to do well in life, but they’ve been surrounded by people telling them they need to make “fast money”, not follow their dreams. When it comes down to it, they don’t want to disappoint me. They don’t like when I’m mad at them. They are the most funny, genuine, goodhearted people I have ever met, and I am so lucky to have them in my life. Are there days when I want to rip their heads off? Yep. But even if my day is completely awful, all it takes is one of them doing something like making me a Valentine, or telling me I’m the only one they can confide in, and everything bad just melts away.

Speaking of Valentines, this week was Valentine’s Day, and I am the proud recipient of a dozen Valentines, most of them from the “bad kids” who most of the other teachers can’t stand. I love them, and vice versa. My principal actually said something wise to me the other day when he found out which kids I was helping go to college. He was surprised at the kids I was helping, and then he said, “Maybe they only act that way because we treat them that way.” I think he’s right. I didn’t know anything at all about them before September, so I didn’t treat them like the bad kids. I just treated them like my students. And now they are so much more than that: they’re like my family.

Here are some of the Valentine's I got yesterday. Two of them are from the boys I am helping with college. They may or may not have made me cry.

The Tears of Teenage Boys...

I had a great time in Australia over Christmas break. Of course I had a blast with Darc and Jill in the land Down Under, because let’s face it: Jill+Amber+Darcee=AWESOMENESS.

The thing is, going to Australia made me love Samoa even more. The last few weeks before Christmas break, I was completely burnt out on Samoa. All the little things that don’t usually bother me were driving me crazy. Then I went to Australia, and I spent the whole time missing Samoa. Life perverse, isn’t it? Lol.

I can’t stress enough that Australia was awesome. But it when I got in that line in the Brisbane airport, the one for the flight going to Samoa, and I saw all those ‘ie and lavalavas and puletasi, I actually though, “Ah, I can’t wait to be home.”
Of course, two minutes in the line and I had already met two aunties of one of my students, someone who knew my neighbor, and a lady who offered me a ride from Faleolo to Fagali’I in Samoa, where I would catch my flight back to AmSam (it’s a 45 minute cab ride, otherwise).

As the illustrious Catherine Queen would say, “T.I.S. This is Samoa.”

And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Australia did wonders for my issues with Samoa. Two weeks in the “civilization” of shopping malls, booty shorts, and $200 sunglasses, and I was ready to swim back to my little volcano in the ocean. Seriously, the first time I went to the mall in Australia, I just stood there staring at all the STUFF. I never even thought about reverse culture shock, but MAN, did it happen to me. I was so overwhelmed by all the goods, and money, and especially all the white people. Lol.

Plus, it was COLD.

Heh. By cold, I mean 75. But I”ve been operating under 88 degrees/1000000 percent humidity, so it felt like it was freezing.

Anyway. I’ve been back in Samoa for two weeks now, and I’ve been feeling the love for Samoa/Samoans. I got back almost a week after school started, so when I did finally get back, my students were so excited to see me, and it really made me feel loved. Then last weekend was my birthday, and a bunch of us went up to the Gurr’s place in Malota (the whole way up the West Side.) It was a really fun birthday, and I was really happy that everyone came out for it. I did walk right into the ocean with my phone, so OOPS to that. No phone for me for a while.

One of my students gave me a birthday present: a Samoan Bible. It is really cool, and since I know the Bible pretty well in English, I am able to decipher some of the Samoan words.

Speaking of Samoan, Quinn, Abby, Alison and I have started taking Samoan Langauge lessons from the Mormon missionaries in Leone. THEY ARE SUCH GOOD TEACHERS. Seriously, I’ve learned so much in only two lessons. I’m already able to understand more of what my kids say to each other (which is not necessarily a good thing, lol.)

Also speaking of languages: I’ve started a Spanish Club at school. It’s going really well so far. Lots of being are interested, and even kids that aren’t in it are walking around speaking Spanish to each other.

In Earth and Space, we’ve been watching Armageddon, since I promised them a movie and it is more or less about space. (ish). Anyway, we finished it today, and I look up and seriously half of my big, tough, eighteen year old boys are crying at the part where Bruce Willis says goodbye to Liv Tyler. IT WAS SO FREAKING CUTE. I just enjoy my boys so much, because they do things like cry at movies and wear flowers in their hair and just don’t worry about whether it makes them look “gay” or “girly”. They just do what they want and aren’t ashamed. It’s so refreshing.

Speaking of my boys, there is a group of about 5 of them that I just love more than anything. Like, I’m gonna cry like a baby when they graduate. Every day they are in my room before school, and during lunch, and whenever they possibly can be. I’m helping them apply to college, and they just amuse me to no end. The weird thing is, most of these kids are the kids that all the other teachers call the “bad kids.” But for some reason, they never skip my class, or act like jerks, or give me attitude. Maybe it’s because I’m the only one that treats them like they are worth something. Seriously, though, I love them. They are like the little brothers I never had. I’m trying to figure out how I can marry them off to all my cousins, so that they can be in my life forever. Lol.

In other random news, I got super sunburnt this weekend. I never realized how much my kids touch me until today. Almost all of them do things like touch my shoulder and say hi, or give me a little punch on the arm as they walk by me. I guess normally I don't even notice it, but today it was like, "OW OW OW OW OW!" Lol.

Anyway. That’s it for now. Sorry about the no pictures. The internet is super slow and one picture takes FOREVER.

In which I beg for school supplies....

Sorry, loyal readers. I know I’ve been very lax on the blog updating recently, and I apologize. I feel like it was October and then all of the sudden it was January.

I will update soon, I promise, but first I would like to make an impassioned plea, the same one I made on Facebook:

I need school supplies!

My volunteer stipend isn’t enough for me to buy all the school supplies I need, and my students don’t have the money to get the supplies for themselves. So I’m gonna rely on the kindness of you guys, and beg you to send me some.

American Samoa is part of the U.S. postal system, so sending here is the same as sending anywhere in the States. Also, since you are donating these supplies, you can write them off come tax time.

Here are some things I really need:

• Construction paper (lots!)
• Sticky Tack (for hanging projects; I have to use a lot because it’s so humid here.)
• TONS OF MARKERS!!!!!
• Sharpies
• Blue or black pens
• Pencils
• Glue
• Stickers
• Scissors
• Stapler (students are rough on staplers)
• Index Cards
• Clay (to let dry and then paint)
• Paint to use on the clay
• Paintbrushes
• A globe
• A blow-up globe

Also:
• We are going to make a paper mache Earth, so I need tons of newspaper. If you wanted to send some old newspapers from your home, it would be cool for my kids to see news from around the world.
• We are soon going to start a huge project in our classroom. We are going to paint my ceiling to look like the solar system. The problem is paint is expensive. There is an Ace hardware here, so if you are so inclined, you could send me a gift certificate to buy indoor paint for this project.
• Any educational DVDs about the ocean or Earth Science stuff. The History Channel has a great series called the Universe that I would love to have the first season of.
• Finally, if any of you wanted to send me NFL stuff, I could use it as prizes. Thanks to the success of Samoans in the NFL, kids here LOVE FOOTBALL. Any team stuff would do, but they especially love the Steelers, Packers, Bengals, Patriots, Raiders, and 49ers. Basically any team that has won a recent Super Bowl or has a Samoan playing for them. Lol. They also like the Ravens, but I refuse to encourage such habits. (GO STEELERS!!!!!)

Anyway, thanks so much for any help you can give!

My address:

Amber DeBardelaben
c/o WorldTeach
PO Box 5411
Pago Pago, American Samoa
96799