Released

This morning at 10 AM the Peace Corps drivers came to pick us up to move us to our sites. I arrived to my three bedroom, two bathroom house that I will be sharing with two other teachers here at St. Mary’s. They showed me my room, which had a bed, a chest of drawers and two tables. Then I saw my bathroom. There is a room with a toilet only and then a room with a shower only. As much as I wanted to complain, I refrained and reminded myself that one of the reasons I joined the Peace Corps was to enjoy the simple life.

An hour or so after I arrived, a Peace Corps vehicle showed up. Holly was in the back seat and jumped out explaining that her house was amazing – a four bedroom beautiful home with three TVs. I am happy for her because her job (or lack of) has been getting her down and I want everything to work out so that she stays for the entire two years. I got in the car so that I could get a ride into town and pick up a few items for my new place. First, we stopped by Marques’ house to make sure that everything was okay for him as well. His place was huge, but pretty dirty. He also jumped in the car for a free ride. We got into town and I ran into Candice and Charles. We did some shopping together and then came back to my place to grab my bike. We rode over to their house and hung out for a few hours.

If you would have told me two months ago that I would be sharing a house with two other Samoan women, I would have been pretty disappointed. I am happy about it now because I will not be lonely, I will be able to practice and expand my knowledge of the Samoan language and culture, and I will be able to teach the Samoan women about the American culture and language. I also feel a lot safer living with other people. Being a foreigner makes you an automatic target, and it doesn’t help that I am a woman. I am sure that this is the way that God intended it to be, as I prayed about it and left it up to him on my living situation.

I am sitting here at my desk typing this blog entry and our power just went out. It is very dark, and the only light for miles is this light on my computer screen. Trying to come up with dinner ideas tonight was pretty difficult. It has been so long since I have had to think about what to cook and how. I am very grateful for the care package that I received yesterday because it has some instant noodles that I am now enjoying. While I was cooking the noodles, I saw about five HUGE cockroaches around the kitchen. I started spraying my Mortein and opened my bathroom door (the one with the shower) and freaked out when I saw about five more HUGE ones. That is one thing I can’t seem to get used to here – the cockroaches! They are nasty, huge and are everywhere!!