Tuesday, Febraury 12, 2013

Hello friends and family.  We haven't done anything too exciting so we will blog about our regular everyday life this time.

We have had rain, rain and more rain.  The local people said they haven't had rains quite this bad for a long time.  On February 1st it rained over 8 inches.  We had flooding again in the same places that were flooded during the cyclone and most of the rivers ran at capacity for a few days.

This was below the church at Magiagi which has still not totally recovered from the cyclone.  It was raining so hard (it makes the picture look "washed out"), Nada got totally soaked on her left side by just rolling down the window to take this picture.

 This is street three or the clock tower street.  As we drove up the street the water was to the bottom of the doors of our van.  We were afraid some of the other smaller cars might get water in their engines.  The Vaisagano river was over flowing again and these streets and businesses were getting the worst of it.

You can see the water is up to the knees of the person walking.  This was all on Friday, February 1, 2013.  Since this day we have not had continual downpours.  Just thunderstorms most days but they only last for a short time.






That evening we had our Young Single Adult class come over to our house for an activity.  We were going to do field games but it was still raining and the ground was far too wet.  We did some get to know you activities and then we played a password game dealing with people from the scriptues that Reed created.  The kids had a blast.  Nada made egg salad sandwiches and baked some peanut butter cookies and rice krispie treats.  They ate them all.  Everyone said they had a great time and even their parents on Sunday told us how muich fun they had.  We really love these young people.  They are so respectful and a lot of fun to be with.

 Elder and Sister Gertsch came over for part of the evening because they teach a lot of these kids at the institute.  We had two girls and eleven boys show up.

 Faamagalo is standing up and Richard is sitting down right in front of him.  They are both leaving on missions on February 14, 2013.  Faamagalo will be serving in the Philippines and Richard will be serving in Samoa.  Oscar is sitting on the right side of the couch in the black tshirt.  He will be leaving on February 27, 2013 to serve his mission in New Zealand.  These young men are so great.

 They wanted to have a group picture.  Oj in the  blue shirt in front and Anne sitting next to him are a couple.  We hope they will get married but he is leaving for New Zealand on the 21st of February for some schooling and won't be back until November.
Mosiah standing on the right of Reed left to go back to school in Fiji on February 3rd.  He is in medical school there.

They all wanted to do a silly picture.  Young people are the same no matter where you go!

 On Friday, February 8, 2013, Pesega Middle School had a field day. The weather was perfect. They played soccer, kickball, volleyball, basketball and touch rugby. They were very well organized and all the kids participated and said they had a great time. The rain didn't come until they were all finished with their games. We walked around and took pictures and talked to some of the teachers and students.

 This group of students is playing soccer.  You can see that most of the kids were out there playing in bare feet.  It amazes us that they don't hurt their toes or feet but they play most of their sports without shoes on. Many of the kids who have tennis shoes take them off, even to play basketball!

They take volleyball serious. You see them playing all around the island at churches, schools, the village "malae" (the village commons area or field) and in yards.

 

 This group is playing some kind of kickball. We didn't recognize the game.

  The students dressed up are the high school students.  No uniforms today.  They call it mufti day, they dress up in dress clothes and then they had a welcome dance.

These students are cooling off and getting drinks. 

On Saturday, February 9, 2013 Reed and I decided we wanted to walk as far as the wall around Apia harbor would go to the west.  We went down about 4:00 p.m and began our little adventure.  There is a seawall that goes from one end of the harbor to the other and you can walk all the way on it.  We drove to the far end of the Mulinuu Peninsula, and started by the weather station and went towards the west.  It ended in this little quiet area that people were parked at just watching the ocean.  It was very secluded. The Mulinuu Peninsula was for hundreds of years the special ground of the highest chiefs of Samoa.

 Nada walking on the wall behind the weather station. 

 There was a slight breeze and shade in a lot of the places.  It was a very comfortable, enjoyable walk.

 You can see that the wall is wide enough for two people to walk on.  You see people walking and sitting on this wall especially in the evenings.

 When the wall came to an end on the west side  there were these two graves there.  They are not marked with any names that we could see.  People build these beautiful graves just on their private properties.  It is very interesting.

 These graves were all fenced in and appear to be taken care of but we couldn't see who they belonged to.  Some of them are so ornate and so tall, almost like a pyramid.

This young man was trying to decide where to cast his fishing net.

 These two ladies were just sitting in the water drinking their drinks from McDonalds.  Yes we have a McDonalds!

 This home-carved canoe was just sitting there in the ocean.  Quite picturesque.

 You can see how long these long boats are.  Nada is standing at the end of them and you can barely see her.  On the right is another grave along the way.

This was an abandoned long boat just sitting there.  We thought you might like to see the inside seats.  These are the boats they use for the fautasi races where there are 48 rowers, a caller and a drummer.  There is a new long boat in that covered shed in the background.

 These two young men are fishing.  They each have an end to a net. They hit the water as they walk towards each other hoping to stir up the fish into their net.  They wanted us to take their picture.  That is the city of Apia behind them.

 The seawall walkway goes right through this restaurant called the Yacht Club.  We have eaten here a few times.  They have good food and you can sit on the deck and just watch the waves and sometimes small boats go past.

This restaraunt is called Sails.  We have not eaten here but now that we know it is here we will give it a try.  We walked for an hour and only got about 1/4 of the way around.  We really enjoyed just strolling along and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

Below three girls swimming waved good-bye to us as we were getting into the van.

We hope you have enjoyed seeing a little of what we do on a regular basis.  We stay involved with the acitivities at the school besides teaching our classes.  Our Young Single Adults keep us busy with their various activites.  We try to enjoy and see as much of the island as we can on our P-Days  when we have time.  Samoa has a lot of beautiful things to see and we really love the people.  We are busy, happy and well. 

Until next time.  Tofa Soifua Reed and Nada