Books, Books and yet more Books!

Well it's been 4 months since the load of 200 cartons of books arrived at our place and we are still delivering boxes and trying to arrange assistance with transport. This is proving to be a difficult task! In a round about way we now have contact with the right person at MESC - Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture and also with the Peace Corps Volunteers who are working in the Government schools so have been able to orgainse some more deliveries and identify truely needy schools to give the books to. Last week we went on an adventure to Fagaloa Bay to make a delivery to the Sauago Primary School....

The day dawned bright and sunny. Another lovely day in paradise. Adam loaded the car up completely so that no more boxes, or people for that matter, could fit in and off we went. It was a slowish trip around the north eastern part of Upolu behind all manner of vehicles out for a Sunday drive (on a Wednesday?!) We had consulted the map on the MESC web site and Adam said he was familiar with where we needed to go. Not far from where he has been working on one of the community centres. We headed up the big hill of the Le Mafa pass and kept going until we reached the turn off for Fagaloa bay. On the corner was a stall selling local produce. The road swiftly turned into a one lane sealed track. Being so high up the views were astounding looking down over the green lush vegetation to the sparkling blue sea. We made our way down the narrow winding road until we reached the bottom and swiftly realised we were in the wrong village! Luckily Adam had knowledge of the coast road or more like grassy farm track and knew it was unpassable in our low riding, loaded up car.

So back up the narrow winding road we went. Back along the Le Mafa pass and then we noticed the sign by a water fall for the Sauago village so knew we were heading in the right direction.

Now if we thought the previous narrow winding road was interesting the adventure was about to get more .... adventursome!! Narrower, steeper and more pot holed than ever we had to pick our way through at snails pace so as not to take the bottom out of the car. By this point we were swiftly heading towards being an hour late for our appointment however this is Samoa where time is of no essence!! The drive was picturesque. Palm trees and banana plants along the side of the road and again lovely views down towards the bay and the beautiful water.

We passed the men sitting in the shade of a tree carving wooden souvenirs. We also saw those cracking open coconuts and chopping up the flesh before laying it out on corrugated iron in the sun. Before long we passed some cows tied up on the side of the road and entered a village. We spied a rare sign only to discover we had somehow come too far and completely missed the village and the school we were heading for.

With the help of some friendly local villagers we managed to find where we needed to head and were escourted back along the road by a man, a parent and several children dressed in blue and white school uniforms carrying frozen cordial in plastic bags. Boy I could have done with one of those as it was extremely hot by now.

We tracked down Kyle the Peace Corps Volunteer and found the school buried in behind a fale and down a small hill. Many many excited and noisy children came to greet the palagi car and before long many willing strong boys were lifting and carring heavy boxes inside.

The school was pearched on a rise overlooking the sea but was like taking a trip into the past. Blackboards written on with chalk and wooden bench seats and desks. This school was doing their very best with what they had and the teachers and children were very cheerful and lively. We were shown the library which was also acting as a store room. There were a few old and dusty books on the shelves but they were desperately in need to something more. Thankfully we had quite a number of boxes to help them out.

The teachers and Kyle were very grateful for the donations and it was lovely to be able to deliver these books to a worthy recipient. One of the teachers immediately sat down and started reading a story so we have no doubts these books will go to good use. We were given a hand made thank you card which now has pride of place in the USP Library. Morning tea on offer was pot noodles and a cup of very strong very milky and very sweet coffee. All quite delicious after our journey.

This project has been a lot of hard work but is made all the worth while when deliveries such as this are made to happen. Tomorrow we are off to deliver to one of the Government Secondary Schools and Wednesday over to Savaii again with the car loaded up. After this there will only be a few cartons left.

An official thank you to all of the libraries in New Zealand and BECA who donated books will be posted soon along with an article for the papers but just in case you are reading now, thank you for helping us to make such a difference to the schools in Samoa. Faafetai tele lava.