The drought is broken

For several months now it has been hot and dry here in Samoa. We have had water shortages meaning nothing coming out of the tap for entire afternoons. The earth went dusty and we had to eek out any water we did have so that the plants could also have a small drink. At work they are collecting water bottles for Tokelau who are in even more dire situation to us.

But this afternoon the heavens opened, the temperature dropped 10 degrees (is this now winter?) and it hasn't stopped raining since! The male students poured out onto the field at the back of campus with rugby and soccer balls in tow. After a short run up they dived with a splash into what was now a mini lake and slid in glee while everyone else watched on shrieking in laughter.

Just goes to show you are never too old to play in puddles!

posted from Bloggeroid

Our New Kitchen

This is our kitchen before....
















And this is our kitchen after renovations!!
















Very flash albeit a few more chips out of the tiled floor in the process. Cupboards and drawers that open and close with ease and no termite dust everywhere. Hoping the pesky geckos will also stay out along with the spiders! The bench under the window is now a bit longer as well which is great. The only issue now is where to store the dog biscuits!!

NZSS Netball

Talofa. Well as Adam mentioned we have just returned from Napier where I was invited to umpire at the NZ Secondary Schools netball tournament. This tournament features the top secondary school teams from each of the regions in the Upper North Island, Lower North Island and South Island. Needless to say the standard of the competition was fierce and fast!

I expected to have to hit the ground running (ha ha) however the speed and skill level of the game was still a bit of a shock to my Samoan system! The week was thoroughly enjoyable, exhausting and enlightening though. I have a long way to go still and need to find a way to gain more experience at this level if I wish to progress further.

Meanwhile check out below my fantastic umpiring uniform and some of the group of umpires I met there. There is even one of me in action!!

What We Miss Here in Samoa

After being here for more than 3 years we think we have adjusted pretty well to the things you can and can't get here, but there are still a couple of things that we do miss -

The biggest one is THE DISHWASHER!! Everyday I have to put on my rubber gloves and tackle the dishes, not my favourite chore, and one that Angela will not tackle unless it is a real dire emergency!

That brings us to one of the other things we still can't get here - dishwashing gloves! I can not find the good old, basic rubber gloves for doing the dishes. Whenever we go to NZ that is one of the first things I pick up at the supermarket - while Ang is stocking up on chocolate, shampoo and hairspray!

Things got a bit desperate recently. My last current pair of rubber gloves sprang a leak and there were no more in the cupboard - apart from this flash pair Mum gave Angela for Xmas! Fortunately we are heading to NZ next week and I will be able to get some 'real' gloves.

Netball end of season prize giving 2011

Last night was the end of season prize giving for Samoa Netball.  This year Hyundai club did very well with the womens U21, A Reserve and A Teams all taking prizes.  During the season the A team held the shield for 4 weeks and then played some tough games to come 3rd in the grade.  This was an excellent achievement and a much improved performance on previous years.  Congratulations to the SCOPA club for coming 1st in the A Grade and to Faleula a new club for taking out 2nd place by beating Hyundai in our final game of the season by only 1 goal!!  Nail biting stuff.

USP struggled this year however this did not dampen spirits with the boys and girls teams showing up each week keen to take the court and play the game.  I am proud to say the USP boys showed great commitment this year and developed their skills during the season having some close matches and taking out the prize for Sportsmanship and Best Development so congrats to them for winning 2 new balls, a ball bag and some cones to assist with our training.  Girls found the A Reserve grade they moved up into challenging.

Many thanks as well to SNA for my prize for top umpire which I greatly appreciate.  Here some of the A grade team are pictured with Ray and Tate who also received umpiring prizes for passing their Centre Badges.  Well done on a great season everyone!!

Samoa Library Week 2011

From the 26th - 30th September 2011 Samoa held its 3rd ever National Library Week.  During the week events and activities were run to celebrate and promote literacy and reading in Samoa.  This year the theme was "Reading is your Pathway to Success" and many schools and people joined in with the book character, story and poetry writing and poster competitions held.  Library Week was launched with a parade through Apia town with 500-600 people joining in and then the opening ceremony at the EFKS hall in Mulinuu where the School Library Assistants performed a mania siva and the story of Little Red Riding hood was acted out by library staff from LDS Pesega.

Here is the banner from the Robert Louis Stevenson School

 This is the prize winning costume of the Very Hungry Caterpillar

 Here we all are parading through town past Carruthers store and the Apia town clocktower

On Tuesday the Library Association Committee members went to the Atua Farmer's District Library in Lepa for stories and activities and then on Wednesday it was over to the big island of Savaii for more parading and book character fun with approximately 300 participants.  Thursday saw the book launch of new children's book "Surviving a Tsunami : Dealing with Disaster" by Jackie Faasisila, Angela Jowitt and Walter Dudley and finally on Friday was more stories and activities in the Nelson Memorial Public Library before prizes were awarded for the story writing and poster competitions and librarians ended the week with a dinner.

Faafetai tele lava LAS Committee for a job well done and a very successful Library Week 2011.

Pineapple update at Week 7

As you can see the Slips are now forming and getting quite large under the fruit and the plant is on a bit of a lean.  Might need to stake that up!  Wonder how long we let the Slips grow there before we take them off and plant them.  Hmmmmm must consult a book in the library....

Go da Manu!

Well Rugby World cup fever has certainly been gripping the country.  There have been flags flying, banners up and people have even gone so far as to paint their cars with "Go the Manu" and decorate their bonnets with the Samoan flag.  No matter whether they won or lost people were still positive and happy about their performance such that there was great celebration and racket of car horns tooting after every game.  Samoa also experienced it's first "flash mob" last Thursday 29th September when everyone was invited to gather on Beach Road dressed in their garb with flags in tow to storm the road at 3pm, perform the Siva Tau while being filmed by TV3 and this was then hurridly edited and put up on YouTube in time for the boys to see it before their game.

Meanwhile Old Man stays true to the All Blacks!!  Oh well that's what he gets for being adopted by NZ Palagis!!

Friends in Samoa

 We recently had visitors to the island our good friends Ang and Dave from NZ.  This is us all in our back yard next to the pineapple garden.

Nicola and I also farewelled Elenoa with dinner at the yacht club, Swashbucklers.  It was a fun filled evening full of laughs and we hope 'Noa' will settle back into Fiji with her family and new job.

Samoa Perimeter Relay 2011

The 17th September was the 3rd running of the Samoa Perimeter Relay, and once again I found myself lining up with the NPI Flyers.

The event was pretty much the same format as the last 2 years - 104 km, 24 legs, 6 members in each team. There were a few changes to some of the legs, and all of us that struggled with the heat in the middle of the day last year appreciated the organisers decision to put the longer legs earlier, when it is cooler, and give us shorter runs at the end when it is hot.

From last year's team only 3 of us are still in Samoa, but Slava (the crazy Russian vet) decided that he was going to run the entire 104km himself, so that just left Darryl and I. We eventually managed to round up 4 willing(?) volunteers to make up our team, including a last minute substitute when one of the team was injured only a week before the event. My own build up was very disrupted, including a 2 week lay off recovering from a sprained ankle suffered when I stood on a rock while out for a run (it didn't help that it was dark and the street lights were not working!)  Darryl too had his training interrupted by injury - he managed to break a rib while playing business house soccer! So it is fair to say that we were not the best prepared team, but we did make it to the start line!

This year I must have drawn the short straw as somehow I ended up with the longest leg and the section that has earned the nickname 'Heart Break Hill' over the last couple of years.  The 6.1 km leg around Lalomanu didn't worry me too much - it is a really nice stretch to run and is fairly flat, but I wasn't looking forward to the steep section of heart break hill, or the steep downhill that follows it.  As it turned out it wasn't too bad. The uphill had me huffing and puffing, but the downhill was much harder on the legs. The dodgy ankle managed to survive they day and I made it to the end OK.

We did have one small drama when Andy, our 4th runner, hurt his knee during his 3rd leg. He managed to walk/run/hobble to the end of that section and we were able to use a substitute runner to run his final stretch for him.  I had bravely/foolishly volunteered to take up his last leg, but I was very relieved when our spare runner Pete said that he was able to do it.

For the record we made it to the finish line in 9 hours and 37 minutes, about 17 minutes ahead of our target time, and good enough to win a Pizza Feast from Giordano's which was very much enjoyed by the team . This is becoming a habit - Angela also won a Giordano's voucher at the Independence Day Run.

NPI Flyers at the Finish Line