School Day (Mom’s Visit: Monday)

(From Mom’s trip journal: Told from her perspective)

Jessie’s back at school today so I got up early to drive her to school. After breakfast I decided to drive to Leone and check out the “Well Being Zone”, a small local day spa. From the outside it looked like a house with a car port and a pretty little garden, but when you step inside it’s a very nice and zen-like place. As you enter there’s a sitting area with 4 wicker/cane chairs around a coffee table and lots of large tropical plants. By the door is a water feature that provides a nice soothing sound for the entire place. Candles burn to give off a nice aroma and soothing music plays in the background. The place just had a good vibe.  I was greeted by a friendly Fijian woman named Nisha. She provided me a class of cold water to drink while I looked through the book of Spa treatments.  I selected the 60 minute Aroma Therapy Massage.  Nisha showed me to one of two massage rooms.  Nisha provided a very relaxing massage.  After the massage I headed out and drove around the Leone area for just a bit before heading back east to Samoana to take Jessie to lunch. I picked Jessie up and we went to the “Taco Place” for lunch. We split a box of 5 crispy chicken tacos.  After lunch Jessie only had one class period remaining, so I stayed and sat in on her class. As before, it was fun to see Jessie and her students interacting. One of her students, Prqynce, is my favorite and was in this class. He is just the cutest thing.  After school let out, we went down the street a block or two to the gas station that has the best ice cream on the island. We both had a milk shake to go. After that, we made a stop at the teach supply store to pick up a few items, then we went in search of a hair salon that one of Jessie’s friends told her about. That salon was closed but we found another that was open and Jessie got her hair trimmed.  We decided that we would go to the movies at 7:30. It was just now 5:30 so we had some time to kill. We went to Pizza Hut to grade papers and get a bite to eat before show time.  I helped Jessie grade some papers and it was fun reading some of the “before the bell” writings. Most of the students are way below their grade level in reading and writing but I still found the work entertaining. We wrapped up our work at Pizza Hut, which by the way is one of the nicest restaurants on the island, and headed to the movies. The Nu’uuli Cinema is a two show theater which shows current feature films. We decided on the movie “2012”, a drama about the end of the earth. It was an ok movie even though most of it was computer animated.  I think it was just after 10:00 pm when we got home. This was a late night for American Samoa.

11.20.2009_MomComesToSchool