Weeks seem so long when teaching troublesome high schoolers in Samoa heat. We’ve found ways to make our time pass more easily. Back in September we established Thursday night dinners, and they are still going. Every Thursday night I meet with the crew at 6pm for dinner at either KoKo Bean or Jade; it’s our coping mechanism for Fridays. We get to talk about our week so far, and we use it to plan our weekend’s adventures.
Until the end of October we spent every Thursday night at Rubbles, but they raised their prices and our volunteer budgets could no longer afford it. But we decided to head back to Rubbles for our Friday night festivities. Kate, Rosemary, Taylor and I meet for a night of frozen margaritas and air conditioning (it’s a big deal when you are only in it a few hours each week!). After a pitcher of margaritas, the waitress informed us that the next round would be on Nive. I snuck a glance around the restaurant and sure enough my co-worker Nive and her husband Ray (also a co-worker) were waving from a booth across the way. A pitcher of free margaritas with amazing friends definitely left us all feeling much happier than earlier in the day. Eventually we headed over to Koko Bean where we heard a band would be playing. We each grabbed a cup of coffee and sat and listened to the band (which was coincidentally led by one of Kate’s co-workers). Taylor was extremely excited because they were performing some bluegrass. Something other than Samoan tunes are always welcome. It helped us escape from our lives here, and for a moment we were all caught off guard and feeling like we were in the US- bluegrass, lattes, and air conditioning.
On Saturday we (Kate, Thahn, John, Scott, Taylor and I) decided to head out to the Nu’uuli Falls. I’ve been there several times but none of the crew had, so it was way past due. We all met at the main road and from there it was a 25 minute walk/hike. Because of all the rain we have been receiving, the waterfall was spewing at full force, and the pool at the bottom had a strong current. Everyone was exciting and the waterfall surpassed their expectations. We spent a few hours playing and laying on the rocks. When we first got there a group of high school boys were scaling the rocks. I’ve always watched them do this in awe. They get 30 feet high and plunge back down into the water. Once we got in the water, we took turns trying to climb up. We would get a few feet up (some of the time) and then laugh hysterically as well fell back down. How this kids manage to get up 30 feet on vertical, slippery rocks I will never know.
After the waterfall, we squished back into the car and headed back to my house. Everyone was going to shower, change, and hang out at my house before the night’s festivities. We went to CJ’s for dinner and then accidentally chased Scott from the house as we turned up the Glee soundtrack and jammed to our favorite tunes for an hour. (There is now photographic evidence of our Glee shenanigans.)
Around 8 we finally headed to Tafuna. It was Matt’s birthday and he had hired an aiga bus to take us around to some of the island’s night time hot spots. We chatted with a bunch of fellow WTers who we hadn’t seen in a while. At 10:45 we realized that the bus driver flaked on us in Samoan fashion, but we kept good spirits and decided to head to Bowling Alley. With an armada of cabs we rolled up to the dance club and enjoyed a night of laughing and dancing. Eventually all my crew came back to my house and had a Saturday night slumber party.
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| 01.30.2010_Friend Silliness |
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