The Month of March

This month has been an emotional rollercoaster. I’ll start with the positives.

The Highs:

*My students: They’re great! I mentioned in a previous post that I have 9 groups and I work with each one twice a week, along with co-teaching on Fridays. Right now I’m focusing on alphabet recognition with most of my groups, and phonics with the others. I was brought to tears during a session with a Year 4 group last week. Why? Because I saw how happy and excited my students were, as they were playing a game I created for them. It brought tears to my eyes—a sincerely happy and emotional moment for me, confirming why I’m here. I had to compose myself, though because I didn’t want my students to see me in an emotional state; they would have thought they did something wrong, and trying to explain that the tears were that of joy may have been difficult and confusing for them. So what did I do? I took a deep breath, wiped my eyes, and continued to smile in amazement.

*English Club: We had our first meeting last Thursday. Out of the 108 students registered at my school, 40 students were in attendance. It was a success, and I’m pretty sure I had the most fun! I look forward to our weekly meetings. I’ll go into more detail about the club in a later post.

*Understanding Samoan! My host mother was talking to me the other day, in Samoan, and I understood in its entirety. It was an awesome moment! There’s still a lot of Samoan I don’t understand, but this moment gave me hope that I will come close to fluency by the time my two years of service is up.

*One of my favorite things to do is surprise people. As I was hanging my clothes on Saturday, my host mother asked me how I made the soup I shared with them last week. Turns out they loved it! So I skipped Sunday service to make soup for the to’onai (Sunday lunch). The soup I made contained split peas, pearl barley, lentils, carrots, onion, garlic, pasta, and eggplant. Eggplant is my obsession these days. Anyway, my host family loved the soup, and was appreciative of the gesture.

Now, the Lows:

The month of March is special to me because it’s my birth month, as well as my mother’s and three close friends. Last year, I spent the entire month celebrating my birthday (actually, I do that every year), and getting ready for my Coachella trip, which has a few weeks after my birthday. The year before, I took a Spring break trip in March; my cousin and I celebrated our birthdays—a late celebration for her, an early celebration for me. In addition to the trips that I take around my birthday, there comes the celebration with my family; it’s a huge deal. There’s always a dinner, along with cake (topped with candles, of course), and gifts galore. My family goes out of their way to make sure that each birthday is a special one. Then there’s the celebration with friends, consisting of dinner and dancing, usually the weekend before or after my birthday. Yes, this all sounds wonderful, so you may be asking why it’s in the “lows” part of the post. The reason why is because I’ll be celebrating my birthday alone this year. Several weeks ago, I mentioned to my host mother that my birthday is coming up. I learned during PST (Pre-Service Training) that birthdays aren’t celebrated in Samoa, unless it’s a 1st birthday, 21st birthday, and another year that I can’t remember. I won’t remind my host family on March 27th that it’s my birthday because I don’t want them to feel like they have to do anything special for me; I don’t want to put that burden on them, so I’d rather keep quiet.

Now that I think about it, this year’s birthday will be like the start of last year’s birthday. I was volunteering at a homeless shelter on my birthday last year. Not a single person at the shelter knew it was my special day, so that morning felt like an ordinary one, until I got home—breakfast was waiting for me from my favorite restaurant, and flowers were delivered to me from my favorite flower shop. That evening was spent with my family, a close friend, and her family, consisting of dinner, cake, and gifts, as described above, then I spent some time with a special person; it was a beautiful birthday.

What will this year’s birthday be like? I don’t know. It’s on a Wednesday, which means I’ll be teaching for a majority of the day. I spend some Wednesday afternoons washing clothes. Maybe I’ll skip laundry that day; bucket washing on my birthday sounds like a horrible idea. I’ll probably walk to the store in the next village and treat myself to ice cream, sit on the beach, and ponder on life, while trying to answer some questions that have been floating around in my head; questions relating to my personal and professional life.

This year will be my first solo birthday, without family and friends by my side, and it’s sad to think about. It reminds me of John Mayer’s song titled “St. Patrick’s Day.” One line says: “No one wants to be alone at Christmas time.” He should have added: “and for their birthday” because in my opinion, it’s equally as sad. Yes, I’m aware that I’m feeling sorry for myself, but every time I think about it, and it’s been a lot lately, in addition to thinking about missing my mother’s 50th birthday celebration, I can’t help but feel sadness, and I think most people in my situation would feel the same way. Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is filled with many highs and lows. I’ve only been here for five months, and have experienced some of the happiest and saddest moments of my life; it’s been emotional whiplash, to say the least. But it’s all part of the ride, and I’m growing with every experience I’ve encountered, whether it has been a positive or negative one.

And there is a positive to this: eventually, my birthday will be celebrated. Originally, my birthday was going to be celebrated with some PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) on March 29&30, in Apia, but that’s Easter weekend, and I hear that Samoa shuts down for the holiday. So my birthday celebration will be postponed until early April, during Term 1 break from school. I look forward that.

I know that spending time on the beach, on March 27, will help the sadness I’ll feel on that day. After all, not many people can say that they’ve celebrated a birthday on a tropical island, in one of the most beautiful countries in the entire world.