Living the Life I've Dreamed Of: Term 3 Break

In a recent post, I talked about my first weekend on term break, and how I’m sick. Well, I’m still sick. The reason why I’m in Apia today is because I had a doctor’s appointment, following up on the sickness I mentioned last week.

The second weekend of my term break was wonderful. I decided to go to my group’s 1-year party celebration. This meant that I had a long day of travel ahead of me. This is how my day looked: Woke up at 5 am. Got on the bus at 6 am. Arrived in Apia at 7:55 am. Got on a bus that was headed to the wharf at 8:20 am. Arrived at the wharf at 9:15 am. Left Upolu at 10 am. Arrived in Salelologa, Savai’i at 11:15 am. Hopped on a bus that was headed to Asau, Savai’i at 11:20 am. It turned out that that bus wasn’t leaving Salelologa until 3:00 pm, when the next boat arrived. The driver told me that I could get out at the market, to do shopping. I told him that I’d rather not, and I’d prefer to wait inside the bus with him, until it was time to head to the north part of the island. The reason why I didn’t want to get out was because I used to live in Savai’i, and I’d go to town several times a week. I knew that if I roamed around, I was bound to see someone I knew, and would be bombarded with numerous questions. Questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. Questions I didn’t know how to answer… So I was prepared to ride around with the bus driver for several hours, until departure time. As luck would have it, at 11:45 am, the driver found me a bus that was headed to the north part of the island. I happily hopped in, and away we went. The ride was quite long, so I filled my time listening to music and studying new Samoan vocabulary. I arrived to my destination at 2:50 pm, totaling about 8 hours of travel time! Sheesh! Considering that it took three buses and a boat to get to the party, it wasn’t too bad; the day flew by. I was excited to see the other members from Group 84. Total, 11 out of 13 in my group made it to the party. It was a great time, and the owner of Vaimoana (the resort where the party was held) made it special for us, setting up the dinner tables on the beach, and allowed us to have a bonfire on the beach, for s’mores. Becca and Kate wrote each of us a haiku. They were humorous. Mine was about my love for Instagraming photos of my beach days. Allyson and Josh made a powerpoint, displaying photos from our first year. It was great to look back and reminisce over the last year.

The following day, we headed to Manase for Jim and Faye’s wedding. A lot of the people I met the previous weekend were there. The ceremony was beautiful, and the reception was a great time. I spent that night at the resort where the wedding was held. At this point, it felt like a long weekend, and I remember thinking, “Wow, my weekend is only halfway through!” How did I spend the rest of my time in Savai’i? A group of us went back to Vaimoana. There was another bonfire, we had more s’mores on the beach, and ate delicious food. On Monday, it was time to go back to reality, and head back to Upolu. I intended on getting on an early boat. Unfortunately, that boat did not arrive, and was forced to take a later boat. I didn’t want to wait at the wharf for two hours, so I walked to Lusia’s. It was my first time there since May. Going to Lusia’s was great, but made me sad because I have a lot of good memories at that place, and I can no longer go there on a regular basis.

Since I had to take four vacation days to go to Savai’i, I acted like I was on vacation, enjoying every second of it. And like any proper vacation, I got back from vacation, needing a vacation from my vacation; I was exhausted. Luckily I was on term break for an extra week. I filled my days with sleeping, eating, exercising, Samoan language studying, and hard drive watching. I still have one weekend ahead of me. I’ll probably spend Saturday at a nearby resort. Sunday will be spent at church, eating, sleeping, and getting ready for the 4th school term.

I took a ton of photos during the break. Below you’ll find some of my favorites. Enjoy!

This was the weekend before my term break started, but I added it to this blog because it was the first weekend Danny (Group 83) along with other RPCVs started coming to Samoa for the weddings.