Living the Life I've Dreamed Of: January 2014

I was in America for a total of 5 weeks, and boy did time fly by! I ate just about every type of food I wanted/craved/dreamt about for over a year. I saw a lot of family (including a cousin I hadn’t seen in years) and a lot of friends. I even saw a friend I had met in Samoa! He was driving through New Mexico, and wrote me on Facebook asking if I was free to meet up. We met in downtown Santa Fe, playing tourist as I showed him around my city. I never thought I’d see him again, or most of the people I’ve met in Samoa. What a small world, indeed!

Going home for the holidays was the right decision. You may be wondering: What was so special about going home? Well, I got to meet my nephew for the first time. Also, I got to have a real conversation with my niece (our first real conversation), who’s my goddaughter. She was 2 years old when I left for Samoa, and was just learning to talk. Now she’s 3 years old and has quite the personality. It warmed my heart when she recognized me, calling out my name when I surprised my sisters and brothers-in-law. Special thanks to my family for not letting her forget about me. While it would’ve been nice to go to New Zealand for Christmas, or really go to Fiji, family is important to me, and I cherish the time I have with them, so anytime I have the means and funds to go home, I will. I have my entire life to travel, but holidays with family are precious and priceless.

How my trip was like:

*I drove for the first time in over a year! Granted I didn’t drive until week 3 at home, but I did it, and it was manual transmission, too! I appreciated having the freedom to come and go as I please… what a beautiful thing!

*I made it a point to take ava to America. I was a little scared it wouldn’t make customs because the packaging looks like drugs. But it made it through! If you don’t know what ava is, it’s made from a root plant, causing the mouth to go numb and other intoxicating effects, depending on how strong the mixture is. Google it (you’ll probably have more luck Googling “kava”). In a future blog post, I’ll write more about it. Anyway, I made the first batch with my best friends. I’ve drunk ava plenty of times in Samoa, but boy did I finally experience the effects it. It was intoxicating, to say the least. My best friend Justin really enjoyed it, calling it “the best dirt water he’s ever drank.” Yes, it really tastes like dirt water. The following night I made a batch for my family. My niece being a curious 3-year old wanted to partake in the ava making, so she helped me mix it. The rest of my family had a couple of drinks each. They didn’t like the taste (who does?) but were troopers regardless. And, they felt the numbness in the mouth almost instantaneously. I guess I’m a good ava-maker, after all!

The looks on my sisters' faces says it all! Haha

Well these are supposed to go on the end, but blogger acting up. Update soon

*Unfortunately my MacBook died. If it could’ve died at anytime during my service, it picked the perfect time to call it quits because I was in America and had access to an Apple Store. If it broke while in Samoa, it would be a lost cause. I tried troubleshooting it on my own but had no luck. The wonderful techs at Apple were able to revive it. But there was a cost. There’s always a cost, right? I wasn’t charged a fee, but was hit with a huge loss, a loss that no amount of money could solve. My internal hard drive was wiped out, resulting in 65GB worth of photos (about 20,000. That’s right 20,000) to erase. Yep, that was a huge kick in the gut. This wasn’t the first time a laptop have failed me. One would think I’ve learned my lesson. The funny thing is, “backup MacBook on external hard drive” was written on my “Things to do in America” list. I just never got to it. If you’re not familiar with Mac products, they have an awesome app called Time Machine. If you have an external hard drive, Time Machine creates carbon copies of your operating system. Yes, I have an external hard drive that’s backed up on Time Machine. A few weeks before I left to America, I was cleaning out my external hard drive. I saw how much room Time Machine was taking up, so had the “smart” idea to manually delete backups. Bad idea. If you’re a Time Machine user, NEVER DO THIS! I accidently (I say accidently, but the truth is, I had no idea what I was doing. Whoops!) deleted the main backup, which would’ve been extremely handy and had all my photos when my MacBook died weeks later. The good news is, my MacBook is up and running again. I was told that I needed a new internal hard drive. So I bought one that has quite a bit of memory, and installed it myself, saving me a couple hundred bucks. Thanks, YouTube for the installation tutorial! Before I left home, I backed up my operating system, and backed up my back up on an extra hard drive that’s in America. I think I’ve finally learned my lesson! Oh and I didn’t lose every file. Time Machine was able to revive some files, so it wasn’t a total loss. Plus I have tons of photos on Facebook.

*I created priceless memories. Yes I did. Like I wrote above, going home was the right decision. I made it home in time to celebrate my dad’s and aunt’s birthdays (they’re twins), and I got to spend the holidays with my family, which was great because last holiday season was around the time I moved to Samoa and I was quite depressed to be so far from family during that time. This holiday season I got to participate in my family’s awesome Christmas tradition of opening up our gifts on Christmas Eve, which is technically Christmas morning (we don’t give Santa Claus a chance to drop off gifts. Sorry, Santa!). I loved this moment, and seeing the excitement on my niece’s face was priceless!

Santa Fe has an awesome Christmas Eve tradition called the Farolito Walk. Farolitio is a Spanish word for “paper latern.” Every Christmas Eve farolitos line up Canyon Road, a famous art gallery street in downtown Santa Fe. My family and I participated in the farolito walk while I was home. This definitely put me in the Christmas spirit, but boy was it FREEZING! I also spent some time seeing my aunts and cousins, eating delicious food and watching Spurs basketball and the NFL Playoffs (some of my favorite things).

If I wasn’t with my family, then I was out with my friends. I spent a lot of time with my two best friends Justin and Andrea. It was so good to be reunited with them. Our time consisted of eating, dancing, and laughing. Also, we had a great New Year’s Eve together. It’s comforting to know that I have a great group of friends I can rely on.

New Year's Eve

Final dinner and night with them.

I got to see a close friend Jimmy. I hadn’t seen him since March 2012, which was right before he got deployed to Afghanistan. Jimmy and I have the kind of friendship that picks up right where it left off. It definitely didn’t feel like two years had passed since we last hung out.

So excited to see Jimmy!

All good things must come to an end. I’d be lying if I said that I was exited to come back to Samoa. The truth is I wanted to stay in America a little longer. I wanted more time with my family, eating my mother’s delicious food. I wanted to hear one more life-lesson lecture from my father. I wanted another chatting and laughing session with my sisters, while listening to music non-stop. I wanted to teach my niece one more “bad” thing that would get her mother upset with me. I wanted to see my nephew smile one last time. I wanted one more night out with friends, resulting in a late night food run, buying way too much food, and leaving a mess in the car. I wanted one more night on my amazingly comfortable bed and pillows. I wanted one more day of privacy. I wanted more time to just feel normal. The 5 weeks I was home passed like a blink of an eye.

It took about 19 hours to get to Samoa. As the plane was landing, I started feeling nauseous; anxiety definitely got the best of me. The moment I stepped out of the plane, I was hit with a wall of humidity. The smell brought me back to the first hotel I stayed at in Samoa during my group’s training. That memory made me feel worse because it brought back the way I was feeling during my first few days in Samoa, which is indescribable.

I’m fortunate to be surround by a great group of friends in Samoa. They spent the weekend with me, keeping me company. By the time the weekend was over, my spirits were lifted and I felt a lot better. So if any of you are reading this, THANK YOU! You guys mean the world to me. Staying in Apia the weekend I arrived was the right decision. If I would’ve gone back to my village right away, I think I would’ve been depressed and sad. Apia was a good stepping-stone back into the Samoan culture.

I arrived in the village and I got the feel like I never left. This is a good thing because it verifies that Samoa has become my second home. Samoa is where I’m meant to be right now. Yes, I was sad to come back here, but who wouldn’t be? I just came back from a long trip at home, seeing the people most important to me. But just because I wasn’t happy to be back in Samoa, didn’t mean that I wanted to leave Samoa/end my Peace Corps service early. Quitting was/is never option for me. If I left Samoa early, it would be quitting at the finish line. The finish line because I finish my Peace Corps service this year, either in November or December. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, people! So while I miss my family, friends, and America so much, I’m going to enjoy my time in Samoa (and all the sweating I’m doing. Damn you, humidity!) because it’s limited and will be over before I knew it. Then I can go back to my American life and freedom that I love so much.

In a couple of hours I’ll be headed to the village of Lalomanu for a Mid-Service Conference. It will be an informative week, at a beautiful beach resort. Peace Corps Samoa is such a spoiled post. Also, I begin my second year of teaching next week. Update soon!

Below you’ll find photos from the rest of my time home, and photos from my first weekend back in Samoa. Enjoy!

Family: