Return to Samoa

On Friday, May 28th, I'll return to Samoa for a visit and come back to Hawaii on June 11th.

As I mentioned previously, I’ve been trying to raise some money to help with a new computer center in my village which is going to be in the old headmaster’s house near the high school. I’m blessed with so many great friends; I’ve received $565 in the mail. But that’s not the only amazing thing.

There is a Peace Corps volunteer (Erica) who is still in Samoa who lived in a village several miles down the road from Poutasi. I say lived, because she literally out ran the tsunami when it swept into her village, and the house where she was living was destroyed. Through her help and an organization called Peace Corps Partnership we have raised an additional $2,700! The money is intended to help purchase some equipment for the computer center. It should buy at least two copier/printer machines. I can’t say fa’afetai (thank you) enough to everyone who helped out.

It’s been eight months since the tsunami.  I’m looking forward to seeing everyone there, but I’m apprehensive about seeing the village. It will forever be in my memory as it was before the tsunami, especially since that’s the way it was during my Peace Corps experience. But it will never be that way again, and I have to get used to that idea too.

I’ll send an update from Samoa. Maybe this will be the stimulus I need to take my 300+ page journal, written while I was in Peace Corps, and turn it into something that people might want to read, or maybe just a memoir for me and my family.

As always, thanks for your interest and your support.