Last week we had an outing to the other Samoa, American Samoa. The Samoan islands were divided by the Germans and the Americans in 1899 after a few brief skirmishes. The Germans took Western, or what is now Independent Samoa made up of Savaii and Upolu, while the US took the islands of Tutuila and …
Tag Archives: SIT Study Abroad
White Sunday
October 12th was one of Samoa’s biggest holidays–White Sunday. White Sunday originated with the arrival of the London Missionary Society in 1830. It always falls on the second Sunday of October, and it is a church service in honor of the children (in Samoan it is known as “Lotu Tamaiti,” or “The Children’s Service”). My …
Savaii
This past week I went on an excursion with my class to Savaii. The country of Samoa is made up of two big islands, and a few smaller ones. For the past month, I have been living on Upolu, the smaller but more populated island. Savaii is the big island to the northwest, with the small …
Lotofaga Village Visit
This past week I had a 10 day home stay in the rural village of Lotofaga on the south side of Upolu. This was an incredible experience. My host family consisted of 11 people, which was a very average family size for the village. I had a host mother and father, four host sisters, a …
University of the South Pacific
I am currently taking classes at the University of the South Pacific in Apia, Samoa. The USP is a fascinating and extremely unique organization. Because the islands of the South Pacific are scattered throughout thousands of miles, and many of the islands are extremely small, there had been difficulty throughout the years in establishing a …
Samoa: First Impressions
I have now been in Samoa for one week, and it is quite an adventure. We arrived in Apia, the capital, early in the morning after a 6 hour red-eye flight from Honolulu, and went straight to the University of the South Pacific, our new home. After checking into our rooms, we left for downtown …
Ancient Polynesia in Hawaii
Aloha from Hawaii! I cannot believe that week one has already drawn to a close, and even though I have not yet gone abroad to Samoa, (I am in Hawaii right now for a pre-departure orientation), I have already had a wonderful taste of Polynesian culture. On Saturday, my group and I took a tour of …
Time to Say Goodbye
This past weekend we went on our last excursion to Ampefy. It was really beautiful – we stayed in bungalows with an amazing view over a huge lake surrounded by rice paddies and hills that used to be volcanoes way back when. We had a number of opportunities to go hiking in the countryside, and …
Shadowing Doctors in Madagascar
It’s been a month since my last update, and there is so much I could tell you about, it’s difficult to decide what to write about. I spent 3 weeks back in Betafo (the rural area I stayed in for a week in March) doing field work for my independent study project, and then this …
Up next: the ISP
Tomorrow (Friday) is the start of phase two of the program. At 7am I’ll be at the taxi-brousse station, waiting to board the taxi-brousse for the 4hour bus ride to Betafo. Once that bus leaves the station, I’ll be on my own for the next 4 weeks. On my own schedule, that is. That’s because …
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