Flying Cake

Two years ago on the morning of September 29 a tsunami hit American Samoa caused by an 8.0 earthquake. Leone was one of the villages that was hit the hardest. Teachers and students remember this day as a terrible day of fear, sadness, and destruction. I’ve heard stories from students and seen some of the destruction that is still here, but I’ll never fully understand what it was like for those who were here 2 years ago.

At school on Thursday we had a half day of class, and then a special ceremony to remember and reflect. A priest led a lot of prayers and then some students did as well. It was almost all in Samoan so I can only guess what was said. The Leone High School choir sang a couple of songs and they were excellent. Supposedly they are the best choir on the island and they won the choir competition last year. Some individuals sang, too. Some were better than others, but, regardless, it takes guts to sing by yourself in front of 800 of your peers.

On a lighter note, on Friday my physical science classes present their edible atoms. After hearing about a life science class that had an assignment to draw the parts of a cell in icing on top of a cake, they had been begging me for weeks to do a “cake project.” I finally gave in last week and gave them a project to make an atom out of anything you can eat. Most students went the cake route, creating a 2-D atom on the surface out of icing or candies. However, one creative student made a 3-D model complete with orbitals using licorice and gumballs.

We then got to eat all the projects (which is exactly why they wanted to do the project in the first place). Unfortunately no one had brought any utensils, plates, or napkins. But as soon as I said the word, it was a mad cloud of cake crumbs and smeared icing. We managed to scrounge up one knife to cut the cakes. One student did not want to cut his vanilla cake with the knife after it had gotten chocolate all over it so he opened up my classroom door and leaned out, putting the knife under the downpour of rain outside.

Ten minutes later an astonishing amount of cake had been consumed. My class was probably the quietest it’s ever been, with students sprawled on chairs, eyes kind of glazed over, and chocolate smeared on their hands and faces. My room was a mess with chunks of cake everywhere. Despite my threats that they had better clean up after eating, it didn’t surprise me that most the cleanup was left to me. Needless to say, it will be a while before we do another edible project.

On Saturday I climbed Mt. Alava (491 m) for the 2^nd time with 3 other friends. The starting point is in the small village of Vatia, on the north side of the island. To get there you have to have a car or hope that someone picks you up, because buses don’t go there. From Leone, it takes maybe an hour and 15 min just to drive to the starting point. It is a pretty intense climb and much of it includes wooden ladders with ropes to help you pull yourself up. According to the National Park Service there are a total of 56 ladders and 783 steps. The photos really don’t do it justice. There’s a fantastic view at the top. I tried out the panoramic setting on my new camera and got some nice pics. Round trip it took us about 4 hours, but we spent a while at the top. We were exhausted and starving by the time we got back down so naturally we gorged ourselves on pizza, beer, and ice cream.