I picked up Kolby Aug. 14 he was just over 8 months
old. He was very sick and skinny. He had the flu and a runny nose. He didn’t eat very well and slept in 3 hour
increments. During the day he was fairly
happy, he didn’t cry much but he threw up all day and had the runs so bad. During the night he cried to be breast
fed. His birth mom didn’t have any money
to buy him food to eat so she only breast fed him. That was hard for him only at night he wanted
to be breastfed. It took about 2 weeks
for him to adjust to life with me. He
started sleeping better and soon he stopped throwing up. His bowel movements became more regular and
little more solid. I know at that age
they aren’t solid yet. I know I’ve said
it before but he adjusts like a champ. I
have moved him from house to house while we have been out here and he wakes up
crying the first night in the new house but not after that. I usually have a week of sleepless nights
while I try to adjust the new accommodations.
Each place we have lived has had different trials. The first place Rita’s lodge was so expensive
I didn’t have enough money to buy food.
I would buy a loaf of bread and butter and eat that for 2 days. The cost
of diapers and formula is outrageous out here.
It would cost me 100 Tala for one week’s worth of diapers and formula. The money doubles out here so it is pretty
similar to back home but people are poor out here so it seems so crazy to me
that things cost the same as in the States.
Also by the time things get shipped out here they are expired or near
the expiration date so the quality isn’t the same yet it costs the same. It cost me 1000 Tala in rent, we paid a 600
Tala deposit (she only gave me 200 back, not cool!) I paid 200 for power that
month. This is why I had no money left
for food. I only stayed for 1 month.
House number 2 we moved to Tiapapata. It’s up the mountain so the air is cooler and
the houses are nicer. It’s where most
Americans who have moved here live. I
lived in my own little apartment under their house. I didn’t interact at all with the Samoans
which was a little sad for me. I wanted the local experience. Up there the local Samoans were the house
maids and yard workers and different projects the house owners had for
them. The pay for a house worker is 2
Tala an hour. How do you feed a family
on that I will never know. But the good
thing in Samoa is that it is easier to live off the land. They have breadfruit, Taro, bananas and other
fruits pretty abundant. So they have to
eat those things until they get money for meat and other foods. The difficult thing for me there is during
the time I was there Samoa was in a drout so we had no running water. We had to drive to town and fill up our big
water containers we had bought. I had to
cook, clean, bathe Kolby and drink all from the water I bought. It was a huge challenge for me. Every morning at 7:15 sharp, Wendy and Steve,
The owners of the house, would drive to town.
Wendy and I would go to the gym.
Kolby would sit in his stroller patiently while I worked out for an
hour. Then we would leave and walk to
the Coffe Bean (an internet café) where Steve was hanging out doing his work
online. Get online for an hour or so
until Wendy was finished working out then head back up the hill. That is where I would get my shower for the
day. No water at home for me. After I would bathe Kolby I would put the
used water in the toilet so I could flush it once a day. The other downfall to being there was
feeling stuck in that little room. It
costs too much to take a taxi and I was meeting people from the ward that I
wanted to hang out with but couldn’t.
The rent was only 500 Tala which was nice but when a lady from the ward
offered me a room free I had to take it.
House number 3 was in Lotopa. Back down the hill near town. It was across the street from Rita’s
lodge. Tai and Kristen Tauilili’s
house. They used to run a preschool in
their backyard so they cleaned it out and let me stay there. Here is the difficulty with this place. It is a really old run down house with many
holes in it. So the rats pretty much
take over. There were 3 or 4 rats in
every room when I walked into it. I had
to knock on something so they would run away. Also I had no fridge, I had to take the food
I wanted to save inside which was ok but they have 6 kids so most of the food I
put in there would get eaten. Also the
bathroom and shower were outside so I would have to leave Kolby in the Pack and
Play while I went, and he hated that. He
would scream and cry until I came back.
So I would have to arrange my potty time around his naps. When the kids were home I would take him
inside to them while I showered. The
bonus was they had a water heater so the shower was warm. Warm shower still didn’t override the rats
and cockroaches. I stayed there for 2
months.
When my inlaws came into town and saw where I was living
they wanted me out so the arranged for me to move across the street and down a
little ways into their families house.
It’s a decent sized house only problem is there are many people who live
here. I no longer have my own space and
I became the instant nanny for their 1 year old Siva. He was hard, he laid on the ground crying
pretty nonstop. The mom would wake up
change his diaper then go back to sleep so I had to care for the 2 of them all
day. Then she worked in the evenings so
again I had them both to feed dinner and put to bed. Not easy but not too bad because we were
usually alone in the evenings. I liked
that. This last weekend they moved back
to Savaii so for this month Kolby and I are alone in this big house. Beautiful. Hopefully I will be going home in
a month and all of this madness will be over.