So my roomates (well the spazzy one, but I don’t want to name names) sent an email asking me whether I had moved into my new place yet. This made me realize that the one picture of my new house mixed in with the rest of the pictures in the “More Pictures!” post probably didn’t suffice, so I’m gonna give a description of the place I’ll be spending the next two years.
I will be a teacher of computer studies at Leulumoega Fou College, which to Americans is a High School. For some reason, Samoans use the word “college” (in English) for what we would call a High School. The students will be between the ages of 15-18, so for all intents and purposes, whenever I say “college” it means “high school.”
Another thing to know is that there are three types of schools in Samoa: public, private, and church-funded schools. Church-schools are halfway between the two, because although they charge tuition, it is much less than compared to the private schools, as a large portion of their budget comes from the church itself. Peace Corps works with both public and church schools, but not private schools. Leulumoega Fou belongs to Christian Congregationalist Church of Samoa (CCCS in English, EFKS in Samoan). The name is taken from a nearby village, Leulumoega. Fou in Samoan means “new”.
There are actually two schools on the schools grounds, Leulumoega Fou and an Art School, where a fellow peace corps will be working, Kate. I posted a picture of Kate in the last post among the pictures of us at Falealupo on New Year’s. Kate is from California, she has lived in both LA and San Fransisco. She used to work at a record store called Amoeba, which from what I gather is like a west coast version of Newbury Comics. She is also vegan. I want to be clear about this for my grandfather’s sake; we are not dating, she is my neighbor.
I already described the Lab a bit in the last post. I included a picture below. The school itself consists of 4 blocks, with approximately 7 or 8 classrooms per block. There is also a large meeting hall in which to hold assemblies and the like. Between the school itself and the main road are houses, like the one I live in, which are for teachers. I havn’t really gotten a feel for the school itself yet, because its still summer vacation. Any Questions? Be sure to comment. Here’s the pictures:
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- My Computer Lab
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- The meeting hall at Leulumoega Fou College
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- Three of the Four School Blocks. The Computer lab is in the middle one, with the Blue Wall
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- Some of the Residential Houses on the School Grounds
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- The entrance to the school grounds
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- The view from the main road
