Lani

Well, it appears that I was slightly premature in my assertion that I was ready to get back to blogging. This has been a very hard year for so many people in so many ways, and while we've been priviledged to be only minorly inconvenience by coronavirus, we've been weathering our own personal ups and downs. We are desperately hoping to be coming to the end of the most intense difficulties, and we are so ready to move on to the good parts. 

So what are these difficulties and good parts, you ask? Well, I will tell you. Starting with the most amazing thing ever.

We are having a baby girl, and her name is Lani, and she is so loved already. 

This is Lani, happily sucking her thumb and enthusiastically kicking my bladder, at our 20 week ultrasound on 18 November. Everthing looks healthy and she is right on target for all her growth and development.

22 weeks and I don't understand how I'm going to keep getting bigger, as it already feels like everything is stretched beyond capacity! Our bodies are amazing.

So, good news:
~ We have wanted a baby for a long time, and we're finally getting one!

~ Everyone at both of our jobs has been very supportive.

~ We have wonderful friends here who are nearly as excited as we are about Lani, and who will be fabulous (and much needed) sources of help and support as we learn to be parents.

~ My children at work are completely in love with Lani (and have mostly forgiven me for not naming her Spiderman like they wanted me to) and going on this journey with them is incredible.

~ We are slowly aquiring what we need for Lani through community trading sites and are all set up with cloth nappies (diapers), so her childhood will be as gentle on the earth as we can make it.
~ I can finally feel Lani's kicks (and I think punches as well) and it's amazing! She has been very active in both ultrasounds, so I expect lots more movement as she gets bigger. She's kicking me as I'm typing this - maybe she knows I'm writing about her?

And bad news:
~ I was horribly unwell with a rather severe case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome from May-August. I missed months of work and struggled mentally as well as physically, and it was a real battle to get back on my feet (literally, as I was often too weak to stand). I could go on and on about this, but I won't - I want to forget it, if possible.

~ Just as I was finally feeling better, I started nearly passing out from intense abdominal cramps. Upon seeking guidance from the doctor, we found out that I was pregnant, and had exactly 2 seconds to be excited about this before realizing that the level of cramping I was experiencing likely meant something was wrong - the doctor suspected an ectopic pregnancy and sent us for an immediate ultrasound to find out. The first was inconclusive, but after a stressful (and painful) two-week wait, the second confirmed that the blob of cells that would eventually be Lani was just where they should be. The cramping calmed down soon after, but by then...

~ I had hyperemesis gravidarum and was suddenly overwhelmed by intense nauseau, which soon developed into horrible vomiting. From about week 7 to week 18 of pregnancy, I was nauseaous almost constantly, and could only keep food down when the anti-vomiting meds kicked in. Unfortunately, the most effective medicine I found can only be taken three times/day and only keep me from vomiting everything up for 6 hours per dose. You may have noticed that that leaves 6 hours per day uncontrolled. So did my body. Given that I couldn't be running to the bathroom every hour or so at work, this tended to mean that I was up every hour through the night, painfully dryheaving once there was nothing left to bring up. I also needed to take a 24 hour break from meds every 5 days to avoid building up a tolerance, and those days of endless vomiting are some of the worst I can remember in my entire life. I would end up sobbing from fatigue, pain, and misery, knowing that the sobs made me even more likely to vomit again, but unable to find the energy to calm them.

~ I tried to stay positive, but found it very hard to see the positives through the nauseau, vomiting, and fatigue. I started to stress about how I was going to make it through the work day on almost no sleep, and about being bad at my job because I was just trying to stay upright, rather than actually teaching my amazing children. Every day felt like an insurmountable task, from the moment I woke up and realized I'd have to try brushing my teeth again, even though it almost always made me vomit, all the way through to when I collapsed thankfully into bed, only to remember that being horizontal increased my already forceful nausea. There was no respite.

~ I worried a lot about getting the right nutrition to make sure the baby had everything needed for healthy development. I have been a healthy eater my whole life, and was horrified that at the one time that it was most vital to get a balanced diet, I found myself limited to just a few foods that my stomach could manage, when I could keep down anything at all. I read too many articles about healthy pregnancy diets listing the millions of different foods you "must" eat to care for your baby. Then, inevitably, the last paragraph would say something like, "But don't worry if morning sickness limits what you can eat, your baby will still be fine." How could that be true? How could you absolutely require 5 servings of leafy vegetables but also be completely fine on just the half glass of milk and three potato chips you managed to keep down? What does that even mean? (For real, if you know the answer, tell me. I don't understand.)

~ Around 15 weeks, 3 weeks after the magical 12 week shift to the second trimester, when everyone had told me the nausea would calm down (but it did not), my mental health took a serious turn for the worse. I was barely hanging on physically, and was running out of the ability to remind myself that this would be over "soon" and I would not always be so miserable. I was horrified to discover that as I'd tried to separate my misery from my thoughts of the baby, I had actually dissassociated from the baby entirely, and couldn't find all those loving, "I want a baby" feelings within me anymore. In fact, I didn't want anything except to stop feeling so awful all the time, which was the one thing I couldn't manage. My very helpful midwife referred me for perinatal counselling, and I think it helped some, but it was still a rough time. I still don't know how much of it was hormonal and how much was a direct result of nearly 3 months of physical misery, but it was definitely the biggest mental health crisis of my life.

~ Note: I do not apologize to those of you who think that is too much information or oversharing, as women all over the world have to deal with this stuff, as well as many other awful symptoms of pregnancy, and we should damn well talk about it!

More good news:

~ J has been spectacularly supportive, comforting, helpful, kind, and understanding. I don't think he could have imagined that he would go from having a happy, competent, loving partner to being married to a nonfunctional mess of a human being who was incapable of brushing her own teeth or having a simple conversation about daily events without bursting into tears. It would have been understandable if he'd been fairly upset about this (and I believe he was, on the inside) but he found stores of patience and energy somewhere, and stepped up to take care of me in every way. I repayed him with tears, grumpiness, criticism and despair, and he still came through with positivity, empathy, and lots of creative attempts to find things that I could maybe eat. I believe that his discovery that I could sometimes keep milk down when water caused immediate vomiting may have saved Lani's and my life.

~ To J's occassional worries about being a good dad, I can now respond with utter confidence. If he could keep me from self-destructing during those months, he can raise any child, no problem.

~ Lani and I are now at 21 weeks, and while I am still nauseaous almost all the time, I have only vomited once in the last two weeks, and can eat most foods without too much discomfort. I even have days when the nausea is mild enough that I can push it out of my mind for a while and focus on more positive things.

~ Knowing that Lani is a girl, and starting to call her by her name (which has been picked out for years, just waiting for her) has made her finally feel like a real member of the family. She and J bonded at the ultrasound (like a switch just flipped in his heart) and now the hardest thing is having to wait so much longer to meet her! Her due date is the 7th of April, and it feels like it will take ages to get there! The first half of the pregnancy felt like it lasted for years, but hopefully now that I'm feeling better, the rest will go by more quickly. We're both very busy at work, so perhaps that will help.

Random things I feel I should share:
~ Pregnancy has confused my body, such that it no longer understands how things are connected. For example, on my med-free vomiting days, I would often snatch up my bucket in preparation for the surge of vomit that was clearly coming, only to produce a mighty sneeze instead. I lived in perpetual fear that one of these times I was going to do both at once, but fortunately this never occurred.
~ I learned that some pregnancy hormones are powerful, but not particularly specific, resulting in bizarre things such as an overabundance of earwax. As in, get up in the middle of the night to clean your ears or it will drip onto your pillow. That level of earwax. (To be fair, I was probably already up vomiting, so I didn't find this as hard to manage).

~ People talk about pregnant women having a stronger sense of smell, but I did not realize that this could blur the (already faint) line between smell and taste. For several weeks, I could taste the smell of soap. And my helpful body would even produce the slippery sensation within my mouth as well, to achieve total revulsion. Washing my hair was the worst, as I was inondated with the smell. I genuinely thought I'd somehow lost the ability to wash my hair without getting soap in my mouth until it started happening when I washed my hands as well.
~ My brain has not fully noticed that my belly sticks out now, and I keep bumping it on things, especially the table when I go to sit down. Fortunately it's always been gently, but I need to sort that out before I hurt poor Lani in there!

Sometime soon (but I make no promises, as sleep is always my first priority these days) I would like to write a post about maternity care in NZ, which is amazing. In case you were wondering, we have done no travelling or adventuring of any kind, so you have not missed out on anything while I was unable to write. NZ is doing incredibly well in terms of coronavirus, so we are very grateful not to have to worry about that, especially while my body is busy growing a small person, and does not need to be getting sick.

Samoa with Maria: Days 7-9

Well, to say that I've shattered all my previous records for long gaps between posts seems like a slight understatement. Many of you will know that I've been really struggling with my health for most of this year, and as a result, writing this blog has become one of many things I've needed to set aside while focusing on getting well. I believe that I am near the end of my current health struggles and ready to move on to the next adventure (more on that later), and I'm hoping that blogging will become manageable again soon.

In the meantime, my fabulous guest-writer Maria has kindly written a final post about our incredible trip to Samoa last year, so let's use that as a launching point towards what will hopefully be many more posts in the future. 

For now, here's Maria:

Before we wrap up the trip, I want to try and tell you about the food in Samoa. Most everything we ate on both islands was delicious, and, what’s more, a lot of it was new! This is always exciting, when not only do the dishes look a little unfamiliar, but when, on closer inspection, even the ingredients are unrecognizable! 

There were themes, of course. The main staple is taro, a starchy root vegetable from the Pacific Islands. You can eat both the root and the leaves, which we did!

The most popular preparation was to steam the roots, and by the end we started to anticipate it being on any plate - sort of like a side of potatoes. The leaves were cooked with coconut milk in some magical manner that produced a sweet, tender, almost custard-like concoction wrapped in taro leaves. This is called palusami, and you can find a recipe for it and pictures of it (not that I expect most of us to be able to get a hold of taro leaves) from the Polynesian Cultural Center here. 

The other strongest themes were fish and coconut. We ate all of these ingredients in countless forms, all of them delectable. One of the nights we spend at Matareva, the staff cooked up a giant buffet of Samoan dishes, and this is just one of the plated results of that feast:

Note from Emma: I accidentally deleted Maria's lovely comments about junk food, which she had typed here. They were something to the effect that although we could have been completely healthy the whole time, we also felt the need to try out the new assortment of processed food on display at the frequent corner stores, including dried peas and some kind of pineapple gelly-something, pictured below.

On a healthier note, we also bought some mystery fruit at the market…

...and purchased plenty of fresh papaya and coconut. 

Emma masterfully managed to remove the coconut flesh from its shell in two entire pieces and was very proud.

But enough about food! Back to the trip. Our final stretch of days saw us head back to the north island to explore the metropolitan side of Samoan life. There seems to really only be one city, as we would think of it, and that is Apia, the capital of Samoa. It sits right on the coast (shocking), and we spent our last two nights there in a slightly less traditional, but no less comfortable and welcoming, fale. 

We spent most of the first day in Apia exploring the city. We wandered through markets, admiring crafts and trying out new fruit. 

We also popped into a huge church we happened to pass by, and were rewarded by beautiful architecture! We especially loved the gorgeous ceilings:

The next day, we set off via bus to Piula Cave Pool. It was a beautiful day, perfect for a swim, and the bus ride along the coast out of the city was gorgeous. The pool is part of the land owned by the Piula Theological School, to whom we paid a small fee, and took the steps down to the pool. 

This was one of my favorite experiences we had in Samoa. The pool is situated at the mouth of a cave, which you can swim in and out of easily. There is a small tea shop and an open-air shelter, as well as lots of picnic tables and smaller fale for pool-goers to use. Families and groups of all kinds, both Samoan and foreign, sat about on picnic blankets, lounged in the fale, and swam and dived in the pool. The pool itself was filled with cool, astoundingly clear freshwater. 

  It’s hard to tell in the photos just how clear the water really was, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it! There were a couple of beautiful blue eels darting around, which attracted everyone’s attention for a bit as we all tried to catch a glimpse of them weaving in and out of the rocky walls of the pool. Mostly, however, we floated in and out of the cave, occasionally perching on outcroppings of rock inside the cave and watching the goings-on. It was a lovely, relaxing way to spend our last full day on the island.

To top it all off, we discovered as we were leaving that the Piula pool was home to two garden toilets! These are the most magnificent way you’ve ever come across to -ahem- relieve yourself, and if you ever get the chance to potty in a garden toilet, please do so!

The sign is from the first garden toilets we came across on our trip, which were equally exciting. 

The following day was our last in Samoa. Emma had arranged beforehand to meet up with Ruta, the grandmother of one of her former students, who lives near Apia and who had graciously invited us to come to a church service with her! Ruta attends the only Baha’i temple in Samoa, and Emma and I, having never attended a Baha’i service, were only too excited to join. The rather fascinating-looking temple was set on a hill, in the midst of a beautiful, lovingly landscaped garden. 

There was a wonderful visitor’s center that we got to stop at before and after the service, and we learned so much about the Baha’i faith. Here are their principle tenets:

To my understanding, Baha’is believe that all major religions hold truth, and that we are called to “...progress spiritually by serving our fellow human beings. In doing so, we acquire the divine qualities we will need in the life to come.” (This comes from the official website of the Baha'i faith, in case you’d like to read more!)

After the service, we spent a wonderfully relaxing afternoon at Ruta’s home in the hills above Apia. 

Unfortunately, this lovely afternoon marked our last in Samoa. As our flights that evening were several hours apart, Emma and I said our goodbyes and took separate taxis to the airport. After such a short time, the beautiful islands of Samoa had already begun to feel like home. It is a very easy place to love, and Samoans are easy people to befriend! I don’t imagine I will be making that rather long trans-Pacific trip again any time soon, but I would highly recommend it to anyone who feels they have the means (or the proximity) to visit. 

And, if you happen to be able to meet up with a life long friend while you’re at it, I highly recommend that, too.  

Coronavirus Lockdown

I hope you are all reading this from safe inside your homes, and that you continue to keep yourselves safe by washing your hands and staying away from everyone you possibly can.

Before I start writing, I feel that I should let you all know that my feelings about coronavirus are all over the place and I'm not completely sure how to make sense of them. I am both thankful for time at home and crushed by guilt that I'm safe at home while others are suffering. I am both energized by the exciting new teach-from-home innovations I'm leading and constantly on the verge of tears. So if the following post contradicts itself and/or is confusing, that's why.

So, to summarize an insanely complex situation in NZ, we are doing very well compared to many other places, and I believe we have a good chance of making sure it never gets as bad here as it has around the world. You'll notice in the following list that the government, headed by our incredible Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has acted quickly and strongly, which I think is what is needed, although I also know it is scary.

To be more specific:
~ NZ had its first case on 28 February. For several weeks numbers stayed low and exclusively in travelers returning from abroad.
~ On 14 March it was decided that all travelers arriving in NZ needed to self isolate for 14 days.
~ "To cushion the impact on New Zealand’s economy, the government announces a $12.1 billion package, worth 4 percent of the country’s GDP. The package includes a $500 million boost for health, $8.7 billion in support for businesses and jobs and $2.8 billion for income support and boosting consumer spending." (RNZ)
~ On 19 March, NZ closed its borders to all but returning citizens and permanent residents and banned gatherings of over 100 people. At this point there were 28 total cases and no evidence of local transmission.
~ on 21 March Jacinda introduced this 4-level alert system and announced that we were on Level 2 and that anyone over 70 or with health concerns should self-islote. Click here to watch Jacinda's address to the nation at that point in the response. (I'd recommend watching to the end to get the full benefit of her amazing support of us all. She seriously continues to blow us all away with her incredible leadership skills and constant strength as a human being.)

~ On 23 March we learned that there is likely community transmission, and we moved to Level 3. (On a personal note, Te Puna Reo (my ECE centre) was already closed that day, because so many of our teachers had health concerns that meant they needed to self-isolate that we didn't have enough staff to be in legal ratio.)
~ Jacinda also announced that day that we'd be moving to Level 4 at midnight Wendesday night and would stay there for a minimum of four weeks after that. Level 4 is full lockdown with only essential services still operating, so we had a couple days to get what we needed and get home. (J and I had already been pretty much self isolating since Saturday, not particularly to protect ourselves but to not be part of the problem. We are fortunate to already have everything we need and more, so we just kept staying home.)
~ We've been in lockdown since then, and according to news releases, people are following the rules pretty well. Of course, there are irresponsible people anywhere, but most people want to do the right thing and accept that this is necessary right now.
~ There are currently 1039 cases and 1 death in NZ (as of 5 April), and we're doing thousands of tests every day. The majority of cases are still people continuing to return from overseas (or their close contacts), and while the number has steadily risen, we've had a fairly consistent 55-90 new cases per day since the lockdown began. Although it is too soon to tell exactly how well the lockdown is working (due to the 14 day incubation period) it is a great sign that we're not seeing the exponential increase in new cases per day that lots of other places have seen.
~ So far, our health system is coping well and we have reason to be optimistic that we're flattening the curve enough that it will continue to do so. Click here for the most up-to-date press release from Jacinda and the Director General of Health.

That was an extremely abridged version of events - please click here for a more in-depth one.

Our lockdown is quite intense, which I think is appropriate. Essential services that are still open include grocery stores, food production, police, pharmacies, and health care. All restaurants are closed, including for delivery, and all stores are closed. A few stores have been allowed to sell essential items (e.g. heaters, essential appliances) online, and builders can still come and fix your house if the problem is a health risk, but everything else is closed. People are encouraged to get outside for exercise but only in their own neighbourhood, maintaining a 2 meter (6.6ft) distance between people. You are only allowed to use your car to get groceries or to get to work if you are an essential services worker. Playgrounds are closed, and you're not allowed to swim in the ocean or bike in bike parks (because if you need rescuing it takes people away from coronavirus work). Landlords cannot increase rent, and in fact various plans are in the works to get support to tenents who are struggling to pay. Businesses have been given funds earmarked for continuing to pay their staff, regardless of the extent to which they are able to work from home. (This doesn't apply to all businesses, and there are still people who are really struggling, but it is pretty widespead.)

I'm feeling increasingly concerned about everyone in the States as I read so many disappointing things about a lack of decisive action to get coronavirus under control there. I hate that there's nothing I can do about it, which I know is how lots of people feel right now. This is, of course, not the first time I've wished that the States could be more like NZ, or that my loved ones would have taken my advice and moved here, but it does feel a lot more pressing now than usual.

As for J and I, we are both very busy working from home. J is on the Biosecurity response to the awful drought that parts of the country are facing, and is constantly in meetings working on how to most appropriately support farmers and animals while in lockdown. I am supporting my teaching team in finding new ways to support children and families from home. The technology learning curve has been intense, especially as we're asking both ourselves and our online documentation programmes to do things we've never wanted to do before, and I have inadvertently taken the lead in developing and sharing these new systems. We are having a daily Zoom teacher meetings, as well as a Zoom mat time for the parents and children. In addition, we are making videos sharing books, songs, activities, challenges, and personal experiences. These will help the children still feel connected to us, as well as hopefully helping the parents manage the long days at home. The videos are all in Māori, but if you're interested in seeing a couple of mine, click here for me reading the Māori version of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and here for me reading He aha tēnei? ("What is this?" - a book about insects) in my little forest in my back yard. The videos without books are probably less interesting if you don't speak the language. I also plan on doing lots of work preparing various things for when we are back together in person and finally catching up on all kinds of research and articles that I always mean to read but don't have time.

In NZ, we're conceptualizing our lockdown units as bubbles. You and your germs need to stay in your own bubble, and if you have contact with someone outside it, both of your bubbles are not only combined with each other's, but with everyone else that person has had contact with. A microbiologist named Siouxsie Wiles has been making little animations that show this problem - click here for a simple but powerful one. (It takes a sec to start moving, so be patient.) I think it's quite a helpful image. It's not too challenging for us to stick to social distancing, but am finding it hard not to be angry and stressed about the people who are not doing their part. I feel very strongly the potential for a few unwise choices to have a huge impact on a lot of people, and I desperately want that not to happen. I can see the public park, public playground and school playground from my back yard (where I've been spending most of my non-work time), and I get so anxious when I see people using closed equipment or going what looks like too close to others. Fortunately I actually don't see it very often. I do think people are doing a pretty good job overall. I read some research out of Australia saying that a minimum of 80% of people have to fully comply with the lockdown in order to really flatten the curve. That's a high level of compliance, and I just really hope we're hitting it.

By the way, I am very thankful for the aforementioned back yard, which allows me to get my neccessary time outside while safely within my bubble, and which the guinea pigs have been very much enjoying as well. The book in this picture is one of several I'm working through as part of the Māori language course I'm doing this year, which is currently being continued to the best of our ability online. It is very challenging so far and I'm learning a lot but can't wait to be back in the same room as the amazingly fluent people in my class.

There is a silver lining around my unhinged mental state: out of my frustrated fumbling for somewhere to direct my nervous energy has come something lovely. I found a home child care organization that has been contracted by the government to provide in-home care to the children of essential services workers. I can't imagine how hard it must be for families in which both parents need to go to work everyday but no longer have a centre/school to take their children to, especially as you're not allowed to get normal babysitters/nannies as that's stretching your bubble too much. But once I got through the enrolment process, which included careful inquiries into my own bubble, then I got matched with a family and approved to combine our bubbles for the rest of quarentine. So I start Monday afternoon, looking after a 9-month-old while both her parents work in essential services. I am an ideal person to do this, as J is the only other person in my bubble and we're both at low-risk for coronavirus complications and are vigilant about our bubble, meaning anything that gets into ours will go no further. The mother, to whom I spoke on Friday, was so thankful, as she was worried that they wouldn't be able to find her anyone, so I'm really glad to be able to help them. The government will pay me - which is unnecessary for me but a wonderful initiative - and as I'll be doing this part time I can still keep working from home and maintain my connection with my Puna Reo children. So it's all worked out very well, and I feel good about this way to stick to lockdown protocols as much as possible while helping this family.

The other good thing that I've seen is the constant conversation on our suburb's community page about how to support each other during this time. I've seen everything from offers to grocery shop for immunocompromised people to offers to pre-pay at local businesses to keep them afloat until they can open again, and everything in between. One lovely thing that's really taken off around NZ is the Bear Hunt (inspired by the book/song, We're Going On a Bear Hunt). People all over the country are putting bears in their house/car windows for children to search for as they're walking around their neighbourhoods with their families. Click here for the website and map dedicated to the search. Ours is on there, too! Also, the awesome NZ Police have gotten in on it - click here for some of what they've shared.

Our bear's name is Demelza and she came all the way from the States, thanks to Mom! 

Here are several pictures I've taken while we've been out for walks. Since the day we took a bike ride during a break in the rain and had to dodge the whole neighbourhood, we've only taken walks when it's drizzling or after dark, so we're the only ones out, and so far, we've been very successful. Can you spot the bear in each picture? (Click on them to make it bigger if it helps.)

Update: Just after I published this post, I saw Jacinda's response to questions about the Easter Bunny, who she has declared an essential worker. She has also suggested some strategies to help Easter still be a fun time for children. Click here for the video. I'm just so grateful to have such an amazing leader in these difficult times.

I do think we'll come out of this with a better understanding of how interdependent we are, and I just hope it doesn't come at too high a price.

Samoa with Maria: Days 4-6

On day four, we were ready to head to Savai'i, the less populous island. Despite the rather discouraging bus-related advice we'd received, we decided to give catching a bus to the ferry terminal a try. We had lost any confidence that we knew what the bus routes were likely to be like, but were encouraged to hear from our hostess that the majority passing in the direction Apia, the main city, would travel through the main hub there, and then we could find a bus to the ferry terminal from there. Which we did, eventually, manage to do. There is no timetable posted anywhere that we could find, and what we had managed to find online before we left was utterly confusing, to the extent that the few things we thought we'd understood about it did not appear to be true in real life. Fortunately, every single person we asked for help did their best to point us in the right direction, and did so as if we'd made their day by asking. So it was hard to be too upset about anything.

Also, Samoan buses are pretty cool. Each one has it's own unique look, but they often have lots of beautiful wood, bright colours and fabrics, and low-tech Plexiglas windows the ingeniously slide in and out of little compartments underneath. Moreover, they are all, without exception, constantly blaring some kind of reggae-island-remix-techno-awesome music. I don't know who makes this music, but it is super positive and energizing and I loved it!

Also, aside from the main Apia hub and the ferry terminal, there are no bus stops, so you just wave a bus down wherever you are, and tap with a coin on the window when you want to get off. Certainly a different system, but it clearly works!

We were going to rent a car at the Savai'i ferry terminal, but the ferry was over two hours late, meaning that we arrived after the rental place closed, and after the last buses had left. (This last information was from the taxi driver who subsequently got to drive us to our fale, and so would be slightly suspect, except again, everyone was so genuinely helpful. Also it did seem unlikely, as we looked around, that a bus was about to show up, so we just went with it.)

Anyway, we arrived at our second beach fale, which was very different from the first, but stunning int its own way. It seems to be a bit in danger of falling into the ocean, but they were working on fixing that while we were there, and we stayed stable. We did have a big storm our first night there, and had to jump up in the middle of the night to pull down all the woven "walls" to keep from getting inundated with a mixture of rain and seawater, but once we'd done that, we were all good.

The mats in this fale were up on wooden frames, which I think is less traditional, but it was convenient.

We had beautiful views of the ocean, including some lovely sunsets!

And glorious sunny days, usually with the occasional cloud cover, which was much appreciated, as any time in direct sunlight was instantly roasting!

I actually can't remember where exactly we were when we spotted this rainbow, but isn't it magical!?

Our first day on Savai'i we rented bikes and cycled to Saleaula Lava Flow. (Side note, I found out afterwards the one of the families at my work is from Saleaula!)
Mount Matāvanu erupted between 1905 and 1911 in one of the biggest eruptions of the 20th century. Lava covered 70 square kilometres of northeastern Savai'i. What you can see of it today is incredible!

Lava surrounded the London Missionary Society Church at Saleaula, which remains as a ruin today.

It was amazing to walk through it - it's hard to believe that anything, even these strong stone walls, could have survived that much lava surging through!

And speaking of being impressed - life will find a way, right? These determined plants are thriving, poking up through solid volcanic rock and slowly, slowly turning it into fertile soil.

There was lots of interesting sea life in the nooks and crannies at the end of the lava flow, and most excitingly, we saw a sea turtle!

Further along, there is a lava formation called the Virgin's Grave where, legend has is, the lava parted to go around an innocent virgin. We were a bit confused as to the merits of this, as she must have died anyway if it's her grave, so what did the lava parting accomplish? We didn't attain clarity on this, but it was neat to go down inside the bubble-like formation. Although it was damp and out of the wind and therefore full of bugs, so it wasn't somewhere you'd hang out for a long time.

We found an excellent, peaceful place to have a rest under a tree.

But who, you might ask, is that charming and extremely intelligent person lounging under the tree while Emma does all the photography legwork? Why, it’s none other than myself: Maria, the second adventurer on this trip, and PIC (that’s Partner in Crime) to our lovely blogger Emma since our toddler days. I hope you don’t mind if I cut in here - I promise you’ll get Emma back when I’m done.

Anyway - onward, fellow explorers!

To wrap up our experience at the Lava Fields, we hiked out to a small viewing deck where we saw the aforementioned sea turtle, and admired the ocean against the beautiful lava flows. 

On our bike ride back to the fale, we stopped for lunch at a small cafe. We promptly ordered two meals from our server, a young woman named Tia, and then I left to cross the street to a gas station to find a couple of sodas for our lunch. When I returned a short while later, I found Emma seated at a completely different table, gamely forking into a large plate of rice and taro, and chatting away with what I would have mistaken for old friends had I not been pretty sure they were complete strangers. (This was a common theme of our trip.) The “old friends” turned out to be a crew of Samoan electricians on their lunch break, and they quickly recruited us to share their home-cooked meal they’d brought with them, and proceeded to share a friendly conversation on the nature of Samoans and Samoan culture. I was tickled by this display of hospitality, and then slightly dismayed when, after the electricians left, our own (completely forgotten by then) orders arrived! We got through them, though, so don’t worry.

Upon our return to our fale, we discovered several new guests had arrived. Among them were two Australian women with whom we ended up chatting at dinner, and we decided we all quite liked each other! The next morning at breakfast we discovered that they, like us, were planning to rent a car for the day to drive around the island, and we suggested that we all go in on a car together. They agreed, and off we went! 

We visited so many beautiful places that day. A lava tube first, much like the others we’d seen on our trip.

On our way to and from the lava tube, we walked through a stunning tropical forest, and were delighted to see a field of pineapples! This is not something you see every day, in New Zealand or Colorado.

Also included in our entry fee for the lava tube was admission to the Footprint of Moso. The story says that Moso was one of the first giants in Samoa, and that his stride was so long you can only find the other footprint by traveling to Fiji!

We also got to see the House of Stone, which was an interesting lava-formed structure that looked like a domed roof.

Emma thought these looked like kawakawa, a native NZ plant. Cousins, perhaps? We also met birds that look just like Emma's favorite NZ bird, the pūkeko, but they can't fly, so how could that be? 

Later in the day we visited The Canopy Walk, which was essentially two platforms built way up in the canopy and connected by a plank bridge, but turned out to be so much more fun than that description sounds. 

The trees the platforms were built around were fascinating, complex, and massive.

The bridge itself was very prone to swaying and thus slightly unsettling, but lots of fun!

The staircases were quite steep, but there weren’t too many of them.

The view from the top was worth it all!

On the way out of the forest we stopped to admire all the beautiful blue seeds (berries?) on the sandy path. I was slightly frustrated (but mostly amused) at my inability to name any plants on either Samoan island, and these little guys especially perplexed me.

Continuing on our drive, we rounded the Western end of the island and stopped at this church near the beach to explore. 

At one point, at the Eastern end of Savai'i, we drove through a particularly beautiful forest. That part of the island is the most rural, and it was amazing to visit, although we heard that it feels a bit isolated to stay overnight.

Our second-to-last stop was the Alofaaga Blowholes. The sandy, gently-sloping coast of most of the island had turned into a rather dramatic cliffside while we drove, and as it met up with the fiercer waves of the western Pacific, some pretty neat things were happening!

Timing the photos was the biggest challenge, as the eruptions came on quite suddenly, and when they did you really wanted to be watching instead of photographing, but we managed a few shots.

This is an example of the much more rugged coastline we encountered at this stop.

And yet still covered in lush vegetation!

The colors were my favorite part of this stop, I think.

 Our very last stop was an incredibly beautiful waterfall, with lovely, well-maintained paths along the river leading up to it. 

Samoa has fascinating hydrology (as described in the first sign photo). The volcanic rock of the island is so porous that any rainfall is immediately absorbed into the ground, and trickles down through the rock to a freshwater reservoir-like formation called a lens. A lens is a body of freshwater that holds its shape against the incoming saltwater of the ocean only by “floating” above the denser mass of seawater. Most of the streams and pools on Samoa were ground-water fed as a result of this supply of freshwater.  

 Hydrology aside, this pool looked cool, serene, and incredibly inviting to would-be swimmers! Our crew had had a long day, though, and it was time to head home.