This is Filipo. He is a pretty cool kid. He lives with Sosefina, one of the teachers, at a compound house near my home. Sosefina left him over here one day and I gave him my markers to play with. I didn’t even tell him to do this but he took them and arranged them by color. 
He didn’t understand any English so I got to practice my Samoan a little bit. I told him to name some animals and he’d tell me what color to make them. “O le a le lanu o le maile?”
The kid is pretty bright. I liked watching him build things and explore. Speaking of art-related things, in the near future I will have a cool opportunity to talk to an art class in Motua. My friend Bob lives out there and building art relationships would be rad. I have a cat named Hoo now. Big fat SOB. I came home and Izumi looked like she was carrying around an ocelot. Hoo the cat is now the fourth member of our family not counting the two dogs, Simba and Cosmos, who live with the nuns but sleep on our balcony. I was told long ago from former Peace Corps volunteers that the children are a golden ticket into a new culture especially in concerns with language. I’ve been able to infiltrate wonderful beaches and other beautiful attractions via my students and a few kind Samoan words to the elders. Everywhere I go people invite me to their homes for dinner and tell me that I’m family now. For whatever reason I haven’t taken many people up on their wonderful offer but it really is a lot of fun when I do. My students are doing great in my classes. I have been amazed by how fast they learn and even my younger students who don’t speak much English seem to be picking up computer skills quickly. I’m under the impression that our school may be the only school that teaches year 7 and 8 computers. I want to use this as an example for other schools to get children involved with computers early so they can avoid many difficulties in later years. My music program is still a work in progress because I am waiting to hear about funding for instruments however I am very dedicated and I want to see my evil plans unfold. Last weekend me and a few friends were kickin’ it at Palolo Deep with a large bucket of ‘ava and I ran into Izumi and some of her JICA friends. Apparently a number of them are surfers and perhaps next weekend sometime I will be schooled by hot Japanese surfer girls. Jam! I’ve become frustrated with the poor quality sketch books and drawing supplies that I’ve been able to stumble upon so I’ve taken to drawing on my walls. My room is pretty dope and because it is invaded with branches I think of it as my tree house. On a very important and serious note: anyone who sends me glow in the dark stars I will love forever. That is the deal. A few bags of those plastic glowing stars in exchange for a lifetime of love. There are a few small ones left behind from a former volunteer and I think it would be badass to cover my walls with celestial goodness. There is a very bright sunset that strikes my room at night and when twilight hits my room is gonna shine! I say this often but soon I hope to embark on further exploration of the island of Upolu. I’m getting sick of Apia and sometime soon I need to pack my bags and wander off into the beauty. I can’t complain, I’ve been working very hard with various projects and I’m very happy with all that my new home has to offer.
Still having bizarre dreams though.. I’m not sure if they have gotten any more or less intense since my first nights in Samoa. I constantly see random people from the past and sometimes they are in very peculiar situations. I wish I could begin a list of people who have made lucid guest appearances.
On a final note I randomly got a phone call from Sister Fatima. She told me she wants a picture of one of our students to send to New Zealand for a possible sponsorship. The student’s last name was Suluape. “Suluape?” I asked the girl, “You know I’ve been really looking forward to meeting your father..”
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Then Hoo runs away. No worries for about 12 hours but then Izumi started looking upset so I went to my yard and looked around for Hoo but could not find him (her?). I had this strange revelation about animal sounds so I just listened to the different animal noises and tried my best to emulate a cat meow; I’ve had a lot of Tiva training. It seems like we humans have a tendency to take for granted how much we use echo location and the like because as I walked around meowing I heard the typical Samoan kissy sounds and psst calls to each other. In Samoa, a high-pitched kissy sound is the equivalent to a whistle or “hey you.” When you think about it, this really doesn’t sound that much stranger than shouting dude whereas around here they say sole!
Haven’t found Hoo, but I’m sure he’s fine. I think his former owner used to live here and I gather that the cat is pretty rugged. 
The sky is on fire and its beauty could make humble of the hardest hearts. I could only imagine a time when people thought of their island as the entire world because in a way living here feels like outer space; an aquatic, starlit, ethereal otherworld, and I am an alien crash-landed on it’s shore.
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