Lizards in the Yard

Yesterday I decided to go outside and take some pictures of the birds. There are a couple of common birds that hang around in our yard that I want pictures of. As I walked out the backdoor a couple of lizards went scurrying away and I changed my mind and instead started taking pictures of the lizards. I was able to get pictures of two different types of skink and also of the poisonous toad that is common on the island.

This first skink is by far my favorite. In the shade it has a dark brown upper body with copper colored stripes and a blue tail. They are smaller than the other skinks that I have seen. The largest that I saw was about 3 inches long. When they are in the sun their color changes to a bright gold on their body and their tail becomes a shinny metallic blue. As you can see it is a very colorful lizard.

(Blue-tailed copper-striped skink; Tafuna; American Samoa)

I followed the poisonous toad around for a while until it hopped into a little hole in a stump. It felt safe there and I was able to get few great pictures (although I had to use the manual focus and take several shots since the frog was basically the same color as the stump). I also was able to get a picture of what I think is a Pacific Black Skink. I'm not exactly sure because of the stripes and color variation on its body. The drawing I have in my animal identification book has it as a solid black. I am assuming that it is a Pacific Black since the Samoan Skink is found only in forest habitats.

(Marine Toad; Tafuna; American Samoa)


(Pacific Black Skink; Tafuna; American Samoa)

This morning I caught this cute little Gecko. Actually they are hard to catch so the trick really is to put your hand in front of them when the are running and eventually they will get frustrated and just jump on your hand and then climb all over you. After I caught him he sat on my arm for about five minutes and we visibly noticed his color change. He then climbed up on my hair and sat on my head for about ten minutes (while I got the kids breakfast) and he changed to a dark brown color. These pictures clearly show his color change (and yes this is the same lizard). We were impressed. There is nothing more spectacular than an animal that can change its color to fit into its environment.


(Stump-toed Gecko; Tafuna; American Samoa)

lack of news & news

In the midst of moving over 5,000 miles and transferring accounts and trying to fit everything we need for at least a year into 8 checked bags and 4 carry-ons and all the other madness that goes along with attempting to live in paradise, I have lost touch with almost anything going on in the world around me. So much, that I completely missed the lunar eclipse which would have been really neat, especially since we're in the right part of the world to see it well. Everett is fascinated with anything having to do with planets and the solar system that I'm sure he would have enjoyed it. Arg.

Even way out here, there is one bit of news that we have heard a lot about: Senator Craig's wild bathroom adventures. Apparently, erratic bathroom gestures are even making their way into firms these days. Check out this hilarious blog entry on the topic.

Since I am not working yet (still in the process of doing paperwork) I have been going snorkeling to eat up the time. I am still a little bit leery of the ocean so I have been going to the same beach. The beach is protected and we hear there are turtles in the area, but I still haven't seen one. The reefs here are really quite amazing and hopefully I will be able to get some snorkeling buddies to show me around. I probably saw at least fifty different types of fish in the water during my short swims. This reef isn't even one of the better places to go to see fish. Here are a few examples of things that I saw.

Sliding Rock

We couldn't let a weekend day go by without getting to the ocean so we went to sliding rock on Sunday. We got there as the tide was starting to come in so we didn't get much time to swim. I was distracted by a small pool full of fish on the way and took way too much time there.

I should have realized that it would be even better once we got to our destination! By the time I got over there, the waves made it impossible to get a very good shot of the fish through the water, but we did get a shot of a tiny crab!

And then we drove through Leone where there is a group of about 6-7 fales in a large open area.

Sure, parts of this island are stinky and littered, there aren't many amenities, everything has to be done in person, our house isn't very beautiful, and we have an on-going war with the ants that have decided to make our kitchen their home, but we agree with the wise words of Everett, "it's worth it. It doesn't sound like it would be until you get here, but it is."

snorkeling at Faga'alu

Since it's Saturday we had to hit the beach! We decided to go to Faga'alu to try to see some green turtles. We didn't get out far enough to see any turtles since the kids are still just getting the hang of snorkeling, but we saw a bunch of fish - including a few that we're pretty sure are panther flounders. It was amazing to see how well they blended in. In fact, we went by several before we noticed the eyes and saw that it was a fish, at first we just thought the sand was a slightly different color in places.

The best part of the whole experience was that a small group of men were sitting near the shore singing Samoan songs the entire time we were snorkeling. We couldn't have asked for better background music!

Then we drove to the end of the road on the East side of the island:

Everett: It's a brother picture!

Simon: Nooo, not a brother picture!

So we think that we have the child care situation figured out. We were introduced to a young Tongan mother who has been cleaning for Heidi (the other law clerks wife). She has agreed to pick up our kids from the school and bring them to our house after school. Its good for her because she needs the extra money and she can take her baby to work. They will be riding on the islands private bus system. So we are not to sure how that will work. Julia is going to go and do a trial run with them on Monday to see how it goes. If it doesn't work then at least we have somone and we can figure out the transportation as we go along. The great think is that this means that I can start at the Attorney General's Office sometime this coming week.

So here is another picture from my drive. This was my favorite beach on the drive. You cannot see it from this picture very well, but there is actually a nice sandy beach below the palm trees and running around to the right.

I got a job. Now we just need to figure out what to do with the kids after school. Apparently there is no real after school child care on the island. The wife of the law clerk that Julia works with is going to watch them twice a week and who knows about the other days. Anyway, the attorney generals office offered me a position. I just need to figure out the daycare situation before I start. I could end up working for a private attorney if we cannot find someone to watch the kids after school.

So most of my time has been spent shuttling the kids to school and Julia to work. However, one day I was able to go on a drive. I drove westerly on the main road until it ended. I started from our house in Tafuna, which is southwest of Pago Pago. The road goes across the flat part of the island until Leone. Leone was the original central village on the island and the place where european sailors visited the island until steam ships made it possible to enter Pago harbor.

The drive was interesting. The road slowly got more and more narrow. By the end it was no wider than a small logging road in Northern Idaho. It also has a lot of twists and turns and cutbacks (also like a logging road) so I had to be careful around the turns. It seemed like there was always a bus or van coming around the corner at same time. I had to pull over, let them by, then continue on my trip. Some of the villages were dilapidated and deteriorating and obviously in need of repair. Other villages were fixed up with fresh paint and a nice new fale (central gathering building). After Leone the road followed the shoreline for about ten miles and then finally ended the village of Fagamalo which sits on a nice little sheltered cove.

Here are a few photos:

It looked like a good snorkling spot. The blue line in the middle is an Ava (current). When snorkeling you can get pulled out to sea by an ava if you are not careful. Pulled out to sea = bad.

This is where the road ended. You can see the little village of Fagamato. Whis is really only about six homes and a church. the road goes right up to the water and ends. The cove is a protected fish preserve so fishing is not allowed.

We are going to have all of our pictures posted on flickr or another site soon so that anyone who is interested will be able to look at all of the pics.

so much to blog about...

We loved seeing all of you who came to visit before we left! I wish I had been a bit more on top of the picture taking though - we hardly have pictures of any of you! We finally finished up all the moving/packing/cleaning details the evening before our flight left, although at times it seemed that we'd never get it all done.

The trip here was fairly uneventful, although there were some differences. The flight from Hawaii to Pago was the only flight I've ever been on where the flight attendants walk down the aisle with seat belt extenders before take-off (the kids kept confusing rocket & airplane terminology and asking when we were going to "blast off" - the flight attendants and I were amused by that). We also noticed that people were much more polite on that flight than the other two we'd been on earlier.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the kids were so exhausted after 24 hours of traveling that they fell asleep on top of the luggage as we were waiting at baggage claim in Pago Pago.

Although they did get to play some computer games in between flights.

We met a very nice, informative Samoan woman during our layover in Hawaii. Since then she's stopped by our house a couple times - she found the place when she spotted the boys outside (it's a small island!) and just tonight she brought by some fresh bananas. It's been a nice reminder of how interconnected we all are on this island.

Our first couple days here were pretty slow. The High Court put us up in the Tradewinds Hotel where the kids enjoyed racing each other in the pool and we had some time to get over our jet lag.

It was a good transition to a completely foreign-feeling place because we still had American style lodging. When we got to our new house, we had some adjusting to do! It's a lot like camping. And we have these bugs that are like mini-ants on crack. They are superspeedy and basically act like vacuum cleaners because they completely devour any dead bugs or food that we don't clean up right away. It's pretty weird living in what is essentially a screened-in porch, although the geckos that crawl on the ceiling at night are pretty cute.

A couple days ago we had a bit of excitement when Clif caught a tiny one and it crawled around on him. The kids loved it and insisted that we let it go in their room so it could eat their bugs.

Simon's had a bit of a rough time of things the past week. Our last night in our Boise house, he got a spider bite that made his arm look a bit like Popeye's. I didn't think to get a picture until after the Benadryl so you don't quite get the full effect.

Then we went swimming/snorkeling in the ocean on Saturday where he fell and cut his hand on the coral. It's doing fine now, but he was nursing injuries for a couple days.

Everett is adjusting very well. He's generally pretty oblivious about many details and it's coming in handy! He doesn't seem to notice that things are not as sanitary as we're used to or that the grass is maybe a bit too rough to be rolling around on or that he's one of the only palagi's in his class at school -which means he doesn't really have to adjust at all! He did let out quite a squeal when he realized that the shell he picked up at the beach wasn't just full of dirt. The hermit crab that lived inside started to emerge on our way home!

And, as promised, we've got pictures of creatures! Our second morning here we woke up to find a poisonous centipede in our bedroom. We sprayed it with extra-strength Raid and it seemed to have no effect. Clif wanted me to step on it - in flip flops. There's no way that was happening; the thing was at least 4 inches long! So we got out the only trusty weapon we had - the frying pan!

We made it!

We don't have internet at home yet (I'm at work now) so we haven't been able to post anything or respond to emails. We've had some amazing new experiences during our first fews days here and I can't wait to get the internet stuff figured out so we can add photos of this amazing island!

We're on our way!

It's going to be a long day after two long weeks of visitors, packing, and test taking! We have about 12 hours of flight ahead of us, and we're excited to get there (in about 20 hours, bleh).

Clif and I have been talking about how we love to see people's reactions when we tell them we're moving to American Samoa. The reactions are pretty crazy, especially when we get lazy and just say Samoa. Here are some of my favorites:

- "Where's that? Arizona?" (seriously, twice!)

- "Are you taking your kids with you?" (I kept wanting to say, "Oh, we're just putting them in the storage shed with the rest of the things we want to keep" but I never did)

- jaw drop - "why!?"

- "oh yeah. That's in Hawaii, right?" (from the cool people who are very sure of their knowledge)

- "I knew Samoa was a place. There's a girl I know who thought Samoans were from Hawaii."

- "He'll do his time easier than you'll do your time in Samoa" (Clif's boss after a client was sentenced to prison time)

- "Will you send me a postcard?" (which only sounds weird when you know it was a random person I sold a piece of furniture to through craigslist)

I think Erin has heard the best one when two people started discussing the "fact" that Fijians live in Samoa and Samoans live in Hawaii.

And, it turns out that I grossly underestimated our time in the air - by an HOUR! And yes, an hour makes a huge difference.

Colbert on American Samoa

I must confess that I have a huge weakness for The Colbert Report. If there is a show that can keep me entertained for hours on end, this is the one. I was so amused when a friend send me a link to Colbert's interview with AS Representative Faleomavaega. Enjoy!

the coolest moth

At first I thought a leaf was stuck to our house, but then I realized it was a huge moth - about 3 inches from wingtip to wingtip! I took a picture of it and then Simon took a picture of me taking a picture of it. Fun stuff.

I think it may be a Montana Sphingidae, but it might be some sort of Sphinx moth too. I can't tell because we never saw it with the wings fully opened. I may have to submit it to whatsthatbug.com to figure this one out!

mostly photos this time

Swimming lessons:

The kids and their teachers at The Learning Tree:

Now we're just frantically moving and packing and entertaining guests (as best we can). The biggest challenge is trying to get everything that we own, and would like to continue to own, to fit into a 12x5x9 storage shed. Fortunately we've sold most of the larger pieces so it actually seems possible. And, we've still got the MPRE to take and attempt to pass on Friday. This next week is going to be crazy!