Good news!

The police found some of our stolen things! We had given up hope of finding anything, but decided to give it one last shot by posting a reward in the paper for information leading to the return of our "lost" laptop. Just a day after it appeared in the paper, we got a call from a woman who said she had seen some neighbor kids with a laptop. We weren't sure it was ours because she was just giving us information that she could have known from looking at us (that it belonged to a palagi woman), by reading our body language, or from the fact that the ad said it had our family photos on it. But we were hopeful and kept calling the police with all the information she gave us. She even went to the police station with us at one point to talk to them.

Yesterday the police asked me to come to the station to identify a laptop and iPod speaker dock. It was ours! Then this morning I got another call asking me to identify our cell phones - ours again! We hear that our iPod is being tracked down, but the rest of the stuff is probably long gone. I'm still hoping we can recover the cooler backpack because it was so convenient for hikes and trips to the beach, but I'm not crossing my fingers. I am crossing my fingers on the iPod though - it would be so nice to get that back!

Anyway, we are so glad that this woman came forward (yes, she got the reward), that people at my work were so helpful by calling the police to urge them to keep looking, and that the police were able to use the information we gave them to find some of the things that were taken.

Fa-ilolo & Airport

Last Saturday we woke up to rain and rain and rain. The rain clouds looked like they covered the whole island. Luckily they didn't. Just a little way past Leone, the storm clouds stopped. The rest of the island looked like it was being rained upon while we were treated to a beautiful day of sun and a nice sandy beach at Failolo.

Sunday we hiked out to Airport Beach. It was a beautiful hike through the bush and past the blow holes.

The first time we went there, we had to leave quickly because Simon fell and cut himself on the coral. This time we were able to spend all day there and the snorkeling was incredible! It was the first time that I found myself in the middle of at least a thousand fish -twice! I was surrounded by schools of several different kinds of fish. They were all fish I'd seen before -six barred wrasse, clematis, moorish idols, and in such huge numbers all at once. I was impressed. And I saw a long-nose filefish. I love the colors and unusual shape of its nose. I hope we can get a digital water camera soon because I'd love to get some of my own photos of all these fish!

When we got home, we went through the usual routine of fighting over the fish identification books to mark which fish we saw. Simon, frustrated that he couldn't find the fish he had seen and really liked, sat down and drew this picture of a small blue and yelow fish with black vertical stripes. Even after trying to match his drawing with the fish identification book, we still haven't figured out which fish he saw.

things that amuse me, part 1

It seems like every time we drive around this island, I'm constantly telling Clif that I need to take a picture of something to put on our blog, mostly because I'm amused by it and want to share. The problem is that I rarely have the camera when I remember. Eventually I will get around to actually taking pictures of all these things, but for now all I have are the two most photographed signs (well, 2 sides of the same most photographed sign) on the island - other than Charlie the Tuna, but the canneries are too stinky for me to want to stop and get a picture of that!

See those rocks that look white? They are painted to look white. And no, I have no idea why. Maybe because white is so crisp and clean looking?

beaching

The weekend after all our stuff was stolen we went to Sailele. It was beautiful! Sailele is on the other side of the island. It has almost no garbage on the beach, which is a novelty here, and we avoided rain on the other side of the island. The kids had great fun exploring a little tunnel in the rock where there was beautiful coral and even some colorful fish. Then last weekend we went bowling in a sauna - well, technically we just went bowling in a bowling alley with no A/C, but that's not what it felt like!

We spent Columbus Day at $2 beach. It's called $2 beach because it costs $2 per person to swim there. I know some people here don't think the $2 is worth it, but we liked having a small fale to keep us out of the small bouts of rain that came through. And it was a great place for snorkeling, especially for Everett. There is a small little deep spot away from the waves and current where tons of fish hang out. Our exciting creature views were sea urchins, juvenile emperor angelfish and juvenile rock mover wrasse, which I find really interesting since it looks like a bit of plant matter floating in the water until you look closely, and then when it grows, up it looks like this. We saw a few more pipefish and many juvenile parrotfish too, plus, of course, all the many fish that we weren't able to identify!

update

Since we no longer have a computer at home, we're not able to blog as much - although we do have some more photos to upload (thank you, thieves, for not taking our camera), whenever we get computer things figured out.

We're still snorkeling and hanging out and not much has changed except for the lack of internet and music in our lives, but the major news is that the puppy finally has a name. We wanted to let the kids name him, but their suggestions were Cutie and Ultra MegaTron III. Oddly enough, we vetoed those.

Then we waited a couple weeks and asked for suggestions again, thinking that they would have forgotten about Cutie and Ultra MegaTron III. They didn't. So, Clif and I named him Ila. It means spot in Samoan. Eventually we'll post a picture of him now that he has fur, at least in most places.

The Break-in

We got home from work last night and I went straight into the bedroom to change out of my work clothes. Things from the closet were out on the bed and strewn about the room - the camera bag and the case that our hair clippers are in (it's shiny and looks expensive I guess) and my jewelry were lying around. The dresser drawers were all opened and had obviously been rifled through.

We went back into our front room area and noticed that the wood slat holding down the screen near the back door had been pried out of place (not that it was hard since the wood was rotted and the nails rusted, they apparently used some bbq tongs to pry it up), the screens lifted up, the glass louvers carefully removed and stacked, and then they just crawled right in.

They took all kinds of stuff. Some kind of random and other stuff that was clearly valuable. Our laptop, iPod (which I racked up all kinds of Westlaw points to earn - arg! and it was the big one), iPod speaker, 2 cell phones, a bunch of jewelry, a cooler backpack, Simon's allowance out of his wallet, some of Simon's tee-shirts with cartoon characters like Batman and Spiderman on them, bathroom stuff (hair gel, hairspray, my face cleaning stuff), and medicine (children's Tylenol, NyQuil, etc). The interesting thing is that they didn't take the Wii or our camera, although it looked like they may have accidentally left the camera behind. And the jewelry they took wasn't the expensive stuff, but some cheaper things that I just really liked.

Simon was pretty sad about his shirts (not that he needed as many as we brought since he wears uniforms to school most days) and allowance money. But he and Everett were glad that their toys were all still there, as far as we could see.

It's really frustrating, not so much the monetary value (although partly since we can't afford to replace things), but that it was so easy for them to get in. And then that we sold nearly everything we owned to come here and someone took the few comforts of home that we had decided to bring with us. There is so much that's irreplaceable on our computer, like all our photos. And the iPod was our only way of listening to good music - the radio stations here play the same 10 songs over and over. The funny thing is, I'm almost just as upset over my Clinique face stuff that they took because it's just as impossible for us to replace.

more snorkeling stuff

Sometimes the call of the ocean is too much for us to handle and we go snorkeling even though we should be doing all kinds of responsible (boring) things like feeding our children and getting them ready for bed. Tonight was one of those nights. It was totally worth it!

I saw a black-blotched porcupinefish and a barracuda (far away enough and small enough that I didn't immediately get out of the ocean!).

Right before they rang the bell for Sa*, Clif saw a red firefish (from what I can tell, it's a type of scorpionfish also called a lionfish) near the shore and we all jumped in the ocean to see it. It was very impressive, but we didn't want to get too close because it's also very poisonous. We couldn't watch it for long, but we were all able to get a good look at it before we had to leave.

*I realized that I never explained Sa! It's a family prayer time that happens at dusk and sometimes at dawn, depending on the village. Certain people in the village ring bells (not real bells, big empty tanks that are hanging from posts or trees, I'll have to take some pictures) or blow conch shells and make sure everyone goes in their house to pray. They will either go inside their homes or a fale to sing and pray. People can't be out in the ocean or playing in the parks during Sa, everyone is supposed to be inside praying -at least theoretically, it's not like they monitor what you do inside the house. Some villages are really strict about Sa and others don't observe it as much. Technically you aren't supposed to drive or walk through a village during Sa either, but if you're on the main road then it's ok. They ring the bells or blow the horns again for curfew later (I think it's around 10, but I never paid much attention), but it's not followed as strictly as Sa. From what I hear, some of the people who enforced Sa in the past would occasionally get violent with people who weren't inside, but it's not an issue anymore.