Sisters

Alright guys. Yesterday was my pretty much last day on the internship. So I am going to write about it in as many details as I can scrounge from my tired brain. I got up and went to Nu'uuli around 10AM. The girls were planning something but it wasn't ready yet. We walked to Tofoi's house and all sat around a tiny table in the little kitchen. Then they started speaking Samoan. And they spoke and spoke and spoke and asked if I understood. I told them absolutely not. They said, "that's okay". And we moved on to the next house. There we sat in an open living room and they talked to an older man. Same story, different house, different parental figure. Then finally, when that was over, we left the house and Ruth told me that everything was going to be alright. I was glad to hear it because I didn't know anything might not be alright. Then the girls all went to their different houses and emerged with food. They loaded into the car I was borrowing and several of them piled in the back seat. We drove to a park, called Lion's park and they got out the food. I took another trip to get more of the girls. 

Once everyone was there, they served the food. It was a great spread for teenage girls: cookies, cake, one sandwich, and red kool-aid. The cake was thick and looked yellow and brown, so upon tasting it I gathered that it was a swirl of milk chocolate and lemon cake. The icing was swirled too. It was actually not that bad. They gave me a piece about the size of Alaska. I am seriously talking a 6 inch square or more. I couldn't eat it all. So I tried the sandwich. Much to my dismay it was an egg sandwich consisting of a soft boiled egg (runny yolk), onions, mayonaise and pepper. It was not really too bad...but I didn't each much of it either. The kool-aid and cookies were good though. 

Then some of the girls went off to play volleyball and we hung around and looked at pictures. I took my laptop to show them some of my pictures of home. They didn't believe that it was me in the pictures. My straight hair and make-up adorned cheeks through them for a loop. One of them asked if Wade was my husband (gasp...sputter...goodness no...he's my brother). It was cute. Another one asked if Collin was my mother. It was really pretty funny.

Then we got together and I gave them the notebook that I have been making for them with all of their pictures in it. They laughed and cried and loved it. They had prepared a song for me too. It was beautiful. I got it on my camera. Then we took pictures in the water and in a tree we climbed. They were surprised I wanted to climb it. 

We sang and played more games and then went back to Nu'uuli. We watched volleyball and they played (it was too intense for me) and the kids were all over me again. Then they had song practice (they sing all the songs for their service saturday night to make sure they are ready and good for Sunday). There was a fight (like punches thrown) at the beginning of song practice and they assured me that was not in the norm. After that, we went and got food and watched a little more volleyball. Then we walked to the front and chilled and talked and played around for about 4 hours. I talked to John for a long time and he asked some very endearing questions such as: "What is the north star? Isn't there lots of stars in the north?"; "Fajitas? What are those. Oh, I tasted Mexican food once."; or "I'm Johnny Blaze. I control fire. What do you control?" I was not ready to go home at 11, but I knew I should so I can get sleep. I won't get to sleep tonight much at all. My flight leaves at 11PM and arrives at 5AM in Hawai'i.

I went home and tried to sleep. I couldn't get the kids and such off of my mind. When I was asleep I dreamed of them and when I was awake I thought of them. When I prayed, I prayed for them and so on. I am going to miss them. I can't believe the summer here is over...It's incredible how quickly time goes. I am now going to get up and pack so that I don't really have to this afternoon too much. I am going to try to go over to Nu'uuli once more to tell the people that I didn't get to tell good-bye good-bye.