it is good to be back home!

I am back! I am back! I am back to Neverland!

I cannot believe it has been a week already, I have just been so busy that time just flow away.

Sunday night, 9:30: the plane from Honolulu landed after 5.30 hours of hibernation. I think I was close to loose my noose to frost bite. Emily came to pick me up and drove me home. All my hidden food (needed to keep sanity for the next few months on island) made it no problem. Just say you work for the government at customs, then smile, and they will let you pass.

One of my cat sleeps on my belly, it is so good to be back home!

Monday morning I took the bus to work. Holiday and sick leaves must be kept for special occasions (like boyfriend return or food poisoning). Even as I enter in my office and see my co-worker I think “wow, it is so good to be back home!”. At 2:00pm I do take 2 hours sick leave and get a lift home and go to sleep until next day… I am so jetlagged!

Tuesday: The music on the bus is so nice that I space out in another tropical dimension and I forget to knock to sign I need to get out the bus. At work, we have a big lunch offered to all staff by our director. I still think “It is so good to be back home!”.

Wednesday: I decide that I am not that jet-lagged anymore and I could try to drive to work with my truckosaurous. I am scared as I put the key into the ignition… would it work??? It starts, even if with some whining. Great! I put reverse to get out the parking. It won’t move. I run and take the bus to work.

Thursday. I decide to try my luck with the truckosaurous again. It starts. It moves. I LOVE MY TRUCK! Maybe after all, I was still very jet-lagged on Wednesday. I think all it was is that the gear did not enter. I take the truckosaurous to have a full oil and filter chance. It deserves it. At work we have an all-staff meeting. The director asks if there is anybody that does not speak samoan. I timidly rise my hand. “How long have you been here? 2 years?” the meeting is held in English and I feel very embarrassed… “tomorrow there will be an Harbor clean up, come with long trousers and close shoes, everybody in the office by 6:30 am, all men are supposed to come to work with own machete”.

I just love the fact that it is given for granted that all men own their own machete. I think I should show up with my own wooden spoon for solidarity.

In the evening, I go to Taekwondo. I spend the first half an hour kicking a fake man. It feels so good! Than stretching, forms… I still think: “It is so good to be back”.

Friday. No office work today, harbor clean up instead. My agency is organizing it, that means that we won’t have half day off like all other government agencies, but we will stay working until late. We collect a shit load of trash from around our office only. I start the day full of enthusiasm, but after very minutes I loose all my spirit. “no, really, that dry leave is not really trash. That aluminum can right next to it, it is!!!”. Oh no! Are they cutting riparian vegetation along the stream??? Why aren’t they collecting the plastic in the stream?”. I could spend a night writing about what is trash in Samoa. Clearly the coming of the plastic is still something quite new and it seems like they do not differentiate between decomposition time of a plastic plate and a plate made from banana leaves.

At 12:00, there is a free lunch for all government workers, and we meet in the park, sing a bit, listen to speeches and then eat. Naturally, the food is served in sterofon plates. I wonder I much trash we created just with the lunch. As I am driving, I see 4 palagi guys that work with me walking in the street. I shout at them “you look like the Beach Boys!”. They really did. Cool sunglasses, Hawaiian shirts, flip flop. Only that I forget that “ea” in English sounds like a long “iiiii”, so what everybody else hears (because, I do not speak with an accent, it is everybody else that is listening with one) is “You look like the bitch boys!!!”. Everybody in my car starts laughing hysterically, I am very embarrassed, especially because one of the guys is our big man from US.EPA.

There are black plastic bags full of trash all over the harbor. We get trucks, the women drive, the men trow the trash in the back, and we will take the trash to the dumping site.

By the end of the working day, I am exhausted. I want to show that I am making my effort to learn samoan, so I when my director asks me how I am, I reply, in samoan that I want to go home to sleep. But "moi" and "mea", do kind of sound similar and can be confused. So I end up telling him that I want to go home to fuck. He smiles, while some of my co-workers offer themselves as volunteers. I am not good at all at languages today…

In the evening, I finally go out to relax! I realize that, as a matter of fact, I did miss everybody. I also realize that my sweat heart is not here. The island always felt different when he wasn’t here, with more reason now.

Saturday: sunrise and sunsets are still something magical here. I miss the sunrise as i sleep in (great!!) I go back home (I do not like driving at night and I slept at Emily’s last night), and I start trafficking in the fridge. There are things left from my cousin that I will never use and I am thinking on how to use it.

Like sugar (I use honey instead for many many many reasons).

The only good use for sugar I know is mixed with water, to make good Limoncello (a digestive drink that we Italians love to drink after lunch/ dinner during the summer). But you cannot find 90 degree pure alcohol on this island, and after a short consultant on the phone with Aaron, I am suggested to use Vodka instead. Fine with me as it comes on a wonderful deep blue bottle that tells me "You must own me". I hope that for next gnocchi night I may have good limoncello to offer.

Mainly, I spent all day in the kitchen making limoncello, fruit salad, focaccia bread, chocolate salami… I missed all this too, it is really good to be back home!