The rest of the world

“Yesterday is history,
Tomorrow is mystery,
Today is a gift,
This is why it is called
PRESENT”

-The Kung Fu Panda-

It is 5:30 in the morning and outside the rooster are given their daily “chicchirichi” opera (if you were earing with an English ear, that this would be “kukurudoooluu” or something like that…). I am NOT going to miss this.
But I am going to miss all the rest. The music in the aiga buses, the blue of the coral waters, the bright colors of sunrises and sunsets, my neighbors singing on Sundays, the palagi e-mails, my office mate, my castle, wearing flip flop everyday…. This and more, I am going to miss….

I am getting ready to leave the island.

The decision was a bit immediate, at the same time well planned. It was not worth for me to stay here any longer if I would not have a possibility to grow professionally, and it seemed like all the new agency policies were made against my own interested. I am going to miss them, but it is their loss! I got the rest of the world!!!

Take Plan A out of the list, plan B, C, D and E are still quite valid!

I am leaving late February. The plan so far is quite exciting:

• 3 days paragliding on the big island of Hawai’I (I had to do it, I need to go back on the wing!)
• 3 weeks in Alaska backpacking, helping out a friend running the Iditarod, snowboarding, exploring, maybe paragliding more?
• 4 days in San Francisco paragliding (well, if James Bond is there I may spend a couple of days with him as well…;-) )
• 1 week in Las Vegas for a conference and for some backpacking in the desert
• ???? so far my ticket ends in San Francisco…

I will have to come back on island eventually to finish collecting my data, sort my staff, and hike to the top of Mt. Silisili in Savai’I in Western Samoa and do a head stand there with Lisa, which is still on my “to do” list.

Italy is also waiting for me, it would be nice maybe to be there without pending tragedies. I could see my grandma and family, paraglide some more, cross the Alps east to west (any taker?). I am due for a visit with friends in Spain. Morocco and Egypt… I may as well go there for a while, since I will be on that side of the globe…

It is so exciting, it is all about me. It is sad, this place has been my home for 3 years now.
Stay tuned, because my blog is soon going to be “My life on the globe, sidetracked by few trips to American Samoa...”

...There is light outside now… I need to get ready for a day out on a boat on the north shore… can’t complain, can’t complain… ;-)

Sharks or Barracudas?

(sorry, no pictures.... my underwater camera apparently drowned...)

Would you rather face a shark or a barracuda? I asked myself this question yesterday while snorkeling at airport beach. But to go in order, let’s go back in time to about a week ago, at the hospital.

Me: “Hi, I am looking for doctor B., is she here?”
Nurse: “yes, she is the one in that office”. I walked to the office and waited at the door.
Me: “Doct. B.? Hi, I am Barbara, I was wondering how are you enjoying our beautiful island” (I knew she arrived few weeks ago).
Dott. B: “Hum, yes, it is wonderful”
Me (taking out of my bag an homemade jam, a box of chocolate and a card): “Well, here I have a special present for you to make your permanence sweeter”.
She took the package, looked at me perplex, looked behind my shoulders, either to see if I came with somebody else (“is this a kind of reality show?”) or maybe she was just planning an escape route in the case I turned out to be a crazy woman.
Me: “please, read the card, it is a surprise!” (all excited).
She read the card, looked even more carefully behind my shoulders and asked me if she is in a reality show. Then she hugged me and thanked me. I felt like a very good person… and then I asked her to give a look at my open feet (still bleeding from the glass cut).

Few weeks ago, while a was in Oregon, a friend told me that her aunt was coming to American Samoa to work at the hospital. Well, let’s surprise her! I think there is nothing in the world as receiving a hand-delivered unexpected package. Especially if you are in a small island in the South Pacific and it is homemade jam and chocolate from a relative living far away.

Yesterday I took Dott. B. snorkeling at airport beach. I like this place particularly because it has deep pools and is well protected from breaking waves. Lucy, Oscar and another visiting guy, Ben, joined us.
The snorkeling was great, until Lucy shouted “Shark!”. She was farther out than us. I got to Oscar as a iron nail to a magnet.
Me: ”Did she say ‘shark’?”
Oscar: “Yes”
Me: “Did she say what kind?”
Oscar: “No”
Me: “Did she say how big?”
Oscar: “No”
Me: “Do you want to get out?”
Oscar: “uhm… Yes”.

Very bravely, we stayed on our spot for a little bit to make sure Lucy was fine (and that the shark was not coming for us). “It must be just a friendly reef shark anyway… Lucy knows how to deal with it… yeah, yeah…” Then, all close up together we started swimming to the shore. Until a massive fat silver thing separated Dott. B and me from Oscar…

Me: “Oscar! Barracuda, Barracuda! She is coming for you!”

It was the biggest barracuda I ever saw in my life. My first thoughts were a mental scan of anything silver that I may be wearning… the ring! Covered! The camera? No, I left on the shore, it broke. The earring? Covered! A barracuda bite must not be pleasant, and they go for silver things. Considering the size of the barracuda… (why do they do silver underwater cameras? They should be orange or red or something like that! Don’t they know that there are barracudas out there?).
Barracudas just have that decided predatory look that does not make you think anything like “uh! What a cute fish!”. Plus, let’s face it, I was born and raised in Rome. The bigger alive fish I ever saw in my life were those huge fat red fishes that the Chinese restaurants keep in their aquarium. Barracuda and sharks are definitely still very exciting for me.

I though of the soft sensitive nose that sharks have. I imagined Lucy swimming with a soft cute teddy-bear shark. I missed her, I wanted to be with her…
Sharks or barracudas? If it has to be, sharks please…

Vets in Neverland

Time is flying! … and I am digging it! Stay tuned, because there is air of big changes!

Last week I had the greatest pleasure to host 3 vets in my house. As I mentioned before in my blog, from a western point of view, we have a stray dog problem on this island. From a western point of view, I call my cats “the lucky winners of the pet lottery” but, from a local point of view, they are “my pests control and security system”.

There are many stray dogs around that sometime makes walking challenging, unless you learn to walk with a golf club and few stones in your pocket (not to mention the challenges of planes landing...)

The Vets, like “vets without borders” came here to evaluate the island situation before their return toward the end of this year .With others, they are my heroes, and I was delighted hosting them for few nights.

“I know you!” Byron and I said uni-sound as we were introduced to each other. Byron worked here with another group of vets a couple of years ago; it was great to see people coming back to the rock. And great to have vets looking at my cats and dogs (I definitely learned a lot from them, including that Silvyax is not a permanently pregnant female as we though, but a big fat male... that kind of shocked me as I would have to change her, err, his name to Silvio, which would make me think to much about Berlusconi... not good. Sea proposed Sylvan instead).

(Emma and I after Nala's operation, enjoying her deep sleep to clean her very well...)

On Wednesday they left to check out Western Samoa as well, and I got another full load of guests with Tom and Sea (and later on Tylor as well). Tom (my right) and Sea (your right) always bring positive changes in my life, another exciting story soon to be told…

On Saturday, Tom, Sea and I (after killing ourselves with paragliding video… yes, yes… it is time for me to get back on the air…) went to the beach to soak a little bit, and escape the heat of this warm summer. A killer glass on the coral reef was waiting for me, to prey on my foot. Soon after, the killer glass also got Tom’s finger. Horrified with blood pouring out of our bodies, we decided we needed some medical attention. The idea of long hours waiting in the hospital ER made us tremble… but, ehi! “The Vets and fully functional today!”. I phoned to the clinic to ask if they had time to see us “we have 2 cuts”. Turns out they understood we have “2 cats”. I insist I do not speak with an accent, other people that listen with an accent…Anyway, we made it patient number 34 and 35 of the day, the last ones after 33 between dogs and cats visited, spared and neutered… Thanks Byron, Larry and Emma!!!("Cut, cut! no cat!".
"DOA" on the chair stands for "Department of Agriculture" and not for "Dead On Arrival" as most people may think...)

Useful links:

• http://www.samoanewsonline.com (Article about this visit on the local newspaper)
  
• http://www.ashumanesociety.org/ (American Samoa Humane Society)
  
• http://www.animalbalance.net/ (Emma is with them, they are organizing the next group down)
  
• http://www.veterinaryventures.com/ (the group that was on island 2 years ago. Byron with them)
• http://www.veterinaryventures.com/images/VetVentures_AmSam.mov (I slide show from 2 years ago)
  

Serendipity

Serendipity: “the gift of making fortunate discoveries by accident”.

My life is truly filled with serendipity, but what I am really a master in is “passive serendipity”. People or events discover me just when I need them. I call it “my good star”, and I have faith in it.

This week has been a perfect example of serendipity:

• My dog, Nala, was bitten and had a big cut on her leg: I had 3 veterinary sleeping in my house (the table is transformed into vet clinics, 3 stitches and 1 glass of wine);
• I am having a bad time at work: 2 angles (Sea and Tom) that I love so much came down with Thursday flight and moved in with me to give me support and good advices;
• I had a stressful week and I am low in chocolate: another friend write me an e-mail that is coming down to Pago on Sunday and he is bringing chocolate and good Latin music for me.
• The last week of February is going to be a big confrontational week and will prematurely set the direction of my life: SnowDave chose this week to come down from Alaska and visit me!
• I step on a very sharp glass and deeply cut my foot (and I do not want to go to the hospital and loose 4 hours to have it look at): ehi! The vets are in town! I get a full visit and medicine from them in 10 minutes.

How do I do it, I do not know; maybe it is just a positive way to look at life that makes me believe that things and people will work out in the best of the way. I won’t try to scientifically explain it, I just digging it!

plan D.... & E

Last week, I though I had my next year well figure it out (for the first time in my life I had a plan!). There were 3 possible outcomes, depending on how other people stars would align with mine (I will announce the lucky winner at the end of march, when I am back from the Idiratod in Alaska):

• Plan A: go back to school through EPA. In this case, I would start taking classes on-line while finishing collecting data, and move to Oregon next year at the end of my contract;
• Plan B: go back to school without EPA. In this case I will have to move to Oregon in fall to get a T.A. or G.R.A. to pay my tuition fees;
• Plan C: do not go back to school, quit my job, and travel around the world for a year or so...
  

Then, 2 days ago, I received 3 e-mails, one from Spain, one from the States, one from Japan, all about the same job position. Effectively, the job seems perfect for me. So, I decided to add a Plan D:

• Plan D: be a caretaker of the islands of the Great Barrier.

I would suggest you to apply as well! You can read everything about it at: www.islandreefjob.com
That said, if I make it to the top 50, you will have to vote for me! ;-)
And, why not, let me add plan E, just in case:

• Plan E: you never know!!!

my new roommate

By the way, I got a new roommate Kayla… As you can probably sense, she is fanatical about jigsaw puzzles...

I still have one guest room open and the greenish gecko lodge is still full operational…booked full this month!

craving for adventures

I am craving for adventures; I am craving for new experiences. I am missing that “controlled” adrenaline boosts that make you feel so… present, existing?
The bus in front of me this morning told me not to worry, be happy. I won’t worry, I am feeling positive.

When in Oregon, destiny put me in front of a book called “Hell or high water”, about a whitewaterkayaking expedition on the Tsangpo river in Tibet. It captivated me. Inspired me. I honestly still believe the paddlers are crazy, risking their lives for…what?
But maybe I know what is “what” is. Or more correctly, maybe I know of that “what” feels. I can relate to them.
I never did anything that extreme, or at least not intentionally (I could claim a record flying double on the Dolomites… I was so tense that I could feel –or imagine- even my ears moving to change the body weight distributed on the wing).
But I can still remember my first take off on the Andes in Venezuela. I was 21. Twenty-one ( with 3 years of hard core flying experience). What do I do if I get a daughter like me????

(I am the pink wing in the middle)

What happened to that little girl traveling with her glider by herself, exploring new places or testing new launching places? If life wouldn’t have hit me so hard, would I have become at age 30 like one of those extreme paddlers in the book? How did I become a woman with a stable job and 3 cats? Is it too late to go back?

(my backpack -my glider- and I, hitchhiking to the top of the mountain. I did all the trip sitting on the roof of the van....)

(Turns out that launching at sunset is not a good idea. Especially if you do not know the landing place that well, and if you end up flying on top of a car driving down the mountain screaming to please stop and wait for me. Then I asked them to drive me to a pub in the first town on the way...)

I just watched a documentary ("Encounters at the end of the world") about people in Antarctica. I always dreamed to go there. I was so close to go, got my position on an scientific boat, then my dad and my brother announced their visit in the States. It was soon after my mom passed away, and this would be our first (and last) traveling trip together since. I could not say no to them. And Now I am so glad I did not.

Antarctica is apparently filled with dreamers like I used to be. There are bus drivers and blue-blooded plumbers. In summer, that said. In winter, once the plane stop flying, there is only a handful of scientists and members of the 300 degree club. Still, the Lonely Planet make a travel guide of Antarctica. I wonder if it is bigger than the guide they made for the Samoas. The base of McBurdo remind me of this island. People dreaming of the far south there, people dreaming of a tropical island here. In one of the scene of the documentary, the author was interviewing a geologist. I was surprise to see, behind the scientist on his right, an old creamy phone. I would imagine all new technology down there, rather than old 80’s surplus staff. Then I looked closely at the phone… god, it looked familiar… way too familiar… I looked at my right… ladies and gentlemen, I just discovered that Antarctica and American Samoa buy their phones from the same source (when you get the line, the local phone company informs you that you need to buy a special instrument or your line won’t work… it turns out they are talking about this phone…)!!! Check this out (can you see the phone in the documentary?)

It must be a sign...

Post Scriptum!!!!!
I just came up with a new telephone hypothesis!
A while ago, a woman here was waiting and waiting and waiting for the beds she shipped for her kids to arrive. Finally she went to the post office trying the track the parcel... after looking and looking for it, the post office tracked it down: by mistake, the beds ended up in Antarctica!
So, my new hypothesis is that the phones were indeed meant to be shipped here in American Samoa but, by mistake they were sent to Antarctica (probably together with my friend's beds). The scientists though it was cool to have something meant to be in the warm tropical south Pacific, and never returned them...
This last hypothesis seems more probably to me, as i can not possible think of somebody actually buying such a phone of his own will. Especially if you are going to Antarctica. You would probably look for some sort of North Face or Columbia style phone... If you own one, you probably either were tricked into it, or you received it for free and decided, why not, to keep it.

The wicth returned! W la Befana!

I am not even sure how, but I made it, I made it back to the rock.

I am back to my cats, my castle, the school bus that I met every morning in Nu’uuli coming from the opposite direction and that smells so bad, back to stop-teenager-pregnancy advertisements (I think this is my favorite –the SEX sign was awesome too, but they put it down. This says: " You think being in school sucks? Having a baby sucks a whole lot more"),

back to corruption and unfairness, slow internet connection, work, back to blue inspiring coral waters, green steep cliff, rooster screaming (or chanting?) all night long, back to 10,000,000 starts in the sky…how can you ever describe what it means to be back to the rock?

I got frustrated on my first day to work. “Panta rei” (I really do not understand my the Greek alphabet is called “symbol” in Microsoft word??), said Heraclitus, “everything flows”…. I loved him in school, maybe because I wanted my life to change at that time and I could not wait for time to pass.

Those rivers one steps into are not the same. other and yet other waters keep flowing on.
Into the same rivers we step and yet we do not step, we exist and at the same time we do not exist.

After all, one does not step into the same river twice. waters disperse and come together again ...
they keep flowing on and flowing away

In the end, there is only flux, everything gives way

Everything is in flux and nothing abides,
everything flows and nothing stays fixed,
everything is constantly changing and nothing stays the same.

So, bad day today, a bright new day tomorrow! Panta rei!

Tuesday was a very important festivity in Italy, and one of my favorites. A witch, called Befana, flies on her broom from house to house and leaves, in socks left outside or next to the fireplace, sweets to good kids and coal to bad ones. She is a modernization of the Roman/Sabine goddess Strina… it is funny how this pagan festivity happen to be on the 12^th night, the same night the 3 kings arrived to give present to baby Jesus…

I had no gold, incense or myrrh to share with my friends, but I did bring something special from off-island… an oven full of injera, a big bag of berbere’ and another one of shiro!

Injera is a traditional fermented bread typical in Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisine. About once a month, somebody volunteer to cook something special for everybody. Since I cook Italian every day, I decided to challenge myself with some Eritrean/Ethiopian cuisine, since I lived with Biniam for so long…

Well, on my opinion, it was good!

Today I rearranged the house. I am that kind of person. I took it from my dad. He loved rearranging furniture. But not in our house, in everybody else house. I remember going to so many dinners in which my dad would ask the hosts to move their furniture around, or just do it himself... I am too shy to do it (plus, outside of Italy it may sound like something rude to do), but I love rearranging the furniture in my place once in a while (maybe even too often)… it is my art, my form of expressing myself… I love empty rooms that I fill with staff! Maybe this is why I love moving so much!

Airports

Of all the places in the world, isn't it ironic that airport are the places where it is the hardest to find a clock??
My flight to Honolulu was canceled... if my next flight to Maui is 1/2 hours more late (it is already 1 hour late), I will be stuck in Maui for the next 4 days.... life sucks sometimes.... ;-)!

welcome 2009!

30 December: Fishing for Him

After 2 days of blizzard in Mt Bachelor, we came back to Portland on a perfect clear day… wish we were snowboarding, but at least Akiko finally got a view of that spectacular dormant volcano.

My girlfriends sold us (Akiko and I) this trip as a “fishing” trip. In reality, I already set my eyes on a big fish. (How does a man feel when he goes fly-fishing? I wonder). My big fish is too experienced to be catch, I know, but I still love to fish for him. It is something as mysterious as why would men ever spend hours with their legs in cold water to get a fish.

Last night, for a woman night out, we decided to go fishing… for a fishermen son!

I live on a small island, not many fish there. Many of my friends claim that they know the perfect man for me, he is somewhere off-island of course. One of the tuna fishery captain that download his catch in the American Samoa’ canneries, kept me one evening telling me everything about his son. He works in an Italian restaurant in Portland. And we decided to go for him!(I love the background picture...)

“Looking for Italian food?” “Actually, we are looking for a man” “Uhm, I hope you can find him on the menu!”. Unfortunately, he was spending Xmas with his dad in California, but we had so much fun chatting with the kitchen staff. They were very thrilled as well and had as much fun as us. The waitress took a picture of us and sent it to him “there are 4 girls looking for you: one from Italy, one from Spain, one from Japan, and one from here”. Apparently he is very handsome and everybody loves him: we will come back looking for him in March! Stay tuned! Funny evening, wonderful company and great food!

31 December: Happy New Year!

When Maria announced that she will come to Corvallis for Eve New Year I was “out of my skin” (means “very very happy”)! We met with Samudra and Brian in a Chinese restaurant to drive south together. The fortune teller cookie I chose said “Your fondest dream will come true within this year” “Uf!” I though, “I only have 11 hours to realize it?!?!?!”.

What is your most profound dream anyway? 11 hours are not enough to figure it out, less to find the steps to realize it. It is not easy to narrow dreams to only a special one. But at Eve New Year, I knew: being with my best friends, and play “do you know Peter”, of course.

The theme of the party was "shine!". We borrowed some shining dresses from Biniam. I used to own that black chinese dress, but after Biniam wore it in a Halloween Party (the dress fit much better on him than on me!"

Peter who?

We wore red underwear (Italian tradition), ate 12 grapes in 12 seconds the last 12 seconds of the year (Spanish traditions –it is great to hug people and wish them happy new year with your checks filled with juicy grapes…), and woke up in the morning to see the sunrise (Japanese tradition –ok, we tried, but we did not really wake up properly… plus it was cloudy and rainy this morning you could not really see anything…). We ate ningera (Eritrean food from Biniam), and screamed “Happy New Year” in 9 different languages.

Ready with the grapes

(I am missing the first 4 countries... it starts with "Feliz Anyo Nuevo, Carajo!")

In Italy there is a saying that sleeping with somebody on New Year eve is good luck. Well, I had a full bed!!! ;-)

Last year I was so eager to start a new life that I anticipated my own New Year eve of a couple of weeks. I did not really want this year to finish, 2008 brought me many good things. I feel like 2009 is going to be quite exciting as well! Happy New Year you all!