Erica Nish signing in here from the beautiful country of Samoa, where everything is green and hot! Thursday was a special day; I hope I’ll be able to describe the feelings that everyone had.
We started out the day nice and early and headed to the house where Coach grew up; the container is stationed there. We started moving boxes out and sorted them into piles in the wet, wet, hotness, loaded up the truck and made our way next door to Ah Mu elementary school and unloaded the boxes. (We have this sweet assembly line that we do- we all form a line from the truck bed to our destination passing box by box til we are finished.) It all works out quite nicely.
At the elementary school is where we had to do a little switcheroo. Half of the team stayed at Ah Mu and the other half went to the elderly home, Little Sisters of the Poor (sponsored by the Catholic church), where we had another engagement scheduled. I was one who stayed at the school along with Lacee, Daniel, Allyce, Jessica, Patti, Chelsea Fa, Kayli, and Garf.
The school is shaped in kind of a U. There are rooms and doors with “hallways” outside and the middle is a grass courtyard. A couple girls led us to the middle of the courtyard where they set up a shade tent and chairs where we could enjoy the performance that they were about to put on for us. While thank you’s were being exchanged and introductions were being announced, we were treated like queens to beautiful leis, a warm coconut rice drink, and a coconut to drink out of as well.
There were three songs put on for us. The school was split into two performing groups; about first to third graders, and the other about fourth to sixth graders. We’ll have to just show you the film or something, we have it all taped, but the first group sat and sang and clapped while a little boy ran a million (exaggerated of course) laps around them yelling and slapping and jumping. It was really cute. Then the second group did another performance like the first group’s and then their second one they had one of the older girls come out in a lava lava dress and did a traditional dance while everyone sang and a few boys came out and were yelling and running and dancing and slapping. They then had us all come up and dance while they sang us another song.
The performance ended and so after everything wonderful (maybe just everything in all) we take pictures, haha. So we all went and intermixed with the kids sitting down in formation and took pictures. Then they started singing the Samoan goodbye song, Tofa Mai Feleni (God be with you). This is when my heart started to melt.
A little boy sitting in front of me turned around to say, “This is how we say goodbye to you in Samoan.”
“Really J?” I asked, “How do you say the word bye?”
“Fa’a, and I’m not even really Samoan, I’m actually Tongan.”
“Oh neat, what’s your name?”
“I’m Israel, named after the prophet.” BIG SMILES.
“Is that so?” of course I couldn’t help but return the giant grin.
“Yes. What is your name?”
“I’m Erica.”
Israel started taking off his lei and put it over my neck. “This is for you, because you remind me of my Auntie.”
I then joined my team at the front of them all as they continued to sing the goodbye song. We all started to cry as these words were sung: Kutipai Mai Feleni (Goodbye my friend), I never will forget you. Service in Samoa has been so amazing I can’t even begin to tell you.
After the goodbye song, the stereo blaired and we all danced with the children, played and talked with them. They gave us their leis, asked for our autographs and wanted to be in all of our pictures. The kids took a special liking to Chelsea Fa and she about suffocated in all the leis she received, haha, her neck was covered and the beautiful flowers were piling over her ears. Daniel was pretty sneaky at getting a group of the children to go tackle Lacee and tickle her to the ground. There were hugs galore and nobody wanted us to leave, I have to admit, I didn’t want to leave either.
We made it back to the container and met with the other half of the team where we exchanged stories about our experiences in the two different places. The girls from that went to the Old Folk’s home had an awesome experience also. At the home they sang songs to the elderly, presented donations of medical supplies, walkers, canes and wheelchairs, went around and shook their hands and then the elderly sang back in appreciation. Lanni was amazed at how well they sang, and chuckled at the thought that they were being out sung by a group of people where half of them were practically deaf. Dani commented on how strong the spirit was there and how beautiful and heartwarming it was to see the light in the people’s eyes as they went around and shook their hands.
We made it back to the container and met with the other half of the team where we exchanged stories about our experiences in the two different places. The girls from that went to the Old Folk’s home had an awesome experience also. At the home they sang songs to the elderly, presented donations of medical supplies, walkers, canes and wheelchairs, went around and shook their hands and then the elderly sang back in appreciation. Lanni was amazed at how well they sang, and chuckled at the thought that they were being out sung by a group of people where half of them were practically deaf. Dani commented on how strong the spirit was there and how beautiful and heartwarming it was to see the light in the people’s eyes as they went around and shook their hands.
We then left as a big group to the hospital where we visited the children. What a humbling and touching experience it was to see a child’s smile as we handed them a teddy bear, and to see the deep expression of gratitude in the parents’ eyes as we gave them hygiene kits and shared kindness to their children. The media was there and coach spoke on television about what we were doing with our trip to Samoa.
Lunch was next. We ate at a cute outdoor hut place where we ordered burgers, salads, fries, seafood platters and such.
Then it was off to our game… holy sweat… anyways, we got there and there were people outside of the gym already lined up to get tickets to watch us. We played five sets in the one match and won all five of them. We had fans on the sidelines as we tried desperately to cool off, but we had SO much fun. When the game ended we took pictures with the Samoan Select team that we played and turned to give them volleyballs, tee shirts, knee pads, and the shoes off our feet. It worked out amazing that there was an exact size of shoe that matched up with a player on our team to theirs. When this interacting was taking place, people from the stands came down to interact with us as well. You would’ve thought we were rock stars; people asking for our autographs left and right, calling our names to get us to look at them as they snapped pictures of us. Talk about a cool experience.
It was then back home where we ordered some pizzas to end the night off with. Our trip has been simply splendid. Our team is sweetas, and I’m so grateful to be able to call myself a wolverine! Thanks everyone for supporting as and allowing this opportunity to be a reality!
Love you all and take care. Peace out and I’ll see you in the states!
GOD BLESS AMERICA
-E. Nish
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