Back on the Rock after the Vacay

Dedicated to everyone who made my recent trip to Cambodia so amazing and refreshing.

You know that feeling that you have after being away travelling for a long time?  You feel like you can't wait to go home, to sleep in your own bed, to get back to your old routine.  Now maybe its just that I love travelling or maybe its because American Samoa isn't exactly home for me but when it was time to end my recent trip to Cambodia and associated SE Asia, I didn't have that feeling.  In fact, it was quite the opposite, I wanted to stay.  Not stay and continue paying for hotels, meals and whathaveyou but stay in what I consider home.  I remember reading an article about Third Culture Kids (TCK) and Third Culture Adults (TCA), a very unscientific term used to describe someone who identifies strongly with multiple cultures and countries.  It was coined by a sociologist Ruth Hill Useem (thank you Wikipedia) and its something that I think more people identify with than you would think.  When I was in Cambodia, everything was different but the same.  There were new buildings, cafes, roads yet the old hangouts were still there, the people still the same and the culture  still colorful and vibrant.  It's decided, come 2014, I am going to be actively searching for a way to move back there and work.......permanently.

Anyways, I flew back from Phnom Penh on 7/10/13, the entire trip all the way back to Am Sam took me 42 hours.  This was mainly due to the fact that I had a nice long 13 hour layover in Seoul which was awesome cause it meant I had an entire day to explore a place I've always wanted to go to.  Little known fact, when my parents signed up to be missionaries with Maryknoll when I was a wee babe, they were given two options of where they would like to go; Cambodia or South Korea.  Obviously we know where they chose but I had always wondered what it would've been like to have lived in South Korea. Would I speak the language? Would I be way more academic? Would I be way more comfortable in city settings than I am now?  Seoul was incredible, unfortunately it was raining the entire day so my backpack and I were drenched, even with our respective rain covers in full utilization mode.  Went to see some temples, some of the markets and spent a lot of time in different noodle shops sampling local fare.  Got to meet up for dinner with my old classmate Jaehyun who is studying to be a Vet and he took me to this amazing restaurant that was just swimming with character and good eats.  As I was walking around looking like a total and complete tourist with my big ass backpack and my foldable tourist map of the city, looking for this street market, a very nice Korean came up to me and asked me where I was going, and happily walked 15 mins out of their way to show me where it was.....such a nice guy.  I wonder if that happens much in the US, I think we are all so preoccupied with our lives we forget to be nice to tourists, but then again, I have never lived anywhere in the US where there are a lot of foreign tourists.  I was also at this temple where I got ambushed by a bunch of teenage Korean girls who asked me to tell them my name, proceeded to write it down in Korean, and then asked me to copy what they had written, I did, they took a picture with me and headed out.  I am surmising that this was some sort of school project or scavenger hunt to try and get the students to use their English with tourists, but it totally took me for a loop.

Now, 5 countries later and 10 new stamps in the passport, I am back in AmSam, and while its nice to settle back into a routine, this island is getting smaller and smaller every time I come back.  Its the beginning of winter here (any by winter I mean windy and hot as opposed to just hot), which means there is the annual exodus off the rock.  There are so many goodbye parties that I am beginning to be a little sick of them all.  I begin to feel bad for thinking "just leave already, so I can stop getting all these e-mails about goodbye parties I feel obligated to attend."  I've had 2 since I've been back and have another one tonight......uggg.  When I leave, there will be no party, just dinner with my close friends. 

Work is the same, although a little slower since we are done with application season.  Now I can focus on implementation which is something I need to get better at at work.  I hopefully will also be going to the Big Island of Hawaii in September for a training, that is if I can convince my State office that it is cheaper as well as better use of manpower to send me there rather than Oahu.  I like Honolulu but I've been there several times now and would like to go see a different island.

Next week we have our camp.  I am nervous it is going to be an utter disaster but, I've learned that Samoans have a way of making the most out of anything so if they bring half of the enthusiasm they brought to the last camp, it will be a smashing success.  That being said, they all just got done with the camp in the outer Manu'a islands so they might be a little tired which means I will have to step up my game a little bit to compensate.

Alright, signing off, its Saturday and its the first sunny day in 5 days here so i'm gonna go snorkeling........I know all my complaining seems kinda ridiculous now eh?

Peace.

Check out this link: http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/31-signs-youre-a-third-culture-kid

Spot Checks

(Dedicated to my awesome co-workers with NRCS.  So proud to a part of such an awesome and smart team!)

So this week was the week of visitors.  We don't get off-island visitors that often so when we do it is usually a lot of fun to show them the work we do here.  Drew, our area engineer came down last week.  We showed him some of our sites and Jorge and I were relieved to hear his approval of us and the work we do.  Not gonna lie, was a little nervous we were going to be raked over the coals.   We took him out to the piggeries and showed him the systems. 

Over the weekend Jorge, Amy, Hobie, Prem, Captain Noonan and I went to Larsen's Beach.  My area resource conservationist came down a couple years back and totally fell in love with this cove.  It really is quite nice, see some of my earlier postings for pics.  He loves it so much its his desktop picture at his office in Honolulu.  Drew enjoyed it and it was really nice that Captain Noonan of the Coast Guard got to tag a long.  She is just an awesome awesome human being.  Smart, tough and very friendly, everything you need in a Captain if you ask me.  We went snorkeling, sunbathed (it started raining so it was brief).  The next day, Drew and I went to the Vatia tide pools.  I love this place because it is so easy to get to and provides such a huge reward for your effort.  Its a great place to take people to see the marine life because its like this little microcosm of fish and other creatures all wrapped in a couple tiny pools.  I love having guests visit here, its so easy to entertain in such a beautiful location.

The work week was busy.  Drew brought us a brand new lazer level for surveying so we spent a lot of time on Monday doing training for that.  This thing is pretty nifty and i think it will be a great asset to us in the field.  We also had spot checks.  Spot checks are my agencies version of quality assurance checks.  Each year, every office gets 5% of our vegetative and 5% of our engineering contracts checked.  They are randomly selected and they only tell us 24 hours in advance which ones they will be reviewing.  Drew reviewed three and found them all to be complete and compliant which was a total relief.  No corrective actions....thank god. 

My boss's boss Donna arrived on Monday.  She is new to the job in Hawaii and hadn't been to American Samoa before.  She was also here to do the 5% vegetative spot checks.  I was a little nervous but she also found no corrective actions which was also very reassuring to me.  Its nice to know that your hard work pays off.  Unfortunately she was only here from Tuesday thru Thursday so she didn't get a lot of time to see much stuff.  I made her promise me that next time she comes down, she come for at least a weekend that way i can show her some of the cool stuff we have here. 

Both Drew and Donna left last night.  Diego (my supervisor here) also left last night for 6 weeks!  So its me and Jorge until June when i leave for Cambodia.  I've been working with Prem to brush up my Khmer.  We've started speaking only in Khmer to each other and we've both noticed that it gets better each day we do it.  I'm hoping to get back to some reasonable understanding before i leave in June.

Almost done with my second semester of grad school, just have my final test and then i need to finish a research paper for this leadership class i am in through work.  8 pages single spaced....ugggg.

On the plus side, last night i picked up Becca Bolks (Andrea's sister) and her friend Katie who on a complete whim, decided to trek down to American Samoa.  They're flight attendants so they were able to get here cheap ($80 which is ridiculous considering it would cost me at minimum $1400).  They will be staying for 2 weeks.  Its a good thing i bought a motorcycle so they can use the car.

Alright, I'll leave you with some pictures from the tide pools.
Peace

Back to the rock!

Dedicated to all the people who are upset with me for wishing for snow while i was back in Minnesota.  Sorry it came late!

Finally back to American Samoa after almost 4 weeks away.  It was a good hiatus from the isolation of this rock here in South Pacific.  It was a solid trip full of trainings, knowledge, games, fast driving, drinking, eating, friends and family, thank you all!

I haven't had time to come back to my blog in a while and for that i apologize.  I know many of you enjoy the blogs i post and wish that i would be better at it.  I will try to keep up with it this time. 

Well it's tax time again.  For me it really sucks.  Not only am i subjected to federal tax but i also have to pay American Samoa tax.  Some of you might be saying "come on Nick, all of us have to pay both federal and state taxes."  Well that is true for me as well, with 3 key exceptions.  Firstly, American Samoan taxes are not withheld from my paycheck like state taxes would be if i were in CONUS (for those of you who aren't versed in the lingo, CONUS stands for Continental United States of America and means the lower 48).  This means that at the end of the year, i end up having no state withholding and subsequently end up having to pay a large sum of money to the government here.  The second reason taxes suck here is that we are stuck using the 2000 level IRS tax tables.  These tax liabilities are much higher than the current IRS tables because of the Bush Tax Cuts.  American Samoa was smart and didn't want to lose tax money so they froze the tables at the 2000 levels.  Finally, there is a 2% wage tax on your income on top of your tax liability, not your AGI, your total wages.  This for me alone was $1500 this year!  For those of you who are wondering, i owe American Samoa $8500!  Thankfully, they are cool with installments.  Last year i went in and paid $50 and told them i would come back and give them the rest once my federal refund was received.  It was quite funny because they were incredibly grateful that i even decided to come in and pay.  I came back in June and paid the remainder interest and penalty free.  Bet you wish the IRS let you do that!

It wouldn't be so bad if i didn't feel like my money was completely wasted.  I mean the roads are crap, the education system dismal, public works rarely work and politicians get paid way more than they should.  Also i don't get to vote but am required to pay taxes.  Now i know what D.C. residents feel like.  Anyway enough ranting.  Although despite all that, i am still here.

Tomorrow is my first big field day after being back.  We'll be hiking, surveying, filling out forms and doing resource inventories.  I am sure i will be covered in sweat by 10am and have gone through 3 shirts by 2pm. We have so many people interested in our programs which would be great if we had the staff and time to process all of the inquiries, unfortunately i will just have to do as many as i can before the deadlines,  there really isn't anything else i can do.  Thankfully Samoans are not are ornery as mainlanders and understand that nothing moves fast on the islands......I mean the speed limit is 25mph for crying out loud.

Well that is all for now.  Oh in honor of the upcoming Mustache/Water Slide/Slip-n-slide party coming up Saturday i share this photo of the planned water slide we are renting.  It is two stories which effectively makes it taller than most people's houses and only 2 stories shy of being the tallest structure in American Samoa.  Should be lots of fun, hopefully there will be minimal injuries.  Also a picture of my new hog "Emma" (thanks to Maureen Ulvi for the name), i bought it for $1000 before i left for vacation but am just getting to enjoy it now!  Stay toasty everyone and remember the warm waters of the South Pacific are waiting for you!

Till next time.