Why did the chicken cross the road?

We see and hear chickens all the time. However, they are very elusive when we try and get their picture. Here are a couple of pictures taken on our street. This is looking towards the ocean.

This is on another day looking the other direction on our street.

Here are some other shots from the neighborhood.

Giant Clam beach
Last Saturday we went with the senior missionaries to a beach that is a marine reserve for the giant clams.  We had to swim out to a giant ring of buoys which was quite a ways off shore, but pretty shallow.

Pretty cool that this beach is closed on Sunday!

We were so amazed at the size of the clams! They were many different colors and sizes.
Here are a few examples of the marine life.

While we were coming back in to shore it started to rain.  Then we heard thunder, saw lightning and it began pouring!!  The rain here is so warm we don't mind it at all.  But a thunderstorm in the water is not great.  Here is a picture of Marc in the rainstorm and one of me snorkeling out to the clams.

This beach is so beautiful, but not your typical white sand beach.  It is really rocky and has tons of coral.  The water is a gorgeous turquoise even when the sun isn't shining.

 We love to snorkel here in Samoa and hope we get to do some more before we go.

University

Here are some pictures of the National University of Samoa.

These are mostly classroom buildings and some faculty offices:

Here is my spartan office and the view:

Here is one of the classrooms I teach in. It is typical of all of the classrooms:

Here is a very large fale used for special occasions. [Fales (pronounced fall-lay) are covered and open. Almost every house has a fale in the yard. Some live just in the open fales.]

Bus

We often take the bus from the university into town (for 2 tala or about 80 cents). They are very colorful and usually the music is blaring. They are a lot of fun. Here are some pics of buses:

Sauniatu

This past Saturday we were in town doing some errands and met up with a senior couple in the grocery store.  They invited us to Sauniatu that afternoon.  Sauniatu is a village in a church complex given to the members in the area in the early 1900s.  It has a school, homes for the teachers, and a church for the members in the area to attend.  The land was dedicated by David O. McKay.  To get there you need a four wheel drive vehicle as it is deeply rutted and at one point a stream has to be crossed.  It is absolutely gorgeous! 

We drove through the compound and saw the monuments dedicated to Pres. McKay.

Then we parked the car and walked to a waterfall and swimming hole. 

First view

There were quite a few young people swimming and jumping off the sides up high.  After a while we were the only ones there.  It was so quiet and peaceful.  The pool was at least 15 feet deep and it was cool and refreshing. Water was dripping off the sides of the pool up high.

Marc got right in and swam over to the waterfall and it took me a while but I did it as well!  The water was so powerful coming down and was warm in comparison to the pool.

We floated for a while on our backs looking up at the sky through the leafy canopy.

It was an amazing experience

Tropical Flowers

Everywhere we walk we see gorgeous flowers!  Some we have seen before when we lived in Hawaii and some are totally new.  We don’t know the names so have fun looking at the pictures.

This next one is huge!! Look at the leaves behind it for comparison)

With the arm of the sister missionary in it so I could take a better pic as it was really windy.

And the reason for all this beauty?

These downpours!

Saletoga Resort

Two Saturdays ago we went with the senior couples to a beautiful resort on the south side of the island.  This resort was destroyed along with many other things during the tsunami of 2009.  It has since been rebuilt and is beautiful!  There are bungalows which can be rented for day use or overnight.  We were fortunate to have two large bungalows for the day.  A senior couple who had returned home had not been able to get a good exchange rate before they left so they donated it to the seniors.  They decided to use it for this activity so our price we had to pay was minimal.  The day we went was very rainy due to Cylcone Winston, but it cleared enough to let us swim, snorkel and kayak.

Here are the bungalows

And the beach view

We ate in the restaurant and then headed out to snorkel and kayak.  We were hoping we could get as much done before it started to rain again. 

It was really hard to relax and breathe normally, but finally I was able to go out and held Marc’s hand as we swam over the coral reef.  It was hard to imagine all the beautiful life down below but here are a few pictures.

After snorkeling we got a double kayak and paddled out towards the breakers.  The ocean started to get a little choppy so we were only out for a half hour.  It was so awesome!  It was our first time kayaking on the ocean and not Puget sound.

Then we went into the pool and relaxed for an hour.  It started to rain and we headed to the bungalows and changed and headed back to Apia.  On the way back we stopped at a vista point where we saw a huge waterfall.

We really enjoyed our first time at the beach in Samoa!