Cyclone Gita

You may have surmised that we missed a blog post due to Cyclone Gita which impacted Savai'i, all of Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji.  

Savai'i took the brunt of Cyclone Gita on Friday night of Feb.9th.  It was rated Category 1.  It was frightening to lay in bed and hear the winds with gusts up to 85 mph.  The roof roared and we prayed it would not come off.  We had maintenance come tighten it down since then.  Like one little girl told us, "we didn't sleep all night".  The second night (Sat.) the thunder cracked and the lightening lit up our pitch dark campus.  So we can say we have experienced Samoa and lived through a cyclone.  Missionaries were counseled to stay in their houses for three days.  Many residents around the island still do not have power or water including some of our full time young missionaries.  The other island of Upolu is the same, some without power and water yet.  Nighttime is a frightful time to hear the winds and rain raging and we knew that we were not the only ones praying.  Cyclone Gita was category 5 by the time it hit Tonga and it leveled their Parliament building and many homes.  Our hearts go out to the Kingdom of Tonga.

Campus strewn with leaves, branches, fallen trees, and uprooted shrubbery.

Campus

This pole had to be uprighted on the access road to Vaiola College.

Collapsed Fale

Peeled Roof

Roof ripped off.

Aftermath:  School was cancelled the Friday before it hit because they knew the cyclone was coming and the rain was already torrential, flooding the fords so you couldn't cross.  School was also closed on Monday.  Our church was cancelled Sunday as there were so many families still without power, cutting down fallen trees, and dealing with damaged property, especially in our neighboring village of Tapueleele.  Wednesday afternoon of this week our internet was finally operational after repairs were made to the school's signal tower which was struck with lightening.  Not having TV reception, email, or Facebook for a week put us out of touch with the outside world!   Fortunately we live on a church campus and power outages were minimal unlike our friends, Elder & Sister Deffense who live in a downtown village.  They were without power for a week and came to our home in the evenings for dinner and to do laundry or whatever electrical needs they had.  That means they did not have air conditioning during the day and it's been hot and muggy.  Fortunately, their power was restored yesterday, Saturday, (quite the process)!

Ron and I cleaned out the Agriculture Fale after the cyclone.  It is a big open outdoor classroom building on our campus.  It had two heavy teacher desks in it and they along with all the chairs and desks and file cabinets were literally blown from one side of the fale and bunched up on the other side.  Books and scriptures were soaked from the rain that were in the file cabinets knocked over and papers were strewn.  We picked up rubbish and tried to make some semblance of a classroom.  While out Saturday morning picking up, one of the homes had a hymn wafting outside, "Nearer My God to Thee" .   How fitting.  You really know who is in charge when subject to the elements and we are grateful to a loving Heavenly Father for His protection of so many wonderful Samoan people.  

Lots of trees around the island were uprooted.  Breadfruit trees took the hit and banana trees were folded in half.  Leaves were stuck on ours cars and buildings.

Sample of the MANY uprooted large breadfruit trees.

Once school resumed so did our ITEP classes which kept us on the go but it is a good kind of busy and we're glad we can teach them.  We have two student teachers this term, two Teaching Certificate classes, and one Administrative track class.  Class rosters have gelled and registrations are in place.

At Friday faculty meeting this week (held at 6:30 a.m.) we presented an in-service on English Fluency with emphasis on vocabulary and practice.  Since we are an English immersion school, this is an ongoing focus.

For Valentine's Day, I made heart shaped chocolate chip cookies for dinner and made Valentine place cards with puffy heart stickers that our daughter had sent.  Elder Deffense arranged a beautiful floral bouquet of native flowers for us and Sister Deffense made a sweet Valentine card.  The four of us took time to go out for dinner Saturday evening and afterward watched a movie at their home.

This weekend we held our first movie night of the school year for the dorm girls and showed Agent Cody Banks which was a hit.