Well, everything is getting a wash today in Samoa, and the potholes will be growing. I am in the office looking for inspiration, but my entire body is taken over by a new kind of lethargy that comes with complete emotional exhaustion, squashing humidity and too much alcohol on the weekend. Before we left Australia, they told us about natural psychological changes that everyone undergoes when they travel long-term overseas. There is the initial excitement and depression, a stage of rapidly switching highs and lows - and I've definitely had that experience. And then there is the 5-6 week slump, where everyone just wants to bail. If this is true by the end of this week I should be coming into the get-me-the-hell-out-of-here phase of my journey.

At the moment I am facing my own capacity to lack motivation. By putting it in writing I am hoping to kickstart some action in the right direction, because at the moment I am not even close to living what I preach. I need to start seeing obstacles as opportunities rather than impossibly large, ridiculously sturdy brick walls. And I need to start seeing brick walls as creators of niches in space-time rather than obstacles. The problem IS the solution! For example, neighbourly conflict as an opportunity to gain a different, deeper understanding of people and culture than the friendly niceties of peaceful but disconnected relationships. Radically opposed ideas and practices in the garden as an opportunity to display the real qualities of both extremes. Lack of easy access to material as a lesson in observation, resourcefulness and creativity, a test for my ability to interpret pattern and landscape and find what I need.

The 'problem' then is that in order for this to work, for me to succeed in the challenge of living an ethical life in this place, I need community. Community is the key, especially here, but there is something in my disposition now that wants me to disconnect. I don't know exactly why but I am compelled to ignore the world around me and exist in a bubble of my own egotistical imaginings, memories that comfort me and validate my self-image, long indulgent hours of bedridden daydream that accomplish nothing but to instill a hazy poignancy to the day. My drive to learn the language has diminished, now I want nothing but to wave 'fa!' and drive off in a nice car with English-speaking palagis and talk about, mostly, myself. I don't have the patience to withstand conversations that cannot trancend communication barriers and so remain in the realms of 'manuia le aso', but neither do I have the desire to go further, so what can I do but avoid conversation? I'm sure this all will change, but perhaps I need to make the most of this chance to explore the superficial topic of 'my' life and mind.

I should get back to work, but I just made the boss happy, and myself, by hitting another spark with CLUMPING coconut polycultures. We will be the first in Samoa to grow in this way, improving yeild by allowing clumps to self-mulch and creating ease of harvest never before seen here. Plus it leaves 80% of total space free for other crops, and I'm pushing for avocados as another major species. Then you wait till I show them trellis ideas and maybe even some aquaculture thrown in with pigs and chickens in there to keep it all under control.

Dad just rang and asked me if I thought I was gonna stick it out for the whole year. I told him yeah I think so.
Yep. I think so.