Coming Home

Coming home from Mothers Day
After my sleepover with Dana I awoke early as I wanted to make sure I caught an early enough bus so I could get to school on time. I left her house before 5:30, as there was a possibility of a bus being there around 6am.
Dana’s house is in a postcard location. Her house is a hop skip and a jump away from the beach. (The following evening her host brother gave us a snack as we sat on her step watching the waves crash in the water. It was simply beautiful.)The only problem is that Dana’s village is far away from the main road. In fact it is a big hill away from it. The hill takes about half an hour to walk up. (She has to do this hill every day for school.)
I began walking, happy that I had my flashlight as it was pitch dark. (There were clouds covering the stars). My flashlight helped guide me on the road as I also used it to pick up rocks as I was not sure if I would run into any dogs. I felt like I was climbing the hill for hours as I was exhausted from the previous day and knew I had close to an hour on the bus to get home.
Finally after walking for what felt like days I finally heard voices. Those voices were followed by shapes of bodies. (I was still unable to see in the dark.) The sky began to lighten and I saw that those bodies were kolisi students. A few of them came over to talk to me to test me on my knowledge of the Pisi Koa that they knew.
About 6:30 the bus finally arrived, and I was amazed with how full it was, but determined that I too would find a way to get on it. As I piled into what felt like I clown car, I saw that every seat had 4 to a seat, and some had five. All the people standing reminded me of that childhood game of Domino Rally. There were 3 people hanging out of the door. It was intense.
Where I was I had trouble seeing out the window to figure out what village I was In, and the person next to me thought they were being helpful, however, they kept giving the wrong village name and when I corrected them, they told me I was wrong. This caused me to go passed where I normally get off the bus.
I quickly showered and headed to school. I was exhausted but knew that a few hundred Samoan children would be quick to energize me.