Turning Colors

What’s with all the colors? (Or is it colours?)
In my 27 years I have accepted the fact that I am a klutz, and being a klutz I know that bruises come from time to time. Being in Samoa my body is taking it to a new extreme.
Palagis who look at me often wonder and question what is wrong with me and wonder if I had recently been in a fight. I answer them no, it’s just living in Samoa. Right now I have several bruises up and down my arms. Some of them are from playing volleyball, and some are just from living life.
What makes me even more colorful, is the fact that I have some kind of sun fungus on my body which is turning me white. Only it is a white splotchy mess. My face was tan, and suddenly white streaks arrived on my face, which spread to take it over. It looks like my face is striped. The whiteness has spread to my neck and I have perfect circles spread all over my neck. It looks like I was wearing a necklace and those were the places that didn’t tan.
Looking in the mirror for the first time I had to laugh. (Being in Samoa you learn quickly that mirrors are non-existent. Sometimes when there are mirrors, the lighting is so bad that you cannot actually see inside them, so they are pointless. About every two months we actually get in front of a mirror….and are sometimes are surprised about what we look like.) For the past two weeks people have been coming up to me saying “pala p’la”(the wrong spelling for dirty) and trying to rub stuff off my face. The first time this happened I was very self conscious as people kept rubbing my face off as if I didn’t take care of my hygiene. At the first chance I got, I saw a mirror and saw I had white streaks all over me. I talked to other volunteers and they said they had the same problem and to just go to our medical officer for cream to fix it.
I am finally in the capital, and able to see our medical officer today which makes me happy as I just looked in the mirror and the white spots have spread to around my neck. When I walk into her office later today, I will probably be one of the most colorful people she has seen in awhile.