WHAT Question from America... What does your village look like?

WHAT question from America...
What does your village look like?

Training Village

My training village is very very small. The village is in a form of a U. Fales lined up around the U with a walkway down the middle. Everyone's "front yard" is the same facing each other. On one side there is the church, the Pastor's American style home and 2 fales, another American style house and a "store." Most of the stores here are set up like a snack shop at a local baseball game, a clerk behind a counter top with all the items behind him/her. On the other side of the village is 5 fales and the bottom part of the U there are 3 fales and 1 American style house. My fale is at the end of the U. I have a perfect view of the volleyball net that is also at the end of the U. I can see the whole village from my fale. I am actually looking out now as I type this counting all the fales trying to describe this the best I can.  My other view is of the ocean. I literally hear the ocean crashing against the beach every night. Some nights it is louder than others. I have a perfect breeze into my room making it very easy to sleep at night.

Chicken fighting... THREE PEOPLE!
"Our" beach.

Behind my hut is a smaller fale for my kitchen. Right now my Tina (Samoan Host Mother) is cooking up my dinner over a small fire. Further behind that is my shower. My bathroom is like a two camping bathrooms next to each other. Luckily I have a flushing toilet on one side with a door and the other side is a piped shower with a curtain you can see right through! The pipe shower is only warm in the late afternoon and warm for about 20 seconds. Usually my showers are quick and cold.

My home is the one in the middle

My fale is one room with a bedside table and I am even was blessed with curtains  I have a thin pad on my bed and two pillows. My pillows smell funky so I wrap my sheet around them to cover the smell and use a lavalava as a sheet to sleep with. The Peace Corps provides a misquote net although majority of the time I did not use it. No because I do not get bit, I do, I have woken up a lot of times (whether I used the net or not) and just scratch and scratch and scratch until I am bleeding and eventually fall back asleep. I do not use it because overall I am used to getting bit and am just too lazy to untuck and tuck.
There are different kinds of fales. Fale means house. The best way to describe my fale is to say it looks like a hut. A one room hut with a porch. An open fale is a foundation of cement with pillars holding up a roof. I love my fale! I will miss it when I move into my official site.