Three Cobram Anglican Grammar School students and their year-level coordinator have returned from a trip far beyond the canola and wheat fields of Moira shire.
Year 10 students Evalee Royston, Matilda Waser and Savannah Kernaghan, alongside their year level coordinator Carolyn White, embarked on the trip of a lifetime to Samoa over the recent Term 3 school holidays.
“The trip was amazing,” Ms Royston said.
“We got to do many things, and learned a lot about the different ways of how they live [in Samoa].”
After spending their first week in Apia, the nation’s capital and only city, the students visited such fabled sights as To Sua Ocean Trench and Lalomanu Beach.
While at Lalomanu Beach, the students slept in fales - traditional Samoan shelters without walls.
Ms Royston said sleeping in the fales wasn’t a worry until the weather took a turn for the worse.
“We just had to put down portable covers, but besides that, it was really good,” she said.
During their last week in the country, the three students were each assigned a class at All Saints Anglican School.
“It was hard at first, because we didn’t know the kids [at the sister school]. And they also sometimes speak in Samoan, so it can get quite confusing,” Ms Royston said.
“But once you got the hang of it, it was really good.”
Ms Royston learned to count to twenty in Samoan and use basic greetings, over the course of her time there.
She said the trip has made her appreciate the small things in life.
“They don’t have much over there, and we’re very privileged with a lot of the school facilities we’ve got.”
Ms Royston said what struck her most about her time in Samoa was the friendliness of the locals.
“When we were driving places, we’d have our windows down and just wave at people walking by. They’d wave back.”
At the local markets, Ms Royston said people would greet her and ask where she was from.
She added that seafood made a strong feature on the food menu.
“There was this one food we actually ate a lot of called taro, and it’s like their version of a potato. You eat it with this coconut seaweed cream - which doesn’t sound very nice, but it’s really yummy.”
The students also planned to visit the Australian High Commissioner’s Office. In an ironic twist of fate, however, they discovered the commissioner was in Australia at the time.
This wasn’t enough to put a dampener on their trip, however.
Having experienced the country once, Ms Royston said she would like to return to Samoa with her family and be their tour guide.
“I’d definitely recommend it for the younger year levels that are coming into Year 10,” she said.
The students and Mrs White departed Australia on Friday, September 20, and returned on Monday, October 7.
The CAGS students were also joined by Trinity Anglican College Thurgoona and Cathedral College Wangaratta.