The Samoan Youth Empowerment Initiative: Chicago!

Neueli, Milo and Saulo in the Windy City!

Luckily for the boys, I happen to live near one of the great American cities: Chicago! Although we flew into O’Hare on our arrival, that was early in the morning and after they were all facing sleep deprivation. They ended up sleeping the whole ride home and missing out on the sights. Therefore, I knew a trip to Chicago was a must do for our schedule. We actually made two trips to Chicago, the first to the Museum of Science and Industry and the second being to actual down town on Michigan Avenue.

On both trips we took the South Shore Train that leaves from South Bend, Indiana. We went to the museum in early January with my uncle and his friend. It was a great educational experience for the boys, even if they couldn’t read about everything they saw, the most important thing was that they saw it!

Our second trip was in the middle of the month and we headed to the last stop the train makes near Michigan Ave. This was their first time seeing the skyscrapers up close and so as soon as we walked to street level, their heads immediately looked straight up. We headed for the John Hancock Building where we got on the elevator to the 95th floor. We went to the lounge there and bought four Pepsi drinks for $22.00, which was still cheaper than the $27.00 admission to the observatory a few floors up—and we still had an amazing view of the city and the lake.

As we walked to the glass windows, I could hear the boys gasping at the vastness and the height at which we were standing. It still impresses me and I’ve been to the top of tall buildings my whole life! We had just been to Lake Michigan the week before so I explained to them that they were looking at the other side of that same lake. It was a true moment of culture shock, these three young men from a tiny village on a tiny island in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean were looking at this mass of human creation that seemed to go on forever. It was one of the coolest parts of the trip for me, in terms of watching their expressions.

We headed back down the elevator about 40 minutes later and continued to mingle along Michigan Avenue for the rest of the afternoon. We stopped by the Apple Store to warm up for a few minutes and ended up staying for an hour as all four of us were captivated by the i-pads! A similar story played out at the Lego Store where we were just going to make a quick pass through, but then started building with the interactive portion of the store where you could build your own creations. This caused us to take a later train back to South Bend, but I figured it was worth it if it stretched their minds to create and think in ways they hadn’t before in their own country.

It ended up being a great day, and other than the fare for the train, a very inexpensive day! There is a teenage boy in their village who is called Chicago, so I’m guessing whenever they see him in the future, their minds will have a whole new picture related to their experience that day.