Sailele Beach and Goodbyes

One of the unusual social dynamics of the palagi community in American Samoa involves consistent departures of friendns, since most everyone are on contracts of lengths of anywhere from a few months to up 2 years. Thus there are frequent talofa barbecues and parties to say goodbye. The worst part about this aspect of the community is you meet some fun people, hang out for awhile and all of a sudden their contract is up and you're saying goodbye.

One such pair of departing friends are the judicial law clerk and her husband. We've known each other for most of Sara's and my time on the island, but have only started hanging out in the past few weeks. But we've hit it off and basically hung out every evening since the middle of last week. Problem is, the pair of them are flying out to Madison, Wisconsin (actually to Chicago and then they are landing at 3am and driving three hours to Madison after 24 hours of travelling, yuck) on Tuesday.

So we've been having dinner parties, a giving-all-their-stuff-away party (Sara and I snagged a book and some fridge magnets), a few good-bye barbecues and late night karaoke sessions to celebrate the end of the clerk's one year contract. As a part of their leaving, they are also working on their bucket list of activities here on Tutuila. One of those activities included going to Sailele, one of the small, remote villages on the north side of the island. So after a late night dancing the evening before, a few of us crawled out into the harsh morning light and pulled together an expedition to head out to one of the few sandy beaches on the island.

We opted to drive and piled a few people into the SUV and headed out. We only had a faint notion as to where we were going. I'd eye-balled it on a map, but hadn't been there. We started caravaning out to the East side of Tutuila. We missed our turn off, but were able to piece together our mistake when we made it to the only restaurant on the East side, realized we'd gone too far and doubled back. The road to Sailele was a steep track over the spine of the island. We cruised over the single-track road without encountering another vehicle and soon found ourselves driving into the quiet village of Sailele. It consisted of a few rows of houses lining a thin strip between the rain forest and the water. Palm trees lined the tide line and what wasn't sand was either yard or grass.

Once we disembarked in Sailele, I was tasked with tracking down the appropriate matai to ask permission to spend the afternoon on their beach. Asking the locals kids turned up the right matai's house. I knocked on the door. Eventually this woke up the teenager who was sleeping on a mattress in the living room. He assured me we would be OK to use the beach. I've heard that it's improper to get permission from someone other than the chief, but we couldn't rouse him, so we made do with the permission we could get. We then greased the wheels with some pisupo, or canned corned-beef, a Samoan luxury since it was introduce by British sailors and American whalers in the 19th Century.

We then walked out on what turns out to be a beautiful, sand beach. Most people's fantasies of the South Pacific are of unbroken stretch of white sand with volcanic peaks looming above. American Samoa does not quite fit this image. Most of out coast line is jagged volcanic rock and seawall fringed by very shallow shelf coral reef with steep drop offs to the deep ocean floor. Not exactly the tourist beach fantasy.

So arriving at Sailele, it was a bit of a shock to have a nice sandy beach stretching out for a half a mile. With this much paradise to work with, we immediately walked out to end of the village to the last stretch of beach. The water was at low tide and the beach was covered with shells and coral. We even found a little creek running through the sand and made camp above it. Not too shabby. A few of our party even ventured over the rocky paths to the next cove over, but with more beach than I've seen in a long time, I was eager to maximize my time and enjoy the sun and water. Plus I was also a little to tired and hung over to do much hiking.

Sara and I had picked up some beach chairs earlier in the day. They proved ideally suited to sitting on a sandy beach. Sara even got the inspiration to sit herself in the water. Sitting in the Pacific with a cold spring feeding the water just above the tide line was kind of ideal. Before long, the rest of us joined Sara in the water. Turns out there's no better way to experience Polynesian than relaxing in the water on a remote beach.

One of the rules of spending time on the beach in Samoa is that skin should be shown in extreme moderation. Men usually wear shirts and women aren't supposed to be out and about in bikinis. Samoan culture is a little too conservative for attire that ceased be provocative in the 1960s. Most Samoan women swim in t-shirts and shorts. Thankfully we were far enough away from the village so that our group could feel comfortable not toeing the line when it comes to Samoan ideas as to women's attire.

We ended up spending the whole afternoon lounging on the beach in Sailele. A few of us did venture out and did some swimming, but the coral reef was shallow and close. Swimming out over the reef involved a skinned knee with almost every stroke. We did manage to find a patch of sand 50 yards from shore we could stand and relax on. In the end, it wasn't a swimming beach at low tide, but after too many rocky coast lines, it was the perfect 'hang out in the waves' beach.

Every once in awhile it's nice to get reminded that we are living in a tropical paradise. When we're living in the suburbs-lite that is the Tafuna Plain, that sometimes gets lost on us. Funny how all it takes is a sunny afternoon on a remote beach to give us that much needed perspective. Too bad this had to be one of the last days on the island for the clerk and her husband. Hopefully we'll get to see them again soon.