NOAA Station

Following a wonderful umu meal at our friend Visa's house and a short side trip to feed our "take away" breadfruit to some stream fish, Sara and I decided to explore the NOAA observatory and weather station out on the Eastern tip of the island. A few of our friends had visited the facility a few weeks before and reported back that it was worth the trip. It had been a few months since we'd been out to the east end of the island, so we thought it would be worth the trip. The drive out there is full of interesting sights and well worth it.

This is only the second time I've been out to the Eastern tip of the island. It's a beautiful drive out there and I love how once you get past the canneries in the harbor, the island quickly transitions to small quiet villages that are dotted along the lonely single lane road.

The NOAA weather station that sits out on the Eastern Tip of the island is one of the few permanent presences of the federal government here in American Samoa. It has the unique distinction of being the spot with the cleanest air in the world. Or at least the place that NOAA uses air samples from to determine what the "clean-air" baseline is. I find this a little odd, since the people of American Samoa burn their trash and waste on a daily basis and a healthy majority of the vehicles on island do not have any pollution controls, but I guess when the wind is blowing in the from east, the air there has come from a thousand miles of open ocean to reach there.

The turn off to the Observatory is unmarked, but it's pretty obvious which of the dirt tracks runs to the top of the hill at Cape Matalua, the NE tip of Tutuila. We followed the road up past a few homes and came to the gate of the NOAA facility. The plateau of the mountain was filled with the observatory proper and a number of instruments scattered around the grassy area. Sara and I spent some time trying to determine what each's purpose was.

Once we had explored all the sciency things at the Observatory we came across one last highlight, the stairway down to the cape. It is a long wooden staircase, containing over 200 stairs at a 45 degree slope down the mountainside. The thoughtful designers even placed several benches in to make sure there'd be places to rest.

The climb down wasn't bad, but knowing we'd have to go back up was a tickling in the back of our heads as we headed down.

The Cape at the base was beautiful. It's a peninsula that was bare rocks covered in moss and grass with the crashing Pacific on all sides.

We hung out for a bit and just appreciated the remoteness and ruggedness of our little island. Well worth the trip out.

All that was left was our hike back up. Thankfully we've been doing enough hiking that it wasn't too much of a challenge.

Thankfully, all that was left to cap off this Sunday was a stop at Tisa's on the way back to our side of the island.

Pese Practice has Begun

A unique Samoan cultural event has started to happen this week in our office. For an hour each afternoon, the whole office shuts down. All the employees filter out of their desks and head down to the lobby for Immigration. We then sit on benches and chairs pulled in from the Immigration Office. In the center of the room is a Casio keyboard. We then start practicing Christmas songs for an hour. In a few weeks our department (and all other government departments over the course of three evenings) will perform at the stage across the street from the legislature in front of the governor and the performance will be broadcast on TV. The name of this who deal is Pese.

As a person of limited musical talent, this is a bizarre use of my work hours. All but one of the songs we are working on are in Samoan, a language that has me struggling to say the name of the village I live in. Singing in it adds a whole other layer of difficulty. Not mention being asked to memorize lyrics has me wondering what I signed up for. Oh yeah and the lyric sheets we were handed out had several lines that we aren't singing. No one's bothered to explain this to us first-timers. We need to figure it out as we got or get yelled at in Samoan when the song leader takes umbrage with our signing. Worst of all, apparently the television cameras inevitably focus in on the palagi faces in the crowd. I'm sort of dreading this recital.

One fun component of all this is Sara and a few of our friends were tasked with choosing the fabric and design of the matching uniforms everyone from our department will wear for the performance. This meant that we went to the fabric store picked out a fabric that had a large enough amount to make shirts for the men and pulatasis for the ladies. The four people on the uniform committee had to debate and compromise their way to one fabric and design they could settle on. To ensure the printed fabric wouldn't run out, the rolls of it were placed on reserve. Our next task was to take the fabric to a sewing shot across the street and started having them knock up the samples that we can show the rest of the office the design. We were measured and the design was described, we'll be modelling the designs on Monday for the office.

I never thought I'd be using my law degree to entertain quite in this way. We'll hopefully be able to get some video of the performance to post...

Soccer

American Samoa takes its sports seriously. The sports most people focus on are football, volleyball, rugby and cricket. So it was big news when AmSam's "National" soccer team won their first game this week: http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/blog/dirty-tackle/post/Worst-ranked-American-Samoa-win-first-ever-FIFA-?urn=sow-wp6950

We'll see if the sport takes off here.

James "Jim" Allen Sayles

I got the worst of news this evening. My grandfather, James Allen Sayles passed away this evening. For nine decades, Jim exemplified everything I hoped to be as a person. He was independent, an explorer, his own man, successful, the person who drove me to improve as a person and my namesake. You truly were one of the great influences of my life. You will be sorely missed.

Sara and I were both glad to have had a couple of opportunities to

visit my "Grampa" and my grandmother while we were home for Spencer and Britt's wedding. We managed to celebrate my Great Aunt Janet's birthday together and you let your "old school" guard down long enough to allow Sara and I to bring lunch to your place in Kensington, from Tacubaya. The problem with a trip as short as that was we did not get to spend more time with the people we love the most.

Grampa, you will be sorely missed. You were the man who held me to higher standard and taught me that good enough was not good enough. Even your surly attitude infused me with a patience and sympathy that will be a part of me for my entire life. Grampa, your sense of adventure and outdoors spirit were a major influence on my life and who I am today. You taught me to shoot a gun at 5, to fish at 4, to hike and explore my entire life. You always brought the perspective of an engineer to every problem in life and gave me a logical framework for dealing with every trial in life. These are skills that I relish and continue to expand on to this day, your influence will not end with you. It's hard for me to imagine going on without you, but sad as it may be, I will have to.

I will never be able to drink a glass of "pinch bottle" scotch without thinking of you. We are all proud that you were able to leave this world under your own terms and with you people you hold most dear. You may be gone, but you will not be forgotten. Even from American Samoa, you memory will live on, you old sailor. I only wish I was able to see you through until then end...

Cold Day in the Tropics

It's been raining the past few weeks. It's understandable with the start of the wet season. The weather's now either raining and cloudy; or cloudless, windless and blazing hot. Today squarely falls into the category of rainy. We've already had several huge deluges where the clouds unleash an avalanche of water today. The conditions have been heavily overcast with near constant rain. As a result, it's relatively cold. How, relatively cold you may ask? 78 degrees Fahrenheit. After living in Tahoe and the Pacific Northwest for several winter, that's not a temperature that I would have ever considered labelling as cold. Probably just a sign that I've been living in the tropics for almost 6 months and my body temperature regulation has gone to shit. Better go get a hot chocolate to help me tough it out.

Halloween Pictures

Here are some context free photos from the Halloween Party our co-workers and friends Sarah and Joey hosted out at Lion's Park. A thanks also goes out to Meg and Sean, who decorated the party and out did themselves in a party reminiscent to a Lair-type gathering.

Halloween and Melbourne Cup

Monday started out a little different from a usual week. Sara and I were walking up the stairs toour office when we saw the Commissioner of the Workmen's Compensation Commission and one a member of her staff. They were carrying several large tin trays of food up to their office. After engaging in a little conversation, we were invited to come by their office at 11 for lunch. I said I would come if my trial that was scheduled for that morning didn't go.

Turns out the attorney for the plaintiff couldn't reach his client and therefore got the trial taken off calendar. This was the third trial date set in this case, sigh. Litigating in Samoa can be a little frustrating, but with my morning freed up, I was able to get back to the office much earlier than I anticipated. After using the rest the morning drafting discovery responses, I chatted Sara and suggested we go over to the Workmen's Comp Commission Office in the Executive Office Building.

We walked down the stairs and over to the WCC and came in and said hello to the staffer at the front desk. She welcomed us in and had the Commissioner come out and greet us. The Commissioner's husband was also there (who also happens to be the judge I was in front of earlier that morning).

Together we walked over to another department and were greeted to a number of government employees in costume starting to set up some 6 huge tables for food. We were introduced to the crowd, many of whom were in costume (and a large percentage of those were dressed as doctors or nurses, a statement on how the scariest thing in AmSam is the hospital), and were welcomed to their lunch. After a few pictures and fielding some requests for me to take pictures with the young ladies who work in that office, we were ready for the meal. Each person there had brought a large tray of meat or platter of dishes. There were several portions of pig, corned beef, pizzas, chicken, fish and chow mien. Sara and I were whisked to the front of the line as "guests."

Being the finicky-diet-people that we are, Sara and I had to work hard to put together a full plate of food we could eat. Selective picking at the chow mien and macaroni and cheese we were able to serve up our plates. We then sat down at a counter that usually handles HR issues for the American Samoa Government employees and had our lunch. I had to bite my tongue a little, since I ended up sitting next to the judge that I'd appeared in front of that morning, no ex parte communications can sneak into the conversation. We enjoyed our meal and managed to slip out before we were piled high with take-out trays filled with more food. It was an unexpected Halloween surprise and let us put off eating our left overs until the next day.

Later that day, our Aussie friends invited us over to their house. They told us to be there at 4:30 sharp. The timeliness was necessary since we were gathering to witness the running of the Melbourne Cup. We headed out of the office at four and drove out to Coconut Point for the event. There was a $5 buy-in for the race. With 24 horses scheduled to run, each of us there got to pick two horses out of a cap with the winning horse paying out $25, 2nd place $15, 3rd place $5 and last place $5. We drew lots and settled in for the race. With such a large field, it made for some relatively entertaining 3 minutes of racing.

It came down to a photo finish, by the tip of its lip Dunaden won the Melbourne Cup. This netted me 1st prize, as I'd drawn that horse as one of my two horses from the pot. This gave me another win in my streak. Not bad, I'll take it, hopefully some of this luck will carry through to the trials I've been having.

For the rest of the evening we were treated to some Samoan Halloween celebration. We've heard horror stories about bus loads of kids from all over the island being trucked into the government housing for contract workers. There are also incidents of teens pushing their way into people's houses to get candy. Out at Coconut Point it was pretty mellow and most of the kids' costumes were adorable. Plus they all sang "trick or treat, trick or treat, give me something good to eat, au mai si, o'u lole fa'amolemole, Happy Halloween." It made for a nice evening out on our Australian friends' porch.