Government Housing

Contract workers who come to American Samoa usually end up living in housing provided by the American Samoa Government. Out of that group, most end up residing in Lion's Park, the large complex of housing near the Pala Lagoon. This plot of land was created by draining a marsh meaning that there were no Samoan villages there. Thus it was easy for the federal government, followed by the Territorial government, to build housing there for the off-islanders that were working here.

It's putting it mildly to say most of the houses there are in bad shape. Less than half the houses are habitable due to damage from cyclones, fires, mold, rot and termites. There is no Samoan word for maintenance and the American Samoa Government often finds other priorities for its funds than taking care of the property and structures it owns, especially those inhabited by us palagi.


All of the houses that are inhabited in Lion's Park are also in various stages of decay. Most people's houses have termites that will come out at a certain time and fly around the house for 15 or 20 minutes each evening. This being the tropics, all houses have some amount of termites, mold and rot. Wood houses fair poorly in the heat and humidity. The climate also rusts and corrodes  the nails and other metal pieces holding it all together, a water clip left in the open will rust away in a few months.

Needless to stay whether occupied or left empty these houses are under constant assault from the climate and pests. If you're lucky you get a house that relatively few issues (like Sara and I). If not, you're waging constant war against the environment that trying to reduce your residence to rubble to line  the jungle floor.

We had a moment a week ago that typifies the confluence of all these factors in the government housing living situation. We were hanging out at another attorney couple's house in Lion's Park. During our third game of cribbage the husband got up to demonstrate one of our doctor friend's aggressive golf swings and lost his balance. This sent his shoulder into the plywood wall behind him that had some extensive termite damage. The force of the impact shattered the wall and sent shards of the papery plywood through into the kitchen. As it wasn't a structural wall there wasn't any real damage to the house. In cleaning up the pieces of wood that came from the wall we quickly figured out that the wall was toast. Using a few tools we quickly commenced an impromptu remodel and pulled down the rest of the paper remains of the wall. The end result was some unfinished cabinet ends, but otherwise an improved kitchen and dinning room, as the lack of the wall opened up both spaces. That's not something I would attempt in the real world, but living under the extremes of the tropics sometimes leads to odd situations like that.

Miss You, Tucker

Tucker Swimming on the Eagle Falls Trail in the Columbia River Gorge

After a rough few weeks, the end has come for my dog, Tucker. He was put down on Monday afternoon after not being able to eat for the past several weeks. My parents have been caring for him for the past few years, but he's been my constant companion since law school when I got him from the Chesapeake Bay Retriever Rescue.

When I first got Tucks, he was a five year old dog that had major weight issues. He was 125 pounds, I often referred to him as a keg with legs. He didn't know how to fetch and desperately needed regular walks. But other than that he came to me a happy and well behaved dog.

Waiting for the Next Throw in Tahoe

Tucker took a little training to learn to fetch, but once he figured it out he found his calling. Soon he spent daily session chasing the ball on the blacktop at the local elementary school or the grass at Burlingame Park.  It wasn't until we spent a summer of living up at Lake Tahoe that he managed to swim off all the excess weight.

The gravel covered Homewood Beach will always be the place where Tucker was at his best. He's chase sticks and tennis balls out into the water for hours. If you tired of throwing things for him to chase he'd start picking rocks off the bottom of the Lake. Every trip up to the Sayles cabin didn't really begin until Tucker had his swim in the Lake, whether it was summer or there was six feet of snow on the ground.

Even in his last weeks when he couldn't eat and barely walk, he still found some reserves of energy when my parents would take him to the water and throw a ball for him. We know the end was here when on his last day he could only muster a single retrieval from the Bay.

Giving Elbow Steam Baths on a Road Trip

It's hard to say good-bye to your daily companion, especially since he'd been there through many of my recent life phases. I adopted T-Fab before I started dating Sara. I'd often walk him over to her house when we after we started dating each other in law school.

He moved with me from Portland to Tahoe, back to Portland and eventually down to California. He was with me through three years of law school and the years starting to work as an attorney.

What I'll miss about the big guy was his enthusiasm, his non-subtle pleas for attention and his stoic patience.

It's going to be tough to go on without that dumb dog. Thanks for the memories and the years of companionship.

Nothing Could Keep Tucker Out of the Water

Two of my Favorites

Happy Dog

Tastes Like...

Tastes Like Wahoo (Tuna with Chili in Oil)

One of the interesting things about living here is seeing products on the shelves you don't see on the mainland. Canned wahoo is one of those products. Wahoo are normally a sport fish, not frequently commerically caught as they don't school frequently like yellow fin tuna due. They're usually solitary hunters that occasionally end up as by-catch in purse seine nets or on long lines. Thus American Samoa is one of the few places in the world where you can get canned wahoo which they use the by-catch to produce when there's enough around. Canned wahoo is very popular, more popular than demand so that's what causes things like can pictured above.

One of my observant friends picked up a can of this. It has the same color and layout of normal canned wahoo, only with the words "tastes like" sneaked in above "wahoo." There's also the yellow star that says "TUNA with Chili in oil." Very stealthy, Talofa, but we're on to you and your seasoned tuna impersonating wahoo.

Pirate Party

Our boat, under construction in Nick's front yard.

 Last week an email came through the Dissociates mailing list saying that Saturday was a special occasion. In honor of Talk Like A Pirate Day, a Pirate Party was going to be held out on Coconut Point. This wasn't going to be a stand around and drink in costume affair, it's one where you were expected to show up and build a boat to sail around Coconut point to an island in the neighboring lagoon and back. Not to be denied the opportunity to build a watercraft and paddle it around, I showed up at my friend Nick's house early and we began constructing our vessel. We bagged two of the Coast Guard kayaks and lashed them together, we built platforms for sitting on out of surf boards and an old shipping pallet and soon were ready to roll. We hoped to have time to build a mast for a sail or a coconut launcher for boarding actions, but ran out of nails prior to either of those ideas coming to life. We did manage to construct a solid raft that eliminated the play that I worried would doom any on the water momentum.

The crew getting ready to undertake our voyage.

Next we recruited a crew. Picking up two able-bodied men, Jorge and Zach to man the paddles. With our compliment of sailors in place we set about getting our boat in the water. Carrying the boat down to the launch point we were still a little concerned about the stability, but we tightened up our lashings and got the SS Sea Bitch on the water and provisioned ourselves for the voyage. Jorge had the foresight to bring a large patio umbrella to the party. We skeptically added that to the boat's supplies. With as brezzy it was that afternoon, I didn't believe that we'd be able to open it or hold on to it when open, but we had the room, so what the hell.

Jorge paddling.

Our first leg of the voyage we were moving perpendicular to the wind heading eastward along the shore of Coconut point. The current was with us and we made good time and even managed to enjoy a beer while we made our way to the end of the Point and our turn northwards into the Pala Lagoon. The boat paddled smoothly and we ended up passing a few of the kayakers who showed up to witness the spectacle. Once we got the boat turned to the north, we decided it was time to try and use the umbrella as a sail. I stowed my paddled and pulled out the massive wooden umbrella and set about opening it up.

Our umbrella sail in action. 

With the sail unferruled we quickly caught the wind and plunged towards our next destination, Coconut Island in the Pala Lagoon. It's a tiny clump of dirt in the middle of stagnant lagoon. It's defining feature is a single palm tree that is struggling to hold onto one edge of the island. Sara's previously kayaked out to it, but made the mistake of going at low tide, so the approach to the island was through knee deep mud, dragging the kayak behind. Thankfully, this voyage was at high tide and it was smooth sailing the whole way in. Turns out our home-made catamaran was an excellent downwind sailing ship. We flew towards the island with little more than a some rudder work by Jorge in the rear of the boat.

Party on Coconut Island. 

 Once we reach out destination it was time to tie up and enjoy some grog in true pirate fashion. We passed around beers from our cooler and relaxed on the tiny piece of land in the middle of the Pala. We waited for the fleet of kayakers and aspiring pirates to float their way in to the island. Slowly, the armada started pulling up to the island and tying onto our boat. Which may not have been the best idea, as we were only tied onto an inch in diameter branch on a dessicated little shrub.

Having some refreshment on the deck of our boat.

The other pirates paddle their way in.

Nick enjoying a Corona.

The after party.

Eventually most of the other people on the water made their way to the little island. As land to stand on started to be at a premium, some of us resorted to hanging out and watching the sunset from our boats. The sun started to dip its way past the horizon, but we still had a few stragglers left to make it to the island.

The last boat in was optimistically built out of a solar panel with an electric motor attached. The cloud cover and the lateness in the day conspired to force them to paddle the whole way. They made it to the Island with the pirate flag flying and half a bottle of rum. Excellent work on their part.


















The next leg in the journey was to get back to Coconut point. We launched from Coconut Island and tried out our umbrella sail, this time running east, perpendicular to the wind. Turns out our little catamaran tracks well without a dagger board. We were able to catch the wind and track true going across the wind. This made our trip back to Coconut point an easy stroll compared to the rest of the fleet that was stuck paddling their way back through the early evening light.

Once we were back to land, we broke down our boats and carried them back to the yards we got the parts from. To finish off the evening we had Tutuila's most popular cover band, Three Leg Dog playing on a balcony and enjoyed some beers at Kelly and Alden's place at Coconut Point. Piracy won this event.

Ellen + Kevin = Ofu

So I'd written about 4,000 words on our trip to Ofu and it all got lost. I'm a little frustrated with the BlogSpot layout and I'll just post the pictures, until I can overcome my frustration.

It's not often you read about American Samoa in the National news. I stumbled across an article today that features AmSam. Though, it's not in a good way.

The piece is about the relative expense of internet access and the speed of internet in different rural regions in the United States. Guess who's the slowest and most expensive: American Samoa. Not the number one we're hoping for, sigh. One thing we have to look forward to when Sara and I move home is not paying $150/month for internet that rarely reaches 100 Kps and is frequently down for days at a time.

Halfway

Couldn't believe it, but Monday was my 1 year anniversary of being in American Samoa. I was a little too sick for a celebration, but I'm still in shock that I'm halfway through my 2-year contract. It hasn't felt like anything close to that long. Can't say too much as I'm buried in trial prep, but still needed to note the milestone.