Umu and Breaker's Point

Our friend left a few weeks ago. He finished his bird surveys for the National Park Service and got to spend a weekend relaxing and hanging out before returning to Hawaii and then on to the mainland for Burning Man. We were dismayed to see one of our good friends on the island go. Last week we ran into one his Samoan coworkers. We'd met her a few times and joined our friend for an umu at her house. It was one of our best times hanging out with a Samoan family in their own home. One of her nephews just graduated from UC Davis and his mother, who owns the super market where we shop, was telling us about his process for applying to law school. This is omething Sara and I are intimately familiar with.

This week, while shopping at the market, we ran into Visa, our friend's Samoan coworker. With the National Park Contract over, she was working at the market. We chatted for a bit and she invited us to join them again for their Sunday umu. Umus are the traditional Samoan feasts that are done every Sunday with the whole family in attendance. The food preparation starts before dawn. A fire is started behind the house, with rocks added to retain the heat. When the flames die down, the food is added to the coals and it bakes for four or five hours. Traditionally the food was wrapped in banana leaves. Consumer culture has shifted this to aluminum foil, but the cooking technique remains the same.

Traditional dishes at a Samoan umu are taro, breadfruit, palusami, faiai fee (octopus cooked in coconut milk and ink), oka, pork and fish. Less traditional, but very common are rice, fried chicken, Kool-Aid, beef ribs and ice cream.

We showed up and the kids were chasing around a remote control car that the church had handed out. The 8 or 9 boys were quickly demolishing the toy. In the time we were there it got stomped on, the tires fell off and it was driven off several large drops. The boys kept themselves pretty occupied with the car until it was run into the ground. The girls, even down to ages 7 or 8, were working in the kitchen. Eventually the boys were put to work bringing out the food and using fans to keep the flies from beating the people to the feast. One boy of about 10 brought out a mask that resembled Frankenstein's monster. This frightened a 2-year-old girl, who would remount her wails every time the mask would reappear until she was allowed to wear it and then it stopped being a problem.

An umu is like having Thanksgiving dinner every weekend. We were treated to some amazing food. the guests we were served first and it is considered disrespectful not to take a full plate and finish it. Sara and I were quickly stuffed on breadfruit dipped in palusami. I tried the octopus, which was very good. All of this is was served on their covered front porch.

The best part was the community and the view. Their house over looks the beach in the village of Alega, and has a spectacular sight in Tuaga Rock. Next time we visit we'll remember to get pictures.

Once we were filled with food and packed up with leftover palusami and breadfruit we set out to hike the companion hike to Blunt'sPoint: Breaker's Point is at the mouth of the Eastern side of the harbor. We pulled off at the trail head and had to contend with a few street dogs barking at us. A few stern words and we were able to walk on through. Once we hit the trail, it climbed steadily through banana plantations until we reached a small plateau. Here the trail branched two directions, Sara explored the one to the right and I took the one to the left, a minute later we met again in the middle and showed each other the gun placements that we'd found.

Both guns were similar to the ones we'd seen at Blunt's Point. They were large bore guns that had been pulled off a warship at the beginning of World War 2, when the navy base in the harbor needed to be fortified.

What remains of the guns has been long left to rust and the unrelenting climate of the tropics. The bunkers beneath the guns have started to flood and have several inches of standing water at the base of the stairs. Not having anything more than sandals on we didn't opt to explore the passages. The hike was pretty short, with just a single steep section. But after that quantity of food, we needed to balance ourselves out with a little activity.

This little side trip didn't last too long, as the heat of the day soon chased us back down the trail.